ABSTRACT
The methodical psychologist meets with his first perplexity as soon as he attempts to define the province of his science. The doctrine of substantial dissimilarity, elaborated in Neoplatonic theosophy and Patristic theology, was first set forth with uncompromising emphasis by Descartes, the first writer who, in modern Europe, may be said to have initiated a separate science of psychology. The science of psychology in its academical development, and likewise in the blind and futile revolt against it which arrayed itself in the incongruous garb of a quasi-physiological materialism, has built upon the quicksand of a metaphysical confusion of thought. At a time when so much in our estimates, conceptions, opinions, calls for fundamental reconsideration we are reminded that all thought and discussion, to whatever aspect of confronting problems, social, political, ethical, vital and personal, they may be directed, posit psychological premisses.
