Abstract
M.R. HEINRICH'S two little works demand careful study as well thought-out and consistent expositions of a psychological attitude which is in many ways attractive. The author, who may be described as a disciple of Avenarius minus his master's metaphysics, holds strongly the necessity of making the principle of psychophysical parallelism, understood in the most rigid sense, the basis of all psychological inquiry, and would consequently irecognise no causes or causal laws other than those of the physical and physiological series. He has little difficulty in showing that Wundt and other contemporary writers, who, while professing the doctrine of parallelism, believe in causal sequences between psychical states as such, are inconsistent with their own professions. That the inconsistency can be avoided, or that an intelligible account of human life can be given in terms of purely physiological sequences, is scarcely so clear. As the author himself admits, it is a necessary consequence of his theory that the only difference between rational and purely reflex reaction on stimulus is one of comparative complexity. Whether an account of human life which reduces all activity to the purely reflex type is not like the play of Hamlet with the part of Hamlet left out, he does not discuss. The question is, however, directly suggested by his contention that, in treating of the behaviour of our fellow-men, we have no right to introduce the notion of consciousness, but should confine ourselves to establishing physical relations between changes in their environment and their corresponding outward reactions. He seems to forget that language, for instance, loses half its significance if you neglect to observe that it not merely can be understood by a listener, but is meant by the speaker to be understood. And even it we could agree to take no notice of consciousness in our fellows, it still remains, as the author admits, to examine the relation between the environment, which on his theory all science describes, and ourselves the describers. Thus all the problems about the relation between consciousness and its objects which Mr. Heinrich banishes from our psychological study of our fellows return upon us as soon as we attempt to understand our own relation to our environment. Perhaps the chief value of the author's discussions is that by his insistence on the too often disregarded consequences of the doctrine of parallelism, he compels his readers to ask themselves whether the old belief in the interaction of mind and body is not, with all its difficulties, more satisfactory than the fashionable substitute for it.
Die Moderne Physiologische Psychologie in Deutschland.
By W. Heinrich. Pp. iv + 249. (Zürich: Speidel, 1899.)
Zur Prinzipienfragen der Psychologie.
By W. Heinrich. Pp. iv + 74. (Zürich: Speidel, 1899.)
An Outline Sketch, Psychology for Beginners.
By Hiram M. Stanley. Pp. 44. (Chicago: The Open Court Publishing Company, 1899. London: Kegan Paul and Co., Ltd., 1899.)
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Die Moderne Physiologische Psychologie in Deutschland Zur Prinzipienfragen der Psychologie An Outline Sketch, Psychology for Beginners . Nature 62, 245 (1900). https://doi.org/10.1038/062245a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/062245a0