file was produced from images generously made available by the internet archive/million book project) ------------------------------------------------------------ applied psychology power of mental imagery _being the fifth of a series of_ _twelve volumes on the applications_ _of psychology to the problems of_ _personal and business_ _efficiency_ by warren hilton, a.b., l.l.b. founder of the society of applied psychology issued under the auspices of the literary digest for the society of applied psychology new york and london ------------------------------------------------------------ copyright by the applied psychology press san francisco (_printed in the united states of america_) ------------------------------------------------------------ contents chapter i. imagination and recognition page recognizing the past as past imagination, past, present and future ii. kinds of mental images visual imagery auditory imagery imagery of taste and smell muscular and tactual imagery personal differences in mental imagery investigations of doctor galton investigations of professor james investigations of professor scott iii. how to influence others through mental imagery a rule for influencing others application to pedagogy how to sell goods by mental imagery a study of advertisements the words that create desire a key for selecting a calling iv. how to test your mental imagery finding out your weak points tests for visual imagery tests for auditory and olfactory imagery tests for imagery of taste and touch tests for imagery of heat and cold how to cultivate mental imagery v. the creative imagination the process of creative imagination business and financial imagination how wealth is created the klamath philosophy how men get things prerequisites to achievement how to take radical steps in business the expansion of business ideals rising to the emergency the constructive imagination little tasks and big tasks working up a department imagination in handling employees how to test an employee's imagination imagination in business generally imagination and action imagination and recognition [illustration] chapter i imagination and recognition [sidenote: _recognizing the past as past_] in the preceding volume of this _course_, entitled "the trained memory," you learned that the memory process involves four elements, retention, recall, recognition and imagination; and the scope and operation of two of these elements, retention and recall, were explained to you. there remain recognition and imagination, which we shall make the subject of this book. we shall treat of them, however, not only as parts of the memory process, but also as distinct operations, with an individual significance and value. both recognition and imagination have to do with mental images. recognition relates exclusively to those mental images that are the replica of former experiences. _it is the faculty of the mind by which we recognize remembered experiences as a part of our own past._ if it were not for this sense of familiarity and of ownership and of the past tense of recalled mental images, there would be no way for us to distinguish the sense-perceptions of the past from those of the present. recognition is therefore an element of vital necessity to every act of memory. [sidenote: _imagination, past, present and future_] imagination relates either to the past, the present or the future. on the one hand, it is the outright re-imagery in the mind's eye of past experiences. on the other hand, it is the creation of new and original mental images or visions by the recombination of old experiential elements. [illustration: _girls_-- you'll want to have it taste just right, especially if it's for "him," so be careful of the directions: make a paste, using a tablespoonful of anderson's chocolate --to a cup of boiling milk--stir for a moment--then serve this delightful beverage. watch his eyes sparkle--note the satisfaction in every sip--hear him murmur "you're a dear." this advertisement combines different elements in a skilful appeal to the senses. see text, page ] kinds of mental images [illustration] chapter ii kinds of mental images [sidenote: _visual imagery_] when we speak of "images" in connection with imagination and recognition we do not refer merely to mental pictures of things seen. _mental images are representations of past mental experiences of any and every kind._ they include past sensations of sound, taste, smell, feeling, pain, motion and the other senses, as well as sensations of sight. one may have a mental image of the voice of a friend, of the perfume of a flower, just as he may have mental images of their appearance to the eye. indeed, the term "image" is perhaps unfortunately used in this way, since it must be made to include not only mental pictures in a visual sense, but all forms of reproductive mental activity. our recollection of past experiences may be either full and distinct or hazy and inadequate. some persons are entirely unable to reproduce certain kinds of sensory experiences. somehow they are aware of having had these experiences, but they cannot reproduce them. every one of us has his own peculiarities. [sidenote: _auditory imagery_] this morning i called upon a friend in his office. i was there but a short time. yet i can easily call to mind every detail of the surroundings. i can see the exterior of the building, its form, size, color, window-boxes with flowers, red tile roof, formal gardens in the open court, and even many of the neighboring buildings. i can plainly recall the color of the carpet