of organs the artificer handles, but does not literally order, his tools—as if they too were intelligent. The conscious direction of such movements is doubtless facilitated by the fact that many of the complex co-ordinations actually involved in them are carried out automatically, thanks to structural modifications, either inherited or acquired. And, regarding life phylogenetically, we can imagine this process carried back indefinitely. Indeed, if it be illogical to talk of mechanisms evolving themselves and giving rise to the beings whose ends they serve, we have no choice but to accept this dualism of mind-shaping and matter inert. No choice, that is, unless we can establish the primacy of the psychological standpoint. Here we have duality but not dualism, and the object is not inert, i.e. is not matter. But still there remain two difficulties—possibly resolvable into one—the plasticity already referred to as involved in all biological development and hereditary transmission; as to these, psychology is almost wholly in the dark.[1]
Authorities.—Historical: There are few good works on the history of psychology; the only one in English, R. Blakey, History of the Philosophy of Mind from the Earliest Period to the Present Time (London, 1848), is poor. F. A. Carus's Geschichte der Psychologie (Leipzig, 1808) is at least useful for reference. A work bearing the same title by H. Siebeck (the first art consisting of two divisions—(i.) Die Psychologie von Aristoteles, (ii.) Die Psychologie von Aristoteles bis zu Thomas von Aquino (Gotha, 1880 and 1884) is thoroughly and carefully done. Siebeck has also contributed a series of articles, “Zur Psychologie der Scholastik,” to the Archiv f. d. Gesch. d. Philos. (vols. i.-iii.). Die Philosophie in ihrer Geschichte (I. Psychologie), by Professor Harms (Berlin, 1878), is also good. T. A. Ribot's La Psychologie anglaise contemporaine (3rd ed., 1892) and La Psychologie allemande contemporaine (2nd ed., 1885) are lucid and concise in style, though the latter work in places is superficial and inaccurate. Of Max Dessoir's Geschichte der neueren deutschen Psychologie the section dealing with the 17th-century writers prior to Kant went into a second edition in 1897; it contains a useful collection of material. From Les Origines de la psychologie contemporaine (2nd ed., 1908), by the neo-Thomist scholar Mgr. D. Mercier, much may be learnt, though its purpose is not primarily historical.
Positive: The recent output of systematic works on psychology has been voluminous. Among the most important of these may be mentioned J. Sully's The Human Mind (2 vols., 1892); W. James, Principles of Psychology (2 vols., 1890); G. F. Stout, Analytic Psychology (2 vols., 1896); A Manual of Psychology (2nd. ed., 1901); H. Höffding, Outlines of Psychology (1891; translated from the Danish); G. T. Ladd, Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory (1894); W. Wundt, Grundriss der Psychologie (4th ed., 1901, translated); F. Jodl, Lehrbuch der Psychologie (2 vols., 2nd ed., 1902). Dealing mainly with experimental psychology are: Külpe, Grundriss der Psychologie auf experimenteller Grundlage dargestellt (1893; translated); Ebbinghaus, Grundzüge der Psychologie (3rd ed., 1908), Bd. I.; and E. B. Titchener, Experimental Psychology: a Manual of Laboratory Practice (2 vols., 1901); C. S. Myers, Experimental Psychology (1908).
Of the older more advanced textbooks Professor Volkmann's Lehrbuch der Psychologie (2 vols., 3rd ed., 1885; edited by Cornelius) is written in the main from a Herbartian standpoint. To the honoured name of Lotze belongs a distinguished place in any enumeration of modern productions in philosophy; his Medicinische Psychologie (Göttingen, 1852) is still valuable. A large part of his Mikrokosmos (3 vols., 3rd ed., 1876-1880; trans. into English, 2 vols., 1885) and one book of his Metaphysik (2nd ed., 1884 also trans. into English) are, however, devoted to psychology. The doctrine of evolution has been as fruitful in this study as in other sciences that deal with life. In this respect Herbert Spencer's Principles of Psychology (2 vols., 3rd ed., 1881) and Data of Ethics (1879) occupy a foremost place. Dr Alexander Bain's standard volumes, The Senses and the Intellect (4th ed., 1894) and The Emotions and the Will (3rd ed., 1875), contain a good deal of “physiological psychology,” but no adequate recognition of the importance of the modern theory of development. Wundt's Physiologische Psychologie (3 vols., 6th ed., 1908 seq.) is indispensable to the student of this subject.
