Gustav Theodor Fechner (1801–1887)

Well worth reading. Fechner was a scientist and early psychologist; before science was synonymous with atheistic materialism, of course. Today some of his ideas might be considered slightly bizarre. He had the belief that plants had souls. Some of that thought is included in this book. It was part and parcel of his system referred to as panpsychism. Certainly, he makes a good case that plants have some life essence, but using the word "soul" might be extreme; or at least too ambiguous. Greek has three common words to denote life: bios, psyche and zoe. I would certainly ascribe to plants the first, but the second I would only grant if one were to distinguish human psychical life from plant psychical life; and I would certainly not ascribe to plants zoe life.
One can't help noticing some strong similarities to Rudolf Steiner's thought in this book; if you are familiar with his work at all. Apparently, Steiner was heavily influenced by Fechner and that is obvious reading this book. I would probably rather read Fechner though. Although Fechner did claim to be a Christian, his ideas could only be considered slightly unorthodox; but I do think some of them have merit.
Very little of Fechner has been translated; this book was a selection of extracts taken from different works. Lowrie, the editor, probably did a decent job; he was, after all, one of the first translators of Kierkegaard; but other than this book and Fechner's work entitled "The Little Book Of Life After Death", little else has been translated into English. I do intend to read The Little Book Of Life After Death next. His ideas intrigued me enough to read that work.… (mehr)