on his office floor, the general tone of the paper on the wall, the size, type and material of his desk, and many other elements going to make up an almost perfect mental duplicate of the scene itself. i can even see my friend sitting at his desk, and can distinctly remember the color, cut and texture of his clothing and just how he looked when he smiled. [sidenote: _imagery of taste and smell_] last evening we entertained a number of friends at dinner. one of the ladies was an accomplished musician, and later in the evening she delighted us with her exquisite playing upon the piano. the airs she played were familiar to me. i am fond of music and i enjoyed her playing. i can sit here today and in imagination i can see her seated before the piano and remember just how her hands looked as she fingered the keys. but i find it difficult to recall the air of the selection or the tones of the piano. my mental images of the notes as they came from the piano are faint and uncertain and not nearly so distinct and clear as my recollection of the scene. [sidenote: _muscular and tactual imagery_] i find it easy to recall the appearance of the food that was served me for breakfast this morning. i can also faintly imagine the odor and taste of the coffee and toast, but i find that these images of taste and smell are not nearly so realistic as my mental images of what i saw and heard during the course of the meal. when i was in college i was very fond of handball and was a member of the handball team. it has been many years since i played the game, yet i can distinctly feel the peculiar tension of the right arm and shoulder muscles that accompanied the "service." nor do i feel the slightest difficulty in evoking a distinct mental image of the prickly sensations that so annoyed me as a boy when i would first put on woolen underwear in the fall of the year. [sidenote: _personal differences in mental imagery_] from these examples, it is apparent that we can form mental images of past sensations of sight, sound, taste, smell and feeling, and indeed of every kind, including the muscular or motor sense and the sense of heat and cold. but there is the greatest possible difference in individuals in this respect. some persons have distinct images of things they have seen, are good visualizers. others are weak in this respect, but have clear auditory images. and so as to all the various kinds of sensory images. this is a fact of comparatively recent discovery. the first proponent of the idea was fechner, but no statistical work was done in this line until galton entered the field, in . in his "inquiries into human faculties," he says: [sidenote: _investigations of doctor galton_] "to my astonishment, i found that the great majority of the men of science to whom i first applied protested that mental imagery was unknown to them, and they looked on me as fanciful and fantastic in supposing that the words 'mental imagery' really expressed what i believed everybody supposed them to mean. they had no more notion of its true nature than a color-blind man, who has not discerned his defect, has of the nature of color. they had a mental deficiency of which they were unaware and naturally enough supposed that those who affirmed they possessed it were romancing." [sidenote: _investigations of professor james_] the investigations of dr. galton were continued by professor james, of harvard university. he collected from hundreds of persons descriptions of their own mental images. the following are extracts from two cases of distinctly different types. the one who is a good visualizer says: "this morning's breakfast-table is both dim and bright; it is dim if i try to think of it with my eyes closed. all the objects are clear at once, yet when i confine my attention to any one object it becomes far more distinct. i have more power to recall color than any other one thing; if, for example, i were to recall a plate decorated with flowers i could reproduce in a drawing the exact tone, etc. the color of anything that was on the table is perfectly vivid. there is very little limitation to the extent of my images; i can see all four sides of a room; i can see all four sides of two, three, four, even more rooms with such distinctness that if you should ask me what was in any particular place in any one, or ask me to count the chairs, etc., i could do it without the least hesitation. the more i learn by heart the more clearly do i see images of my pages. even before i can recite the lines i see them so that i could give them very slowly word for word, but my mind is so occupied in looking at my printed image that i have no idea of what i am saying, of the sense of it, etc. when i first found myself doing this i used to think it was merely because i knew the lines imperfectly; but i have quite convinced myself that i really do see an image. the strongest proof that such is really the fact is, i think, the following: "i can look down the mentally seen page and see the words that commence all the lines, and from any one of these words i can continue the line. i find this much easier to do if the words begin as in a straight line than if there are breaks. example: etant fait tous ............. a des ............ que fit .......... ceres ............ avec ........... un fleur ......... comme .......... (la fontaine s. iv.)" the poor visualizer says: "my ability to form mental images seems, from what i have studied of other people's images, to be defective, and somewhat peculiar. the process by which i seem to remember any particular event is not by a series of distinct images, but a sort of panorama, the faintest impressions of which are perceptible through a thick fog--i cannot shut my eyes and get a distinct image of anyone, although i used to be able to a few years ago, and the faculty seems to have gradually slipped away. * * * in my most vivid dreams, where the events appear like the most real facts, i am often troubled with a dimness of sight which causes the images to appear indistinct. * * * to come to the question of the breakfast-table, there is nothing definite about it. everything is vague. i cannot say what i see. i could not possibly count the chairs, but i happen to know that there are ten. i see nothing in detail. * * * the chief thing is a general impression that i cannot tell exactly what i do see. the coloring is about the same, as far as i can recall it, only very much washed out. perhaps the only color i can see at all distinctly is that of the tablecloth, and i could probably see the color of the wall paper if i could remember what color it was." this difference between individuals is just as marked in the matter of ability to form _auditory_ images as in respect to _visual_ images. [sidenote: _investigations of professor scott_] thus, professor walter dill scott, of northwestern university, cites the following: "one student who has strong auditory imagery writes as follows: 'when i think of the breakfast-table i do not seem to have a clear visual image of it. i can see the length of it, the three chairs--though i can't tell the color or shape of these--the white cloth and something on it, but i can't see the pattern of the dishes or any of the food. i can very plainly hear the rattle of the dishes and of the silver and above this hear the conversation, also the other noises, such as a train which passes every morning while we are at breakfast. again, in a football game i distinctly hear the noise, but do not see clearly anything or anybody. i hear the stillness when everyone is intent and then the loud cheering. here i notice the differences of pitch and tone.' "i had read that some people were unable to imagine sounds which they had heard, but it had not impressed me, for i had supposed that such persons were great exceptions. i was truly surprised when i found so many of my students writing papers similar to those from which extracts are here given: 'my mental imagery is visual, as i seem to see things and not hear, feel or smell them. the element of sound seems practically never to enter in. when i think of a breakfast-table or a football game i have a distinct image. i see colors, but hear no sound.' [illustration: a feature in the making of anderson's cocoa the manner in which thousands of pounds of cocoa beans are daily roasted anderson & co. n.y. this advertisement awakens the wrong kind of mental images. see text, page ] "another in describing his image of a railroad-train, writes: 'i am not able to state whether i hear the train or not. i am inclined to think that it is a noiseless one. it is hard for me to conceive of the sound of a bell, for instance. i can see the bell move to and fro, and for an instant seem to hear the ding, dong; but it is gone before i can identify it. when i try to conceive of shouts i am like one groping in the dark. i cannot possibly retain the conception of a sound for any length of time.' "another, who seems to have no vivid images of any kind, writes: 'when i recall the breakfast-table i see it and the persons around it. the number of them is distinct, for there is only one of them on each side of the table. but they seem like mere objects in space. only when i think of each separately do i clearly see them. as for the table, all i see is a general whiteness, interspersed with objects. i hear nothing at all, and indeed the whole thing is so indistinct it bewilders me when i think of it. my mental imagery is very vague and hazy, unless i have previously taken special notice of what i now have an image of. for instance, when i have an image of a certain person i cannot tell his particular characteristics unless my attention was formerly directed to them.' "another writes: 'there is no sound in connection with any image. in remembering, i call up an incident and gradually fill out the details. i can very seldom recall how anything sounds. one sound from the play "robespierre," by henry irving, which i heard about two years ago and which i could recall some time afterward, i have been unable to recall this fall, though i have tried to do so. i can see the scene quite perfectly, the position of the actors and stage setting, even the action of a player who brought out the sound.' "quite a large proportion of persons find it impossible to imagine motion at all. as they think of a football game, all the players are standing stock-still; they are as they are represented in a photograph. they are in the act of running, but no motion is represented. likewise, the banners and streamers are all motionless. they find it impossible to think of such a thing as motion. others find that the motions are the most vivid part of their images. what they remember of a scene is principally movement. "one writes: 'when the word "breakfast-table" was given out i saw our breakfast-table at home, especially the table and the white tablecloth. the cloth seemed to be the most distinct object. i can see each one in his place at the table. i can see no color except that of the tablecloth. the dishes are there, but are very indistinct. i cannot hear the rattle of the dishes or the voices very