the pedagogue needs. We have in this work a vast mass of valuable
observations, which will have to be elaborated in a manner that accords
with the needs of pedagogy, if this science is to derive any material
profit from psychiatry. For the bibliography of this subject we shall
refer the reader to a former correspondence of ours (_The Monist_ II,
103), and select at present for examination one province only,—a province
which is deserving of especial consideration, inasmuch as the phenomena
which occur in it are phenomena which most frequently confront the
pedagogist, and are most likely to be overlooked by the untrained eye.
We refer to the _psychopathic subsidiary phenomena_ of DR. KOCH, by which
expression this author comprises all the psychical irregularities, be
they natural or acquired, affecting the life of the human personality,
which, though not even in the severest cases amounting to actual mental
disorders, yet in the most favorable instances so affect the persons
afflicted that they appear as lacking the full possession of mental
normality and capacity. The second part of Koch’s work, mentioned in _The
Monist_ in the place above cited, has just now appeared. (Ratisbon, 1892,
Otto Maier). Having discussed in the first part of his work inherited
and chronic psychopathic subsidiary phenomena, the author now proceeds
to discuss acquired subsidiary factors, and holds out the prospect of a
third part, on the appearance of which we shall have occasion again to
discuss the entire work from a different point of view. For the present,
only the pedagogic aspect of the question interests us. On many readers,
Koch’s book must have made the impression,—to judge from his concluding
remarks,—that the author shares Lombroso’s point of view, and to very
many pedagogues such a position would be, from the very outset, a bad
recommendation, for it would necessarily, in the very nature of the case,
involve the pedagogue in great embarrassment, in the same way as it has
involved the philosophical jurist. But embarrassment is no reason why
we should close our ears to the truth, and if Lombroso should be right
in all his teachings, pedagogy would also be obliged to accommodate
its doctrines to his. Upon the whole, however, Koch is opposed to him.
Thus when he says: “What I commend Lombroso for is that he has observed
much, has collected rich materials, and has been the source of great
incentives in many directions, and has worked suggestively in many ways;
what I reproach him with is that he has confounded the healthy with
the diseased, and has brought under one and the same category without
sufficient and appropriate tests, psychotic phenomena and phenomena which
are psychopathically merely of a subsidiary order; what I reject is his
theory of degeneration and his peculiar views of philosophy.”
Material, such as Koch and others offer, must first be elaborated
into a pedagogic psychopathology—or better still into a pedagogic
pathopsychology—before pedagogy, as a whole, can assume in this
direction the proper form. Though we consider, now, this preparatory work
as indispensable, we can, nevertheless, not think of denying the value
of works which, without any profession of far-reaching psychological
analysis, put in effective and available form for pedagogy the diseased
phenomena of the mental life of children. The first German work of this
kind, so far as we know, is from the pen of a Leipsic teacher, GUSTAV
SIEGERT, and bears the title _Problematische Kindesnaturen_.[48] This
little work is now followed by a more comprehensive treatise, published
by a Bremen alienist, Dr. SCHOLZ, already known to the readers of _The
Monist_ (II, 104), and bearing the title _Die Characterfehler des Kindes,
eine Erziehungslehre für Schule und Haus_.[49] Such books are valuable
not only for the observations they offer and the isolated explanations
and pedagogic advice they present, but also for the suggestions which the
attentive and psychologically cultivated reader can always receive from
them.
Like Siegert, Scholz principally shows us isolated child-types wherein
diseased qualities play a more or less pronounced rôle. But while the
former’s presentation is somewhat journalistic in style, that of the
latter is more didactic; although this tendency is not an absolutely
rigid one, as the author counts mothers as readers of his book. But
if the form of presentation leads one to infer greater profundity in
Scholz than in Siegert, this is in still higher degree the case with the
arrangement of the material. While Siegert strings his child-pictures
loosely together, Scholz arranges them according to real psychological
points of view, so that (remarkable to say) the faults of children are
discussed, first, in the province of feeling and sentiment, then in
that of representation, and finally in that of volition and action. The
introductory and concluding chapters show, also, that Scholz attempts
to enter more profoundly into the subject than Siegert proposes, and we
cherish the hope that, now that this popular work has appeared, Scholz
will very soon present us with a strictly scientific book, in which he
shall have occasion to deal with some particular points, such as, for
instance, falsehood and unchastity, more comprehensively than was perhaps
possible in a book intended for his present circle of readers.
