faculties as one refuted by his metaphysics, and tries to show that
all psychical phenomena whatever result from the action and
interaction of elementary ideas or presentations (_Vorstellungen_).
The soul being one and simple, its separate acts of self-preservation
or primary presentations must be simple too, and its several
presentations must become united together. And this they can do at
once and completely when, as is the case, for example, with the
several attributes of an object, they are not of opposite quality. But
otherwise there ensues a conflict in which the opposed presentations
comport themselves like forces and mutually suppress or obscure each
other. The act of presentation (_Vorstellen_) then becomes partly
transformed into an effort, and its product, the idea, becomes in the
same proportion less and less intense till a position of equilibrium
is reached; and then at length the remainders coalesce. We have thus a
statics and a mechanics of mind which investigate respectively the
conditions of equilibrium and of movement among presentations. In the
statics two magnitudes have to be determined: (1) the amount of the
suppression or inhibition (_Hemmungssumme_), and (2) the ratio in
which this is shared among the opposing presentations. The first must
obviously be as small as possible; thus for two totally-opposed
presentations a and b, of which a is the greater, the _inhibendum_ =
b. For a given degree of opposition this burden will be shared between
the conflicting presentations in the inverse ratio of their strength.
When its remainder after inhibition = 0, a presentation is said to be
on the threshold of consciousness, for on a small diminution of the
inhibition the "effort" will become actual presentation in the same
proportion. Such total exclusion from consciousness is, however,
manifestly impossible with only two presentations,[2] though with
three or a greater number the residual value of one may even be
negative. The first and simplest law in psychological mechanics
relates to the "sinking" of inhibited presentations. As the
presentations yield to the pressure, the pressure itself diminishes,
so that the velocity of sinking decreases, i.e. we have the equation
(S - [sigma]) dt = d[sigma], where S is the total _inhibendum_, and
[sigma] the intensity actually inhibited after the time t. Hence t =
log (S/S - [sigma]), and [sigma] = S[1 - e^(-t)]. From this law it
follows, for example, that equilibrium is never quite obtained for
those presentations which continue above the threshold of
consciousness, while the rest which cannot so continue are very
speedily driven beyond the threshold. More important is the law
according to which a presentation freed from inhibition and rising
anew into consciousness tends to raise the other presentations with
which it is combined. Suppose two presentations p and [pi] united by
the residua r and [rho]; then the amount of p's "help" to [pi] is r,
the portion of which appropriated by [pi] is given by the ratio [rho]:
[pi]; and thus the initial help is r[rho]/[pi].
But after a time t, when a portion of [rho] represented by [omega] has
been actually brought into consciousness, the help afforded in the
next instant will be found by the equation
r[rho] [rho] - [omega]
------ . --------------- dt = d[omega],
[pi] [rho]
from which by integration we have the value of [omega].
[omega] = [rho] {1 - [epsilon]^(-rt/[pi])}.
So that if there are several [pi]s connected with p by smaller and
smaller parts, there will be a definite "serial" order in which they
will be revived by p; and on this fact Herbart rests all the phenomena
of the so-called faculty of memory, the development of spatial and
temporal forms and much besides. Emotions and volitions, he holds, are
not directly self-preservations of the soul, as our presentations are,
but variable states of such presentations resulting from their
interaction when above the threshold of consciousness. Thus when some
presentations tend to force a presentation into consciousness, and
others at the same time tend to drive it out, that presentation is the
seat of painful feeling; when, on the other hand, its entrance is
favoured by all, pleasure results. Desires are presentations
struggling into consciousness against hindrances, and when accompanied
by the supposition of success become volitions. Transcendental freedom
of will in Kant's sense is an impossibility. Self-consciousness is the
result of an interaction essentially the same in kind as that which
takes place when a comparatively simple presentation finds the field
of consciousness occupied by a long-formed and well-consolidated
"mass" of presentations--as, e.g. one's business or garden, the
theatre, &c., which promptly inhibit the isolated presentation if
incongruent, and unite it to themselves if not. What we call Self is,
above all, such a central mass, and Herbart seeks to show with great
ingenuity and detail how this position is occupied at first chiefly by
the body, then by the seat of ideas and desires, and finally by that
first-personal Self which recollects the past and resolves concerning
the future. But at any stage the actual constituents of this
"complexion" are variable; the concrete presentation of Self is never
twice the same. And, therefore, finding on reflection any particular
concrete factor contingent, we abstract the position from that which
occupies it, and so reach the speculative notion of the pure Ego.
