Melanchton is also claimed to have used this word »als Vorlesungstitel«
(Eucken, Geschichte der philosophischen Terminologie, p. 75; according
to Volkmann, who gives no more particulars.). I myself could not find
this title in any of the 25 tomes of his collected works, Corpus Refor-
matorum, edition Bretschneider. In it, tome 13, p. 4, in a preface giving
successive titles of the treatise D e A n i m a, one can only find the
following remark made by the editor: »Melanchtonus primus inter
Germanos quos scimus, p s y c h o l o g i a m in hoc libro tractavit« (in this
work Melanchton, the first among the Germans we know, deals with
psychology). Is this perhaps the origin of the quoted claim?« (G. Dumas,
Nouveau traite de Psychologie, tome I, Paris 1930, p. 367).
Lalande has drawn attention to his opinion also in the latest
extensive »Technical-Critical Dictionary of Philosophy« edited by him
self and published by the French Philosophical Society. There, in an
article on psychology, we can read: »The word psychology goes back to
the 16th century (see A. Lalande, introduction to Traite de Psychologie
of G. Dumas or Nouveau Traite, edited by the same author, tome I,
p. 367) but came into common use only in the 18th century through
Wolff’s works P s y c h o l o g i a e m p i r i c a and P s y c h o l o g i a
r a t i o n a l i s (1732—1734). The word became widely used in France
thanks to Maine de Biran and the eclectic school which took it as the
name of the one of the four main sections of its leaming.« (A. Lalande,
Vocabulaire technique et critique de la philosophic, 6th edit., Paris 1951,
p. 854).
In connection with the origin of the word »psychology* I have only
quoted a few standard or more widely known works in which this kind
of information is usually looked for. I want to add, however, that a series
of similar works consulted do not say a single word about the matter we
are interested in. Thus, for example, Encyclopaedia Britannica (from 1961),
the Soviet Bolsaja enciclopedija (1955), the large Brockhaus containing
12 tomes (1956), the Meyer Lexicon in 21 tomes (1909), Herder’s Lexicon
in 12 tomes (1934), and Mauthner’s Philosophical Dictionary (Miinchen
1910) say either nothing or something very vague about the origin of the
term »psychologia«.
To examine the matter as thoroughly as possible, I also looked up in
a few dictionaries containing Latin and Greek words used by the writers
of the Middle Ages or the beginning of the Modem History, but in none
of them could I find the word »psychology« or, to be more exact, a word
composed of the Greek elements
ipvyri
and —
loyia.
The results of all these investigations could be summarized as
follows: According to the present state of terminological-historical
studies the word »psychology*, in its Greek form and in Greek letters,
appeared for the first time in the work of Rudolf Gockel
»ipvxokoyia,
hoc
est de corporis perfectione anima, etc.« in 1590. No evidence has so far
been found for Melanchton’s authorship of this word, but even if it were,
it would originate from about 1530 when the first edition of Melanchton’s
lectures »on the soul« (»De anima«, Wittenberg 1530) appeared.
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