With respect, now, to all systematic presentations of pedagogy,
psychopathology can, as we have before indicated, never attain in them
its proper position, until the above-mentioned preparatory work has been
completed. But this fact should not preclude one’s calling especial
attention to the importance of this province, at least in some incidental
manner.
In such a work as the _Allgemeine Pädagogik_ of ZILLER,[50] for instance,
the third edition of which has just been published by F. Mattes of
Leipsic, there surely was abundant opportunity to do this—an opportunity
which one might say almost amounted to obligation. For Ziller treats
hereditary and acquired characteristics in great detail, and such
treatment remains necessarily a one-sided one, if abnormal traits are
not considered in it. Ziller, with Herbart, demands that individuality
always be taken as the starting-point. But how many child-individualities
are there, which, in the different periods of their development, may be
regarded as fully normal!
The reason of this omission must be looked for partly in the
circumstance, that Ziller, as well as the new editor of this otherwise
valuable work, belongs to the Herbartian school. If, namely, we
compare the psychological literature of the Herbartian school with the
publications of French, English, and American writers, or even with
the works which in recent times have issued from other philosophical
quarters of Germany, it will be unmistakably seen that the pathological
conditions of the mind have been little considered by the followers of
Herbart. Nor have voices been wanting, that would make Herbart himself
responsible for this error. He did not, they say, sufficiently appreciate
the importance of the pathological phenomena of mind, and his pupils
were in this respect influenced by him. But this reproach will be found,
on close examination, to be untenable. Herbart, it is true, did express
himself repeatedly against the overestimation of “rare and curious
phenomena,” unusual mental states and such things,[51] and his warning
is applicable also to our epoch, which produces many psychological works
in which remarkable things are to be read but which contribute nothing
worth mentioning towards the explanation of even comparatively simple
events. Herbart holds, that the psychology of the normal and ordinary
states should be the first and principal object of scientific attention;
the explanation of much that is extraordinary will then follow. With
regard to this latter point, he remarks very positively: “I do not,
however, wish by this, to gainsay the value of any real psychological
observation. There must be a welcome place in science for every
experience.” It will be seen, therefore, that Herbart is not at all far
from the point of view of Maudsley and other investigators. We find, in
fact, that he mentions repeatedly abnormal mental conditions, and also
systematically treats them, even quoting such celebrated alienists as
Reil and Pinel (_Text-book of Psychology_, §§ 142-149). The probability
is, therefore, that psychopathology would have been properly employed in
Herbart’s psychology, if it had been at all elaborated in his day, and
its influence would through Herbart have been directly felt in pedagogy,
as no pedagogist has made better or more careful use of psychology than
he.
But Herbart’s pupils have done no further work in the province pointed
out by him. It is true, his psychology has been made use of by physicians
like Griesinger and Spielmann, and recently also to some extent by
Krafft-Ebing, but the works of these men have had no influence on the
psychological text-books of the Herbartian school, and consequently the
science has up to the present day exerted no noticeable influence on
pedagogy, either in Waitz, in Stoy, or in Ziller. In other pedagogic
schools, this has, it is true, also been the case; but in these, who make
no pretensions of relying on the teachings of psychology, the sin is
more easily pardoned. But this is not the only respect in which Ziller’s
_Pedagogy_ is not up to the times. Ziller defined pedagogy as the
influences, formed according to ethical points of view, which are brought
to bear on the mind of the pupil, and would not admit influences brought
to bear on the body, in so far as such should enter into the pedagogic
system. This misconception also springs from Ziller’s adherence to the
Herbartian school, which represents, as we well know, a metaphysical
pluralism; but it is in a still higher degree due to the fact, that
in Ziller’s day both the intimate relation between physiological and
psychological processes had not been satisfactorily established, and also
were not sufficiently known to him. If it were otherwise, his pluralism
need by no means have necessarily led him into such one-sidedness, for
this metaphysical pluralism does not exclude a monistic conception of
_phenomena_; even assuming this doctrine, one may say that motion and
feeling are two different but inseparable sides of the same phenomenon.
