Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt (1832-1920): Life, work and personality in pictures and texts 3958536220, 9783958536227

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Georg Lamberti Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt (1832-1920) Life, work and personality in pictures and texts

Georg Lamberti

Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt (1832-1920) Life, work and personality in pictures and texts

Pabst Science Publishers Lengerich

Contact to the author: Dr. Georg Lamberti Akademie für Psychologische Begutachtung Am Saynischen Hof 18 D-53604 Bad Honnef, Germany E-Mail: [email protected] Biography • Born in 1951 in Westfalia / Germany • Study of Mathematics, Psychology and Human Biology (postgraduate) at the universities of Bochum and Marburg • Diploma in Psychology in 1976 (Marburg) • First professional experiences in studies with brain damaged children • Promotion to Dr. rer. physiol. (1979) at the faculty of medicine at the University of Marburg • From 1979 to 2005 management of the Psychological Laboratory at the Rhine State Clinic in Bonn • From 1986 to 1990 President of the German Society of Neuropsychology (GNP) • Since 2005 foundation of the Academy of Psychological Assessment / neuropsychological expert

Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the Internet at . This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in other ways, and storage in data banks. The use of registered names, trademarks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The authors and the publisher of this volume have taken care that the information and recommendations contained herein are accurate and compatible with the standards generally accepted at the time of publication. Nevertheless, it is difficult to ensure that all the information given is entirely accurate for all circumstances. The publisher disclaims any liability, loss, or damage incurred as a consequence, directly or indirectly, of the use and application of any of the contents of this volume. © 2020 Pabst Science Publishers · D-49525 Lengerich Web: www.pabst-publishers.com Mail: [email protected] Photo credit front page: The „young Wundt“ during the 60ies of the 19th century (with kind approval of Prof. Dr. Bringmann, Alabama, USA) Print: KM-Druck 2.0, D-64823 Groß-Umstadt Print: ISBN 978-3-95853-622-7 eBook: ISBN 978-3-95853-623-4

With great admiration posthumously dedicated to Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt (1832 – 1920)

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Contents

PREFACE ..............................................................................................................11 1

THE BADEN HOME IN THE MIDDLE OF THE 19th CENTURY........................................................................................15

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THE ANCESTORS AND THE PARENTAL HOME.......................................................................21 The Parental Home..............................................................................................24

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CHILDHOOD, YOUTH, SCHOOLDAYS ....................................................29 Early childhood memories ...............................................................................30 School time............................................................................................................32 Fantasy games ......................................................................................................37

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“THE DECISION TO BECOME A PHYSIOLOGIST” – STUDY AND CAREER CHOICE....................................................................43 Motives of university studies............................................................................44 Studies in Heidelberg .........................................................................................46 Clinical residency and start of psychological career .................................52

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“A QUIET TIME OF SUFFERING” – the health crisis and how to overcome it ......................................55 The habilitation ....................................................................................................56 The lung disease ..................................................................................................57 Assistant period with Helmholtz (1858-1863).............................................60 The friendships of the private lecturers ........................................................64

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THE POLITICAL COMMITMENT................................................................69 The motives ...........................................................................................................70 The workers’ training association in Heidelberg ........................................71 Seconded to the II. Chamber of Commerce ...............................................75 The national question.........................................................................................77 Withdrawal from politics ...................................................................................78

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BASIC PRINCIPLE OF PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY..................83 The change to a psychologist ..........................................................................83 Lectures on the human and animal soul ......................................................83 The textbook .........................................................................................................85

WUNDT AND HIS FAMILY ...........................................................................89 Marriage proposal and engagement .............................................................91 Move to Zurich .....................................................................................................93 The call to Leipzig ................................................................................................94 Wundt and his wife .............................................................................................96 The children Eleonore, Max and Lili ...............................................................97 Holiday travel ..................................................................................................... 105 Retirement home in Heidelberg................................................................... 107 End of life in Großbothen ............................................................................... 109

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THE LEIPZIG PERIOD – THE SEMINAR FOR EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY ................................................... 113 Appointment to Zurich ................................................................................... 113 The call to Leipzig ............................................................................................. 115 The year of foundation 1879 ......................................................................... 119 Further development of the institute ......................................................... 121 Apparatus equipment ..................................................................................... 122 Working atmosphere in the Wundt Institute ........................................... 126 The Department of International Psychology .......................................... 129

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WUNDT AND HIS STUDENTS: THE FRIENDSHIP WITH KRAEPELIN ................................................... 131 The first american student ............................................................................. 131 First contacts ...................................................................................................... 136 The intrigue ........................................................................................................ 137 Kraepelin’s Wundt picture.............................................................................. 139 Scientific studies ............................................................................................... 142 The life friendship ............................................................................................. 143

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WILHELM WUNDT – FACETS OF A PERSONALITY....................... 147 Wundt as a lonely child .................................................................................. 148 Wundt as private lecturer ............................................................................... 148 Wundt as a politician ....................................................................................... 150 Wundt as husband and as family father .................................................... 151 Wundt as a scientist ......................................................................................... 153 Wundt and his descendants .......................................................................... 156

Bibliography.................................................................................................... 159 Source directory........................................................................................... 163 Picture credits ............................................................................................... 164

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Preface

In the preface of his autobiography „Experiences and Recognitions“ Wundt (1920) writes that „the following sheets are not intended to be a biography in the usual sense of the word“. In Wundt‘s opinion, „here the contents of this life arrange themselves automatically into individual episodes that belong to different areas of life, and the recognizable connection of these parts of life results only from the total impression of the whole for the reader, who himself puts this whole together. In fact, this is an unusual, even extraordinary autobiography, which is already expressed in its title „Experiences and Recognitions“. On the one hand, this title sounds somewhat philosophical, but on the other hand, it is also very experienced in life, since in the „experienced“ life that is felt and perceptible, whereas in the „known“, spiritual knowledge is addressed in life. Wundt himself says – apparently as an 87-year-old shortly before his death – that „what he experienced is the next thing the gods decided on for him, what he recognized is the better thing they granted him. And he continues: „If the reader wants to judge what the author has done with his life, he may consider as the material from which he draws his conclusions the relationship in which the recognized stands to the experienced. He will then at the same time find the right point of view to understand also the errors and shortcomings from which this life is not free“.

Wundt‘s evaluation of the recognized as „the better that the gods have granted him“ throws a first light on his personality, namely as a philosopher and thinker who strives for knowledge. What is my motive to make a biography of Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt available to the interested reader in pictures and texts? First of all, a personal experience plays an important role, which will be briefly sketched for better understanding: At the beginning of my studies of psychology I was unfortunately given relatively little knowledge about W.Wundt at the university. In my basic studies, names like Skinner & Watson, Pawlow, Ebbinghaus, Harlow and Piaget seemed more important and apparently more meaningful than the name Wundt. After my studies, the complete isolation of the former GDR did not allow me to visit the Wundt Room and the Wundt Estate at the University of Leipzig. I was only

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able to make up for this after the political change in Eastern Europe or after the collapse of the GDR and the fall of the Berlin Wall 1989, and since then I have been able to intensively study the life, work and personality of Wundt. The search for Wundt-Biographies was disappointing, especially since only one German-language biographical work was available, namely the biography written by W. Meischner & E. Eschler, which was published in 1979 on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the foundation of the world‘s first Institute for Experimental Psychology in Leipzig in the winter of 1879. This book seems to me – obviously due to the influence of the second author E. Eschler – politically and content-wise falsified (see e.g. Revolutionary Diary, p. 21 or Atheistic Thoughts and Tendencies, p. 82 ) and on the other hand it contains only very few personal data of Wundt‘s life, whereby the more than 20 years of Heidelberg time are only very peripherally represented. Such personal data, on the other hand, were collected with meticulousness and commitment by Wolfgang Bringmann (1980), who published this in an anthology – apparently also on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Institute for Experimental Psychology – under the title „Wundt Studies“ in the USA and dedicated this work to Wundt himself. In this anthology, various aspects of Wundt‘s life‘s work are dealt with in detail in individual chapters, without, however, being a self-contained biographical account. For this reason, I quickly came to the conclusion that the founding father of experimental psychology – who created the new science of psychology from the combination of physiology and philosophy – is still in no way sufficiently appreciated biographically today, a good 75 years after his death. If one compares, for example, the wealth of German-language Freud biographies with the available Wundt biographies and compares this with the influence of both persons on the development of psychology and its application in clinical psychology, a blatant disparity becomes clear with regard to the influence, significance and degree of familiarity of Wundt. The author would like to remedy this situation by attempting to give a comprehensive account of the life and personality of a man who is rightly considered by many to be one of the most important scholars of the 19th century. The basis of my presentation is primarily the autobiography „Erlebtes und Erkanntees“ („Experiences and Recognitions“) written by Wundt in his late years and published shortly after his death in 1920. In addition, Wundt‘s correspondence with his wife, children and students appears to be very important as authentic data material, as do the diaries written by Sophie Wundt until 1884.

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Despite the frequently voiced criticism of the idealizing tendency of self-portrayals, autobiographical data material is and remains the linchpin of personal portrayals. Since the individual by definition contains something purely subjective and claims something like „subjective reality“ for itself, self-representation has a great informational value. On the other hand, the dangers of subjective data falsification seem to exist more on the side of the biographers: Sigmund Freud – founder of psychoanalysis – wrote in his Collected Works about biographers and others: „They erase.... the individual traits in his physiognomy, smooth out the traces of his life‘s struggle with internal and external resistance, tolerate no remnants of human weakness or imperfection in him, and then really give us a cold, alien ideal figure instead of the person to whom we may feel distantly related...“

As a valuable literary aid against the sketching of an artificial ideal figure, the reference to the correspondence between Wundt and his wife and children seemed important to me. However, since this work does not contain a comprehensive and self-contained biography either, the present work is all the more obliged to present the life and personality of Wilhelm Wundt in a true-to-life and vivid manner. Bad-Honnef, in the Spring 1995 Georg Lamberti

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Chapter 1

THE BADEN HOME IN THE MIDDLE OF THE 19th CENTURY

If the biographical appreciation of an important person is to succeed, it seems indispensable to first portray the zeitgeist in which that person grew up in. The middle of the last century in Europe was marked by a series of profound and momentous changes, such as the industrial revolution, population growth and increasing social problems. From a political point of view, historians refer to 1848 – Wundt was already 16 years old this year – as the year of the European revolution.

Figure 1: Karl Marx (1818–1890), philosopher, economist and publicist

The teachings of Karl Marx on the „dictatorship of the proletariat and classless society“ were in full bloom at this time and became almost a „doctrine of salvation“ or „substitute religion“.

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At the beginning of his autobiography, Wundt (1920) reports on a „village revolution in Heidelsheim“ after describing his earliest childhood memories: „I was sitting on the stairs of my father‘s house on the day I had just finished my first year of elementary school, around 1838-1840, when a colourful procession of people moved across the marketplace in front of me, their leaders dragging a huge tree, which they erected in the middle of the square and which I was told was a „freedom tree“. Even though I could not associate a clear meaning with this word, I gradually began to understand its meaning roughly, when at dusk a large crowd gathered in front of the house of the mayor living across the street under a lot of shouting and screaming, and suddenly a bright fire flared up in front of the building. I can still see the serious figure of the neighbourhood magistrate walking up and down in my parents‘ room, followed by a squadron of dragoons riding across the square, in front of which the crowd scattered to all winds.” (Wundt, 1920, p. 3)

This quite vivid memory of the approx. 6-7 year old Wundt, illustrates quite impressively and vividly the atmosphere of political unrest that prevailed in the Duchy of Baden at that time. This village revolution in Heidelsheim (Wundt lived here from 1836 to 1844) cost the life of a young prisoner, according to Bringmann et al. (1980), and brought heavy prison sentences and fines to 40

Figure 2: Contemporary engraving of entry of National Assembly into the Paulskirche in Frankfurt 1848

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imprisoned village people. According to Wundt‘s own statement, the Baden revolution of the summer of 1849 mainly took place in this area. It should be noted here that according to Bringmann et al. (1980) Baden was at that time considered one of the more liberal principalities in Germany, both in terms of administration and intellectual climate (see also Gall, 1968). The entry of the National Assembly into the Paulskirche in Frankfurt/Main on 18 May 1848 (see Fig. 2) was now a significant event in the direction of democratising the German state, as this represented the first form of parliament. The dissolution of the Paulskirche in March 1849, on the other hand, triggered uprisings of the radicals in Saxony, the Palatinate and Baden, which were bloodily crushed by the Prussian troops, whereby „with the fall of the last revolutionary Baden bastion, the fortress Rastatt, the Baden Republic ended and the Prussian reaction triumphed“, as Meischner & Eschler (1979) put it in their Wundt-Biography. But the first decades of the 19th century were also an epoch of the rise of science and technology. After the invention of the steam engine in England, the era of industrialisation also began in Germany and already in December 1835 – 3 years after Wundt‘s birth – the first German railway line was opened between Nuremberg and Fürth. In 1839 – the young Wundt was just going to the old Heidelsheim elementary school – the first German railway – interurban connection from Leipzig to Dresden, about 100 km away, was put into operation. These years, in which Wundt grew up, were the years of industrialisation of Germany, whereby the initially more advanced development of England was soon caught up with. According to Günther (1987), the „machine age“ also changed the human perception of time and space and thus the human psyche. A very vivid example of the effects of the industrialization of Germany, and especially of Baden, on the people affected can again be found in Wundt‘s autobiography (1920), when he reports on hikes with his maternal grandfather Zacharias Arnold in the Heidelberg area and both follow the construction of the first railway station or railway line: (see Fig. 3) „Among these walks, the „Pariser Weg“, a narrow alley outside the city at the site of the present complex or Leopoldstraße, played a special role. For this path led to the railway station that my grandfather and I followed from its first creation to its completion. I still clearly remember the first act of this genesis. It consisted in the extermination of a large vineyard located here outside the city, which was carried out by several women, crying in indignation and quarrelling about the expropriation they were being subjected to. Then when the first small railway station was built, I see us both among a large number of people who gathered here to see the first train leave Heidelberg for Mannheim“ (Wundt, 1920, p. 36).

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Figure 3: Contemporary engraving of the old Heidelberg train station 1847

Fig. 3 shows the first Heidelberg station in a contemporary engraving. In his Freud biography Günther (1987) speaks of a time of so-called „founding years“, of an epoch of new beginnings and the discovery of the new. In many fields there were „founding fathers“ at that time, who gained new historical insights, developed and built new industries or founded new sciences. This is how the English natural scientist Charles Robert Darwin (1809 – 1882) founded the theory of selection and evolution (see Fig. 4). With his work „On the Origins of Species by Means of Natural Selection“ published in 1859, Darwin triggered a shock in the second half of the 19th century for the hitherto rather orthodox people and the idea of his „theory of evolution“ led to a challenge of the old thinking. The physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (1845 – 1923), for example, discovered the X-rays that were named after him. The already mentioned Karl Marx (1818 – 1883), philosopher, social and economic scientist, founded the Marxist social doctrine and was considered the creator of scientific socialism. Finally, as a last example, the Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud ( 1856 – 1939), who founded psychoanalysis and is wrongly considered by many to be the founder of psychology. Possible personal and substantive connections between Wundt and Freud will be discussed later.

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Figure 4: Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882), naturalist and founder of the evolution theory about 1860

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Chapter 2

THE ANCESTORS AND THE PARENTAL HOME

In a letter to Sophie Mau, his later wife, Wundt himself gives references to his ancestors in 1872, when he writes of the Protestant theologians of the paternal line and of the medical and natural scientists of the maternal line. In the “Ahnentafeln berühmter Deutscher”, which the “Zentralstelle für Deutsche Personen- und Familiengeschichte” in Leipzig published from 1929 to 1932, the physician Dr. Gottfried Roesler from Breslau published a genealogical table of Wilhelm Wundt, which lists 58 male and 44 female ancestors. The 4th generation with 8 names is still complete, the 5th generation with 13 of 16 names almost complete and only with the 6th generation (15 of 32 names) the picture becomes incomplete. In the 12th generation only 2 names of 2048 can be identified. The following overview shows the first 7 generations of the male line pedigree processed by Roesler. 1. Generation Wilhelm Wundt Married with: Sophie Mau

2. Generation Maximilian Wundt Married with: Marie Friederike Arnold

3. Generation Friedrich Peter Wundt Married with Magdalena Fliesen

* 16.08.1832 in Neckarau * 23.01.1844 in Kiel

† 31.08.1920 in Großbothen/ Leipzig † 15.04.1912 in Leipzig

* 13.08.1787 in Kaiserslautern † 03.07.1846 in Heidelberg * 16.06.1797 in Edenkoben

† 30.12.1868 in Heidelberg

* 16.08.1745 in Kaiserslautern † 13.03.1805 in Wieblingen * 1760 in Kaiserslautern

† 1798 in Wieblingen

4. Generation Johann Jakob Wundt

* 12.09.1700 in Monzingen

† 02.09.1771 in Heidelberg

Married with Maria Modesta Mieg

* 16.02.1714 in Heidelberg

† 1767

5. Generation Johannes Adam Wundt

* 17.09.1676 in Kreuznach

† 02.09.1757 in Kreuznach

* 15.09.1679 in Monzingen

† 24.10.1723 in Kreuznach

* 1639 in Kreuznach

† 09.06.1697 in Kreuznach

* in Kärnten/Steiermark

† in Stralsund (nicht vor 1643)

Married with Maria Dorothea Fuchs

6. Generation Adolf Niklaus Wundt Married with Martha Juliane Achenbacher

7. Generation Andreas Wundt

Zuletzt tätig als königlicher schwedischer Stallmeister

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The genealogical table shows that the Wundt family comes from Carinthia. The brothers Balthasar, Andreas and Adam, “the Wundeggers from and to Wundegg”, ennobled by Ferdinand II on 27.11.1628 because of their father’s merits in the Turkish wars, fled as Protestants to Strasbourg shortly afterwards (Roesler,1933). Balthasar and Adam later resumed the Catholic faith, returned to Styria and founded a respected and prosperous family in Graz. Andreas, on the other hand, became stable master at the court of Duke Johann II of Zweibrücken, called himself Wundt, later entered Swedish service and died in Stralsund. In the evaluation of the pedigree Roesler (1933) writes conclusively: “We find the pedigree of the test person quite evenly composed of theologians, practical as well as learned, other academics, as well as higher officials in city or state service, all in the relatively narrow sphere of the Electoral Palatinate and Heidelberg in the 17th and 18th century. On the father’s side, i.e. with the emphasis on professional tradition, the large number of theology professors is to be emphasized. From a social point of view, this genealogical table can thus be regarded as “stable” or at least as evenly mixed: it shows a highly developed middle class, active and in part leading in scientific and political life in a spatially and historically limited area, even if the sources for this have flowed together from the south and north......... The personality of Wundts, as it was drawn at the beginning, thus appears as a harmonious further development and formation of a predominantly self-contained, ancestral heritage that is solidly rooted in tradition.

All in all, the genealogical analyses of Wundt’s pedigree particularly emphasize the accumulation of so many intellectually active people (Kessler, 1933). In a newspaper article in the Heidelberger Neuesten Nachrichten of October 18, 1928, the Heidelberg parish priest D.Neu deals mainly with Wundt’s grandfather, Friedrich Peter Wundt (1742-1805), who taught geography and Palatinate history in addition to his parish office as professor at the University of Heidelberg. In this article Neu (1928) describes in great detail how “Pastor Wundt saw evil days in Wieblingen during the time of the French Revolution”. “When the French flooded the left bank of the Rhine in the Palatinate in 1795, enormous masses of troops were drawn together on the right side, and Wieblingen, too, always had a rich share in the quartering....., and like the whole town, the vicarage was particularly badly affected. As the French found the doors and shutters closed, they smashed them, to make themselves comfortable inside, and to take what they found....., the parish family took refuge in the Catholic parsonage, especially as the parish priest’s wife was seriously ill. But Wundt left his son with a citizen to protect the house in the rectory. The next day, several fires broke out in the village, so Wundt, like most Wieblingen citizens, went to Heidelberg......, and so Wundt could not return to the completely demolished parsonage, especially since there were always troops in the house. No service could be held

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on two Sundays,...... and finally Wundt ordered that fixed shops be set up at the parsonage and high walls erected around the house and garden.

It is clear from the article that Wundt’s grandfather Peter earned great recognition and merits for the promotion of Palatinate history and wrote this down in numerous publications. Neu (1928) concludes his newspaper article with great respect for the Wundt family: “Today the name has disappeared in Heidelberg, but through the philosopher Wundt it has become a name of which the whole of Germany is proud. He therefore deserves to be remembered and to be recorded in some way, and this would be best done in the district of Wieblingen, because that is where the bearer of the name, who was so well known for the history of the Palatinate and Heidelberg, lived, and that is where the father of the famous philosopher grew up.

Peter Wundt died on March 13, 1808 as a result of the “Stock- and Katharfluss” and left behind his second wife with five children from his first marriage. The oldest of the children, Maximilian, studied theology from Wieblingen in Heidelberg, where he was enrolled in 1806. He later became a pastor in Neckarau, where his famous son was born (see Fig. 5).

Figure 5: Former evangelical church in Neckarau before the turn of the century

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The Parental Home Wundt’s father, Maximilian Wundt, born in Kaiserslautern on 13.8.1787, was later a pastor in Heidelsheim in Baden. He was known for his kindness and lavish generosity (Roesler, 1933). The no less sociable mother, Maria Friederike Arnold, who was his actual educator after the early death of his father (Wundt was just 14 years old), is described, on the other hand, as cheerful, sociable, thrifty and economical, traits which, according to Kessler’s description of Wundt’s ancestral heir (1933), all recurred in the son. Wundt’s parents had four children, of whom only he himself and his brother Ludwig (1824-1902), who worked as councillor of the district court in Mannheim and later in Heidelberg, survived childhood. According to Bringmann et al. (1980) the child, who died 3 years before Wundt’s birth, was also named Wilhelm. Wundt himself describes his father in his autobiography (1920) as a magnanimous and emotional person, who often underlined his affection for his son with nicknames: “By the way, I have vivid memories of my father’s idiosyncrasy from many individual traits. He was always in the mood for jokes and telling amusing anecdotes. But he was generous to a large extent....... Sometimes I was taken along when my parents went shopping in the neighbouring town. It was the general custom in such transactions for the buyer to lower the price a little, and my mother made ample use of this custom. It happened that my father took the side of the merchant in this dispute, so that the merchant, who was an honest man, occasionally took his mother’s side and replied: It is alright, Father, that I will lower the price a little.” (Wundt, 1920, p. 34)

According to Bringmann et al. (1980), this description of Wundt’s father is relatively consistent with the assessment of the church superiors of the time, who regarded him as a mild but not submissive person who was peace-loving and sought favours. With regard to his professional view, a progressive theological view is reported, as well as a practical general sense in his sermons and a deep strength of faith. His mother describes Wundt (1920, p. 33) as strong-willed and hard-working, whereby he states “My earliest upbringing was mainly in the hands of my mother, who treated me with infinite kindness, but who did not let it lack a severe physical punishment if necessary....”.

According to Bringmann et al. (1980) on Wundt’s childhood, a great concern of the parents for his health is evident – possibly intensified by the loss of the

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Figure 6: Oil portrait of Maximilian Wundt (1787-1846)

previously born son – which, after a malaria disease in the first year of life, led to a move from Neckarau (near a former swamp area at the mouth of the Neckar river) to Leutershausen am Odenwald. According to Bringmann et al. (1980), the proximity of Leutershausen to Heidelberg facilitated Wundt’s contact with his maternal grandfather, Zacharias Arnold (1767-1840 ), who had worked as a landowner and administrator of large estates of the University of Heidelberg before his retirement. Wundt himself described this grandfather “as a man of extreme precision”, who insisted that everyone should follow his own rigorous timetable and who treated his grown sons and daughters like children. He was the grandfather with whom Wundt went on long walks in the surroundings of Heidelberg as a child, during which they could also observe the construction of the first railway station in Heidelberg (see quotation from chapter 1). In the summer of 1836, about 3 years after the move from Neckarau, Wundt’s father of 11 applicants was appointed as pastor in the small town of Heidelsheim in central Baden, where the family remained until 1844. It was in this place that the “village revolution” described by Wundt in great detail took place (see Chapter 1). The following illustration shows the half-timbered house in Heidelsheim, where the Wundt family lived at that time, from today’s perspective.

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Figure 7: Evangelical rectory in Heidelsheim/Baden from today‘s perspective

During the Heidelsheim period, young Wundt started school (see Chapter 3), which took place shortly after the suppression of the village revolution. In the autumn of 1840 Wundt’s father suffered a stroke at the age of 53, which is why he had to employ a young vicar as his assistant. The new vicar, Friedrich Müller (1814-1871), played a very important role in the life of the young Wilhelm Wundt (see chapter 3). He entered the Wundt family at a time when the death of the grandfather Zacharias Arnold, the further absence of his brother Ludwig as well as the strain on the mother by the paralyzed father had to be overcome (Bringmann et al., 1980). The father’s state of health deteriorated more and more after that, whereby he could hardly speak or write anymore and his memory also deteriorated considerably. During the Christmas holidays of 1844, the father suffered another serious stroke, and he now had to hand over the remaining professional duties to young assistants (Bringmann et al.,1980). In the following period the father, who was obviously in need of care, had to take care of the payments of his pension together with Wundt’s mother. After changing schools to the Lyceum in Heidelberg, which Brother Ludwig had also attended, the family was reunited in a small Heidelberg apartment in the spring of 1846. However, just 3 months later Wundt’s father died at the age of 59. While we find hardly any usable clues about Wundt’s reaction to his father’s death or about the psychological processing of this life event, Wundt’s corre-

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spondence with his later wife Sophie Mau on June 15, 1872 gives a more concrete account of the significance of his mother’s death: “.... My good mother died in the autumn of the same year we last saw each other. Her life was one of care and sacrifice, and since it seemed that she still had a happy old age, she died. For three months I sat in her bed of pain almost without interruption, and I have never seen anyone suffer more terribly than my poor mother. Now my brother, unmarried and several years older than me, is the only one of my closest relatives I have.... left.”

The strong attachment to the mother, who apparently had a strong influence on her son and with whom he had lived almost constantly (Bringmann et al. , 1980), is made abundantly clear in these lines.

Figure 8: Oil portrait of Marie Friederike Arnold (1797-1868)

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For the sake of clarity, only the ancestors of the paternal line are listed in the genealogical table, so that for a complete overview, reference must be made to the description by Kessler (Leipzig, 1933). For example, besides Wundt’s grandfather Friedrich Peter (1742-1805), according to Eleonore Wundt (1928), his brother Karl Kasimir is also worth mentioning: “The W. family comes from Styria, from where it was expelled during the Counter-Reformation. An ancestor stood in Swedish military service, whose descendants lived in Kreuznach. W.’s great-grandfather, Johann Jacob W. was professor of reformed theology at the university and pastor at St. Peter’s Church in Heidelberg. His three sons were also professors at the University of Heidelberg: Daniel Ludwig, teacher of ref. theology; Friedrich Peter, W.’s grandfather, professor of regional history and also pastor in Wieblingen; Karl Kasimir W., probably the most important of them, professor of eloquence and church history. Among other writings he published a paper in 1774: “De arctissimo Philosophiae artisque medicae, Physiologiae imprimis atque Psychologiae connubio”, a title in which one can probably see the program of his great-nephew’s philosophy. Unfortunately, the writing seems lost.”

Indeed, among the predominantly theological ancestors of the paternal line and the naturalists and physicians of the maternal line, the writing of Wundt’s great uncle Karl Kasimir, quoted by Eleonore Wundt (1928), is unique, especially since the connection between physiology and philosophy is clearly addressed here. And it is precisely this connection that should give rise to Wundt’s life’s work, namely the foundation of psychology as an independent science (E. Wundt, 1928, p. 630).

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Chapter 3

CHILDHOOD, YOUTH, SCHOOLDAYS

Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt was born on 16 August 1832 at about 2 o’clock in the afternoon in the village of Neckarau near Mannheim. He was the fourth and last child of Maximilian Wundt (1787-1846) and Marie Friedrike Arnold (1797-1868). According to Bringmann et al. (1980), only Wilhelm Wundt and his brother Ludwig (1824-1902) – who later worked as a county court councillor in Mannheim – survived childhood. (see also Wundt, 1920, p. 31) In the following illustration the text of the birth certificate.

Figure 9: Birth entry in the church book of Mannheim-Neckarau

According to Bringmann et al. (198o), when Wundt was less than a year old, the family moved to Leuterhausen on the edge of the Odenwald forest because of health concerns about young Wilhelm, who had contracted malaria in the swampy area of the Neckar estuary near Mannheim. Whether Wundt’s frequently quoted “fall down stairs” in this parsonage occurred as a small child, as Bringmann et al. (1980) claim, seems questionable due to the still very young age (crawling age) as well as the type of cellar stairs. This seems to have happened rather in the parsonage of Heidelsheim (see Fig.

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10), as personal inquiries with the parish priest there have shown (Engelfried, 1993).

