there are nervous invalids and
half-well people to-day. Psychology has a real contribution to make,
and in recent years its lessons have been put into language which the
average man can understand.

Psychology is not merely interested in abstract terms with long names.
It is no longer absorbed merely in states of consciousness taken
separately and analyzed abstractly. The newer functional psychology is
increasingly interested in the study of real persons, their purposes
and interests, what they feel and value, and how they may learn to
realize their highest aspirations. It is about ordinary people, as
they think and act, in the kitchen, on the street cars, at the
bargain-counter, people in crowds and alone, mothers and their babies,
little children at play, young girls with their lovers, and all the
rest of human life. It is the science of _you_, and as such it can
hardly help being interesting.

While psychology deals with such topics as the subconscious mind, the
instincts, the laws of habit, and association of ideas and suggestion,
it is after all not so much an academic as a practical question. These
forces govern the thought you are thinking at this moment, the way you
will feel a half-hour from now, the mood you will be in to-morrow, the
friends you will make and the profession you will choose, besides
having a large share in the health or ill-health of your body in the
meantime.

SUMMARY

Perhaps it would be well before going farther to summarize what we
have been saying. Here in a nutshell is the kernel of the subject:

Disease may be caused by physical or by psychic forces. A "nervous"
disorder is not a physical but a psychic disease. It is caused not by
lack of energy but by misdirected energy; not by overwork or
nerve-depletion, but by misconception, emotional conflict, repressed
instincts, and buried memories. Seventy-five per cent. of all cases of
ill-health are due to psychic causes, to disjointed thinking rather
than to a disjointed spine. Wherefore, let us learn to think right.

In outline form, the trouble in a neurosis may be stated something
like this:

Lack of adaptation to the social environment--caused by
Lack of harmony within the personality--caused by
Misdirected energy--caused by
Inappropriate emotions--caused by
Wrong ideas or ignorance.

Working backward, the cure naturally would be:

Right ideas--resulting in
Appropriate emotions--resulting in
Redir