Chapter I. Why Psychology?
An Introductory Question
When I first conceived the plan of writing
this book I guessed, though I did not know,
how much effort it would coso carry it out,
and what demands it would put on a potential
reader. And I doubted, not rhetorically but
very honestly and sincerely, whether such
labour on the part of the author and the
reader was justified. I was not so much troubled
by the idea of writing another book on psychology
in addition to the many books which have
appeared during the last ten years, as by
the idea of writing a book on psychology.
Writing a book for publication is a social
act. Is one justified in demanding co-operation
of society for such an enterprise? What good
can society, or a small fraction of it, at
best derive from it? I tried to give an answer
to this question, and when now, after having
completed the book, I return to this first
chapter, I find that the answer which then
gave me sufficient courage to start on my
long journey, has stayed with me to the end.
I believed I had found a reason why a book
on psychology might do some good. Psychology
has split up into so many branches and schools,
either ignoring or fighting each other, that
even an outsider may have the impression
- surely strengthened by the publications.
"Psychologies of 1925" and "Psychologies
of 1930" - that the plural "psychologies"
should be substituted for the singular.
Psychology has been pampered in the United
States, where for many years it has enjoyed
great popularity, though it seems to me that
its fortunes have somewhat ebbed and may
be ebbing more; in England, the land of conservative
change, it found for a long time as cold
a welcome as any other loud and startling
innovation, but has gradually gained ground
and is, in my belief, still gaining; in Germany,
where experimental psychology was born and
had at first a period of rapid expansion,
a strong reaction set in soon afterwards
which very definitely kept psychology "in
its place."
I confess that today I feel much less animosity
towards the active enemies of psychology
- or those of them who are serious and honest
- than when I was younger.
The comparison of psychology as it is today
with other branches of human knowledge has
raised the question in my mind what contribution
psychology has made through the very extensive
and intensive effort of the men and women
who devote their life's work to it.
No student of philosophy need fail to get
some inkling of the great and deep problems
which have beset the minds of our profoundest
thinkers from ancient to modern times; no
student of history need remain unaware of
the terrific human forces that have been
consumed in the making and unmaking of empires
and have combined to create the world in
which we are living at this moment; no student
of physics need pass his final examination
without some insight into the increasing
rationalisation of our knowledge of nature
nor into the inexorable exactness of experimental
methods; and no student of mathematics should
leave his courses without having learned
what generalised thinking is and what beautiful
and powerful results it can achieve. But
what can we say of the student of psychology?
Must he have learned to understand human
nature and human actions better at the end
of his course? I am not ready to answer this
question in the affirmative. But before I
had an answer to the question, what it is
that a student of psychology should be able
to gain from his general course, what it
is, more generally expressed, that psychology
can contribute to the imperishable possessions
of our race, I did not feel justified in
writing a general book on the subjects
Facts and Theories
Nobody can reproach psychology with having
discovered too few facts. A psychologist
who knew all the facts that have been brought
to light by experimental methods would indeed
know much, very much. And such knowledge
is today regarded as an aim in its own right.
"Find facts, facts, and again facts;
when you are sure of your facts try to build
theories. But your facts are more important."
This slogan expresses the creed of a philosophy
which is widely accepted today. And indeed
it seems very plausible. On the one side
are the objective facts, independent of the
scientist who investigates them; on the other
are Ills hypotheses, his theories, pure products
of his mind. Naturally we should attribute
more value to the former than to the latter.
In psychology such a view can claim a particular
justification. For this science consisted
of a number of simple and comprehensive theories
and few scientifically, established facts
before the beginning of the new era. With
the advent of experiment more and more facts
were discovered which played havoc with the
old theories. Only when psychology determined
to become a fact-finding science did it begin
to become a real science. From the state
in which it knew little and fancied a great
deal it has progressed to a state where it
knows a lot and fancies little - at least
consciously and with a purpose, though unawares
it contains more fancy than many psychologists
are aware of. To evaluate this progress we
have to examine what it means to know much.
The Latin adage multum non multa distinguishes
between two meanings of the word "much."
The one which it discards in favour of the
other is purely quantitative. According to
the latter a person who knows twenty items
knows ten times as much as the person who
knows only two items. But in another sense
the latter person, if he knows those two
items in their intrinsic relation, so that
they are no longer two but one with two parts,
knows a great deal more than the former,
if he knows juswenty items in pure aggregation.
Although from the point of multa this person
would be superior, he would be inferior from
the point of multum.
Now as I look upon the growth of science
it seems to me that it began to find itself
and thereby entered a new epoch when at the
time of the Renaissance it changed from a
chase for the multa to a search for the multum.
Since that time science has continually ,striven
to reduce the number of propositions from
which all known facts can be derived. In
this enterprise it has been more and more
successful, and has by its new method also
discovered more and more facts which otherwise
would never have become known; it has simultaneously
discarded as fancy many a piece of knowledge
which was taken as fact, and has changed
the systematic status of many other facts.
It is a "fact" that heavy bodies
fall more quickly than light ones, as anyone
can test by dropping a pencil and a sheet
of paper. But it is a complex, not a simple
fact, whereas the simple fact is that all
bodies fall with the same velocity in a ,vacuum.