Early childhood memories Nevertheless, Wundt’s first childhood memory seems very impressive: “Thus, when I have to give an account of my earliest experience, I too am left with an extremely embarrassing situation. I find myself rolling down the stairs of a cellar and still today I think I feel the bumps my head receives from the steps of the stairs, I find myself surrounded by the semi-darkness of the cellar and the idea that I was running after my father who had gone into the cellar is mixed with it” (Wundt, 1920, p. 1-2)

Figure 10: Basement stairs in the evangelical rectory of Heidelsheim

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The time in Leutershausen from 1833 to 1836 seems to have been only a transitional phase for the Wundt family, but for the young Wilhelm Wundt after the departure of his brother Ludwig to the Heidelberg Lyceum – he lived there with his maternal aunt – it was already associated with much loneliness. This leads us to the topic of the “daydreams” of the young Wilhelm Wundt, which will be discussed in detail later. According to Bringmann et al. (1980), the proximity to Heidelberg also favoured the contact of the young Wundt with his maternal grandfather Zacharias Arnold – who is also mentioned as the witness of baptism in the birth certificate. In the summer of 1836 Wundt’s father was chosen by several applicants to be the pastor of the small parish of Heidelsheim near Bruchsal. The young Wundt was just 4 years old at that time and spent his youth here until he was 12 years old. This small town was also the scene of the village revolution, which is often quoted in Wundt literature. In view of the importance that active politics had for Wundt (see Chapter 7), this childhood memory, which is described very clearly and vividly in his autobiography after the earliest memory of falling down the stairs and a slap in the face by his father during a school inspection as the third memory, already marks typical characteristics of an interested, politically open-minded and committed personality. For the young Wundt, who was about seven years old and later described the political motive as the most effective in his life in the foreword to his autobiography, this “village revolution” was, in his own estimation, the first political experience, although this scene also later recalled itself particularly vividly in his memory. The ancestry of the meaning of the term “Tree of Liberty” as well as the description of the hostile relations of the citizens in the village of Heidelsheim (the mayor’s supporters were the “Russians”, his opponents the “Poles”) with the comparison of the Polish uprising of 1830 reflects a lively interest in democratic and liberal processes (see also Chapter 7). Bringmann et al. (1980) write about these events that Wundt’s father apparently wrote a series of petitions for lenient treatment of the “rebels” and that the sympathies of the young Wundt lay with the democratic elements.

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School time When the young Wundt, about 7 years old, in 1839 on the stairs of his father’s house watched with obvious interest the erection of the “Tree of Liberty” on the market place in Heidelsheim, he had, according to his own statement, “just finished his first year of elementary school happily” (Wundt, 1920, p. 3). However, according to all available sources one can hardly call Wundt’s school time happy, rather marked by loneliness, daydreams and frustrations. One of Wundt’s earliest childhood memories refers to an experience in his first year at school: “Thus, from the abundance of such school experiences during the time of my visit to the lowest class of the elementary school, one scene in particular still clearly comes to mind. My father attended a lesson as a school inspector, without, incidentally, interfering in the lessons himself. He made only one exception to this rule. I was absent-minded, and instead of watching over the lessons I had been thinking about how this had been my regular quality until much later. Then I was suddenly wrested from this state of absent-mindedness by a slap in the face, which my father applied to me in an unusual way. I can still see the punishing face of my father, who here had apparently fallen from the role of attentive listener into that of domestic educator. (Wundt, 1920, p. 2)

The scene, described with relatively striking and dry humour, again addresses those states of absent-mindedness that will be discussed further below. Bringmann (1920) writes that the loneliness of the young Wundt was continued in his early years in Heidelsheim. And this probably concerns first and foremost the growing up without his brother Ludwig. “For I was destined, apart from those two earliest years of elementary school, which left many a memory but hardly any significant educational results in the child’s soul, to live out my youth in my parents’ home without siblings and without classmates” (Wundt, 1920, p. 31)

In his article on Wundt’s formative years up to 1874, Bringmann (1980) speaks of a “bleak atmosphere of this elementary school”, which is said to have even intensified Wundt’s tendency to daydream. After his father suffered a stroke in the autumn of 1840 at the age of 53, it became necessary to employ an assistant clergyman, which was taken over by the vicar Friedrich Müller (1814-1871). Wundt’s daughter Eleonore (1928) writes of this vicar Müller that her father had clung to him with great love as a child. “I myself, on the other hand, stayed at home to be taught from the second year of school by a new vicar who shared his room with me. This still rather youthful assistant clergyman of my father’s, named Friedrich Müller, was now my actual educator. I was united with him by a love that rarely exists between a teacher and his pupil. He was closer to me than my father and mother, and when he was appointed to a parish of

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his own nearby in the village of Münzesheim after several years, I was seized by such unnameable homesickness that my parents decided, at his request, to let me move to him during the year I was to be kept away from the grammar school” (Wundt, 1920, p. 31).

There is nothing to add to this impressive description of his relationship with Vicar Müller, his new educator, it speaks for itself. This new vicar thus played a very important emotional role in the early life of the still young Wundt, and this at a time when – as Bringmann (1980) aptly remarks – the family was exposed to heavy burdens: the maternal grandfather Zacharias Arnold had just died, the mother had to care for the sick father and brother Ludwig continued to attend the Gymnasium in Heidelberg. According to Bringmann (1980) the new vicar for the lonely young Wundt fulfilled the roles of tutor, older brother and friend in equal measure. Although, according to Bringmann (1980), he was not very successful as a tutor, this vicar seemed without doubt to be a good friend and companion who helped the young Wundt to “survive” the lonely and stressful years of Heidelsheim. For the time of his absence, during which he had to attend to his spiritual duties, he gave his young pupil homework which young Wundt had to do in his room, which he shared with the clergyman, high up under the roof of the parsonage (see Fig. 11).

Figure 11: Look of Wund‘s former study at the Heidelsheim city gate from today‘s perspective

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Figure 12: School of Heidelsheim in which Wundt started 1838

After his return he checked and corrected the work of young Wundt and sometimes discussed it with him. Bringmann (1980) reports that Vicar Müller did a good job in teaching Latin, but because of his own inadequate mathematical abilities he laid the foundation for Wundt’s later difficulties and lack of self-confidence in this subject. Bringmann (1980) further reports that this teaching method of the young vicar unfortunately strengthened the lonely and withdrawn Wundt in his isolation. Wundt’s own comment appears clear and unambiguous: “My upbringing took on a substantially different character than when I was about eight years old, when Vicarius Friedrich Müller took over this and with it regular lessons in which Latin was added to the subjects taught at elementary school... so it happened that I soon got used to lonely work, and even more so that during most of the time during which I was supposed to do my tasks I did not occupy myself with them at all, but spent time with free imagination” (Wundt, 1920, p. 37).

Whatever may have contributed to the tendency to daydream, one gets the impression after this description that the young 8-year-old student Wundt was completely isolated and lonely. That this was not quite the case is shown by

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Wundt in his autobiography, even when describing his social contacts at that time: “So I spent the years in Heidelsheim almost without companions. For the companion I used to meet in front of my parents’ home, who was almost daily, was a silly man, a little older than I was, hardly able to speak the language, but infinitely good-natured and obviously as devoted to me as I was to him. I also consorted with some adults whom I often visited their apartments. First there were two older women, the daughters of a former clergyman of the village, with their somewhat younger brother, who was working in the bookbinding trade, which was of little concern to him. He limped and was a highly original personality, witty in his own way. He was full of adventurous stories, which he told the boy and which he wanted to experience for himself. He was always ready for jokes, disguises and comedy, so that conversation with him was all the more a source of incessant amusement, since I always believed his stories half and half. ...” (Wundt, 1920, p. 31).

The quotation shows that the young Wundt was, despite his difficult situation as an “only child”, able to establish and maintain contacts which were halfway satisfying for him and also entertaining for him. And it goes on to say: “While my steps were directed almost daily to the house of this splendid sibling isolation, which was just opposite our own, despite the dangers that threatened me on the way there across the marketplace from the chasing village geese, there were some other friendships that I cultivated at times. There was one Jewish family in particular who had some conversation not only with me but also with my mother. The grandmother of this family traded in all kinds of goods and did not fail to deliver some Easter bread as a gift during the Jewish Easter season; the father wandered around the area day after day as a peddler. For me, however, it was a special feast when I was allowed to accompany him to the synagogue or when I was invited by him to his home for the Feast of Tabernacles. In contrast..... to such regular traffic, the participation in the game, namely the ball game, of a large number of street boys who had gathered by chance in the marketplace was a rare exception, which, by the way, gave me little pleasure, since I felt that my fellow players were considerably superior to me in physical dexterity.” (Wundt, 1920, p. 32)

The last part of the quotation shows, however, that the young and obviously sensitive Wundt rather kept away from the rough street boys and apparently suffered a little from the feeling of physical inferiority. This is also underlined by a reminder of the annual Easter Egg Picking Competition in which the entire village youth competed on Easter Monday after church for the game of “egg picking”. The boys, whose ice tip broke the ice tip of the other one, received this as a prize, although many young people cheated with eggs filled with pitch, from which especially the young Wundt had to suffer: .....”and in particular the pastor’s son usually went home saddened, because a considerable part of his eggs was robbed in this way” (Wundt, 1920, p. 33).

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After the young Wundt had followed his teacher Vicar Müller in his new parish of Münzesheim for another year with his parents’ permission, he was finally enrolled in the Grand Ducal grammar school in Bruchsal in 1844, where apparently a real time of suffering began for the young Wundt. “The fact that my good teacher Müller was not able to overcome the resulting obstacles (i.e. fantasy games), proved itself when I was accepted into the 4th class of the Gymnasium in Bruchsal in the age of 13. The entrance examination was an excessively mild one, so that I fell behind my classmates as well as by getting used to joint lessons and was thus condemned from the beginning to remain sitting in the class” (Wundt, 1920, p. 39).

Inadequate preparation in Latin, Greek and French made failure inevitable (Bringmann & Schmiech, 1975). The teachers of this school apparently regarded him as stupid and lazy, treated him accordingly. Wundt’s class teacher was used to massive punishment of his pupils and preferred to “regale” the young Wundt with slaps in the face. The following quotation illustrates how much the young Wundt suffered from this after the private lessons by Vicar Müller “In memory of the love with which I was attached to my teacher Müller, I also deeply felt the contempt with which I was treated by the teachers, although I was aware that I deserved this treatment –.... a history teacher who was quite benevolent towards me treated me more with pity. I still remember a speech he gave me in front of the assembled class, in which he assured me that not every son of a studied gentleman had to study as well. There were enough professions that were quite honourable, but did not require the effort of studying. In particular he advised me as such the post office box” (Wundt, 1920, p. 40/41).

The second part of the above quotation tempts us to smile, if we think of the tedious school experiences of later famous personalities. Wundt himself (1920) describes this time in his autobiography as a “school of suffering”. Apart from the “feeling of inadequacy towards his schoolmates” the stress at this Catholic school became so great for the young Protestant Wundt that he one day took flight to return home to his parents in a walk of about one hour, but that did not help him, since his mother brought him back again. This must have happened in the winter of 1844/45, when Wundt’s father suffered a second serious stroke. After these painful experiences, the parents decided to send their son Wilhelm to the Heidelberg Lyceum, where his brother Ludwig had just passed his final examination. At the beginning he lived in the house of the same maternal aunt who had looked after her brother since the days of Leutershausen. “After one year my parents decided to take me to the Gymnasium in Heidelberg, in order to take me once again and hopefully with better success through the course of a quarter according to the count at that time, which started with the lowest class as the Prima. This hope was fulfilled, although for the time- being, I only stayed in the

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middle of the class for a longer time after my performance. By the way, the greater was the change that I experienced. I now completed my tasks together in the same room as my brother and my cousin, who were both very diligent students and exercised a certain control over me, so that the excessive fantasy games came to an end“ (Wundt, 1920, p. 41).

Fantasy games The daydreams and fantasy games already quoted have obviously played an important role in Wundt’s early school days. It seems to make sense not only from a biographical but also from a developmental psychological point of view to go into this in more detail. Wundt’s first biographer, his daughter Eleonore (1928), only indirectly mentions this “regular characteristic” of her father in the rather academic biography, pointing out the failure to attend regular school and some learning difficulties. Wundt himself deals with this problem in great detail in his autobiography (1920) under the title “Kindliche Phantasiespiele und ihre pädagogische Bedeutung” (“Childlike Fantasy Games and their Pedagogical Significance”), where he explains “I waited occasionally with longing for my teacher to leave me, only to immediately indulge in all kinds of fictional experiences, which often continued from one day to the next. Usually I would pick up the pen next to me and move it rhythmically up and down while staring at the book in front of me without reading anything. These fantasy games gradually became a passion, and I became increasingly habitually inattentive to everything that was going on around me” (Wundt, 1920, p. 38).

This “passion” was apparently so strong that, according to Wundt, it continued to make itself felt beyond his later school days and into the majority of his university lectures, whereby Wundt names the talented physicist Jolly and his teacher Ewald Hasse as only two exceptions for his attentive listening. In an autobiographical review of this “passion”, Wundt, as an old man, associates this behaviour with psychological sensitivity with the loneliness that the child has to cope with. “Of course, this is not an individual characteristic, but it is certainly a characteristic of some children; but it does so, as can be seen from the accompanying gestures, preferably in the solitary, not the collective play, and from there it is transferred to the solitary work, while it is displaced by the interaction and also by cooperation in school. After all, it may be that such pure fantasy games of the lonely child have a certain value as exercises of the imagination” (Wundt, 1920, p. 39).

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Even with recourse to psychoanalytical theories on the interpretation of dreams (Freud, 1972) and the assumption of wishful motives in daydreams, one can assume in the case of the young Wundt that these fantasy games were indeed promoted by unfavourable teaching methods of the vicar Müller, but that they probably primarily represent an attempt to cope with the great loneliness of the obviously gifted child. In his account of Wilhelm Wundt’s life picture from his correspondence, Schlotte (1955) now makes an interesting connection with the method of introspection described by Wundt himself (in addition to the experimental method) when he says that “this habit of directing the gaze to one’s own inner life certainly prepared the ground for the psychological interest that would return later”. Such a connection seems plausible, comprehensible and, based on biographical analysis, probable. With the change to the Heidelberg grammar school, however, the young Wundt not only developed a more regulated learning behaviour and turned away from daydreaming, but also a significant break in his social personality development. “More importantly, however, was the change in my lifestyle. I stopped being the shy and frightened boy I had been in Bruchsal. I gained numerous school friends with whom I roamed the town and its surroundings. I myself felt as if I had been born again, and when a former classmate from Bruchsal later moved to the Heidelberg Gymnasium, he assured me in astonishment that I had become a completely different person than before” (Wundt, 1920, p. 41/42)

In comparison with the rather depressing description of “egg picking” on the Heidelsheim market place, the above lines sound almost liberating. Although the burden on the Wundt family did not diminish after the father’s new stroke, and the mother was tied up in lengthy negotiations about pension payments, the school situation for the young Wundt improved noticeably. The family was finally reunited in a small Heidelberg apartment in late spring 1846 (Bringmann, 1980). Just three months after this move, Wundt’s father died. While we learn about Wundt’s reaction to the death of his mother in 1868 from his correspondence with Sophie Mau, his later wife, we do not find any remarks about his father’s death in Wundt’s autobiography. This is relatively unusual, since the loss of the father at the age of 14 falls into a very sensitive period of psychological development, when the role model function is especially important for identification. In his life memories (1920), following the Heidelberg grammar school, Wundt reports on the inadequate conditions of the grammar schools of the time, on former theologians as grammar school teachers, on two teachers he held in

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Figure 13: Former Heidelberg high school, where Wundt graduated 1851

high esteem, namely the philologist Sebastian Feldbausch and the orientalist Bernhard Jülg (1825-1886), to whom he owes his first suggestions for philological studies. However, there are no longer any references to his father’s death. Bringmann (1980) reports in his biographical accounts that Wundt successfully completed the Lyceum in 1851 and continued to regard most teachers as incompetent eccentrics. With regard to mathematics, Wundt (1920) writes about this among other things: “So it may happen that here with the future lawyer, theologian, historian, etc. a minimum of interest in mathematics leaves the teacher indifferent, and that his interest is concentrated on the few pupils who are distinguished by a special mathematical talent. Thus I too was one of those neglected by the mathematics teacher at school, and was consistently in the majority at the older-style philological grammar school, and I can confirm Helmholtz’s judgement that the blame for this failure lay much more on the side of the teachers than on the pupils, inasmuch as I later, after I had recognized at university the necessity of a reasonably sufficient mathematical knowledge for my future studies, made up for the omission within about a year” (Wundt, 1920, p. 48).

Despite the shortcomings in his private lessons with Vicar Müller and in his preparation for grammar school, the “old Wundt” (1920) can also gain something positive in his retrospect of this period, as far as his first intensive reading and his preference for poetic verses are concerned. Wundt regards his intensive reading during his time at grammar school as an aid against lonely fantasizing.

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“Reading, on the other hand, offers the imagination a well-ordered material which, if it is happily chosen, can ..... serve as an example and, if it finally leads into the paths of a planned activity, can have an educational effect. This phenomenon consisted in a reading activity which began to take hold of me at a time when others of my age either knew nothing about it at all or only paid homage to it to a limited extent” (Wundt, 1920, p. 49/50).

He had a preference for German literature, historical and romantic novellas and developed a lasting interest in the ballads of the German revolutionary period of 1848 as well as in the English poet and dramatist Shakespeare. “So I do not think it is impossible that some volumes of Wieland’s old Shakespeare translation, which I found in my father’s library when I was about 10 years old, are partly related to the fact that Shakespeare is probably the poet I read most often in poetic literature, and .... that in a much later time of my life I hardly ever made a journey on which I did not have a few volumes of Shakespeare accompanying me as readings” (Wundt, 1920, p. 51).

The contact to his teacher Bernhard Jülg in Heidelberg must have been very important for the young Wundt after the lonely years of Heidelsheim and Bruchsal, especially since he was encouraged to try his hand at writing and also read his essays to the class as a model in German lessons. Bringmann (1980) writes that through Jülg’s influence Wundt was drawn to the classical languages and thought of becoming a philologist, although he was deterred from doing so by the teacher’s ideas. Schlotte (1955) has captured the poetic attempt of the 18-year-old Wundt in his contribution in an exemplary manner: Dante The most beautiful flower in Italy ...he was, with sweet love all conquered, ...sung in delicately lovely verses once. But soon dying his flower disappeared! And then from this earthly bump... to higher love’s purpose, Now the strings have sounded to thee From a more blissful band of love. So everyone must do what moves his heart, Whether it brings him joy or pain, spiritualize and purify themselves. And is he like you in everything, Truly, then it is certain that all here ...the earth will open up to heaven for him.

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Finally, in this context Wundt also recalls those diaries in which he recorded the events around the March Revolution of 1848 with excited sympathy. “I still believe I see before me the long lost manuscript in which I wrote down the Viennese uprising, the death of Robert Blum and his comrades in tremendous excitement. Around the same time, some excerpts from works fall into this category, of which the reading of one belongs here according to the kinship of the subject: Zimmermann’s Geschichte des Bauernkriegs” (Wundt, 1920, p. 52).

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Chapter 4

“THE DECISION TO BECOME A PHYSIOLOGIST” – STUDY AND CAREER CHOICE

At the time of his High School in the autumn of 1851, Wundt and his mother lived in Heidelberg in very modest financial circumstances. Bringmann (1980) reports that although young Wundt could not yet do anything with his life, he had two wishes, namely to leave home and be independent and not to become a pastor under any circumstances. That the first wish is true can be seen from Eleonore Wundt’s (1928) short biography of her father, where she writes “Extreme external circumstances led him to study medicine. His father had died in the meantime, his mother could only provide him with small means for his studies, but he was inspired by the wish to get away from Heidelberg one day. So it was obvious that he moved to the University of Tübingen, where his mother’s brother Friedrich Arnold, an anatomist and physiologist, was, and that he studied with him” (Wundt, E., 1928, p. 627)

In Wundt’s own account, according to the description of the corps students of the time and the “happy misfortune of the dissolution of the corps due to lack of influx”, since he was not very comfortable in the company of his previously unknown corps comrades (first trisum), there is first the account of a “second trisum of three school friends”, namely the theologian Heinrich Holtzmann (1832-1910), the philologist Karl Hofacker and himself. After the lonely and painful years of Heidelsheim and Bruchsal (see chapter 3), this friendship, which began in Heidelberg and continued in Tübingen, seems to be very important for Wundt, especially since in the later years of political commitment the contact with Holtzmann was renewed (see also Ungerer, 1979). “When Holtzmann had already begun his theological studies and the two of us were still in grammar school, we met once a week for a long time in order to continue our conversations, although the studies each of us had chosen were different, in that our trio consisted of a theologian, a philologist and a physician. I met Holtzmann, after our professions had separated us for a long time, later again in Heidelberg, where we both had habilitated as private lecturers, Holtzmann in the theological faculty, me in the medical faculty, and we both conversed for years with a small circle of other lecturers, among them especially Adolf Hausrath” (Wundt, 1920, p. 56).

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Motives of university studies As far as the second wish of the profession described above is concerned, for the grammar school pupil Wundt’s first priority was a lively interest in the classical languages (he read Homer, Herodotus and Horace, among others, with enthusiasm), but he was equally repulsed by the idea of a “lifelong school profession”, after he had “found leaving school a particularly happy event”. “So it was pure coincidence that I let it decide my future fate. Not only the school, but also the city, the parental home to which I had been tied up until then, to finally leave as a completely free person, to be able to lead my own life in new surroundings, which, although I hardly admitted it openly to my relatives, became the highest goal of my wishes. And there was an external reason which happily fulfilled these wishes. In Tübingen my uncle worked as a respected anatomist, for whom going to school in the early semesters of medical school was a matter of course for me” (Wundt, 1920, p. 59).

So now this “external reason” in the human form of the uncle Friedrich Anrnold (1803-1890) played a great role for the further professional fate of the young Wundt, especially since according to Wundt’s own estimation, an external study with his mother as a financially weak pastor’s widow, seemed hardly possible. “So I wandered happily to the Swabian university town. From Appenweier I walked in the first days of October via Oppenau to the friendly Freudenstadt, and then during the night in the express car via Nagold to Tübingen, where I immediately got a foretaste of the high esteem in which the student was held when I was received by the servant of the Gasthof zur Rose with the reverent address “Herr Baron” (Wundt, 1920, p. 60).

While in the first days of October 1851 the young Wundt thus set out for his first student life partly by train, partly on foot through the northern Black Forest. In the still rural university town of Tübingen, the famous romantic poet Friedrich Hölderlin (1770 -1843) had died just 8 years earlier after many years of care by the family of the Tübingen master carpenter Zimmer (see Fig.14). In addition to the well-known pre-medical subjects and the only official course in philosophy that he ever took in his career, it was rather the brain anatomical studies that fascinated him and which, in retrospect, apart from the freedoms of a young student after moving out of his parents’ house, can probably be counted among the learning benefits of Wundt’s first year of study. The fact that this was later fruitful can be seen in the world’s first systematic textbook of psychology, “Die Grundzüge der Physiologischen Psychologie” (The Fundamentals of Physiological Psychology) of 1873/74, whereby this work is regarded as the conclusion of the “Heidelberg period” (see Chapter 7).

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Figure 14: Hölderlin tower on the bank of the Neckar in Tübingen from today‘s perspective

Wundt’s daughter Eleonore (1928) writes at this time in Tübingen: “He listened to the most diverse natural science lectures in a rather irregular manner, as well as the only philosophical college he ever attended in his life, aesthetics with Freidrich Theodor Vischer. The only strictly scientific benefit of this Tübingen year was, after all, a thorough study of brain anatomy. There are still a large number of brain anatomical drawings that he made during this time” (Wundt, E., 1928, p. 627).

As can be seen from the many and varied topics in his autobiography, the 19-year-old student Wundt was obviously interested in other things during his academic year in Tübingen in addition to his subjects. These topics range from “Swabians and foreigners”, the “Tübingen city and student life”, Tübingen’s dancing pleasure to museum and professor balls as well as student duels. Bringmann reports in his study (1980) that during this time Wundt spent a lot of time attending concerts and reading older novels in the library. The following quotation from Wundt’s memoirs may serve to illustrate the rather rural climate at that time in Tübingen:

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“There were no disputes between students and craftsmen in Tübingen, of course, because crafts played no role at all. When I studied there, Tübingen was still a Swabian country town where cows and geese ran around in the streets. Instead of journeymen, however, it was farmer’s lads. Even around 1850, nightly brawls could still occur between them and the students, and the occasions for such fights were not so rare. They consisted of rural dance entertainment, namely peasant weddings, to which a few students were invited or to which they sometimes invited themselves” (Wundt, 1920, p. 62)

After describing the Tübingen “Museum” as a place of dance entertainment for the students of the time, to which they were invited by the professors, Wundt (1920) further reports on a concert visit to Stuttgart: “I still remember the participation in a daring venture to Stuttgart, where I visited the concert of the famous violinist Milanollo with a few friends, in order to invite her to a concert to be held in the Tübingen museum. It is easy to imagine that the students grouped around the virtuoso were filled with elation, as if they had performed a virtuoso piece themselves” (Wundt, 1920, p. 64/65).

The Tübingen museum was also an interesting place for the young Wundt as a “reading establishment”, which was especially true for the quiet corner of the reading room, where Tübingen booksellers had laid out the new publications of literature for viewing.

Studies in Heidelberg Barely a year after his arrival in Tübingen, the now almost 20-year-old Wundt, on his return journey by train and Neckar boat, found himself in a not exactly “enviable frame of mind” when he thought about his first learning successes and his future. In the process he became aware that, with the exception of more general education and a piece of “deeply penetrating brain anatomy”, he had learned little of practical use. Thus, after his mental reflections, he made some consequences for the continuation of his studies, which finally lead to the “decision to become a physiologist”: “So I looked back on a year of my studies with the feeling that I had to start all over again, if I wanted to get ahead in my chosen subject at all. The fact that I did not have an unlimited amount of time for my further studies came to mind. My mother as a pastor’s widow was extremely limited in her means, and it was decided in the family council that I should complete my studies within a period of 4 years, at that time just sufficient for the study of medicine” (Wundt, 1920, p. 72).

The young Wundt then gave himself 3 years time, in which he wanted to make up for the missed opportunity “with the most economical equipment”. Although this was a difficult situation, the wonderful trip along the Neckar gave

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him courage. In a “sudden enlightenment” he came to the conviction that he had to set a certain goal for his work and then strictly adhere to his studies. This is further stated in his memoirs: “Already during my time in Tübingen, I became doubtful whether the profession of general practitioner was the most suitable one for me. What attracted me above all were precisely those areas which actually lay outside the practical subjects of medicine and belonged in their entirety to the natural sciences: anatomy and, to an even greater degree, physiology, to which the only studies I had pursued to a certain extent seriously up to that point, the brain anatomical ones, stimulated me” (Wundt, 1920, p. 72).

After the academic year in Tübingen, the physiologist’s professional goal seems to be in sight for the first time. In Heidelberg, Wundt first took private lessons to catch up on the mathematics lessons he had missed at grammar school. The lectures of the chemist Robert Bunsen (1811-1899), who was one of the first chemists to establish a chemical laboratory at the University of Marburg, left a lasting impression on Wundt at the beginning of his studies in Heidelberg. “It was the first semester that Bunsen, who had just been appointed by Wroclaw, held in the old monastery building, which, as a provisional chemical laboratory, preceded the chemical institute that was later built in Akademiestrasse according to Bunsen’s plans. It was one of the most stimulating lectures I have ever heard... But at the same time he accompanied the lecture with experimental demonstrations of wonderful perfection” (Wundt, 1920, p. 75).

The impression of Bunsen’s lecture on Wundt was also very significant because he felt that for a better understanding of matter he had to experiment on his own. Wundt describes Bunsen’s demonstration methods, which were obviously impressive for the students, with his typical and unique way of rather dry humour: “...so the front bench on which I could get a seat stood close to the experiment table, so that this idea of doing the experiment myself became almost an illusion, while at the same time the way Bunsen presented some of the experiments seemed calculated to increase the impression on the audience as much as possible. Thus he used to prepare for dangerous experiments, e.g. the explosion of chlorinated nitrogen, by describing the danger of such an experiment with an ironic smile and by arming himself with large protective goggles, a manipulation that caused some listeners to renounce the advantage of the first bench” (Wundt, 1920, p. 76/77).

Under Bunsen’s influence, Wundt was also inspired to make the first experimental study of his life. It consisted in the examination of the saline content of the urine after extensive withdrawal of salt during food intake (see Fig 15). According to Wundt’s own words, the withdrawal of common salt was sufficient “to cause metabolic disorders after a few days in addition to a long-lasting increased hunger for common salt”. This first experimental work, which

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Figure 15: First page of Wund‘s first experimental study 1853

Wundt carried out in the private laboratory of his teacher Dr. Herth in the academic year 1852/53 in Heidelberg, must have satisfied him very much because of the subsequent publication in a scientific journal: “This experimental investigation, insignificant in itself, has remained particularly vivid in my memory, because it is the first one I carried out in my life and which I enjoyed perhaps more than any later work, because it became part of the physiological literature of those days by being included in the Journal für praktische Chemie (born 1853) and by this in Ludwig’s Lehrbuch der Physiologie” (Wundt, 1920, p. 78).

Another teacher from his early Heidelberg student days who impressed Wundt was the physicist Jolly, whose science lecture Wundt described as the most accomplished he had ever heard in his life. This lecture – besides that of Ewald Hasse – was probably one of the few exceptions (see Chapter 3) in which he could listen attentively and was not distracted by his daydreaming tendencies. “She was unsurpassable, especially in the way she treated the basic concepts and their most important applications in an essentially elementary way, but with deep penetrating clarity and in a strict logical context. Here one could not only acquire the content of science itself, but one also received an unsurpassable model of pedagogical method in general” (Wundt, 1920, p. 79).

