THE MODULUS OF NATURE AND THE THEOREM OF PSYCHOLOGY
The Science of Psychology, like any other science, must deal with
demonstrated facts, classify them, and systematize the resulting
categories.
Strictly logical conclusions drawn from categories of facts so derived,
deserve the name of Science.
Science is, therefore, a definite method of arriving at exact conclusions.
No other method can legitimately bear the name of science.
No one pretends to dispute the conclusions logically involved in the
Binomial Theorem; or in the Parallelogram of forces; or in correlative
mechanical equivalents; or in many of the known laws of chemistry and
physiology.
When, however, we come to mental processes and psychical phenomena, the
facts are so redundant, and so differently reported and apprehended, that
argument, belief and prejudice, credulity and incredulity, overshadow and
drown with a war of words all clear, scientific methods or conclusions.
But if man, as a whole, is a fact in nature; or if "God made Man a Living
Soul," then the whole nature of man exists under law, and is apprehensible
to science.
Man's function as a scientist is to read, to reflect, to weigh, to
measure, and to understand.
There are those who object to Natural Science as applied to "Divine"
things. They would preserve the mystery, and seem to prefer miracle and
dogma to knowledge and law.
Their preference is to be respected, even though ignorance and
superstition result. Since the domain of science, in America at least, is
no longer restricted by ecclesiastic law, the conflict between Religion
and Science has gradually disappeared, and the conflict is rather that
between knowledge and ignorance, with ignorance on the wane.
"Things settled by long use, if not absolutely good, at least fit well
together."
This transition period seems confusing to many earnest souls with its "New
Thought," its "occultisms" and its "Lo here's" and "Lo there's." But
through and beneath it all, may be heard a note of harmony, the promise
and the potency of the triumph of light and knowledge.
We may not know the final results, but every sincere and earnest seeker
may have the peaceful assurance that he is on the open highway that leads
to the noblest and the best.
The assurance of knowledge but makes clearer the revelations of faith.
That "absentee God"--of which Carlyle wrote, has been discerned as the
Universal Intelligence, and equally Love and Law.
Among recent writers and books on the subject of psychology, Professor
Hugo Münsterberg's "Psychotherapy" occupies a very high place. It appeals
especially to the physician, more familiar than others with morbid
psychical states. Here I can look back on almost half a century of
experience, the most active, in dealing with these cases.
But I am at present less concerned with mental pathology and therapy, than
with the general psychological basis; the _causative_ categories upon
which they are based, and which occupy the first half of Münsterberg's
book.
Dividing the whole subject--the content of consciousness, all the
faculties, capacities and powers, all processes and sequences--into two
general groups or classes, the _purposive_ and the _causal_, Münsterberg
declares that "the _causal_ view only is the view of psychology"; "the
_purposive_ view lies outside of psychology." (P. 14.)
I hold, that without the _purposive_ view equally included and
co-ordinated, there can be no such thing as Scientific Psychology. Half
views will hardly admit of synthetic generalizations.
The complete separation here instituted, between the purposive and
causal factors, in itself, for purposes of definition and study, need not
be objected to, if it were consistently carried out, which it is not. He
so nearly pre-empts the whole ground for the _causal_, giving scant
courtesy to the _purposive_, merely a few crumbs of comfort, so that
it cannot be said to be ignored altogether, and drops the scientific
method entirely in dealing with it; assenting to moral precepts and
principles, without a clew to any scientific basis, that one must object
to the _name_--Psychology--as being applied to it at all. It contains
no hint of a "knowledge of the Soul."
It is the Vito-Motor mechanism of the Mind. The Automatism of the
elements, incidents, changes, and sequences of our states of
consciousness; based upon, and including all that we know of physiology.
Along these lines, Münsterberg's work has probably never been equaled. It
is concise, comprehensive, and exhaustive.
His physical, physiological, and mental syntheses are well-nigh complete.
Whenever, in the future, what he calls "the _purposive_ view" shall be
resurrected from the obscurity and nescience to which he has assigned it,
and really habilitated in the garb of Science, and recognized as the
lawful spouse of the _causal_, we shall indeed have a true Psychology, a
Science of the Human Soul.
Münsterberg neither scouts nor denies the possibility of such a future
discovery. In the meantime, his viewpoint, and necessarily some of his
conclusions and generalizations, are one-sided, and out of focus.
Emphasizing the _causal_ as he does, this could hardly be otherwise; and
from this point of view, and for this reason, his practical Psychotherapy
is purely empirical.
We need not deny his facts, or his results, even when mixed with hypnosis,
more than he does the "cures" in "Christian Science," "Faith Cures," at
Lourdes, or by the "laying on of hands." All these things are too well
known, and not one of them deserves the name of Science. They are solely
empirical methods. Münsterberg's broader view and deeper analysis give to
his methods great prominence, and he can point to no results that
transcend the others. These facts and these results are as old as the
history of man. They have, even as he points out, constituted epidemics of
"cure."
