Introduction

1. Name — 2. Definition — 3. Object — 4. Importance — 5. Division

1. Name

Philip Melanchthon (1497–1560), the most learned of Luther’s associates in the religious revolution of the sixteenth century, was a notable student of Greek, and he had a flair for inventing Greek names. His own family name of Schwarzerd (which is a combination of schwarz “black” and erde “earth”) he translated literally into Greek, combining the words melanos “black” and chthon “earth” in Melanchthon. At the ripe age of eighteen, Melanchthon was a lecturer in Aristotelian philosophy at the University of Tübingen, and it was here, probably, that he formulated the name psychology for Aristotle’s treatises on the soul and vital phenomena. The name is apt, for it is made up of the Greek words psyche “soul” or “life-principle” and logos which really means “word,” “speech,” or “thought,” but which has long been employed to indicate connected, concentrated, systematic thought or discussion, and thus is taken to mean a scientific treatise or simply a science. Thus, from psyche “soul” and logos “science” we have psychology or “the science of the soul or life-principle,” “the science of life and its manifestations.” It is, of course, evident that the name psychology is younger by many centuries than the science to which it was thus applied.

In our day, psychology is a term of very wide and inclusive meaning. The name psychology is applied chiefly to the study of those phases and manifestations of life which have their proximate explanation in physics, physiology, and biology. This psychology is usually called the science of psychology, in the limited sense which the term science has taken on in the past hundred years, and is distinguished from (although subservient to) philosophical psychology which is to be our subject of study in the present treatise. Scientific psychology is a prodigious, and largely recent, development of doctrine achieved by use of means and methods which were first made readily available by the laboratories of the nineteenth century. Psychology as a science is really a complex group of sciences; its branches and departments are almost numberless. It is a worthy body of related sciences, the steady development of which is contributing hugely to our knowledge, and is affording inestimable practical benefits in the realms of education, sociology, economics and mental therapy.

But, since the field of scientific psychology is widely various; since it has the strong appeal of a modern achievement; since its swift growth opens continuously new avenues of investigation; it has suffered, and is suffering, from the activities of charlatans and over-zealous popularizers. Many sins against truth and moral rectitude are committed hourly in the name of psychology. Many false doctrines,—some merely silly, some starkly calamitous,—are foisted daily upon a gullible populace (school-trained or ruggedly uncultured) as the most recent, and therefore the most valuable (!), discoveries of psychology. The word psychology has become a common, yet precious, term: it flavors the most insipidly casual of conversations; it is the standby of the travelling salesman; it has a pleasing taste in the mouth of the callowest of undergraduates and is savored solemnly on the lips of the most overpowering of professors. The name psychology is attached to cheap publications, and appears as the caption of treatises which flatter the half-educated by inviting them to soar on an ostensibly lofty plane of intelligence. Courses in psychology are made available to all, and may be undertaken without reference to the race, creed, color, or prevailing intellectual ineptitude of registrants, by the simple process of signing a coupon or mailing a pre-franked postcard. Psychology sparkles in odd corners, and shines in solemn “departments,” of the ordinary daily newspaper. Indeed, the term psychology is as pitilessly abused to-day as that beaten and battered and bewildered word science.

In the present study we employ the term psychology to indicate the ultimate science, or the philosophy, of life and living bodies. Psychology the science is one thing; psychology the ultimate science or philosophy is another. The science looks to data to be discovered and applied by experiment, observation, collation, integration. The philosophy looks to ultimate truths about the essence and nature of life and its basic principle. The science and the philosophy are, indeed, closely related, and philosophical psychology does much of its groundwork in the field of scientific psychology. But philosophical psychology is rational in method; scientific psychology is largely experimental. The field of philosophical psychology is of wider, higher, and surer reach than that of scientific psychology, which is limited to the investigating of detailed phenomena and to the observing, testing, and applying of its individual discoveries.

2. Definition

Psychology, as we employ the term, is the philosophical science of life and living bodies. Since the most important chapters of this science treat of the life that is manifested in human bodies,—a life that has its principle in the spiritual human soul,—the definition of psychology may be more fully stated as the philosophical science of life, living bodies, and the human soul.

a) Psychology is a science. We here use the term science in its older and literal meaning to indicate a body of demonstrable truth, whether the demonstration is to be made by laboratory experiment or worked out by reason. A science, as we here understand the term, means a body of connected data, relatively complete, and set forth in a systematic and logical manner, together with the reasons which justify acceptance of the data as true, and compel assent to conclusions drawn from them. Psychology squares with this definition of a science, and is, in consequence, a true science.

b) Psychology is a philosophical science: that is to say, it searches out the very deepest reasons for each point of its doctrine, and does not rest satisfied with proximate reasons as experimental science must do. Psychology is a philosophical science, and indeed it is an integral part of philosophy, but it is not, strictly speaking, a metaphysical science. It belongs to philosophical physics, not to metaphysics. It is a department of natural philosophy in the ancient Aristotelian sense of that term.—Psychology is a speculative or theoretical science, for it presents truth to be recognized by the mind and held as an enrichment and an illumination. It is not a practical or normative science, for such a science gives knowledge that leads immediately on to action, to something-to-be-done as the normal fruitage of that which is scientifically known.

c) Psychology is the philosophical science of life, living bodies, and the human soul. The term psyche means life-principle in a living body, whether the body be plant, animal, or man. Psychology, which is the science of the psyche, treats of all life-activities and studies life in all its forms and manifestations. Psychology is a human science (that is, a science built up by human efforts and not enriched by divine revelation), and is not competent to deal directly or fully with the purely spiritual life of the angels or with that Ineffable Life which is God, the All Living. Psychology must deal with life as it is found in bodily creatures. Even in its larger and more important portions,—those, namely, which treat of man’s soul,—psychology takes its data from human life and functions as manifested in man’s earthly and bodily existence. Psychology is therefore the science of life and living bodies. We add the phrase “and of the human soul” to this definition, merely to indicate the outstanding importance of human psychology, or major psychology, as it is usually called.

