MORITZ WILHELM DROBISCH

(1802-1896)

EMPIRICAL PSYCHOLOGY ACCORDING TO THE METHODS OF NATURAL SCIENCE

*

Translated from the German by

BENJAMIN RAND

FIFTH SECTION: THE FUNDAMENTAL EXPLANATION OF THE PSYCHICAL LIFE

III. THE DYNAMICS OF IDEAS AS A PRINCIPLE OF EXPLANATION OF PSYCHICAL PHENOMENA § 138. THE INTERDEPENDENCE OF PSYCHICAL PHENOMENA

In the explanation of psychical phenomena it is most necessary, that their connection and interdependence be not neglected in the consideration of their diversity, because otherwise we should set up unavoidable hindrances to any theory seeking for unity. Of this character is particularly the assumption of an original two- or threefold division of the activity of the mind, which is supposed to rest upon the qualitative difference of inner phenomena. After the detailed examination of the latter we should still find impossible to place in one and the same category as regards their origin, ideas, feelings, and desires; on the contrary, we must rather regard the lack of independence, and even actual dependence of the forms of the latter two kinds of phenomena upon the ideas, as an indication that these in some way lie at their foundation, and that they are capable of being made comprehensible as derived states. In

* From M. W. Drobisch's Empirische Psychologie nach naturwissenschafticher Methode, Hamburg und Leipzig, 1842; 2te Aufl. 1898.

deed, so many earlier psychologists have sought to prove this, that we may say the atomistic trichotomy of the soul was first introduced by Kant and his school.

If now the uselessness of abstract powers of the mind has been made clear in what has preceded, no one can desire to revert, either to a general faculty of ideas, or to any specific kinds of it, under the names of sense, imagination, understanding, etc. On the contrary, the ever increasing specialisation of these faculties, which becomes necessary if one somewhat more than superficially considers inner experience, shows that we cannot pursue this method with success, but have to take one directly opposed. This consists in supposing each single idea itself as an independent state of the mind, and accordingly an indefinitely large number of such states. If now to each one of these a power is ascribed as cause, we thus acquire, to be sure, instead of a moderate number of faculties of the mind, an almost unlimited number of individual powers of the mind. We do not fail to perceive that we are thereby still further, and in a far more hazardous way, removed from the unity of the soul, than is the case with the theory of faculties. But if we do not succeed in comprehending the unity of ten or twenty faculties, the failure consequently is essentially not greater if a thousand or ten thousand powers of forming ideas appear hard to combine. Nevertheless this would only be a lamentable consolation, which we are far from claiming. Therefore, either we must seek so to justify that hypothesis, that it no longer controverts the unity of the soul, or this principle is not adequately established, and must be given up. Let us then first test somewhat more closely this demand for the unity of the soul, as the possessor of the powers of the mind.

$139. THE UNITY OF THE SOUL

If it must be conceded that the powers of the mind, as causes of its states, are not objects of inner observation, it holds still more true of the mind itself, as the possessor of those powers. For self-consciousness by no means reveals to us the mind, on

the contrary, shows only the empirical I, from which through abstraction of its changing content the pure I is first attained; but which, for that very reason, is an empty and really formal idea. The identity of our psychical being is, therefore, by no means immediately guaranteed as a fact by the identity of our self-consciousness, and it is merely upon inferences that this conviction is based. Without deeper metaphysical argumentation the following observations can be made upon this subject.