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Wundt was now in the fifth semester of his medical studies and had made it a rule to combine theory and practice in his studies wherever possible. That this is difficult for the field of internal medicine is described by him using the example of a case of illness, where on the one hand, symptoms of disease on the living body and on the other hand pathological changes in the organs affected by them are noticeable. His endeavour to gain insight into the various fields of pathology through his own experience was now coincidentally helped by a prize-winning assignment from the Heidelberg Medical Faculty in the autumn of 1854. At that time, he had only just started to lecture on pathology according to the usual curriculum, but the surgical subjects were still completely unknown to him. The task of the prize was to describe the changes in the lungs following the cutting of the pulmonary and gastric nerves. Wundt tried to compensate for the lack of surgical practice on animals or insufficient pathological-anatomical knowledge by reading the textbook on the “Application of tracheal fistulas” and then performing this operation on rabbits himself. Since the performance of such experiments required personal assistance, “his good mother” supported him: “I still remember how she turned her face to the side during the vivisections in order to avoid the sight of the operation, but with the greatest patience she acquired the necessary skills and finally wrote the manuscript of the work in pure form” (Wundt, 1920, p. 82).

Wundt’s work, submitted anonymously according to the rules, astonished the faculty “to some extent”, since it had been written in his studyroom and was written in both German and Latin. Since two applicants won, it was “crowned with half the prize”, as daughter Eleonore (1928) puts it in the Biographical Yearbook. Similar to his first experimental study on the boiling-point content of urine, this work also filled Wundt with pride and satisfaction, as can be seen from his autobiographical descriptions. This work on the cutting of the vagus led to an exchange of letters with Johannes Müller (1801-1858), who included it in the “Archiv für Anatomie und Physiologie” (Archive for Anatomy and Physiology) – the most respected physiological journal at the time – with “a few appreciative words”. Of Wundt’s academic teachers in the three classical subjects of medicine of those days (internal pathology, surgery and obstetrics), the surgeon Chelius, a physician of the “old school”, and the pathological anatomist Ewald Hasse, a physician of the “new school”, are still to be mentioned. Hasse (1810-1902) belonged to the younger Ordinaries, whose lectures were characterized by great clarity and whose dissections and demonstrations on the corpse were exemplary (Wundt, 1920). In contrast to the still young Hasse, who would later supervise his dissertation, Wundt (1920) describes the surgeon Chelius as the

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oldest active teacher at the university, who “was already approaching the age of eighty”. The very human and rather “vulgar” way of conversation between Chelius and the country people of the Heidelberg area in the outpatient clinic obviously impressed Wundt with pleasure when he writes that it was “a variation of the Socratic conversation that also did not lack Socratic irony” (Wundt, 1920, p. 86). In this context, Wundt’s autobiography (1920) is followed by interesting and modern remarks on the components of the medical profession, which he sees composed of science, art and life and changed by the increasing age of the doctor. With regard to his academic teachers Chelius and Hasse, he finally comes to the conclusion “In this respect, however, it was precisely Hasse as the type of the modern physician, who was able to scare off rural patients more than he was able to inspire their confidence by his rough treatment, and the urban ones by his ironic treatment, and Chelius as the type of the old, worldly experienced physician, who knew how to win the confidence of the patient, to which class of people he belonged, by his treatment excellently adapted to his character, that formed perfect opposites” (Wundt, 1920, p. 88).

The approximate equivalence of the three main medical subjects pathology, surgery and obstetrics was now also shown by the fact that the medical state examination was divided into three equivalent examinations, each of which took 14 days at the time in Baden. Wundt, now 23 years old, had remained true to the intentions he had made on his return from Tübingen and had completed his medical training within the allotted time, so that he could take the state examination in Karlsruhe in the autumn of 1855. In contrast to the present day, a college of doctors in the capital and residence city functioned as the state examination authority, a circumstance which Wundt (1920) provides with dry and ironic commentary in his autobiography: ....”The examiners were the representatives of a more or less backward level of science in comparison to the examinee, the oldest of them, who, as it should be, enjoyed the highest reputation, of course the most backward” (Wundt, 1920, p. 92).

Even at that time, the medical state examination included not only oral examinations but also written examinations, which the candidates of the two Baden universities of Freiburg and Heidelberg had to take in the Ständesaal of the Baden chamber in Karlsruhe under the supervision of a “Bureaubedienstete”. In his life review, the memory of the examination topic “About glaucoma and cataracts, along with an overview of eye diseases in general” seems somewhat oppressive in view of his own later eye disease, which almost led to blindness. But young Wundt was surprised about his good examination results, which must have been a great satisfaction for him in light of the “time of suffering of the Bruchsal grammar school”:

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“Although I suspected that I had passed, I was very surprised when my name appeared first in all three subjects. For if I carefully considered what I was capable of doing in each of the three, I had to look forward with some concern to the practice of internal medicine; But how I should be able to cut off the arms and legs of living human beings or perform other more difficult operations on their bodies, or even how I should be enabled to act as an obstetrician by performing a few exercises on a rubber model, remained somewhat obscure to me” (Wundt, 1920, p. 94/95).

The second part of the above quotation with Wundt’s ironically formulated self-criticism of his surgical and gynaecological skills hints at some of the problems that now arise after the state examination for his further path. But since, in Wundt’s opinion, the majority of the citizens at that time still held to the prejudice that “a well passed examination is the surest guarantee of a physician’s competence”, Wundt was not surprised after his return from the Residenz (Karlsruhe) that a family of the Heidelberg bourgeoisie asked him to join them as a family doctor. Wundt now “spontaneously told the people who had placed their trust in him as the first in the last exam crop that I regretted not being able to accept their invitation, since I did not intend to take over the municipal practice” (Wundt, 1920, p. 96). In contrast to his relatives, who expected practical work after passing their exams, Wundt considered how he could acquire the necessary skills. In this situation, the offer of a position as military doctor, a profession that “in the time of a long peace, since he generally only deals with healthy young people” seemed to him to be relatively easier and could be useful as preparation for medical practice (Wundt, 1920, p. 96). In addition, according to Wundt’s own statement, the holder of the highest military medical post had worked as a former Bruchsal physician in his parents’ house. Because of an excessive number of applications, however, this could not give him any well-founded hope for success, which is why Wundt then looked into the possibility of a “bathing doctor”. This profession, however, did not seem very attractive to him, since this “as I knew from occasional travel observations, apart from the treatment of anemic Baden official’s daughters, it seemed to me to be mainly dedicated to the duty to provide for the entertainment of the bathing society” (Wundt,1920,p. 97).

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Clinical residency and start of psychological career When at this time Wundt’s interest in physiology had consolidated and he had also confirmed this in a letter in 1855 to the Berlin physiologist Johannes Müller (in the context of the publication of his prize thesis Schlotte, 1955), Wundt was offered the opportunity to “fill in the gaps of practical medical practice” by the offer of an acquaintance who worked as a clinical assistant to Ewald Hasse and wanted to prepare for his medical state examination for six months. The pathologist Hasse accepted the suggestion, so that Wundt moved into his new apartment for the near future as an assistant in the women’s department of the Heidelberg clinic. “That was the time when I really learned something, if anything, in the field of medicine. Of course, it was a somewhat one-sided training that I enjoyed here. Because the women’s department of a municipal clinic grants a peculiar selection from the abundance of sick people who can meet the doctor, which probably never returns anywhere else. At that time, when the contingent of factory workers was still scarce, it consisted essentially of city servants, a few country people and several Venus vulgivaga servants accommodated in a special department, whose number was by no means small and whose treatment was not the easiest” (Wundt, 1920, p. 98).

According to the autobiographical data there is no question that this first period of assistance was a very difficult time for the young Wundt – not only because of the young doctor’s position in relation to the female gender. His sincere confession of a “nocturnal malpractice” makes this clear: “At the same time, I had an experience during such a nightly visit to the sick that gave me a severe fright when I woke up completely. In the sickrooms, two medicines with very different effects were peacefully placed side by side: the opium preparation known at that time as Laudanum Sydenhami and the iodine tincture. But I gave the patient the iodine tincture instead of the opium, knowing that it was the iodine tincture. Hasse, to whom I confessed my sins on the following day, carefully avoided the bed of the patient with the short remark: “I don’t think it will have harmed her at all! But I was left with such a deep impression that for weeks I wondered whether someone who could have been mistaken for someone else was capable of practicing the medical profession” (Wundt, 1920, p. 99).

Through contact with patients suffering from paralysis of the skin and muscles and who showed strange localisation disturbances of sensation, Wundt was led to the experiments of Ernst Heinrich Weber (1795-1878) on the physiology of the sense of touch, whereby he very soon doubted Weber’s ideas on the anatomical foundations of tactile perception and himself was more inclined to take a psychological view.

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In comparison to Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, interesting parallels can be seen in symptom-like patients with hysteria with regard to the psychological perception of physical symptoms, although Breuer & Freud did not publish their studies on hysteria until 1893. Wundt himself published his findings in the “Beiträge zur Theorie der Sinneswahrnehmung” as early as 1862. The suggestions for studying psychology that Wundt received during this time at the Heidelberg Women’s Hospital are unmistakable.

Figure 16: Former woman‘s clinic in Heidelberg from today‘s perspective

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What was still outstanding for him, however, was his doctoral thesis, which Wundt also regarded as a kind of duty of gratitude to the clinic and his teacher Hasse. This pathological-anatomical work, which Wundt dedicated to his teacher Hasse, was published in 1856 under the title “The changes in nerves in inflamed and degenerated organs”.

According to Wundt’s own words, this work “has not recorded particularly remarkable results” (Wundt, 1920, p. 101). However, he had now officially completed his doctoral examination in addition to the medical state examination. “After I had passed my doctoral examination according to the assertion of the diploma “with the highest praise”, my pathological-anatomical studies were finished at the same time, and I now decided to finally turn to physiology” (Wundt, 1920, p. 102).

In his contributions to Wundt’s biography Schlotte (1955) reports in this context of a letter from Wundt to his mother of June 25, 1856, in which he tells her of his long cherished wish to “be active in research in the field of physiology”. Further it says literally: “...but I will not become a physiologist in order to be allowed to lecture, but I will only try to lecture in order to remain a physiologist, because science cannot exist without practical, money-making application” (quoted in Schlotte, 1955, p. 334).

Wundt had already written this letter in early summer 1856 from Berlin, where he was able to spend another “semester of experience and research” away from home because of his prize scholarship and savings from his mother. Above all, it was probably the encouraging letter from Johannes Müller (1801 -1858), to whom he had submitted his prize-work on the cutting of the vagus for the physiological journal “Archiv für Anatomie und Physiologie”, which induced him to work in his physiological laboratory, where Emil Du-Bois Reymond (1818-1896) also worked. From the letter to his mother it becomes clear that an important stage in Wundt’s life’s work has been reached, namely the clear decision for physiology, although interests in philosophical and psychological studies were still in the background at that time.

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Chapter 5

“A QUIET TIME OF SUFFERING” – the health crisis and how to overcome it

When Wundt returned from Berlin to his southern German homeland in mid-August 1856, he had been away from home for the first time for a long time after his first year of study in Tübingen in 1851 and had not exactly got to know a modern big city, but rather “a complex of assembled villages”. According to Wundt’s description, only the castle stood out from the mixture of small and large unadorned houses in the Berlin of the 1850s, whereby the bad pavement of the streets and the slowly driving cabs surprised even the small townspeople. Illustration 17 conveys in an engraving the atmosphere of the Berlin of that time.

Figure 17: Contemporary engraving of Brandenburg Gate in 1850

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Wundt lived in Berlin in a “small, pretty room which cost him 5 1/2 Thaler a month with clothes cleaning”, as he wrote to his mother in June 1856. In spite of the high cost of living in Berlin at that time, Wundt lived very frugally and responsibly, as can be seen from the cost statements for meals, coffee and the like made to his mother. Although his mother advised him to take a good look at everything worth seeing in Berlin, the young Wundt was very careful not to “tire himself out unnecessarily by things that are not part of my studies”. With regard to his state of health he can reassure the “worried” mother (letter v. Wundt of June 25, 1856 to his mother). Wundt’s autobiography (1920) shows that he was extraordinarily impressed by the pace of development of the city of Berlin in the years 1856 to 1866, whereby the “great village of Berlin” was transformed into the “elegant, imposing metropolis”. In contrast to the urban development of Berlin, where Wundt met a number of famous natural scientists during this period – such as the botanist Alexander Braun or the versatile and ingenious physiologist Johannes Müller – there was the disappointing impression of the Physiological Institute, where Johannes Müller and Emil Du Bois-Reymonds worked in modest spatial conditions. Wundt’s awareness of the fact that “what was really found was actually more valuable than what was expected” (Wundt, 1920, p. 113) was probably based primarily on the “character of the German spirit”, which he got to know in the form of interesting personalities, not only from Southern Germany or Baden. Exemplarily one can refer here to Wundt’s characterizations of the serious and silent Johannes Müller as well as the communicative and sociable Du Bois-Reymond (Wundt, 1920, p. 109), whereby he felt particularly indebted to Müller’s assistant, Dr. Lehmann, because of his “introduction into the social circles of the younger Berlin scholarship”.

The habilitation Thus, after his return from Berlin in August 1856, Wundt set himself two tasks: On the one hand, the habilitation at the medical faculty for the subject of physiology and, on the other hand, the continuation of the muscle physiological work begun in Berlin and the return to sensory physiological studies (after starting them at the Heidelberg Women’s Hospital with Hasse). With regard to his habilitation, Wundt now benefited from a relief in the form of his doctoral degree, which he obtained with distinction, which consisted in

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the elimination of the (written and oral) habilitation examination and which enabled him to submit the doctoral thesis simultaneously as a habilitation thesis (Wundt, 1920, p. 115). “Thus only the public disputation remained as a condition for admission as a private lecturer, and this disputation, apparently the last remnant of the medieval inauguration of the Baccalaureat, had almost more the character of a public exhibition than that of an examination per se. The candidate for the Privatdozent dignity made an appointment with three of his friends on the subjects they wanted to discuss, and not infrequently the whole course of such a disputation was rehearsed beforehand in order to give it the most dramatic conclusion possible in the candidate’s victory over his opponents and his congratulations from them” (Wundt, 1920, p. 115).

Bringmann et al. (1980) report that the application for habilitation was initially rejected because a waiting period was required after the doctorate at the medical faculty. After Wundt signalled his progress to the faculty, the faculty changed its mind in December 1856, quickly set up the trial lecture and accepted a 26-page publication instead of a formal inaugural dissertation. After a public disputation of three theses – the contents of which are not mentioned in Wundt’s memoirs – Wundt received permission to offer lectures himself in February 1857. According to Wundt, one of the pleasant aspects of this procedure was that “after the disputation, the disputants joined the post-doctoral student in a festive banquet and the latter immediately announced a lecture for the next semester on the notice board” (Wundt, 1920, p. 116).

The lung disease If we pause for a moment when describing Wundt’s biography, we notice that since those self-critical thoughts on his return after the first year of study in Tübingen, just seven years have passed and that Wundt became a private lecturer at the age of almost 25 – an extraordinary achievement even by the standards of the time. Immediately after his habilitation, Wundt “boldly” and with well-known enthusiasm set about his new task of lecturing the entire physiology in 6 hours per week in his own apartment, accompanied by experiments and demonstrations. In this summer semester of 1857, in which he had just begun his first lecture with 4 listeners, a serious health crisis occurred: “I had just finished the general part of physiology happily in front of my four listeners and was about to move on to a special chapter when I was surprised by a sudden haemorrhage that repeated itself on the same day, becoming more and more violent, and tied me to the sick bay for many weeks” (Wundt, 1920, p. 117).

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According to Bringmann (1980), the haemorrhage occurred between 8 and 9 o’clock in the morning and led to an increasing feeling of weakness. The summoned doctor, who recognized the seriousness of the situation, believed Wundt to be near death. Wundt (1920) himself sensed from the behaviour of the doctors that they had given up on him and sent for his brother Ludwig, who worked at the district court in Mannheim, to say goodbye to him. Wundt himself writes in the review of his life memories that the overhaste and overwork of the last years “self-inflicted” led to this physical collapse and that now “a quiet period of suffering” began which was to last almost a year. It is probable that Wundt suffered from tuberculosis, which he overcame by self-chosen treatment: he went to higher mountainous areas (Swiss Alps) and had a breathing mask made (see also Schlotte, 1955). In later years often he spent his holidays in the Rigi massif (see Fig 18). The effects of this severe lung disease on his further life were considerable. Wundt (1920) speaks of “profound effects on his entire life”. It was especially the first hours and days that caused a complete reversal of his view of life. He describes the experience of nearness to death as follows: “Never again in my life, however, did I later have the impression of such perfect peace as I had in those hours. The feeling of having finished with everything that can unsettle the mind, with all striving and wanting, this feeling of having completed life is

Figure 18: Panorama picture of the Rigi in the central Switzerland

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perhaps closest related to the other of the purest, most perfect enjoyment of life” (Wundt, 1920, p. 117).

The confrontation with the topic “death” leads with Wundt finally also to the lifelong desire “not to leave this life at any price except to have experienced this act with full consciousness” (Wundt, 1920, p. 118). In the review of his life as old man he speaks thereby of “that experience of his youth”. Apart from the “compulsory break” of about one year, in the course of which Wundt also completed his first book on the “Doctrine of Muscle Movements”, this existential experience also led to the establishment of a strictly regulated daily routine, which many authors later point out to explain his enormous body of work. In his memoirs Kraepelin speaks of a “lifestyle of extreme regularity” (see chapter 10). Schlotte (1955) explains this in the analysis of Wundt’s correspondence, stating that Wundt often received visits after completion of the morning work and that the time after lunch was devoted to preparation for the lecture. At 4 o’clock in the afternoon the time came for the daily 1-hour walk. From 5 to 6 the lecture usually followed, which was usually followed by a visit to the institute. The evening was dedicated to light reading (newspaper), theatre or socialising, and his house often hosted student societies. So much for the anticipation of Wundt’s lifestyle, which will occupy us later on. There is yet another theme that Wundt connects in his autobiography with the “tranquility of dying”, namely the unity of this tranquility of life with religious feeling. These remarks – apart from statements in letters to Sophie Mau (see Chapter 8) – clearly show that Wundt was a deeply religious man, which not all authors express in their Wundt appreciations (see Meischner & Eschler, 1979). When Wundt (1920) writes in this context “that the human soul, in its perfect purity from all to which it is bound in life by inner necessity as its sensual embodiment, is, thought detached, completely one with the Deity himself, and that there is no other Deity except this inwardly experienced one, still less immortality”. ,

one can see in these words the reflection of an experience of God. Later, in his correspondence with his fiancée and later wife, Sophie Mau, Wundt will present the love experience as a kind of “God experience” and thus – in contrast to the rather atheistic representation of Meischner & Eschler (1979) – show himself as a deeply religious person. The existential life experience of this long and severe lung disease, whose diagnosis Wundt, according to Bringmann (1975), attempted to conceal in a conspicuous manner, had a strong influence on the development of Wundt’s phi-

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losophy of life. For example, he had now found a kind of reference point according to which “the external experiences and the knowledge that followed them arranged themselves into an internal context” (Wundt, 1920, p. 124). Likewise, it became clearer to him that there is no scientific knowledge that is not at the same time also in any way philosophical knowledge. Unfortunately, we know very little about Wundt’s preferred places of residence and activities during this “forced break”. From a letter from Wundt to the wife of the philosopher Cornill in Frankfurt, who had previously expressed her regret about his illness, it only emerges that during this time he was occupied with his “favourite author” Shakespeare, among other things, whereby he later (cf. Chap. 6) wrote theatre reviews in daily newspapers. On the other hand, Wundt obviously also used this time to continue working on his first book, which was later published by Vieweg under the title “Die Lehre von der Muskelbewegung” (1858). However, the book, well-written according to Bringmann (1975), which also contained a discussion of the famous isotonic curves and which Wundt had dedicated to Du Bois-Reymond, was more or less ignored, which initially saddened Wundt. From the great temporal distance of 60 years the autobiographer Wundt sees the problem of this “failure” however, much more differentiated: in his “harmlessness” towards Du Bois Reymond he had become the victim of a school struggle in science, from which he had learned for his life the lesson to promote the independence of his pupils and in no case to become a “school head” himself (Wundt, 1920, p. 148).

Assistant period with Helmholtz (1858-1863) In autumn 1858, Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-1894) was appointed professor of physiology in Heidelberg (see fig. 19). In February of that year, Wundt had expressed his wish to become an assistant at the new physiological institute that was to be established, and in a letter dated August 5, 1858, Helmholtz offered him the position. According to Schlotte (1955), Wundt also seems to have influenced the prospect of free research to take up the position, for “the annual salary of 300 guilders was more than modest”. According to Schlotte (1955), Wundt’s transformation from physiologist to psychologist was slowly taking place during this period (see

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also Chapter 7). Wundt’s area of responsibility consisted in the organisation of courses for medical students, especially physiological practical courses for prospective doctors. According to Bringmann (1975), Wundt fulfilled his duties reliably and to the satisfaction of his employer for more than 7 years, although the time-consuming routine finally seemed to bore him. He offered his own courses, e.g. on anthropology (1859), ethnology, psychology from a scientific point of view (1862) and also on philosophical results of natural research (1867). According to Bringmann (1975), the relationship between Helmholtz and Wundt has long been the subject of lively speculation among psychology historians. In particular, the so-called “Helmholtz-Story” by G. Stanley Hall (18441924) is often referred to here, who, apparently against his better judgment, persistently circulated the rumour that Wundt had been dismissed by Helm-

Figure 19: Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-1894)

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holtz because of his insufficient mathematical abilities (see Chapter 10). That this is untrue is proven not only by Wundt’s own documents, but also by letters from Helmholtz himself, where in 1872 it is stated, among other things .....”I believe that the German university, which would first take the risk of appointing a philosopher like Wundt, a naturalist devoted to philosophy, could earn a permanent merit for German science” (Quoted by Schlotte, 1955).

Ungerer (1979), in his study on Wundt’s circle of friends, describes the relationship between the two as friendly. Wundt himself regarded Helmholtz as the “most outstanding natural scientist who made the Heidelberg University of Applied Sciences shine after the middle of the century” (Wundt, 1920, p. 155). In connection with Helmholtz, he uses terms such as “versatile genius”, “admirable character” or “immortal fame”. A very human and personal side of Helmholtz can be found in Wundt’s autobiography in the memory of the performance of a farce. The reading of classical dramas with distributed roles was

Figure 20: The House to the Giants in Heidelberg from today‘s perspective

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apparently more popular at that time, although often boring, in the circle of the Ordinaries. “I saw a sample of his virtuosity in the handling of the same (note of the author: what is meant is the speaking of impeccable English) during a performance of a farce in his house, in which he portrayed an Englishman who broke the German language. He played the role with such overwhelming comedy that ‘it would hardly have been possible for a comedian by profession to surpass him. And so the ice of his silence melted in the social intercourse, which was completely outside the realm of professional scholarship. That is why he was not very fond of touching scientific or artistic questions in such intercourse, as the German scholar is accustomed to do” (Wundt, 1920, p. 158).

Bringmann (1980) says that Wundt felt more like an employee than a student of Helmholtz, but that he benefited primarily from the availability of the laboratory to deal with the problem of “sensory perception”. Due to the regulation of the Baden teaching administration in Karlsruhe, “that every physician had to visit the physiological laboratory for at least one semester”, Wundt was at first very busy in the mornings between 8 and 12, because “the whole medical faculty, from the oldest to the youngest, came to take a practical course in physiology” (Wundt, 1920, p. 154). The uselessness of such experiments, e.g. on the law of twitching of the frog muscle, for the future general practitioners became clear to Wundt very quickly, and so he decided, after having led these courses for several years, “to give up the assistant position and return to the circle of private lecturers completely freed from teaching duties”. During these assistant years at Helmholtz, Wundt was intensively occupied, in addition to his full morning working hours, with filling in his hitherto considerable gaps in Philosophy (in contact with the philosopher Cornill) and Psychology (reading Herbart’s writings), which must have been a considerable workload: “I still remember how I lit my study lamp at five o’clock in the morning for several weeks in order to immerse myself in the study of Herbart’s “Psychology as a Science”, which impressed me most, of all the works that philosophical literature otherwise offered in psychological matters and which at that time had most likely influenced physiology from the more stringent philosophical works” (Wundt, 1920, p. 191).

At that time he set up a small physiological laboratory in some rooms of his apartment (see Fig. 20) and decided to write some physiological textbooks because of the loss of his “small salary”. The voluminous literature of Wundt apparently starts in these times, whereby Wundt, wrote 63 articles and books with a page count of 2500 during his time with Helmholtz. The “Beiträge zu einer Theorie der Sinneswahrnehmung” (1862) and the “Vorlesungen der Menschen- u. Thierseele” (1863) are probably the best known works of this time.

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The friendships of the private lecturers According to Wundt’s own statement (1920), at the time of his habilitation as a private lecturer in medicine, the University of Heidelberg was “one of the happiest asylums for a beginning academic teacher”. The personal importance Wundt later attached to this time as a private lecturer is shown, for example, in a letter to his son Max on his 30th birthday in 1909: “...The thirtieth birthday – an important turning point in human life! People in general consider it as the day when the young man becomes a man. For the private lecturer in particular, it is the day when he expects to become associate professor. But it is good not to lose patience while waiting. Also, any old professor will tell you that being a private lecturer has.... been the happiest time of his life.

That this quotation reflects his own experiences of the long wait for an appointment (in 1864 he was appointed Extraordinarius in Heidelberg, in 1872 he received a paid position and only in 1874 was he called to Zurich) is very likely. Ungerer writes (1978) that there is probably a whole bundle of motives for why Wundt became socially and politically active, especially in the last years of his residency at Helmholtz. One of the many prerequisites (see also chapter 6) was

Figure 21: Wundt‘s friend, the theologian Adolf Hausrath (1837-1909)

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certainly the emergence of the associations. For the young scientists of this time, it was obvious to create a forum for the regular exchange of expertise. In contrast to the “Arbeiterbildungsvereine”, which we will discuss in the next chapter, the “Historisch-Philosophische Verein” was rather an apolitical forum. According to Ungerer (1979) the founding meeting in 1863 had been arranged by his friend, the theologian Adolf Hausrath (1837-1909), and himself. The motto of this association consisted in the call to criticize every dogmatic attitude – an attitude that certainly fitted well with Wundt’s national-liberal attitude. Among the founding members of this association were Wundt’s friend, the theologian Julius Heinrich Holtzmann (1832-1910) and the historian Wilhelm Wattenbach (1819-1897), in whose house Wundt also met his later wife (see Chapter 8). The core of the association, however, was formed by those private lecturers and associate professors who, according to Ungerer (1979), were sensitive to any kind of ecclesiastical, state and academic paternalism due to their own training period. Within the third class of Heidelberg university teachers, as Wundt himself describes the private lecturers, there was now a lively sociability, with friendships also forming between the members of this association.

Figure 22: The former museum building in Heidelberg (with kind approval of G. A. Ungerer

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“One such connected me, going back to the time before my habilitation, especially with Holtzmann and Hausrath, with whom I even remember many a walk in Heidelberg’s surroundings. Later, when Holtzmann had taken up a practical position in Badenweiler for some time, there was a winter in which I met with Hausrath alone almost day after day at the same afternoon hour in the reading room of the museum to take the same mountain walk that was immediately followed by my evening lecture on anthropology. In the last Heidelberg period, when Hausrath lived in Karlsruhe as Oberkirchenrat, Brie was my daily companion in a similar way” (Wundt, 1920, p. 152).

With plenty of sociability and many intellectual stimuli, the young private lecturers profited above all from the low academic duties, although on the other hand the financial situation was usually more than miserable. In addition to the rich contact opportunities in this association, in which weekly lectures were held on the subject of the respective speaker, Wundt also cultivated other relationships. “So with Henriette Feuerbach, who in those days in particular was devotedly and faithfully engaged in the distribution of the works of her son Anselm. Mrs. Feuerbach also came to my attention through another personal relationship. When my friend Eduard Pickford, who lived in Heidelberg as a private lecturer in economics and was also my predecessor in the Baden parliament, fell seriously ill in Karlsruhe, it was Mrs. Feuerbach, who was also a friend of his, who hurried to Karlsruhe and cared for him until his death” (Wundt, 1920, p. 236).

Figure 23: Henriette Feuerbach (1812-1892)

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During this time Wundt had intensive and almost daily contact with the married couple Adolf and Marie Cornill. Adolf Cornill (1822-1903), who had made himself known through philosophical writings, especially one on materialism, lived from 1853 to 1862 not far from Wundt’s later apartment on Plöck No. 35 in Heidelberg (Ungerer, 1980). Like Wundt, he was a private lecturer, but without a teaching post and was the only specialist philosopher in his circle of acquaintances during the Heidelberg period. As a philosopher, Wundt was able to engage in an intensive exchange with him about Hegel’s works and thus enrich his philosophical knowledge. His wife Marie Cornill, who showed great sympathy for Wundt during his “quiet time of suffering” from lung disease, was considered by Wundt (1920) to be the most educated woman in Heidelberg at that time. In addition to Henriette Feuerbach, her circle included Rosalie Artaria and her bridegroom, the art historian and traveler to Egypt Julius Braun and the lawyer Heinrich Strauch, with whom Wundt was also a friend (Wundt, 1920, p. 237). A relationship with the historian Wilhelm Wattenbach (1819-1897) was extremely important and momentous for Wundt. “Among these later friends, I came.... closer to Wilhem Wattenbach. It was in the Wattenbach house with the sisters Sophie and Cäcilie, of whom Cäcilie remained my faithful friend after Sophie died, that I spent most of my time during the last years of my stay in Heidelberg. In him I found my later partner and in her the happiness of my life. So it was the intercourse with the house of Wattenbach that outlasted all these Heidelberg relationships and continued into the time when Wattenbach moved to Berlin and I myself moved to Leipzig” (Wundt, 1920, p. 237).

