Part 28

To be sure, the work of Ziehen is very far from supplying all that the pedagogue needs. We have in this work a vast mass of valuable observations, which will have to be elaborated in a manner that accords with the needs of pedagogy, if this science is to derive any material profit from psychiatry. For the bibliography of this subject we shall refer the reader to a former correspondence of ours (_The Monist_ II, 103), and select at present for examination one province only,—a province which is deserving of especial consideration, inasmuch as the phenomena which occur in it are phenomena which most frequently confront the pedagogist, and are most likely to be overlooked by the untrained eye. We refer to the _psychopathic subsidiary phenomena_ of DR. KOCH, by which expression this author comprises all the psychical irregularities, be they natural or acquired, affecting the life of the human personality, which, though not even in the severest cases amounting to actual mental disorders, yet in the most favorable instances so affect the persons afflicted that they appear as lacking the full possession of mental normality and capacity. The second part of Koch’s work, mentioned in _The Monist_ in the place above cited, has just now appeared. (Ratisbon, 1892, Otto Maier). Having discussed in the first part of his work inherited and chronic psychopathic subsidiary phenomena, the author now proceeds to discuss acquired subsidiary factors, and holds out the prospect of a third part, on the appearance of which we shall have occasion again to discuss the entire work from a different point of view. For the present, only the pedagogic aspect of the question interests us. On many readers, Koch’s book must have made the impression,—to judge from his concluding remarks,—that the author shares Lombroso’s point of view, and to very many pedagogues such a position would be, from the very outset, a bad recommendation, for it would necessarily, in the very nature of the case, involve the pedagogue in great embarrassment, in the same way as it has involved the philosophical jurist. But embarrassment is no reason why we should close our ears to the truth, and if Lombroso should be right in all his teachings, pedagogy would also be obliged to accommodate its doctrines to his. Upon the whole, however, Koch is opposed to him. Thus when he says: “What I commend Lombroso for is that he has observed much, has collected rich materials, and has been the source of great incentives in many directions, and has worked suggestively in many ways; what I reproach him with is that he has confounded the healthy with the diseased, and has brought under one and the same category without sufficient and appropriate tests, psychotic phenomena and phenomena which are psychopathically merely of a subsidiary order; what I reject is his theory of degeneration and his peculiar views of philosophy.”

Material, such as Koch and others offer, must first be elaborated into a pedagogic psychopathology—or better still into a pedagogic pathopsychology—before pedagogy, as a whole, can assume in this direction the proper form. Though we consider, now, this preparatory work as indispensable, we can, nevertheless, not think of denying the value of works which, without any profession of far-reaching psychological analysis, put in effective and available form for pedagogy the diseased phenomena of the mental life of children. The first German work of this kind, so far as we know, is from the pen of a Leipsic teacher, GUSTAV SIEGERT, and bears the title _Problematische Kindesnaturen_.[48] This little work is now followed by a more comprehensive treatise, published by a Bremen alienist, Dr. SCHOLZ, already known to the readers of _The Monist_ (II, 104), and bearing the title _Die Characterfehler des Kindes, eine Erziehungslehre für Schule und Haus_.[49] Such books are valuable not only for the observations they offer and the isolated explanations and pedagogic advice they present, but also for the suggestions which the attentive and psychologically cultivated reader can always receive from them.

Like Siegert, Scholz principally shows us isolated child-types wherein diseased qualities play a more or less pronounced rôle. But while the former’s presentation is somewhat journalistic in style, that of the latter is more didactic; although this tendency is not an absolutely rigid one, as the author counts mothers as readers of his book. But if the form of presentation leads one to infer greater profundity in Scholz than in Siegert, this is in still higher degree the case with the arrangement of the material. While Siegert strings his child-pictures loosely together, Scholz arranges them according to real psychological points of view, so that (remarkable to say) the faults of children are discussed, first, in the province of feeling and sentiment, then in that of representation, and finally in that of volition and action. The introductory and concluding chapters show, also, that Scholz attempts to enter more profoundly into the subject than Siegert proposes, and we cherish the hope that, now that this popular work has appeared, Scholz will very soon present us with a strictly scientific book, in which he shall have occasion to deal with some particular points, such as, for instance, falsehood and unchastity, more comprehensively than was perhaps possible in a book intended for his present circle of readers.

With respect, now, to all systematic presentations of pedagogy, psychopathology can, as we have before indicated, never attain in them its proper position, until the above-mentioned preparatory work has been completed. But this fact should not preclude one’s calling especial attention to the importance of this province, at least in some incidental manner.

