In the title of the treatise on "the human soul", as is quoted by Bozicevic, the term "psychology" is recorded as "psichiologia". Although the difference between the form "psichiologia" and "psychologia" is insignificant (like that one between the doublet stoichiologia and stoicheiologia), I do not think it likely that Marulic, an outstanding [p. 13] connoisseur of both the Greek and Latin language, gave the term the very form recorded by his biographer. I think that Bozicevic, not very good at orthography (of which let his manuscripts be the proof), somehow modified Marulic's original term, at least changing y in i, and perhaps treating the first part of the compound word as compounds with "physis" (physiologia, physiognomia). In any case Marulic's term is the oldest case known so far of compounding the noun yuch and the suffix -logia to form a term denoting the science of mental life -- the term "psychology".

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 Göckel "yucologia, hoc est de hominis perfectione, anima, etc." in 1590. No evidence has so far been found for Melanchton's authorship of this word, but even if it were, if would originate from about 1530 when the first edition of Melanchton's lectures "on the soul" ("De anima", Wittenberg 1530) appeared.

"The term was first used in lectures by Melanchton (about 1550) and in print by Goclen (about 1600)" (H. C. Warren, Dictionary of Psychology, Cambridge 1934, p. 217). "...the word psychology... derives from Rudolf Göckel who, in 1590, published the book 'Psychologia hoc est de hominis perfectione, anima, ortu'. The term was put to use by Melanchton" (Ottuv Slovnik naucny, tome 20, Prague 1903, p. 922).

However, most books I have succeeded in consulting, although they quote Göckel's "Psychology", state categorically or quote it as probable [p. 9] that even before Göckel the word "psychology" was used by Filip Melanchton, and usually add that Melanchton used this new term in his "lectures".· Thus, for instance, the largest dictionary of philosophic notions, Eisler's .Wörterbuch der philosophischen Begriffe", tome II (4th edition, Berlin 1929, p. 533) says:

He is the first writer to use the word psychology for the science of the soul which, however, he considers only a part of somatology (the science of the body). His main work is entitled 'Psychologia anthropologica sive Animae humanae doctrina'["]

Rudolf Göcke1(1547-1628), in philosophic literature more known under his latinized name Goclenius, was professor of physics, mathematics, logic, and ethics at the university of his native town Marburg on Lahn. By his philosophic attitude he belonged to the so-called "Semiramists", i.e. the group of the Aristotelians who were half-way between those advocating dialectic interpretation of Aristotle's learning, like Melanchton, and those advocating its averroistic exposition, Like Pierre de la Ramée (Petrus Ramus, 1515-1572) and his followers ("Ramists"). In addition to several treatises from the field of logic and a philosophic dictionary ("Lexicon philosophicum"), Göckel published a tractate, in Marburg in 1590, entitled "yucologia hoc est de hominis perfectione, anima, ortu". This work, as far as is known today, is indeed the first preserved printed book to contain the word "psychology" and in its Greek form and written in Greek letters at that.

In the main psychological and philosophical dictionaries, textbooks, and leading world encyclopaedias there are for the most part three different opinions of the origin of this term which, as the word denoting scientific or philosophic dealing with the phenomena of psychic (subjective, conscious) life, has now come into very wide use. All the three names connected with the formation of the term "psychology" are the names of the people of German origin from the 16th century. Two of them are of little significance: Rudolf Göckel and Otto Casmann, while the third is very famous and generally known: Filip Melanchton