_Aesthetics_ elaborates the "ideas" involved in the expression of
taste called forth by those relations of object which acquire for them
the attribution of beauty or the reverse. The beautiful ([Greek:
kalon]) is to be carefully distinguished from the allied conceptions
of the useful and the pleasant, which vary with time, place and
person; whereas beauty is predicated absolutely and involuntarily by
all who have attained the right standpoint. Ethics, which is but one
branch of aesthetics, although the chief, deals with such relations
among volitions (_Willensverhaltnisse_) as thus unconditionally please
or displease. These relations Herbart finds to be reducible to five,
which do not admit of further simplification; and corresponding to
them are as many moral ideas (_Musterbegriffe_), viz.: (1) _Internal
Freedom_, the underlying relation being that of the individual's will
to his judgment of it; (2) _Perfection_, the relation being that of
his several volitions to each other in respect of intensity, variety
and concentration; (3) _Benevolence_, the relation being that between
his own will and the thought of another's; (4) _Right_, in case of
actual conflict with another; and (5) _Retribution_ or _Equity_, for
intended good or evil done. The ideas of a final society, a system of
rewards and punishments, a system of administration, a system of
culture and a "unanimated society," corresponding to the ideas of law,
equity, benevolence, perfection and internal freedom respectively,
result when we take account of a number of individuals. Virtue is the
perfect conformity of the will with the moral ideas; of this the
single virtues are but special expressions. The conception of duty
arises from the existence of hindrances to the attainment of virtue. A
general scheme of principles of conduct is possible, but the
subsumption of special cases under these must remain matter of tact.
The application of ethics to things as they are with a view to the
realization of the moral ideas is moral technology (_Tugendlehre_), of
which the chief divisions are Paedagogy and Politics.
In _Theology_ Herbart held the argument from design to be as valid for
divine activity as for human, and to justify the belief in a
super-sensible real, concerning which, however, exact knowledge is
neither attainable nor on practical grounds desirable.
Among the post-Kantian philosophers Herbart doubtless ranks next to
Hegel in importance, and this without taking into account his very
great contributions to the science of education. His disciples speak
of theirs as the "exact philosophy," and the term well expresses their
master's chief excellence and the character of the chief influence he
has exerted upon succeeding thinkers of his own and other schools. His
criticisms are worth more than his constructions; indeed for exactness
and penetration of thought he is quite on a level with Hume and Kant.
His merits in this respect, however, can only be appraised by the
study of his works at first hand. But we are most of all indebted to
Herbart for the enormous advance psychology has been enabled to make,
thanks to his fruitful treatment of it, albeit as yet but few among
the many who have appropriated and improved his materials have
ventured to adopt his metaphysical and mathematical foundations.
(J. W.*)
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Herbart's works were collected and published by his
disciple G. Hartenstein (Leipzig, 1850-1852; reprinted at Hamburg,
with supplementary volume, 1883-1893); another edition by K. Kehrbach
(Leipzig, 1882, and Langensalza, 1887). The following are the most
important: _Allgemeine Padagogik_ (1806; new ed., 1894); _Hauptpunkte
der Metaphysik_ (1808); _Allgemeine praktische Philosophie_ (1808);
_Lehrbuch zur Einleitung in die Philosophie_ (1813; new ed. by
Hartenstein, 1883); _Lehrbuch der Psychologie_ (1816; new ed. by
Hartenstein, 1887); _Psychologie als Wissenschaft_ (1824-1825);
_Allgemeine Metaphysik_ (1828-1829); _Encyklopadie der Philosophie_
(2nd ed., 1841); _Umriss padagogischer Vorlesungen_ (2nd ed., 1841);
_Psychologische Untersuchungen_ (1839-1840).
