Historical Context

Wundt's life spanned 88 years. The world into which he was born in 1832 was certainly very different from the world in which he died—a post-World War I Germany. Europe was undergoing enormous political and physical changes. The landscape of what had been a continent of small kingdoms and tiny countries had evolved into a Europe of fewer countries and more deadly wars. Greece had become an independent state. Prince Otto of Wittlesbach became King of Bavaria before that nation joined a unified Germany. The medieval cannon-and-sword warfare had evolved into the airplanes, bombs, and the battles of a new century. Medical and scientific advances were slowly making the world a place with increasing life expectancy, wider opportunities for travel, and more accessible education to a class of people who could not have hoped for such intellectual adventures just decades earlier. The...