The “real things” produce by their interaction, simultaneously and of
necessity, both an inner side and an outer; for which reason one of our
foremost psychologists, Volkmann of Volkmar, explicitly terms Herbart’s
psychology monistic (_Text-book of Psychology_, second edition, I, 63).
A psychologico-physiological work, from which the new editor of Ziller’s
_Pedagogy_ might have extracted many valuable things, is the book of
the Italian MOSSO, _On Fatigue_, which has just been translated into
German,[52] and which will excite much attention owing to the present
active discussion of the question of overwork.
Supplementary to this work I will also mention a little tract by DR.
BURGERSTEIN of Vienna, entitled _Die Arbeitskurve einer Schulstunde_.[53]
This tract is a lecture, which the author gave at the Seventh
International Congress for Hygiene and Demography at London, and in
which he seeks to find by statistical methods, the duration of a
“school-period”—a very laboriously composed treatise and one difficult
to read, but possessed of high interest in psychological and pedagogic
respects.
From pedagogy to evolution is but a step, at least it is in Ziller’s
development of Herbart’s ideas. It is true, Ziller has taken a decided
stand against Darwinism, for Ziller works with two contradictory
ideas; but his theory of education possesses points of resemblance
and analogy to the Darwin-Haeckel theory of development. According
to Ziller, each individual passes, also intellectually, through all
the stages of development that mankind at large has passed through,
only in a shorter time; and it is in conformity with such succession
that the order of the various courses of a pedagogical system is to be
arranged. Following Ziller’s precedent, PROFESSOR VAIHINGER, of Halle,
in his treatise _Naturforschung und Schule_ (Science and the Schools),
has taken up the school-reform initiated by Professor Preyer, and has
expressly transferred the fundamental law of biogenesis to pedagogy.
How instruction is to be arranged under this point of view, cannot be
explained in this letter, which is already long enough. We shall simply
remark that the idea has found in Germany a large number of both friends
and opponents.
The opponents have recently been joined by a natural scientist, DR.
HAMANN, professor of zoology in Göttingen, who has just published a
book under the title _Entwicklungslehre und Darwinismus_ (Evolution and
Darwinism),[54] in which he does not combat the theory of evolution
itself, but simply the Darwin-Haeckelian form of that theory, placing
himself in the ranks of His and Hensen. The book appeared almost
simultaneously with the fourth edition of HAECKEL’S _Anthropogeny_,[55]
but the author, nevertheless, in his supplementary remarks, discusses
the “apology” which Haeckel subjoined to his work. Haeckel’s book needs
no recommendation in scientific circles; it will be sufficient to state
that the work has been subjected to essential alterations, but that its
fundamental features have remained the same.
A new psychology, on the Darwinian basis, by Prof. FRITZ SCHULTZE of
Dresden, is now in course of publication, entitled _Vergleichende
Seelenkunde_ (Comparative Psychology[56]). The first part, which treats
of the fundamental principles of physiological psychology, has already
appeared. On the completion of the work we shall have occasion to return
to it.
CHR. UFER.
FOOTNOTES:
[48] _Problematic Child-natures._ Leipsic, 1890, Robert Vogtländer.
[49] _Faults of Character in Children, A System of Instruction for School
and Home._ Leipsic. Eduard Heinrich Mayer.
[50] Compare also, _The Educational Review_ (New York), Vol. II, page 30.
[51] _Psychologie als Wissenschaft_, § 5.
[52] Salomon Hirzel, Leipsic.
[53] Hamburg, 1891, Leopold Voss.
[54] Jena, 1892, Hermann Costenoble.
[55] Leipsic, 1892, Engelmann.
[56] Leipsic, 1892.
CRITICISMS AND DISCUSSIONS.
A LETTER FROM MR. HERBERT SPENCER.
_To the Editor of The Monist_:
As I feel it a duty to reserve, for other purposes, the very small
power of work now left to me, I am obliged to decline entering upon
a controversy. I must leave readers to examine for themselves—little
hoping, however, that they will do so.