distinctly; the voices seem much louder than the dishes, but neither are very clear. i can feel the motions which i make during the breakfast hour. i feel myself come in, sit down and begin to eat. i can see the motions of those about me quite plainly. i believe the feeling of motion was the most distinct feeling i had. when the word "railroad-train" was given i saw the train very plainly just stopping in front of the depot. i saw the people getting on the train; these people were very indistinct. it is their motions rather than the people themselves which i see. i can feel myself getting on the train, finding a seat, and sitting down. i cannot hear the noise of the train, but can hear rather indistinctly the conductor calling the stations. i believe my mental imagery is more motile (of movement) than anything else. although i can see some things quite plainly, i seem to feel the movements most distinctly.' "a very few in describing their images of the breakfast-table made special mention of the taste of the food and of its odor. i have discovered no one whose prevailing imagery is for either taste or smell. with very many the image of touch is very vivid. they can imagine just how velvet feels, how a fly feels on one's nose, the discomfort of a tight shoe, and the pleasure of stroking a smooth marble surface." how to influence others through mental imagery [illustration] chapter iii how to influence others through mental imagery [sidenote: _a rule for influencing others_] the practical importance of the fact of mental imagery and of the individual differences in power of mental imagery is very great. they should be particularly taken into account in any business or profession in which one seeks to implant knowledge or conviction in the mind of another. [sidenote: _application to pedagogy_] the underlying principle in such cases is this: _to the mind you are seeking to convince or educate, present your facts in as many different ways and as realistically as possible, so that there may be a variety of images, each serving as a clue to prompt the memory._ we cannot do more at this point than indicate a few minor phases of the practical application of the principles of mental imagery. in the old days geography was taught simply with a book and maps. today children also use their hands in molding relief maps in sand or clay, and mountains and rivers have acquired a meaning they never had before. in the days of the oral "spelling match" boys and girls were better spellers than products of a later school system, because they used not only the eye to see the printed word, the arm and hand to feel in writing it, but also the ear to hear it and the vocal muscles to utter it. and because of this fact oral spelling is being brought back to the schoolroom. [sidenote: _how to sell goods by mental imagery_] if you have pianos to advertise, do not limit your advertisement to a beautiful picture of the mahogany case and general words telling the reader that it is "the best." pianos are musical instruments, and the descriptive words should first of all call up delightful _auditory images_ in your reader's mind. if you have for sale an article of food, do not simply tell your customer how good it is. let him see it, feel it, and particularly _taste it_, if you want him to call for it the next time he enters your store. [sidenote: _a study of advertisements_] turn, for example, to the advertisement of a certain brand of chocolate, facing page . the daintily spread table, the pretty girl, the steaming cup, the evident satisfaction of the man, who looks accustomed to good living,--these elements combine in a skilful appeal to the senses. turn now to another advertisement of this same brand of chocolate, shown facing page . the purpose here is to inform you as to the large quantity of cocoa beans roasted in the company's furnaces. whether this fact is of any consequence or not, the impression you get from the picture is of a wheelbarrow full of something that looks like coal being trundled by a dirty workman, while the shovel by the furnace door and the cocoa beans scattered about the floor remind one of a begrimed iron foundry. [sidenote: _the words that create desire_] _the only words that will ever sell anything are graphic words, picturesque words, words that call up distinct and definite mental pictures of an attractive kind._ the more sensory images we have of any object the better we know it. _if you want to make a first impression lasting, make it vivid. it will then photograph itself upon the memory and arouse the curiosity._ a boy who is a poor visualizer will never make a good artist. a man who is a poor visualizer is out of place as a photographer or a picture salesman. [sidenote: _a key for selecting a calling_] no person with weak auditory images should follow music as a profession or attempt to sell phonographs or musical instruments or become a telephone or telegraph operator or stenographer. no man who can but faintly imagine the taste of things should try to write advertisements for articles of food. remember the rule: _to the mind you are seeking to convince or educate present your facts in as many different ways and as realistically as possible, so that there may be a variety of images, each serving as a clue to prompt the memory._ you can put this rule to practical use at once. try it. you will be delighted with the result. how to test your mental imagery [illustration] chapter iv how to test your mental imagery [sidenote: _finding out your weak points_] we suggest that you now test your own reproductive imagination with a view to determining your points of strength or weakness in this respect. and in doing so please bear in mind that the following questions are not asked with a view to determining what you know about the subject of the question, but simply how vividly--that is to say, with what life-like clearness--the mental image is presented to your mind, how close it comes to a present reality. [sidenote: _tests for visual imagery_] go into a quiet room, close your eyes and try to bar from your mind every distraction. now then, ask yourself these questions: visual.