The Machinery of the Mind

Foreword

I am very glad to have the opportunity of commending this little volume to those without any previous knowledge who desire to gain a clear idea of the way in which modern psychology regards the human mind.

For every time the words “psychology” and “psychological” were used in the newspapers ten years ago, they must be used fifty times to-day; and though very often some other word would do just as well, or a good deal better, this sudden vogue has a real meaning. The public has become aware of the existence of psychology: people are beginning to realise that the human mind, the instrument by which we know and think and feel and strive, must itself be studied for its own sake if we are to gain a deeper understanding and a greater control of human life.

A distinct reaction from the rather narrow materialism of the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries, an increased realisation of immaterial, of “spiritual,” values, has helped towards giving the mind its rightful place in human interest. On the one hand, modern academic psychology has for many years now been gradually emancipating itself from the chaotic subjectivities of competing philosophies, and developing on really scientific lines, with the aid of accurate observation, comparison and experiment. Its genuinely and increasingly useful applications to education and to industry are evidences of that.