I belonged to the committee of the Academy for editing the works of Kant and Leibniz, and, after the death of Dilthey and later Erdmann, I had to direct the work temporarily. I considered it lucky that during these years Kant's correspondence was finished -- [p. 413] the end of the long labor of editing his works -- and an effective start was made on Leibnitz' works, which became possible quite contrary to our expectations. In the preface I recalled the enthusiastic words of Boutroux, the former director of the French Leibnitz Commission, which stand in sharp contrast to the present exclusion of Germany from international scientific enterprises, and I expressed the hope that the spirit of Leibnitz would sometime come again into its own. It gave me great pleasure that at the end I had to mention also my little native town of Wisentheid, where interesting Leibnitz documents had been found in the ducal Sch�born archives.
I cannot close this sketch of my life without mentioning that in 1921 I severed my connection with the Catholic Church. Although estranged for over fifty years, I had never formally withdrawn, being too well aware of the blessings our Church bestowed, nor had I any inclination to exchange my old confession of faith for any other. But the behavior of the officiating priest at the funeral of one of my brothers (he considered it necessary to apologize for standing at this grave, because the deceased, whose noble human qualities he later on felt constrained to praise duly, had not lived up to the regulations of the Church) induced me to take the decisive step. Though I am now non-denominational, as it were, I still confess myself with all my heart a disciple of. Christianity as the religion of love and mercy -- which needs no revaluation, but rather a higher appreciation -- and I hope that in some time to come the different denominations will meet in this spirit, if not for a complete reunion, at least for a closer approach, a reconciliation.
II. Views and Researches
The following part of this paper has two aims: in the first place, to elucidate the purpose, methods, and results of my printed works, and, at the same time, to fill out, to supplement them, by connecting passages, so that the reader may find not disconnected fragments, but an integral whole through which the component parts, in turn, may be discerned and understood. If my presentation should seem dogmatic or even superficial, I hope that the reader will realize that this is not my usual procedure, and furthermore will find more detailed proofs in my writings.
First of all, let me say that the general tenor of all my views reflects the initial inspiration received from Brentano. To mention [p. 414] all points of agreement and dissent would take us too far afield. But it may be noted that the agreements pertain more often to earlier than to the later form of his teaching.
�berweg (Austria) says, in the paragraph referring to Husserl, that I had started with Brentano, but later showed a closer approach to Husserl. That sounds as if Husserl's influence had changed my point of view in certain respects. This is, however, not the case. My deviations from Brentano's theories were the result of an internal, constant mental development. The pupils of Brentano naturally have many things in common in consequence of the same starting-point; many others, however, because of the necessity of changes, additions, and continuations simultaneously felt by those who proceed in the same direction.
1) Definition of Philosophy. However one may formulate the difference between mind and nature, everybody distinguished them in some manner. The philosopher, however, looks for what they have in common. Thus philosophy is primarily the science of things in general, or metaphysics, to which the gateway is epistemology. But that philosophers since olden times have generally regarded psychology as belonging to their proper field is due to the fact that psychic elements have been much more prominent than the physical in forming fundamental metaphysical conceptions. Therefore, it is to the point to define philosophy as the science of the most common laws of the psychical, and of the real, in general (or conversely). This is the only way in which we can justify the inclusion of logic, ethics, aesthetics, philosophy of law, pedagogy, and other branches in the domain of the philosophical sciences; the connecting link is always essentially psychology, which, therefore, must not forget -- absorbed in experimental detail -- the nobler phenomena of mental life which cannot be investigated in this manner and the great general questions.
2) History of Philosophy. Brentano's system of the four phases in which, so far, each of the three periods of philosophy since Thales has taken its course -- a growing phase, wherein theoretical interests and empirical methods predominate, a decline caused by the smothering influence of some popular philosophy of life, followed by a skeptical and, finally, a mystical reaction -- has always seemed to me a good key to the understanding of the development of philosophy, at least for antiquity and for modern times. In the Middle Ages the course [p. 415] was greatly modified by the influence of the Church and the authorized faith. Historical similarities or analogies are not laws of nature. Of course, the scheme cannot be applied blindly to all details (where would sophistry come in, for instance?), and "decline" does not mean that during such stages profound, ingenious, and important achievements were entirely lacking. Finally, we must not forget that classifications from many other points of view are possible, although I consider the methodological the most important.
My first effect was devoted to the history of philosophy: my treatise on Plato's Idea of the Good and his conception of God. I tried to eliminate the contradiction between that philosopher's personal religious attitude and his philosophical system which Zeller had maintained by re-establishing Aristotle's conception of ideas as entities intrinsically different from concrete objects, and at the same time proving the identity of God with the Idea of the Good. This latter theory, which, incidentally, is shared by Zeller, is generally admitted today; concerning the right conception of Ideas the strife continues. I still consider the realistic conception correct, and Gomperz, Winderband, and Apelt agree with me, while transcendental evanescence seems ingenious, but unhistorical. My presentation, it is true, assumed too much of a closed system, and paid too little attention to the changes conditioned through Plato's course of development, especially the deviations in his last works for which philological methods have now given us a more complete understanding.
