ABSTRACT
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS is a method of investigating the contents and processes of the human mind. Like all other methods that are of any value it is based ultimately upon introspection. Only by introspection do we have any direct knowledge of mind, even the experimental method having to depend, for the interpretation of its data, upon the experimenter’s knowledge of what goes on in his own mind. Apart from introspection and experiment the most important source of knowledge of mind is found in the products of mental activity in others when these are revealed by outward signs such as the expression of the emotions or behaviour as a whole. An extension of this indirect method is its application to the products of man’s mind which are embodied in his language, his literature, his art, and in his institutions, laws and religions. This objective method is also necessarily employed in genetic psychology and in comparative psychology—the psychology of animals, of infancy, of peoples and of abnormal individuals. But here, again, it must be emphasized that introspection is the necessary foundation underlying all interpretation of what is observed. We can reconstruct the feelings and thoughts of others only 80through the interpretation of the external manifestations of such feelings and thoughts by analogy with what we discover in our own minds.
