Historical Context

The study of the mind is hardly a new endeavor. Eastern intellectuals, including Muslim (Sufi) thinkers such as Afghanistan's Jalaludal Rumi and El Ghazali from Persia, and the writings of philosophers, physicians, and priests in Ancient Egypt and Greece, all refer to the study of what we would term psychology. But it was the thinkers of the nineteenth century, in Europe and specifically in Germany and Austria, who made strides to establish the field of psychology as we know it today. One of the earliest of these nineteenth-century intellectuals was the "father of modern psychology," Wilhelm Wundt, discussed above. Born in 1832, in a small village near Heidelberg, Germany, he studied medicine at Heidelberg, Tübingen, and Berlin. His major interest and earliest book concerned physiology, specifically the action of the muscles of the body and how they responded to specific...