The mastery of your own powers is worth more to you than all the knowledge of outside facts you can crowd into your head.  Read and study and practice the teachings of this Basic Course, and they will make you in a new sense the master of yourself and of your future.

In this Basic Course of Reading we shall begin by giving you a thorough understanding of certain mental operations and processes.

[Sidenote:  Abjuring Mysticisms]

We shall lead your interest away from “vague mysticisms” and emphasize such phases of scientific psychological theory as bear directly on practical achievement.

We shall give you a practical working knowledge of concentrative mental methods and devices.  We shall clear away the mysteries and misapprehensions that now envelop this particular field.

In the present volume we shall begin with a discussion of certain aspects of the relation between the mind and the body.

[Sidenote:  Psychology, Physiology and Relationships]

However we look at it, it is impossible to understand the mind without some knowledge of the bodily machine through which the mind works.  The investigation of the mind and its conditions and problems is primarily the business of psychology, which seeks to describe and explain them.  It would seem to be entirely distinct from physiology, which seeks to classify and explain the facts of bodily structure and operation.  But all sciences overlap more or less.  And this is particularly true of psychology, which deals with the mind, and physiology, which deals with the body.

It is the mind that we are primarily interested in.  But every individual mind resides within, or at least expresses itself through, a body.  Upon the preservation of that body and upon the orderly performance of its functions depend our health and comfort, our very lives.

[Sidenote:  Abode and instrument of Mind]

Then, too, considered merely as part of the outside world of matter, man’s body is the physical fact with which he is most in contact and most immediately concerned.  It furnishes him with information concerning the existence and operations of other minds.  It is in fact his only source of information about the outside world.

First of all, then, you must form definite and intelligent conclusions concerning the relations between the mind and the body.

[Sidenote:  Manner of Handling Mental Processes]

This will be of value in a number of ways.  In the first place, you will understand the bodily mechanism through which the mind operates, and a knowledge of this mechanism is bound to enlighten you as to the character of the mental processes themselves.  In the second place, it is worth while to know the extent of the mind’s influence over the body, because this knowledge is the first step toward obtaining bodily efficiency through the mental control of bodily functions.  And, finally, a study of this bodily mechanism is of very great practical importance in itself, for the body is the instrument through which the mind acts in its relations with the world at large.