6. Völkerpsychologie. The psychology of the nine-
teenth century gave birth to a discipline known as
Völkerpsychologie. The relation between this trend and
the concept of Volksgeist comes to the fore in the use
of this term by M. Lazarus (1824-1903), one of the
founders of the school. The spirit of the people is
inherent in the social constitution and in all that which
makes a state. Not only is the term Volksgeist used here,
but the relation between the formative Volksgeist and
statehood is also put forward. The importance of lan-
guage for expressing the spirit of a people also appears
in the school, mainly in the works of H. Steinthal. The
difference between the position of this school and the
thinkers discussed above seems to lie in the fact that
Volksgeist ceases to be an underlying principle expres-
sing itself in the historical reality of peoples, but now
becomes a product or a manifestation of the individuals
themselves. Volksgeist subsists in the products of the
minds of different peoples. From this point of view
we may say that Völkerpsychologie was concerned with
the subject matter created by individuals and not with
one preceding them. Lazarus oscillates between a view
which underlines the created and secondary character
of a people's psyche (Volksseele) and a view which
attributes to it an independent position of its own, in
spite of its secondary status. There are thus elements
and laws of the spiritual life of peoples and these have
to be investigated by a special branch of science.
Wilhelm Wundt took issue with the program of this
school as presented by Lazarus and Steinthal, arguing
that their program is based on a presupposition which
defies the fundamentals of Herbart's psychology since
it assumes a soul other than the individual one. Wundt
tried to arrive at a conclusion which takes the soul
of the people to be an outcome of individual elements
and experiences, to a greater extent than had been done
by Lazarus in the implicit reflections of the traditional
notion of
Volksgeist. He stresses the genetic and causal
investigation of the facts underlying human society.
Volksseele is a result of individual souls which compose
the collective
psyche, but the individual souls are no
less the results of the
Volksseele in which they partici-
pate. Wundt distinguishes between the common
consciousness (
Gesamtbewusstsein) which finds its
expression in language, myth, and customs, and the
common will (
Gesamtwille) which finds its expression
in common decisions.