There is, moreover, a scientific view and method regarding what he calls
the purposive view which he overlooks entirely, and which by emphasis of
the causal, makes seemingly impossible. It is our purpose to try and make
this clear.
His analysis of Suggestion, though largely automatic, is well-nigh
exhaustive. Awareness, and Attention, are illustrated copiously; but not
clearly differentiated as they may be, and actually are in the experience
of individual life.
Fortunately, and wisely, he eliminates the "Subconscious" as having no
real meaning or scientific value as now used.
But it might be applied to the Mental awareness of physiological
automatism (bodily habits, often beginning in an act of will, or
attention; writing, speaking, music, dancing, and the like, and in less
degree, all life impulses and movements below the line of attention or
awareness).
If, by courtesy, these might be called sub-conscious, then there is
another group above the habitual plane of awareness, that, by equal
courtesy, might be called Supra-conscious. But, unless it is remembered,
as Münsterberg points out, that, regardless of phenomena, _Consciousness
is one_, these terms can only lead to confusion.
Certain cases designated "multiple" or "dissociated personalities" have
only served to increase this confusion still further; and more especially,
when the effort has been made to patch them together, or to control them
from without, by hypnosis. The well-known case of "Sally," reported by Dr.
Morton Prince, stands at last, as a "personally conducted" psychological
excursion, with Sally still preserving her incognito, and as much a
mystery as ever.
That automatism incident to all progressive organization and perfection of
function, and through which physical, physiological, mental, and psychic
synthesis becomes possible, has been allowed to usurp the place of the
"Builder of the Temple," the "Driver of the Chariot," and the "Player"
upon the "Harp of a thousand strings." Harmony and equilibrium are
incidents resulting from _causative_ processes! We need only to know the
construction, relations of parts, and principles involved in the
vibrations of the Harp, in order to understand and appreciate the music.
The player, the musician--drunk, or sober, tone-blind or genius--is a mere
incident, and however _purposive_ or competent, is admitted by courtesy
only, and warned not to interfere too much with the Harp!
To build, and keep in order, and tune the Harp, constitutes the science of
music. Some day, when we have leisure and inclination, we may turn our
attention to the Musician, but that day seems far off. We admit that his
function is _purposive_. He, no doubt, has designs on the Harp, and upon
us, but we are handling musical instruments at present, and if he objects
to our calling ourselves "Musicians" (psychologists) he is impertinent,
and should study the science of music, or keep silent.
I am not "begging the question" in regard to the human soul. I am simply
emphasizing the fact of the Individual Intelligence, which, at the point
of equilibrium, sweeps the strings with that harmony which is the soul of
music.
This Harp of a thousand strings, is indeed, "fearfully and wonderfully
made." Its physics and kinetics; its consonants and dissonants; its
shifting keyboards; its changes in pitch, rhythm, and harmony from atom
and molecule, to neurons, cells and mass; with the tides of life--blood,
plasma, water, air, magnetism--sweeping the whole at every breath or pulse
beat, to the cry of the builder--Life--"out with the old! in with the
new!" and yet the _conscious identity_ in health, typically unchanged and
unchanging--_causative_, _designed_, _scientific_--yea verily! and
_purposive_, _human_, _intelligent_, _spiritual_, _divine_, but a dead
corpse, given over to decomposition the moment it is bereft of that
something we feel, and know, and name--the _Individual Intelligence_--the
Master Musician; or the staggering, drunk, crazy fiddler, with this Harp
of a thousand strings, twanging perhaps in a mad-house!
Put the house in order; analyze, and classify; adjust the furniture with
the handmaids of science, art, and beauty in evidence and at call; but for
goodness' sake! stop hypnotizing the musician--"Just a little"--under the
fallacy or the pretense of _strengthening_ the Will by _weakening_ it just
a little more! This is "giving your patients fits, because you are death
on fits"! Rescue Science from this atheromatous degeneration, and then
suppress the dabblers in "black magic" who pose as Hypnotists, as
Münsterberg advises.
For clear intelligence and exhaustive analysis, Münsterberg's
"Psychotherapy" is a masterpiece, but his psychic equation of _causative_
and _purposive_, with all his mathesis, not only remains unsolved, but
leads to confusion, from the false light shed on the unknown quantity, and
his failure to indicate the gnosis; the demarcation between automatism and
purposive Intelligence.
That this confusion exists in the daily life of the average individual
whose evolution is still incomplete; that it constitutes a large per cent.
of all cases of "dominant ideas," obsessions, riotous emotions and
passions; that it is nowhere recognized and defined in modern psychology,
or made synthetically clear in modern philosophy, all these lapses make it
all the more necessary that it should be clearly defined and made plain as
the basis of Scientific Psychology.