-- . can you remember just how your bedroom looked when you left it this morning--the appearance of each separate article of furniture and decoration, the design and color of the carpet, the color of the walls, the arrangement of toilet articles upon the dresser, and so on? can you see the whole room just as clearly as if you were in it at this moment? or is your mental picture blurred and doubtful? . how clearly can you see the space that intervenes between your house and some far-distant object? have you a clear impression of the visual elements that determine this distance? . can you see a bird flying through the air? an automobile rushing down the street? . can you imagine a red surface? a green surface? try each primary color; which is most distinct to your mind's eye? . can you see a smooth surface? a rough surface? a curved surface? a flat surface? a cube? does the cube look solid? . when you memorize a poem do you remember just how each word looked on the printed page? [sidenote: _tests for auditory and olfactory imagery_] auditory.-- . can you in imagination hear your door-bell ringing? . can you form an auditory image of thunder? of waves breaking on a rocky shore? of a passing street-car? . can you mentally hear the squeak of a mouse? the twitter of a bird? the breathing of a sleeping child? . do these images come to you with the distinctness of reality? . can you distinctly remember a voice you have not heard for a long time? . can you recall the tones of an entire selection of music played on the piano? [sidenote: _tests for imagery of taste and touch_] smell.--can you distinctly recall the odor of strong cheese? of violets? of roses? of coffee? of your favorite cigar? is it clear to your mind that it is the odor you are recalling and not the taste? taste.-- . can you remember just how butter tastes? an apple? . try to imagine that you are sucking a lemon. does it pucker your mouth? does it seem like a real lemon? . can you imagine the taste of sugar? of salt? of pepper? pain and touch.-- . can you in imagination live over again any past physical suffering? . can you recall the feeling of woolen underwear? of bedclothes resting upon you? . can you re-experience a feeling of exhaustion? of exhilaration? [sidenote: _tests for imagery of heat and cold_] heat and cold.--can you imagine a feeling of warmth? of cold? does your recollection of the feeling of ice differ from your memory of a burn? go through the above list of questions, carefully noting down your answers. you will discover some personal peculiarities in yourself you never dreamed existed. try these questions on other members of your own family. you will be surprised at the varying results. you will perceive the reason for many innate differences of ability to do and to enjoy. [sidenote: _how to cultivate mental imagery_] think what an immense part imagination plays in the world of business, and you will see how important it is to know your own type of sense-imagery. to some extent the power of forming mental images can be cultivated so as to improve one's fitness for different kinds of employment. such self-culture rests upon improvement in the vividness of your sense-perceptions. it suffices for your present purpose to know that to cultivate your power of sense-imagery in any respect you must ( ) _keep the appropriate sense-organs in good condition, and_ ( ) _when sense-perceptions of the kind in question come to you, give your undivided attention to your consciousness of them._ the creative imagination [illustration] chapter v the creative imagination [sidenote: _the process of creative imagination_] there is another type of imagination from the purely reproductive memory imagination of which we have been speaking in this book. there is also creative imagination. creative imagination is more than mere memory. it takes the elements of the past as reproduced by memory and rearranges them. it forms new combinations out of the material of the past. it forms new combinations of ideas, emotions and their accompanying impulses to muscular activity, the elements of mental "complexes." it recombines these elements into new and original mental pictures, the creations of the inventive mind. [sidenote: _business and financial imagination_] no particular profession or pursuit has a monopoly of creative imagination. it is not the exclusive property of the poet, the artist, the inventor, the philosopher. we tell you this because you have heard all your life of the poetic imagination, the artistic imagination, and so on, but it is rare indeed that you have heard mention of the business imagination. the fact is no man can succeed in any pursuit unless he has a creative imagination. without creative imagination the human race would still be living in caves. without creative imagination there would be no ships, no engines, no automobiles, no corporations, no systems, no plans, no business. nothing exists in all the world that had not a previous