From this scientific fact the everyday fact
can be derived but not vice versa. The very
concept of fact, therefore, becomes problematical.
One can look at the progress of science as
a steady increase in the number of facts
known. Then one arrives at a position where
much knowledge means knowledge of multa.
But a very different aspect of scientific
progress is also possible: the increasing
simplicity - not of course in the sense that
it is more and more easy to learn, but in
the sense that to him who has mastered it
the system of science becomes a more and
more cohesive and unitary whole. Or otherwise
expressed, science is not comparable to a
catalogue in which all facts are listed according
to an arbitrary principle, like the books
in a library in the alphabetical order of
their authors; science is rational; the facts
- and their order are one and the same; facts
without order do not exist; therefore if
we know one fachoroughly we know ever so
many more facts from the knowledge of this
one fact. From this point of view, much knowledge
is knowledge of multum, knowledge of the
rational system, the interdependence of all
facts.
Science and the Sciences
Of course science never succeeds in reaching
its goal. At any one moment in its history
there is a wide gap between its ideal and
its accomplishment. The system is never complete,
there are always facts, old and newly discovered,
which defy the unity of the system. Apparent
as this is within the compass of any individual
science, it becomes even more manifest when
we consider the variety of different sciences.
They have all arisen from one common matrix.
The first scientific impulse was not directed
towards different special groups of topics
but was universal. In our present terminology
we can say that philosophy is the mother
of all sciences.
Progressive specialisation has marked scientific
progress, and our science, psychology, was
the last to gain her independence. This separation
and specialisation was necessary, but it
has of necessity worked against the aim of
unification of knowledge. If a number of
separately established sciences have developed,
then coherent as each one may be in itself,
what is their mutual relation? How can a
multum arise from that multa? That this task
must be accomplished follows from the very
function of science. I am the last to see
the value of science in its practical applications.
The explanation of the shift of spectral
lines coming from stars millions of light
years distant, is in my eyes a much greater
triumph of science than the construction
of a new bridge with a record span or the
transmission of photographs across the ocean.
But for all that I do not believe that science
can be legitimately regarded as the game
of a relatively small number of people who
enjoy it and get their livelihood from it.
In some sense science cannot be wholly divorced
from conduct.
Science and Conduct
Conduct, of course, is possible without science.
Humans carried on in their daily affairs
long before the first spark of science had
been struck. And today there are millions
of people living whose actions are not determined
by anything we call science. Science, however,
could not but gain an increasing influence
on human behaviour. To describe this influence
roughly and briefly will throw a new light
on science. Exagge and schematising the differences,
we can say: in the prescientific stage man
behaves in a situation as the situation tells
him to behave. To primitive man each thing
says what it is and what he ought to do with
it: a fruit says, "Eat me"; water
says, "Drink me"; thunder says,
"Fear me," and woman says, "Love
me."
This world is limited, but, up to a point,
manageable, knowledge is direct and quite
unscientific, in many cases perfectly true,
but in many others hopelessly wrong. And
man slowly discovered the errors in his original
world. He learned to distrust what things
told him, and gradually he forgot the language
of birds and stones. Instead he developed
a new activity which he called thinking.
And this new activity brought him great advantages.
He could think out the consequences of events
and actions and thereby make himself free
of past and present. By thinking he created
knowledge in the sense of scientific knowledge,
knowledge which was no longer a knowledge
of individual things, but of universals.
Knowledge thereby becomes more and more indirect,
and action, to the extent that it loses its
direct guidance by the world of things, more
and more intellectualised. Moreover, the
process of thinking had destroyed the unity
of the primitive world. Thought had developed
categories or classes, and each class had
its own characteristics, modes of behaviour,
or laws. Concrete situations which demand
decisions and prompt actions do not, however,
fall into only one such class. And so action,
if it were to be directed by scientific knowledge,
had to be subjected to a complex thought
process, and often enough such a process
failed to give a clear decision. In other
words, whereas the world of primitive man
had directly determined his conduct, had
told him what was good, what bad, the scientific
world proved all too often a failure when
it came to answering such questions. Reason
seemed to reveal truth, but a truth that
would give no guidance to conduct; but the
demand for such guidance remained and had
to be filled. Thus arose eventually the dualism
of science and religion, with its various
phases of double-truth theory, bitter enmity,
and sentimentalisation of science, one as
unsatisfactory as the other.
The Danger of Science
Is it the tragedy of the human race that
for every gain it makes it has to pay a price
which often seems greater than the gain?
Must we pay for science by a disintegration
of our life? Must we deny on week-days what
we profess on Sundays? As a personal article
of faith I believe that there is no such
inexorable must. Science, in building rational
systems of knowledge, had to select such
facts as would most readily submit to such
systematisation. This process of selection,
in itself of the greatest significance, involves
the neglecting or rejecting of a number of
facts or aspects. As long as scientists know
are doing, such procedure is fraught with
little danger. But in the triumph over its
success science is apt to forget that it
has not absorbed all aspects of reality,
and to deny the existence of those which
it has neglected. Thus, instead of keeping
in mind the question which gave rise to all
science, "what God is, what we are .