Specially interesting as treating psychological problems on new lines are La Psychologie des idées-forces, by A. Fouillée (2 vols., 1893)—perhaps the best French contribution to recent psychology; its cardinal point is the fundamentally dynamical character of the psychical. R. Avenarius, Kritik der reinen Erfahrung (2 vols., 1888-1890; 2nd ed., 1908), is an attempt, on the model of Kirchhoff and Mach's treatment of physics, to describe experience, taking the relation of the central nervous system to the environment as starting point. Its strange and forbidding terminology prevented the timely recognition of its merits; but since the author's death in 1896—from overwork and disappointment—quite a literature has grown up, partly expository, partly controversial; devoted to this latest critique. H. Cornelius, Psychologie als Erfahrungswissenschaft (1897), rather epistemological than psychological, claims affinity with the critiques of Kant and Avenarius. In J. Rehmke's Lehrbuch der allgemeinen Psychologie (2nd ed., 1905)—a psychology with a soul, and claiming to be philosophy as well—the problems of perception and of psychoneural interaction are discussed at length. F. Brentano, Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkte (1874), vol. i., treats presentations and judgments as fundamentally distinct, feeling and willing, on the other hand, as fundamentally one. His influence on Austrian psychologists has been considerable, and is more or less apparent in the following: K. Twardowski, Zur Lehre vom Inhalt und Gegenstand der Vorstellungen (1894); A. Meinong, Psychologisch-ethische Untersuchungen zur Werththeorie (1894), and also numerous important papers; v. Ehrenfels, System der Werththeorie (2 vols., 1897-1898); A. Höfler, Psychologie (1897).
Important as treating of particular topics are C. Stumpf, Tonpsychologie (2 vols., 1883-1890); A. Lehmann, Die Hauptgesetze des menschlichen Gefühlsleben (trans. from the Danish; 1892); various monographs by T. A. Ribot on diseases of memory, will, personality, on the psychology of attention, of the emotions, of general ideas, &c., all translated into English; J. M. Baldwin, Social and Ethical Interpretations in Mental Development (1897); W. Wundt, Völkerpsychologie (3 vols., 1900); W. McDougall, An Introduction to Social Psychology (1908).
There are several periodicals devoted exclusively to psychology, the chief being the American Journal of Psychology; the Psychological Review; Zeitschrift für Psychologie und Physiologie der Sinnesorgane; L'Année psychologique; the British Journal of Psychology; and Archiv für die gesammte Psychologie.
- (J. W.*)
PSYCHOPHYSICS (from Gr. ψυχή, soul, φύσις, nature), a department of psychology which deals with the physiological aspects of mental phenomena, and in particular investigates the quantitative relations between stimuli and the resultant sensations. Following the introspective school of which the last leader was Alexander Bain, the tendency of psychological investigation, in the hands of Fechner, Helmholtz, Wundt, Münsterberg, was predominantly psychophysical, and psychological study, especially in Germany, where the first fully-equipped laboratory was set up in Leipzig (1879) by Wundt, and in America became largely a matter of experiment and apparatus. Such apparatus has been devised for optical, acoustical, haptical (Gr. ἅπτειν, touch), taste and smell experiments. Haptical apparatus includes the kinesimeter (for cutaneous sensation), the thermaesthesiometer (for heat and cold sensation), the algometer or algesimeter (for pain sensations), the aesthesiometer (e.g. those of Jastrow and Münsterberg). Among important apparatus for measuring the time relations of mental processes are the d'Arsonval chronometer, which marks hundredths of a second, and the Hipp chronoscope, in which the stimulus and the clock are electrically connected.
For authorities see Baldwin's Dict. of Philos. and Psych. s.v. “Laboratory,” and the latest psychological textbooks.
PTARMIGAN (Lagopus mutus or alpinus), a gallinaceous bird akin to the grouse (q.v.). The word in Gaelic is tarmachan, which appears from the end of the 16th century in many forms, such as tormican, tarmichen, and even “termagant.”
PTERIA (mod. Boghaz Keui), the ancient capital of the “White Syrians” of Cappadocia, which Croesus of Lydia is stated by Herodotus to have taken, enslaved and ruined, after he had declared war on the rising power of Persia and crossed the Halys (after the middle of the 6th century B.C.). Thereafter he fought a drawn battle near the city, and retired again across the river to his ultimate defeat and doom. Pteria is mentioned by no other ancient authority, but it is of great interest if, as seems highly probable, (1) its “White Syrian” inhabitants were what we call “Hittites” (q.v.), or at least, participants in the “Hittite civilization”; (2) its remains are to be seen in the immense prehistoric city and remarkable rock-sculptures near Boghaz Keui in Cappadocia, about 100 m. east of Angora and beyond the Kizil Irmak (Halys). This is the chief “Hittite” site in Asia Minor, far superior in extent to either Euyuk or Giaur Kalesi, which seem to have been its dependencies, and a centre from which roads, marked by the occurrence of “Hittite” monuments, radiate towards Syria and the Aegean. Sir W. M. Ramsay has shown with great probability that it was the importance of Pteria and its bridge over the Halys which
- ↑ On the subject of comparative psychology generally, see Animal Behaviour (1900), by Professor C. Lloyd Morgan; L. T. Hobhouse, Mind in Evolution (1901).
