se. But if one have the right
to print more severe and difficult things, and think he really has
something to say which would instruct the larger audience, it would
seem only fair to allow him to speak in the simpler way also, even
though all that he says may not have the merit of escaping the charge
of infringing his own copyrights!

I am indebted to the proprietors of the following magazines for the
use of such passages: The Popular Science Monthly, The Century
Magazine, The Inland Educator; and with them I also wish to thank The
Macmillan Company and the owners of Appletons' Universal Cyclopaedia.

As to the scope and contents of the Story, I have aimed to include
enough statement of methods and results in each of the great
departments of psychological research to give the reader an
intelligent idea of what is being done, and to whet his appetite for
more detailed information. In the choice of materials I have relied
frankly on my own experience and in debatable matters given my own
opinions. This gives greater reality to the several topics, besides
making it possible, by this general statement, at once to acknowledge
it, and also to avoid discussion and citation of authorities in the
text. At the same time, in the exposition of general principles I have
endeavoured to keep well within the accepted truth and terminology of
psychology.

It will be remarked that in several passages the evolution theory is
adopted in its application to the mind. While this great theory can
not be discussed in these pages, yet I may say that, in my opinion,
the evidence in favour of it is about the same, and about as strong,
as in biology, where it is now made a presupposition of scientific
explanation. So far from being unwelcome, I find it in psychology no
less than in biology a great gain, both from the point of view of
scientific knowledge and from that of philosophical theory. Every
great law that is added to our store adds also to our conviction that
the universe is run through with Mind. Even so-called Chance, which
used to be the "bogie" behind Natural Selection, has now been found to
illustrate--in the law of Probabilities--the absence of Chance. As
Professor Pearson has said: "We recognise that our conception of
Chance is now utterly different from that of yore.... What we are to
understand by a chance distribution is one in accordance with law, and
one the nature of which can, for all practical purposes, be closely
predict