counterpart in the mind of him who designed it. and back of all is the creative mind of god. [sidenote: _how wealth is created_] mind is supreme. mind shapes and controls matter. every concrete thing in the world is the product of a thinking consciousness. the richly tinted canvas is the physical expression of the artist's dream. the great factory, with its whirling mechanisms and glowing furnaces, is the material manifestation of the promoter's financial imagination. the jeweled ornament, the book, the steamship, the office building, all are but concrete realizations of human thought molded out of formless matter. mind, finite and infinite, is eternally creative and creating in the organization of formless matter and material forces into concrete realities. [sidenote: _the klamath philosophy_] says max müller in his "psychological religion": "the klamaths, one of the red indian tribes, believe in a supreme god whom they call 'the most ancient one,' 'our old father,' or 'the old one on high.' he is believed to have created the world--that is, to have made plants, animals and man. but when asked how the old father created the world, the klamath philosopher replies: _'by thinking and willing.'"_ [sidenote: _how men get things_] we get what we desire because the things we desire are the things we think about. love begets love. the man who is looking for trouble generally finds it. despair is the forerunner of disaster, and fear brings failure, because despair and fear are the emotional elements attendant upon thoughts of defeat. behind every thing and every act is, and always has been, thought--thought of sufficient intensity to shape and fashion the physical event. mind, and mind alone, possesses the inscrutable power to create. your career is ordered by the thoughts you entertain. mental pictures tend to accomplish their own realization. therefore, be careful to hold only those thoughts that will build up rather than tear down the structure of your fortunes. [sidenote: _prerequisites to achievement_] creative imagination is an absolute prerequisite to material achievement. the business man must scheme and plan and devise and foresee. he must create in imagination today the results that he is to achieve tomorrow. he must combine the elements of his past experiential complexes into a mental picture of future events as he would have them. riches are but the material realization of a financial imagination. the wealth of the world is but the sum total of the contributions of the creative thoughts of the successful men of all ages. [sidenote: _how to take radical steps in business_] with these principles before you, you can plainly see that the _creative imagination must be called upon in the solution of every practical question in every hour of the business day._ consider its part in two phases of your business life--first, when you are contemplating a radical change in your business situation; second, when you are seeking to improve some particular department of your business. [sidenote: _how to take radical steps in business_] in the determination of how best you can better yourself, either in your present field of action or by the selection of a new one, take the following steps: ( ) pass in review before the mind's eye your present situation; ( ) your possible ways of betterment; ( ) the various circumstances and individuals that will aid in this or that line of self-advancement; ( ) the difficulties that may confront you. having selected your field, ( ) consider various possible plans of action; ( ) have prevision of their working out; ( ) compare the ultimate results as you foresee them; ( ) decide upon the one most promising, and then with this plan as a foundation for further imaginings, ( ) once more call before you the elements that will contribute to success; ( ) see the possible locations for your new place of business and choose among them; ( ) outline in detail the methods to be pursued in getting and handling business; ( ) see the different kinds of employees and associates you will require, and select certain classes as best suited to your needs; ( ) foresee possible difficulties to be encountered and adjust your plans to meet them; and, most important of all, ( ) have a clear and persistent vision of yourself as a man of action, setting to work upon your plan at a fixed hour and carrying it to a successful issue within a given time. [sidenote: _the expansion of business ideals_] there is excellent practical psychology in the following from "thoughts on business": "men often think of a position as being just about so big and no bigger, when, as a matter of fact, a position is often what one makes it. a man was making about $ , a year out of a certain position and thought he was doing all that could be done to advance the business. the employer thought otherwise, and gave the place to another man who soon made the position worth $ , a year--at exactly the same commission. [sidenote: _rising to the emergency_] "the difference was in the men--in other words, in what the two men thought about the work. one had a little conception of what the work should be, and the other had a big conception of it. one thought little thoughts, and the other thought big thoughts. "the standards of two men may differ, not especially because one is naturally more capable than the other, but because one is familiar with big things and the other is not. the time was when the former worked in a smaller scope himself, but when he saw a wider view of what his work might be he rose to the occasion and became a