Some of his works have been translated into English under the
following titles: _Textbook in Psychology_, by M. K. Smith (1891);
_The Science of Education and the Aesthetic Revelation of the World_
(1892), and _Letters and Lectures on Education_ (1898), by H. M. and
E. Felkin; _A B C of Sense Perception and minor pedagogical works_
(New York, 1896), by W. J. Eckhoff and others; _Application of
Psychology to the Science of Education_ (1898), by B. C. Mulliner;
_Outlines of Educational Doctrine_, by A. F. Lange (1901).
There is a life of Herbart in Hartenstein's introduction to his
_Kleinere philosophische Schriften und Abhandlungen_ (1842-1843) and
by F. H. T. Allihn in _Zeitschrift fur exacte Philosophie_ (Leipzig,
1861), the organ of Herbart and his school, which ceased to appear in
1873. In America the National Society for the Scientific Study of
Education was originally founded as the National Herbart Society.
Of the large number of writings dealing with Herbart's works and
theories, the following may be mentioned: H. A. Fechner, _Zur Kritik
der Grundlagen von Herbart's Metaphysik_ (Leipzig, 1853); J. Kaftan,
_Sollen und Sein in ihrem Verhaltniss zu einander: eine Studie zur
Kritik Herbarts_ (Leipzig, 1872); M. W. Drobisch, _Uber die
Fortbildung der Philosophie durch Herbart_ (Leipzig, 1876); K. S.
Just, _Die Fortbildung der Kant'schen Ethik durch Herbart_ (Eisenach,
1876); C. Ufer, _Vorschule der Padagogik Herbarts_ (1883; Eng. tr. by
J. C. Zinser, 1895); G. Kozle, _Die padagogische Schule Herbarts und
ihre Lehre_ (Gutersloh, 1889); L. Strumpell, _Das System der Padagogik
Herbarts_ (Leipzig, 1894); J. Christinger, _Herbarts Erziehungslehre
und ihre Fortbildner_ (Zurich, 1895); O. H. Lang, _Outline of
Herbart's Pedagogics_ (1894); H. M. and E. Felkin, _Introduction to
Herbart's Science and Practice of Education_ (1895); C. de Garmo,
_Herbart and the Herbartians_ (New York, 1895); E. Wagner, _Die Praxis
der Herbartianer_ (Langensalza, 1897) and _Vollstandige Darstellung
der Lehre Herbarts_ (ib., 1899); J. Adams, _The Herbartian Psychology
applied to Education_ (1897); F. H. Hayward, _The Student's Herbart_
(1902), _The Critics of Herbartianism_ (1903), _Three Historical
Educators: Pestalozzi, Frobel, Herbart_ (1905), _The Secret of
Herbart_ (1907), _The Meaning of Education as interpreted by Herbart_
(1907); W. Kinkel, _J. F. Herbart: sein Leben und seine Philosophie_
(1903); A. Darroch, _Herbart and the Herbartian Theory of Education_
(1903); C. J. Dodd, _Introduction to the Herbartian Principles of
Teaching_ (1904); J. Davidson, _A new Interpretation of Herbart's
Psychology and Educational Theory through the Philosophy of Leibnitz_
(1906); see also J. M. Baldwin, _Dictionary of Psychology and
Philosophy_ (1901-1905).
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Hence Herbart gave the name Synechology to this branch of
metaphysics, instead of the usual one, Cosmology.
