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Although Waitz re peatedly declares that he rests his views upon Hcrbart s prin ciples, that Herbart s theory is the only one which is compat ible with the results of science, and so on ; and although, when he speaks of idealism, we might think we were listening to the scolding of Exner, Allihn, or some other follower of Herbart, still the place which he ascribes to psychology is not one which can be reconciled with Herbart s principles. In the present sad condition of philosophical studies, he thinks it ought to be made the foundation of philosophy. That is to say, Waitz simply allows that Beneke was justified in saying what he did against Herbart. Waitz wishes to have psychology designated as science, because it too adopts the fundamental assumption of all science, that everything stands in a relation of rigid causal connection ; and because it, just like the other sciences, by an analysis of what is given in experience, reaches an hypothesis from which it further synthetically deduces phenomena. It certainly differs from all other sciences in so far as its stand- point is constituted, not by the most complicated, but just by the simplest of all processes, sense impressions, from which it goes on to hypothesis, and from that again to the combinations of those simplest processes. prev next |