Origins of the Schema of Stimulated Motion: Towards a Pre-History of Modern Psychology

The historian's own positivist philosophy was of course exempt from the patronizing attitude displayed towards other metaphysical positions: cf. Boring E. G. , A history of experimental psychology, 2nd edn (New York, 1950) and History, psychology and science: Selected papers (New York, 1963).

This has been strongly argued, with a wealth of illustration, by Smith R. , “The background of physiological psychology in natural philosophy”, History of science, xi (1973), 75–123.

Danziger K. , “The positivist repudiation of Wundt”, Journal of the history of the behavioral sciences, xv (1979), 205–30.

Cf. Young R. M. , “Scholarship and the history of the behavioural sciences”, History of science, v (1966), 1–51; Stocking G. W. , “On the limits of ‘presentatism’ and ‘historicism’ in the historiography of the behavioral sciences”, Journal of the history of the behavioral sciences, i (1965), 211–18; Wettersten J. R. , “The historiography of scientific psychology: A critical study”, Journal of the history of the behavioral sciences, xi (1975), 157–71.

To some extent the historiographic problems of a pre-history of psychology are analogous to the problems faced by the historian of a subject like geology who is sensitive to the historicity of self-consciously defined disciplinary boundaries, cf. the editors' introduction to Jordanova L. J. and Porter R. S. , Images of the earth: Essays in the history of the environmental sciences (Chalfont St Giles, 1979). The peculiarity of psychology derives from the long delay between the elaboration of many of its most important conceptual schemes and its effective constitution as a self-consciously autonomous discipline.

There is a useful discussion of the relative equivalence of theoretical and observation statements in Hesse M. , Revolutions and reconstructions in the philosophy of science, ch. 3 (Bloomington and London, 1980). Historical analysis may hope to uncover the schemes that impress a particular form on both kinds of statements.

The notion of the prototypical instance is in fact crucial for the definition of the concept of the schema. Unlike a logical category, a schema is distinguished, not by the clarity of its boundaries, but by a central prototype or configuration. The term “schema” was employed by Kant and picked up by James Mark Baldwin in his development of a genetic epistemology. This perspective has become very well known in the form given to it by Piaget Jean . Other developments of the notion occurred in the early work of Bartlett in England and Selz in Germany. During the last few years the schema and related concepts (e.g. “frames”) have played an increasingly important role in developing an understanding of human cognitive processes. The very extensive literature is not directly relevant in the present context because of its neglect of social factors and productive functions. See, however, van Dijk T. A. , Macrostructures: An interdisciplinary study of global structures in discourse, interaction, and cognition (Hillsdale, N. J., 1980); Schön D. A. , “Generative metaphor: A perspective on problem-setting in social policy”, in Ortony A. , Metaphor and thought (Cambridge, 1979); and Moscovici S. , “On social representation”, in Forgas J. P. , Social cognition (London and New York, 1981).

Fechner G. T. , Elemente der Psychophysik (Leipzig, 1860).

For a critical account of the more recent history of the stimulus concept see Gundlach H. , Reiz: Zur Verwendung eines Begriffes in der Psychologie (Bern, Stuttgart, Vienna, 1976); also Gibson J. J. , “The concept of the stimulus in psychology”, American psychologist, xv (1960), 694–703.

This was the underlying assumption of Fearing's F. Reflex action (New York, 1930). For a recent statement see Lowry R. , “The reflex model in psychology: Origins and evolution”, Journal of the history of the behavioral sciences, vi (1970), 64–69.

Huxley T. H. , “On the hypothesis that animals are automata and its history” (1874), in Huxley T. H. , Methods and results: Essays (New York, 1897). Du Bois Reymond's “discovery” of Descartes as the originator of the reflex concept is documented in Canguilhem G. , La formation du concept de réflexe (Paris, 1955).

This point is made very effectively in Jaynes J. , “The problem of animate motion in the seventeenth century”, in Henle M. Jaynes J. , and Sullivan J. J. (eds), Historical conceptions of psychology (New York, 1973).

