PSYCHOLOGY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18771, 26 July 1924, Page 1 (Supplement)

PSYCHOLOGY.

ENTHUSIASM OF IGNORANCE. BY KOTARE. Every age has its fads. That seems to be Nature's way of clearing decks. Where there is a vast aimouht of surplus energy that cannot be directed to any worthy end, a popular craze provides a harmless avenue through which the craving for activity' can disperse itself. Nobody is any the worse for it, in most cases; and a multitude of people with time on their hands have the satisfaction of doing something, of finding an outlet for pent-up "eneigy, and what pleases them most, of being in the very latest fashion. The world has grown so small that we are now everybody's neighbours, and what is said in London o,r Paris or New York to-day is being repeated in Auckland or Christchurch to-morrow. So a craze knows no national or continental boundaries; it runs like fire through the brushwood. And after it has passed, we can rest for a while and recuperate for the next outburst. ' ■ . .-..'■ But perhaps no other age ever boasted so curious and variegated an assortment of fads. We have fancy religions galoie; the United States is the world's forcinghouse, and there is no sign that she is adopting a go-slow policy. Unfortunately there is no Ellis Island for the rest of the world, and we must e'en take whatever eccentric emigrants she sends us. Anyway, a clear field is our } only safeguard; they thrive on opposition, but soon waver and die if left to themselves. Perhaps tho most singular of modern crazes is the enthusiasm lor psychology. A few years ago no one but a few University graduates knew what the word meant, or how to spell.it. Psychology was a vague and quite uninteresting subject, consisting for the most part of a few principles of Aristotle with tho meditations of kindred sages as the spirit had moved them all along the centuries, Its terminology was abstruse, its contact with actual life very small, though it was supposed to be the science of the mind. Science of Mind. But psychology has been dragged from the academic obscurity in which it so coyly preferred to lurk. Everybody learned how to spell the word and pronounce it, and most people began to add it to their vocabulary. That was all to the good. The scientific interest in the working of the human mind was long overdue. The epoch-imaking discoveries of Darwin gave scientific thought a materialistic bias that it retained to within the last few years. The reaction was inevitable. The mind of man was at least, as worthy a field for scientific research as the bodies of animals.

So there has arisen an immense literature on the nature and functioning of the human mind, both in respect to its own processes And its contacts with other minds and with the outside: world. The whole field has been cnrefu'ly marked out and thoroughly investigated. Social psychology, the psychology of the child, of the adolescent, of middle age, of senescence/ psychology in business, the psychology of advertising, religious psychology—these and countless others are commonphices to-day. If the Renaissance was at bottom the discovery of man, this modern movement marks the discovery of man's mind. And all the world is debtor'to the magnificent researches of the modern psychologist. But, as inevitably happens, a worthy cause attracts the allegifhce of enthusiastic but ill-informed converts. A few patch-words are mouthed by people who know nothing of- the vast background of knowledge that gives them, any vital significance. Abstruse terms that are used by the savant with the greatest caution become the common change of the street and the drawing room. How often one hears to-day glib clap-trap about complexes, the unconscious mind, the subliminal consciousness, repression, sublimations. Ladies will discuss their complexes, the aberrations of their mental processes, with the gusto that once characterised their disquisitions on their bodily health, or their operations. The organ recital has given place to the cant phrases of psycho-analysis. Meddling With Mind. Now ifc is an fact that every man can be his own psychologist. He can flit apart, if he is so disposed, and watch his mind function. He has always at hand a suitable subject'for his cwn researches. But there is this difference between his self-an? lysis unci the careful investigation of the genuine psychologist, he is responsible for the control of the" most delicate mechanism the. evolutionary process through the myriads of centuries has been able, after countless experiments, to create. He is the engi-neer-in-charge of machinery he knows , next to nothing about. And the machine will in most cases run easily and smoothly if he does not blunderingly interfere with it. The true psychologist, the expert, is not for ever tampering with bis own mind: he can only succeed as he wins to the true scientific detachment, and views the processes from the outside; he is no more called upon to experiment on himself than the biologist or the anatomist. That is one of the chief dangers in this modern craze for psychology. As we have upon us the age of the quack, who, in utter ignorance of the long upward struggle of medicine and surgery and the knowledge this has won for 'the healing of men, will lightheartedly prescribe for the poor dupes that are always bringing grist to his mill, so we have with/us in growing numbers the glib amateurs who will lay violent hands on the delicate mechanism of mind. Their knowledge of the operrtions. of the mind must be hopelessly inadequate, but they will rush in with hob-nailed boots where the wisest would decline to tread.

If ever there were matter solely for the expert it is here in the largely unexplored kingdom of the mind. Here if anywhere we must hasten slowly. If a man plays the fool with his body he has to pay for it, though fate may let the debt run on for years. And it gis certain that this is even more true of the mind. It is impossible to (range yet wh«t the damage may bo. Only the years will reveal it. The only safe path is to refuse to tamper with Nature.

The medical man's worst cases are usually those aggravated by unskilled treatment, and goodness only knows what harvest this generation will ultimately reap from Hie home-treatment of the mind. The shops are full of books on auto-sug-gestion and self-hypnosis and all the rest of it. It is time to take our bearings. It will be years before the present researches have issued in any sound scientific knowledge. Till then, the only com-mon-senso path is the one that passes by on the other side. Morbid Introspection.' There is another danger in this widespread interest in psychology. About the worst thing that can happen to any normal man or woman is the over-dove-" 'onment of the habit of introspection. When vou are in good health your heart is fulfilling its function without any ccncentrntion of your mind upon it, the digestive processes carry on without any assistance from you. In health ■ these bodily functions need no meditation on vour part: you go about your work and Nature does the rest. An undue interest in the working of the mind is not a sign of health. All introspection-tends to become morbid. It upsets the balance, it produces the very aberrations it is so earnestly looking for. It takes a man out of the nornrl life of duty and recreation that should be his portion in a world of normal men. A world in which everybody was occupied in watching his mind i"ork is no world for a sane man.