An Introduction to Psychology / Translated from the Second German Edition

by Wilhelm Max Wundt

The law of resultants finds a supplement and a specific application in the principle of the heterogony of ends in certain very important cases. In the same way we find, as supplementary to the law of relations, "the principle of intensifying contrasts." It includes those relations of psychical elements and compounds which are connected with certain limiting values of the qualitative and quantitative components of a whole. In the region of ideational combinations we have noted such influences of contrast in associative assimilations and dissimilations. We saw there that at a certain limiting value of the difference between two sensations or ideas, e.g. two spatial or temporal distances, two sound or light sensations, the assimilation present at a small difference may turn suddenly into a dissimilation. The impressions no longer assimilate, but become intensified through contrast. In another especially important form we meet the same principle in the feelings, where it stands in connection with the duality of the feelings that is valid for all affective processes and their combinations. In consequence of this each feeling, as we have seen, possesses its contrast-feeling, e.g. pleasure and displeasure, excitation and quiescence, strain and relaxation. Here the principle of relations shows itself in the form of the law of contrast, above all in the fact that the change between contrasting feelings itself intensifies the contrasts. Thus a feeling of pleasure is more intense, and its specific quality is more clearly felt, if it has been preceded by a feeling of displeasure. A similar relation exists between excitation and quiescence, strain and relaxation.

The law of contrasts is by no means limited to the relation between separate contents of consciousness existing side by side or following each other, but we see its most important influences in those places where it extends over more extensive groups of mental experience. Thoughtful historians have long since noted the fact, that in historical development not only do periods of rise and fall follow each other, but also periods of a special direction of mental life. And these periods, both in the impression they make upon us and in the objective relations in which they stand to each other, are so intensified that the following phase is every time increased by means of the contrast with the preceding one. Let us take an example from the near past. The German literature of the classicist period received its peculiar stamp of contemplative calm and beauty of form to a great degree from the contrast with the "storm and stress" period that was marked with such strong emotions. In the same way romanticism, which was inclined to the cult of the imagination and of a poetical past, was influenced by contrast with the preceding classical period, that laid most stress upon the understanding, and that regarded the present as the ripest fruit of human development. And lastly this change of contrasts shows itself most clearly and with the shortest oscillations in economic life, where it is in part assisted by the oscillations in the conditions of civilisation. We see this, for example, very well in the fluctuations of our national credit and of stocks and shares. And these sharp contrasts can be ultimately explained by the inner life of man that fluctuates between hope and hesitation, and in this fluctuation intensifies the emotions.

Let us now consider the connection of the four principles we have discussed. The second and fourth may be looked upon as special applications of the two fundamental principles of creative resultants and conditioning relations. We see also that they are not only joined very closely together, but that they stand, as absolutely disparate incomparable laws, in contradistinction to those general principles to which all natural phenomena are subjected. A contradiction has very often been thought to exist in the relation between the universal mental and natural laws. And since the natural laws are considered to be the more general and more necessary, these psychical principles have been looked upon as inadmissible generalisations, if they have not been absolutely ignored, which has more often been the case. Now we have seen in our whole discussion, that in reality we cannot move a step in the interpretation of psychical processes from the simplest sense-perceptions and affective combinations to the most complicated mental processes, as shown in society and history, without meeting with these principles always and everywhere. We must of course keep strictly to the maxim of analysing the psychical processes in their own connections and as processes joined together in themselves, as far as they so appear to us. Now the neglect of this maxim has led to the above-mentioned contradiction and to the disregard of these laws. In fact the reverse maxim has been formed, namely, that psychical processes should not be held as decisive for the principles that condition them, but rather that the laws of nature, founded upon external natural phenomena, should also rule our mental life. In this sense the law of the conservation of energy has been considered a fundamental law of all mental development. For this purpose, and also in order to preserve a kind of independence for our mental life, the conception of "psychical energy" has been formed. This, in all the changes it undergoes, is supposed to be subject to the law of the conservation of energy just like mechanical, thermal, electro-magnetic, or any other energy. Since we do not possess a definite unit of measurement for this psychical energy, and since it always occurs between two other physical energies, it was taken for granted that it could be indirectly measured. It could be placed in the middle of a series of transformations that took place according to constant equivalents as a value to be measured indirectly by the physical energy equivalent to it. For example, it could be placed between a given quantity of chemical energy, supplied from outside to the organism, and an equivalent quantity of warmth and mechanical work-energy, which the organism produces. If this were the case we could not reconcile with it a principle such as the one of creative resultants. Such a principle could not be included among the universal psychical laws; it would have to lie outside the general regularity of our psychical life. We can of course reverse this relation. Then we come to the result, that psychical regularity lies outside the law of energy, and in that case it would have no sense to place this psychical energy between two other physical energies and then attempt a measurement. Such a measurement is a pure fiction. We might just as well take any other fictitious process, say a miracle, and place it in the series of transformations.