In such a work as the _Allgemeine Pädagogik_ of ZILLER,[50] for instance, the third edition of which has just been published by F. Mattes of Leipsic, there surely was abundant opportunity to do this—an opportunity which one might say almost amounted to obligation. For Ziller treats hereditary and acquired characteristics in great detail, and such treatment remains necessarily a one-sided one, if abnormal traits are not considered in it. Ziller, with Herbart, demands that individuality always be taken as the starting-point. But how many child-individualities are there, which, in the different periods of their development, may be regarded as fully normal!

The reason of this omission must be looked for partly in the circumstance, that Ziller, as well as the new editor of this otherwise valuable work, belongs to the Herbartian school. If, namely, we compare the psychological literature of the Herbartian school with the publications of French, English, and American writers, or even with the works which in recent times have issued from other philosophical quarters of Germany, it will be unmistakably seen that the pathological conditions of the mind have been little considered by the followers of Herbart. Nor have voices been wanting, that would make Herbart himself responsible for this error. He did not, they say, sufficiently appreciate the importance of the pathological phenomena of mind, and his pupils were in this respect influenced by him. But this reproach will be found, on close examination, to be untenable. Herbart, it is true, did express himself repeatedly against the overestimation of “rare and curious phenomena,” unusual mental states and such things,[51] and his warning is applicable also to our epoch, which produces many psychological works in which remarkable things are to be read but which contribute nothing worth mentioning towards the explanation of even comparatively simple events. Herbart holds, that the psychology of the normal and ordinary states should be the first and principal object of scientific attention; the explanation of much that is extraordinary will then follow. With regard to this latter point, he remarks very positively: “I do not, however, wish by this, to gainsay the value of any real psychological observation. There must be a welcome place in science for every experience.” It will be seen, therefore, that Herbart is not at all far from the point of view of Maudsley and other investigators. We find, in fact, that he mentions repeatedly abnormal mental conditions, and also systematically treats them, even quoting such celebrated alienists as Reil and Pinel (_Text-book of Psychology_, §§ 142-149). The probability is, therefore, that psychopathology would have been properly employed in Herbart’s psychology, if it had been at all elaborated in his day, and its influence would through Herbart have been directly felt in pedagogy, as no pedagogist has made better or more careful use of psychology than he.

But Herbart’s pupils have done no further work in the province pointed out by him. It is true, his psychology has been made use of by physicians like Griesinger and Spielmann, and recently also to some extent by Krafft-Ebing, but the works of these men have had no influence on the psychological text-books of the Herbartian school, and consequently the science has up to the present day exerted no noticeable influence on pedagogy, either in Waitz, in Stoy, or in Ziller. In other pedagogic schools, this has, it is true, also been the case; but in these, who make no pretensions of relying on the teachings of psychology, the sin is more easily pardoned. But this is not the only respect in which Ziller’s _Pedagogy_ is not up to the times. Ziller defined pedagogy as the influences, formed according to ethical points of view, which are brought to bear on the mind of the pupil, and would not admit influences brought to bear on the body, in so far as such should enter into the pedagogic system. This misconception also springs from Ziller’s adherence to the Herbartian school, which represents, as we well know, a metaphysical pluralism; but it is in a still higher degree due to the fact, that in Ziller’s day both the intimate relation between physiological and psychological processes had not been satisfactorily established, and also were not sufficiently known to him. If it were otherwise, his pluralism need by no means have necessarily led him into such one-sidedness, for this metaphysical pluralism does not exclude a monistic conception of _phenomena_; even assuming this doctrine, one may say that motion and feeling are two different but inseparable sides of the same phenomenon. The “real things” produce by their interaction, simultaneously and of necessity, both an inner side and an outer; for which reason one of our foremost psychologists, Volkmann of Volkmar, explicitly terms Herbart’s psychology monistic (_Text-book of Psychology_, second edition, I, 63).

A psychologico-physiological work, from which the new editor of Ziller’s _Pedagogy_ might have extracted many valuable things, is the book of the Italian MOSSO, _On Fatigue_, which has just been translated into German,[52] and which will excite much attention owing to the present active discussion of the question of overwork.

Supplementary to this work I will also mention a little tract by DR. BURGERSTEIN of Vienna, entitled _Die Arbeitskurve einer Schulstunde_.[53] This tract is a lecture, which the author gave at the Seventh International Congress for Hygiene and Demography at London, and in which he seeks to find by statistical methods, the duration of a “school-period”—a very laboriously composed treatise and one difficult to read, but possessed of high interest in psychological and pedagogic respects.