The center for scientific and sociable associations was the so called “Museumsbau” in Heidelberg (see Fig. 22).

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Chapter 6

THE POLITICAL COMMITMENT

One of the earliest “political” experiences in Wundt’s life story is certainly the “Heidelsheim village revolution” described in chapter 1, which Wundt dates back to 1839. But it was not the only revolution he “experienced in the immediate vicinity and of which he has kept a number of impressive pictures in his memory”. “I can still see before me the round table of German and Austrian politicians who had gathered in the Heidelberg Museumssaale on their journey to the Frankfurt Pre-Parliament, including Anastasius Grün, the celebrated Viennese poet, among other leading spirits of the time, which I saw here from the gallery of the Festsaal with astonished admiration,...... with the members of the Frankfurt Left, among whom Robert Blum, with his ravishing eloquence, moved the listeners streaming in from the city and the surrounding area to tears” (Wundt, 1920, p. 7).

Wundt’s diary of the events of the German March Revolution of 1848 is also one of the many biographical records of his extraordinarily keen political interest in an eventful time. He was obviously very moved by his witnessing of the violent end of the Baden Republic: “I also witnessed the tragic end of this brief republic, and almost at close quarters, when I saw the cannons of the Battle of Waghäusel flash from the heights of the Gaisberg near Heidelberg, where the Prussian army led by the then Prince of Prussia, later Kaiser Wilhelm, drove the Republican troops into pairs. I will never forget the impression that was created by the illumination that took place in the town on the evening of that day, which, according to the proclamation of the Republican mayor, was supposed to celebrate the victory of the army of Baden, but which in reality was meant to show the way to the Freischardians fleeing into the Odenwald” (Wundt, 1920, p. 9).

At the end of his life – shortly before his death in August 1920 – Wundt then writes in the preface to his autobiography: “If he himself should put the motif in the foreground, which was the most effective for him throughout his life, it was not at all times, but nevertheless at the high points of this life that the political, the participation in the interests of state and society, which captivated the writer of these lines”.

Wundt’s own assessment of his political interest is thus unambiguous, but it seems all the more incomprehensible how little notice was taken of Wundt’s political activities for a long time. Thus, Wundt’s first American student, G.

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Stanley Hall, is said to have constantly denied Wundt’s political activities, which probably has more to do with Hall’s ambivalent personality (see chapter 10) than with the facts. Wundt’s “first biographer”, Peter Petersen (1925), on the other hand, has described this phase in Wundt’s life, which is still unknown to many, in great detail. Later this was continued by Ungerer (1978, 1979, 1980).

The motives Ungerer (1978) speaks of a whole “bundle of motives” as to why Wundt became politically active in the 60s of the 19th century. Apart from the enthusiasm for the 48ies (he had not only listened to Robert Blum’s speech at the Heidelberg castle, but also wrote down his death “with enormous excitement” in his diary) as well as a possible mental underchallenge due to the routine work at Helmholtz, Ungerer (1978) also speaks of a politically freer climate after 1860, which among other things was also reflected in the founding of many associations (see chapter 5). In a typically modest way, Wundt himself characterizes his role in the public life of his home country as “not particularly outstanding”, but at the same time admits that after a longer political standstill “a new movement took possession of the spirits” (Wundt, 1920, p. 15). Ungerer (1979) proves this “politically freer climate”, among other things with the amnesty for the condemned of the revolutionary years 48/49 as well as with the celebration of Schiller’s 100th birthday in 1859. When Bringmann (1980) writes that “in those years Wundt was an idealist who wanted to liberate the workers from their machine-like existence”, one can also recognize in it, Wundt’s concern about the social living conditions of the poor in Heidelberg. He became acquainted with them not least during his time as assistant to Ewald Hasse in the gynaecological clinic (see chapter 4). To what extent the experiences of his unfortunate school days at the Catholic grammar school in Bruchsal played a motivational role with regard to his later commitment against the “Pfaffenregiment” at the Baden elementary schools remains to be seen.

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The workers’ training association in Heidelberg After Petersen (1925), Wundt’s political effectiveness began with his assumption of the chairmanship of the Workers Education. These associations, among which the Industrial Employees Association in Leipzig, headed by August Bebel (1840-1913), enjoyed the greatest reputation at the time (see Fig. 24), can be considered the forerunners of today’s adult education efforts. They were mainly founded as a counter-reaction to the workers’ circles founded by Ferdinand Lassalle (1825-1864). In Heidelberg, it was mainly craftsmen who enrolled in the newly founded Workers’ Education Association (Ungerer, 1978), seeking benefits in the form of relief funds, savings associations, cooperatives, as well as the exchange of news. According to Ungerer (1978), the motto of the leaders of these “bourgeois” workers’ education associations (as opposed to the more radical Lassalleans) was that “the intellectually and economically dispossessed should become people of education and property”. About the foundation of the Heidelberg Association we find a quotation from the Mannheimer Anzeiger of April 1863 in Ungerer (1978):

Figure 24: August Bebel (1840-1913), leader of the Leipzig workers‘ training association

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“At the suggestion of the Mannheim Workers’ Education Association, a Workers’ Day was held yesterday in Heidelberg under the chairmanship of Mr. Eichelsdörffer, which was attended by about 300 workers and friends of the cause from Heidelberg, Wiesloch and from here. The chairman gave a long lecture about the labour movement and suggested to the Heidelberg workers that they should also come together to form an association for further spiritual and moral training. Mr. Wenzel and Mr. Bomarius from the Mannheim association spoke warm words in the same sense and one had the joy that 120 workers immediately spoke out in favour of the foundation of a workers’ education association in Heidelberg by signing...”.

The chairman of the newly founded association was Eduard Pickford (18231866), a private lecturer in economics from Heidelberg, who was also the founder of the “Volkszeitung für Süddeutschland” (in this newspaper Wundt also published theatre reviews). Ungerer (1978) gives the following characterization of Pickford’s person: “He was a little sedentary bourgeois in appearance and in his behaviour almost the opposite of the household-dry Wundt. At the same time he was Wundt’s stimulus in many political activities .....Pickford’s enthusiasm for the workers’ cause has a history dating back to his acquaintance with Lassalle. They had both gone to school in Leipzig and met in 1863 in Frankfurt a.Main at the Workers Day...... Pickford was a merchant, studied economics, was editor of two newspapers and Wundt’s predecessor in the II. chamber. Together with others he founded The Workers Education Association , The Industrial Association ,The Advance Association,, ,The National Association.. The fact that he was unanimously re-elected by the electorate in Heidelberg in 1865 spoke for his popularity. As his successor, Wundt received 45 of 58 votes out of 45 in April 1866; seven electors “stayed away” from the vote.

After Pickford’s departure in the autumn of 1863 a new election to the Workers’ Education Society became necessary, so that Wundt finally became chairman in November 1863. Besides the social question, the problem of “worker education” was particularly close to Wundt’s heart. But that the field of adult education was connected with many problems at that time is shown by Ungerer’s (1978) description of a teaching programme for the workers and craftsmen, which Wundt had worked out for them: “In the evening at 8 1/2 o’clock German language, bookkeeping, arithmetic and writing, from January ‘64 additionally drawing and another writing lesson were scheduled. In addition, preparations for meetings, the singing evening and the weekly meetings of the association came often with tiring academic lectures “.

The aim of these efforts was to improve the social situation of workers and craftsmen through better education. Wundt therefore gave lectures on physics, chemistry and anthropology in his Heidelberg association. As Ungerer (1980) notes, Wundt also took a stand on political issues, such as German unification. However, the associations of Ferdinand Lassalle, the co-founder of the social democratic movement, were a strong competitor for the more bourgeois asso-

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ciations, which could be seen in the loss of members. This was probably less to do with the pedagogical and didactic methods of the lecturers than with the overload of the workers, who, with a daily working time of more than 12 hours, simply could not cope with the workload of the evening school. So from an initial number of about 300, about 90 remain (Ungerer,1978). According to Ungerer (1978), the first two years of this labour education association are dominated by questions of labour movement, a relief fund (support for sick workers) and migrant support (better opportunities for job search and residence). A room was rented in Heidelberg in the “White Swan” (see Fig. 25) for regular evening classes. The lectures in those years had political and histor-

Figure 25: The house „Weißer Schwanen“ at the hay market in Heidelberg from today‘s perspective

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ical topics (such as the history of Baden and Prussia). In his review of his life, Wundt (1920) describes a rather cheerful anecdote from these lectures, which were an integral part of the programmes of the workers’ education associations: “In Pforzheim I spoke “On the preservation of strength”. When I entered the auditorium, I was amazed to see a lot of old people, male and female, gathered in front of my catheter. After the lecture, I was addressed by a gentleman I knew, who expressed his doubts about whether the sun was such a great source of strength, as Mr. Robert Mayer claimed, because he himself loved to sit in the sun, But I did not yet feel much of an increase in his strength, when I noticed that he had expected to hear advice on how best to begin to stay young and therefore tried, as best he could, to reinterpret the physical subject into a practical rule of life” (Wundt, 1920, p. 16).

The lecture recalled by Wundt is already an example of one of the so-called “travelling lectures” held at that time before the citizens of various cities in southern Germany with the aim of using the proceeds to finance the construction of a workers’ house. Thus Wundt frequently travelled with the mathematician Moritz Cantor and the historians August Thorbecke and Wilhelm Wattenbach to these lectures in Baden – a rather idealistic undertaking from today’s perspective. According to Wundt’s own words, a typical feature of these associations was apparently the great political antagonism of their members, which in one case was represented by a Freiburg District Court Councilor, a Pforzheim grammar school principal, a later Mannheim Social Democrat, and the founder of the “Frankfurter Zeitung” (Wundt, 1920, p. 18). At such a meeting in 1863, Wundt was also able to get to know the philosopher and social politician Friedrich Albert Lange (1828-1875), who lived in Zurich at the time. This meeting does not seem to be completely insignificant for Wundt’s later scientific career, as he notes in his autobiography: “For I have reason to suspect that my appointment to Zurich, which took place several years later, was not due to the faculty there, but to Albert Lange, who had previously been appointed to Marburg and who enjoyed great esteem with the Swiss democratic government” (Wundt, 1920, p. 18/19).

Thus, at the beginning of the 1860s, Wundt had ample opportunity to commit himself to national-liberal principles with his friends and colleagues in the Heidelberg Workers’ Education Association, such as Hausrath and Wattenbach. Freedom and independence of the working class – the worker should not be a living machine – these are typical catchwords from the manuscripts and essays of those days (see Petersen, 1925). In terms of party politics, Wundt belonged to the left wing of the Baden Progress Party in Karlsruhe, whose leader was August Lamey (1816-1896). He resisted the politicization of the workers’ move-

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ment, as it was carried out through the agitations of F. Lassalle, and he had little understanding for the transition of the workers’ movement into the Marxist camp. Wundt remained a member of this association until his appointment to Zurich in 1874 (Ungerer, 1978).

Member of the II. Chamber of Commerce According to Wundt (1920), it was not too great a step from the chairman of the “Bildungsverein” to a member of the “Ständekammer” in those days. When Eduard Pickford had died at the beginning of 1866, Wundt was elected representative of the XIIIth municipal election district on 26 April 1866 and was able to prove the taxable assets required as a condition for eligibility by means of a “patent for wine V. Klasse” which was placed on file (Petersen, 1925). “From now on I spent about 4 years in Karlsruhe, where I spent most of my time in the circle of members of the state parliament, who belonged to all sorts of professions, from farmers to civil servants and lawyers. A larger circle, which included the minister August Lamey and the two leaders of the then so-called Progressive Party, Karl Eckhart and Friedrich Kieser, met daily with about a dozen other deputies at the lunch table of the Darmstadt court, while the evenings were mostly dedicated to commission meetings or other work” (Wundt, 1920, p. 20).

According to Wundt (1920), Baden’s legislation in those years was inspired by the “ingenious” August Lamey, who, in his words, “managed an enormous reform work within a few years”. Both Petersen (1925) and Ungerer (1978) describe Wundt’s manifold political activities during this period, particularly in detail using the example of “school legislation”. In the Baden state parliament, Wundt took part in debates on the right of association and assembly, on the contract between Baden and Prussia, on the military law, on the education system and on reforms of the academic jurisdiction. In the course of the abolition of long overdue academic privileges, the duel was removed from the series of student disciplinary measures. After his own painful experiences – especially at the Catholic Bruchsal Gymnasium in 1846 – Wundt was obviously not inconvenienced by his participation in long-lasting commission deliberations on the new school law. Ungerer (1978) describes Wundt’s activities in this matter very precisely and in detail: “In 1867, Wundt lectured to the Second Chamber that the fathers of families should be free to choose the school for their children without being compelled by their confession. This motion, on paragraphs 5-13 of the school law, which Wundt had introduced with other party friends, was rejected by a majority. Also his motion for the establishment of simultaneous schools by the municipalities was rejected..... In December 1867, in a lengthy speech before the Second Chamber, Wundt advocated the

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Figure 26: Seat of the Second Baden state chamber in Karlsruhe (with kind approval of G. A. Ungerer)

training of female teachers for the lower boys’ classes and girls’ schools. He further advocated the reduction of religious lessons, whereby he saw himself placed between all chairs by this solo effort. The school law was adopted on 19.12.1867 against the votes of Lindau, Mühlhäuser and Rosshirt, the Catholic phalanx in the II. chamber” (Ungerer, 1978, p. 42).

With the committed advocacy of his liberal principles, which Wattenbach also joined, there was apparently also fierce headwind in the dispute over the simultaneous school, which was not only organized by the co-founder of the Catholic People’s Party, Jakob Lindau, in the form of people’s assemblies (“Wandering Casinos”). But the passing of the new school law then led to the fact that “the spiritual supervision of schools was put to an end”. The importance of this school law may be judged by the fact that Baden took the most progressive position in the school system at that time.

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The national question According to Wundt (1920), the South Germans lacked not only a pronounced sense of social standing, but above all a firmly established national consciousness. In his memoirs he writes that as Germans at that time everyone obviously felt that they were German, but there was great uncertainty as to whether Prussia or Austria was to be regarded as German supremacy. In this respect it seems worthwhile to describe Wundt’s position on the question of “German unity” in more detail – especially from today’s perspective of the unity regained in 1990 after World War II. There is no question that in his speeches and lectures Wundt supported German unification and this is emphasized by Wundt’s daughter Eleonore (1928) in her father’s biographical tribute. According to Petersen (1925), Wundt’s participation in the political events of these important years for German unification (1863-1869) is very significant, as is the reversal of his judgment of Bismarck. The rejection of Bismarck’s policy is now not only typical for Wundt, it corresponds to the anti-Prussian movement in Germany of that time, whereby the state of Baden always represented a particularly liberal position, embodied at that time for instance by the Baden Minister of the Interior August Lamey. Wundt (1920) speaks of the “eventful summer of 1866”, meaning the exciting period of the Prussian-Austrian War. Prussia was described as the originator of the “German fratricidal war” and a movement for strict neutrality in the event of war arose. Wundt himself advocated the unpopular position of armed neutrality, he warned against an expansion of Prussian hegemony and the military unitary state. In an anonymous essay published in 1866 in the Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung he ironically described Bismarck as the “political Messiah of the North” (see also Petersen, 1925). In his autobiography, Wundt (192o) explains the anti-war movement on the basis of confidential deliberations of the members of parliament, with particular reference to the helplessness prevailing at the time. “Lamey, the Home Secretary, was all the more silent. He reflected in his whole being the confusion of these hours; and with all his heart, in his actions and being a true South German, he had not denied his Great German attitude in the previous chamber negotiations” (Wundt, 1920, p. 25).

After the anti-Prussian movement had quasi reached a culmination point in May 1866, however, after the Battle of Königgrätz in July 1866 a dramatic upheaval of popular sentiment set in, which – in Wundt’s words – “probably never occurred on a greater scale”. The previously “most hated German statesman” (Bismarck) had suddenly become promising and acceptable in liberal

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circles again. How strongly this change of opinion was influenced by purely national moods is also shown by the clear weakening of the image of the “violent man” Bismarck, who once said in a budget commission that “the great questions of the time are not decided by speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood” (cf. also Schieder, 1992, p. 144). The war of 1866, the last war of German territorial states among themselves, was clearly decided by Prussian supremacy; the liberal national movement obviously experienced it in a feeling of complete powerlessness and with ambivalent consciousness. Wundt himself maintained his negative attitude towards Prussia after this war (see also Ungerer, 1978; 1979), but his political views increasingly came into opposition to his party friends. For the state of Baden, the situation had become difficult after the war as a “comrade-in-arms” on the side of Austria, the state played “in these dismal times the role of an outcast child” (Wundt, 1920), on the one hand independently, but on the other hand also following the now more powerful model of the “North German Confederation”. These oppressive conditions for the people of Baden finally led to personal consequences for Wundt: “Personally, this situation finally became unbearable for me, and in 1868 I resigned from my post in order to return fully to my academic profession. One of the last events I experienced in Karlsruhe was the funeral service for Karl Mathy. He had not missed any of the daily chamber meetings despite a severe cold, and on February 3, 1868, in a few days he succumbed to pneumonia....., and the feeling was alive in everyone that in Mathy, there was divorced, a man in whom the political future of the German Reich had lost one of its best” (Wundt, 1920, p. 29/30).

Withdrawal from politics While Wundt (1920) himself considered Karl Mathys’ funeral service in Karlsruhe to be the end of his political life, he announced his resignation to the electoral college in a letter dated July 4, 1869 (see Fig. 27). The reasons for the differences between the National Liberals and the Baden government, as well as the limitations of his scientific work – which in his political era by no means stagnated – are not completely convincing. From the above quotation it is already clear that Wundt experienced his work in the Chamber of States in Karlsruhe as increasingly unbearable, since no progress was made on the question of German unity. In the Heidelberg Journal of May 22, 1869 one can recognize the high ethical and idealistic aims of Wundt when he writes: “The sentence that a government

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Figure 27: Newspaper advertisement of Wundt‘s resignation in 1869

against the will of the people is impossible in the long run in a constitutional country is for me the foundation and cornerstone of every constitutional state” (quoted by Ungerer, 1978). In this respect, one can assume that disappointment and resignation also played a major role in the high idealistic objectives. In a letter of 1872 to his later wife, Sophie Mau, he writes among other things “...I was drawn into the whirlpool of the politically agitated time that preceded the summer of 1866; I was so careless as to allow myself to be elected by the city of Heidelberg as a member of the Chamber of States of Baden, and here I not only did not hold back my opinion anywhere, as is self-evident, but also missed the wisdom in my appearance that is quite compatible with duty and loyalty of conviction. The fact that I made nothing less than a friend of our country’s leading minister was a natural consequence. My political illusions were unfortunately soon shattered. I had believed that politics should not be a specific profession, but that men of all walks of life should participate in the public affairs of the country. Soon, however, I could no longer close my mind to the conviction that the political position, as well as any other position, demands its man completely, and that where an attempt at unification is made, it will only have a fragmented effect which is not satisfactory to either side. When I took

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leave of you in the spring of 1868, the decision was already made to return entirely and exclusively to scientific work, and I carried it out soon afterwards” (Wundt, May 27, 1872).

From the time distance of 3 years, “political ideals” seem to turn into “political illusions”. The constraints of political reality were hardly compatible with Wundt’s idealistic goals. Wundt (1868) also pointed out to his mother the incompatibility of a political career and scientific work. Wundt and many of his friends were reunited for social reasons during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71, after military hospitals had been set up in Heidelberg to care for the wounded. The city apparently resembled a large hospital centre, where well-known doctors such as Friedreich, Chelius, Helmholtz and others cared for the wounded (Ungerer,1979). Wundt’s task apparently consisted of putting together groups of porters and paramedics who, in adventurous journeys, travelled with him several times to the front and transported the wounded to Heidelberg. According to Ungerer (1979), it was “probably a gruesome visual lesson that he received on the battlefields” for the

Figure 28: Sketch of Albert Hall in Leipzig (with kind approval of G. A. Ungerer)

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38-year-old Wundt, who by this time had already begun work on his book “Grundzüge der Physiologischen Psychologie”. In the second half of 1870, more than 1300 wounded were cared for in Heidelberg. Apparently, the care was largely the task of the women’s aid associations, to which Henriette Feuerbach also belonged (Ungerer, 1979). In the description of the politician Wundt, Ungerer (1980) shows the mutual influence of political work and psychological research, which he explains in Wundt’s work on ethics. The combination of considerations and concepts from the Ethnic Psychology – in addition to the experimental psychology of Wundt’s great achievement after 1900 – with the experiences of his political activity seems indeed impressive and an interesting component of a biographical evaluation (see Chapter 11). In the First World War – where Wundt’s interest in political commitment was revived – Wundt put the psychology of nations as an interpretative model at the service of politics (Ungerer, 1979).

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Chapter 7

BASIC PRINCIPLES OF PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY

The change to a psychologist After Schlotte (1955), the transition from physiologist to psychologist is slowly taking place at Helmholtz for Wundt. After his observations on the sense of feeling, which he had collected in 1856 under Hasse in the gynaecological clinic with hysterical-looking patients, he also increasingly concerned himself with the subject of visual perception. After giving up his residency (see Chapter 4), Wundt was able to devote himself again relatively independently to his empirical studies, and the enormous publication rate in the last years of Heidelberg until the summer of 1874 is an impressive testimony to his creativity during this time. Wundt’s daughter Eleonore (1927) cites seven books in her father’s bibliographical survey during this period alone. The subject matter is now much more in the psychological field than in the physiological. Already in the summer semester of 1862 Wundt gave his lecture “Psychology from the scientific point of view”. A large part of his work is devoted to the preparation of the “basic principles”, but before that an important milestone on the way to the first psychological textbook must be mentioned, namely the “Lectures on the Soul of Man and Animals”, published in 1863.

Lectures on the human and animal soul In this work – a first self-contained system of psychology – Wundt deals with the logical development of the soul. He first discusses the development of cognition from simple sensation to the formation of abstract concepts and then later, in his 57 lectures, also deals with feelings, desires and actions. Although Wundt himself later distanced himself from this work and described it as “youth sin”, it is worthwhile to take a brief look at it, since two motives become clear on the way to the first textbook.

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On the one hand, the desire to make psychology independent of philosophy using scientific experimental methodology and on the other hand, to use the results of this psychology for philosophy. Nitsche (1990) speaks of the fact that, if the perspective is reversed, his “youth sin” takes on the appearance of a first draft of his life’s work. This draft already contains treatises on the ethnic psychology, which he dealt with intensively in the last 20 years of his life. Already in his first lecture he deals quite progressively with the limitations of psychological methods: “The subject of psychological investigations is the inner experience, feeling, imagining, thinking. What of this inner experience can be perceived directly in the consciousness is soon exhausted, and psychologists have therefore long since realized that they must look for aids that allow them to go beyond the field of direct observation” (Wundt, 1863).

In his third lecture, he is already dealing with the measurement of the speed of thoughts, i.e. psychic time measurement, a method which is later taken up and intensively used in the Leipzig Institute. When this work appeared in 1863, Wundt was already a respected scholar and author of two physiological works. However, the attention of his colleagues was initially lacking, perhaps also because in the eyes of many he had left the field of exact natural science with his “Lectures”. In a letter to his bride Sophie Mau from June 1872, he described himself as “a renegade of the subject, who moves on a suspicious border area between physiology and philosophy”. In Moritz Wilhelm Drobisch (1802-1896), professor of mathematics and philosophy in Leipzig and representative of Herbart’s School of Psychology in Germany, Wundt immediately found a prominent critic. Drobisch put a lot of energy into defending his “mathematical psychology”, but it was no longer able to make progress – already strongly criticized by Fechner in 1851. In this respect, Wundt’s call to Leipzig in 1875 (see Chapter 9) was also a signal for a new development in psychology. Many elements and thoughts from his work return in Wundt’s later works. The philosophy of the work corresponded to a materialistic naturalism that was typical for the mid-19th century. One referred to two natures, that of matter or physical and that of spirit or psychic. According to Wundt, the transition of the (physical) nervous process into the (psychic) sensation represented a combination of these natures. With these “lectures” the 31-year-old Wundt already had the concept of a scientific psychology with which he could give better answers

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to the philosophical questions of the time than the materialism of the 50s. During his manifold social contacts during his time in Heidelberg (see chapter 5), he had also created a good basis for his views in discussions with scholars and lecturers, not least through ready-to-print lectures in the “Naturhistorisch-Medizinischer Verein” (Natural History and Medicine Association) with its renowned scientists such as Bunsen, Helmholtz, Kirchhoff, Friedreich and others. In 1896 Wundt had another opportunity to correct his “youth sin” when a new edition of the “Lectures on the Soul of Man and Animals” was created. The following quotation from this edition again gives an excellent example of Wundt’s dry humour in the didactic field, in that he comments on associative achievements in animals on the basis of an experience with his poodle: “My poodle used to be thoroughly cleaned on Saturdays, which was very unpleasant for him. But, from various preparations made in the house, he noticed that it was Saturday, and it was not uncommon for him to escape from the unwanted cold-water treatment early in the morning, only to return home late in the evening, when he could be safe from it. He usually spent the rest of the day in the square in front of the house, looking up at the windows, longing to return home, obviously in a hard struggle between the desire and the aversion to what was awaiting him here. He was all the more cheerful the next Sunday morning. At that time my brother, who lived in a neighbouring town, used to visit me on that Sunday morning. But he was fonder of the poodle than of any other member of the household. So he did not miss lying in wait behind the closed door of the apartment every Sunday from early morning onwards...... Experiences such as these prove not only the association.... activity extending over longer periods of time.

The textbook In a letter of December 1872 to the publisher Wilhelm Engelmann in Leipzig, Wilhelm Wundt, who had just got married (see chapter 8), informs the publisher that he is working on a work which has taken him several years to prepare. This work covers the work of almost two decades, i.e. since his time as assistant to Hasse in 1856 (see chapter 5), and its content is based on the physiology of sensory perception. After Wundt (1872) explained the title (connection between the inner and outer world) to the publisher Engelmann, he briefly described the structure of the work: first, the physiological properties of the nervous system are to be presented, followed by the study of sensation and imagination. Thirdly, there follows the theory of animal movements. After a critique of the psychological teachings, a general theory of psychophysical events follows in the fifth and last section.

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Wundt had quickly recognized that the mathematical psychology of Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776-1841) with its “mechanics of ideas” could not solve the actual tasks of psychology, so that he started out from the simplest problems of the soul life and turned to the phenomena of sensory perception. Thus, in the “basic principles” as the basic theme of the work he tried to “work on the psychology of sensory perceptions and their next connections and dissections”. He himself says about his 1st edition that it consists mainly of a systematically ordered collection of fragments, which are taken for the most part from the traditional holdings of sensory physiology and association psychology. “By progressing from the one volume of the first edition, supported by the Leipzig Institute for Experimental Psychology, as well as more and more also by the work of psychologists and physiologists standing outside it, to the three extensive volumes of the sixth edition from 1908 to 1911, I may well say that a considerable part of my life’s work is laid down in it” (Wundt, 1920, p. 194/195).

Figure 29: Title page of „Grundzüge der Physiologischen Psychologie“ 1874

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Wundt had the ambitious goal of bringing the field of the entire psychology up to the higher phenomena of human consciousness into an inner connection. Complex mental processes were to be illuminated by more elementary ones on the level of sensory perception. He wanted to prove “how in the elementary processes of consciousness, the sensations and associations, everywhere already the spiritual life in the totality of its relationships shines through”. In his autobiography, Wundt (1920) also deals with the process of development in his own ideas, because in the course of revisions and new editions his ideas of the mental processes became more and more precise, i.e. especially the theory of apperception, the theory of feelings and affects and, last but not least, the theory of the will (the term “voluntarism” is very typical of Wundt’s psychology). Wundt published the first volume of the “Grundzüge” with Engelmann as early as autumn 1873, containing a large part of his physiological knowledge. Bringmann (1980) says that this was quasi his farewell to physiology, with which he no longer occupied himself from then on. The second volume of his work was printed in the spring of 1874, and it can rightly be called the first comprehensive textbook of experimental psychology. If one compares the textbook contents of various fields – e.g. that of the higher cortical functions of language or that of the measurement of the scope of consciousness – from the 5th edition after the turn of the century with today’s state of knowledge (see Schmidt & Birbaumer, 1991), an astonishing precision and methodical topicality becomes clear. With the publication of the world’s first textbook in 1873/74, Wundt quasi ends his creative period of the Heidelberg period and reveals his inner transformation into a “psychologist”.

