Although the first edition of Gockel’s book was published four years
before Casmann’s, Casmann is even today sometimes quoted as the author
of the term »psychology«, either because the informants do not know
Gockel’s work or are careless in comparing the dates of the publication
of the first editions of Casmann’s and Gockel’s book. Surprisingly enough,
the latest edition of Larousse Encyclopedia (6 tomes) also ascribes
priority in the use of the word »psychology« to Casmann. On p. 27, tome
II, under the name Casmann Othon, we can read as follows:
»He is the first writer to use the word psychology for the science of
the soul which, however, he considers only a part of somatology (the
science of the body). His main work is entitled »Psychologia anthropo-
logica sive Animae humanae doctrina.«
This quotation is all the more surprising because in a large, much
older dictionary of the same publishing firm (Grand dictionnaire
universal Larousse) we can find a more correct piece of information. In
the 13th tome of this imposing dictionary, p. 376, we can read as follows:
»Although psychologic science is as old as philosophy itself, the word
denoting it is new and goes back not further than the 16th century when
Goclenius, today a quite unknown German philosopher, used it in his
work entitled
-yv%oXoyia
, hoc est de hominis perfectione, anima, ortu etc
(Marbourg, 1590 in 8°).«
Priority in the term »psychology« is also recognized to Gockel by
Cberweg’s large manual of the history of philosophy. When giving data
on Rudolf Goclenius it is said:
» ... in addition to numerous treatises on logic .. he is also the
author of
yjvyoXoyia,
h. e. de hominis perfectione, anima etc, Marburg
1590 (the first written document using the word psychology in its title)«.
(F. Uberweg, Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie, Part III, Berlin
1924, p. 110).
Almost the same quotation can be found in the big »Lexicon of
Philosophers« published in Berlin in 1949. Quoting the already mentioned
work
yjvyoXoyia
among Goclenius’s works, the authors add in brackets:
>the first written document using the term psychology* (W. Ziegenfuss
— G. Jung, Philosophen-Lexicon, Berlin 1949, tome I, p. 394). Schmidt’s
(nazified) philosophical dictionary from 1943 also says:
»Goclenius Rudolf. . . by his work »Psychologia« (1590) has given
the first written document containing the word psychology in its title...«
(H. Schmidt, Philosophisehes Worterbuch. Tenth Edition, Stuttgart 1943,
p. 200).
The same is stated in Kirchner-Michaelis’s dictionary of philosophic
notions (rewritten by J. Hoffmeister):
The term »psychology. . . as the title of a book was used first by
R. Goclenius (Psychologia, 1590) and then enlarged by Chr. W olff...«
(F. Kirchner-Michaelis — J. Hoffmeister, Worterbuch der philosophischen
Begriffe, Leipzig 1944, p. 561—2).
However, most books I have succeeded in consulting, although they
quote Gockel’s »Psychology«, state categorically or quote it as probable
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