A history of the use of the term ‘stimulus’ in medical discourse is available in the monograph of Möller H.-J. , Die Begriffe ‘Reizbarkeit’ und ‘Reiz’: Konstanz und Wandel ihres Bedeutungsgehaltes sowie die Problematik ihrer exakten Definition (Stuttgart, 1975).

Harré R. , The principles of scientific thinking (London, 1970), 267.

French R. K. , “Ether and physiology”, in Cantor G. N. and Hodge M. J. S. (eds), Conceptions of ether: Studies in the history of ether theories 1740–1900 (Cambridge, 1981), 128.

Newtonian accounts of the production of animate motion are to be found in the writings of Pemberton (1724), Nicholas Robinson (1729), Cheyne (1733), Langrish (1733), Bryan Robinson (1734), and Mead (1740s). Most of these are discussed in Jackson S. W. , “Force and kindred notions in eighteenth-century neurophysiology and medical psychology”, Bulletin of the history of medicine, xliv (1970), 397–410, and more briefly in Carlson E. T. and Simpson M. M. , “Models of the nervous system in eighteenth century psychiatry”, Bulletin of the history of medicine, xliii (1969), 101–15.

Hartley David , Observations on Man, his frame, his duty and his expectations (London, 1749); reprinted by Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints (Gainsville, Fla., 1966) and by Olms Georg Verlagsbuchhandlung (Hildesheim, 1967).

Positive interest in Hartley's ideas gradually grew after Joseph Priestley published his Hartley's theory of the human mind on the principle of the association of ideas with essays relating to the subject of it in 1775, which omitted the physiological aspects. In 1791 Hartley's Observations on Man was republished and several further editions followed, the sixth and last as late as 1834. What came to be called ‘the Hartleyan philosophy’ had its chief followers among early nineteenth century writers on mental philosophy, the most influential being James Mill. Others were Belsham Thomas and Carpenter Lant , the father of the mid-nineteenth century psycho-physiologist, W. B. Carpenter.

Relatively late examples of the mechanistic explanation of animate movement are to be found in the Croonian lectures on muscular motion delivered before the Royal Society between 1738 and 1747. See Schofield R. E. , Mechanism and materialism: British natural philosophy in an Age of Reason (Princeton, 1970), ch. 9. In 1746 Hartley published a brief preliminary version of his system in which the medical aspect is more explicit than in the main work. An English translation of the earlier work is available as Various conjectures on the perception, motion, and generation of ideas, trans. by Palmer R. E. A. , Augustan Reprint Society Publication 77–78 ( Angeles Los , 1959). Solidist accounts of the physical basis of nerve action are found in the latter part of the century but the functional context is no longer the Hartleyan one.

French , op. cit. (ref. 15).

In Whytt Robert , Works (Edinburgh, 1768); the monograph was originally published in 1751.

French R. K. , Robert Whytt, the soul and medicine (London, 1969), provides a very useful account of Whytt's doctrines.

French R. K. , “Sauvages, Whytt and the motion of the heart: Aspects of eighteenth century animism”, Clio medica, vii (1972), 35–54.

Whytt , op. cit. (ref. 21), 123.

Whytt , op. cit. (ref. 21), 171.

Whytt , op. cit. (ref. 21), 133.

Thomson John , An account of the life, lectures and writings of William Cullen M.D. (2 vols, London, 1832), i, 260.

Thomson , op. cit. (ref. 27), 303.

Cullen's more general contribution to these developments is discussed in Christie J. R. R. , “Ether and the science of chemistry: 1740–1780”, in Cantor and Hodge , op. cit. (ref. 15).