All our ideas have a tendency to become united, to exchange their multiplicity for unity, and they actually coalesce, so far as the contradictions of their contents do not prevent. Our sensuous perception, as well as our intellectual conception, is a constant process of unification, either through the percept, or the concept; therefore, every theoretical science involves the effort to reduce the principles of explanation to the lowest possible number. The fact, that only a few ideas can enter our consciousness at once, shows to be sure at first glance, that they displace, suppress, therefore, as it were, expel one another; but also on the other hand, that they are not able to avoid one another, but are held together by an attractive force. The same thing likewise appears in associations, these quite involuntary and artless combinations of simultaneous ideas. It is, therefore, possible to attribute similar attractive and repellant forces to ideas, after the analogy of the physical-chemical hypothesis of attractions and repulsions of elements. But leaving out of consideration the fact, that here attraction and repulsion must be ascribed simultaneously to the same elements of psychical life, which beyond controversy is inconceivable (the physicist attributes attraction to the molecules, and transfers repulsion to the surrounding sphere of heat), there is furthermore this difference, that the elements of bodies have an independent existence, so that the existence of the body depends upon that of its elements, which become thereby the constituents out of which it is composed.

Nevertheless, it will not occur to anyone to affirm that the mind is composed of its ideas, and that these have also

existence apart from the mind. The mind, in which they are, and because they are in it, which has no constituents (for what apart from ideas, could otherwise be its constituents?), and is consequently simple, must moreover itself be assumed to be the principle of unity. This also leads to the same conclusion, that the body is external to the mind, but ideas, feelings, and desires, are within it. The mind is, therefore, in a middle ground between outer and inner experience, as the unit of measure belonging to no experience of things and states of the external and internal world. With a measure one can indeed measure; but one cannot wish to measure it itself, or it ceases to be a measure. One can indeed distinguish the parts in it; but these are only accidental parts, and not essential constituents.

§ 140. THE REFUTATION OF THE FACULTY

CONCEPT

If accordingly the hypothesis of the unity of the soul appear to us reasonably established, so that we have to think of it as having strict simplicity of being, because otherwise a new principle of unification would be needed, the question is all the more seriously renewed, how the other hypothesis of an unlimited number of states of the mind is supposed to be compatible with it. There corresponds to every individual sensation a simple idea as a state of the mind, and combined ideas originate from these as their elements. Shall we endow the mind with as many faculties as it has simple ideas? And if not, what else shall we do? In order to decide this question, it is necessary first to determine, what must be understood by faculties. If we oppose activity to it, as reality to possibility, the entire concept of faculty is at bottom an empty thought, which can signify nothing other, than that after an activity has originated we can then add in thought, that nevertheless the possibility must have been present for it beforehand. But this possibilty is also only a mode of forming ideas in the mind of the thinker, and is nothing in the things themselves; for we should

thereby conceive an actual possibility, which is a gross absurdity.

In this merely logical sense we will not want to have the concept of possibility taken, but we seek to express thereby, that an activity is existent in the germ (potentia), and only awaits. the opportunity to develop into actuality (actu). We cannot, indeed, strictly mean thereby, that the activity is retained wholly as it afterwards manifests itself, only in a concentrated undeveloped condition in the mind, so that, therefore, e.g., the sensuous ideas before they appear in consciousness through stimulation of the senses, dwell in the mind in the same way as they abide in the recesses of the memory, after they have become forgotten. This would make every excitation of ideas from without a mere appearance, and would therefore be a view compatible only with the most thoroughgoing idealism. This is rather what we mean, that, just as the seed-corn, in order to germinate and develop, requires earth, air, moisture, and warmth, but nevertheless these potencies can still bring into development only a seed-corn, but by no means a stone, or even a blossom; so likewise a diversified capacity for forming ideas, is to be understood as belonging to the mind, by virtue of which, if certain external conditions are associated therewith, an actual formation of ideas take place in it.

If we would discuss this concept metaphysically we should put the question, whether the multiplicity of capacities harmonises better with the demanded unity of the soul, than a multiplicity of actual powers; or whether the soul, if it originally carries in itself as the mode of its existence such a multiplicity of capacities, would be strictly regarded anything more than a system of the same, therefore, a compound, and what then must be deemed the significance of these capacities apart from this compound? But this may be left out of the present discussion.

Possibly one might think of seeking aid through the analogy of physics, by saying that the activity is still united to the capacity, latent, and becomes free through development under the coöperation of external conditions. To this suggestion we