With an emphasis on developments taking place in Germany during the nineteenth century, this book provides in-depth examinations of the key contributions made by the pioneers of scientific psychology. Their works brought measurement and mathematics into the study of the mind. Through unique analysis of measurement theory by Whewell, mathematical developments by Gauss, and theories of mental processes developed by Herbart, Weber, Fechner, Helmholtz, Müller, Delboeuf and others, this volume maps the beliefs, discoveries, and interactions that constitute the very origins of psychophysics and its offspring Experimental Psychology. Murray and Link expertly combine nuanced understanding of linguistic and historic factors to identify theoretical approaches to relating physicalintensities and psychological magnitudes. With an eye to interactions and influences on future work in the field, the volume illustrates the important legacy that mathematical developments in the nineteenth century have for twentieth and twenty-first century psychologists. This detailed and engaging account fills a deep gap in the history of psychology. The Creation of Scientific Psychology will appeal to researchers, academics, and students in the fields of history of psychology, psychophysics, scientific, and mathematical psychology.

The great Victorian novelist's complete surviving journals - first publication of new George Eliot text.

Originally published in 1964, the story of the development of psychology in Great Britain had never been told. In the 1840s, when John Stuart Mill wrote about ‘Psychology’ in his treatise on Logic, the word was hardly known to the British public. Today the subject is taught in nearly every university, and psychologists are professionally employed by many public bodies. The British contribution to the dramatic rise of psychology was an exceptionally important one, and had been shamefully neglected not only by the public but by British psychologists themselves. The tendency at the time to regard the subject through American spectacles distorted the role of British pioneers. Significant British contributions had been almost completely forgotten – those of Carpenter, Lewes, Spalding and Lubbock for example – and the work of men such as Hughlings Jackson and Romanes had been greatly undervalued. Not the least important feature of the book is its reassessment of the work of many individuals. In relating the rise of psychology and its application to concomitant developments in medicine, physiology, biology, sociology, anthropology and statistics and to changes in the prevailing philosophic climate, the author shows psychology to be an integral part of the scientific, intellectual and social history of the past century.