These applications of physical laws to psychical phenomena are not based upon empirical facts, but they arise from a metaphysical principle, namely, the demand for a monistic view of life. Now this idea certainly has a justification, inasmuch as it rests upon a logical demand which it seeks to satisfy. If the so-called monism does not do this, it changes into a real dualism, as would clearly happen in the above-suggested rationalistic explanation of a miracle. In fact monism is only scientifically justified in its view of the relation between psychical and physical, as long as it emphasises the fact that the human being can just as little be considered a purely physical as a purely psychical being, and that man must be considered a psycho-physical individual, as we in reality experience him. This monism alone corresponds to the facts, A dualistic separation of soul and body, even if it sails under a monistic flag in the form of an atom-soul, or of an anonymous psychical energy, is a hypothesis which cannot be proved and which is useless for the interpretation of mental life. From the standpoint of the scientific and only justifiable monism, the mental processes are considered inseparable components of human and animal life. They must be judged according to the qualities that are immanent in them, and not according to laws which apply to other phenomena, and in the formulation of which no regard was paid to those psychical qualities. There cannot, however, be the least contradiction in the idea that physical and psychical phenomena follow different laws, as long as these laws are not irreconcilable with the actual unity of the psycho-physical individual. In reality we cannot talk of irreconcilability in this case, because firstly, the two series of phenomena are of a disparate nature, and because secondly everywhere, where these two series of phenomena meet together in the unity of the individual, they are really, as far as we know, subject to a principle of regular arrangement. Thus, for example, the law of creative resultants is not the least contradiction to the law of the conservation of energy, because the measures by which we determine psychical values cannot be compared with those with which we measure physical values. We judge the psychical according to its qualitative value, and the physical according to its quantitative value. The idea of value is in its origin really psychical, and this points to the fact that in reality physical values have in themselves no real measure, and that they only obtain one, if we make them the object of a comparative judgment, i.e. in a sense translate them into the psychological. Disparate values cannot in any way be compared, so long as a transformation of the one into the other is impossible. We can compare warmth and mechanical work, because the one can be transformed into the other according to a strict law of equivalence. But we cannot compare a tone with a sensation of light, or a visual idea with a chord, because a transformation of the one of these practical contents into the other is unthinkable. Now physical values are subject to the principle of the conservation of energy because of the unlimited capacity for transformation of physical energies according to equivalent relations. But it has on the other hand no sense to try to apply this same principle to the qualitative psychical values, which do not in any way admit of such a transformation. This of course stands in close relation with the fact that the subject-matter of psychology is the whole manifoldness of qualitative contents directly presented to our experience, each of which would immediately lose its own peculiar quality, if we tried to transform it into any other. Thus the physical phenomena investigated by the natural sciences and the laws of these phenomena do not in the least contradict the qualitative content of life dealt with by psychology. They rather supplement each other, inasmuch as we must combine them together into one whole, if we wish to understand the life of the psycho-physical being given to us in its unity.

