Wilhelm Wundt was born in the village of Neckerau in Baden, Germany on August 16, 1832.  The son of a Lutheran pastor, he was a solitary and studious boy.  He roomed with and was tutored by his father's assistant, the vicar of the church.  He was sent off to boarding school at 13, and the university at 19.

He studied medicine at Tübingen, Heidelberg, and Berlin, although interested more in the scientific aspect than in a medical career.  In 1857, he was appointed dozent (instructor) at Heidelberg, where he lectured on physiology.  From 1858 to 1864, he also served as an assistant to the famous physiologist Helmholtz, and studied the neurological and chemical stimulation of muscles.

In 1864, he became an assistant professor at Heidelberg.  Three years later, he started a course he called physiological psychology, which focused on the border between physiology and psychology, i.e. the senses and reactions -- an interest inspired by the work of Weber and Fechner.  His lecture notes would eventually become his major work, the Principles of Physiological Psychology (Grundzüge der physiologischen Psychologie), which would be published in 1873 and 1874.

Like Fechner and many others at the time, Wundt accepted the Spinozan idea of psychophysical parallelism:  Every physical event has a mental counterpart, and every mental event has a physical counterpart.  And he believed, like Fechner, that the availability of measurable stimuli (and reactions) could make psychological events open to something like experimental methodology in a way earlier philosophers such as Kant thought impossible.

The method that Wundt developed is a sort of experimental introspection:  The researcher was to carefully observe some simple event -- one that could be measured as to quality, intensity, or duration -- and record his responses to variations of those events. (Note that in German philosophy at that time, sensations were considered psychological events, and therefore “internal” to the mind, even though the sensation is of something that is “outside” the mind.  Hence what we might call observation was called by Wundt introspection!)

To continue his story, Wundt went on to become chair of “inductive philosophy” at Zürich in 1874, and then professor of philosophy at Leipzig in 1875.  It was there that he would stay and work for the next 45 years!

In 1875, a room was set aside for Wundt for demonstrations in what we now call sensation and perception.  This is the same year that William James would set up a similar lab at Harvard.  We can celebrate that year as the founding of experimental psychology!

In 1879, Wundt assisted his first graduate student at true psychological research -- another milestone.  In 1881, he started the journal Philosophische Studien.  In 1883, he began the first course to be titled experimental psychology.  And in 1894, his efforts were rewarded with the official establishment of an “Institute for Experimental Psychology” at Leipzig -- the first such in the world.

Wundt was known to everyone as a quiet, hard-working, and very methodical researcher, as well as a very good lecturer.  The latter comment is from the standards of the day, which were considerably different from today’s:  He would go on in a low voice for a couple of hours at a time, without notes or audio-visual aids and without pausing for questions.  His students loved him, but we would no doubt criticize him for not being sufficiently entertaining!

It is curious to note that during this same busy time period, Wundt also published four books in philosophy!  Keep in mind that, at this time, psychology was not considered something separate from philosophy.  In fact, Wundt rejected the idea when someone suggested it to him!

The studies conducted by Wundt and his now numerous students were mostly on sensation and perception, and of those, most concerned vision.  In addition, there were studies on reaction time, attention, feelings, and associations.  In all, he supervised 186 doctoral dissertations, most in psychology.

Among his better known students were Oswald Külpe and Hugo Munsterberg (whom James invited to teach at Harvard), the Russian behaviorists Bekhterev and Pavlov, as well as American students such as Hall (“father” of developmental psychology in America), James McKeen Cattell, Lightner Witmer (founder of the first psychological clinic in the US, at U of Penn), and Wundt’s main interpreter to the English speaking world, E. B. Titchener.  Titchener is particularly responsible for interpreting Wundt badly!

Later in his career, Wundt became interested in social or cultural psychology.  Contrary to what many believe, Wundt did not think that the experimental study of sensations was the be all and end all of psychology!  In fact, he felt that that was only the surface, and additionally that most of psychology was not as amenable to experimental methods.

Instead, he felt that we had to approach cultural psychology through the products it produced -- mythology, for example, cultural practices and rituals, literature and art.... He wrote a ten volume Völkerpsychologie, published between 1900 and 1920, which included the idea of stages of cultural development, from the primitive, to the totemic, through the age of heroes and gods, to the age of modern man.

In 1920, he wrote Erlebtes and Erkanntes, his autobiography.  A short time later, on August 31, 1920, he died.