After more than twenty years of continuous and careful study since the foregoing was written, I must still confirm and emphasize these basic propositions to-day.
The attempt is herein made to apply them more particularly to the study of Psychology. To add to what was then discerned and designated as “the Modulus of Nature,” an exact and comprehensive Theorem of Psychology.
I am well aware how presumptuous this would in certain quarters be considered, if there were the least probability that “those in authority” would read these pages at all. The motive is involved in the modulus, and I am quite content to leave it there, while the “common people,” it is hoped, may find herein, as I have found in the search for more light, encouragement, inspiration, and hope. And these may lead to Understanding.
It is the farthest possible from my thought or wish to ignore or belittle the labors of earnest students and writers on Psychology.
But there is a habit of conservatism in Physical Science to-day, that in spirit and effect differs very little from Dogma and Orthodoxy in Religion. It concerns methods rather than results. It is generally incredulous through fear of being over-credulous. It is bound by tradition, or the records of the past, and its dogmas are deductions from the consensus of opinions, rather than “decrees in councils” or “Infallible Popes.”
Occasionally a Scientist, like Sir Oliver Lodge, seems to be utterly rid of both credulity and incredulity, and for these, Science really means— “the Facts of Nature, demonstrated, classified, and systematized.”
But for the “Common People,” the average intelligent student, for whom Science and the pursuit of Knowledge is not a Profession, but a desire to know, and to understand, in order to be able to use wisely and well, it is of far less importance to know what others think or believe, deny or affirm, on the subject of Psychology, than to realize what are the faculties, capacities, and powers of their own souls.
Knowledge for the sake of knowledge, like “Art for Art’s sake,” is one thing, Knowledge for use in daily life, and for illuminating its pathway and revealing the purpose and destiny of man, is something different indeed.
This hunger of the individual soul for real knowledge is perhaps the most patent “Sign of the Times.”
The average intelligent individual has broken away from the traditions of the past, and yet found nothing to take their place. One result is empty churches, and the race for wealth, display, position, and power. Increased idleness begets dissipation, Paresis and Insanity increase, while wasted opportunity both shortens and embitters life.