ABSTRACT
Adler recommends the study of Individual Psychology not only to doctors, but generally to laymen and especially to teachers. Culture in psychology has become a general necessity, and must be firmly advocated in the teeth of popular opposition to it, which is founded upon the notion that modern psychology requires an unhealthy concentration of the mind upon cases of disease and misery. It is true that the literature of psychoanalysis has revealed the most central and the most universal evils in modern society. But it is not now a question of contemplating our errors, it is necessary that we should learn by them. We have been trying to live as though the oul of man were not a reality, as though we could build up a civilized life in defiance of psychic truths. What Adler proposes is not the universal study of psycho-pathology, but the practical reform of society and culture in accordance with a positive and scientific psychology to which he has contributed the first principles. But this is impossible if we are too much afraid of the truth. The clearer consciousness of right aims in life, which is indispensable to us, cannot be gained without a deeper understanding also of the mistakes in which we are involved. We may not desire to know ugly facts, but the more truly we are aware of life, the more clearly we perceive the real errors which frustrate it, much as the concentration of a light, gives definition to the shadows.