Among my later works, the two concerning the ancient theory of music (1897) contain many detailed discussions of passages in the text which have some importance for the history of philosophy, but have apparently not been noticed by my colleagues,
Two decades later, after much experimental work, I wrote a treatise on Spinoza, not because of any special sympathy with his philosophizing, but rather because I thought that I might say something new concerning one of his main points, the parallelism of the attributes. I believe I have demonstrated that his theory, both in form and in thought, is fundamentally different from modern psychophysical parallelism and is only an outflow of the old Aristotelian-scholastic theory of the parallelism of acts and contents of consciousness. The second study discusses the infinite number of the attributes and endeavors to elucidate the terse suggestions of the philosopher [p. 416] and to carry them out, hypothetically at least, on the basis of the theory of parallelism; and to explain how the author, in spite of the vast number of objective attributes which constitute substance, could maintain their unity. A third study was to discuss the "geometrical method," and find for the first propositions of the Ethics, and their proofs which Leibnitz justly condemned, the unconscious assumptions which made them seem formally necessary to Spinoza himself. Criticism so far has approached too much from the outside. The tasks of interpreting most clearly Spinoza's extreme conceptualistic realism and at the same time his dependence on scholasticism we recommend to those who delight in logical studies.
The greatest methodologcal [sic] achievement in philosophy since Descartes I find not in Kant or Hegel, but (with Brentano) rather in Locke and Leibnitz, and to these I would add Berkeley. Even though phenomenalism and the polemics against general conceptions really rest upon a misunderstanding, still we find mistakes of this kind even in the greatest thinkers; Berkeley's clear and precise presentation, however, and the energy of his thinking place him even above Locke, who excels him only in versatility. That Leibnitz far excels his predecessors no one will deny today. Among the immediate predecessors of Kant's Kritik I was especially fascinated by Tetens, whose Philosophische Versuche quite justly has been called the German counterpart of Locke's Essay. During my sojourn in Halle I suggested to Schlegtendahl and St�rring their analysis of this work, and later I myself devoted a treatise to his theory of relations (Psychol. u. Erkenntnistheorie, Anhang 2). The spirit of unprejudiced and thorough research has probably never been so vitally effective in any other German philosopher before Lotze.
Kant's intellectual and ethical greatness is revealed above all in his re-establishing in full force the idea of necessity and its complement, the conception of duty. But, while he is still caught by one foot in the hypercriticism, he is already standing with the other in the speculative dogmatism of the subsequent period. Both tendencies, but especially the latter with its constructive mania, I cannot possibly consider worthy of imitation as the ideal form of philosophizing. Kant and the critical philosophy I have discussed repeatedly, and the post-Kantians have been taken up in my treatise Wiedergeburt der Philosophie. But whether we are already generally and definitely in a period of ascendency, I am inclined to [p. 417] doubt, as did Brentano in his last years. The numerous and varied beginnings, none of which rests upon each other, bear little resemblance to the systematic progress of true science. Even in psychology the disintegration has assumed dangerous forms; but here one may find some comfort, at least, in the Heraklitean dictum that struggle is the father of all things, since, after all, the foundation of established facts is steadily expanding.
The Tafeln zur Geschichte der Philosophie -- with the third edition of which Menzer assisted -- were designed for teaching purposes rather than as aids to historical research. They originated in Munich, when Prince Friedrich Karl of Hessia attended my lectures on logic, and I instructed him in the history of philosophy during our walks in the English garden. The scheme of lines, etc., pleased my colleagues none too well; but let it not be forgotten that it was designed for beginners.
3) Epistemology and Logic. These two disciplines are distinguished by the fact that epistemology pertains to the theoretical, and logic to the practical, the directions for testing and discovering the cognitions. Psychology, which treats of the processes of thinking and knowing, as such, besides other processes, is not basic for either of the two, but at the same time neither of them can dispense with it. By Kant's fundamental theses I demonstrated how the neglect of psychology always tells, but condemned also the psychologistic attempt to deduce the criteria of truth from the mechanism of psychic functions.
a) The origin of fundamental concepts (categories). To consider these as a priori would mean simply to cut the Gordian knot. We must try again and again to discover the original phenomena which form the foundation of their perception. Thus in regard to the thing-concept, or notion of substance, we may point out that in certain apperceptions we actually and directly perceive the close interpenetration of parts of a whole. Even in every sensory feeling the "attributes," quality, intensity, extension, etc., form not a sum, but a whole, the parts of which, in fact, are only subsequent abstractions. In the realm of psychic functions, intellectual and emotional functions, and indeed all simultaneous states of consciousness, are intimately connected (unity of consciousness) and are directly perceived as a unity. Hume's principle of research was, therefore, not incorrect, but he did not observe carefully enough, or [p. 418] he could not have defined substance as a bundle, but as a unity of qualities or conditions.
With the notion of cause he also stopped too soon. There are actually occurrences in which we can perceive not only a sequence but an inner nexus. Whoever follows closely a train of thought is in a certain fundamental mood (interest) which is causal, and we are aware of it as such; it conditions the retention of ideas and everything connected with these, their comparison, combination, etc. The fact is not that we become interested in something and that then, after our interest has passed, its effects appear, just as in nature effect follows cause; here we are dealing with an immanent and permanent causality, which is observable in itself. In the case of natural phenomena the idea of cause is merely a matter of transference, and this, although unavoidable, is of no use to the investigator who is interested only in the strictly lawful sequence of events.
The conception of necessity or lawfulness[2][1] may be conceived in its full force by realizing the content (expressed fact) of a priori, self-evident judgments like logical axioms and purely deductive propositions[3][2]. This conception, again, is transferred to nature.
Of course the conception of truth is also rooted in the realm of judgment. That is true which is convincing to us, either directly or indirectly; and that is false the opposite of which convinces us, either directly or indirectly. One can also say that truth (or untruth) is that quality of the contents of consciousness by virtue of which they compel appreciation (or aversion) by purely objective standards. Here everything depends on the conception of self-evidence, which one might fairly call the fundamental conception of Brentano. Just what this means we must experience through such self-evident judgments as 2 x 2 = 4; it cannot be further reduced or defined. Self-evidence and truth are correlative conceptions; the former is, so to speak, the subjective aspect of truth, whereas truth itself is something objective, i.e., independent of the individual act of consciousness, a function of that which is conceived, not of the conceiving subject. All positivistic theories of truth, pragmatism not [p. 419] excepted, move in a circle. Only as maxims of thought, economy, and usefulness are they still to be encouraged.