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Chapter 8

WUNDT AND HIS FAMILY

His wife Sophie met Wundt at the age of 35 on Ascension Day 1867 in the small village of Ziegelhausen near Heidelberg, where she had gone on an excursion with the family of the historian Wattenbach to attend a country wedding. Apparently, the two had already met for the first time in the garden of the historian Goldschmidt, and Sophie Mau got a first lasting impression of the professor sitting next to her (“What a pleasant man this is!”). This relationship does not seem to have been “love at first sight”, rather a gradually developing rela-

Figure 30: Sophie Wundt (1844-1912), born als Sophie Mau, in the year 1882

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tionship which had to pass the hard test of a long four-year separation before the engagement in June 1872. Sophie Mau (1844-1912) was the eldest daughter of 6 children of the Kiel professor of theology Dr. Heinrich August Mau (1806-1850) and his wife Luise, née von Rumohr (1812-1902). The Mau family was a well-known and large theologian family (Sophie’s grandparents had 14 children) of Protestant denomination. Sophie obviously had early contact to her “Aunt Cecile”, the sister of the Heidelberg historian Wilhelm Wattenbach, with whom Wundt was a friend and with whom he often held lecture tours during his time in the Workers’ Education Association (see chapter 6). Cecile Wattenbach was – obviously unintentionally and unconsciously – an important confidant in the early relationship between Wilhelm Wundt and Sophie Mau. The fact that she knew Wundt, who often stayed in the house of Wattenbach, made her a kind of “mediator” who could convey greetings, as for example before the long separation in spring 1868, when there was no longer a personal meeting between Sophie Mau and Wundt. The letter contact between Sophie Mau and Cecile Wattenbach is very intensive and personal, like between two good friends. After Wundt’s proposal of marriage in May 1872, “Aunt Cecile” was the first to hear, besides Sophie’s relatives, that “a great and wonderful happiness had come over her”. At that time Wundt had had to endure great hardships, not only because of his political commitment (see Chapter 6), but also because of the death of his mother. To her, with whom he and his brother Ludwig had lived together in a common apartment in Heidelberg from 1846 to 1868, he had a strong bond, which becomes clear again at the end of the mother’s life, when Wundt is very much affected by the “three months of constant persevere at her sickbed”, as can be seen from a letter to Marie Cornill. In addition, Wundt was financially dependent on an improvement in his “external situation”, which did not present itself until 1872, when he was offered a paid position as extraordinary professor at the University of Heidelberg.

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Marriage proposal and engagement But what are the motives that lead Wundt, after almost 4 years of separation from Sophie Mau, to propose to her in writing in May 1872? When he said goodbye to Sophie Mau in spring 1868, he had already internally decided to withdraw from politics (see chapter 6), had already scientifically drafted a first programme of psychology in his “Lectures of the Human and Animal Soul” (see chapter 7), but had not yet entered into a firm commitment. The impression that Sophie Mau made on him must obviously have had an effect only with the duration of the separation. As the correspondence shows, the fear of forgetting was as strong for him as it was for Sophie Mau. But he was obviously not quite sure of Sophie’s affection (see letter dated 1.6.1872). Also his interest in Sophie seems to have been “very undefined”. The death of his mother at the end of 1868 was followed by years of “silence and waiting” – almost 4 long years after all. The scene of Sophie’s farewell in the spring of 1868 must have left a lasting impression on Wundt, for he says that “this image is indelibly engraved in my soul”. From the exchange of letters it can be concluded that Wundt only became aware of the special affection for Sophie with increasing separation and that after his “proposal of marriage” of May 27, 1872 and Sophie’s approving answer many “pent-up feelings” were able to unload (“All I can offer you is my great love and that will, I hope, teach me to make you happy”). His life had only now “found content and purpose”, as he wrote at the time. At this time of intensive exchange of letters (Bringmann speaks of the “engagement period”), Sophie Mau was a governess with the English Cox family in Tymavor, where she had to look after the children of this family. In his letters, Wundt often speaks of “infinite happiness” and seems to suffer more from the (further) separation than his bride. On 6 June 1872 Wundt sends his bride the engagement announcement to England, on 11 June 1872 the bridal ring, on which Sophie is “proud and happy” (see Fig. 31). In his letter of 15 June 1872, rich in content, Wundt describes his professional career to date in the typically modest manner of Sophie, whereby his dry humour comes into its own here when he writes, among other things, that “he owes the pearl of his life to the rather tiresome craft of textbook writing” (i.e. it is only through financial security that he is able to establish a firm relationship). He reveals himself to Sophie in a very open and trusting way when he describes himself as “just too ambitious to be vain”. In her answer Sophie claims to be proud of the “famous” physiologist.

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Figure 31: Engagement announcement of Sophie Mau and Wilhelm Wundt 1872

Wundt urges his bride to dissolve the governess relationship with the Cox family and return to Kiel to end the separation, which is becoming increasingly difficult to bear. He explains to her that “his house is ready to accept his bride as his most delicious treasure”. On June 21, 1872 “the hour of redemption” is approaching and on June 27 Sophie travels via London by sea to Hamburg. Many of her acquaintances apparently express astonishment that she has become engaged to Wundt after a four-year separation without a personal reunion. Via Mainz she finally arrives in Heidelberg on July 1, 1872 (S.Mau, diary, 1872), where Wundt sees his bride again for the first time after a long separation. At the beginning of August Wundt ends his semester in Heidelberg and travels to Kiel. After all the papers for a wedding in Kiel have been obtained and the “Loss Certificate” is available, the wedding ceremony is scheduled for August 14, 1872, with Pastor Ziese from Schleswig to perform the ceremony. For Sophie it was obviously a great heart’s desire that “Wundt goes to church with her in Kiel”, but she did not want to ask him explicitly. But the wedding date is endangered by the fact that Sophie has to stretch her foot and Wundt has to make cold compresses for her. In a letter to his friend Holtzmann dated August 8, 1872, it says among other things “My main occupation here now is, of course, the treatment of the fallen foot, for which purpose I scrape together the rest of my medical knowledge. My time is so

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taken up by this that I find only five minutes to write this letter to you, the brevity of which you will excuse by the great importance of my occupation” (Wundt, 1872).

Wundt’s personal and certainly very affectionate treatment must have been effective, because the wedding date on August 14, 1872 could be kept, as entries in the church book of the parish St. Jürgen in Kiel prove. After the wedding in the closer family circle, the newly married couple apparently spent some days at the Baltic Sea coast, near Glücksburg at the Flensburg harbour, as can be assumed from the correspondence of the bridal phase. Wundt was able to continue living with his young wife and Regine, an old faithful servant of his mother, in his previous quite spacious apartment in Heidelberg (in today’s Akademie street next to the Giant’s house), after his brother Ludwig was transferred to the Mannheim District Court. They spent their first Christmas together here in 1872 “in their own happy domesticity” in contact with the Wattenbach family and Emma Lüders “in a cosy atmosphere” (letter to A. Cornill, 1872).

Move to Zurich Barely two years after his marriage, Wundt had to look for a new domicile: he was “finally” appointed full professor of inductive philosophy in Zurich and found a suitable country estate away from Zurich as an apartment in the “Beckenhof von Unterstrass”. On September 23, 1874, after farewell visits to their friends, they leave Heidelberg and arrive in Zurich the same evening, where they first stay at the Hotel Züricher Hof. After “a lot of drudgery with customs” they start to furnish the new apartment and by the end of September, after the arrival of the fuel (peat), cooking can already begin. Soon the first students reported to Wundt’s house, although Wundt did not start his college until October 28, 1874 (7 hours a week), from which, according to his wife Sophie, he “returned cheerfully and contented” (Diary, Sophie Wundt, 1874). On October 31st Wundt is able to give his inaugural lecture in the presence of his wife on the topic “On the task of philosophy in the present”. His college is very popular and sometimes Wundt invites his wife to drink beer in the Kronenhalle, after university. He can live through a happy year here with his wife, which is only somewhat marred by the insufficient heating in winter. Despite the modesty and relatively simple living habits of the young couple, there was still something wrong with the apartment, as we learn from Wundt’s autobiography:

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“So there was only one pot in our small kitchen, in which the three ingredients of an ordinary middle-class meal, soup, meat and vegetables, were prepared together and then also eaten by the honourable inhabitants from a single bowl in the kitchen itself. But these were things in which we soon found the necessary balance with our own, not too demanding habits, and which made us live through a happy year in this little house in the old Beckenhof, especially in summer, when we had overcome the winter struggle with the tiled stoves of the Zurich patrician houses, which were impressive by their huge dimensions but only scantily warming” (Wundt, 1920, p. 245).

But the winter cold seemed so severe that Wundt looked for a new apartment in the spring of 1875, but did not move into it because of the call to Leipzig. During this time the Wundt couple maintained regular contact with the mathematician Weber from Zurich, who was already helpful in finding an apartment, with the educational director Vögelin, with the Frankenhäuser couple and with the philosopher Dilthey. During the preparations for evening parties, Wundt himself also took part in the errands, for example by bringing “cheese and cake”. If there were no guests in the “Beckenhof von Unterstrass”, the Wundts also read fiction to each other in the evening (such as Othello, Ratzeburger Bäderreise, literary Centralblatt etc.). In the summer semester of 1875 Wundt is very tense, due to 7 hours of college per week (4 hours logic and 3 hours ethnic psychology) and therefore, has to cancel his participation in Brie’s wedding in Heidelberg with a heavy heart.

The call to Leipzig Already on 26 April 1875 Wundt received an inquiry from Dean Zarncke of the Faculty of Philosophy in Leipzig (see chapter 9), to which Wundt reacted in agreement, the same evening. The high personal importance of this call for Wundt can also be seen in the diary of his wife, who on this day underlined “Call to Leipzig”, which hardly occurs in her life, apart from his inaugural speech (Sophie Wundt, Diary, 1875). However, the move from Beckenhof in Unterstrass to Leipzig was interrupted by a 3-week holiday in the Rigi, whereby the Wundt couple took the opportunity to visit old friends in Appenweier (Holtzmann) and Heidelberg (Hausrath, Weber and Gödeke). On 8 September 1875, they arrive in Leipzig at about 6 o’clock in the afternoon, after having climbed up the Wartburg Castle in Eisenach in the morning, through the woods in beautiful weather. They first spend the night at the Hotel de Rome and move into their new apartment in Marienstraße in the afternoon of the following day.

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The young Wundt couple’s cultivation of contacts and sociability continued in Leipzig, and in October they “began visiting Windisch, Binding, Curtius, Springer and Zöllner” (Sophie Wundt, diary, 1875). Wundt himself also had contact with the physiologist Ludwig as well as with his colleague Heinze, who had been appointed to the other chair of philosophy. Wundt’s letters to closer confidants from the Heidelberg period, such as Brie, however, suggest that Wundt missed “friendly conversation” in Leipzig. Sophie, who often supported her husband in his writing work, not only because of his eye disease (already in spring 1875 he had to protect his eyes for days by staying in a darkened room), was also very helpful at the beginning of the first semester in Leipzig, when she copied the anthropology lecture from Zurich to her husband and Wundt could read his “1st lecture” to her in the evening on a trial basis. From his 1st college on October 27, 1875, he came back “unsatisfied, because it had not been very full” according to his wife. Sophie took a great interest in Wundt’s first professional obligations in Leipzig, as can be seen from her diary entries (“W. 2 Stunden Colleg, wo die Studenten trampeln”). Visits to the theatre and the Gewandhaus, which later become more comfortable due to their immediate proximity to the apartment in the Goethestr., supplement the evening social life, whereby they get to know the theatre through Wundt’s friend Wattenbach (see Fig 32) – always referred to as “Uncle W.” by his wife Sophie - during his first visit to Leipzig on 7 October 1875 in the evening.

Figure 32: Look at the living room of the Wundt family at Goethe street in Leipzig

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Before the birth of her children, Sophie’s daily rhythm is often characterized by errands and visits “in front of the table. In the afternoon, often on walks in the Rosenthal or playing the piano at home, while her husband often has college late in the afternoon or goes to the Philosophical Society in the early evening. Sometimes Sophie accompanies her husband on his way to college. Sophie sometimes had a lot to do on Sundays when “she had young people at table”, i.e. when she invited young students to dinner. On November 30, 1875, Wundt could already receive his “first financial earnings”: “W. took his first college money, 300 Mk, which he immediately gave me” (Sophie Wundt, diary, 1875).

The above diary entry shows that the conventional rollers were clearly distributed in the Wundt company. The first Christmas in Leipzig they spend together with Marie and Adolf Cornill (see chapter 5), New Year’s Eve they celebrate together with the Heinze couple.

Wundt and his wife Sophie Wundt was a simple, exceedingly kind, warm-hearted, educated and feminine, sensitive woman, who in the later Leipzig period (after the turn of the century) was often described as a reliable advisor to her husband and as a loving hostess. In the organization of social gatherings with friends and colleagues of her husband she obviously had great skill, as many words of thanks, among others from Cattell, Kraepelin, Titchener etc. prove (see also chapter 10). Letter contact with Wundt during the bridal period of 1872 always reveals a deep affection for her husband, although later the relationship is characterized by much respect, esteem and goodwill. Sophie accepted the division of roles between husband and wife (Sophie Mau an W. Wundt, 30.7.1872), which was customary at that time, and was able not only to support her husband in the development of his enormous creative power, e.g. by taking over the upbringing of the children, but also to provide him with the necessary psychological balance by warmhearted acceptance of his affairs. As a housekeeper, Sophie did not have the same talent in all tasks: while she had great skill in tailoring after attending a sewing club and sewed many of her dresses herself, she was apparently not always as inclined to cook – more often she prepared red porridge, rice pudding or herring salad herself - as she was on special holidays:

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“April 5, 1872, Easter Sunday. I made lemon custard. At table Emma Lüders and Brie here.... “ (Diary, S. Wundt, 1874).

At the beginning of the Leipzig period, when she was very busy caring for and bringing up her children, she usually left cooking to a salaried cook named Auguste, while the other two maids were responsible for cleaning the apartment, shopping, supervising the children, etc. After his marriage, Wundt continued his previous social contacts together with his wife, including Holtzmann, Treitschke and Brie, whose son he later became godfather to. Sophie was able to integrate herself quickly into this circle - obviously not only because of her great education - especially since she herself was also very sociable. Before she moved to Zurich, Brother Ludwig, who in the meantime had been appointed to the District Court of Mannheim and still had a guest room in the large Heidelberg apartment, came to visit more often. With her husband, who was used to taking long walks with Brie, Hausrath and Holtzmann after visiting the museum, Sophie now also took long walks, which took her over the castle, the “Molkenkur”, the devil’s pulpit and into the surrounding area towards Bergheim, Rohrbach, Ziegelhausen and Neckargmünd. At home she does not only do the housework for her husband, but also more often the tedious work of “correcting printed sheets”. Later in Leipzig she can also use her language skills for English translations. In the letters and diaries of this time, she often mentions the topics “contact with friends”, “care” and “concern for the welfare”, whereby she still feels very close to her family of origin in Kiel.

The children Eleonore, Max and Lili Wundt always had a warm and loving relationship with his children. This is evidenced by many sources, especially the letters to his children and the diary entries of his wife. The relationship with Lorle, as daughter Eleonore is affectionately called by her parents, is certainly a special one, which becomes particularly clear later when she is her father’s assistant and, after her mother’s death, also “carer”. Eleonore was born as the first daughter of Sophie and Wilhelm Wundt on August 22, 1876 in Leipzig (see Fig. 33). She was a headstrong and bright child and for her mother Sophie not quite easy,in educating her, because “she made some trouble for her mother by naughtiness” (letter from Wundt to Brie from November 1878). Lorle, liked to play outside, which was not easy in view of the lack of a garden in Goethestraße. If she could not go outside, she was usually “grumpy”. When she could play outside with the doll’s pram, she did not even want to go back inside

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Figure 33: Sophie Wundt with her one year old daughter Eleonore in 1877

(Sophie Wundt, diary, 1879). While at first she did not cause her mother any problems when she travelled, this changed at the age of about 2 years when she became very frightened when travelling by train. Thus, at the beginning of July 1878, Mother Sophie and little Lorle took the train to Kiel, where she was very busy with Lorle’s fears of “objects flying by” and then wrote to her husband in Leipzig in the evenings, exhausted: “...but the more the journey drew to a close, the more morose she became, which is no wonder after the half-sleepy night, finally near Harburg she broke out into a loud scream, which lasted almost without interruption until Altona, she demanded more and more ada, was frightened on the Elbe bridge over every passing pillar and over all other objects and was in one word, horrible. Of course the poor little thing was dead tired, so I was so surprised, that as soon as we had arrived happily here in the hotel, she became cheerful and lively, ate milk and bread with a great appetite and allowed herself to be brought to bed in a very good manner, but she was so tired that she fell.... asleep immediately even without her red blanket” (Letter from Sophie to Wilhelm Wundt from Altona, July 4, 1878)

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Sometimes there must have been blows in education, as an entry in the diary of 1879 makes clear. With increasing age, however, Lorle’s charming and pleasing traits also emerge, for example when she “wins the hearts of all through her unbiased, natural nature” during a trip on a steamship. When her brother Max has scarlet fever in the summer of 1887, she writes and paints a small book of poems for him during this time (see Fig. 34).

Figure 34: Title page of a poetry notebook, produced by the 11 years old Eleonore

The care for her little brother will continue later in adulthood, for example during the First World War, when she adds the necessary tobacco and candy rations to his field mail. In the book of poems painted by Lorle (see illustration 34) a linguistic talent is already visible, which is also evident in her poetry album, where her mother makes the following entry in 1886: You should talk, not much, but sensibly You should pray, not much, but deeply; You shall act, not quickly, but forcefully; You shall love, not loudly but violently; I want you to live, not wild, but cheerful; You should help yourself – God will help you.

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This philosophy of life does indeed reflect many of Sophie Wundt’s convictions and value judgements, but at the same time it represents a very emotional gesture towards her 10 year old daughter (see Fig. 35).

Figure 35: Eleonore Wundt at the age of 10 years

In addition to Lorle’s poetry album, it is worth mentioning that Wundt’s first assistant, James McKeen Cattell (see chapter 10), who obviously had a very warm relationship with the children Max and “Lollo”, is also immortalized in it. In 1890, when Lorle is already in Heidelberg with her mother and brother during the hot days of July, while her father still has to finish the last days of the semester in Leipzig, Wundt from Leipzig reports in an impressive way about the two canaries of the children: “.... I visit your birds at least once a day, namely for breakfast, sometimes also for lunch. They are both quite lively and, as I have convinced myself, are well looked after by Marie. Yours was very bold this morning and looked at me with a challenging gesture: he obviously wanted to give me a greeting for you. The Maxische lets himself

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taste his food as always and seems to have no homesickness for his daddy.... “ (W. Wundt to Eleonore Wundt of 28.July 1890).

What Wundt describes here in a very childlike and sensitive way about Lorle’s canary in a very childlike and sensitive way, could also be symbolized as his projection of a characteristic of his daughter, who will still render many faithful services to him and become his “companion” in the truest sense of the word. Brother Max was born on 29.1.1879 in Leipzig, his parents reported this in the newspaper: The happy birth of a healthy boy ,show thereby Leipzig, January 29, 1879 Prof.W.Wundt and wife

From the diary entries it becomes clear that in the spring of 1879 - the founding year of experimental psychology - Sophie is very busy caring for the infant Max and the now 2 1/2 year old Lorle. The newborn’s weight gain is noted down precisely by the mother, and the problems of finding a suitable nurse, in whose search, father Wundt is also involved, take up a great deal of endeavor. April 2, 1879 was the day of baptism for Max (Tauftag), to which “Tante Cecile” and Wattenbach’s from Heidelberg also appeared.

Figure 36: Max Wundt at the age of 3 years

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Figure 37: Copy of a letter by W. Wundt, written to his 8 years old son Max

In the summer of 1879, when Sophie thinks of a seaside resort when planning her holiday because of a long cold from Lorle, the Wundt’s finally decide on the Thuringian climatic health resort Friedrichsroda, which Max reaches by train “in the hammock”. Mother Sophie notes with pleasure the children’s play in the open air, which little Lorle apparently puts so much effort into, that she oversleeps a fairground visit with her father. Back in Leipzig, the usual worries return in the autumn, “everything was cold, especially poor little Max, who was also very restless at night” (S.Wundt, Diary, 1879). During later holidays without his father, for example when his mother takes him and Lorle to visit her sister-in-law Emma Mau and her children in Kiel, little Max longed for his father: “...The children are very much looking forward to seeing you, Max talks about you most of all...I don’t think I would bring you anything, my darling, so that the joy of your arrival is not spoiled by the other joy...” (Sophie W. on 4.8.1884 to W. Wundt).

In one of the earliest letters to his then 8-year-old son Max (see Fig. 37), Wundt not only describes his “laziness in writing”, but also shows in his expression his typical side as a sensitive and delicate father who wishes to receive more news from his children when he is separated from them. Max is enthusiastically putting together a butterfly collection and sometimes brings home a frog from trips out of the woods, which sister Lorle is afraid of. In previous biographical treatises on Wundt and his family, his second daughter Lilli is often not mentioned, which may be explained by her early death at the age of only 4 years, but is not entirely understandable. Lilli Wundt, also

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called Lieschen by her parents, was born in Leipzig on March 19, 1880, the third child of the Wundt couple (see Fig. 38).

Figure 38: Lili Wundt at the age of about 2 years

Lilli also seems to have been a rather headstrong child, as we already know from her sister Lorle. From letters and diary entries there is no evidence of serious illness or particular nutritional problems in the early development of the child. Similar to Max, some problems with the nurse are noted in the early infant phase, so that Lilli gets the bottle at an early age. The mother’s concerns about the health and well-being of the children, who “sometimes look a little pale and miserable”, are found here in the same way as with the siblings Max and Lorle. During a vacation of Sophie at the Mau family in Kiel at the beginning of August 1884 with her three children, where, in contrast to the Leipzig apartment in the Goethestr. “in the morning she can enjoy breakfast in the garden”, “Lilli also begins to blossom”.

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In the evening Sophie tells her husband about a trip on the steamer: “...we drove with Mama and Lenore to Heikendorf, because the children couldn’t wait to go on the steamboat. Lilly was very happy, today she was very lively and cheerful, but she is terribly stubborn and you often have your dear trouble with her...” (Sophie W. to Wilhelm W. of August 4, 1884)

This summer, after Wundt’s semester end, the family spends a few more days of vacation on the island of Sylt, where Wundt often pursues his “typewriting sport” in later years. At the beginning of September Lilli on Sylt falls ill with a severe intestinal catarrh, so that Wundt, in order not to have to leave his poor wife alone on the island, writes to the dean Zarncke about his delayed arrival in Leipzig. How dramatic this month must have been for the family, is only hinted at in a letter from Sophie Wundt to her husband, who is already in Leipzig with their children Max and Lorle, in which it says “...So we made it through the first night together happily... Lilli has slept quite well... this morning Dr.Schädel and the assistant were already here, she seemed to be terribly thin again, and he explained that strong nutrition was the main thing, she had already had a couple of spoons of milk and some beef tea, also Tokayer; God grant that she does not spoil her stomach....The day becomes endlessly long for me and I am furiously homesick for you, I don’t know how I can stand it for weeks, but I will probably get used to it here, and if things only go on with Lilli, we must not complain about this separation...” (Sophie W. to Wilhelm W. of 18 September 1884)

From the quote it becomes clear that Sophie has prepared herself inwardly for a longer period of illness of her daughter, especially since the condition of little Lilli was very changeable. But the shock for the parents must have been all the worse when Lilli died on October 1, 1884 at the tender age of 4 1/2 years, due to the consequences of catarrh of the intestine. About the immediate reaction of the parents to this surely heavy and tragic loss there is hardly any information in the archive material, especially since Sophie Wundt already finished writing diaries in 1880. James McKeen Cattell, Wundt’s first assistant and a friend of the family, is still in Wundt’s apartment shortly before Lilli’s death, although no further details are given in his letter to the parents (Eckardt & Sprung, 1983). Shortly after this tragic event Wundt wrote a letter to Emil Kraepelin, where it says among other things “...The death of our little one, of which you have been notified by our obituary, has delayed this as well as many other plans for a number of days. I ask you to accept this memento as a small contribution to decorate your cosy domesticity and as a sign of our unchanging friendship...” (W. Wundt to E. Kraepelin on 16.10.1884).

Apart from the emotional gesture of the gift (The Wundt’s had given the newly-wed couple Kraepelin an engraving of Titian’s flora for their wedding) and the reference to friendship, the letter sounds rather sober and matter-of-fact in view of the special circumstances.

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Holiday travel While on the one hand Wundt is often described as not very fond of travelling, on the other hand one has to note that he almost never missed an opportunity to “flee” from Leipzig and to enjoy e.g. the green Thuringia, namely Friedrichsroda and Georgenthal. He also had strong ties to Heidelberg, which later became his retirement home. In the German Biographical Yearbook, daughter Eleonore (1928) mentions that her father “bought a house in his home town of Heidelberg in 1902, where he regularly spent his holidays”. The term “hometown” here does not represent a misprint but a Freudian prescriber – Wundt was born in Neckarau and grew up in Heidelsheim – but characterizes Wundt’s strong connection to this city, where he lived for more than 20 years. A very popular holiday destination for Wundt and his family was the Rigi Massif in Central Switzerland (cf. Fig. 21), where he first stayed for recuperation after his illness in 1857. While Wundt often intensified his hobby and elixir of health of going for a walk during his holidays, towards the end of the travel period he was often “happy to return to his usual activities, as pleasurable as the blessed idleness can be for a few weeks” (letter to E. Kraepelin v. 1.9.1882). Wundt is a very nature-loving person and often regrets that his children do not have a garden in his Leipzig apartment. The many walks in the green belt of the Rosenthal offer a certain substitute. In the summer of 1883 the Wundt family can enjoy the summer freshness of the Harz Mountains. Here, Wundt writes to Kraepelin that “one does not find time for anything, and that is all the more the case if one has to do the tiresome business of correcting printing errors as a sideline recreation”. In winter, the Wundt couple live “as usual not too noisy” according to their own assessment of Oskar Bülow. In the summer of 1895 the family is separated for the time being: while mother Sophie stays with son Max on the Rigi and 19-year-old Lorle practices “the training of the housewife virtues” on her father, the family meet again in August on the Heidelberg “Molkenkur”, from which the following souvenir picture is taken (see Fig. 39). The climate on the North and Baltic Seas was often too cool and harsh for Wundt, who was very susceptible to health problems, although he later came to appreciate the island of Sylt, for example, for concentrated work (Wundt, 1920 ). To close friends and acquaintances he sometimes even gave out the identification mark of his beach chair, such as number and flag as happened in 1905 with Kraepelin.

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Figure 39: Memory picture of the Wundt family 1895 at „Molkenkur/Heidelberg“

Wundt’s regular holiday trips are just as much a part of his lifestyle as his regular walks, which in Leipzig usually followed a fixed route. However, Wundt avoided travelling abroad because of the associated health problems, so that he unfortunately also stayed away from international congresses and did not accept invitations from American colleagues (see also Chapter 10). Thus, he obviously never experienced the city of Rome, which he had longed for very much, in contrast to his son Max, who could visit it in the summer after graduating from high school. Wundt was able to enjoy the quiet and pleasant noiselessness of domesticity on the veranda and in the garden of his house on the Heidelberger Plöck (see illustration 40).

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Figure 40: Wundt at his favorite hobby in the garden of his Heidelberg home

Retirement home in Heidelberg On 16 August 1902 Wundt celebrated his 70th birthday with his family and a close circle of friends in the remote Thuringian town of Tambach (see Fig. 41). He had deliberately arranged this celebration in all seclusion and only his publisher Engelmann obviously knew the place. By this time Wundt had already planned his withdrawal from the teaching profession, as he had often indicated to his friend Bülow. Bülow, who had been called to Leipzig in 1885, had retired in 1892 for health reasons and since then had lived in his house on the Heidelberger Plöck, close to the symbol of progress at that time, the railway tracks (cf. Ungerer, 1993). Wundt already spoke to him in 1892 about the “treadmill of lectures, which is becoming more and more unpleasant” and he emphasized his wish to “look for a hut with a garden in Heidelberg” after his 70th birthday (letter to O. Bülow, 1.7.1892). In the autumn of 1902, “things had become perfect” and Wundt was truly a happy homeowner in Heidelberg.

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Figure 41: Group picture of Wundt‘s 70th birthday in Tambach/Thüringen

On 2 November 1902 Wundt wrote to Oskar Bülow and others: “For it is a pleasant occupation for all of us to think ourselves comfortably furnished in the new house and to make all sorts of plans as to how it might best be done. I finally received the house for 63,000 marks, and at 16,000 marks the master builder estimates the cost of the unavoidably necessary conversion. With everything that is involved, the whole thing will probably amount to between 80 and 90,000. This brings me closer to the idea of moving to Heidelberg, and I have tentatively set the date for this at Easter 1904.

However, it was to take another 13 years until Wundt withdrew from his teaching post in 1917 in order to be able to devote himself to the still outstanding volumes of his ethnic psychology and his autobiography. However, these years were overshadowed by the First World War, the bleak reality of which was often conveyed to him by Jan, who was a reader at the time, through the letters of his son Max. Before that, however, there had been another outstanding event for Wundt when he was allowed to give the ceremonial lecture in 1909 on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the founding of the University of Leipzig. This shows – as does his year as Rector of the University in 1889/90 – once again the great reputation he enjoyed as a scholar in Leipzig at the turn of the century. One year before the university’s anniversary, the Leipzig sculptor, graphic artist and painter Max Klinger, to whom Wundt felt a close friendship, had created a

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Figure 42: Front view of the Wundt house Plöck No. 48 Heidelberg

bronze bust and two marble busts of Wundt, which he apparently described as a highlight in his artistic life (see Schlotte, 1956).