In addition to all this, if Münsterberg's conclusions and applications are
unsound because psychologically unscientific at the point; for example,
where he almost hesitatingly indorses hypnosis, however qualified or
safeguarded, he is certain to be quoted as authority on the subject by
those who will ignore all his qualifications to justify the practice.
In order to meet these imperative conditions, the attempt to formulate any
philosophy of psychology will not be made.
Even were such an attempt made successfully, that would remove the
discussion from the field of science, where it should by all means remain.
What we need is a real science of life, and this should involve the whole
mental and psychical realm, and lead ultimately to a knowledge of the
human soul.
Recognized facts in common experience only need be appealed to, though
different values will have to be placed upon some of these facts as their
importance is made plain.
We begin with the fact of consciousness. What it is, we do not know. What
it means and does, we know very largely and broadly. In itself, it is
purely passive. It never acts. Like space, it is the "all container." It
is the background, the theatre of our intelligence.
With the individual intelligence, plus, or with consciousness, we have
awareness. This is perception, or cognition, still negative.
These basic conditions, faculties and capacities, are like a company of
soldiers on parade. Now comes the "word of command"--_Attention_!
Latent consciousness--awareness--now becomes concentrated, focalized on
one point, one feeling, or emotion, or act. The soldiers "dress up,"
glance down the line, and are ready to act. Then comes the action, the
movement, the drill, or the fight.
The drill master is also a soldier, but he is in command. He is called the
Will. Without him and his recognized authority, the soldiers may be a mob,
or a rabble. With him, they "fall in line," give "attention," "dress up,"
and are ready to act.
These are facts, and are basic and primary in our conscious _awareness_
and _attention_ in consciousness; the one negative, though inclusive; the
other positive, and motor, or active.
In his "Psychotherapy" under the heading "The Subconscious," Münsterberg
has much to say upon the meaning and differentiation of awareness,
attention, and recognition, but he fails to point out in direct relation,
at this point, the primary power--the Will, moved by the Individual
Intelligence.
Later in his work the will is recognized and frequently referred to, but
from beginning to end he makes it incidental, rather than basic. When he
comes to broad groups of psychic phenomena, or pathological symptoms, the
sounding board of Rational Volition is cracked and there is where hypnosis
slips in.
Broad as he has laid his foundations in physical and physiological
synthesis, he loses sight of its importance in the psychological;
regarding as an incident that which is a basic principle of prime
importance. Schopenhauer went, perhaps, as far to the opposite extreme.
Perhaps "the truth will be found in the middle of the road."
The heir apparent, the prince regent, the lawful Sovereign, by heredity,
by the laws of Nature, and "by the Will of God," in this Tabernacle of
Man, is the Individual Intelligence; no matter whether we recognize or
dispute his rightful authority. His Prime Minister is the Human Will;
whether conspiring against, or co-operating with, the King. We may analyze
the foundation of the kingdom, and the affairs of state, and designate
them as _causative_, or _purposive_. We may see monarchy, or anarchy;
democracy or republicanism; we may dethrone the king, and turn the state,
literally, into a mad-house; but all the facts of nature, conscious
awareness, and Scientific Psychology, cry, with one voice, Hail to the
King! Long Live the King! I! Me! Mine! Myself! A fact so basic, that it is
as patent to the child as to the man.
Now comes the Juggler, the little Joker. Münsterberg has sufficiently
revealed the variety-stage, "the Subconscious," and his biography of the
various individual players and troupes is very elaborate. They are, one
and all, _Suggestions_. And suggestion is the "Juggler," and the "little
Joker."
After the Intelligence and the Will, our awareness finds subjects and
objects, ideas, images, pictures, percepts and concepts.
That all these, both within and without, are Suggestive; that one idea, or
image, or object, suggests another, or others, no one will deny, who has
ever _thought_ about his own thinking. It is like saying, all mental
pictures are composite; the elements of many kinds coming from many
sources.
So far, _Suggestion_ is all right. It is awareness of an idea, percept,
concept, or act awakened, called to attention by another, with the
question, how does it strike you? what do you think of it? what, if
anything, do you wish, or propose to do about it?
It is purely negative, and suggests action or inhibition, without the
slightest domination.
Remember that the Will--rational Volition--is that power, which, from the
point of attention enables the individual to act, or refuse to consider,
as he pleases.
If I suggest to my friend here in my library, that it is near train time;
that he can go if he chooses or remain with me all night, he is free to
act on the suggestion and go or stay as he chooses. I have called to his
attention certain facts of time, place, or circumstance, but left his will
untrammeled. If I am tired of him and wish him to go, or really wish him
to stay, in either case it is still a suggestion, because I have left him
free to act or not. But in this case certain tones of my voice, not direct
by touching the will, but coloring the feelings or emotions, color both
his preferences and my own. Even persuasion, the power of another example,
the placing of certain views or considerations before another, all these
but make the more clear and specific the suggestion. They reach the will
through the inside, in the realm of ideation, and not from the outside, in
the way of domination. All these things are essential elements in social
intercourse.