Actuality or reality means effectiveness. Therefore, the conditions of our own mind are first of all given to us as real. For here, as I said above, we have a direct experience of causality. If we were not internally active, we should have no consciousness of reality. In the second place, we recognize as real "outside" objects (psychic as well as physical) in so far as we observe their effect on us. Whoever calls divinity the "most real being" conceives it simultaneously as the original cause. General laws, on the other hand, are true but not real because they are not effective.
b) The means of knowledge. We recognize a priori, by pure reason, laws deduced from bare concept and from self-evident propositions. Such insight involves no determinations of fact, wherefore it is most fittingly expressed in hypothetical propositions. In the case of mathematics, which is immediately relevant here, the a priori character of its truths is to be maintained even at the present time. If there are three geometries, each according to some assumed curvature of space (viz., of spacial forms), then each one is a priori, in its own right, and only its applicability to objective space is a matter of experience.
A priori cognitions issue not only from mathematical notions, but from any conception whatever, and such cognitions may add to our knowledge. The mere conception of two tones includes their conditions as to pitch, strength, time, duration, etc., which may be asserted of this or of any other similar pair of tones. The mere conception of three tones of different pitch implies a definite relational order according to which one must be placed between the other two. The conception of a tone series arranged according to pitch contains the possibility of its continuation ad infinitum, which obviously cannot be proved by experience (see Tonpsychologie).
Such propositions, however, are not strictly synthetic, since they are understood not only by means of our concepts but about them, if the relations (conditions) are counted as part of the subject-matter. At any rate, we must ask how such analytical judgments as extensions of knowledge are possible. To answer this question, we need to find, among other data, the simplest and most general directly perceptible relations for this process and a theory of their apprehension. We have the beginning of such a general theory of relations, but it is still in need of verification and elaboration. The [p. 420] a priori judgments themselves cannot thereby become more convincing, but their epistemological structure and significance may become more comprehensible.
Facts as well as laws are recognized (experienced) a posteriori. The instantaneously given sensory contents and our own psychic functions are directly experienced, whereas their implications are experienced indirectly. The conclusions concerning an outside world independent from consciousness, and concerning the laws controlling it, have the form of probable inductions. The only way in which we can subordinate the phenomena of the mind to definite laws, such as warrant predictions, is by assuming an outside world, strictly subordinate to causal law, in which our bodies with their sensory and motor organs and other more or less similar psychophysical substances exist as parts of the whole. In place of this vast hypothesis, which includes an assumption of the validity of the causal law[4]4, there seem to be two other possibilities: first, to assume single cosmic power (Berkeley), and, secondly, to posit an unconscious "productive power of imagination" within us (Fichte). But if one attempts seriously to develop these theories, they merge into that of the outer world. For, in order to derive explanations and predictions, one must attribute to the supposed agent as many parts as elementary particles of matter one has to assume for the other theory, and must also suppose the same laws to hold among these parts.
For the na�ve, unscientific consciousness, of course, the belief in the outside world is no hypothesis and no product of reflection, but is connected instinctively with the sensuous phenomena. But that outside world is immeasurably different from the scientific universe.
The enormous significance of mathematical probability for the formation of hypotheses, which differs from the "philosophical" only in degree, was also recognized and emphasized by Brentano. But, since it has been repeatedly claimed that application of the conception of probability already includes presuppositions concerning the outside world and the laws of causality, I have devoted a special monograph to this question, and believe I have demonstrated that this is not the case. So-called probability a posteriori, too, as it results from the [p. 421] law of large numbers, does not include any such presupposition, and it is superfluous to look for a physical mechanism which forces events to yield to this law. The principle of objective "leeways," as von Kries employs it, taken in a wide sense (i.e., as including not merely spacial or temporal but also logical leeways, or disjunctions) seems to me to lead to the same conception. The calculation of probability is, therefore, purely a priori, deduced from the mere concept of probability. In logic it has not as yet been duly recognized. It is indispensable in the development of a comprehensible theory of induction. At the same time, the absolute impossibility of popular empiricism becomes apparent; for according to this view every inductive conclusion is based not only on facts but also on an a priori foundation. We can, therefore, agree with Kant not only in maintaining the conception of absolute necessity but also in assuming that nature is a product of the intellect, though indeed not quite in the sense or according to the principles of the Kritik der Urteilskraft.
The laws derived from experience are not, however, exclusively causal laws. We must also distinguish empirical laws of structure or substance. In both cases we have abbreviated procedures in which major terms are assumed as sufficiently well established. In the former case we thus assume the general law of causality, in the latter, such regularities as chemistry, for instance, has established with regard to the co-existence of certain properties.
Concerning my own attitude toward some of the principles of logic, I will say the following: I have always maintained Brentano's sharp distinction of judgment from mere conception, but the treatment of all judgments or assertions as existential judgments and the consequent revolution of the syllogistic theory I did not accept, later on, mainly because I, like Meinong, could not conceive of universal affirmative judgments as negations.
The conception of Schverhalte, the "state of affairs," which is being more and more widely used (Selz, K�lpe, and others), was introduced by Brentano, who was fully aware of its import. I have merely replaced his term, "content of judgment," by that which is current at present, and which, in fact, I used for the first time in my lecture on logic in Halle in 1888.
