accompaniments, and other associates. Thus to know what a man believes, or is likely to believe, in so far as you may wish to influence him, you must know how his mind works. Moreover, there are many popular beliefs in our day, all more or less psychological in type, involving new hopes, sometimes confusions of ideas, and reaching into every pathway of human endeavour; and the only way to deal with these intelligently is through knowledge of genuinely scientific psychology.

For example, there are people in our day who have gone so far over into the mental world, in their reaction against materialism, that it seems no longer necessary to take physical and economic conditions into account. For them everything depends upon the idea, and they see such potency in mental attitudes that they believe these 'alone will work physical and economic changes by direct impact. The result is a new series of illusions in favour of a supposed royal road to wealth and success of all sorts, a new attempt to shirk responsibility, and to wait in theoretical idleness for everything to be made right. It is hardly necessary to say that such a belief is even more removed from adaptation to natural law than belief in material forces as fundamentally decisive. For if we begin with material factors we can indeed work upward into the life of the idea, while to begin with the idea is to prepare for a downfall in order that we