Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 12.djvu/617

 PSYCHOPHYSICS

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PSYCHOTHERAPY

and faculties, and to show how they have been gener- ated or could have been generated from the fewest original aptitudes or fundamental activities of the mind. This is sound scientific procedure — recognized in the Scholastic aphorism, Enlia non sunt mulli- plicanda prwter necessitatem. We may not postulate a special faculty for any mental state which can be accounted for by the co-operation of already recog- nized activities of the soul. But the labour and skill devoted during the past century and a half to this combined analytic and S}Tithetic procedure has developed one feature of modern psychology by which it is differentiated in a most marked manner from tliat of the Middle Ages and of Aristotle. The pres- ent-day treatment is pronouncedly genetic. Thus, whilst the Schoolmen in their account of mental operations, such as perception, conception, or desire, considered these processes almost solely as elicited by the normal adult human being already in full possession and control of matured mental powers, the chief interest of the modern psychologist is to trace the growth of these powers from their first and simplest manifestations in infancy, and to dis- criminate what is the product of experience and ac- quired habits from that which is the immediate out- come of the innate capabilities of the soul. This is particularly noticeable if we compare the treat- ment of the mental operation of perception as given in most Scholastic textbooks with that to be found in any modern handbook of psychology. The point of view is usually quite different. Since much of the most plausible modern attacks on Scholastic psycho- logical doctrine has been made in this manner, the genetic treatment from the Thomist standpoint of many psychological questions seems to us to be among the most urgent tasks imposed nowadays on the neo- Scholastic psychologist. The value of such work from a philo.sophical standpoint would seem to be distinctly greater than that of any results likely to be achieved in quantitative experimental psychol- ogy. Obviously there is nothing in the Thomistic conception of the soul and its operations incompatible with a diligent investigation into the unfolding of its various aptitudes and powers.

Rational Psychology. — From the study of the character of the activities of the mind in experi- mental psychology, the student now passes on to inquire into the nature of the principle from which they proceed. This constitutes the more philo- sophical or metaphysical division of the science. For, as we have indicated, the analysis and explana- tory accounts of the higher forms and products of mental activity, which the scientific psychologist is compelled to undertake even in phenomenal psy- chology, involve metaphysical assumption and con- clusions which he cannot escape — certainly not by merely ignoring them. Still, it is in this second stage that he will formally evolve the logical consequences to which his previous study of the several forms of mental activity lead up. His method here will be both inductive and deductive; both analytic and synthetic. He argues from effect to cause. From the character of the mental activities aheady scruti- nized with so much care, he now concludes as to the nature of the subject to which they belong. From what the mind does, he seeks to learn what it is. In particular, from the simple spiritual nature of the higher activities of intellect and will, he infers that the being, the ultimate principle from which they proceed, must be of a simple and spiritual nature. Consequently, it cannot be the brain or any corporeal substance. Having established the simplicity and spirituality of the soul, he then goes on to deduce further conclusions as to its origin, the nature of its union with the body, and its future destiny. In this way by rational arguments the Scholastic thinkers claim to prove that the human soul can only have

arisen by creation, that it is naturally incorruptible, and that the boundless aspirations of the intellect, the insatiable yearnings of the will, and the deepest convictions of the moral reason all combine to es- tablish a future life of the soul after death.

Important special questions of psychology are treated under the articles Animism; Association of Ideas; Consciousness; Energy; Faculties of the Soul; Form; Free Will; Idea; Imagination; Immortality; Individual, Individuality; In- tellect; Life; Personality.

General Psychology: among the Scholastic Latin manuals there is much uniformity of treatment. UrrAbura, Psychologia, I, II (Rome and Paris, 1894), is exhaustive. Hickey, Psychologia (2nd ed., Dublin and New York, 1910) is an easy useful intro- duction; Boedder, Psychologia Rationalis (4th ed., Freiburg and New York, 1903). English: Mahek, Psychology, Empirical and Rational (7th ed.. New York and London, 1911). French: Mercier, Psychologic (4th ed., Louvain, 1903); Gardair, Phi- losophic de St Thomas (Paris, 1892-95); Faroes, Etudes Phi- losophiques, I-VI (Paris, 1890-95). German: Gutberlet, Die Psychologic (Munster, 1896). English works of various schools: Ladd, Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory (New York and London, 1895) ; Idem, Philosophy of Mind (New York and London, 1895) ; James, Principles of Psychology (New York and London, 1890); Stout, Analytical Psychology (London and New York, 1902); Spencer, Principles of Psychology (New York and London, 1904); Bain, Senses and Intellect; Idem, Emotions and Will (London, 1894). Physiological: Ladd, Elements of Physio- logical Psychology (New York and London, 1894); Wundt, Principles of Physiological Psychology (tr.. New York and Lon- don. 1904). Experimental: Titchener, Experimental Psychol- ogy, parts I, II (4 vols.. New York and London, 1901-05) ; KuLPE, Outlines of Psychology (tr. New York and London, 1894) ; Meuman, Vorlesungen, Experimentelle Pddagogik (Leipzig, 1907). Comparative: Wasmann, Instinct and Intelligence (tr. New York and London, 1903); Idem, Psychology of Ants and Animals (1905); Mivart, Origin of Human Reason (London, 1889). Child Psychology: Tracy, Psychology of Childhood (Boston, 1907); Preyer. The Mind of the Child, vol. I-II (tr. New York and London, 1901) ; Perez, First Three Years of Childhood (tr. New York and London, 1892) ; Marenholz-Bulon, Child and Child Nature (tr. London, 1904); Sully, Children's Ways (Lon- don, 1898); Burke, Child Study (DubHn, 1908). History: general histories of philosophy, such as Turner, History of Philosophy (Boston and London, 1903); de Wulf, History of Philosophy (tr. London and New York, 1909); Stockl. History of Philosophy (tr. New York and Dublin, 1887); Perrier, Revival of Scholastic Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century (New York, 1909), contains also a useful bibliography of neo-Scholastic philosophy; Siebeck, Gesch. der Psychol. (1904). See also: Baldwin, Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology; and Eisler, W6rterbuch (Berlin, 1904).

Michael Maheb.

Psychophysics. See Consciousness, Quantita- tive Science of Consciousness.

Psychotherapy (from the Greek ^vxfi, "mind", and eepa.TTaioi, "I cure"), that branch of therapeutics which uses the mind to influence the body; first, for the prevention of disease by keeping worry from lowering resistive vitality; secondly, for reaction against disease during progress by freeing the mind from solicitude and tapping latent energies; thirdly, after the ailment retrogrades, to help convalescence through the removal of discouragement during weak- ness by inspiring suggestion. Psychotherapy is some- times regarded as a comparatively new development conseiiueiit upon oin- recent ucivancc in psychology and esp('ci;illy in pliysiolosiii'al psychology; it is, how- ever, as old as the history of biniKUiity, :ind the priests in luicient Egypt used it effectively. Wherever men have had confidence in other men for their physical good there has always been a large element of psychic influence over disease. The first physician of whom we have any record in history was I-Em-Hetep, "The Bringer of Peace"; we know that it was much more the confidence that men had in him than anything which he did by physical means that brought him this complimentary title and enabled him to do so much good. He was so highly esteemed that the famous step pyramid at Sakkara, near Memphis, is called by his name, and after his death he was wor- shipped as a god. The Eastern nations always em- ployed mental influences in medicine, and we have abundant evidence of its effectiveness among them.

Among the Greeks the influence of the mind on the body Wiis recognized very clearly. Plato says in the "Charmides": "Neither ought you to attempt to