Völkerpsychologie

Abstract

PROF. WUNDT'S two bulky volumes form the first part of a long-expected treatise on race-psychology. The distinguished author has not the gift of concise utterance, and one almost shudders to think of the thousands of pages to which the work promises to extend by the time the second and third parts, dealing with myth and custom, have been completed. It is, perhaps, unfortunate that Prof. Wundt should have determined to treat his two remaining topics in the order just indicated'if there is anything at all in the results and methods of modern anthropology, it is from customs of the most practical kind, in fact from magic, that mythology on the whole derives its existence; hence one would think that custom rather than myth is entitled to the central position in a systematic. “Völkerpsychologie.” Can it be that Prof. Wundt's arrangement of his material has been unconsciously influenced by the now obsolete or obsolescent view of mythology as a “disease of language”? In any case, the intimate connection of the myths of one age with the magic of its predecessors seems to diminish the value of the author's psychological scheme by which custom is made to correspond to the volitional, myth to the emotional, aspect of racial life (vol. i. p. 27).

Völkerpsychologie.

By W. Wundt. Erster Band. Die Sprache. 2 Parts. Pp. xv + 627 and x + 644. (Leipzig: Engelmann, 1900.) Prices 14s. net and 15s. net.