To the significance of fictions for scientific research I have always devoted a special paragraph in my logic, but have never treated them as more than a sort of scaffolding which is removed after use.
The old question of the most fitting division of the sciences I have [p. 422] discussed in a special article, not on account of unimportant points of form, but because of relevant factual researches in epistemology. I was especially eager to re-establish the old distinction between natural science and mental science, which is based on differences of subject-matter. I am pleased to find Becher, in his exhaustive work, siding with me.
c) Philosophy of nature. The admirable development of physics and chemistry, which form the most general foundations of our conceptions of nature, has always followed the above-mentioned course. Sensory phenomena always were and still are their starting-points, but their subject-matter has become more and more the objective world. They approach it by way of hypotheses which most daringly draw even the objective nature of space and time into its domain. That these cannot be really as they seem to us, even the most obvious analysis reveals. Space I should define as that property of the concrete world which enables us to take measurements of a geometric type, and time as that which allows of change and of the commensurability of changes. It must be admitted that change itself cannot be defined without time; the two concepts simply are correlative. The concept of objective time contains no notion of past, present, or future. This is a noteworthy fact which enables us to treat time as a fourth dimension of space in mathematical physics; this treatment, in my opinion, is simply a mathematical device in which the special character of time in relation to the other three dimensions finds expression in the formula itself.
We need not elaborate upon the fact that the transition from the mechanical to the electromagnetic conception of nature falls within the methodological domain we have outlined. The hypothesis of an external world has not suffered any restriction of its explanatory powers. Any assumption is physically useable if it is free from contradiction and allows of quantitative predictions by which it can be tested. The common-sense conception of spatial movements is the most obvious one to attempt, but it holds no specially privileged position.
The transition from action at a distance to contiguous causation, however, was epistemologically inescapable. I do not know how physical causality could be unambiguously expressed, except as follows: "If, between two contiguous substances, there exist definite combinations of conditions, then in both occurs a change in which [p. 423] the new conditions on each side are connected with the old ones on the other side, and every change depends upon the occurrence of such combinations of conditions." (This formula is easily expanded so as to apply also to psychophysical interaction.) This means that all action is really interaction, but also that there is no direct interaction of everything with everything, but that only contiguous substances can interact with each other. Thus atoms or electrons, without which physics and chemistry are unthinkable at present, cannot affect one another in empty space, but only through the mediation of some ether, which I consider, therefore, an indispensable postulate of atomism.
The introduction, of the notion of Gestalt into physics, such as W. K�hler demands in his ingenious book on physical forms, seems to meet with certain difficulties from this point of view, for the law of interaction will always compel the physicist to pursue the course of an effect from particle to particle, whereas the psychologist in describing the facts of consciousness may emphasize the priority of the whole over the parts.
The difference between the living and the non-living seems to me to lie in the immensely complicated structure of even the simplest organisms, or germs. The complicated mechanical conditions under which the physico-chemical forces work, if properly analyzed, will probably suffice to explain (except perhaps for certain psychical reactions) the processes of nutrition and reproduction. Science cannot admit the existence of forces which act now in a certain way, and now in another, perhaps the very opposite, as it was assumed formerly with the old Life Force, von Hartmann's Unconsciousness, and Pauly's psychovitalistic factors. Neither do terms like entelechy or dominants tend to improve matters. On the other hand, it seems not impossible, but in fact quite plausible, that the well-known conscious psychic conditions such as pleasure and pain, emotions, and volitions act as stimuli for nervous processes. Psychovitalism in this empirically controllable form would probably have been admitted even by Lotze, who was the keenest opponent of the old Life Force. E. Becher's interesting evolutionary "principle of exploitation," for instance, probably rests on some such foundation.
The philosopher, however, is more interested in the still more general problem of teleology than in vitalism. The innumerable intricately arranged particles, which even a unicellular creature presents (its environment must also be considered, since organisms without [p. 424] a definite inorganic setting are unthinkable), effect united life-sustaining processes. The problem is, as Galiani truly says, one of mathematical probability. Every such complex is just one particular case among innumerable other possibilities, ateleological, senseless arrangements of the same atoms, which in themselves are just as possible. It is, therefore, a priori most improbable, and although it is empirically given, it calls for an hypothesis to dispel the improbability. The doctrine of evolution solves many riddles, just this one it leaves unsolved. For, if the present forms have developed in uninterrupted regular causality from certain initial conditions, then these initial conditions, however simple, again must be particular cases of the same degree, since to each of the now imaginable ateological combination belongs a different initial condition from which through the agency of the same natural forces, it necessarily had to develop. The problem of purpose, therefore, is only pushed back by the doctrine of evolution. This holds also in case the world process has gone on since eternity, for the mathematical ratio of the actual cases to the other possible ones remains the same. Some ordering principle is, therefore, logically necessary. If we call this principle an Intelligence permeating the world, we are already using an expression which belongs to a special realm, though it be the highest realm known to us. But if we realize the inadequacy of any conception and the impenetrable mystery of this primeval being, then this last step is perfectly in keeping with the spirit of scientific thinking.
4) Psychology and the Philosophy of the Mind. The separation of natural sciences and mental science is based on the fundamental differences of sense data and psychic functions, or of the respective contents of external (sensuous) and internal (psychological) perception. Phenomena and functions are directly presented to us in closest connection, but they are essentially different. Observation of the functions is the foundation of the mental sciences, which, however, are no more tied to their point of departure than are the natural sciences. Just as the latter proceed to the construction of the material outer world, so the former seek to understand the nature of psychic forces in general and the resulting actions and phenomena in terms of that inner life which alone is given to our observation. Psychology occupies the same place among the mental sciences as physics among the sciences of nature.