. ." it holds up such questions to ridicule,
and considers the men and women who persist
in asking them as atavistic survivals.
This attitude, whose historical necessity
and merit I plainly discern, must be rejected,
not because it is inimical to religion, but
because it would, if consistently maintained,
block the progress of science itself by closing
to its advance the gates that lead to the
most essential of all questions. In my opinion
no gate should be closed to science; by this
I do not mean that today's or yesterday's
science is capable of answering the fundamental
questions, as so many radicals, men of the
best motives, seem to think. Instead I believe
that science, aware of its incompleteness,
should gradually attempt to broaden its base,
to include more and more of the facts which
it found at first necessary to exclude, and
thereby become better and better equipped
to answer those questions which mankind will
not be denied. As long as science misunderstands
its task it will always be in danger of losing
its position of independence and integrity.
The illegal usurper of a throne will always
find illegal pretenders. The denunciation
of the intellect which has assumed such tremendous
proportions in some parts of our world with
such far-reaching consequences, seems to
me the outcome of the wrong scientific attitude,
although for that reason it is no less wrong
itself. I shall revero this theme in a later
chapter (Chapter IX), and shall point out
only that science if it follows the path
which I have briefly indicated will assume
a different face. But I hope that such a
science will, slowly but surely, help to
re-create that original unity which it had
to destroy in order to develop.
A science, therefore, gains in value and
significance not by the number of individual
facts it collects but by the generality and
power of its theories, a conclusion which
is the very opposite of the statement from
which our discussion started. Such a view,
how. ever, does not look down upon facts,
for theories are theories of facts and can
be tested only by facts, they are not idle
speculations of what might be, but theoriai,
i. e., surveys, intuitions, of what is. Therefore
in my presentation of psychology I shall
emphasise the theoretical aspect; many facts
will be reported, but not as a mere collection,
or an exhibition of curious phenomena to
be compared to Mme. Tussaud's waxworks, but
as facts in a system - as far as it is humanly
possible not a pet system of my own, but
the system to which they intrinsically belong,
i. e., as rationally understandable facts.
Science As Discipline
Such a procedure would, however, be without
value if it neglected another aspect of science,
so far omitted from our discussion, viz.,
the greatest possible exactness in the establishment
of facts. By its demand for exactness science
frees itself from the personal wishes of
the scientist. A theory must be demanded
by facts; in its turn it demands facts, and
if they fail to conform exactly to it, then
the theory is either wrong or incomplete.
In this sense science is discipline. We cannot
do what we want, but must do what the facts
demand. The success of science has tended
to make us proud and conceited. But such
conceit is out of place. He is the greatest
master who is the greatest servant. Again
and again we experience in the progress of
knowledge how apt we are to halt and stumble,
again and again we find how little we can
make knowledge, how we must give our thoughts
time to grow. Therefore the pursuit of knowledge,
instead of making us proud and boastful,
should make us modest and humble.
Function of Science
To summarise: the acquisition of true knowledge
should help us to reintegrate our world which
has fallen to pieces; it should teach us
the cogency of objective relations, independent
of our wishes and prejudices, and it should
indicate to us our true position in our world
and give us respect and reverence for the
things animate and inanimate around us.
Special Function of Psychology
This is true of all sciences. What special
claim can psychology make? To teach us humility,
what science can do that better than astronomy
and astrophysics which deal with times and
distances far beyond the scope of our imagination?
And what science can discipline us better
than pure mathematics with its demands for
absolute proofs? Could we then claim that
psychology is particularly fitted for the
task of integration, and give this as an
answer to the question from which - we started?
I think we can, for in psychology we are
at the point where the three great provinces
of our world intersect, the provinces which
we call inanimate nature, life, and mind.
Nature, Life, Mind
Psychology deals with the behaviour of living
beings. Therefore, as every biological science,
it is faced with the problem of the relation
between animate and inanimate nature whether
it is aware of and concerned with this problem
or not. but to the psychologist, one special
aspect of behaviour, in ordinary parlance
called the mental, assumes paramount importance.
This is not the place to discuss consciousness
and mind as such. Later chapters will show
the use we make of these concepts. But we
will not reject at the outset a distinction
which permeates our idiomatic speech as much
as our scientific terminology. We all understand
what is meant by the proposition that a prize-fighter
was knocked out and did not recover consciousness
for six minutes. We know that during these
fatal six minutes the pugilist did not cease
to live, but that he lost one particular
aspect of behaviour, Furthermore we know
that consciousness in general and each specific
conscious function in particular, is closely
bound up with processes in our central nervous
system. Thus the central nervous system becomes,
as it were, the nodal point where mind, life,
and inanimate nature converge. We can investigate
the chemical constitution of the nervous
tissue and will find no component that we
have not found in inorganic nature; we can
study the function of this tissue and will
find that it has all the characteristics
of living tissue; and finally there is this
relation between the life function of the
nervous system and consciousness.
Two Types of Solutions of the Problems Involved
in This Relation Rejected.
Anybody who would claim to have found a complete
and true solution of our problems would expose
himself to the just suspicion of being either
an ass or a quack. These problems have occupied
the best human minds for thousands of years,
and therefore it is more than unlikely that
a solution can be found by any, other way
than a slow and gradual approach. What I
think about the mode of this approach I shall
again defer to a later part of the book.
