Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 12.djvu/613

 PSELLUS

545

PSYCHOLOGY

HcGO, Annales, I. preface. §xvi: II, 523; Calmet, Biblioth. lorraine, II; Spilbeeck. in PrScis Historiqtie (Brussels. 1S8S-89) ; GoovAEET. Die. Bio-bibliog., II, 66 sqq. (Brussels. 1902).

F. M. Geddens.

Psellus, Michael (MixotjX 6 4'e\Xis), Byzantine statesman, scholar, and author, b. apparently at Constantinople, 1018; d. probably 1078. He at- tended the schools, afterwards learning jurisprudence from John Xiphilinos, later patriarch (John VIII, 1064-75). Psellus practised law, was appointed judge at Philadelphia, and under the Emperor Michael V (10-11-2) became imperial secretary. Under Constantine IX (Monomachos, 10-42-54) he became influential in the state. At this time he taught philosophy at the new Academy at Con- stantinople, arousing opposition among ecclesiastical persons by preferring Plato to Aristotle. PseUus attained a great reputation as a philosopher. His pedagogical career was cut short by his appointment as Secretary of State (irpwTocrTjKp^ns) to Constantine IX. In 10.54 he followed Xiphilinos to the monas- tery of Olympos, in Bithynia, where he took the name Michael. He soon quarrelled with the monks, however, and returned to the capital. He was one of the ambassadors sent to treat with the rebel Isaac Komnenos after the defeat of the imperial army near Nicaea in 1057. When Isaac I (1057-9) entered Con- stantinople in triumph Psellus had no scruple against transferring allegiance to him. Psellus drew up the indictment against the Patriarch Michael C»rulariu3 in 1059, and preached the enthusiastic panegyric that the government thought advisable after Cserula- rius's death. Psellus maintained his influence under Constantine X (Dukas, 10.59-67); under Michael VII (1071-8) he became chief ^Iiniste^ of State. Famous for oratory as well as for philosophy and statecraft, he preached the panegjTic of the Patriarch John Xiphilinos in 1075. A work written in 1096-7 after PseUus's death has a commendatory preface by him. Krumbacher (Byzant. Litteratur., 434) suggests that the preface may have been written be- fore the work was begun. That Psellus was able to retain his influence under succeeding governments, through revolutions and usurpations, shows his un- scrupulous ser\-ility to those in power. Krumbacher characterizes him as "grovelling servilit)', unscrupu- lousness, insatiable ambition, and unmeasured vanity" (op. cit., 435). Nevertheless his many-sided literary work and the elegance of his style give i\im a chief place among contemporary scholars. Compared with Albertus ^iagnus and Roger Bacon, he is to Krum- bacher "the first man of his time". His important works are: conunentary on Aristotle irepi ipixyivdm; treatises on psychology; works on anatomy and medicine, including a poem on medicine and a list of sicknesses; a fragmentary encyclopedia, called "Manifold Teaching" (AiSacrKaMa vavToiairri); a paraphrase of the Iliad; a poem on Greek dialects; a treatise on the topography of Athens; a poetic compendium of law and an explanation of legal terms. His speeches are famous as examples of style, and contain much historical information. His best known panegyrics are on Caerularius, Xiphilinos, and his own mother. About five hundred letters, and a number of rhetorical exercises, poems, epitaphs, and occasional WTitings are extant. His most valuable work is his history (xpovoypa(t>la) from 976 to 1077, forming a continuation to Leo Diaconus.

Works (incomplete) io P. G.. CXXII, 477-1186, also in Sathas. MetrauitKiKTi jSi^AiodiJKT), IV and V: the history edited by Sathas is published in NIethuen, Byzantine Texts (London. 1899); Leo Allatius, De Psellis et eorum scriptis (Rome, 1634). republished in Fabricius-Harles. Bibliotheca grceca, X (Ham- burg. 1790), 41-97, and in P. G., CXXII. 477-538; Krum- bacher. Byzantinische Lilteraturgesch. (2nd ed.. Munich, 1897), 433-44; Diehl, Figures Byzantines. 1 (Paris. 1906), I. li.

Adrian Foktesccte.

Pseudo-Ambrosius.

XII.— 35

See Ambrosiaster.

Pseudo-Clementines. See Clementines.

Pseudo-Dionysius. See Diontsius the Psetjdo-

Areopagitb.

Pseudo-Isidore. See False Decretals. Pseudo-Zacharias (Historia Miscellanea). See MoNOPHYsiTES and Monophysitism.

Psychology (Gr.^vx-^. X670S; Lat. psychologia; Fr. psychologic; Ger. Seelenkundc), in the most general sense the science which treats of the soul and its opera- tions. During the past centurj-, however, the term has come to be frequently employed to denote the lat- ter branch of knowledge — the science of the phenom- ena of the mind, of the processes or states of human consciousness. Moreover, the increasing differentia- tion, characteristic of the advance of all departments of knowledge in recent years, has manifested itself in so marked a manner in psychological investigation that there are already several distinct fields of pyscho- logical work, each putting forward claims to be recog- nized as a separate science. The term psychologia seems to have first come into use about the end of the sixteenth century (Goclenius, 1590, Casmann's "Psy- chologia Anthropologica", 1594). But the populari- zation of the name dates from Ch. Wolff in the eigh- teenth century.

History. — Aristotle may well be deemed the founder of this as of so many other sciences, though by him it is not distinguished from general biology, which is itself part of physics, or the study of nature. His treatise wepl\(ivxTJs ("De Anima") was during two thousand years virtually the universal te.xtbook of psychology, and it still well repays study. In the investigation of vital phenomena Aristotle employed to some extent all the methods of modern science: observation, internal and external; comparison; ex- periment; hypothesis; and induction; as well as de- duction and speculative reasoning. He defines the soul as the "Entelechy or form of a natural body potentially possessing life". He distinguishes three kinds of souls, or grades of life, the vegetative, the sensitive, and the inteUectual or rational. In man the higher virtually includes the lower. He investi- gates the several functions of nutrition, appetency, locomotion, sensuous perception, and intellect or reason. The last is confined to man. The working of the senses is discussed by him in detail ; and diligent anatomical and phj'siological study, as well as careful introspective observation of our conscious processes, is manifested. Knowledge starts from sensation, but sense only apprehends the concrete and singular thing. It is the function of the intellect to abstract the universal essence. There is a radical distinction between thought and sentiency. The intellect or reason (toi/s) is separate from sense and immortal, though how precisely we are to conceive this fovs and its " separateness " is one of the most puzzling problems in Aristotle's psychology. Indeed, the doc- trines of free will and personal immortality are not easily reconciled with parts of Aristotle's teaching.

Scholastic Period. — There is little effort at syste- matic treatment of psychology from Aristotle to the medieval philosophers. For Epicurus, psychology was a branch of physics in subordination to a theory of hedonistic ethics. With the introduction of Chris- tianity certain psychological problems such as the immortality and the origin of the soul, free will and moral habits at once assumed a vastly increased im- portance and raised the treatise "De Anima", to one of the most important branches of philosophy. More- over, the angels being assumed to be spirits in many ways resembling the human soul conceived as separate from the human body, a speculative theory of the nature, attributes, and operations of the angelic beings, partly based on Scriptural texts, partly de- duced by analogical reasoning from human psy-