f entrance. That an
influence on the inner life of man may be beneficial for his health is a
commonplace truth to-day for everybody. Every serious discussion of the
question has to consider which influences are appropriate, and in which
cases of illness the influence on inner life is advisable. The popular
treatises usually start this chapter by speaking of the "mental and
moral" factors; and this coupling of mental influences and moral
influences characterizes large parts of the discussions of the Christian
Scientists and the Christian half-scientists. Yet we must insist that
the right entrance to psychotherapy is missed if the difference between
morality and mentality is not clearly recognized from the beginning. The
confusion of the two harms every statement. To avoid such a fundamental
mistake, we had to take the long way around and to examine carefully
what psychology really means and what it does not mean.

We know now that inner life can be looked on from two entirely different
standpoints: a purposive one and a causal one, and we have seen that
these two ways of looking on inner life bring about entirely different
aspects of man's inner experience, serve different aims, and stand in
different relations to the immediate needs of our real life. We know
that the one, the causal aspect, belongs to psychology, while the
non-psychological, the purposive aspect, belongs to our immediate mutual
understanding in the walks of life. If the physician is to make use of
inner experience in the interests of overcoming sickness, he must first
decide whether to take the causal or the purposive point of view in
dealing with the patient's mind. This problem is too carelessly ignored
and through that neglect arises much of the popular confusion. Of course
just this carelessness becomes in some ways the ground for apparent
strength for many a superstition and prejudice. If the doors of the
causal mind and of the purposive mind are both open, and the spectator
does not notice that there are two, any trick on thought and reason can
easily be played. Whatever cannot pass through the causal door slips in
through the other, and whatever does not go in through the door of
purpose marches through the entrance of causality. With such methods
anything can be proved, and the most unscrupulous doctrines can be
nicely demonstrated. If we are to avoid such logical smuggling, we must
see clearly which attitude towards mental life belongs properly