Materialism.
But here I shall rejecwo types of solutions
that have been offered. The first is the
solution of crude materialism, which gained
great momentum about the middle of the last
century and found its most popular expression
in a book that around 1900 was a best-seller
and is now practically forgotten. I mean
Haeckel's Riddle of the Universe. I am not
sure that the United States are not even
now feeling the last ebbing wave of this
flood which reached the shores of the New
World long after its crest had passed from
the Old. This materialistic solution is astonishingly
simple. It says: The whole problem is illusory.
There are no three kinds of substance or
modes of existence, matter, life, and mind;
there is only one, and that is matter, composed
of blindly whirling atoms which, because
of their great numbers and the long time
at their disposal, form all sorts of combinations,
and among them those we call animals and
human beings. Thinking and feeling, why,
they are just movements of atoms. Interfere
with the matter of the brain and see what
remains of consciousness. Although I have
expressed this view very crudely, I believe
that I have expressed it adequately, particularly
when I add that this view is not only a scientific
conviction, but as well, or even more so,
a creed and a wish. It is the revolt of a
generation that saw a strongly entrenched
church hold on to dogmas which science, growing
up like a young giant, had crushed - a generation
that, by the successful applications of science
to technical problems, had become vainglorious
and had lost that feeling of awe which should
accompany all true knowledge. just as the
victorious barbarians, be they vandals or
Calvinists, destroyed thoroughly and passionately
the creations most dear to their vanquished
enemies, so our materialists developed a
hatred of those parts of human philosophy
that pointed beyond the pale of their narrow
conceptions. To be called a philosopher was
an insult, and to be a believer was to belong
among the untouchables.
Now I bear no grudge against these men, much
as I see their narrow-mindedness and their
smallness of stature. For I believe that
malgré tout they have served a good purpose.
They have helped to build up an intelligentsia
strong enough to stand out against the unwarranted
interference of a reactionary church and
pursue their own way, bringing up a new generation
which was unhampered by theological restrictions
and therefore had no axe to grind.
As to materialism itself, it is not necessary
today to refute it. I will add only this:
the materialist's claim that the problems
of relationship or interaction between matter,
life, and mind were falsely put may turn
out to be perfectly valid. The hopeless error
which the materialists committed was to make
an arbitrary discrimination between these
three concepts with regard to their scientific
dignity. They accepted one and rejected the
two others - their excuse being the intrinsic
and extrinsic success of science and the
absurdities of the contemporary speculative
philosophy - whereas each of them may, as
a conception, contain as much of the ultimate
truth as the others, quite apart from the
stage of development which each of them may
have reached at a given time.
Vitalism, Spiritualism.
The other type of solution which I want to
reject here does not deny the validity of
our problems; rather it attempts to solve
them by establishing two or three separate
realms of existence, each sharply distinguished
from the other by the presence or absence
of a specific factor. One can discriminate
three such attempts; the first draws the
dividing line between life and mind, life
and inanimate nature belonging together (Descartes),
and mind, a new and divine substance, separating
man from the rest of creation. The second,
on the other hand, throws life and mind together
as directed by a power not found in inorganic
nature and therefore essentially different
from it
(vitalism). The third sticks to the threefold
division and looks for special active principles
in each of the three realms (Scheler). Of
these three, vitalism has gained by far the
greatest importance because many thorough
and highly ingenious attempts have been made
to establish it as a truly scientific theory.
The problem of vitalism will therefore occupy
us repeatedly in the following pages. Here
I only explain why I must reject this whole
type of explanation at the outset. The answer
is simple enough, but will, without a wider
context, appear somewhat unsatisfactory.
The vitalistic type of solution is no solution,
but a mere renaming of the problem. By renaming
it, it emphasises the problem, and is, in
that respect, much superior to crude materialism.
But by pretending that a new name is a solution,
it might do a great deal of harm to science
were it widely accepted. Characteristically,
however, vitalism, not to mention the two
other forms of our type, has never been popular
among scientists, particularly not among
those nearest concerned, the biologists.
It required always a full share of personal
courage to profess oneself a vitalist, and
therefore let us honour the men who were
willing to sacrifice their reputations and
their careers in the service of a cause which
they considered to be a true one.
Integration of Quantity, Order, and Meaning.
By rejecting these types of solution I have
implied the kind of solution our psychology
'II have to offer. It cannot ignore the mind-body
and the life-nature problem, neither can
it accephese three realms of being as separated
from each other by impassable chasms. It
is here that the integrative quality of our
psychology will become manifest. Materialism
tried to achieve a simple system by using
for its interpretation of the whole the contribution
of one part. To be truly integrative, we
must try to use the contributions of every
part for the building of our system. Looking
at the sciences of Nature, Life, and Mind,
we may extract from each one specific and
particularly important concept, viz., from
the first: quantity, from the second: order,
and from the third: meaning or significance
(in German: Sinn). Our psychology, then,
must have a place for all of these. Let us
discuss them one by one.
QUANTITY AND QUALITY.