End of life in Grossbothen After Wundt’s wife Sophie had died in 1912, daughter Eleonore took over more care duties for her father. Her very committed and outstanding role is very appropriately acknowledged by Schlotte (1956): “His daughter was his research assistant, secretary, companion. Therefore, in 1908, he dedicated the 5th volume of Völkerpsychologie to her with the words “Appropriated to my faithful companion in the jungle of myths and fairy tales”. At the end of the preface, Wundt thought of her cooperation: “I dedicate this book to my daughter Eleonore. Without her faithful assistance in working through the rich collections of fairy tales and myths, especially of primitive peoples, it would have been impossible for me to complete it”.

It is obvious that Eleonore – or “Aunt Lorchen”, as she is later affectionately called by Wundt’s grandchildren – renounced her own family and career for the

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Figure 43: Front view of the house in Großbothen, where Wundt died 1920

sake of her famous father and saw her essential task in supporting her father’s great life’s work. Later she is not only the founder of the Wundt Archive in Grossbothen, but also the first Wundt biographer (1928).

Figure 44: Wundt rewriting an article at the veranda about 1915

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Wundt spent the last year of his life in rural Grossbothen, a village about 50 km south of Leipzig (see Fig. 43). During this time he was able to receive a number of students and friends, such as Kiesow from Turin or in May 1920 his friend Kraepelin (see Chapter 10). Not far from his house in the Grimmaische Straße was the property “Haus Energie” of the physicochemist Wilhelm Ostwald, whom Wundt had met in Leipzig in 1887. Ostwald, who in contrast to Wundt had retired from teaching at an early age and at the turn of the century was also a participant in the “Leipzig Scholars’ Circle” in the theatre café, felt very friendly with Wundt. He wrote about him in his autobiography in 1927: “When I met Wundt, he was 55 years old. He was of lean and apparently weak build, had a house-pale face with a dark beard and hair and wore large dark glasses...... He led a well-ordered life that allowed him to reach old age in good health. By virtue of his habit of walking through the promenades around the old town day after day after tables, his slightly stooped figure under his broad black hat had become something like a symbol of Leipzig of which the city could be proud. When I had long since left Leipzig and founded my home in the village of Groß-Bothen, a friendly coincidence wanted him to settle there as well, to spend the last years of his life. So I was lucky to have a lot of personal contact with him, until his death took him away in 1920 at the age of 88 without a long illness” (Ostwald, 1927, p. 90/91).

Until the end, Wundt had been able to continue his beloved work on his books, which sold well and always had many editions, or his “typewriting sport”, as he himself called it smug (see fig. 44). Ostwald (1927) writes that Wundt expected his death to be a natural event, about which one does not get particularly upset, precisely because it is natural. Although throughout his life Wundt ap-

Figure 45: Wilhelm Wundt together with Felix Krüger

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peared to be physically rather weak and seemed fragile in his health, he was thank God - spared an illness in old age. On August 31st 1920 he closed his eyes forever. On the day of his death his son Max wrote to Prof. Volkelt in Leipzig: “Our dear father fell asleep gently this afternoon. He did not suffer from any illness, there had been heart failure for some time, and since Sunday he had been unconscious. It urges us to tell you about this personally.

Fig. 45 shows one of the last pictures of Wundt in a garden restaurant, together with his successor in the Leipzig Institute, Felix Krüger.

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Chapter 9

THE LEIPZIG PERIOD – THE INSTITUTE FOR EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY

The establishment of the Leipzig Institute for Experimental Psychology by Wilhelm Wundt during the winter semester 1879/80 is generally regarded as a „milestone“ in the institutionalization of psychology as a modern science. In appreciation of Wundt‘s scientific life‘s work, it is not a „psychological law“ by name that stands out – as we know it from the psychophysics of Weber and Fechner, for example – but rather the creation of a new science supported by the development of experimental methods. With the „Basic Principles of Physiological Psychology“, Wundt had already created the world‘s first textbook of psychology towards the end of his Heidelberg period (see Chapter /). The foundation of the „Institute for Experimental Psychology“, initially run by Wundt as a private enterprise and from 1882 on supported by the University of Leipzig, finally marked the establishment of this new field of study at the university, which emerged from philosophy and physiology and was entered in the university register as the „26th Institute“ (cf. Fensch, 1977). Although for a long time only little specific information was known and available about the magical year 1879, Bringmann et.al (1980) – especially in the context of so-called „Centennial Lectures“ in the anniversary year 1979 – have recently been able to give a relatively detailed overview of the development history of the Leipzig Institute. Before Wundt was appointed to Leipzig in 1875, he had already held a full academic post for a year as a full professor of inductive philosophy at the University of Zurich. For many german academics, this still relatively young university was considered at the time to be a stopover for later more attractive appointments, Bringmann et al. (1980) speak of a „1st class waiting room“. After many years of waiting for a professorship – as early as 1864, as is well known, he had been appointed associate professor of medical psychology and anthropology by the Heidelberg Medical Faculty – a long-awaited wish came true for 42-year-old Wundt.

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„One morning Salomon Vögelin, Associate Professor of Art History in Zurich and a member of the Zurich Board of Education, came to my room with the question whether I would be willing to take over the apprenticeship position that had become vacant due to Albert Lange‘s departure from Zurich. Although I agreed to do so, it took about a year before anything else happened. Then one day I received a letter with the real appointment as full professor for „inductive philosophy“ at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences. It was a modest salary that was offered to me, and the appointment was initially made for only six years in accordance with the custom that had become customary in Zurich“ (Wundt, 1920, p. 242).

Wundt had already got to know Zurich for the first time during his convalescence in 1858, when he was on his „transit“ to the Rigi. Now, in the summer of 1874, with the help of his friend Heinrich Weber, a mathematician at the Zurich Polytechnic, he was able to look for an apartment in the ‚suburbs‘ of Zurich that was somewhat remote from the noise of the city and he finally found it in the form of a country estate (‚Beckenhof von Unterstrass‘). On October 31, 1874 he was able to give his inaugural lecture in Zurich on the topic „On the task of philosophy in the present“. His task was to give lectures in the Faculty of Philosophy for 10-12 hours per week (including „Logic“ and „Ethnic Psychology“), which was also linked to his work at the teacher training college in Zurich (see also Bringmann et al., 1980). For his collection of equipment and teaching materials from the Heidelberg period, which he liked to use in his lectures for demonstration purposes, he was able to obtain a depository space despite the cramped conditions. These devices, which belonged to Wundt personally and whose financial value must have been considerable – Bringmann et al. (1980) estimate the value of these devices at about 4800 Swiss francs –, he had previously already kept in his new domicile, as can be seen from apartment records of his wife Sophie. In spite of the increased workload he felt compared to Heidelberg von Wundt, especially in the preparation of courses and in view of the shorter lecture-free periods between semesters, he seems to have been very satisfied with his 1-year „Swiss exile“.

The call to Leipzig About seven months after taking office in Zurich, Wundt received an „unexpected“ letter from the dean Friedrich Zarncke (1825-1891) on 26 April 1875, in which he „unofficially“ asked about Wundt‘s willingness to accept a call to Leipzig. In this letter he was offered a philosophy professorship for an annual sala-

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ry of 1500 Thaler plus lecture fees. According to Bringmann et al. (1980), Wundt answered in agreement the same day. The decision to accept the professorship does not seem to have been very difficult for Wundt, his request for a room for his equipment seems rather modest. In describing the personnel situation at the Faculty of Philosophy at that time, Bringmann (1980) makes it clear that the situation was not very good with the representation of the subject by the already old Professor Drobisch, who openly showed his rejection of scientific methods. After the faculty had rejected applicants such as Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911) and Kuno Fischer (1829-1889), it decided to split the new position. Max Heinze (1835-1909) represented the traditional direction of the history of philosophy and Wundt was appointed as a specialist for the connection of natural science and philosophy. His physiological laboratory experience from the Heidelberg period as well as his comprehensive textbook „Grundzüge der Physiologischen Psychologie“ (cf. Chap. 7) were of great benefit to him. Apparently, the astrophysicist Carl Friedrich Zöllner (1834-1882) also played an important role in this appointment, whom Wundt described in his life review as the „only personality among natural scientists and philosophers who had shown a genuine interest in his appointment“ (Wundt, 1920, p. 287). Since the middle of the 19th century the old and venerable University of Leipzig had developed rapidly, so that in 1875 it was the largest university in Germany with about 3000 students and about 100 000 inhabitants. In the years around the turn of the century, it was home to a large number of outstanding personalities with whom Wundt was also to come into contact, for example in the ‚Lese- und Debattierkränzchen‘ (Reading and Debating Circle) described by Hellpach (19 ) in the former Cafe Hannes, where Wundt met regularly with the historian Lamprecht and the physicochemist Ostwald, among others. According to Hellpach, the university at that time assembled „a brilliant elite of the world‘s most valid, sometimes groundbreaking scholarship, the most famous name at the turn of the century being Wilhelm Wundt“. Wundt obviously considered it a special favour of fate that he was allowed to meet Ernst Heinrich Weber (1795-1878) and Gustav Theodor Fechner (1801-1887) in Leipzig. In his memoirs (1920) he writes about this himself: „I was allowed to associate with Fechner for several more years. I thankfully commemorated..... the unforgettable hours of this traffic in my speech on behalf of the Saxon Society of Sciences on May 11, 1901, on the occasion of the centenary of his birthday. I am doubtful whether this name is correct. In any case, the creator of psychophysics is Fechner himself. But I would rather call.... Weber the father of experimental psychology. Weber‘s great merit is that he was the first to grasp and carry out the idea of measuring psychological quantities and establishing exact relationships between them“ (Wundt, 1920, p. 301).

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Figure 46: Psychophysicist Gustav Theodor Fechner (1801-1887)

For the first time in his life Wundt reached the city of Leipzig after a long train journey on 17 June 1875. Wundt described his first impressions of the city in a letter on the evening of the same day to his wife Sophie, who remained in Zurich: „But now Leipzig! I arrived here at 6 o‘clock in the morning after I had left Mannheim at 6 o‘clock in the morning, and have already wandered around a lot. This Leipzig is quite a big city, much more impressive than Zurich...... The old Leipzig consists of huge white-grey houses and looks a bit gloomy. But very beautiful and great are the newer parts, namely the Rossplatz, which is actually a big promenade with trees, fountains and the like, where the theatre, university, museum, post office etc. are located. Of course, I have also been to the university, which looks relatively unimpressive. The Stadttheile near the Bavarian railway station seems to me to be the friendliest: Of course I know them better by myself. The Johannisthal in particular consists of a myriad of gardens, all of which are now decorated with the most beautiful flowers. I think we will like it here very much“ (Wundt, 1875).

These benevolent words probably somewhat obscure the mixed feelings that Wundt must have had after the experience of the Swiss idyll about the rather gloomy picture of Leipzig at the time when he wrote in his memoirs: „But some of the mood of anxiety and doubt also lay over the landscape as I crossed the desolate plain between Corbetha and Leipzig, a mood that I could never completely suppress on the same trip in later years, and which of course overcame the

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Figure 47: View at Goethe street in Leipzig around the turn of the century newcomer, who had just left the beautiful surroundings of Lake Zurich, much more powerfully“ (Wundt, 1920, p. 288).

Initially Wundt lived with his wife Sophie near the Bavarian railway station in Marienstraße, from 1878 he was able to move into the former professor‘s apartment of Ernst Heinrich Weber in Goethestraße with his wife and daughter (see fig. 47), where he was to live for almost 30 years. On November 20, 1875, after taking the oath in the presence of the Dean and two witnesses, Wundt officially became a member of the faculty. On the same day, with his inaugural lecture „On the Influence of Philosophy on the Natural Sciences“, he began his great career as a professor of philosophy. In the summer semester of 1876, Wundt received his storage room for his equipment in the Konviktgebäude (see fig. 48), which had been built around 1840 as a dining hall for needy students. „...on the other side the Konvikt building, in the lower rooms of which several hundred poorer students were fed daily, while on the upper floor there were a few small and a larger auditorium. It was in this convict auditorium that I myself gave my orations for years, and one of the small auditoriums on the same floor had been assigned to me to house my psychophysical instruments: it was the birthplace of the Leipzig Psychological Institute, and perhaps compared with the thirty or so rooms of the present Institute, it offers a particularly drastic example of the change which the gradual adaptation of our School to its growing needs has brought about“ (Wundt, 1920, p. 291).

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Figure 48: The former convict house in the Leipzig university courtyard

This building housed Wundt‘s Institute – after a call from Breslau in 1883/84, it was rebuilt to 7 independent rooms according to his plans – until the interim phase before the move to the Trier Institute at Grimmaischen Steinweg due to the new building of the university in the 90s. In 1909, Wundt described the history of his institute in his commemorative publication on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the University of Leipzig as follows: „The Institute for Experimental Psychology has grown from very humble beginnings. When the present director joined the university‘s teaching staff on October 1, 1875, the royal ministry, with the approval of the academic senate, had made available to him a small former auditorium in the former Konvikt building, in order to be able to accommodate demonstration equipment for the lectures on psychology and apparatus for his own experimental work. Following „Psychological Exercises“, which were held in the form of a colloquium in the first semesters, and which dealt with the subjects of the lectures, individual students began to work.... on experimental works in this room from autumn 1879 onwards.

However, Wundt began his teaching activity with about 2 courses per semester rather modestly, with only a small circle of listeners in the first semester (1875) (Eleonore Wundt, 1928). Bringmann (1980) gives an overview of the course catalogue of that time. Most of the courses consisted of private lectures, which attracted a large number of students and must therefore have contributed substantially to his income improvement (Bringmann et al.,1980). The psychological colloquium was offered privately and free of charge by Wundt in the summer of 1877 and 1878. The first two doctoral students, whom Wundt supervised in 1876, worked on topics from philosophy and ethics. Among the first participants of experimental psychological studies were Dr. Emil Kraepelin

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(see chapter 10), Dr. W. Moldenhauer (then PD of ear medicine in Leipzig), Dr. G. Stanley Hall (see chapter 10), Dr. Ernst Tischer, Dr. Martin Trautscholdt and Dr. James McKeen Cattell, who „with typical American determination“ offered himself to Wundt as a private assistant.

The year of foundation 1879 After the debate among psychology historians (Boring,1950; Harper, 1950) about the merits of founding the world‘s first psychological laboratory, it now seems undisputed that Wilhelm Wundt deserves this achievement. Clear and convincing archival and documentary sources have recently been cited by Bringmann & Ungerer (1980). The following quote from Boring (1950) illustrates that foundation data from retrospective evaluation always contain subjective elements: „The founding was thus subjective.... In 1879 there was no ceremony at the founding of Leipzig‘s Psychologisches Institut. Wundt made no special speech, cut no ribbon at the entrance, dedicated no corner-stone for the old refectory building...History and Progress moved on with their accustomed gradualness, and only later was Wundt able to fix an absolute threshold to the growth curve of his laboratory“.

Despite many subjective moments, however, many sources also clarify the objective circumstances, e.g. the use of the experimental psychological methods of Wundt‘s students for their research work (see Chapter 10). In his commemorative publication for the celebration of the 500th anniversary of the University of Leipzig in 1909, Wundt himself refers to the fact that from autumn 1879 onwards, various students used a room in the old Konvikt building (see fig. 49) for their own experimental projects. He mentions that the mathematician Max Friedrich began his dissertation „On the duration of apperception for simple and compound conceptions“ in the winter semester 79/80 and published it in his journal „Philosophische Studien“ in 1883. From these and similar sources it is clear that the beginning of the experimental-psychological work was created by the students themselves, and the mathematician Max Friedrich mentioned was apparently the first in the winter of 1879/80 who was able to complete an independent experimental work there (the test person for this work was apparently Wundt himself, along with G. Stanley Hall). The first written evidence of Wundt‘s laboratory is, incidentally, a letter of recommendation dated June 18, 1880, for his „first American student“ G. Stanley

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Figure 49: Sketch of an experimental room about 1883 (by Bringmann)

Hall, which Hall used for his advancement at John Hopkins University and in which Wundt speaks of a „psychophysical laboratory“. In this letter, Wundt had attested to Hall‘s extensive philosophical knowledge and sound independent judgement, as well as to his participation in his laboratory „with great diligence and success“. It speaks for the high motivation and conviction of his first – later prominent – students, such as G. S. Hall (1844-1924), E. Kraepelin (1856-1926) or James McKeen Cattell (1860-1944), that they worked there without pay.

Further development of the institute A rather condensed impression of the development of Wundt‘s institute in the first days up to the year 1892 is given in a letter to the Austrian philosopher Jerusalem: „The main data about our institute are very brief: in the winter of 1879/80 it was opened, initially as a private enterprise: Stanley Hall and Max Friedrich (a talented

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young mathematician who has since died) were the first participants. Since 1882 it has received state support: 1 or 2 years later it was formally classified among the university institutes and an assistant‘s salary was granted in addition to the regular endowment. In addition to the first assistant, Dr. Külpe, I have now also employed Dr. Kirschmann as a private assistant and a so-called famulus (student in higher semesters) provides the function of a third assistant. At the beginning the institute had only one room at its disposal, since about 1884, 4 rooms, since a few years 7 rooms together with a dark room. Number of participants: at the beginning an average of 4-6, 1886-90 15-18, last summer 22, now 25, but some of them are only admitted to the introductory course led by Dr. Külpe“.

With the development of the first experimental works, the question of your publication arose for Wundt. Already in 1880 Kraepelin (see also chapter 10) had asked Wundt for such a journal, and in January 1881 Wundt expressed to Kraepelin „serious misgivings about the time-splitting editorial business of such an enterprise“. Wundt‘s intention was to publish „psychological studies“, mainly experimental work, in informal notebooks. After he had negotiated a fee of 40 marks and 40 offprints with the publisher Engelmann in Leipzig, the first issue of „Philosophical Studies“ appeared in October 1881 with a longer article by Wundt on psychological methods and the doctoral thesis of the mathematician Max Friedrich mentioned above. The change of name of the journal was apparently caused by the existence of another journal with the same name, which dealt with spiritism and parapsychological phenomena (Eleonore Wundt, 1928).

Apparatus equipment In the aforementioned commemorative publication on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the University of Leipzig, Wundt (1909) describes his institute in detail with regard to the apparatus and teaching materials. Here he delimits 7 areas in which apparatus are used: ۰

Devices from psychophysics for measuring the intensity of sensations (e.g. falling phonometer, photometer, pressure balance for tactile tests)

۰

Devices for the quality recording of sensations at different sensory areas (such as tuning fork series, Appunsche Tonmesser, etc.)

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Figure 50: View at the working rooms of the old Leipzig university

۰

Apparatus for the graphic registration of pulse, respiration and blood volume fluctuations as an aid for physiological Symptomatology of feelings and emotions

۰

Chronometric apparatus for „reaction tests that determine the time from the moment of an irritant effect to a reaction to it, determine the reaction of the will“ (Hipp‘sches Chronoskop, see fig. 51)

۰

Apparatuses for the investigation of time conceptions

۰

Tachistoscopic apparatus for studies on attention and the scope of consciousness (see fig. 52)

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Figure 51: The “HIPP Chronoscope“ (with kind approval by the Wundt Archive of Leipzig)

۰

Memory apparatuses, which contribute to the qualitative and quantitative Investigation of the recognition and memory processes were intended

In his writing, Wundt (1909) points out, for example, that „his institute has a demonstration chronoscope that makes it possible to present measurements of the reaction time and the time of the psychic processes entering it to a large auditorium in such a way that the times up to 1/1000 sec. can easily be read from a distance. In the first years of the institute, the mechanic K. Krille had first made the necessary devices, then the precision mechanic Emil Zimmermann was responsible

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Figure 52: The tachistoscope constructed by James McKeen Cattell

for them, who was obviously highly appreciated by Wundt because of the exact execution as well as his insightful advice: „...the number and perfection of the necessary apparatus grew, to which was added, as a favourable circumstance, the fact that in the precision mechanic Emil Zimmermann, a force was gained which came to the aid of the needs of this new branch of experimental technology with special talent, and from there the further years up to the outbreak of the war rendered great service to the institute. During a number of years, his workshop produced the necessary instrumental aids not only for our own institute, but also for numerous foreign institutes of experimental psychology“ (Wundt, 1920, p. 3O6/3O7).

The budget of the Wundt-Institute was a very modest one in the first years after its foundation, it ranged between 600 and 900 marks. After the turn of the century it was increased to 2000 marks, not including additional costs in the form of electricity or heating. The stock of the library was financed by the jour-

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Figure 53: Layout of institute of experimental psychology about 1897 (gathered from: W. Wundt, Psychologische Studien, 1910)

nals supplied by Wundt himself as well as by smaller amounts from the members themselves. Idealistically motivated initiatives of the seminar participants, such as the production of a falling tachistoscope (see fig. 52) by James McKeen Cattell, were in great demand. The ground plan of the institute, which moved into the new university building in 1897 and was extended in 1913 by a floor for a department of ethnic psychology, is shown in Fig. 53. The small room which had been allocated to Wundt in 1876 to house his instruments and in which he had begun his research

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„with a number of loyal colleagues from the number of his older listeners“ thus became a stately institute in 1897, which did not fail to have an impact as a model for the founding of new institutes worldwide.

Working atmosphere in the Wundt Institute From Kraepelin‘s memoirs (1983) we already learn something of the lively scientific activity and the enthusiasm for the new experimental research direction in the modestly equipped laboratory in the Konvikt building of 1882 (see also Chapter 10). Willy Hellpach (1877-1955), Wundt`s pupil from later days, describes this even more impressively in his memoirs when he speaks of „enthusiastic cooperation“, „which brought us together in the relationship between experimenter and test person“. And Hellpach continues: „In the Psychological Institute itself, a circle of selected young people from all over the world gathered together, for at that time, the whole world was setting up institutes for experimental psychology based on Wundt‘s model. There were (besides the German nationals) Englishmen and Americans, Swedes and Danes and Dutchmen, Italians and Greeks, but excellently, numerous Slavs were represented: Russians and Poles, Bulgarians and Serbs and Czechs...... small groups liked to spend a jumping lesson between lectures or experiments in the neighboring Cafe Felsche, where I had got used to, pretty much every afternoon my „Schälchen Heeßen“ and a „gestrichenes Bemmchen“, i.e. a butter sandwich, which after the usually quite frugal and at the Leipzig „Professors‘ Free Table“ almost inedible lunch was not only good for me, but mostly necessary“ (Hellpach, 1948, p. 173).

Hellpach very aptly describes the signal effect of the Leipzig institute to the outside world, but also the rather familiar relationship between the experimenter and his subjects, which is no longer conceivable in the mass operations of today‘s university. Wundt‘s last assistant, Friedrich Sander (1889-1972), who was attracted to Leipzig mainly by the famous name „Wundt“, also reports in his memoirs (1972) about the atmosphere in the institute: „Anyone who devoted themselves to psychology in Leipzig in 1911 at that time could have the feeling that they were standing on solid ground that was capable of development. There were the three volumes of Wundt‘s „Grundzüge der physiologischen Psychologie“ in their sixth edition, which were strong Encyclopaedias,.... and several volumes of the „Völkerpsychologie“, which supplemented the psychology of the individual. There was also a large institute for experimental psychology with an astonishingly large stock of apparatus...... When the old Excellency, the Real Privy Councillor Wundt entered the always overcrowded auditorium maximum, there was immediately an impressive silence. His pressure-ready, simple lecture fascinated all listeners,

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Figure 54: Wilhelm Wundt in the company of his employees about 1912 (from left to right: Dittrich, Wirth, Wundt, Klemm, Sander) including many foreigners; the experiments carried out by the assistants with the apparatuses, which were constructed in considerable size exclusively for demonstration purposes, had full powers of persuasion“ (Sander, 1972, p. 310).

Sander speaks of a „happy time until the unhappy war broke out“, whereby „the old man showed him an almost grandfatherly inclination“. Sander – like many assistants and students before him – was included in the convivial evenings of the hospitable Haus Wundt, whereby „the landlord, smoking his cigar after a good meal, liked to tell stories with fine humour. Sander, who had strong doubts about the elemental psychology, dared to openly express this to the revered master in the trustfulness of the conversations. „Wundt looked at me diagonally from the side through his strong lenses with a benevolent smile, without commenting. Thus, our conversations remained in abeyance and found their end when the war broke out in 1914 and separated me from Wundt“ (Sander, 1972, p. 315).

The exchange of letters between Wundt and Sander during the war reveals the compassion and concern of the already aged Wundt for his young assistant, who had to endure a lung disease after his war injury and now receives from

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Wundt benevolent advice for complete recovery. In an essay on the occasion of Wundt‘s 100th birthday in 1932, Sander later writes „In addition, there was a rare sociability in that regular daily routine in which Wundert‘s simple humanity unfolded in a friendly manner. Evenings of great spirituality come to life in the memory of the author of these lines, on which he was allowed to enjoy the hospitality of the House of Wundt as the youngest and last assistant to the aged researcher, in a circle of men among whom the historian Lamprecht, who was at the height of his fame at the time, and Max Klinger, who was pensive about the theory of his art, still stand before his soul. But the most delicious thing about these evenings was the humour of the landlord, who often countered with subtle irony the weaknesses of his professional and official colleagues“ ( Quoted in Schlotte, 1955/56).

The Department of “Völkerpsychologie” In 1913 Wundt was able to take one last step towards completing his institute and to think about the realization of a plan which he had long thought impossible. He owed this to the initiative of the historian Karl Lamprecht, who had become acquainted with the idea of a foundation university during a trip to America and had now drawn up a plan to encourage the citizens of Leipzig to establish a foundation. In doing so, a comparison was made with the Kaiser Wilhelm Foundation in Dahlem near Berlin, which had been established a few years earlier, and a research institute for the humanities was to be established in Saxony parallel to this enterprise, which had been realized in Prussia. In addition, this institute was to emerge from the free services of private individuals. A considerable amount of capital was made available by a citizen of Leipzig, Privy Councillor of Commerce Rehwoldt, who was involved in this foundation, in memory of his deceased son, who had been a loyal employee of the institute for several years (Wundt, 1920). The founding of a “Ethnic Psychological Department” was benevolently agreeable to the Saxon Government, so that the addition of one floor above the present institution (Paulinum) meant more libraries, lecture rooms, and working rooms as well as one for smaller lectures and Seminar courses. The first World War foiled the intention to outsource the department of the experimental Psychophysics, so that it was temporary housed in the ethnic psychological department which was for Wundt“ a permanently unsustainable condition.” Wundt had already made a plan to include individual psychology as a superstructure in the form of a Ethnic Psychology. In 1860 as the magazine from Lazarus and Steinthals, Linguistics and Ethnic Psychology was published, he

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realized this was not the right time for this comprehensive presentation. Therefore, ,he did not include this topic in the newest edition of “Lecture about Human and animal Souls”. However, this had already been discussed in other lectures, eg in Zurich in the summer of 1875. Wundt had originally wanted to deal with the topics Speech, Myths and Customs in three volumes (E. Wundt, 1928). However, it was much more than planned. While the individual psychology examined the mental processes, it was the task of Ethnic Psychology to examine the one who had had mental processes which arises through interaction with a multitude of people. This concerned the legality of human community life in its development from the primitive primal state up to the “highest “cultures of the present. Oelze (1991) wrote about Wundts conception of the Ethnic Psychology, that the three part Speech-Myths-Customs according to the definition of the centre doesn`t work on the object of experience but more “science desk” representing science which is dedicated to domestic psychology in addition to experimental individual psychology. For Wundt, both that of the science based direction and the ethnical psychology complemented the individual psychology laws. An example for this method we have found in Wundt`s work, ”The Nations and Their Philosophies” (1915) as he compares different European cultures and its own specially high value it countered. Hellpach (1948) wrote in his memoirs, that Wundt had startd his transcripts about Ethnic Psychology too late. Already from the fifth volume he had discovered traces of old age and the following volumes get lost in unparalleled amounts. Oelze (1991) similarly argumented, that, “Wundt constantly went over the self assembled frame and treated everthing which interested him extensively and with no system”. In contrast to some weaknesses of the written work, Hellpach (1948) emphasised the overflowing freshness and gripping novelty of the lectures from Wundt, which was for him as well as many of his fellow men one of the greatest lecturers there is: “The glossy stretch of the Ethnic Psychology lecture from Wundt, was in the first halve of the Semester, well into the Christmas holidays and beyond: The Psychology of Speech. The second part, Myths, stretched well into February. Interestingly, every chapter which was in the Old Masters work, and afterwards the classic which remained, the teaching of the soul and spiritual imagination about the hereafter, Resurrection and the souls living on, was only dealt with briefly in every college: For the “Customs”, which Society, Economy, Law and State, Customs and Life should have been considered, was in the end only about three hours, a gallop which ended in an inconclusive conclusion”. (Hellpach, 1948, page 172)

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Chapter 10

WUNDT AND HIS STUDENTS: THE FRIENDSHIP WITH KRAEPELIN

A person‘s character and personality are revealed, among other things, in his social behaviour, and in particular in that towards his subordinates. In this respect it seems reasonable to describe Wundt‘s relationship to his pupils in more detail. In view of the more than 180 doctoral students from 10 different countries who completed their doctorates with Wundt between 1875 and 1917, this seems comprehensively impossible and can only be solved by means of exemplary examples.