[2] Thus, taking the case above supposed, the share of the inhibendum
falling to the smaller presentation b is the fourth term of the
proportion a + b : a :: b : ab/(a + b); and so b's remainder is b
- ab/(a + b) = b^2/(a + b), which only = 0 when a = [infinity].
HERBELOT DE MOLAINVILLE, BARTHELEMY D' (1625-1695), French orientalist,
was born on the 14th of December 1625 at Paris. He was educated at the
university of Paris, and devoted himself to the study of oriental
languages, going to Italy to perfect himself in them by converse with
the orientals who frequented its sea-ports. There he also made the
acquaintance of Holstenius, the Dutch humanist (1596-1661), and Leo
Allatius, the Greek scholar (1586-1669). On his return to France after a
year and a half, he was received into the house of Fouquet,
superintendent of finance, who gave him a pension of 1500 livres. Losing
this on the disgrace of Fouquet in 1661, he was appointed secretary and
interpreter of Eastern languages to the king. A few years later he again
visited Italy, when the grand-duke Ferdinand II. of Tuscany presented
him with a large number of valuable Oriental MSS., and tried to attach
him to his court. Herbelot, however, was recalled to France by Colbert,
and received from the king a pension equal to the one he had lost. In
1692 he succeeded D'Auvergne in the chair of Syriac, in the College de
France. He died in Paris on the 8th of December 1695. His great work is
the _Bibliotheque orientale, ou dictionnaire universel contenant tout
ce qui regarde la connaissance des peuples de l'Orient_, which occupied
him nearly all his life, and was completed in 1697 by A. Galland. It is
based on the immense Arabic dictionary of Hadji Khalfa, of which indeed
it is largely an abridged translation, but it also contains the
substance of a vast number of other Arabic and Turkish compilations and
manuscripts.
The _Bibliotheque_ was reprinted at Maestricht (fol. 1776), and at the
Hague (4 vols. 4to, 1777-1799). The latter edition is enriched with
the contributions of the Dutch orientalist Schultens, Johann Jakob
Reiske (1716-1774), and by a supplement provided by Visdelow and
Galland. Herbelot's other works, none of which have been published,
comprise an _Oriental Anthology_, and an _Arabic, Persian, Turkish and
Latin Dictionary_.
HERBERAY DES ESSARTS, NICOLAS DE (d. about 1557), French translator, was
born in Picardy. He served in the artillery, and at the expressed desire
of Francis I. he translated into French the first eight books of _Amadis
de Gaul_ (1540-1548). The remaining books were translated by other
authors. His other translations from the Spanish include _L'Amant
maltraite de sa mye_ (1539); _Le Premier Livre de la chronique de dom
Flores de Grece_ (1552); and _L'Horloge des princes_ (1555) from
Guevara. He also translated the works of Josephus (1557). He died about
1557. The _Amadis de Gaul_ was translated into English by Anthony Munday
in 1619.
HERBERT (FAMILY). The sudden rising of this English family to great
wealth and high place is the more remarkable in that its elevation
belongs to the 15th century and not to that age of the Tudors when many
new men made their way upwards into the ranks of the nobility. Earlier
generations of a pedigree which carries the origin of the Herberts to
Herbert the Chamberlain, a Domesday tenant, being disregarded, their
patriarch may be taken to be one Jenkin ap Adam (temp. Edward III.), who
had a small Monmouthshire estate at Llanvapley and the office of master
sergeant of the lordship of Abergavenny, a place which gave him
precedence after the steward of that lordship. Jenkin's son, Gwilim ap
Jenkin, who followed his father as master sergeant, is given six sons by
the border genealogists, no less than six score pedigrees finding their
origin in these six brothers. Their order is uncertain, although the
Progers of Werndee, the last of whom sold his ancestral estate in 1780,
are reckoned as the senior line of Gwilim's descendants. But Thomas ap
Gwilim Jenkin, called the fourth son, is ancestor of all those who bore
the surname of Herbert.