Modern scientific psychology was started
by quantification. Mental functions were
shown to be expressible in purely quantitative
terms (Weber's Law), and ever since then
the quantitative interest has done as much
harm as good to the further development of
our science. On the one side, we find those
who want to measure everything, sensations,
emotions, intelligence; and on the other,
those who deny that true psychological problems
are amenable to quantitative treatment; to
them, psychology is the domain of quality,
excluding quantity. In my opinion this famous
antithesis of quantity and quality is not
a true antithesis at all. It owes its popularity
largely to a regrettable ignorance of the
essence of quantity as used in physical science.
Modern science, it is true, begins with quantitative
measurement. The present-day physicist devotes
the greatest efforts to making his measurements
finer and finer; but he will not measure
anything and everything, but only such effects
as in some way or other contribute to his
theory. It is impossible to discuss here
all the functions of quantitative measurement
in physics. But it is fair to say that a
mere collection of numbers is never what
the physicist wants. What he is frequently
interested in is the distribution of measurable
characteristics in a given volume and the
changes which such distributions undergo.
Both types of facts he describes by means
mathematical equations which may contain
a few concrete numbers but in which abstract
numbers are by far the most important constituents.
And the mathematical formula establishes
primarily a definite relationship between
these abstract numbers. Measurement has then
the role to test the validity of the equation
for the process which it is meant to describe,
i. e., of the relationship established. Such
a relationship, however, is no longer quantitative
in the simple sense in which any one concrete
number is; its quantity is no longer opposed
to quality. The misunderstanding arises when
one considers only the individual facts with
their measured quantities, overlooking the
manner of their distribution. But the latter
is no less factual than the former, and it
indicates a property or quality of the condition
or process under discussion. A simple example
should clarify this point: In a soap bubble
the forces of cohesion between the soap particles
pull them as close together as possible.
They are held in equilibrium by the air enclosed
by the soap membrane, whose pressure would
increase if the bubble contracted. The soap,
therefore, must remain distributed over the
outside boundary of an air volume, and the
distribution will be such that it will occupy
as little space as possible. Since of all
solids the sphere is the one which has the
greatest volume for a given surface or the
smallest surface for a given volume, the
soap will distribute itself on a spherical
surface. A statement like this seems to me
to be as much qualitative as quantitative;
the latter, because it says of each particle
that it is here and not somewhere else; the
former, because it assigns a definite shape
with all its peculiarities to our distribution.
Once our attention has been drawn to this
point we shall find it difficult in a great
many cases to decide whether a statement
is quantitative or qualitative. A body moves
with constant velocity; truly quantitative,
but equally truly qualitative, and the same
is true whatever kind of velocity we attribute
to the body. Thus when the velocity varies
with the sine or cosine of time, the body
executes a periodic movement which is qualitatively
quite different from a mere translatory movement.
We conclude from these examples: the quantitative,
mathematical description of physical science,
far from being opposed to quality, is but
a particularly accurate way of representing
quality. I will, without proof, add that
a description may be quantitative without
being at the same time the most adequate
one. Of the two analytic equations of the
circle: x' + y' = r', and r = constant, the
second expresses the specific quality Of
the circle more directly and hence more adequately
than the first.
And we can now draw a lesson for our psychology:
it may be perfectly quantitative without
losing its character as a qualitative science,
and on the other hand, and at the present
moment even more important, it may be unblushingly
qualitative, knowing that if its qualitative
descriptions are correct, it will some time
be possible to translate them into quantitative
terms.
ORDER.
Let us now turn to "order," the
concept derived from the sciences of life.
Can we give a satisfactory definition of
this concept? We speak of an orderly arrangement
of objects when every object is in a place
which is determined by its relation to all
others. Thus the arrangement of objects thrown
at random into a lumber room is not orderly,
while that of our drawing room furniture
is. Similarly we speak of an orderly march
of events (Head) when each part event occurs
at its particular time, in its particular
place, and in its particular way, because
all the other part events occur at their
particular times, in their particular places,
and in their particular ways. An orderly
march of events is, e. g., the movement of
the piano keys when a. practised player plays
a tune; a mere sequence of events without
any order takes place when the keys are pressed
down by a dog running over the keyboard.
"ORDER NOT AN OBJECTIVE CATEGORY."
Both examples may give rise to a particular
objection or may lead to a special theory
of order. Let us take up the objection first:
"Why," so an opponent, whom for
the sake of convenience we shall call Mr.
P, might ask, "do you call the motions
of the piano keys in the second case less
orderly than the first? I can," so he
continues, "find only one reason, and
that is that you like the first better than
the second. But this subjective feeling of
preference is surely not a. sufficient reason
for introducing a distinction allegedly fundamental,
and for deriving from this distinction a
new scientific category. And the 'same is
true of your first example. You happen to
like your drawing room, but I can well imagine
a person, say a stranger from another planet,
who would feet happier in your storeroom.
Look at your two cases without any personal
bias; then you will find that each object,
whether in the drawing room or in the loft,
is where it is because, according to mechanical
laws, it could not be anywhere else; and
just so is each key set into motion according
to the stern laws of mechanics whether it
be Paderewski's fingers or a frightened dog
which run over the keyboard. But if the ordinary
old mechanical laws explain these events,
why introduce a Dew concept, order, which
confuses the issue by creating an artificial
difference between processes which from the
point of view of mechanics are essentially
similar?"