From pedagogy to evolution is but a step, at least it is in Ziller’s development of Herbart’s ideas. It is true, Ziller has taken a decided stand against Darwinism, for Ziller works with two contradictory ideas; but his theory of education possesses points of resemblance and analogy to the Darwin-Haeckel theory of development. According to Ziller, each individual passes, also intellectually, through all the stages of development that mankind at large has passed through, only in a shorter time; and it is in conformity with such succession that the order of the various courses of a pedagogical system is to be arranged. Following Ziller’s precedent, PROFESSOR VAIHINGER, of Halle, in his treatise _Naturforschung und Schule_ (Science and the Schools), has taken up the school-reform initiated by Professor Preyer, and has expressly transferred the fundamental law of biogenesis to pedagogy. How instruction is to be arranged under this point of view, cannot be explained in this letter, which is already long enough. We shall simply remark that the idea has found in Germany a large number of both friends and opponents.

The opponents have recently been joined by a natural scientist, DR. HAMANN, professor of zoology in Göttingen, who has just published a book under the title _Entwicklungslehre und Darwinismus_ (Evolution and Darwinism),[54] in which he does not combat the theory of evolution itself, but simply the Darwin-Haeckelian form of that theory, placing himself in the ranks of His and Hensen. The book appeared almost simultaneously with the fourth edition of HAECKEL’S _Anthropogeny_,[55] but the author, nevertheless, in his supplementary remarks, discusses the “apology” which Haeckel subjoined to his work. Haeckel’s book needs no recommendation in scientific circles; it will be sufficient to state that the work has been subjected to essential alterations, but that its fundamental features have remained the same.

A new psychology, on the Darwinian basis, by Prof. FRITZ SCHULTZE of Dresden, is now in course of publication, entitled _Vergleichende Seelenkunde_ (Comparative Psychology[56]). The first part, which treats of the fundamental principles of physiological psychology, has already appeared. On the completion of the work we shall have occasion to return to it.

CHR. UFER.

FOOTNOTES:

[48] _Problematic Child-natures._ Leipsic, 1890, Robert Vogtländer.

[49] _Faults of Character in Children, A System of Instruction for School and Home._ Leipsic. Eduard Heinrich Mayer.

[50] Compare also, _The Educational Review_ (New York), Vol. II, page 30.

[51] _Psychologie als Wissenschaft_, § 5.

[52] Salomon Hirzel, Leipsic.

[53] Hamburg, 1891, Leopold Voss.

[54] Jena, 1892, Hermann Costenoble.

[55] Leipsic, 1892, Engelmann.

[56] Leipsic, 1892.

CRITICISMS AND DISCUSSIONS.

A LETTER FROM MR. HERBERT SPENCER.

_To the Editor of The Monist_:

As I feel it a duty to reserve, for other purposes, the very small power of work now left to me, I am obliged to decline entering upon a controversy. I must leave readers to examine for themselves—little hoping, however, that they will do so.

One point only I wish to note. The use of the expression “forms of thought,” instead of “forms of intuition,” was simply an inadvertence; as will be manifest on observing that though I have used the wrong expression in the note, I have used the right expression in the text (p. 203), as also throughout my criticism of Kant’s doctrine in _The Principles of Psychology_, Part VII, Chapter IV, “The Reasonings of Metaphysicians,” § 399.

HERBERT SPENCER.

LOGIC AS RELATION-LORE.

In the French _Revue Philosophique_, in the August and September 1891 numbers of the same, M. George Mouret has an essay entitled “Mathematical Equality” in the course of which and as though subsidiary to his ostensible purpose he discourses upon the topics of relations and concepts and upon the fundamental elements of logic in general. His essay is really more important as a contribution to logical doctrine than as a treatment of mathematical equality.

The scope of his discourse will be seen by reference to his closing paragraphs in which he sums up what he considers to be the results achieved by him in his essay. Therein, he says that he has “treated of the general theory of the composition of concepts and relations and set the foundations of the logic of analysis and the logic of definition.”

I. THE SPENCERIAN AXIOM.

The determining factor of every philosophical dissertation is of course some very general supposition which is taken as established and which exercises a controlling influence over all the observations of its author.

