PSYCHOINGV, in its larger accepta tion, may be taken as synonymous with mental philosophy. The word is more frequently used in reference to the lower faculties of the mind. and the classifica tion of the phenomena which they present. All psychology is built on experience, either immediate, or revived by the mem ory and imagination. But, in reflect ing on our intellectual faculties, we dis cover in them certain laws, which, as soon as they are presented to us, we at once recognize as universal and necessary; certain conditions without the fulfilment of which we are sensible that no act of in tellection could have taken place. This universality is something very different from the empirical truth, as a matter of fact, which we attribute to the laws of association, which are, indeed, universal, hut which might, for aught we can see, have been different from what they are. Corresponding to this distinction, German writers have discriminated between a higher, or rational, and a lower, or em pirical psychology ; the first, that of Kant, who sought, in all our mental fac ulties, to determine that only which is necessary and immutable ; the second, that of Hartley, who treats all our intellec tual acts as alike objects of mere history, dependent for their validity only on the fact that they do really recur in such and such order. The psychology of Aristotle
was of the latter description. He, conse quently, regarded the science as forming one of the physical sciences, or those which are conversant. with the contingent and changeable. Many pregnant psy chological truths are discoverable in that philosopher's work out the soul ; in partic ular, the doctrine of association, the mas ter-light of all sound experimental psy chology, owes its first enunciation to him. Among later writers who have made valuable contributions to the science may be enumerated Hobbes, Locke, Hartley, and Sir Thomas Brown. The value of these authors' writings in this peculiar province cannot be too highly apprecia ted. It is only when psychology intrudes upon the domain, or usurps the attributes of the higher philosophy, that its claims need to he resisted. As a preparation for metaphysical and theological thought, and, indeed, as an indispensable requisite for the science of man, whether history, politics, or ethics, it is not easy to exag gerate its importance.