REFUTATION OF THIS VIEW BY VITALISM.
To this argument another person (we will
call him Mr. V) might reply as follows: "My
dear fellow, it is very generous of you to
disregard your own feelings in the matter,
for I know how sensitive you are to badly
furnished rooms and how fastidious your taste
is with regard to piano music. I shall therefore
exclude from my answer the person who is
merely supposed to look at or live in one
of our two rooms and to listen to the two
sequences of tones, just as you said one
should. But even so there remains a difference
between the two alternatives in each of the
two examples, and this difference is decisive,
since it refers to the way in which the arrangement
and the sequence have been brought about.
In my ideal lumber room, each piece has been
deposited as it happened to come without
regard to any other. And since, as you pointed
out yourself, every object in this loft is
where it is according to strict mechanical
laws, this lumber room is an excellent example
of what mechanical forces will do if left
to themselves. Compare this with our drawing
room. Here, careful planning has preceded
the actual moving of the furniture, and each
piece receives a place that makes it subservient
to the impression of the whole. What does
it matter whether a table has at first been
pushed too far to the left? Somebody who
knows the plan, or who has a direct feeling
for the intended effect, will push it back
into its proper place: just so a picture
hung awry will be straightened out; vases
with proper flowers will be well distributed,
all of course with the help of mechanical
forces, but nothing by these mechanical forces
alone. I need not repeat my argument for
the two tone sequences, the application is
too obvious. But my conclusion is this: in
inorganic nature you find nothing but the
interplay of blind mechanical forces, but
when you come to life you find order, and
that means a new agency that directs the
workings of inorganic nature, giving aim
and direction and thereby order to its blind
impulses." And so Mr. V, in trying to
answer Mr. P's argument, has developed the
theory which I referred to at the beginning
of this discussion. Remembering our previous
discussion of nature and life, one will recognise
this theory as a vitalistic one. As a matter
of fact the strongest arguments for vitalism
have been based on the distinction of orderly
processes and blind sequences.
SOLUTION OF THE POSITIVIST - VITALIST DILEMMA.
But let us return to the argument between
Messrs. P and V. We have already pledged
our psychology to a rejection of vitalism.
But can we disregard V's answer to P's argument,
his defence of the distinction between orderly
and orderless arrangements and events? We
can not. And that lands us in a quandary:
we accept order but we reject a special factor
that produces it. For the first we shall
be despised by Mr. P and his followers; for
the second we shall incur the wrath of Mr.
V. Both reactions would be justified if our
attitude were truly eclectic; we should then
appear to accepwo propositions that are incompatible
with each other. Therefore the task of our
system is clearly defined: we must attempt
to reconcile our acceptance and our rejection,
we must develop a category of order which
is free from vitalism. The concept of order
in its modern form is derived from the observation
of living beings. But that does not mean
that its application is restricted to life.
Should it be possible to demonstrate order
as a characteristic of natural events and
therefore within the domain of physics, then
we could accept it in the science of life
without introducing a special vital force
responsible for the creation of order. And
that is exactly the solution which Gestalheory
has offered and tried to elaborate. How that
has been done we shall learn in the course
of this book. But it is meeo point out the
integrative function of the Gestalt solution.
Life and nature are brought together not
by a denial of one of the most outstanding
characteristics of the former but by the
proof that this feature belongs to the latter
also. And by this kind of integration Gestalheory
contributes to that value of knowledge which
we have called reverence for things animate
and inanimate. Materialism accomplished the
integration by robbing life of its order
and thereby making us look down on life as
just a curious combination of orderless events;
if life is as blind as inorganic nature we
must have as little respect for the one as
for the other. But if inanimate nature shares
with life the aspect of order, then the respect
which we feel directly and unreflectively
for life will spread over to inanimate nature
also.
SIGNIFICANCE, VALUE.
We turn to the last of our categories: significance.
What we mean by that is harder to explain
than the two previous concepts, and yet here
lies one of the deepest roots of Gestalheory,
one which has been least openly brought before
the English-speaking public. The reason for
this is easy to understand. There is such
a thing as an intellectual climate, and the
intellectual climate, just as the meteorological,
varies from country to country.
And just as the growth of a Plant depends
upon the physical climate, so does the growth
of an idea depend upon the intellectual climate.
There can be no doubt that the intellectual
climates of Germany and the United States
are widely different. The idealistic tradition
of Germany is more than an affair of philosophic
schools; it pervades the German mind and
appears most openly in the writings and teachings
of the representatives of "Geisteswissenschaften,"
the moral sciences. The meaning of a personality
prominent in history, art, or literature
Seems to the German mind more important than
the pure historical facts which make up his
life and works; the historian is often more
interested in the relation of a great man
to the plan of the universe than in his relations
to the events on the planet. Contrariwise,
in America the climate is chiefly practical;
the here and now, the immediate present with
its needs, holds the centre of the stage,
thereby relegating the problems essential
to German mentality to the realm of the useless
and non-existing. In science this attitude
makes for positivism, an overvaluation of
mere facts and an undervaluation of very
abstract speculations, a high regard for
science, accurate and earthbound, and an
aversion, sometimes bordering on contempt,
for metaphysics that tries to escape from
the welter of mere facts into a loftier realm
of ideas and ideals.