Yet this impossibility of comparison of these qualities could not exist along with the unity of their substratum, if the physical and psychical values were not joined together in this substratum. This connection consists herein, that on the one side the physical elements, whether atoms or parts of one continuous matter, must necessarily be thought by us in forms of spatial and temporal ideas arising in accordance with psychical laws, and on the other side the psychical elements, the simple sensations and feelings, are inalienably bound up with definite physical processes. These latter need by no means be of a simple constitution, as has at times been presupposed by reason of metaphysical prejudices. The opposite is rather the case, as experience, which alone in this question can decide, incontestably teaches. For it shows that each simple sensation is joined to a very complicated combination of peripheral and central nerve-processes, and so also with the most elementary feeling, as is shown by the manifold "expression" phenomena which accompany the simplest feeling.

The actual correlation then is between simple, i.e. not further analysable, psychical content and complex physical processes. If, however, in contradiction to this, we introduce the metaphysical postulate of a correspondence between the psychically simple and the physically simple, we are inclined to go further and to presuppose a continuous correspondence between the two series of phenomena right up to the highest and most complicated content of consciousness. This regular relation between psychical elements and physical processes then becomes changed into a metaphysical parallelism, in which in content as well as in form the psychical becomes a copy of the physical, and the physical a copy of the psychical phenomenon. This hypothesis finds expression in the words of Spinoza, "The order and combination of ideas is the same as the order and combination of things." Such an idea was thinkable as long as the physical side of the qualities of living beings was so little known, and as long as there was no explanation of those psychological principles, which control the combination of processes of consciousness from simple sense-perceptions to complex thought-processes. At that Lime philosophy could take the liberty of building up reality out of abstract ideas, such as substance and causality. At the present day metaphysics, if it wishes to make any claim to respect, must build upon the real facts and not upon those ideas used from purely logical, dialectical motives. Even from this point of view there remains a "principle of psychological parallelism" in the sense that there is no psychical process, from the simplest sensation and affective elements to the most complex thought-processes, which does not run parallel with a physical process. Now sensation and affective elements cannot be compared in that way, since a simple process in the one case does not correspond to even a relatively simple one in the other, and this of course is valid for all other contents of consciousness formed from these elements. We meet everywhere physical and psychical as incomparable qualities of the united psycho-physical individual, and each of these must be judged according to the laws of combinations of elements, which are expressed in the combination itself. Since these qualities themselves are disparate, it can therefore never happen that the two principles come into antagonism with each other, whereas on the other hand, if we try to transfer the conditions that are only valid for the one side of the phenomena of life to the other side, we will very soon either come into antagonism with facts, or be forced to abandon an interpretation of a part of life placed in this manner under a strange point of view. Thus from the present-day psychological standpoint, which must be authoritative for a philosophical consideration, we can only speak of a "parallelism" between psychical and physical in as far as all elements of psychical life are joined to physical processes. The combinations of these elements, however, can never be judged according to the laws that are valid for the combination of the physical processes of life. If we try to do this, we eliminate what is most characteristic and important in our mental life. This reduction of the so-called principle of parallelism is occasionally called inconsequent and unsatisfying. This objection rests upon the interference of a priori metaphysical theories of the past, whose principles have long been thrown aside by science, and also upon ignorance of the real problem which psychology has to solve. This problem can surely never consist in applying, in connection with psychical processes, principles which do not belong to the psychical side of life. It must much rather consist in the attempt to gain principles out of the contents of our psychical life, just as in the reverse case physiological investigation of the change of matter and energy in the organism does not in the least, and rightly so, trouble itself with the psychical qualities of the organism. For the real unity of life will not be understood by subjecting real phenomena to laws with which they have absolutely no inner relationship. No, we must try to explain all sides of life and then the relations of these to each other.

