nner
purposes. In short, we do not take them at all as objects but as
functions of the subject, and our dealing with them has no similarity
to the method of the naturalist.

This method of practical life in which we seek to express and to
understand a meaning, and relate every will-act to its aim, is not
confined to the mere popular aspect; it can lead to very systematic
scholarly treatment. It is exactly the treatment which is fundamental
in the case of all history, for example, or of law, or of logic. That
is, the historian makes us understand the meaning of a personality of
the past and is really interested in past events only as far as human
needs are to be interpreted. It would be pseudo-psychology, if we
called such an account in the truly historical spirit a psychological
description and explanation. The student of law interprets the meaning
of the will of the legislator; he does not deal with the idea of the
law as a psychological content. And the logician has nothing to do
with the idea as a conscious object in the mind; he asks as to the
inner relations of it and as to the conclusions from the premises. In
short, wherever historical interpretations or logical deductions are
needed, we move on in the sphere of human life as it presents itself
from the standpoint of immediate true experience without artificially
moulding it into the conceptions of psychology. On the other hand, as
soon as the psychological method is applied, this immediate life
meaning of human experience is abandoned, and instead of it is gained
the possibility of considering the whole experience as a system of
causes and effects. Mental life is then no longer what it is to us in
our daily intercourse, because it is reconstructed for the purposes of
this special treatment, just as the water which we drink is no longer
our beverage if we consider it under the point of view of chemistry as
a combination of hydrogen and oxygen. Hence we have not two statements
one of which is true and the other ultimately untrue; on the contrary,
both are true. We have a perfect right to give the value of truth to
our experience with water as a refreshing drink, and also to the
formula of the chemist. With a still better right we may claim that
both kinds of mental experience are equally true. Hence not a word of
objection is raised against the discussions of the historians and the
philosophers, if we insist that their so-called psychology stands
outside of the r