Therefore when the first attempts were made
to introduce Gestalheory to the American
public, that side which would most readily
appeal to the type of German mentality which
I have tried to sketch was kept in the background,
and those aspects which had a direct bearing
on science were emphasised. Had the procedure
been different, we might have incurred the
danger of biasing our readers against our
ideas. Living in a different intellectual
climate they might have taken this aspect
of Gestalheory for pure mysticism and decided
not to have anything to do with the whole
theory before they had had a chance of becoming
acquainted with its scientific relevance.
At the present moment, however, when Gestalheory
has been taken up as a main topic of discussion,
it seems only fair to lift the old restriction
and expose all its aspects.
THE DILEMMA OF GERMAN PSYCHOLOGY OUT OF WHICH
GESTALHEORY AROSE.
To do this I shall revert for a moment to
the origins of our theory and to the leading
ideas of its first founder, Max Wertheimer.
What I said about the German intellectual
climate does not apply to German experimental
psychology. Rather, experimental psychology
had carried on a feud with speculative psychologists
and philosophers who, not without reason,
belittled its achievements and claimed that
mind in its truest aspects could never be
investigated by scientific methods, i. e.,
by methods derived from the natural sciences.'
How could, so the argument would run, the
laws of sensation and association, which
then composed the bulk of scientific psychology,
ever explain the creation or enjoyment of
a work of art, the discovery of truth, or
the development of a great cultural movement
like that of the Reformation? The facts to
which these opponents of scientific psychology
pointed and the facts which the experimental
psychologists investigated were indeed so
far aparhahey seemed to belong to different
universes, and no attempt was made by experimental
psychology to incorporate the larger facts
in their system which was erected on the
smaller ones, at least no attempt which did
justice to the larger.
Weighing this situation in retrospect we
are forced to take an attitude similar to
that which we took with regard to the materialism-vitalism
controversy. We must admit that the criticism
of the philosophers was well founded. Not
only did psychology exhaust its efforts in
trivial investigations, not only had it become
stagnant with regard to the problems it actually
worked on, but it insisted on its claim that
it held the only key to those problems which
the philosophers emphasised. Thus the historian
was right when he insisted that no laws of
sensation, association or feeling - pleasure
and displeasure - could explain a decision
like that of Caesar's to cross the Rubicon
with its momentous consequences; that, generally
speaking, it would be impossible to incorporate
the data of culture within current psychological
systems without destroying the true meaning
of culture. For, so they would say, culture
has not only existence but also meaning or
significance, and it has value. A psychology
which has no place for the concepts of meaning
and value cannot be a complete psychology.
At best it can give a sort of understructure,
treating of the animal side of man, on which
the main building, harbouring his cultural
side, must be erected.
On the other hand we cannot disregard the
attitude of experimental psychology. Its
position was this: for ages psychology had
been treated in the way which philosophers
and historians claimed to be the only true
one, with the result that it had never become
a true science. Clever, even profound, things
might have been said about men's higher activities
by speculative philosophers and "understanding"
historians, but all these dicta bore the
stamp of their authors' personalities; they
could not be verified and could not produce
a scientific system. Science wants an explanation
in terms of cause and effect, but the kind
of psychology they opposed gave explanations
in terms of motives and values. This, the
experimental psychologists averred, was no
explanation at all, whereas their work was
concerned with true causal theories. If it
failed at the moment to include the cultural
aspects, it did so only because it was so
very young. But a building had to be erected
from the bottom and not from the roof. "Psychologie
von unten" was their slogan. And there
is much to be said for this attitude. If
we believe that the sciences, natural and
moral, are not merely a collection of independent
human activities, some players playing one
kind of game, others another, buhahey are
branches of one all-embracing science, then
we must demand that the fundamental explanatory
principles be the same in all.
The dilemma of psychology, then, was this:
on the one hand it was in possession of explanatory
principles in the scientific sense, but these
principles did not solve the most important
problems of psychology, which therefore remained
outside its scope; on the other hand, it
dealt with these very problems, but without
scientific explanatory principles; to understand
took the place of to explain.
WERTHEIMER'S SOLUTION OF THE DILEMMA.
This dilemma must have been prominent in
Wertheimer's mind even when he was a student.
Perceiving the merits and faults of both
sides, be could not join either, but he had
to try to find a solution of this acute crisis.
In this solution two principles could not
be sacrificed: the principles of science
and of meaning. And yet these very two were
the origin of the whole difficulty. Scientific
progress occurs very often by a re-examination
of the fundamental scientific concepts. And
to such a re-examination Wertheimer devoted
his efforts. And his conclusions can be stated
in a few simple words, although they demand
a radical change of our habits of thought,
a change in our most ultimate philosophy.
