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The keen interest which the present age is manifesting in problemsconnected with the interpretation of human experience is no less aresult than it is a precondition of the fruitful labours of individualscholars. Prominent among these is the distinguished author of thevolume which is herewith rendered accessible to English readers. Theimpetus which Professor Wundt has given to the philosophical andpsychological studies of recent years is a matter of common knowledge.Many of those who are contributing richly to these fields of thoughtreceived their stimulus from instruction directly enjoyed in thelaboratory and the classrooms of Leipzig. But even more than to Wundt,the teacher, is the world indebted to Wundt, the investigator and thewriter. The number and comprehensiveness of this author's publications,as well as their range of subjects, are little short of amazing. Togauge the extent of their influence would require an examination of alarge part of current philosophical and psychological literature. Nosmall measure of this influence, however, must be credited to thosewhose labours have made possible the appearance of Wundt's writingsin other tongues. Of the English translations, we owe the first toProfessors Creighton and Titchener. Succeeding their translation ofthe "Lectures on Human and Animal Psychology," came the publication,in English, of the first volume of the "Principles of PhysiologicalPsychology," of the two briefer treatises, "Outlines of Psychology" and"Introduction to Psychology," and, in the meantime, of the valuablework on "Ethics."
[Pg vi]Though Professor Wundt first won recognition through his investigationsin physiology, it was his later and more valuable contributions tophysiological psychology, as well as to logic, ethics, epistemology,and metaphysics, that gained for him his place of eminence in the worldof scholarship. One may hazard the prophecy, however, that the finalverdict of history will ascribe to his latest studies, those in folkpsychology, a significance not inferior to that which is now generallyconceded to the writings of his earlier years. The Völkerpsychologieis a truly monumental work. The analysis and interpretation oflanguage, art, mythology,