The Preface: The development of a science of human nature is primarily a semantic problem. Man dwells in a self-made world of meanings, established through the use of words, and an equally self-made world of values, brought into being by the creation of procedures and techniques. Important psychological abstractions like love, mercy, and honesty must be understood in depth, which means that they take on a permanent core of meaning which can be readily communicated. If these words change in meaning with changing circumstances they become mere words, phantoms from which life has departed, and no matter how much intensity of feeling the user brings to the words in an attempt to endow them with life, they remain mere echoes of the insight they are supposed to embody.
When the fundamental abstractions on which human communication rests cannot find a permanent identity, each man is burdened with the necessity of finding the meanings of human ideas in his own life. There is no established body of universal truth in human matters on which he can rely, and the consequent insecurity for the seeker of human truth becomes very great. Since everyone who thinks creatively must have a unified and permanent view of life many men are forced to accept that view of life which wards off discontent and anxiety, rather than maintaining that open search which only ends in the presence of the truth.
If abstractions which describe human nature are to be understood in depth they must be seen in relationship to the experiences which give them depth. Everything of importance in human nature has a paired quality, because it is part of the reciprocal relationship between the submissive and the dominant in the life process. Depth is intensified in the presence of vigor; vigor is enlivened in the presence of depth. Love takes on its real meaning only in relationship to power; power finds its true value in relationship to love. In this book, love and power are considered together, and all important concepts concerned in human nature are placed in similar pairs. Out of this viewpoint a greater unification of human nature as a subject matter becomes possible. Men do not have to fear being abstract in viewing human nature; what they have to fear is the production of abstractions which have no relationship to the concrete world of the life of action.