bigger man. it is just as easy to think of a mountain as to think of a hill--when you turn your mind to contemplate it. the mind is like a rubber band--you can stretch it to fit almost anything, but it draws in to a small scope when you let go. [sidenote: _the constructive imagination_] "make it your business to know what is the best that might be in your line of work, and stretch your mind to conceive it, and then devise some way to attain it. [sidenote: _little tasks and big tasks_] "big things are only little things put together. i was greatly impressed with this fact one morning as i stood watching the workmen erecting the steel framework for a tall office building. a shrill whistle rang out as a signal, a man over at the engine pulled a lever, a chain from the derrick was lowered, and the whistle rang out again. a man stooped down and fastened the chain around the center of a steel beam, stepped back and blew the whistle once more. again the lever was moved at the engine, and the steel beam soared into the air up to the sixteenth story, where it was made fast by little bolts. "the entire structure, great as it was, towering far above all the neighboring buildings, was made up of pieces of steel and stone and wood, put together according to a plan. the plan was first imagined, then penciled, then carefully drawn, and then followed by the workmen. it was all a combination of little things. [sidenote: _working up a department_] "it is encouraging to think of this when you are confronted by a big task. remember that it is only a group of little tasks, any of which you can easily do. it is ignorance of this fact that makes some men afraid to try." suppose, now, that instead of making a radical change in your business situation, you are simply seeking to improve some particular department of your business. [sidenote: _imagination in handling employees_] in commercial affairs men are the great means to money-making, and efficient personal service the great key to prosperity. in your dealings with employees do not be guided by the necessities of the moment. expediency is the poorest of all excuses for action. have regard not only for your own immediate needs, but also for the welfare and future conduct of your employees. it is part of the burden of the executive head that he must do the forethinking not only for himself but for those under him. perhaps the man you have under observation for advancement to some executive position has all the basic qualifications of judicial sense, discrimination and attentiveness to details, but you are uncertain whether he has enough imagination to devise new ways and means of doing things and developing business in new fields. if you wish to try a simple but very effective test along this line, you can adopt the following standard psychological experiment, which has been used at harvard, cornell and many other colleges and schools. [sidenote: _how to test an employee's imagination_] let fall a drop of ink on each of several pieces of white paper, letterhead size. this will make irregular blotches of varying forms. let the subject be seated at a desk and ask him to write briefly about what he sees in each blotched sheet, whether it be an animal form suggested by the outline of the blot, or anything else that comes into his mind while looking at the black spot. the principle involved here is the same as that involved in seeing pictures in a flickering log fire or having a vision of past or future events by gazing into a crystal. in any of these cases, it is not the blot, the fire or the crystal that produces the vision, but the creative imagination that recombines old elements into new forms. the number of images suggested to one by certain standard forms of ink-blot when compared with established results is a measure of his imaginative ability. [sidenote: _imagination in business generally_] in the choice of a location for your factory or store, you must foresee its future traffic and transportation possibilities. in passing upon a proposed advertisement you must get inside the head of the man on the street and see it as he will see it. in the purchase of your stock of goods you must gauge the trend of popular taste and foresee the big demand. in your dealings with creditors you must plan a course of action that will enable you to settle the account to _your_ best interest at _their_ request. you must find a way to collect from your debtors and at the same time hold their business. and so in a hundred thousand different ways you are constantly required to use creative thought in laying every stone in the structure of your fortune. [sidenote: _imagination and action_] do not understand us as saying that imagination, as the term is popularly used, is all you need. there must be also action, incessant, persistent. but _creative imagination, in a psychological and scientific sense, begets action. every thought carries with it the impellent energy to effect its realization._ use your imagination in your business and the action will take care of itself. given imagination and action, and you are sure to win. transcriber's notes removed duplicate sidenotes and adjusted placement of sidenotes. the original book used asterisks as ellipses. (this file was produced from images generously made available by the internet archive/million book project) applied psychology initiative psychic energy _being the sixth of a series of twelve volumes on the applications of psychology to the problems of personal and business efficiency_ by warren hilton, a.b., l.l.b. founder of the