2. The principle of psychical resultants finds its expression in the fact that every psychical compound shows attributes which may indeed be understood from the attributes of its elements after these elements have once been presented, but which are by no means to be looked upon as the mere sum of the attributes of these elements. A compound clang is more in its ideational and affective attributes than merely a sum of single tones. In spatial and temporal ideas the spatial and temporal arrangement is conditioned, to be sure, in a perfectly regular way by the combination of elements which make up the idea, but the arrangement itself can by no means be regarded as a property of the sensation elements themselves. The nativistic theories which assume this, implicate themselves in contradictions which cannot be solved; and besides, in so far as they admit subsequent changes in the original space perceptions and time perceptions, they are ultimately driven to the assumption of the rise, to some extent at least, of new attributes. Finally, in the apperceptive functions and in the activities of imagination and understanding, this principle finds expression in a clearly recognized form. Not only do the elements united by apperceptive synthesis gain, in the aggregate idea which results from their combination, a new significance which they did not have in their isolated state, but what is of still greater importance, the aggregate idea itself is a new psychical content made possible, to be sure, by the elements, but by no means contained in these elements. This appears most strikingly in the more complex productions of apperceptive synthesis, as for example in a work" of art or a train of logical thought.

3. In psychical resultants there is thus expressed a principle which we may designate, in view of its results, as the principle of creative synthesis. This principle has long been recognized in the case of higher mental creations, but it has not been generally applied to the other psychical processes. In fact, through an unjustifiable confusion with the principles of physical causality, it has even been completely reversed. A similar confusion is responsible for the notion that there is a contradiction between the principle of creative synthesis in the mental world and the general principles of natural causation, especially the principle of the conservation of energy. Such a contradiction is impossible from the outset because the points of view of judgment, and therefore of measurements wherever such are made, are different in the two cases, and must be different, since natural science and psychology deal, not with different contents of experience, but with one and the same experience viewed from different sides (§ 1, p. 3). Physical measurements have to do with objective masses, forces, and energies. These are supplementary concepts which we are obliged to use in judging objective experience; and their general laws, derived as they are from experience, must not be contradicted by any single case of experience. Psychical measurements, which are concerned with the comparison of psychical components and their resultants, have to do with subjective values and ends. The subjective value of the psychical combination may be greater than the value of its components, its purpose may be different and higher than theirs, without any change in the masses, forces, and energies concerned. The muscular movements of an external volitional act, the physical processes which accompany sense perception, association, and apperception, all follow invariably the principle of the conservation of energy. But the mental values and ends which these energies represent may be very different in quantity even while the quantity of these energies remains the same.

4. The differences pointed out show that physical measurement deals with quantitative values, that is, with quantities that admit of a variation in value only in the one relation of measurable magnitude. Psychical measurement, on the other hand, deals in the last instance in every case with qualitative values, that is, values that vary in degree only in respect to their qualitative character. The ability to produce purely quantitative effects, which we designate as physical energy is, accordingly, to be clearly distinguished from the ability to produce qualitative effects, or the ability to produce values, which we designate as psychical energy.

On this basis we can not only reconcile the increase of psychical energy with the constancy of physical energy as accepted in the natural sciences, but we find also in the two facts reciprocally supplementary standards for the judgment of our total experience. The increase of psychical energy is not seen in its right light until it is recognized as the reserve subjective side of physical constancy. The increase of psychical energy, being, as it is, indefinite, since the standard may be very different under different conditions, holds only under the condition that the psychical processes are continuous. As the psychological correlate of this increase we have the fact which forces itself upon us in experience, that psychical values disappear.

5. The principle of psychical relations supplements the principle of resultants; it refers not to the relation of the components of a psychical interconnection to the value of the whole, but rather to the reciprocal relations of the psychical components within the compound. The principle of resultants thus holds for the synthetic processes of consciousness, the principle of relations for the analytic. Every resolution of a conscious content into its single members is an act of relating analysis. Such a resolution takes place in the successive apperception of the parts of a whole, which whole is ideated at first only in a general way. This process is to be seen in sense perceptions and associations, and in clearly recognized form in the division of aggregate ideas. In the same way, every apperception is an analytic process the two phases of which are the emphasizing of a single content, and the marking off of this one content from all others. The first of these two partial processes is what produces clearness, the second is what produces distinctness of apperception (p. 233, 4). The most complete expression of this principle is to be found in the processes of apperceptive analysis and in the simple relating and comparing functions upon which such analysis is based (p. 286 and 298). In comparison more especially, we see the essential import of the principle of relations in the fact that every single psychical content receives its significance from the relations in which it stands to other psychical contents. When these relations are quantitative, this principle takes the form of a law of relative quantitative comparison such as is expressed in Weber's law (p. 291).

6. The third principle, the principle of psychical contrasts is, in turn, supplementary to the principle of relations. It refers, like the principle of relations, to the relations of psychical contents to one another. It is itself based on the fundamental division of the immediate contents of experience into objective and subjective components, a division which is due to the very conditions of psychical development. Under subjective components are included all the elements and combinations of elements which, like the feelings and emotions, are essential constituents of volitional processes. These subjective components are all arranged in groups made up of opposite qualities corresponding to the chief affective dimensions of pleasurable and unpleasurable feelings, exciting and depressing feelings, and straining and relaxing feelings (p. 91). These opposites obey in their succession the general principle of intensification through contrast. In its concrete application, this principle is always determined in part by special temporal conditions, for every subjective process requires a certain period for its development; and if, when the process has once reached its maximum, it continues for a long time, it loses its ability to arouse the contrast effect. This fact is connected with another fact, namely that there is a certain medium, though greatly varying, rate of psychical processes most favorable for the intensity of all feelings and emotions.

This principle of contrast has its origin in the attributes of the subjective contents of experience, but is secondarily applied also to ideas and their elements, for ideas are always accompanied by more or less emphatic feelings due either to the ideational content or to the character of the spatial and temporal combinations involved. Thus, intensification through contrast appears most clearly in the case of certain sensations, such as those of sight, and in the case of spatial and temporal ideas.

7. The principle of contrast stands in close relation to the two preceding principles. On the one hand, it may be regarded as the application of the general principle of relations to the special case in which the related psychical contents range between opposites. On the other hand, the fact that under suitable circumstances antithetical psychical processes may intensify each other, while falling under the principle of contrast, is at the same time a special application of the principle of creative synthesis.
 
 

References. Wundt, Ueber psychische Kausalität, Phil. Stud., vol. 10, and Logik, vol. II, Pt. 2, Sect. 4, chap. 2, § 4; System der Philosophie, 2nd. ed.. Sect. 6; Grundz., 5th ed., vol. III, chap. 22.