Thomas's fifth son, William or Gwilim ap Thomas, who died in 1446, was
the first man of the family to make any figure in history. This Gwilim
ap Thomas was steward of the lordships of Usk and Caerleon under
Richard, duke of York. Legend makes him a knight on the field of
Agincourt, but his knighthood belongs to the year 1426. He appears to
have married twice, his first wife being Elizabeth Bluet of Raglan,
widow of Sir James Berkeley, and his second a daughter of David Gam, a
valiant Welsh squire slain at Agincourt. Royal favour enriched Sir
William, and he was able to buy Raglan Castle from the Lord Berkeley,
his first wife's son, the deed, which remains among the Beaufort
muniments, refuting the pedigree-maker's statement that he inherited the
castle as heir of his mother "Maude, daughter of Sir John Morley." His
sons William and Richard, both partisans of the White Rose, took the
surname of Herbert in or before 1461. Playing a part in English affairs
remote from the Welsh Marches, their lack of a surname may well have
inconvenienced them, and their choice of the name Herbert can only be
explained by the suggestion that their long pedigree from Herbert the
Chamberlain, absurdly represented as a bastard son of Henry I., must
already have been discovered for them. Copies exist of an alleged
commission issued by Edward IV. to a committee of Welsh bards for the
ascertaining of the true ancestry of William Herbert, earl of Pembroke,
whom "the chiefest men of skill" in the province of South Wales declare
to be the descendant of "Herbert, a noble lord, natural son to King
Henry the first," and it is recited that King Edward, after the creation
of the earldom, commanded the earl and Sir Richard his brother to "take
their surnames after their first progenitor Herbert fitz Roy and to
forego the British order and manner." But this commission, whose date
anticipates by some years the true date of the creation of the earldom,
is the work of one of the many genealogical forgers who flourished under
the Tudors.
Sir William Herbert, called by the Welsh Gwilim Ddu or Black William,
was a baron in 1461 and a Knight of the Garter in the following year.
With many manors and castles on the Marches he had the castle, town and
lordship of Pembroke, and after the attainder of Jasper Tudor in 1468
was created earl of Pembroke. When in July 1469 he was taken by Sir John
Conyers and the northern Lancastrians on Hedgecote, he was beheaded with
his brother Sir Richard Herbert of Coldbrook. The second earl while
still a minor exchanged at the king's desire in 1479 his earldom of
Pembroke for that of Huntingdon. In 1484 this son of one whom Hall not
unjustly describes as born "a mean gentleman" contracted to marry
Katharine the daughter of King Richard III., but her death annulled the
contract and the earl married Mary, daughter of the Earl Rivers, by whom
he had a daughter Elizabeth, whose descendants, the Somersets, lived in
the Herbert's castle of Raglan until the cannon of the parliament broke
it in ruins. With the second earl's death in 1491 the first Herbert
earldom became extinct. No claim being set up among the other
descendants of the first earl, it may be taken that their lines were
illegitimate. One of the chief difficulties which beset the genealogist
of the Herberts lies in their Cambrian disregard of the marriage tie,
bastards and legitimate issue growing up, it would seem, side by side in
their patriarchal households. Thus the ancestor of the present earls of
Pembroke and Carnarvon and of the Herbert who was created marquess of
Powis was a natural son of the first earl, one Richard Herbert, whom the
restored inscription on his tomb at Abergavenny incorrectly describes as
a knight. He was constable and porter of Abergavenny Castle, and his son
William, "a mad fighting fellow" in his youth, married a sister of
Catherine Parr and thus in 1543 became nearly allied to the king, who
made him one of the executors of his will. The earldom of Pembroke was
revived for him in 1551. It is worthy of note that all traces of
illegitimacy have long since been removed from the arms of the noble
descendants of Richard Herbert.