The investigation of sensory phenomena as such, which at the [p. 425] present time occupies such an important place, is not really psychology but simply phenomenology, a kind of prescience equally pursued by physicists, physiologists, and psychologists. Psychologists especially have taken it up because it offered a chance for exact experimental investigation and an opportunity to test the laws governing the psychic functions involved. I also have devoted most of my time to phenomenological preparatory work, but my real aim has always been to understand the functions.
a) On phenomenology. The statement that there are no simple sensations (phenomena) seems to me a decided exaggeration. We cannot observe tones without observing them, but this need not necessarily change them. According to all that we know about attention, it enhances its objects and favors their apprehension. Therefore, I see no cause for the barren skepticism of that popular objection, just as I cannot agree with the ambiguous statement of the "relativity" of sensations. Still, in my Tonpsychologie, I took my departure not from sensations but from "sensory judgments" prefaced by an investigation of the conditions of reliability, because sensations are given to us merely as contents of apperceptions which may be false or unreliable. Experimental psychophysics thus becomes a quantitative science of judgments. Among the sensory judgments, I distinguished the direct and indirect, and was opposed to the mania for introducing everywhere indirect criteria which are merely side impressions. Further, I distinguished judgments of sensations and of sensory distances. Another thesis which I did and still do maintain is that relations among the sensations can be directly perceived in and by the sensations themselves. We cannot hear the relation between two tones, but we can notice it, and to notice is to perceive.
One of the main questions of phenomenology, it seems to me, is that of the attributes (fundamental qualities) of the sensations. Even in my book on space, the very center of my argument is the conception of the "psychological parts," i.e., of the dependent or partial contents which cannot be represented separately, because of their very nature, but can only represent independent modes of change in the total sensation. Husserl has developed these observations further in the conceptual direction. I discussed this also in my treatise on the attributes of visual sensation, but dropped the term "psychological parts" as inappropriate. In this paper I tried to preserve for the visual sensations the attribute of intensity, which is generally denied them at present. Quality, brightness, intensity, [p. 426] and extension seem to be inherent in all sensations, although in different degrees. In another main issue which was raised by Aristotle, namely, the question as to the unity or complexity of simultaneous and coincident impressions upon the same sense, I decided for complexity in the case of tone, and unity in the case of color; and rejecting all forced analogies, I have insisted upon the essential differences between these two senses with respect to their proper laws.
In the realm of tones, we must, first of all, determine the properties of simple tones, i.e., of those which are produced by vibrations of the sinus, since these, according to our experience, cannot by practice or attention be analyzed subjectively or dissected into parts, and, therefore, promise best for constant results. For their unfailing production I introduced the destruction of the overtones by interference tubes, demonstrating also that a sounding body responds only to a tone of approximately the same pitch and not to any fraction of it, as many physicists, following Wheatstone, formerly taught, and even Wundt tried to demonstrate by special experiments. In this way we gained a convenient device for analyzing tones or sounds, and it was found that tone sources, considered so far as simple, were still quite complex. In consequence of these developments, Rudolf K�nig's famous series of observations with electromagnetic forks and the wave-siren, for instance, lost their point, which was directed against Helmholtz.
My views on the fundamental qualities of simple tones have changed since the Tonpsychologie, as I now recognize the "musical quality" recurring from one octave to the other, besides the "pitch," which simply runs parallel with the vibration figures, i.e., I accept the former as an equally original element in the individual development. This quality I discussed in detail in the Tonpsychologie, believing at that time that it could be treated as a by-product of the fusion of the octave tones, though of course, I have always recognized it as a fact.
The differences of fusion, which are now generally admitted in psychology, are also an old inheritance. They were known in part even to the Greek theorists. But even before I was aware of this fact, I discovered them at the piano during my sojourn in Prague, and later proved them by statistical evidence obtained from unity judgments of unmusical subjects. The differences appearing here in the figures of the unity judgments have afterwards been confirmed again and again.
[p. 427] Because of the importance of these differences for the theory of consonance, I was interested also in cases where they do not occur, namely, at the highest pitch and in the shortest tone impressions. This led me to my studies on the determination of the vibration-rate of very high tones through their difference-tones. This method showed that Appunn's tuning-fork series, then in general use, were marked with an absurdly high pitch. In the case of extremely short tone-impressions, it was shown that, instead of the musical intervals, only the distances were judged. Maltzew later obtained similar results for very high, hyper-musical pitch.
The fundamental phenomenon of music, namely, consonance, I defined in terms of fusion, and believe to have demonstrated at least the inadequacy of other definitions, including that of Helmholtz, and the falsity of the dualistic theories of consonance of Riemann and von �ttingen. I distinguished, however, between consonance and concordance, of which the latter is not a purely sensory quality of tones but depends on the introduction of consonant triads as the basic elements of our system of music. The rational motive for the construction of triads seemed to me to lie in finding, within the octave, the greatest number of tones consonant among themselves. This yields the division of chords into concords and discords and the foundation of the entire classical harmonies.
My views on the definability of consonance in terms of fusion have changed since then. I believe that we can recognize such elementary relations even in successive tones but that this fact can be explained only physiologically, not psychologically. Fusion, however, and consonance of simultaneous tones, now appear to me as consequences and not as causes of the relation. But the differences of fusion maintain, nevertheless, their great significance for the musical hearing and for the emotional effect of the intervals.
