The application of psychology to the science of education / by Johann Friedrich Herbart ; translated and edited ... Beatrice C. Mulliner.

  • Herbart, Johann Friedrich, 1776-1841.
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The application of psychology to the science of education / by Johann Friedrich Herbart ; translated and edited ... Beatrice C. Mulliner. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    is much that will not fit into our universe of thought. The great advance in science, especially in physiological science, has much enlarged our knowledge of the relation of the mind to the body, and we think at first that it is impossible for us to follow him, or benefit by his teaching. But before we can understand Herbart, we have to transport ourselves into a different thought-world. As we cannot read Dante or Milton without a clear vision of their cosmos, so neither can we follow the psychology of Herbart without translating our conceptions into the language of his thought; and then, though his poetic figures are not ours, yet the truths expressed are brought vividly before us by Ms imagery. Taught by him, we learn to think of ideas not as merely objective to the Ego, and of the Ego by a dialectic process selecting the ideas, and assigning their functions by the laws of logic; we also think of them as active powers, the living offspring of the thinker. We learn from him to think of the Ego building up itself by constantly adding fresh contents; as giving birth to conceptions, ideas, which become in some sense real entities, an active environment dominating the Ego, and in relation with which the Ego comes to know itself; one is reminded of Kant’s words: “ Der Mensch macht die Natur.” Thus, at the basis of Herbart’s system, lies the doctrine of apperception, and we have to think of these ideas as forming, for good or evil, the character of the Ego. At first, as we read