Excerpt from The Mind at Work: A Handbook of Applied Psychology<br><br>The study of the mind cannot properly be separated from the study of the body, for the two are most intimately related. We all know that when tired and hungry the brain refuses to work. We cannot think clearly. A glass of wine and a biscuit and a short rest restores to us our mental faculties. Or to put the case the other way, good news stimulates appetite, while shock or anxiety gives a distaste for food. These are simple and obvious illustrations; but there are much more remarkable ones that we shall have to discuss later on.<br><br>The greater part of our mental life is necessarily made up of impressions of the outside world that reach us by means of our senses. The eyes and ears and other receptive organs are constantly telegraphing messages to the brain along the nerve fibres. It is one of the chief functions of the mind to interpret these messages, and they eventually, in some mysterious fashion, pass into the region of our consciousness. These primary sensations of a physical origin supply the science of psychology with a convenient starting-point for its investigation, and the study of sensation forms a link between the science of the body and the science of the mind.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.