Massbestimmungen �ber die Reinheit konsonanter Intervalle was a study of "musical ear" performed partly on myself and partly on others. We determined certain deviations from the physically pure pitch, which appear to be based neither on the well-tempered nor on the Pythagorean pitch, but upon powerful, aesthetic motives and are most clearly marked in unusually musical people. Most striking was the constant elevation of the ascending octave in most simple tones by members of the Conservatory of Music, most of all by Joachim. In playing double tones on the violin, of course, it remains pure.
[p. 428] The article on subjective tones and double hearing compares observations made on myself in this field with entoptic phenomena in other fields which had so far been neglected. How subjective tones are to be fitted into the theory of hearing is still unknown; for this very reason an exact description of the circumstances of their occurrence seemed desirable, and I had only too much opportunity to collect material for it. The rare phenomenon of double hearing came to me as a sort of compensation after the operation of piercing my left tympanum.
In the tone-tables the formulae for calculation of intervals have a fair claim to more than immediate interest, as they serve for correct computations and predictions quite apart from the particular ratios presented, a fact which has some significance even for metaphysics.
The main outline of the purely physical treatise concerning compound wave-forms dates from the W�rzburg period, when I still entertained doubts of Helmholtz's alleged analysis by means of the cochlea, wherefore the qualities of compound vibrations, as such, seemed important to me. But the very fact that the natural classes of these vibration forms do not appear at all in the phenomena of sound themselves is new evidence for Helmholtz's hypothesis. Many questions discussed in this connection, as the definition of the period in such wave forms, have since interested even physicists.
In the monograph on combination-tones it seemed important to describe as fully as possible the phenomena and laws of this most difficult subject, where only well-trained observers and co-observers can be used as subjects. The derivation of these tones from the properties of the membranous parts of the organ of hearing is now a task for physiologists.
I made many observations on the subject of beats (inter-tone, etc.). The fact that these may sometimes be obviated, by holding one of the tuning forks to one ear and the other fork to the other ear, whereas the discord remains, gave me in 1875 the first decisive proof against Helmholtz's theory of consonance. In other connections, too, I have frequently found the phenomena of dichotomous hearing instructive.
Contrary to the common theory of non-spatial property of tone sensations, I claimed place-criteria for both ears and differences of volume for high and low tones. The possibility of locating correctly in a few minutes -- without moving the head -- up to ten tones simultaneously [p. 429] heard (Baley) can be explained only by such immanent place-criteria. Von Hornbostel and Wertheimer are known to have made further surprising discoveries concerning the power of localization through the ear; the former has now extended his investigation to the acoustic perception of distance.
The analysis of vowels, sounds of speech in general, and the synthesis of vowels based upon these, constituted the subject-matter of my last experimental investigation, wherein extensive interference tests played a leading r�le. I postulated three initial conditions for the synthesis: a large number of prefectly [sic] simple tones, a delicate and constant regulation of the volume of each tone, and a guarantee of the naturalness of the vowels, obtained by unconscious tests. The results have been reported in several articles, and a book containing all of them is almost completed. For general phenomenology those views are particularly relevant which deal with the so-called "complex qualities," and are the result of all these observations. My experiments proved Helmholtz's much-discussed foundation of the theory of vowels to be correct. For most of the consonants, too, the pitch could be determined, and analysis was possible up to a certain point. Furthermore, the same methods of analysis and synthesis could be applied to musical instruments. The results of the experiments with sounds of speech have not only been included in textbooks of physiology, but have also been applied by aurists, and by telephone and radio experts, who thereby have confirmed them.
The laws governing the relation of the sensations to outside stimuli, namely, the law of specific energies and Fechner's law, also figure in my work. I believe that the difficulty of conception of Fechner's law may be solved by its interpretation for distances of sensation (a viewpoint reached independently by Delboeuf, Hering, Ebbinghaus, and myself), and by the fact that in regard to pitch a striking confirmation of it, or analogy with it, was found in the Asiatic musical scales with equal intervals (Siam and Java), which depend not on tonal relations but on judgments of distance. This formulation is, of course, not intended as an explanation, but only as a psychologically correct expression of the law. The physiological derivation which is currently accepted I consider correct, at least in regard to intensities.
I also count space among the attributes of phenomena. This view, which means that color is impossible without extension just as extension is impossible without some quality, that, therefore, even [p. 430] the very first visual sensations must somehow appear spatial (nativism) has almost completely replaced the empiricism of Lotze's time. Muscular sensations, which had been identified with spatial ideas or were considered at least as their indispensable conditions, must be content to play a humbler part. Only the third dimension, which obviously is not so well represented in our intuition, is still struggling. The three syllogisms of my book on space I can, indeed, no longer approve in their given form; they were really only meant to be descriptions of that which we find in our ideas of space, in the way of necessary properties of depth. Some other things in this part of the book no longer hold true. But I should like to point out that I have never conceived of spatial sensations as depending directly, and only, on the stimulus but have always emphasized concomitant effects of central factors, as, for instance, in the case of visual size.
For the notion of time I retained Brentano's original conception, that it depends on continued existence, with a subjective backward relegation of all mental contents, during a short period of time. These "continued" contents, however, seem to me non-perceptual; which is of especial importance in the much-discussed question of the comparison of successive data.
The question as to the difference between mere conception and sensation, finally, is another problem of phenomenology. Purely sensory ideations -- this was the result of my thorough investigation -- are phenomena of the second order, which differ from those of the first order, mainly by their very inferior vividness and fullness, as well as by some other characteristics.
