Mental pathology in its relation to normal psychology : a course of lectures delivered in the University of Leipzig / by Gustav Störring ; translated by Thomas Loveday.

  • Störring, Gustav, 1860-
Date:
1907
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: Mental pathology in its relation to normal psychology : a course of lectures delivered in the University of Leipzig / by Gustav Störring ; translated by Thomas Loveday. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    urge, as Wundt* does, the fundamental rule of the logic of scientific method, that “ only homogeneous facts can be brought into an intelligible system of conditions and consequences, because in general only such facts admit a common measure and can be arranged under common laws.” We must next inquire what significance the anatomical- physiological point of view has in our sphere. There are mental pathologists who would solve the riddle of mental life on the lines of anatomy and physiology. But it is evident that even perfect insight into the causal connexion of the physiological processes of the cortex which are parallel to psychical processes could not disclose to us the nature of the corresponding psychical processes. Suppose we knew all the anatomical paths and all the anatomical centres traversed by a certain excitation during the occurrence of a psychical process, that would not tell us what it is that takes place in those paths ; we should not know the different physiological processes which occur in them, and much less the corresponding psychical processes. And granted we did know the nature and connexions of the physiological pro- cesses, even that would not give us the psychical processes. Other authors who equally overestimate the importance of the anatomical-physiological standpoint, though they do not go so far as absolutely to ignore the mental factor, imagine that they must not rest content with a perfectly clear analysis of a mental process even when on the physiological side there is nothing to offer but vague constructions. This means that they regard hypothetical constructions of a physiological kind as a better scientific explanation than a fact which ex hypothesi is absolutely ascertainable by observations or experiments, as if what is clearly ascertained on the psychical side had less factual value than what is ascertained on the physiological side—less even than purely hypothetical physiological constructions. This standpoint is opposed to the general principles of scientific method. As a matter of fact we are usually better off from the psychological point of view than from the anatomical-physio- logical ; for example, it is to psychology that we owe our know- ledge of the most important laws governing the succession of our ideas, whilst the nature of the corresponding physiological processes remains quite in the dark. * V orlesungen tiber Menschen- und Tierseele, 3rd ed., pp. 6-7. [cf. Lectures on Human and Animal Psychology (translated from the 2nd German edition), p • 6.—7>.]