The honours and titles of this clan of marchmen make a long list. They
include the marquessate of Powis, two earldoms with the title of
Pembroke, two with that of Powis, and the earldoms of Huntingdon and
Montgomery, Torrington and Carnarvon, the viscountcies of Montgomery and
Ludlow, fourteen baronies and seven baronetcies. Seven Herberts have
worn the Garter. The knights and rich squires of the stock can hardly be
reckoned, more especially as they must be sought among Raglans, Morgans,
Parrys, Vaughans, Progers, Hugheses, Thomases, Philips, Powels, Gwyns,
Evanses and Joneses, as well as among those who have borne the surname
of Herbert, a surname which in the 19th century was adopted by the
Joneses of Llanarth and Clytha, although they claim no descent from
those sons of Sir William ap Thomas for whom it was devised. (O. Ba.)
HERBERT, GEORGE (1593-1633), English poet, was born at Montgomery Castle
on the 3rd of April 1593. He was the fifth son of Sir Richard Herbert
and a brother of Lord Herbert of Cherbury. His mother, Lady Magdalen
Herbert, a woman of great good sense and sweetness of character, and a
friend of John Donne, exercised great influence over her son. Educated
privately until 1605, he was then sent to Westminster School, and in
1609 he became a scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was
made B.A. in 1613, M.A. and major fellow of the college in 1616. In 1618
he became Reader in Rhetoric, and in 1619 orator for the university. In
this capacity he was several times brought into contact with King James.
From Cambridge he wrote some Latin satiric verses[1] in defence of the
universities and the English Church against Andrew Melville, a Scottish
Presbyterian minister. He numbered among his friends Dr Donne, Sir
Henry Wotton, Izaak Walton, Bishop Andrewes and Francis Bacon, who
dedicated to him his translation of the Psalms. Walton tells us that
"the love of a court conversation, mixed with a laudable ambition to be
something more than he was, drew him often from Cambridge to attend the
king wheresoever the court was," and James I. gave him in 1623 the
sinecure lay rectory of Whitford, Flintshire, worth L120 a year. The
death of his patrons, the duke of Richmond and the marquess of Hamilton,
and of King James put an end to his hopes of political preferment;
moreover he probably distrusted the conduct of affairs under the new
reign. Largely influenced by his mother, he decided to take holy orders,
and in July 1626 he was appointed prebendary of Layton Ecclesia
(Leighton Bromswold), Huntingdon. Here he was within two miles of Little
Gidding, and came under the influence of Nicholas Ferrar. It was at
Ferrar's suggestion that he undertook to rebuild the church at Layton,
an undertaking carried through by his own gifts and the generosity of
his friends. There is little doubt that the close friendship with Ferrar
had a large share in Herbert's adoption of the religious life. In 1630
Charles I., at the instance of the earl of Pembroke, whose kinsman
Herbert was, presented him to the living of Fugglestone with Bemerton,
near Salisbury, and he was ordained priest in September. A year before,
after three days' acquaintance, he had married Jane Danvers, whose
father had been set on the marriage for a long time. He had often spoken
of his daughter Jane to Herbert, and "so much commended Mr Herbert to
her, that Jane became so much a Platonic as to fall in love with Mr
Herbert unseen." The story of the poet's life at Bemerton, as told by
Walton, is one of the most exquisite pictures in literary biography. He
devoted much time to explaining the meaning of the various parts of the
Prayer-Book, and held services twice every day, at which many of the
parishioners attended, and some "let their plough rest when Mr Herbert's
saints-bell rung to prayers, that they might also offer their devotions
to God with him." Next to Christianity itself he loved the English
Church. He was passionately fond of music, and his own hymns were
written to the accompaniment of his lute or viol. He usually walked
twice a week to attend the cathedral at Salisbury, and before returning
home, would "sing and play his part" at a meeting of music lovers.
Walton illustrates Herbert's kindness to the poor by many touching
anecdotes, but he had not been three years in Bemerton when he succumbed
to consumption. He was buried beneath the altar of his church on the 3rd
of March 1633.