In so far as they rest upon associative causes, the laws of their origin (reproduction) may be brought under the formula of "contiguity" or "complementation," besides which no special law of similarity is necessary. It may be questioned, however, whether reproduction ever takes place in a purely mechanical manner, or whether there are always certain functional activities involved. Moreover, there is a purely physiological type of reproduction without associative causes, which is not surprising, considering the fundamental indifference of sensation and ideation. In dreams this type is probably predominant.
b) Psychology in the narrower sense. The elementary psychic functions or states are characterized by definite fundamental properties: (a) by the peculiar relation between action and content whereby [p. 431] the content may consist of sensory phenomena, but also of non-perceptual elements or even of functions); (b) by the lack of spatial properties in self-observations (although they doubtless occur in objective space); (c) by specific laws of structure. Among themselves they possess many qualitative differences, and it is quite hopeless to try to trace them back to one fundamental function, as sensualism and voluntarism aim to do. In the first place, the intellectual and emotional functions are distinct, and within each of these divisions there is a hierarchy of functions such that each member subsumes the preceding: in the intellectual sphere we have perceiving (distinguishing), combining, conceiving, judging; in the emotional realm, the passive and active emotions. These as a whole are based in turn on certain intellectual functions, to which, however, they are added as new non-deducible material. All these relations present a picture of various structure, whose peculiarities have not yet been fully described. Not the least of Brentano's merits lies in the fact that he realized the importance of this task and accomplished a large part of it. Among his pupils, Marty, Meinong, and Husserl especially have worked along the same line. Lotze, before Brentano, called attention to the peculiar structure of the functions of consciousness, especially that of "relational thinking." After Brentano, though probably not at his suggestion, Dilthey emphatically advocated a structural psychology. His interests and achievements, however, were distinguished rather by a delicate and sympathetic understanding of psychic connections in general, of the spiritual history of individuals or of groups, than by close analysis of elementary psychic structures -- "microscopic psychology," as Brentano used to call it.
My treatise concerning the concept of emotion was directed mainly against the sensualistic definition of James and Lange, while, in my work on sensory perception I treat the sensuous feelings as genuine sensory phenomena. The later thesis I had to defend against misunderstandings. It is not really as revolutionary as it seemed to some people; quite aside from the fact it was simply a restatement of an older theory, which has long been known to psychologists, especially in England, I did not deny the close instinctive connection of this class of sensations with acts of pleasure and displeasure, of desire and disgust, but had emphasized it everywhere and for this very reason had chosen the expression "feeling-sensations." The only exaggeration was the incidental statement that expressions such as [p. 432] "pain" or "pleasure" (referring to physical causes) denote mere sense data. In everyday life their meaning generally includes those instinctive emotions.
Through the entire mental life of man we perceive a dividing line which separates, in every domain, the higher from the lower functions; this dividing line is posited with the occurrence of general concepts. No matter how many attempts have been made to identify these with individual conceptions, the results cannot bear critical examination. Of course, to describe their effectiveness in shortening the process of thinking, etc., is not the same as to analyze their character -- just as the physiology and anatomy of the lung are two different matters. Among emotional functions the affective and volitional processes presuppose certain concepts, just as logical thinking does among the intellectual functions. Wishing is the desire for something which is conceived somehow as valuable and as a consequence of my momentary affective state. Both conceptions, that of value and that of causality, in their more general and most primitive form, are discovered through our inner perception of the lower cravings which are prior to volition. The will, therefore, cannot be a primitive element, but only an evolutionary product of the intellectual life.
In the animal world we seem to see pretty clearly of what mental life is capable without conceptual thinking -- and it is a good deal. But no a priori prejudice would detain me from admitting the beginnings of higher functions, if the facts sustained such a theory. But in that case, too, the first traces of conceptual thinking would have to be taken as something specifically novel. Although the physical development of the "new brain" may progress continuously, its psychic counterpart cannot proceed without some discontinuity. But then nature does take a leap occasionally, probably even in the physical field (quanta, heterogenesis, mutations), certainly in the psychophysical, where even the appearance of every kind of sensory quality doubtless represents such a leap. And does not the most miraculous leap occur every time the physical process of conception and embryonic development give rise to psychical life? The discontinuities are merely hidden and toned down, as it were, by the fact that the new phenomena appear at first in such tiny beginnings; but qualitatively there is a new thread in the tissue. This does not affect the inherently determinate evolution of the world.
Among the fundamental problems of general psychology, the question of unconscious mind is still one of the most urgent. Unconscious [p. 433] functions, strictly speaking, have not been proved by any arguments so far produced. On the other hand, there certainly are unconscious predispositions, such as all psychic activities leave behind. Besides, I consider unconscious or, better, unnoticed partial contents of the phenomena possible and real. They form the lower boundary line of the various degrees of being noticed; often the slightest intensification of attention will suffice to notice them. When we separate functions and phenomena, there is no fundamental difficulty in this theory.
If we admit unnoticed partial contents, we shall have no difficulty in defining the character of our perception of Gestalt, upon which certain young scientists of my acquaintance, who have done commendable work in studying its laws, would like to base, it seems, not only the whole of psychology but even logic itself.
I make a distinction between psychic functions and psychic structures, which latter constitute the specific contents of the former. Thus, from summarizing I distinguish the notion; from judging, the state of affairs; from conceptional thinking, the conceptual content; and from feeling and desiring, the passive and active value. These elements have, of course, no independent reality, like Platonic ideas, but still I should not call them fictions as does O. Kraus, who takes Brentano's later writings for his authority; that expression seems to me dangerous, and liable to being misunderstood, since it admits of a skeptical, subjectivistic, or relativistic interpretation. Structures form the starting-point and subject-matter of the science which I call eidology.
By soul I understand a unity of psychic functions and dispositions, and agree with Lotze in deeming it unnecessary to seek behind this unity a mediating or supporting "something." Since a strong will draws everything into its domain, and since those functions and dispositions which are connected with the will, and especially with the moral will, play the leading r�le in the life of the adult, the will is justly considered the nucleus of personality; and this seems to me to be the element of voluntarism. The will is not the root of evolution, but its crown.