The first american student In a study by Bringmann & Bringmann (1980) on „Wundt and his first American students“ we already gain interesting insights into the not unproblematic relationship of Wundt and G. Stanley Hall, which after a hopeful beginning in winter 1879 and almost 30 years of written contact through Hall‘s biographical publication (1912) becomes a „bitter end“ for the already „old“ Wundt, so that in his autobiography he has only one biting footnote left for him. In this article the authors describe the so-called „Helmholtz story“, which has long been a source of speculation for psychology historians. The story says in one sentence that Wundt was dismissed by Helmholtz because of insufficient mathematical knowledge during his time as an assistant (see chapter 5). G. Stanley Hall (18461924) – Wundt‘s first American student – took an ambivalent attitude towards Wundt at an early stage, which can be seen from his correspondence with William James (1842-1910). In a letter to William James of October 1879 (quoted in Bringmann, Bringmann & Cottrell, 1976) Hall openly describes his disappointment in Wundt, although he feels obliged to him. In contrast, he writes of a strongly inspiring impression that Helmholtz had made on him. With his publication on the „Founders of modern psychology“ in 1912, Hall set speculation in motion by writing

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„Helmholtz, who wished for a colleague who was better versed in mathematics and physics, later replaced him with another“ (p. 311, quoted by Bringmann et al.,1976).

After the German translation of Hall‘s book in 1914, the now 82-year-old Wundt reacted very decisively in the Literarisches Zentralblatt: „I do not see myself obliged to go into more detail about the factual content of this work, about whose value or not, the knowledgeable reader can easily form a judgement. Likewise, I consider it superfluous to correct all the errors contained in the largely fictitious biography which the author places before the chapter dealing with my psychology. On the other hand, I feel compelled to reject one of his statements, which has the character of a defamatory invention in itself. Mr Hall tells his readers that I was an assistant to Helmholtz for a short time when he was professor of physiology in Heidelberg, but that I was dismissed by him because I was not good enough in mathematical and physical matters. In reality, as a physiological assistant, I had nothing to do with mathematical matters at all, but my job was to introduce medical students, for whom a visit to the physiological laboratory was compulsory in Baden at the time, to the beginnings of experimental physiological technology and the use of the microscope. Since this was a rather time-consuming occupation, I gave up my assistant‘s position after five years (1858-1863) in order to gain more time for my own work. However, Helmholtz was neither directly nor indirectly involved in this decision“ (p. 1079, quoted by Bringmann et al.,1976).

This rejection seems to have made little impression on Hall, as he repeated similar assertions, always with something vague and dubious resonating in his formulations. On the occasion of a memorial service for Wundt in the fall of 1920 by his American students, Hall expressed „I think I was the first American student to work in Wundt‘s laboratory. It was in its early days – I think about 1878 or 1879 – and I only served as subject, for I gave all my time during the two years I was there to work in Physiology with Ludwig. There was then an impression that Wundt was not very scientific, and there were rumors that Helmholtz had found him too inexact as his assistant“ (Psychological Review, Vol. 28, No. 3, p. 154, 1921).

Finally, this slander appeared again in 1924 in the context of his self-biography („The life and confessions of a psychologist“): „Each time I left Ludwig‘s laboratory long enough to attend Wundt‘s lectures, although at the time he was thought to be out of place, not entirely scientific in his methods. Rumours claimed that he had been replaced as Helmholtz‘s assistant by a man of more precise and rigorous scientific methods with greater mathematical knowledge“ (p. 206, quoted by Bringmann et al., 1976).

Other American Wundt students, such as Titchener, who elsewhere emphasized the social life in the Wundt house and the warm atmosphere of the hostess Sophie Wundt, described the story of Wundt‘s dismissal by Helmholtz as pure invention. The well-known psychology historian Boring (1950) also contradicted Hall‘s assertions. It is a great merit of W. Bringmann (1976, 1980) to

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have refuted Hall‘s allegations on the basis of various letters from Wundt and Helmholtz. In his accounts he quotes, among other things, a letter of recommendation from Helmholtz dated October 1863: „Dr. Wundt is a very thorough and generally educated scholar, who in the scientific work he cites has..... proved a whole range of interesting new facts, especially in the field of the physiology of the sensory organs and nerves. I could observe his effectiveness more closely in the physiological laboratory, where his task was mainly to give the beginners the necessary instructions in their experiments. He fulfilled this task with great loyalty and in a very practical way. The Faculty is also aware that Dr. Wundt has always distinguished himself by a very honourable and modest nature and by great diligence. I therefore believe that there is every reason to warmly support.... his request“ (quoted in Bringmann et al., 1976).

This kind of recommendation by the great Hermann von Helmholtz speaks for itself and leaves no doubt about Wundt‘s reputation at the time. The appointment as „extraordinary professor“ in the following spring of 1864 was certainly also a consequence of this reputation, although at the age of 32 he still had no fixed income. Wundt (1920) has described the reasons for his resignation from the position of assistant professor in great detail in his autobiography (see also chapter 5). In a letter from Helmholtz to his friend Emil Du Bois-Reymond from February 1865 he also explicitly mentions Wundt‘s own resignation. Further letters of recommendation from Helmholtz for Wundt in the years 1871 to 1873 are unambiguous according to Bringmann et al. (1976), whereby Helmholtz always describes Wundt as a knowledgeable and original researcher who is more concerned with psychological than physiological problems. This also explains to historians the possible reason for Wundt‘s relatively late recognition and appointment (1874), because his teaching was something relatively new, not comparable with the usual academic disciplines of his time. To his bride Sophie Mau in 1872 (see chapter 8) he himself wrote about „a suspicious border area between physiology and philosophy on which the experienced scholar is suspicious and on which not much external honour can be gained for the time being“. Ultimately, the question remains as to why Hall stubbornly and persistently stuck to his slander. From the correspondence between Hall and Wundt, Bringmann et al. (1976) find indications that speak for Hall‘s injured vanity and his ambivalent character: Hall had already invited Wundt to the 10th anniversary of the Clark University he founded, but he had received a refusal. Hall then invited Wundt again to the 20th anniversary in 1909, with S. Freud and C. G. Jung also being guests. Once again, Wundt, who was 76 years old in the meantime, had to cancel, probably because of his advanced age and also because of his lecture obligations for the

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Figure 55: James McKeen Cattell (1860-1944)

500th anniversary celebration of the University of Leipzig in the same year. Thus Hall – as Bringmann et al. (1976) expresses himself – could not present his famous teacher at the celebration. Three years later, in 1912, Hall was able to express his feelings accordingly in his publication. Sigmund Freud, whose life‘s work in psychoanalysis was to be made known to his American colleagues for the first time at this celebration, also met this fate when he was later violently attacked by Hall. In his memoirs, Wundt (1920) mentions three of his students as examples, namely James MacKeen Cattell (1860-1944), Alfred Lehmann from Denmark and Emil Kraepelin (1856-1926) from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. However, it was Wundt‘s students in particular who contributed to the worldwide spread of his model of experimental psychology, for example through Wundt‘s „self-appointed“ first assistant James Mac Keen Cattell (see fig. 55), who received the first chair of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania in 1888. Cattell, whose main interest was in the diversity of human nature and human abilities, developed the so-called „mental tests“ early (1890), thus establishing the term „test“ in psychology for the first time. As foreign representatives for

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France B. Bourdon, for Italy Friedrich Kiesow, for Russia W. Bechterew and for Japan M. Matsumoto should be mentioned. Emil Kraepelin (1856-1926) is an outstanding example among the many students who later became famous, not only as a teacher-student relationship, but above all as a real- life friendship. Kraepelin, born on 15.2.1856 in Neustrelitz/Mecklenburg, had studied medicine in Würzburg and Leipzig and worked from 1878 to 1882 as an assistant to B.von Gudden, the personal physician of the „fairy-tale king“ Ludwig II, at the Kreis-Irrenanstalt in Munich. Kraepelin‘s autobiography (1983) shows that in 1877 he learned about Wundt‘s newly published „Physiological Psychology“ from the anatomist Gierke, who worked in Würzburg, and took this as an opportunity to finish his studies in Leipzig. Obviously, he had already become acquainted with Wundt‘s teaching through the „Lectures on the Soul of Man and Animals“ published in 1863. „My mind was made up immediately. I procured the book in order to work through it with the greatest interest and made the plan to go to Leipzig at Easter 1877 to complete my studies there, and then possibly to work for 1-2 years with Ludwig in physiological research and to get in touch with Wundt.”

Figure 56: Emil Kraepelin (1856-1926) in the year 1910 (with kind approval of Springer publishing company)

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First contacts A first personal contact with Wundt came about in the Easter period of this year 1877, when 21-year-old Kraepelin visited 45-year-old Wundt to obtain a guarantee certificate for the use of the university library. However, a job offer in Würzburg shortly afterwards prevented the continuation of this contact (Hippius, 1983). On 18.1.1881 the then 24-year-old Kraepelin, still assistant to the psychiatrist von Gudden in Munich, addressed the 49-year-old Wundt with a „momentous inquiry“ (Fischel, 1959). In this letter, which is very progressive by today‘s standards (concerning the application of psychological methods to psychiatry), Kraepelin asked about study possibilities in Wundt‘s laboratory in Leipzig. The still young psychiatrist‘s inclination towards psychological studies was unmistakable, although Kraepelin also had a tendency to switch completely to psychology. Wundt‘s reticence and scepticism in this respect now appears – also in view of Kraepelin‘s biography and clinical achievements – to be very accurate and understandable today, whereby in retrospective evaluations Wundt is always portrayed as a „scholar and scientist“, whereas Kraepelin, on the other hand, tends to be portrayed as a „doctor and clinician“. „Wilhelm Wundt and Emil Kraepelin remained friends throughout their lives. Over the years the cordiality of their personal relationships increased.“ – With these sentences Fischel (1959) begins his thoughts about an exchange of letters and characterizes the relationship of Wundt and Kraepelin excellently. Already from the salutations in their letters the first conclusions about the nature of their relationship can be drawn: While the 24-year-old Kraepelin writes to Wundt with the title „Honoured Professor“, he also signs his last letter to Wundt on December 27, 1919 – as a 63-year-old highly respected professor of psychiatry – as „your faithful and grateful student“ (cf. Fischel, 1959). For his part, Wundt wrote to the young assistant doctor Kraepelin in 1881 with „Lieber Herr Doktor“ (Dear Doctor), whereby he already spoke of „Dear Friend“ in October 1884. More essential than such words, however, are the deeds which characterize the relations of Wundt and Kraepelin. As an example, Wundt‘s spontaneous commitment to Kraepelin after his resignation in June 1882 – just 4 months after taking up his post – can be seen.

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The intrigue After his state examination in 1878, Kraepelin initially worked as an assistant to Bernhard von Gudden in the Munich District Mental Hospital until 1882. However, he was forced to go near Wundt, so that he asked him where he could find a job in Leipzig. Wundt pointed out to Kraepelin, among other things, the psychiatric clinic in Leipzig, which was about to open. Due to uncertainty and the tense relationship between his boss, von Gudden and the head of the new psychiatric clinic in Leipzig, the neuroanatomist Paul Flechsig (see fig. 57), he turned to his boss again, who approved his plans but advised him to inquire about the possibility of a habilitation. Thereupon Kraepelin wrote to Flechsig and received from him the „concise promise“ that he wanted to support Kraepelin‘s habilitation in Leipzig in any way he could (Hippius, 1983, p. 21). The 26-year-old Kraepelin could not yet know at this time that he was to become the victim of an intrigue shortly afterwards.

Figure 57: Neuroanatomist Paul Flechsig (1847-1929) in his working room (with kind approval of Löcker publishing company, Wien)

Shortly after Kraepelin‘s appointment, Flechsig (1847-1929) began to make unjustified accusations against him, and surprisingly dismissed him on June 7, 1882, a good month after the clinic opened, on the grounds that he considered

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him incapable of representing him in his absence. In his memoirs (1983) Kraepelin writes about this: „After all sorts of highly unpleasant incidents, I resigned on June 14 from a service which had brought me nothing but insults and more insults instead of the scientific support I had hoped for. I felt relieved when I left the clinic, but my situation had suddenly become extremely difficult. I was without means and without activity, without medical material and without the possibility of further scientific education“ (Hippius, 1983, p. 22).

In his distress Kraepelin turned to Wundt, who showed him the greatest participation and promised help. Since Kraepelin also found support from other sides, he decided „to achieve the habilitation under all circumstances in order to stay close to Wundt and to save his honour“ (Hippius, 1983, p. 22). Already at the beginning of his stay in Leipzig in February 1882 Kraepelin had collaborated in Wundt‘s laboratory, which was still housed in the old Konvikt building in a relatively cramped location (cf. Chap. 9). Since he had been commissioned by his new boss Flechsig (see illustration) to set up the clinic‘s psychological laboratory, he had been able to procure all the apparatus necessary for psychic time measurements and to begin a series of experiments on the changes in psychic times caused by certain substances such as alcohol, chloroform, paraldehyde, chloral hydrate, morphine, tea or caffeine. Since a series of

Figure 58: Prof. Paul Flechsig at patient presentation in auditorium of psychiatric clinic in Leipzig

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experiments had already been completed, Kraepelin decided to submit them as the basis for his habilitation thesis. He received the answer from the medical faculty that they did not doubt his scientific ability, but that there were accusations against his character. The dean advised him to contact the Ministry of Culture, where he received the evasive information that he could not be informed after he had resigned from his position as a state official. Wundt then arranged for the astounded Kraepelin to make contact with Dresden, where he was finally able to make contact with the Minister of Culture via a senior medical officer. Thus, Kraepelin learned that Flechsig had apparently reported that he had spoken disparagingly of his oath of service. Kraepelin was now able to refute this defamation with a series of written testimonies and was effectively supported „but especially by the fact that Wundt wrote to the minister and stood up for me“ (Hippius, 1983, p. 23). In the course of the autumn holidays of 1882 he finally received the news that there were no more obstacles to his habilitation. So Kraepelin finally became a private lecturer after a trial lecture on progressive paralysis. This episode, certainly exciting and painful for Kraepelin‘s life, clearly shows that Wundt was not only benevolent towards his pupils, but also direct and active. If one looks at Wundt‘s letter of recommendation for G. S. Hall from 1880 , which was apparently also intended as a support for a teaching position at the John Hopkins University, and compares it with Hall‘s unwavering and brazen adherence to the „Helmholtz Story“, it becomes clear that Stanley Hall, compared to Emil Kraepelin, behaved with little gratitude and respect. Bringmann & Bringmann (1980) also classify Hall as a rather untrustworthy and honest person („it is very dangerous to put simple trust in anything that he said about himself or others“).

Kraepelin’s Wundt picture If we return to the Kraepelin-Wundt relationship, we find a first excellent characterization of Wundt in a description of the working conditions in the still spartanly furnished laboratory (Konvikt building) of 1882: „The relationship between teachers and students was the most favourable. Wundt‘s character was based on a simple dignity in which quiet objectivity was combined with personal benevolence. Although he was more reserved than lively and could appear ungainly in discussions, he was easily accessible to every concern of his students, advising and helping without many words where and how he could. His manner was simple and natural, but carried by the feeling of inner security and unconditional reliability; his conversation was not dazzling or sparkling, but always captivating through

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the calm serenity of his thoughts and the high position he took, as well as through a fine sense of humour that did not stop at his own person, as in the story he told of how he answered a student who asked him where Wundt was reading in a certain confusion: „I don‘t know“. His perfect comfortable balance was admirable. I have never seen him passionate or angry. He faced the events of life with a certain serenity, but this did not prevent him from taking a lively interest in them. In particular, he always followed the fates of his students with benevolent interest and stood up for them with warmth.

After this „appreciation“ of Kraepelin, one can rather conclude that there was an extraordinary teacher-student relationship, and indeed extraordinary also in the fact that through many positive and pleasant personality traits of Wundt‘s (benevolent, helpful, reliable, humorous, balanced and sympathetic) there was also a good working and learning atmosphere and Wundt „stood up for his students with warmth“ when necessary. That much of gratitude is to be felt in these words seems understandable in view of specific experiences – such as the episode of Flechsig‘s dismissal described above. However, other subjective evaluations show something similar in Wundt‘s personality: a certain personal charisma, authenticity and unpretentiousness. This is also the core of a report by William James (1842-1910) – Wundt‘s Antipode in America – which he wrote on the occasion of a visit to Leipzig in 1882: „Wundt in Leipzig impressed me very clearly from a personal side. He has a light smile and is completely unaffected and unpretentious in his manner. I heard him twice and was also in his laboratory twice. He was very polite, but showed no desire for further acquaintance“. (Quoted by Bringmann & Tweney, 198O, Hogrefe, Toronto)

The young private lecturer Kraepelin, who had found „refuge“ in Wundt‘s laboratory, was visibly impressed by the atmosphere of the „lively scientific life“ and the „great enthusiasm for the new research direction“ and was probably the only physician among Wundt‘s students at the time. He also impressively describes the regularity in Wundt‘s lifestyle, which Wundt had also acquired for health reasons after a severe lung disease (see Chapter 5): „Wound‘s lifestyle was of the utmost regularity. He had a delicate health and was especially sensitive to colds, against which he sought to protect himself with warm clothing. His eyes were bad; he protected them by dimming the light and allowed himself to be read aloud many times. He also made use of the typewriter at a very early age, which I assume he had got to know through the American Cattell. He did not get up excessively early, but regularly worked the whole morning. The afternoon belonged to the laboratory and the lecture. But he also used to walk around the city centre every day, even in bad weather. I often used this habit to visit him, and he gladly allowed me to accompany him. His diet was extremely moderate and probably sensitive, but he smoked and occasionally drank a glass of wine or beer. Although he

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was generally very secluded, he was not at all unsociable, he liked to gather his young friends around him and had regular relations with his colleagues. He had little inclination to travel far, perhaps because of the sensitivity of his health. On the other hand, during the holidays he regularly left Leipzig for some time and visited Thuringia or the sea, and probably the Rigi; even on such trips he kept to the regularity of his daily schedule and to his daily work as far as possible. This constant perseverance in his creative work, which could not be distracted by anything, explains to a large extent the enormous scope of his life‘s work. (Hippius, Springer, 1983, p. 25/26 )

When Kraepelin speaks here of „constant perseverance in creation“, this seems to be not only an explanation of the enormous amount of writing (Wundt‘s daughter Eleonore counted the manuscript pages written by her father at about 54000) but above all a typical personality trait. If we recall the letter from 1872 to his then fiancée Sophie Mau, in which he spoke of „ambition and great plans“, it seems that now, 1882-1883, when Kraepelin worked in Wundt‘s laboratory, the time had come to implement these plans. Kraepelin‘s descriptions of Wundt are characterized by great respect, reverence and also pride in being allowed to „walk in the paths of the newly blossoming experimental psychology“. His characterization of Wundt from the point of view of the „lecture visitor“ shows this just as convincingly: „Whoever listened to Wundt‘s lectures might have been surprised at first sight that the somewhat gaunt, medium-sized man, who approached the catheter with his eyes lowered almost shyly, was supposed to be the famous scholar whose intellectual work spanning the most diverse fields has hardly any equal in our time. But when Wundt then began his explanations with the calm clarity that characterizes him, consistently adding sentence after sentence, explaining his words with a few brief gestures, then everything was soon under the spell of this spiritual personality, who penetrated wide areas of knowledge with the tools of the intellect and sought to fathom the innermost essence of man from a high point of view. His lectures were therefore soon among the most attended at the university and there will probably be few Leipzig students of the last 30 years who have not even taken the opportunity to gain access to Wundt‘s lecture hall, which is almost always overcrowded“ (Hippius, 1983, p. 26).

After the happy habilitation, Kraepelin apparently hoped for an assistant position in Wundt‘s laboratory, but felt very insecure in his financial situation despite a lecturer‘s scholarship arranged by Wundt. In this situation he was hit by an offer from the publishing company Johann Ambrosius Abel to write a „Compendium der Psychiatrie“. As he was „used to such matters“, he sought advice from Wundt, who encouraged him to write. Although Kraepelin „completed this unattractive task for the most part during the Easter holidays of 1883“ and in doing so „the inadequacy of his knowledge of psychiatry became very clear to him“, from today‘s point of view this achievement can be considered a milestone in the development of scientific psychiatry. For from this compendium,

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published in 1883 in Leipzig, the first „Textbook of Psychiatry“ finally emerged, which was published in 8 editions by Johann Ambrosius Barth. In his assessment of Kraepelin as a distinguished psychiatrist, Wundt had shown good intuition and had also made it clear to Kraepelin in a sensitive and delicate way that he would not be able to obtain a professorship in the philosophical lecturing career in the foreseeable future and that he would have to postpone his intended marriage („Wundt had noticed the ring on his finger in the summer of 1883“). Kraepelin‘s reaction reflects Wundt‘s intense and lasting influence: „As much as I had become accustomed to the idea of becoming Wundt‘s close student, I could not escape the weight of his reasons and decided to ask Gudden for advice at the next opportunity“ (Hippius, 1983, p. 29).

Gudden‘s offer of a post in the autumn of 1883 finally led to Kraepelin‘s return to Munich, where he re-habilitated at the medical faculty with a trial lecture on „the psychological standpoint in psychiatry“. From these evaluations it is easy to derive the „father and role model figure Wundt“ for Kraepelin, but this would describe the relationship only insufficiently and would not include the development of friendship in life. Fischel (1959) in his analysis of the correspondence between Wundt and Kraepelin also speaks of certain similarities between the two: „What both have in common, apart from a great deal of manpower, is the striving to obtain precisely ascertainable facts with clear methods“ (Fischel, 1959, p. 385).

Scientific studies While the „scholar and scientist“ Wundt was very reserved and rather sceptical about the application of his methods in the field of mental diseases, his „faithful student“ Kraepelin, on the other hand, tried to make these methods available to his mentally ill patients. According to his psychic time measurements under the influence of certain substances such as alcohol, tea or caffeine (see pharmacopsychology), it was above all the development of the „working curve“ (1902), which was frequently used in the psychological examination of psychiatrically ill patients and became known again in the 1950s of this century under the name „Pauli Test“ (1951). This method involves the continuous addition and subtraction of three single-digit numbers under time pressure and over a longer period of time (up to 1 hour). Although the processes of „exercise“ and „fatigue“ investigated by Kraepelin in this context still have some significance

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in today‘s neuropsychology, the „basic personality traits“, such as „exercise ability“, „excitability“ or „fatigue“, which Kraepelin derived from work behaviour, are no longer relevant by today‘s scientific standards. However, the famous „working curve“ is in a certain way typical of Kraepelin‘s efforts to gain empirically ascertainable psychological correlations with clear methodology. In addition, he dealt experimentally with associations (1883), fatigue and recovery (1896) and the measurement of perceptiveness (1899). In comparison to the current application of experimental psychological methods in clinical psychiatry, Kraepelin‘s efforts almost 100 years ago can be described as extraordinarily progressive. Kraepelin himself, after the completion and publication of these studies, always felt a great debt of gratitude to Wundt. On 2 February 1895 he wrote to Wundt, among others: „It is the feeling of the most faithful, heartfelt gratitude to you, to whom I owe.... so much in the spiritual replenishment of my life. Deeply I felt that everywhere in psychology I only continue and complete what I have learned and begun under your guidance and in your laboratory“ (quoted from Fischel, 1959, p. 387).

In view of the great importance of the „Wundt pupil“ Kraepelin for German psychiatry, we should finally mention once again his three great contributions for posterity, namely on the one hand his contribution to the classification of mental diseases (cf. the Compendium der Psychiatrie published already in 1883), on the other hand the introduction of „objective“ tests and measurements in mental diseases (cf. the already quoted working curve) and finally his pioneering work in the field of pharamacopsychology (cf. also Oldigs-Kerber & Leonard, 1992).

The life friendship Since Kraepelin‘s activity in Dresden (from 1885) as well as during his 5-year Baltic exile in Dorpat (until 1891), personal contacts between the two seem to have become rarer. Kraepelin had spent Christmas 1885 with his young wife Ina, whom he had married on October 4, 1884, at the „Wundt‘s“ in Leipzig. For their wedding, the Wundt‘s had given the young couple an engraving of Titian‘s flora (see illustration). However, there was still an opportunity for the rather travel-happy Kraepelin to stop over at the not so travel-happy Wundt‘s in Leipzig. According to Fischel (1959), from 1884 onwards, personal messages increasingly predominate in the correspondence between Wundt and Kraepelin. Fischel (1959) writes, among other things, that it was „Kraepelin who always tried to win the affection of Wilhelm Wundt“. According to all available autobiographical data, this relative „one-sidedness“ in the maintenance of social con-

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Figure 59: Sting of the „Flora by Tizian“ – Wundt‘s wedding gift to the married couple Kraepelin

tacts seems correct. As far as the personal messages in the correspondence between Wundt and Kraepelin are concerned, however, there are indications of more intimate relations with other friends of Wundt‘s, such as the jurist Oskar Bülow, from whom he gladly sought legal advice. Overall, Wundt seems to have become a kind of „leading figure“ for Kraepelin, a figure he held on to throughout his life. Fischel (1959) writes, among other things, „that it is hopeful that the great psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin held on to his friendship with the eminent psychologist Wilhelm Wundt in a tenacious and wooing manner. This is not only a coming together of two men, but also symbolizes the togetherness of two disciplines. Many of Wundt‘s letters to Kraepelin contain friendly advice and rules of life, e.g. in a letter of February 1884, when, in discussing Kraepelin‘s „Psychology of the Comic“, Wundt speaks of the „necessary leisure“ and the „necessary humour“ needed for such works. In addition, he speaks of the „desirable balance of power“ and warns Kraepelin against rushing. Finally, he speaks of the rule that first comes professional duty, then recreation and finally leisure.

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Also in one of the last letters from Kraepelin to Wundt from the year 1919 the great influence of the „leading figure Wundt“ becomes again very clear: „By kindly sending me the 6th edition of your lectures on the human and animal soul, you have given me great pleasure. I was vividly reminded that it was through this work that I first became aware of your name some 46 years ago, and that it was above all through this that my inclination towards psychology was awakened. Since that time the desire to become your student was awakened in me, and only 4 years later I could knock on your door for the first time in Leipzig. Since then my whole life has been under your influence. Even if my profession has gradually led me into other paths, your example and often your willingness to advise and help me in the decisive years of my youth development has determined my fate. Your book reminds me of all this, and it is feelings of heartfelt gratitude that are.... triggered by it. (Quoted by Schlotte, 1955, p. 346).

The last written statement from Wundt to Kraepelin of May 4, 1920 – written from his retirement home in Großbothen about 4 months before his death – speaks for itself and needs no further comment: „I would love to talk to you once again about the course of the world and science in the idyllic solitude we enjoy here“.

Even Hugo Münsterberg (1863-1916) who was very active in promoting the Psychology as applied science and later used the term “Psychotechnik”, was also upset by the comments of Wundt when he criticized him in saying,” to be methodically careful and slower in the publication”. Later he insinuated that Wundt lacked intercession in his vocation to Zurich. In 1890, with Wundt`s typical factuality and clarity he answered Münsterberg`s insinuation “You say you are aware that through your contradiction you are known to have forfeited my scientific recognition by your opposition to my views. You are probably not aware that you have ascribed to me a lowness of attitude, of which I freely know myself”. (letter from 12.11.1890 to H. Münsterberg)

Wundt, who knew how to distinguish between technical discrepancies and personal relationships, was really dismayed that Munsterberg assumed him to be so low minded. We also find a mixture of professional critiscism and personal concern in the words of Oswald Külpe (1862-1915) who from 1887 to 1894 worked as a Lecturer and Assistant for Wundt. Külpe was so deeply affected by Wundt`s critiscism on his “Ausfrageexperimenten”, that Wundt, who because of his friendship to Külpe tried to calm him down: “I am convinced, as always, that in scientific questions there is a difference of opinion. We can follow different directions without the feelings of personal friendships and sincere scientific esteem being affected. Although you have adopted the question

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Figure 60: Friedrich Kiesow (1858-1940), founder of experimental psychology in Italy method in a far higher level than I ever suspected, I would like our friendship to continue as it is. In any case, you can be assured of my faithful attachment and sincere esteem” (letter of 26.10.1907 to O. Külpe).

Wundt`s different personal connection to Münsterberg and Külpe is made obvious in the quoted extracts from his letters to them. This is strengthened by the expression “my faithful attachment and sincere esteem”. The framework of this work also goes beyond the relationship with other students such as Meumann, the founder of the “Pädagogischen Psychologie”, or from Kiesow (see fig. 60) who established the experimental psychology in Italy and decided to look more deeply at it. Apart from personal interest or antipathy one thing remains undisputed: Wundt tried very hard to have a good relationship to his scholars and his employees, even when not all connections developed as in the case of Emil Kraepelin. Wundt knew full well that the establishing of his new scientific research could only be successful with the help of his students. In this case his relationship to Emil Kraepelin is worth mentioning in two respects. In the professional, as well as the human aspect.