In this case this determining supposition is found in what M. Mouret calls his “_axiom_ of _symmetry_.” The same is thus stated by him “_Two things which have the same symmetrical relations to a third thing have between them that same relation._”

M. Mouret is not one of those scholars that lack hospitality for other writings than those of their own nationality. From this fault so noticeable in the work of so many of the French scholars M. Mouret himself seems to be free. Indeed so far as regards the previous work done in the domain he sets himself to examine, he accords almost exclusive esteem to the writings of English thinkers. In fact he declares himself so far as regards his present topic a disciple of Mr. Herbert Spencer and puts his “axiom of symmetry” as an adaptation of that maxim of his said master which is of the tenor as follows, viz: “_Things which have a definite relation to the same thing have a definite relation to one another._” This maxim, as Mr. Spencer tells us, was suggested to him by a remark of the late eminent author who is known to the world under the pseudonym of George Eliot, who herself stated it under the form “_Things that have a constant relation to the same thing have a constant relation to each other._”

Those who are well acquainted with the psychology of Mr. Spencer will recognise that this maxim of his is made by him the very backbone of all his observations upon reasoning. If it has the validity which he imputes to it, it has an importance which it will be hard to overestimate, but if on the contrary, and as we shall submit, it is in every form in which it has been stated, certainly unsound and misleading, it is high time that its virtue should be brought into question.

The _dicta_ of the masters whether they first enounce the same or whether they only give currency thereto by their ratification are always proper subjects for special scrutiny. There is always found a disposition to accept them on their mere _ipse dixit_ without any attempt at criticism or independent observation. This is decisively _not_ the scientific mood or mode. The spirit of that modern leaven that is currently referred to under the name of Science is characteristically a critical one, and one that is considerably irreverent in regard to the authority of mere personality. In this it is happily distinguished from the spirit that has marked the past history of what may be called the “regular” schools of philosophy.

M. Mouret is not alone in his inadvertent esteem for the maxim in question. In the issue of _Mind_ for October 1891 Mr. L. T. Hobhouse publishes an article entitled “Induction and Deduction,” in which he gives an undue appraisal to the worth of the maxim under consideration, even though the author of the article seems to be well aware that said maxim stands in much need of qualification.

We venture to say that this maxim in all its forms has gained whatever currency it has enjoyed in virtue alone of the incompetent comprehension that too generally prevails in regard to the nature and characteristics of that sort of things that are relations.

A notable example of this lack of comprehension is supplied in the logical treatise of Mr. Carveth Read, a work ostensibly founded upon the significance of the category of relation and yet in which at the very start the author tells us that a relation is something which is indefinable.

II. IMPORTANCE OF RELATION-LORE.

This topic of relations is one that is neglected in a degree that reflects no credit upon the pretensions of those who undertake to instruct others in matters logical and philosophical. The thing itself is in the thinking of every one and the term and its derivations are in universal use. They are used as though they imported an idea that no one was liable to misapply or to misunderstand. The truth, however, is that of all the stock terms in our graver discourse this very word “relation” and its derivatives are the ones that are oftenest heard and read without any lucidity of mind concerning their proper intent as a part of their context. They are used with an assortment of meanings and non-meanings that are quite distracting to try to follow and quite vain to try and reconcile. In particular the difference between _relationship_ and _relation_, between the _ground_ or _foundation_ of the relation and the relation itself, between the plural fact, whether of tendency, interaction, transition, or _status_, that is a co-condition with the relations, and the relations that co-condition that same plural fact, is constantly ignored in thinking and in the expression thereof, to the more or less confusion in, and inconsequence of, the whole discourse delivered.

It is no slight commendation of the perspicacity of M. Mouret to observe that he has discovered that the way towards a resolution of the problems he sets himself to work out lies through what to him appears the altogether unexplored regions of relation-lore, for it is evident that he regards himself as a pioneer in this field.

III. WORKS ON RELATION-LORE IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

In observing this we cannot but hold M. Mouret unfortunate in not having been put upon better lines of inquiry. He seems to have been wholly unaware of the treasures of investigation in this domain that exist in the English language and that for many years have been available for the student. His case in this respect is seen in the exaltation which he gives to the semi-popular discourses of Mr. Spencer and Mr. Read, as contrasted with the profound researches of DeMorgan and Boole and their disciples. It is evident that he has judged concerning the comparative quality of the various lines of English research not after an examination of his own, but after the current popular renown. For example, he speaks of the work of DeMorgan and Boole as presenting “only a simple mode of representing some of the logical laws” and as being “surrounded with a formidable and complicated apparel which disguises the value of their tentatives.”

Since M. Mouret is manifestly an earnest student of the topic of relation-lore this language shows that he has at best only a second or third-hand knowledge of what DeMorgan and Boole really did. He ought to have known that in the recondite field of research in question all really competent treatment of the same would be very far from having any “popular” quality. For a man to discourse of relation-lore in ignorance of what DeMorgan, the very father of the “Logic of Relatives,” accomplished is like discoursing of Darwinism in ignorance of “The Origin of Species.”