If I wanted to draw a distinction between soul and mind, I should use the latter term for the totality of the higher life of the soul. Throughout the animal kingdom, we find embryonic stages of those social elements in language, art, community life, etc., which are based on the cooperation of individuals, and are the subject-matter of the [p. 434] special mental sciences; but here, again, the transition is not continuous and the novelty, in the last analysis, is always a product of conceptual thinking. In Anf�nge der Musik I have tried to establish this fact more concretely within that art. The possibility of sympathetic "re-experience" (Nacherleben), upon which the entire structure of "insight-psychology" is based, arises only upon the level of strictly human developments. Any expert in intellectual history will insist on the reality of certain laws, though these may not be given in the precise form of natural laws, and I should even admit Hegel's triadic rhythm to have some plausibility in this connection.
5) Ethics. My views and ideas on this subject I developed almost entirely in lectures, but in my address on ethical skepticism I suggested the main points. Like Brentano, I see an analogy between the way our notions of intrinsic goodness or value are based on the apodeixis of feeling and the way our theoretical understanding rests on the apodeixis of self-evident propositions. The empirical derivation of altruism from egotism is entirely wrong. Our theory differs from hedonism, even altruistic hedonism, in that we recognize certain primary values beside pleasure, and from Kant's ethics in that we repudiate purely formal conditions. Truth, positive emotions (especially aesthetic), and kindheartedness (dispositions directed towards true values) are intrinsic values. One could find a comprehensive learned formula for this, but only at the expense of definiteness, and therefore it is impractical. A series of derived, but still very general, values, such as power, liberty, honor, etc., complete the "table of goods" (G�tertafel), which is not so very different from the Platonic table. Only such an ethics of goods or values can be developed logically in detail and also do justice to the actual changes of ethical evaluation by changing the coefficients, as it were, by which the abstract (absolute) values must be multiplied under different circumstances and conditions of life, in order to obtain the concrete (relative) values. This is essentially what must take place in every case of individual moral or ethical decision. The modification of abstract values for any concrete case depends upon certain perspectives, and these are assumed in our ethical reflection. The highest good or happiness (eudaemonism of the ancients) is in abstracto the totality of intrinsic values, in concreto, the totality of genuine goods which are possible under the given conditions of life for the individual and, furthermore, for humanity in general, including extrinsic goods as well. The conception of the transcendental ideal (the
[p. 435] Platonic idea of the good) can, of course, be derived only from empirically given true values by a process of augmentation. The question of egotism-altruism is solved thus: everything truly good is worthy of attainment in and for itself, under any condition, so that in each individual case not the point of view of ego or alter but only the greatest possible intensive and extensive realization should be decisive. Ethical action is purely objective action, as scientific cognition is purely objective judgment.
With regard to the free-will problem, it seems to me that the interests of ethics, for which alone it has any significance, are quite compatible with a determinism which considers ethical insight itself as a power to be developed by training and self-control. Freedom becomes synonymous with the possession of ethical insight, and is, therefore, not given once and for all, but evolves and grows with the whole ethical personality. Legal punishment recognizes free will only in this sense.
6) Metaphysics. Metaphysics can be fruitfully developed only from the ground up, as a continuation of sciences whose data it undertakes to generalize still further. Apart from the problems it inherits from the lower sciences, it is chiefly concerned with the relation of the physical to the psychical and the ultimate questions of God and immortality which everyone who would be called a philosopher must answer after his fashion, and from the life-long consideration of which even a dogmatic critical philosophy should not detain him.
Against the parallelistic point of view concerning body and soul, which was so popular with psychologists and physiologists in the last third of the past century, and was presented especially by Fechner in a most brilliant and fascinating manner, I have taken sides with the older theory of interaction, which merely requires sounder rational development; and recently this has gained ground again, even among the pupils of Wundt and Erdmann. The objections derived from the law of energy are easily answered, while the experiments of Rubner and Atwater can be fitted just as well into the theory of interaction. Parallelism is conceptionally obscure, and in view of the difference in structure of the physical and psychical it cannot be developed logically and compels us to assume a causal series extending forward and backward, for which there is not the slightest empirical evidence. It logically ends in panpsychism, which I can look upon only as a scientific fancy, and even so of doubtful charm. For [p. 436] nature is imbued with poetry only if we animate it with human spirit. However, the two opposing factions have converged in large measure, which is due partly to the greater refinement of the conception of substance and causality, partly under the stress of the facts; I dare even hope for a union of the two, in the not too distant future, toward a "monism of interaction and evolution." The metaphysician may also consider Spinoza's idea that besides the two attributes known to us there are innumerable other expressions of the world foundation, either in existence or in process of evolution. But here, of course, difficulties will arise out of the very idea.
The similarity of the qualities of the final particles of matter and the interaction between all contiguous parts of the world, or of interpenetrating parts (such as nerve-centers and psychic elements), cannot be accepted as ultimate facts of the world, if the above-mentioned maxims of research, e.g., the law of probability, are to hold good. A homogeneous world principle must supply the foundations of all things, and from the very first one is inclined to identify it with the spiritual ordering principle postulated for the organic world. The conflict between theism and pantheism loses its edge when we ask what the real meaning of causality, substantiality, and personality is, and what they may still signify here. What remains is the eternal dependence of every individual upon a fundamental essence, but as to the manner of being conditioned and as to the fundamental essence nothing more can be found out. Even the conception of spirituality we can understand only in a "transcendent" sense.