Applied psychology; a series of lectures presenting an analysis of psychology in a simplified terminology; with special attention to biologic phases of physiology and demonstrating the separateness of the entities mind and soul

Front matter

Copyright^?

COPYRIGHT DEPOSm

By DR. CARVER

Dedication

To all that have patiently, persistently and honestly striven to k nou) truth and in their efforts for such acquisisition have understood that in the Universe — all that is — is essential and necessary and that each attribute, organism, organ, segment, atom or thing has its place and relationship in the great harmony — and to all that shall come in lik,e spirit and recognition in the future — Jjthis book * s mos t respectfully dedicated.

By the Author

CONTENTS ANALYZED

Preface

In the final and last consideration, there is but one important fact that presents itself to us and that is our existence. The highest proof that we may have of this fact is only our consciousness of it. For if asked to prove our existence, we are in a more helpless condition than with respect to almost any other subject. We can make some show of tracing our ancestry; of following out the history of nations; of getting reasons for conditions ordinarily considered to be within the scope of science, but as to our individual existence, our highest proof is but our consciousness of it.

The next most important fact is our knowledge of self. Mr. Pope has said that "The greatest study of mankind is man;" but I would say that the greatest study of mankind is to learn how to study himself.

Human beings generally conceive that they are learning about themselves when they are studying - history and science, but really all they are doing, in such study, is getting farther 'from self, for after all, the study of history and the sciences furnish nothing of value as to self, for history always fades into tradition and tradition becomes lost in the night of time; and the so-called sciences when investigated with sufficient care and analysis resolve themselves into theories and the theories finally resolve themselves into the misty substance of

XII. Preface

phantasm and loose themselves in the vortex of dreams.

The individual therefore that would study self; that would understand self, must confine his investigations to self. He must recognise the fact of his existence as paramount to all other facts and must bring himself to understand that all that he can know of self must be ascertained by means of introspection through the processes of deduction. He must come to understand that in the analysis of self lies his only Held of research, except solely, immediate comparison with his fellows.

The following lectures were delivered solely from the standpoint herein disclosed and assumed to enter no other field. It was the highest object to show the complete separateness of Mind from Soul. The lectures present and sustain the proposition that the relation of Mind to Soul is the same as that sustained by the function of any organ to the Soul. That is to say, the production of Gastric Juice, from the walls of the Stomach, sustains the same relation to the Soul, that the production of Mind, in the Brain, sustains to the Soul.

This preface is presented because it is the belief of the author that it is upon the points herein presented that writers on Psychology, as well as people generally, have gone astray ; and he has therefore taken this opportunity to attract special attention to these thoughts in advance.

Willard Carver.