3. Object

Every science has a definite field of inquiry; this is called its subject-matter or its material object. Further, every science deals with its subject-matter in a special and definite way, and with a clearly specified end-in-view. This point of attack, this special aim and purpose, is the formal object of the science. Two or more sciences may have the same material object, for many inquiries may be prosecuted in the same general field. But no two sciences may have the same formal object; if they had, they would be identified, and would be really one science and not two. To illustrate: anatomy and hygiene are sciences which study the human body and its organs, and, in so far, these sciences have the same subject-matter or material object. But these two sciences have not the same formal object; anatomy studies the human body and its organs to know their structure; hygiene studies the human body and its organs to know their proper functioning. Sciences are ultimately distinguished one from another by their respective formal objects.

The material object of psychology is life in all its forms and manifestations (bodily, mental, volitional) in so far as these things may be studied in bodily creatures. In a word, the material object of psychology is life in living bodies. The formal object of psychology (that, namely, which it seeks in studying its material object) is the ultimate causes and reasons of life and its manifestations. Here we notice how philosophical psychology (which we are here discussing, and to which we shall refer henceforth by the unqualified term psychology) differs formally from scientific psychology which seeks proximate, not ultimate, causes and reasons in its investigations of life-phenomena. Psychology inquires into essences; it asks what life is, what the life-principle or life-source is, whence this principle comes and whence it has the power to function as it does; psychology also inquires what life is aimed at, what it is for.

On the score of its formal object psychology is distinguished from all other sciences which deal with living bodies. We have seen how it differs in scope and method from experimental and scientific psychology. It differs from botany and zoology which are limited to the study of vegetal and sentient life alone. It differs from biology which, while dealing with man’s organic life, is incompetent to deal with essences and is unconcerned about first principles. It differs from physiology which excludes the study of mental and spiritual life. It differs from anatomy which studies the structure of living bodies; from histology which studies the tissues of organisms; from natural anthropology which seeks to classify man in the catalogue of animal organisms.

The material object of psychology is, as we have seen, life in living bodies, whether these be plants or brutes or human beings. But it is obvious that the most important kind of bodily life is human life; it is the most complex life, the most wondrously effective life, the most dominant life, the noblest life manifested here on earth. Besides it is the only life of which we, who study psychology, have any direct and conscious experience. Hence, although life in all living bodies is the adequate material object of psychology, the primary object of this science is human life and its manifestations. The life of plants and brutes constitutes the secondary material object of psychology.

4. Importance

It is manifestly of great importance for the person of education and culture to know all that can be known of life, and particularly of human life. Such a person requires a scientific and philosophical basis for his appreciation of human dignity, and for the proper grasp of the aim and purpose that is found in every human existence. To appreciate self, and neighbor, and God; to have the true philosophy of life and to know its meaning and destiny, the trained mind needs the equipment of psychological discipline. Common sense and simple faith suffice for the unschooled mentality; but who shall dare lay claim to the throne of the educated without a fundamental interest in what it is that is educated,—the physical, mental, spiritual, volitional life of man? Psychology is the very basis and ground of sane methods in pedagogy; it gives meaning to the thing called education. Further: psychology is the foundation of ethics inasmuch as psychology manifests the spiritual and immortal character of the human soul, and the freedom, and consequent responsibility, of the human will. And, since ethics is essential to political and juridical science, to sociology and economics, it is evident that psychology is basically related to all these sciences. Psychology is, therefore, a most important science; it holds an indispensable place in the programme of collegiate studies.

A knowledge of philosophical psychology is of the greatest value to the student of experimental or empirical psychology in any of its branches. Such a knowledge keeps the student “on the right track”; it helps him to avoid quests that are destined to be barren; it keeps him from formulating theories that are bizarre or even harmfully at variance with truth; it gives him the key to many problems that, for the laboratorian, must remain forever unsolved.

As most modern errors in critical philosophy come from the failure of philosophers to distinguish accurately the fields of sense and of mind, so most modern errors in psychology come from the failure of philosophers and scientists to make a clear distinction between the physical and the psychical. Only the thoroughly trained student of philosophical psychology is equipped for making this distinction with accuracy and discernment.

For all these reasons, philosophical psychology presents itself to the student as a supremely important, and supremely necessary, subject of study.

5. Division

This treatise is divided into two Parts, the first of which deals with life in general and as manifested in plants and non-rational animals. This Part is known as Minor Psychology. The second Part treats of human life; it is known as Major Psychology. The present manual is, therefore, arranged as follows:

Part First — Minor Psychology

• Chap. I. Life
• Chap. II. Vegetal Life
• Chap. III. Sentient Life
• Chap. IV. The Origin of Species

Part Second — Major Psychology

• Chap. I. Human Life
• Chap. II. Human Sentiency
• Chap. III. The Intellect
• Chap. IV. The Will