crime and the law
courts. This new book deals with the relations of psychology to
medicine. Others discussing its relations to education, to social
problems, to commerce and industry will follow soon.

For popular treatment I divide applied psychology into such various,
separated books because they naturally address very different audiences.
That which interests the lawyer does not concern the physician, and
again the school-teacher has his own sphere of interests. Moreover the
different subjects demand a different treatment. The problems of
psychology and law were almost entirely neglected. I was anxious to draw
wide attention to this promising field and therefore I chose the form of
loose popular essays without any aim towards systematic presentation of
the subject. As to psychology and medicine almost the opposite situation
prevails. There is perhaps too much talk afloat about psychotherapy, the
widest circles cultivate the discussion, the magazines overflow with
it. The duty of the scientific psychologist is accordingly not to stir
up interest in this topic but to help in bringing this interest from
mere gossip, vague mysticism, and medical amateurishness to a clear
understanding of principles. What is needed in this time of faith cures
of a hundred types is to deal with the whole circle of problems in a
serious, systematic way and to emphasize the aspect of scientific
psychological theory.

Hence the whole first part of this book is an abstract discussion and
its first chapters have not even any direct relation to disease. I am
convinced that both physicians and ministers and all who are in
practical contact with these important questions ought to be brought to
such painstaking and perhaps fatiguing inquiry into principles before
the facts are reached. To those who seek a discussion of life facts
alone, the whole first part will of course appear to be a tedious way
around; they may turn directly to the second and third parts.

One word for my personal right to deal with these questions, as too much
illegitimate psychotherapeutics is heard to-day. For me, the relation
between psychology and medicine is not a chance chapter of my science to
which I have turned simply in following up the various sides of applied
psychology. And still less have I turned to it because it has become the
fashion in recent years. On the contrary, it has been an important
factor in all my work since my student days. I have been through fi