Among others, the energy concept was particularly important for Gustav Theodor Fechner, the inventor of psychophysics, and for Alexander Bain, the modernizer of associationism. While Fechner remained closer to mid-nineteenth century physical theories, Bain's use of the energy concept was vitalistic and quite anachronistic for his time. See Bain A. , Mind and body: The theories of their relation , 2nd edn (London, 1873), for example p. 76. Also Mischel T. , “Emotion and motivation in the development of English psychology: Hartley D. Mill James Bain A.”, Journal of the history of the behavioral sciences, ii (1966), 123–44, p. 141.

Lawrence C. , “The nervous system and society in the Scottish Enlightenment”, in Barnes B. and Shapin S. (eds), Natural order: Historical studies of scientific culture (Beverly Hills and London, 1979). General issues in the interaction of mental philosophy and theories of the nervous system are discussed in Figlio K. M. , “Theories of perception and the physiology of mind in the late eighteenth century”, History of science, xiii (1975), 177–212.

Foucault's Michel account of the “classical” organization of clinical knowledge, and hence of the transition to modern ways of knowing, is very closely tied to the special features of French medical thought in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Had he based himself on the Scottish and German material which is of primary relevance in the present context his account would have had to be rather different; see his The birth of the clinic (London, 1973). On a more general level this suggests that a safer path to the characterization of global “epistemes” would have to lead through the analysis of more specific and more localized epistemic schemas. Developments in French physiology relevant to the elaboration of a more abstract schema of stimulated action are analysed in Gross M. , “The lessened locus of feelings: A transformation in French physiology in the early nineteenth century”, Journal of the history of biology, xii (1979), 231–71.

See Staum M. S. , Cabanis: Enlightenment and medical philosophy in the French Revolution (Princeton, 1980). The general topic of the conceptualization of individual differences between the period of quasi-Galenic formulations and the more recent statistical period is very much in need of systematic study.

Cross S. J. , “John Hunter, the animal economy, and late eighteenth-century physiological discourse”, Studies in the history of biology, v (1981), 1–110.

Darwin Erasmus , Zoonomia (2 vols, London, 1794 and 1796). This work went through three editions in seven years. However, his distinctly radical ideas soon aroused strong opposition in an England swept by a wave of reaction. Thomas Brown, the Scottish philosopher, earned his philosophic spurs by writing a book-length critique of Darwin — Observations on the Zoonomia of Erasmus Darwin M.D. (Edinburgh, 1798). See also Garfinkle N. , “Science and religion in England, 1790–1800: The critical response to the work of Erasmus Darwin”, Journal of the history of ideas, xvi (1955), 376–88.

Darwin , op. cit. (ref. 35), 42.

The formulation of the image of the nerves as the servants of the soul occurs in Haller Albrecht , Von den empfindlichen und reizbaren Teilen des Körpers (Leipzig, 1922). This is a reprint of Haller's own German version; the English version published by John Hopkins University Press, 1936, is a translation of an old French translation and not very reliable.

Hoffmann C. L. , Von der Empfindlichkeit und Reizbarkeit der Theile, Als eine Einleitung zum zweyten Theile von den Pocken (Münster, 1779).

Unzer Johann August , Erste Gründe einer Physiologie der eigentlichen thierischen Natur thierischer Körper (Leipzig, 1771), 3. An English translation of important parts of this work was published by the Sydenham Society, London, in 1851 under the title The principles of physiology by John Augustus Unzer, ed. and trans. by Laycock Thomas . Quotations will be taken from this volume, the accuracy of the translation having been verified.

Unzer , op. cit. (ref. 39), 197.

Prochaska George , A dissertation on the functions of the nervous system , trans. by Laycock T. (London, 1851), p. x. This passage actually comes from Prochaska's Lehrsätze aus der Physiologie des Menschen (1797).

Heimann P. M. and McGuire J. E. , “Newtonian forces and Lockean powers: Concepts of matter in eighteenth century thought”, Historical studies in the physical sciences, iii (1971), 233–306.

Mayr O. , The origins of feedback control (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1970), 126–8.