One point only I wish to note. The use of the expression “forms of
thought,” instead of “forms of intuition,” was simply an inadvertence;
as will be manifest on observing that though I have used the wrong
expression in the note, I have used the right expression in the text
(p. 203), as also throughout my criticism of Kant’s doctrine in _The
Principles of Psychology_, Part VII, Chapter IV, “The Reasonings of
Metaphysicians,” § 399.
HERBERT SPENCER.
LOGIC AS RELATION-LORE.
In the French _Revue Philosophique_, in the August and September 1891
numbers of the same, M. George Mouret has an essay entitled “Mathematical
Equality” in the course of which and as though subsidiary to his
ostensible purpose he discourses upon the topics of relations and
concepts and upon the fundamental elements of logic in general. His essay
is really more important as a contribution to logical doctrine than as a
treatment of mathematical equality.
The scope of his discourse will be seen by reference to his closing
paragraphs in which he sums up what he considers to be the results
achieved by him in his essay. Therein, he says that he has “treated of
the general theory of the composition of concepts and relations and set
the foundations of the logic of analysis and the logic of definition.”
I. THE SPENCERIAN AXIOM.
The determining factor of every philosophical dissertation is of course
some very general supposition which is taken as established and which
exercises a controlling influence over all the observations of its author.
In this case this determining supposition is found in what M. Mouret
calls his “_axiom_ of _symmetry_.” The same is thus stated by him “_Two
things which have the same symmetrical relations to a third thing have
between them that same relation._”
M. Mouret is not one of those scholars that lack hospitality for
other writings than those of their own nationality. From this fault
so noticeable in the work of so many of the French scholars M. Mouret
himself seems to be free. Indeed so far as regards the previous work done
in the domain he sets himself to examine, he accords almost exclusive
esteem to the writings of English thinkers. In fact he declares himself
so far as regards his present topic a disciple of Mr. Herbert Spencer
and puts his “axiom of symmetry” as an adaptation of that maxim of his
said master which is of the tenor as follows, viz: “_Things which have
a definite relation to the same thing have a definite relation to one
another._” This maxim, as Mr. Spencer tells us, was suggested to him by
a remark of the late eminent author who is known to the world under the
pseudonym of George Eliot, who herself stated it under the form “_Things
that have a constant relation to the same thing have a constant relation
to each other._”
Those who are well acquainted with the psychology of Mr. Spencer will
recognise that this maxim of his is made by him the very backbone of all
his observations upon reasoning. If it has the validity which he imputes
to it, it has an importance which it will be hard to overestimate, but if
on the contrary, and as we shall submit, it is in every form in which it
has been stated, certainly unsound and misleading, it is high time that
its virtue should be brought into question.
The _dicta_ of the masters whether they first enounce the same or whether
they only give currency thereto by their ratification are always proper
subjects for special scrutiny. There is always found a disposition to
accept them on their mere _ipse dixit_ without any attempt at criticism
or independent observation. This is decisively _not_ the scientific mood
or mode. The spirit of that modern leaven that is currently referred
to under the name of Science is characteristically a critical one, and
one that is considerably irreverent in regard to the authority of mere
personality. In this it is happily distinguished from the spirit that has
marked the past history of what may be called the “regular” schools of
philosophy.
M. Mouret is not alone in his inadvertent esteem for the maxim in
question. In the issue of _Mind_ for October 1891 Mr. L. T. Hobhouse
publishes an article entitled “Induction and Deduction,” in which he
gives an undue appraisal to the worth of the maxim under consideration,
even though the author of the article seems to be well aware that said
maxim stands in much need of qualification.
We venture to say that this maxim in all its forms has gained whatever
currency it has enjoyed in virtue alone of the incompetent comprehension
that too generally prevails in regard to the nature and characteristics
of that sort of things that are relations.
A notable example of this lack of comprehension is supplied in the
logical treatise of Mr. Carveth Read, a work ostensibly founded upon
the significance of the category of relation and yet in which at the
very start the author tells us that a relation is something which is
indefinable.