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Chapter 11

WILHELM WUNDT – FACETS OF A PERSONALITY

The depiction of various stages of Wundt’s life throws a significant light on the versatility of his person. In addition to significant developments in his youth, he however, reveals personality traits that survived from a relatively early age, such as his modesty, his literary interest and his ambition. In the following, an attempt will now be made, on the basis of the previous remarks on Wundt’s biography, to sketch out a picture of his personality that combines the typical and unique characteristics of this great scholar into an overall picture. In doing so, reference will also be made to descriptions of previous biographers (E.Wundt, 1928; Petersen, 1925; Meischner & Eschler, 1979; Bringmann, 1980). Let us begin with a brief description by the well-known American psychology historian Boring (1950), who explains “Certainly, this was a sober childhood and a serious youth, unrelieved by fun and jollity, which prepared the young Wundt for the endless writings of ponderous tomes which eventually did so much to give him his place in history. He never learned to play. He had no friends in childhood and only intellectual companions in adolescence. He failed to find parental love and affection, substituting for the happier relationship, this deep attachment for his vicar-mentor. One can see the future man being formed – the humorless, indefatigable, aggressive Wundt” (p. 317).

A humorless and aggressive Wundt who missed parental love and affection – is this the Wundt described in the previous chapters ? Probably not, because this description would really turn everything upside down that has been worked out so far on the basis of the autobiography and the other archival documents. In a relatively imprecise and more striking manner, Boring (1950) attempts here to establish connections between Wundt’s lonely childhood and his later journalistic work. Therefore, it seems appropriate to take a critical look at various phases of Wundt’s life in order to avoid hasty and erroneous evaluations – as in the present case of Boring (1950).

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Wundt as a lonely child As Wundt himself writes in his memoirs, loneliness – also due to the early separation from Brother Ludwig – was a great problem for him. The contact to his rather soft and emotional father is apparently not so close to compensate for the loneliness, whereby the private tutor Vicar Müller offers himself as a psychological parent for Wundt, to whom he “clings with great love” (Eleonore Wundt, 1928). The lack of regular lessons with peers from the 3rd school year on makes the problem of loneliness even worse. His excessive inclination to daydream and fantasy games obviously represents a childlike attempt to cope with this problem. But how important contacts with peers were to the young Wundt in his childhood can be seen in the example of the mentally retarded but very good-natured boy from the neighbourhood in Heidelsheim, whom Wundt remembers well in his autobiography and whom he mentions very benevolently. A highlight in this time of “social isolation” is certainly the unhappy school year at the Bruchsal Gymnasium, where failures and didactic weaknesses of the private teacher Vicar Müller have a dramatic effect and the young Wundt in his desperation finally flees on foot to the neighbouring Heidelsheim. The decisive change in Wundt’s development is now triggered by the change of school to Heidelberg, where he suddenly finds himself in a position to make friends, change his work behaviour under the influence of his brother and gain self-confidence due to benevolent teachers. The death of his father, which falls during this time, does not seem to traumatize him excessively.The strong bond to his mother, who in the future will support him, is predestined. It remains to be noted that the young Wundt can master a very difficult phase of life to a large extent by his own efforts, which already indicates a strong and assertive personality.

Wundt as private lecturer Apart from his first year of study in Tübingen, which Wundt regarded as “dormant”, but which also meant the first taste of his new freedom, he continued his studies in a very stringent and effective manner. The limited financial means of his mother are certainly decisive for the very responsible Wundt for this speedy procedure, he shows himself in his letters from Berlin, the place of

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a six-month period as an intern, to his mother as a very economical and frugal son. A very creative and varied phase of his life now followed his habilitation, which he achieved at the age of 25 in February 1857 and which was the first step in his “scholarly career”. Before this “happiest time in a man’s life” – as he later wrote to his son Max on the occasion of his 30th birthday – he had to cope with a serious life crisis. Pneumonia, which in the summer of 1857 “brought him to the brink of death” and strongly influenced his further life: To close and trusting friends (Marie and Adolf Cornill), he shows that he himself was partly responsible for this collapse through excessive demands and work overload – which is quite understandable for a private lecturer who had just turned 25. He is also able to overcome this crisis (because for many of those affected at that time.it ended fatally) – by his own efforts, whereby the way he treats himself with a

Figure 61: The „young Wundt“ during the 60ies of the 19th century (with kind approval of Prof. Dr. Bringmann, Alabama, USA)

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breathing mask, high altitude air and a regulated daily rhythm symbolises the will to live and self-discipline. Only after his fairly long convalescence does he find the comforts of a private scholar, which are more social than financial. During this period, the early 1860s (see fig. 61), Wundt was able to live out his creativity as a thinker in numerous academic discussion groups, e.g. in the Historical-Philosophical Society. For him, Heidelberg is “one of the happiest places for an academic teacher, just beginning”. Yet the talks and discussions of the time, e.g. in the house of Henriette Feuerbach, seem to have the format of “Gelehrtenkränzchen”, as we can experience with Wundt later in Leipzig at the turn of the century. This phase of life is certainly significant for the deepening and cultivation of relationships and friendships, whereby, in contrast to the lonely Heidelsheim period, we are now experiencing an exceptionally outgoing Privatdozent Wundt. That the contact to his friend Wattenbach also leads to the meeting of his later wife Sopie Mau, seems to be an inevitable consequence.

Wundt as a politician Wundt’s role as a politician, which began with his entry into the Workers’ Education Association after his time as an assistant at Helmholtz, still seems little illuminated today, although Ungerer (1979, 1980) has already provided numerous details. The political motive – standing up for the interests of state and society – was a dominant motive for Wundt throughout his life. It ranges from the early experiences of the revolutionary period – let us recall the “village revolution” in 1839 in Heidelsheim – through the first German unity in 1871 to the period of the First World War, where Wundt’s political interest reawakened and even stimulated philosophical considerations (“The Nations and their Philosophy”). After the time of the industrial revolution and the beginning of the freedom of trade in Heidelberg, there were many opportunities to become politically active and it was quite common for young private lecturers to become politically active. Thus, we experience Wundt’s involvement in the Workers’ Education Association under a very idealistic attitude, which can be seen, for example, in his travelling lectures held in the South Baden area, the proceeds of which were used to finance a workers’ house. Wundt resisted radical currents, supported liberal reforms and was always so honest and sincere in his statements that he naturally offered the political opponent many opportunities to attack him and sometimes “sat between all chairs”, as in the case of the Baden school legislation, when he single-handedly supported a reduction of

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religious lessons (see Ungerer, 1978). Just as he rejected the radical politicization of the workers’ education associations, he also opposed war as a way of conflict resolution, as in the war between Prussia and Austria, when he voted for Baden’s neutrality. His national sentiments, which he shared with many scholars of his time and which led him to vehemently advocate German unity, were again expressed almost 50 years later when he mobilized the popular masses in Leipzig with his speech “About the real war” in September 1914. With the term “real war” he refers to the philosopher Fichte and explains the war situation as a “defensive war” against the English. The accusation that this speech glorified militarism, which sometimes appears today, is taken ad absurdum when the text is read carefully. The letters that Wundt exchanged at that time with his son Max, who was in the field, show much sadness and little enthusiasm for war. All in all, Wundt embodies qualities that neither then, nor now, seem suitable to characterize him as a typical politician, which is perhaps more true of his student Willy Hellpach. As early as 1872, Wundt himself spoke to his wife of the “destruction of his political illusions”.

Wundt as husband and as family father Wundt married relatively late, at the age of 40, which is partly associated with his financial uncertainty at the time. However, it is possible that this was also partly caused by the strong bond to his mother, with whom he and his brother had lived together in close proximity for a long time. Although his motives now remain unclear for the time being, why he reconsiders his relationship with Sophie Mau after four years of separation and proposes to her at the end of May 1872, the lively correspondence during the engagement phase shows a happy and in love Wundt, whose life suddenly found content and purpose. Written words seem to him to be a “poor stopgap” to express his feelings. With Sophie Mau, Wundt chose a very educated woman, to whom the housewifely virtues (despite her sewing course) were not so dear, but who was very much appreciated for her rich sociability. She was an interested discussion partner and reliable advisor for her husband, who appreciated the dignified domesticity or – to use his own words – “liked to live not too noisily”. The relationship between Wundt and his wife Sophie was characterised by love, respect and tolerance... (see fig. 62).

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Figure 62: The married couple Sophie and Wilhelm Wundt about 1897

Figure 63: Wundt with his 20 years old son Max in 1899

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Figure 64: Wundt and his loyal companion Eleonore

Like his wife Sophie, his children were closely and firmly integrated into his life. The letters to his still young children (cf. fig. 37, p. 102), who are often on holiday with their mother while he is still waiting for his semester in Leipzig, show a very sensitive, careful and delicate father. With the increasing development of his children, Wundt’s commitment to their interests also grows: Lorle’s enjoyment of the Italian language he proudly remarks to his friend Bülow as well as his son’s preoccupation with Greek mythology. In adulthood, the children are intellectual partners in conversation, his son Max (see illustration) helps him with book corrections and new editions, and Eleonore (see fig 64) becomes his tireless and faithful companion in his work on the extensive ethnic psychology.

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Figure 65: Wundt during his summer vacation at the sea

Wundt as a scientist Wundt’s role as a scholar and scientist is today the image that is generally known and familiar to posterity or generations of psychologists. Oelze (1991) notes in his condensed account of the psychology of nations that Wundt’s diligence never slackened, that he wrote without ceasing and that he was, so to speak, “a scientist out of passion”. The passion for science that is evoked in these words is certainly typical of Wundt and is also echoed in the sentence that Wundt wrote to his fiancée Sophie Mau in 1872: “I am too ambitious to be vain”. That this ambition after initially difficult times finally bears fruit towards the end of the last century can be seen very concretely, for example, in the turnover of his books, which sold well and always had many editions. With “Grundriß der Psychologie”, one of his most popular works, which was first published in 1897, he had 12 (!) editions. His legendare and voluminous book (Gründzüge…..) had 6 editions.

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Wundt was often referred to as “universal thinker” with which he was compared to Leibnitz due to his unbelievable knowledge, and with reference to his neighbouring discipline. Since he was no one who sat at home (see chapter 5) but rather actively exchanged thoughts and maintained contact with others, he was always up to date with the current level despite the fact and to the annoyance of others he never visited any Congress. As Hellpach (1948) exactly noted, Wundt was ”a predominantly synthetic spirit that summarizes individual results and puts them under a leading point of view” He obviously had a secure view of the essential and was also a forward looking thinker. Noticeable, was also his enormous talent, to organize Science and to establish it as an Institute. (see chapter 9) His contact with the Historian Lamprecht led to the discussion of a Foundation University after the American example, which for that time wasan advanced and forward- looking idea. That he didn’t give up this idea despite advancing

Figure 66: Tombstone of Wundt family at the Leipzig Südfriedhof

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years,testifies again to his idealistic aims which he had and experienced during his political activities. Thus, is the “spiritual” the posterity of Wundt by inscription on his grave stone (see fig. 66): God is spirit and those who worship him must do so in spirit and truth.

Whereby, on the grave stone of his wife it reads: God is love, and those that stay in his love, stays with God and God with him.

Wundt and his descendants After the death of her father, his daughter Eleonore collected everything which he had written or had been written about him. According to Schlotte (1955) it was “her own scientific achievement the creating of the Wundt Archives, the Bibliography “Wilhelm Wundt`s Work” (1927) as well as the Biography of her father in the German Biography Yearbook (1928) The valuable archive material which Max and Eleonore Wundt presented to the Leipzig University, continues to be a valuable and unending source of material,

Figure 67: Wundt and his grandson August in Heidelberg 1919

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not only to the work from Wilhelm Wundt but the spiritual history around the turn of the century. After the death of her father, Eleonore remained single and died in 1957 in her 81st year of life in Großbothen by Leipzig. Wundt`s son Max, who habilitated in Philosophy in 1909 in Strasbourg, and later as Philosophy Professor in Tübingen, married Senta von Waltershausen(1885-1961) in Strasbourg on the 30.July 1910. They had four sons. From the four grandchildren, Wundt himself was able to see two of them in his lifetime. August Wundt (see fig. 67) who was born in 1914, studied Law and later as a soldier was a victim of the 2nd world War and was listed as missing. The second grandchild, Hermann Wundt, born in 1915, studied Economics, graduated in this subject, later worked in Banking and lived with his wife in Aalen. Grandson Wilhelm Wundt born in 1919, studied Medicine and was later the Director of the Institute for Hygiene and Med. Microbiology in the University of Heidelberg. He lived as Emeritus with his wife in Mannheim. Grandson Reinhard, born in 1922 in Jena, learnt to be a gardener and lives in Mariaberg, on the Schwäbische Alb today. Wundt`s son Max died in 1963 at the age of 84 in Tübingen.

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Hellpach, W.: Wirken in Wirren. Christian Wegner Verlag, Hamburg, 1948. Helmholtz, H. v.: Brief an Adolf Fick vom 16. Dezember 1872 (Zitiert bei Schlotte). Hippius, H., Peters, G. & Ploog, D. (Eds.): Emil Kraepelin – Lebenserinnerungen, Berlin: Springer, 1983. Kessler, G.: Wilhelm Wundt’s Ahnenerbe. Familiengeschichtliche Blätter, 31. Jahrgang, Leipzig, 1933, Heft 7/8, 1-16. Kotowski, G. (Ed.): Historisches Lesebuch 3, 1914-1933. Frankfurt: Fischer, 1968. Kraepelin, E.: Brief vom 2.2.1895 an Wilhelm Wundt. Kraepelin, E.: Die Arbeitscurve, Philosophische Studien, Band 19, Leipzig 1902. Mau, Sophie: Tagebuch 1872, Wundt-Familienarchiv, Tübingen. Meischner, W. & Eschler, E.: Wilhelm Wundt. Urania Verlag, Leipzig-Jena-Berlin, 1979. Meischner, W. & Metge, A.: Die Rolle Wilhelm Wundts bei der Herausbildung der experimentellen Psychologie. Wiss. Zeitschr. der KMU Leipzig, 29, 1980, Heft 2, 151-159. Neu, D.: Die Familie Wundt in Heidelberg und Wieblingen. Heidelberger Neueste Nachrichten, 18. Oktober 1928. Nitsche, W.: Einleitung zum Reprint der “Vorlesungen über die Menschen- und Tierseele”. Berlin: Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, 1990. Oelze, B.: Wilhelm Wundt – Die Konzeption der Völkerpsychologie. Münster: Waxmann Verlags GmbH, 1991. Oldigs-Kerber, J. & Leonard, J.P. (Eds.): Pharmakopsychologie – Experimentelle und klinische Aspekte. Jena: Gustav Fischer Verlag, 1992. Ostwald, W.: Lebenslinien. Eine Selbstbiographie. Berlin: Klasing und Co. GmbH, 1926/27. Petersen, P.: Wilhelm Wundt und seine Zeit. Fr. Frommanns Verlag (H. Kurtz), Stuttgart, 1925. Roesler, G.: Ahnentafel des Psychologen und Philosophen Wilhelm Wundt. Universitätsarchiv Tübingen. Sander, F.: Friedrich Sander. In: Psychologie in Selbstdarstellungen. Bern: Huber, 1972, 309333. Scheerer, E.: Kämpfer des Wortes: Die Ideologie deutscher Psychologen im Ersten Weltkrieg und ihr Einfluß auf die Psychologie der Weimarer Zeit. Psychologie und Geschichte, 1989, 1 (3), 12-22. Schieder, T.: Vom Deutschen Bund zum Deutschen Reich. In: Gebhardt (Ed.): Handbuch der deutschen Geschichte, Band 15. München: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1992. Schlotte, F.: Beiträge zum Lebensbild Wilhelm Wundt’s aus seinem Briefwechsel. Wiss. Zeitschr. der KMU Leipzig, 1955/56, 5, 333-349. Sokal, M.M.: An Education in Psychology. James McKeen Cattell’s Journal and Letters from Germany and England, Cambridge: MIT Press, 1980. Sprung, H. & Sprung, L.: Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt – Vater der experimentellen Psychologie. In: Clair, J., Pichler, C. & W. Pircher (Eds.): Wunderblock. Eine Geschichte der modernen Seele. Löcker Verlag, Wien, 1989, 343-350. Ungerer, G.A.: Wilhelm Wundt und Heidelberg. Badische Heimat, 1978, Heft 1, 31-43. Ungerer, G.A.: Heidelberg vor der Reichsgründung 1871. Der Freundeskreis Wilhelm Wundts. Badische Heimat, 1979, Heft 3, 423-438.

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Ungerer, G.A.: Wilhelm Wundt als Psychologe und Politiker. Anmerkungen zur Biographie Psychologische Rundschau, Band XXXI, 2, 1980, 99-110. Ungerer, G.A.: Völkerpsychologie-Ethik-Politik. Wilhelm Wundt und der Erste Weltkrieg. Beitrag zum Wundt-Symposium 1979, Heidelberg. Ungerer, G.A.: Persönliche Mitteilung, Juli 1993. Vorwerg, M.: Festvortrag anlässlich des 100-jährigen Jubiläums des von Wilhelm Wundt gegründeten Institutes für experimentelle Psychologie an der Universität Leipzig. Leipziger Universitätsreden, Heft 57, 1980, 15-30. Wundt, E.: Wilhelm Wundt’s Werk. München: Beck, 1927. Wundt, E.: Wilhelm Wundt: Deutsche Biographisches Jahrbuch, Band 10. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, 1928. Wundt, M.: Brief vom 31.8.1920 an Prof. Volkelt. Wundt-Archiv der Universität Leipzig. Wundt, Sophie: Tagebücher der Jahre 1874 bis 1880. Wundt-Familienarchiv, Tübingen. Wundt, Sophie: - Brief vom 4.7.1878 an W. Wundt - Brief vom 4.8.1884 an W. Wundt - Brief vom 18.9.1884 an W. Wundt Wundt, W.: - Brief vom 25.06.1856 an seine Mutter - Brief vom 04.08.1865 an seine Mutter - Brief vom 06.09.1868 an seine Mutter - Brief von 1857 an Marie Cornill - Brief vom 09.03.1869 an Marie Cornill - Brief vom 25.12.1872 an Adolph Cornill - Brief von 1865 an J. Holtzmann - Brief vom 08.08.1872 an J. Holtzmann - Brief vom 27.05.1872 an Sophie Mau - Brief vom 01.06.1872 an Sophie Mau - Brief vom 11.06.1872 an Sophie Mau - Brief vom 15.06.1872 an Sophie Mau - Brief vom 26.06.1872 an Sophie Mau - Brief vom 30.07.1872 an Sophie Mau - Brief vom 17.06.1875 an Sophie Wundt - Brief vom 28.07.1890 an Eleonore Wundt - Brief vom 27.06.1908 an Max Wundt - Brief vom 28.01.1909 an Max Wundt - Brief vom 02.02.1892 an W. Jerusalem - Brief vom 01.09.1882 an Emil Kraepelin - Brief vom 16.10.1884 an Emil Kraepelin - Brief vom 01.07.1892 an Oskar Bülow - Brief vom 02.11.1902 an Oskar Bülow - Brief vom 12.11.1890 an Hugo Münsterberg - Brief vom 26.10.1907 an Oswald Külpe Wundt, W.: Beiträge zur Theorie der Sinneswahrnehmung. Leipzig, 1862. Wundt, W.: Vorlesungen über die Menschen- und Tierseele. Leipzig: Leopold Voß, 1863. Wundt, W.: Grundzüge der Physiologischen Psychologie. Leipzig: Engelmann, 1874.

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Wundt, W.: Grundriß der Psychologie, Leipzig: Engelmann, 1896. Wundt, W.: Das Institut für experimentelle Psychologie zu Leipzig. Psychologische Studien V, 1910, 279-293. Wundt, W.: Ueber den wahrhaften Krieg. Leipziger Neueste Nachrichten, 11.9.1914 ,Universitätsarchiv Tübingen. Wundt, W.: Die Nationen und ihre Philosophie. Leipzig: Kröner, 1915. Wundt, W.: Erlebtes und Erkanntes. Stuttgart: Kröner, 1920.

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Source directory 1.

Wilhelm Wundt (1920): Erlebtes und Erkanntes, Stuttgart: Kröner

2.

Eleonore Wundt (1928): Wilhelm Wundt, Deutsches Biographisches Jahrbuch, Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, 626-636

3.

Correspondence between Wilhelm and Sophie Wundt, Tübingen: Familiy archive

4.

Diaries of Sophie Wundt 1872 – 1874, Tübingen: Familiy archive

5.

Correspondence between Wilhelm and Max Wundt, Tübingen: University archive

6.

Schlotte, F. (1955/56): Beiträge zum Lebensbild Wilhelm Wundt´s aus einem Briefwechsel, Wiss. Zeitschrift der KMU Leipzig, 333 – 349

7.

Meischner, W. & E. Eschler (1979): Wilhelm Wundt, Urania – Verlag . Leipzig. Jena – Berlin

8.

Bringmann, W.G. & Tweney, R.D. (Hrsg): Wundt Studies, Toronto: Hogrefe Verlag, 1980

9.

Fischel, W. (1959): Wilhelm Wundt und Emil Kraepelin – Gedanken über einen Briefwechsel, Wiss. Zeitschrift der KMU Leipzig, 382-391

10. Petersen, P. (1925): Wilhelm Wundt und seine Zeit , Stuttgart: Fr. Frommanns Verlag 11. Conversations with the relatives of Wundt familiy in Aaalen, Mannheim and Tübingen

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Legends of figures Figure 1:

“Karl Marx (1818–1890), philosopher, economist and publicist.” Georg Lamberti, Bad-Honnef

Figure 2:

“Contemporary engraving of entry of National Assembly into the Paulskirche in Frankfurt 1848.” Georg Lamberti, Bad Honnef.

Figure 3:

“Contemporary engraving of the old Heidelberg train station 1847.” Buch- und Kunstantiquariat G.H. Schreyer, Bonn.

Figure 4:

“Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882), naturalist and founder of the evolution theory about 1860.” From: Charles Darwin, Autobiografie, Urania-Verlag, Leipzig, 1959.

Figure 5:

“Former evangelical church in Neckarau before the turn of the century.” With the kind approval of W.G. Bringmann, Mobile, Alabama, USA.

Figure 6:

“Oil portrait of Maximilian Wundt (1787-1846).” Oberlehrer a.D. Förster, Leutershausen/Odenwald

Figure 7:

“Evangelical rectory in Heidelsheim/Baden from today‘s perspective.” Georg Lamberti, Bad Honnef (image capture from July 1992).

Figure 8:

“Oil portrait of Marie Friederike Arnold (1797-1868).” With kind approval of Dr. med. Ruth Wund, Mannheim.

Figure 9:

“Birth entry in the church book of Mannheim-Neckarau.” Evangelisches Pfarramt Mannheim-Neckarau.

Figure 10: “Basement stairs in the evangelical rectory of Heidelsheim.” Christel Lamberti, Bad-Honneff (image capture from July 1993). Figure 11: “Look of Wund‘s former study at the Heidelsheim city gate from today‘s perspective.” Christel Lamberti, Bad-Honneff (image capture from July 1993). Figure 12: “School of Heidelsheim in which Wundt started 1838.” Willi Richter, Bruchsal-Heidelsheim. Figure 13: “Former Heidelberg high school, where Wundt graduated 1851.” Georg Lamberti, Bad Honnef (image capture from March 1994). Figure 14: “Hölderlin tower on the bank of the Neckar in Tübingen from today‘s perspective.” Georg Lamberti, Bad Honnef (image capture from July 1992). Figure 15: “First page of Wund‘s first experimental study 1853.” Journal für praktische Chemie, Jahrgang 1853. Figure 16: “Former woman‘s clinic in Heidelberg from today‘s perspective.” Georg Lamberti, Bad Honnef (image capture from March 1994). Figure 17: “Contemporary engraving of Brandenburg Gate in 1850.” Georg Lamberti, Bad-Honnef. Figure 18: “Panorama picture of the Rigi in the central Switzerland.” Georg Lamberti, Bad-Honnef. Figure 19: “Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-1894).” With kind approval of the “Bildarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz”, Berlin. Figure 20: “The House to the Giants in Heidelberg from today‘s perspective.” Georg Lamberti, Bad Honnef (image capture from July 1992).

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Figure 21: “Wundt‘s friend, the theologian Adolf Hausrath (1837-1909).” With kind approval of G. A. Ungerer. Figure 22: “The former museum building in Heidelberg.” With kind approval of G. A. Ungerer. Figure 23: “Henriette Feuerbach (1812-1892).” With kind approval of G. A. Ungerer. Figure 24: “August Bebel (1840-1913), leader of the Leipzig workers‘ training association.” Georg Lamberti, Bad Honnef. Figure 25: “The house „Weißer Schwanen“ at the hay market in Heidelberg from today‘s perspective.” Georg Lamberti, Bad Honnef (image capture from March 1994). Figure 26: “Seat of the Second Baden state chamber in Karlsruhe.” With kind approval of G. A. Ungerer. Figure 27: “Newspaper advertisement of Wundt‘s resignation in 1869.” With kind approval of G. A. Ungerer. Figure 28: “Sketch of Albert Hall in Leipzig.” With kind approval of G. A. Ungerer. Figure 29: “Title page of „Grundzüge der Physiologischen Psychologie“ 1874.” Georg Lamberti, Bad Honnef. Figure 30: “Sophie Wundt (1844-1912), born als Sophie Mau, in the year 1882.” Wundt Family Archive, Tübingen. Figure 31: “Engagement announcement of Sophie Mau and Wilhelm Wundt 1872.” Wundt Family Archive, Tübingen. Figure 32: “Look at the living room of the Wundt family at Goethe street in Leipzig.” Wundt Archive, University of Leipzig. Figure 33: “Sophie Wundt with her one year old daughter Eleonore in 1877.” Wundt Family Archive, Tübingen. Figure 34: “Title page of a poetry notebook, produced by the 11 years old Eleonore.” Wundt Family Archive, Tübingen. Figure 35: “Eleonore Wundt at the age of 10 years.” Wundt Family Archive, Tübingen. Figure 36: “Max Wundt at the age of 3 years.” Wundt Family Archive, Tübingen. Figure 37: “Copy of a letter by W. Wundt, written to his 8 years old son Max.” Archive of Tübingen University. Figure 38: “Lili Wundt at the age of about 2 years.” Wundt Familienarchiv, Tübingen. Figure 39: “Memory picture of the Wundt family 1895 at „Molkenkur/Heidelberg”.” Wundt Family Archive, Tübingen. Figure 40: “Wundt at his favorite hobby in the garden of his Heidelberg home.” Wundt Family Archive, Tübingen. Figure 41: “Group picture of Wundt‘s 70th birthday in Tambach/Thüringen.” Wundt Family Archive, Tübingen. Figure 42: “Front view of the Wundt house Plöck No. 48 Heidelberg.” Wundt Family Archive, Tübingen. Figure 43: “Front view of the house in Großbothen, where Wundt died 1920.” Christel Lamberti, Bad-Honnef (image capture from May 1993).

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Figure 44: “Wundt rewriting an article at the veranda about 1915.” Wundt Family Archive, Tübingen. Figure 45: “Wilhelm Wundt together with Felix Krüger.” Wundt Family Archive, Tübingen. Figure 46: “Psychophysicist Gustav Theodor Fechner (1801-1887).” Wundt Archive of Leipzig University. Figure 47: “View at Goethe street in Leipzig around the turn of the century.” Wundt Archive of Leipzig University. Figure 48: “The former convict house in the Leipzig university courtyard.” G. A. Ungerer, Heidelberg Figure 49: “Sketch of an experimental room about 1883 (by Bringmann).” With the kind approval of W.G. Bringmann, Mobile, Alabama, USA. Figure 50: “View at the working rooms of the old Leipzig university.” Wundt Archive of Leipzig University. Figure 51: The “HIPP Chronoscope“ (with kind approval by the Wundt Archive of Leipzig) Figure 52: “The tachistoscope constructed by James McKeen Cattell.” From: Rudolf Schulze: Die moderne Seelenlehre, 1921. Figure 53: “Layout of institute of experimental psychology about 1897.” Gathered from: W. Wundt, Psychologische Studien, 1910. Figure 54: “Wilhelm Wundt in the company of his employees about 1912 (from left to right: Dittrich, Wirth, Wundt, Klemm, Sander).” Wundt family archive, Tübingen. Figure 55: “James McKeen Cattell (1860-1944).” Institute of Psychology, University of Bonn. Figure 56: “Emil Kraepelin (1856-1926) in the year 1910.” With kind approval of Springer publishing company. Figure 57: “Neuroanatomist Paul Flechsig (1847-1929) in his working room.” With kind approval of Löcker publishing company, Wien. Figure 58: “Prof. Paul Flechsig at patient presentation in auditorium of psychiatric clinic in Leipzig.” Stadtgeschichtliches Museum, Leipzig. Figure 59: “Sting of the „Flora by Tizian“ – Wundt‘s wedding gift to the married couple Kraepelin.” Georg Lamberti, Bad-Honnef. Figure 60: “Friedrich Kiesow (1858-1940), founder of experimental psychology in Italy.” Wundt Archive of Leipzig University. Figure 61: “The „young Wundt“ during the 60ies of the 19th century.” With kind approval of Prof. Dr. Bringmann, Alabama, USA. Figure 62: “The married couple Sophie and Wilhelm Wundt about 1897.” Wundt Familiy Archive, Tübingen. Figure 63: “Wundt with his 20 years old son Max in 1899.” Wundt Familiy Archive, Tübingen. Figure 64: “Wundt and his loyal companion Eleonore.” Wundt Familiy Archive, Tübingen. Figure 65: “Wundt during his summer vacation at the sea.” Wundt Familiy Archive, Tübingen. Figure 66: “Tombstone of Wundt family at the Leipzig Südfriedhof.” Georg Lamberti, Bad Honnef (image capture from August 1992) Figure 67: “Wundt and his grandson August in Heidelberg 1919.” Wundt Familiy Archive, Tübingen.

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