ty, at
its end, to tell clearly, in a few words of your own, what psychology
is.

The word _science_ comes from a Latin root, _scir_, the infinitive form,
_scire_, meaning to know. So a science is simply the accumulated, tested
knowledge, the proved group of facts about a subject, all that is known
of that subject to date. Hence, if psychology is a _science_, it is no
longer a thing of guesses or theories, but is a grouping of confirmed
facts about the mind, facts proved in the psychology laboratory even as
chemical facts are demonstrated in the chemical laboratory. Wherein
psychology departs from facts which can be proved by actual experience
or by accurate tests, it becomes metaphysics, and is beyond the realm of
science; for metaphysics deals with the realities of the supermind, or
the soul, and its relations to life, and death, and God. Physics,
chemistry, biology have all in their day been merely speculative. They
were bodies of theory which might prove true or might not. When they
_worked_, by actually being tried out, they became bodies of accepted
facts, and are today called sciences. In the same way the laws of the
working of the mind have been tested, and a body of assured facts about
it has taken its place with other sciences.

It must be admitted that no psychologist is willing to stop with the
_known_ and _proved_, but, when he has presented that, dips into the
fascinations of the yet unknown, and works with promising theory, which
tomorrow may prove to be science also. But we will first find what they
have verified, and make that the safe foundation for our own
understanding of ourselves and others.

What do we mean by "mental life"?--or, we might say, the science of the
life of the mind. And what is _mind_?

But let us start our quest by asking first what reasons we have for
being sure mind exists. We find the proof of it in consciousness,
although we shall learn later that the activities of the mind may at
times be unconscious. So where consciousness is, we know there is mind;
but where consciousness is not, we must find whether it has been, and is
only temporarily withdrawn, before we say "Mind is not here." And
_consciousness_ we might call _awareness_, or our personal recognition
of being--awareness of me, and thee, and it. So we recognize _mind_ by
its evidences of awareness, _i. e._, by the body's reaction to stimuli;
and we find mind at the very dawn of animal life.

Consciousness is evidence