II. IMPORTANCE OF RELATION-LORE.
This topic of relations is one that is neglected in a degree that
reflects no credit upon the pretensions of those who undertake to
instruct others in matters logical and philosophical. The thing itself
is in the thinking of every one and the term and its derivations are
in universal use. They are used as though they imported an idea that
no one was liable to misapply or to misunderstand. The truth, however,
is that of all the stock terms in our graver discourse this very word
“relation” and its derivatives are the ones that are oftenest heard and
read without any lucidity of mind concerning their proper intent as a
part of their context. They are used with an assortment of meanings and
non-meanings that are quite distracting to try to follow and quite vain
to try and reconcile. In particular the difference between _relationship_
and _relation_, between the _ground_ or _foundation_ of the relation
and the relation itself, between the plural fact, whether of tendency,
interaction, transition, or _status_, that is a co-condition with the
relations, and the relations that co-condition that same plural fact, is
constantly ignored in thinking and in the expression thereof, to the more
or less confusion in, and inconsequence of, the whole discourse delivered.
It is no slight commendation of the perspicacity of M. Mouret to observe
that he has discovered that the way towards a resolution of the problems
he sets himself to work out lies through what to him appears the
altogether unexplored regions of relation-lore, for it is evident that he
regards himself as a pioneer in this field.
III. WORKS ON RELATION-LORE IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
In observing this we cannot but hold M. Mouret unfortunate in not having
been put upon better lines of inquiry. He seems to have been wholly
unaware of the treasures of investigation in this domain that exist in
the English language and that for many years have been available for
the student. His case in this respect is seen in the exaltation which
he gives to the semi-popular discourses of Mr. Spencer and Mr. Read, as
contrasted with the profound researches of DeMorgan and Boole and their
disciples. It is evident that he has judged concerning the comparative
quality of the various lines of English research not after an examination
of his own, but after the current popular renown. For example, he speaks
of the work of DeMorgan and Boole as presenting “only a simple mode of
representing some of the logical laws” and as being “surrounded with a
formidable and complicated apparel which disguises the value of their
tentatives.”
Since M. Mouret is manifestly an earnest student of the topic of
relation-lore this language shows that he has at best only a second or
third-hand knowledge of what DeMorgan and Boole really did. He ought
to have known that in the recondite field of research in question all
really competent treatment of the same would be very far from having
any “popular” quality. For a man to discourse of relation-lore in
ignorance of what DeMorgan, the very father of the “Logic of Relatives,”
accomplished is like discoursing of Darwinism in ignorance of “The Origin
of Species.”
We opine that when M. Mouret shall have consulted the great memoir
of DeMorgan in the tenth volume of the “Cambridge Philosophical
Transactions” or better, when he shall have become acquainted with
the more developed work of Mr. C. S. Peirce, to whom beyond question
relation-lore is most indebted for its present state of progress, he
will have a better esteem for the value of the “tentatives” of DeMorgan
and Boole and their disciples. Mr. Peirce has published three principal
papers on the subject in question. The first of these was published in
1870 in the ninth volume of the “Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts
and Sciences.” Then in 1880 and in 1884, while Mr. Peirce was lecturer
on logic at Johns Hopkins University, he published in the _American
Journal of Mathematics_ two papers dealing more or less extensively
with relation-lore. One of these his “_Hauptwerk_” as it is called by
Professor Schroeder of Carlsruhe, appears in the third volume of the
journal mentioned and the other in the seventh volume of the same.
Mr. Peirce was one of the contributors to our new American “Century
Dictionary,” and in that work under the definitions of Relation and
Relativity there appears a summary treatment of the subject which is as
we take it the work of Mr. Peirce and which might have given to M. Mouret
hints which he would have appreciated. Also the editor of this magazine
in his article “Are there Things in Themselves?” in the January 1892
number thereof incidentally touches upon the topic under consideration in
such a way as to correct some of the more inveterate misconceptions.
IV. M. MOURET’S THEORY OF RELATIONS.
The article of M. Mouret is in so many points so excellent a discourse
that the chief reflection one is inclined to make is that upon its own
principles it ought to have been better. He seems to have been widely
awake to the primordial nature of relations as philosophical data.
He says: “Every notion or relation is a _function_ of relations more
directly known and enters as a relational element into other relations
less proximate to the common sources,” and also that “every concept or
notion ought to resolve into a group of relations.”