To explain and to understand are not different
forms of dealing with knowledge but fundamentally
identical. And that means: a causal connection
is not a mere factual sequence to be memorised
like the connection between a name and a
telephone number, but is intelligible. I
shall borrow a simile from Wertheimer (1925)
- Suppose we entered Heaven with all our
scientific curiosity and found myriads of
angels engaged in making music, each playing
on his own instrument. Our scientific training
would tempt us to discover some law in this
celestial din. We mighhen set out to look
for regularities of such a kind that, when
.angel A has played do, angel C would play
re, then angel M fa, and so on. And if we
were persistent enough and had sufficient
time at our disposal, we might discover a
formula which would make it possible for
us to determine the note played by each angel
at each moment of time. Many philosophers
and scientists would say that then we had
explained the music of the heavens, that
we had discovered its law. This law, however,
would be nothing more than a factual statement;
it would be practical, making prediction
possible, but it would be without meaning.
On the other hand, we might try to hear the
music as one great symphony; then if we had
mastered one part, we should know a great
deal about 'he whole, even if the part which
we had mastered never recurred again in the
symphony; and if eventually we knew the whole
we should also be able to solve the problem
which was resolved by our first attempt.
But then it would be of minor significance
and derivative. Provided, now, that the angels
really played a symphony, our second mode
of approach would be the more adequate one;
it would not only tell us what each angel
did at any particular moment but why he did
it. The whole performance would be meaningful
and so would be our knowledge of it.
Substitute the universe for Heaven and the
occurrences in the universe for the playing
of the angels and you have the application
to our problem.
The positivistic interpretation of the world
and our knowledge of it is but one possibility;
there is another one. The question is: Which
is really true? Meaning, significance, value,
as data of our total experience give us a
hinhahe latter has at least as good a chance
of being the true one as the former. And
that means: far from being compelled to banish
concepts like meaning and value from psychology
and science in general, we must use these
concepts for a full understanding of the
mind and the world, which is at the same
time a full explanation.
The Common Principle in the Preceding Discussion
We have discussed quantity, order and meaning
with regard to their contributions to science
in general and to psychology in particular.
We extracted each of our categories from
a different science, but we claimed that
despite their different origins, they are
all universally applicable. And as a matter
of fact, in our treatment of the issues involved
in each of our three categories - we have
found the same general principle: to integrate
quantity and quality, mechanism and vitalism,
explanation and comprehension or understanding,
we had to abandon the treatment of a number
of separate facts for the consideration of
a group of facts in their specific form of
connection. Only thus could quantity be qualitative,
and order and meaning be saved from being
either introduced into the system of science
as new entities, the privileges of life and
mind, or discarded as mere figments.
Generality of the Gestalt Category
Do we then claim that all facts are contained
in such interconnected groups or units that
each quantification is a description of true
quality, each complex and sequence of events
orderly and meaningful? In short, do we claim
that the universe and all events in it form
one big Gestalt?
If we did we should be as dogmatic as the
positivists who claim that no event is orderly
or meaningful, and as those who assert that
quality is essentially different from quantity.
But just as the category of causality does
not mean that any event is causally connected
with any other, so the Gestalt category does
not mean that any two states or events belong
together in one Gestalt. "To apply the
category of cause and effect means to find
out which parts of nature stand in this relation.
Similarly, to apply the Gestalt category
means to find out which parts of nature belong
as parts to functional wholes, to discover
their position in these wholes, their degree
of relative independence, and the articulation
of larger wholes into sub-wholes." (Koffka,
1931.)
Science will find Gestalten of different
rank in different realms, but we claim that
every Gestalt has order and meaning, of however
low or high a degree, and that for a Gestalt
quantity and quality are the same. Now nobody
would deny that of all Gestalten which we
know those of the human mind are the richest;
therefore it is most difficult, and in most
cases still impossible, to express its quality
in quantitative terms, but at the same time
the aspect of meaning becomes more manifest
here than in any other part of the universe.
Why Psychology?
Psychology is a very unsatisfactory science.
Comparing the vast body of systematised and
recognised facts in physics with those in
psychology one will doubt the advisability
of teaching the latter to anybody who does
not intend to become a professional psychologist,
one might even doubt the advisability of
training professional psychologists. But
when one considers the potential contribution
which psychology can make to our understanding
of the universe, one's attitude may be changed.
Science becomes easily divorced from life.
The mathematician needs an escape from the
thin air of his abstractions, beautiful as
they are; the physicist wants to revel in
sounds that are soft, mellow, and melodious,
that seem to reveal mysteries which are hidden
under the curtain of waves and atoms and
mathematical equations; and even the biologist
likes to enjoy the antics of his dog on Sundays
unhampered by his weekday conviction that
in reality they - are but chains of machine-like
reflexes. Life becomes a flight from science,
science a game. And thus science abandons
its purpose of treating the whole of existence.
if psychology can point the way where science
and life will meet, if it can lay the foundations
of a system of knowledge that will contain
the behaviour of a single atom as well as
that of an amoeba, a white rat, a chimpanzee,
and a human being, with all the latter's
curious activities which we call social conduct,
music and art, literature and drama, then
an acquaintance with such a psychology should
be worth while and repay the time and effort
spent in its acquisition.
Principles of Gestalt Psychology (1935) publ.
Lund Humphries, London. Chapter 1 reproduced
here.
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