From the standpoints which have here been developed as to the relation of psychical to natural laws and as to their combination into one unity, we may now decide a question which is of mythological origin, and which was transferred by mythology to philosophy and ultimately to psychology. This question is the one as to the nature of the soul. For the primitive thinker the soul was a demoniacal being, which had its seat in the whole body, but especially in certain favoured organs, such as the heart, the kidneys, the liver, or the blood. Besides this oldest idea of a body-soul, there soon arose a second idea of a soul only externally bound to the parts of the body, and this soul left the body at death in the last breath, and also for a short time during sleep, as noticed in the images of dreams. This was called the breath-soul or the shadow-soul. For a long time, in spite of the self-contradiction, these two conceptions were joined together, although we see in the development of mythological thought that the breath-soul or psyche slowly supersedes the idea of a body-soul.

The development of the idea of a soul in philosophy is in essentials a repetition of this mythological development. The ancient philosophy, in whose footsteps mediæval philosophy follows, still holds fast to the idea of a body-soul. The soul is the driving force of all, even physical processes of life, e.g. nutrition and propagation. By the side of this, however, the higher mental activities are bound to a specific being that is separable from the body. This opinion, which gave a concrete, clear form to the mythological ideas, found its most perfect scientific expression in the psychology of Aristotle. The psyche that was separable from the body had thus won a victory over the body-soul both in mythology and in the classical work of Aristotle. This, of course, led ultimately to the absolute dominion of this independent soul, and its qualities were more and more considered to be absolutely opposite to the qualities of the body, that was ruled by purely material laws. This development culminated in the system of Descartes, the last great philosopher of the Renaissance. The body is from now on considered to be an expended substance, subject to mechanical laws only; the soul stands, in contradistinction to this, as an unextended, purely thinking substance. The two substances are, however, during life externally joined together. In one single point of the brain the body was supposed to meet in reciprocal action with the soul, which was thought of as something analogous to a material atom. Descartes fixed upon the pineal gland, but there were countless other hypotheses as to the position of this point.

This is not the place to follow the further changes that these ideas underwent in the history of modern philosophy and psychology. All the later changes of the dualistic hypothesis are not of the first importance. The fundamental principle is, that the soul is a permanent substance, and the psychical processes are looked upon as changing phenomena of this substance, which are, however, different from it. This hypothesis may take the form that Spinoza gave it in presupposing the two substances changed into two attributes which run parallel with each other. There is also the materialistic hypothesis that reduces the soul-substance to a quality of the bodily substance, which alone is recognised as real. It becomes clear to us that such further developments of the "substance" hypothesis become more and more contradictory to the laws of psychical life, the more they attempt to explain the self-contradicting conception of two absolutely different substances which must be bound together into one unity. The Cartesian soul can no longer exist in face of our present-day physiological knowledge of the physical substratum of our mental life. And metaphysical monism in these two forms, which try to combine soul-and body-substance into one unity, would shut out the possibility of any knowledge of our psychical life.

Therefore, in contradistinction to this metaphysical concept of a mind-substance, we set up the concept of the actuality of mind. Mental processes are not transient appearances to which the soul stands in contradistinction as a permanent, unknowable being unrelated to them, so that any attempt to combine the two must necessarily lead to a tissue of influences and counter-influences, which were at will given the conventional names: "ideas, feeling, striving, &c." A striking example of the futility of such an attempt to make substance the basis of an explanation of mental life is seen in the last and most thorough-going of these theories, i.e. in Herbart's so-called Mechanism of Ideas. Certainly all psychical phenomena is a continual coming and going, a producing and being produced. But no supersensuous substance, standing in contradistinction to these phenomena, can help us to understand the latter in their separate parts, or even in the connection of these parts into a whole. Sense-perception is a product of elements of pure sensation, an emotion is the course of directly experienced feelings, a thought-process is a combination of its elements established by itself. Nowhere do these facts of real mental life need another substratum for their interpretation beyond the one that is given in the facts themselves. And the unity of this life does not gain in the least, if we add to its own real union another substance, which is neither perceived nor really experienced, but which stands as an abstract conception in contradistinction to that mental life established by itself.