Psychology in Middlemarch

[kev67]

I have read Middlemarch described as a psychological novel several times. It is true the characters and their motives are very well described and seem realistic. However, I was surprised to read the word 'psychology' in chapter 30: "a medical man likes to make psychological observation". The book was written about 1870, and was set about 1830, when Lydgate was reported having this thought. I thought that Sigmund Freud was the father of psychology, and that he did not get going until near the turn of the century. OTOH, phrenology, the practice of ascertaining a person's personality by the bumps on his skull had been around for a while. Phrenology was referred to in Jane Eyre. Phrenology was part of psychology, even if it now discredited.

[kev67]

I noticed that Elliot used to word egoism several times in chapter 53. Again I was surprised. I have not studied psychology, but I thought the ego, superego and the id were all terms invented by Sigmund Freud some time later.

[Frostball]

This seems like an interesting puzzle. I don't have an answer for you, and haven't even read Middlemarch. However, I just wanted to mention that Freud was known as the father of Psychoanalysis. It was a German man, Wilhelm Wundt who was born about 25 years earlier that was known as the father of experimental psychology, and was the first person to call himself a psychologist.

Looking up the definition of psychology on google and clicking on the little arrow tab shows both origins and a graph of how frequent the word has been used over time. It seems the word psychology has been used with gradually increasing frequency since the early 19th century. So from this, I deduce that the word psychology predates actual psychological practice. The word ego seems to be older still, meaning "I" in Latin. My guess is that ego didn't have it's exact freudian meaning and relation with superego and id, but maybe it was still used as a word for the sense of self one feels--the "I" inside our heads.

[Gladys]

Of the many dabbling in psychology, before Freud, I think of the philosophers Soren Kierkegaard, William James and George Eliot herself. I'm sure there were many, many more. Sigmund Freud may have been one of the first to study psychology, as formal discipline, and earn a living from practising it.

[kev67]

Of the many dabbling in psychology, before Freud, I think of the philosophers Soren Kierkegaard, William James and George Eliot herself. I'm sure there were many, many more. Sigmund Freud may have been one of the first to study psychology, as formal discipline, and earn a living from practising it.


Is this William James the brother of Henry James?
Was George Elliot a psychologist?
Even if there had been some dabbling in psychology, I am surprised it was common enough knowledge for Elliot to expect her readers to have heard about it.
How clued up was the average Victorian reader about advances in social science?

[mal4mac]

Is this William James the brother of Henry James?

Yes, but wasn't he after George Eliot? Certainly after the time in which Middlemarch is set.


Was George Elliot a psychologist?

No. But she was extremely well read, so she would have known of any serious work going on in this area, and not just that published in English. She translated some heavy works of German philosophy, and the Germans were using the term from the mid 16th century:

psychology (n.)
1650s, "study of the soul," from Modern Latin psychologia, probably coined mid-16c. in Germany by Melanchthon from Latinized form of Greek psykhe- "breath, spirit, soul" (see psyche) + logia "study of" (see -logy). Meaning "study of the mind" first recorded 1748, from Christian Wolff's "Psychologia empirica" (1732); main modern behavioral sense is from early 1890s.



Even if there had been some dabbling in psychology, I am surprised it was common enough knowledge for Elliot to expect her readers to have heard about it. How clued up was the average Victorian reader about advances in social science?

The term isn't in Dr Johnson's dictionary (I looked!), but one suspects it would have made it into dictionaries by George Eliot's time. Also she might expect her readers to have the modicum of classical knowledge necessary to guess that psychology meant "study of the soul".

[mal4mac]

The word ego seems to be older still, meaning "I" in Latin. My guess is that ego didn't have it's exact freudian meaning and relation with superego and id, but maybe it was still used as a word for the sense of self one feels--the "I" inside our heads.

Actually "ego" comes originally from the Greek. The root words of psychology are also Greek (psyche - "soul", ology - "study of") I'd guess that most Victorian readers, with their heavyweight classical education, could put psyche and -ology together to get the meaning even if they had not encountered the word "psychology" before.