Editing Wilhelm Wundt (section)

=== Starting point ===
As a result of his medical training and his work as an assistant to Hermann von Helmholtz, Wundt knew the benchmarks of experimental research, as well as the speculative nature of psychology in the mid-19th century. Wundt's aspiration for scientific research and the necessary methodological critique were clear when he wrote of the language of ordinary people, who merely invoked their personal experiences of life, criticized naive introspection, or quoted the influence of uncritical amateur ("folk") psychology on psychological interpretation.<ref>Wundt: Völkerpsychologie, 1900, Volume 1, p. 15; Wundt: Logik, 1921, Volume 3, p. 297.</ref> 
 
His ''Beiträge zur Theorie der Sinneswahrnehmung'' (1862) shows Wundt's transition from a physiologist to an experimental psychologist. "Why does not psychology follow the example of the natural sciences? It is an understanding that, from every side of the history of the natural sciences, informs us that the progress of every science is closely connected with the progress made regarding experimental methods."<ref>Wundt: Beiträge zur Theorie der Sinneswahrnehmung, 1862, p. XI.</ref> With this statement, however, he will in no way treat psychology as a pure natural science, though psychologists should learn from the progress of methods in the natural sciences: "There are two sciences that must come to the aid of general psychology in this regard: the development history of the mind and comparative psychology."<ref>Wundt: Beiträge, 1862, p. XVI.</ref>