If, however, I have a motive in wishing my friend to go, or to stay, and
have determined in my own mind which it shall be; ignoring or overriding
his own choice; and if I use my will, or passes, or touch his eyes, or
forehead, with the purpose of concentrating _his_ attention or will, on
_my_ wish, or idea, or command, it is no longer free choice with him, but
domination; no longer suggestion, but hypnosis, pure and simple.
The confusion and juggling at this point has been made the sole excuse for
hypnotism, through belittling or ignoring the importance, normal action,
and supremacy of the human will.
No one denies that the exchange or forcible expression of ideas, percepts,
mental pictures, or concepts, is suggestive. But the normal individual is
free to accept or reject them.
Education, bias, prejudice, and the like, have also much to do in
determining results.
But the moment you interfere with the free choice of the individual and
dominate toward your choice, regardless of his own, you enter the realm of
hypnosis; deprive him, just to that degree, of free choice, and might as
well call it "fiddlesticks" as "suggestion." It is domination, the
mastery, so far as it goes or exists at all, of the will, voluntary
powers, and sensory organs of one individual, by the will of another; thus
reversing completely the process of nature.
To dominate the will of another is to weaken it. Timidity, apprehension,
fear, are in inverse ratio to confidence, self-assurance, courage, and
self-control.
Health, happiness, and self-development lie along the lines of man's
higher evolution, and the basic principle, the primary power, the minister
of state, is the rational and intelligent Will.
The scientific theorem of Psychology can be nothing else than Nature's
Modulus of Man, with its root in Universal Intelligence. Man
individualizes and involves this Intelligence as he evolves form,
function, adaptation, and adjustment, and at least secures and maintains
perfect equilibrium.
This is Nature's Modulus, else the whole of human life is purposeless and
meaningless.
Given, then, an Individual Intelligence, endowed with self-consciousness;
with Rational Volition, the power to choose and to act or refuse to act;
how shall it master its environment; adapt itself to any conditions;
secure adjustment and become _Master_?
The starting point and the keynote from first to last is Self-Control.
Then come high Ideals, intelligent choice, and the will backed by
discrimination and judgment. These lead to understanding and wisdom.
The "courage of one's convictions," can be neither conceited nor blatant
egotism, but a readiness to assume full responsibility of motives, acts,
and results.
This recognition of Personal Responsibility is what we call _Conscience_.
It is the Judgment-seat of the Individual Intelligence in the Kingdom of
its own Soul, or realm of consciousness. The moment this throne totters,
or is obscured, devolution begins, and degeneration, insanity, and Inferno
lie that way.
It does not change one principle involved, or weaken either Modulus or
Theorem when we reflect that most equations are ended by death, long
before being brought to successful solution. For the time they are
certainly interrupted.
Neither do the babel of tongues, the theories, theologies, or philosophies
change either Modulus or Theorem, because they are grounded in
demonstrated facts, recognized, either vaguely or clearly, in the
conscious experience of every intelligent thinking man and woman.
Constructive Psychology, based upon Science, for the building of character
by persistent effort, increasing continually all personal resources, means
the normal higher evolution of man.
So-called religions and the life after death have been purposely left
unconsidered.
If we really have a Science of the Soul--the Individual
Intelligence--based upon psychological facts, demonstrated in the
daily experience of every healthy individual, it touches religion at
its most vital point, viz.: ethics or morals. If these ethical
principles are true and demonstrable, they must constitute the foundation
of religion as of ethics. If morals are strengthened and made clear,
and Personal Responsibility as Conscience, is recognized and accepted,
the Vicarious Atonement will have to go, and Theologians will have to
change their mystical and miraculous interpretations from Vicarious
Atonement to personal at-one-ment with _Christos_.
The "miraculous conception," and "virgin birth," held equally in regard to
Christna centuries before, and also the literal resurrection of the
physical body will have to be otherwise explained.
The purposive view as one full term of the psychological equation, will
find uniform law and order in place of the credulous legends of ignorant
and superstitious monks, while the Divine Man will be taken down from the
cross and restored to the heart of humanity, as the Modulus of Nature,
_realized_ as a normal evolution, under natural and spiritual law.
Salvation from sin, ignorance, superstition, and fear, will be recognized
as the result of "Leading the Life," and Vicarious only through a divine
example; or, if you please, _legitimate Suggestion_; with personal effort,
rational volition, and personal responsibility working in harmony toward
the desired result.
SECTION TWO THE NEW AVATAR OF NATURAL SCIENCE