Cullen maintained quite a close friendly relationship with Adam Smith and also had strong technological interests. Erasmus Darwin had connections with Boulton and Watt as well as Joseph Priestley whose natural philosophy represents nature as a self-regulating system. On Darwin's circle, see King-Hele D. , Erasmus Darwin (London, 1963), and Schofield R. E. , The Lunar Society of Birmingham: A social history of provincial science and industry in eighteenth century England (Oxford, 1963).

Hume David , Writings on economics, ed. by Rotwein E. (Edinburgh, 1955).

Mayr O. , “Adam Smith and the concept of the feedback system: Economic thought and technology in 18th-century Britain”, Technology and culture, xii (1971), 1–22.

Mayr , op. cit. (ref. 43), argues for the fundamental importance of the technological area, while from the point of view of the “strong programme” in the sociology of science the image of society implicit in the concept of the self-regulating system would presumably have to be taken as the fundamental factor. See Bloor D. , Knowledge and social imagery (London, 1976).

This metaphorical aspect of certain scientific concepts and models has been explored by Young R. M. , “Darwin's metaphor: Does nature select?”, The monist, xiv (1971), 442–503; and by Figlio K. , “The metaphor of organization: An historiographical perspective on the biomedical sciences of the early nineteenth century”, History of science, xiv (1976), 17–53.

Brown T. M. , “From mechanism to vitalism in eighteenth century English physiology”, Journal of the history of biology, vii (1974), 179–216.

On medicalized environmentalism, see Jordanova L. J. , “Earth science and environmental medicine: The synthesis of the late Enlightenment”, in Jordanova and Porter (ref. 5), 119–46; also Staum M. , op. cit. (ref. 33).

The title of Hall's initial paper on the reflex concept was “On the reflex functions of the medulla oblongata and medulla spinalis”, Philosophical transactions, cxxiii (1833), 635–65. See also Hall's emphasis on this point: Hall M. , “On the anatomy of the excitomotor system”, Lancet, ii (1846), 147.

For a very thorough discussion of this issue, see Leys R. , “Background to the reflex controversy: William Alison and the doctrine of sympathy before Hall”, Studies in the history of biology, iv (1980), 1–66.

Laycock's and Carpenter's positions are discussed at length in Smith R. , “Physiological psychology and the philosophy of nature in mid-nineteenth century Britain” (Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge, 1970), and also more briefly in Danziger K. , “Mid-nineteenth century British psycho-physiology: A neglected chapter in the history of psychology”, in Woodward R. W. and Ash M. G. (eds), The problematic science: Psychology in nineteenth-century thought (New York, 1982). On the social context of Laycock's and Carpenter's views, see Jacyna L. S. , “The physiology of mind, the unity of nature, and the moral order in Victorian thought”, The British journal for the history of science, xiv (1981), 109–32.

James William , The principles of psychology, ii, ch. 26 (New York, 1890).

Pflüger E. , Die sensorischen Functionen des Rückenmarks der Wirbelthiere nebst einer neuen Lehre über die Leitungsgesetze der Reflexionen (Berlin, 1853); Lotze R. H. , “Pflüger's Die sensoriellen Functionen etc.”, Göttinger gelehrte Anzeigen, iii (1853), 1737–76.

Wundt W. , “Die Aufgaben der experimentallen Psychologie” (1882), in Essays (Leipzig, 1906); and also Wundt's Logik, ii: Methodenlehre (Leipzig, 1883), 483, and the introduction to Grundzüge der physiologischen Psychologie (3rd edn, Leipzig, 1887).

Spencer H. , The principles of psychology, 2nd edn (London, 1870), i, 559–68.

Cf. the theories of Loeb and of Meynert.

Danziger K. , “On the threshold of the New Psychology: Situating Wundt and James”, in Bringmann W. G. and Tweney R. D. (eds), Wundt Studies/Wundt Studien (Göttingen and Toronto, 1980); also Danziger K. , “Wundt's theory of behaviour and volition”, in Rieber R. W. (ed.), Wilhelm Wundt and the making of a scientific psychology (New York and London, 1980).