society of applied psychology issued under the auspices of the literary digest for _the society of applied psychology_ new york and london copyright by the applied psychology press san francisco contents chapter i. mental second wind sticking to the job the lagging brain reserve supplies of power "blue" mondays how to strike one's stride the spur of desire how to release stored-up energies the lawyer who "overworks" excitement and the hero enduring power of mind ii. reserves of power man's potential and kinetic energies holding the top pace genius and the master man mental effects of city life new-found energies explained quickened mentality fast living and long living professor patrick's experiments ratio between repair and demand pygmies and giants transforming inertness into alertness how the mind accumulates energy the threshold of inhibition hidden strength giving a man scope iii. the initiative energy of success sources of persistence importance of the mental setting ideas all men respond to how to exalt the personality "good starters" and "strong finishers" steps in self-development saving a thousand a year looking for a "soft snap" drawing power from on high the man who lasts iv. how to avoid wastes that drain the energy of success speeding the bullet without aiming why most men fail the successful promoter the human dynamo cool brains and hot boxes marvelous increased efficiency handling "pig" "overloaded" human engines scientific management of self physiological causes of waste tests for sensory defects mental friction and inner whirlwinds prominent traits of great achievers why a man breaks down how to economize effort how your mental capital is dissipated conquering indecision why "christian science" works how to release pent-up power proper ratio between work and rest determining your norm of efficiency v. the secret of mental efficiency where energy is stored bodily effects of ideas impulses and inhibitions training for mental "team-work" rust and the "daily grind" ideas that harmonize five rules for conserving energy business luck and "blue-sky" theories devices for commercial efficiency chapter i mental second wind [sidenote: _sticking to the job_] are you an unusually persevering and persistent person? or, like most of us, do you sometimes find it difficult to stick to the job until it is done? what is your usual experience in this respect? is it not this, that you work steadily along until of a sudden you become conscious of a feeling of weariness, crying "enough!" for the time being, and that you then yield to the impulse to stop? [sidenote: _the lagging brain_] assuming that this is what generally happens, does this feeling of fatigue, this impulse to rest, mean that your mental energy is exhausted? suppose that by a determined effort of the will you force your lagging brain to take up the thread of work. _there will invariably come a new supply of energy, a "second wind," enabling you to forge ahead with a freshness and vigor that is surprising after the previous lassitude._ nor is this all. the same process may be repeated a second time and a third time, each new effort of the will being followed by a renewal of energy. [sidenote: _reserve supplies of power_] many a man will tell you that he does his best work in the wee watches of the morning, after tedious hours of persevering but fruitless effort. instead of being exhausted by its long hours of persistent endeavor, the mind seems now to rise to the acme of its power, to achieve its supreme accomplishments. difficulties melt into thin air, profound problems find easy solution. flights of genius manifest themselves. yet long before midnight such a one had perhaps felt himself yield to fatigue and had tied a wet towel around his head or had taken stimulants to keep himself awake. the existence of this reserve supply of energy is manifested in physical as well as mental effort. men who work with their heads and men who work with their hands, scholars and marathon runners, must alike testify to the existence of _reserve supplies of power not ordinarily drawn upon_. [sidenote: _"blue" mondays_] if we do not always or habitually utilize this reserve power, it is simply because we have accustomed ourselves to yield at once to the first strong feeling of fatigue. evidence of this same fact appears in our feelings on different days. how often does a man get up from his breakfast-table after a long night's rest, when he should be feeling fresh and invigorated, and say to himself, "i don't feel like working today." and it may take him until afternoon to get into his workaday stride, if, indeed, he reaches it at all. [sidenote: _how to strike one's stride_] you cannot yourself be immune from the feeling on certain days that you are not at your best. somehow or other, your wits seem befogged. you hesitate to undertake important interviews. your interest lags. and though crises arise in your business, you feel weighted down and unable to meet them with that shrewd discernment and decisiveness of action of which you know yourself capable. but you realize, in your inmost self, that _if you continue to exert the will and persistently hold yourself to the business in hand, sooner or later you will warm to the work, enthusiasm will come, the clouds will be dispelled, the husks will fly. yet you have had no rest; on the contrary, you have, by continued conscious effort, consumed more and more of your vital energy_. [sidenote: _the spur of desire_] obviously it was not rest that you needed. what you required was the impulse of some _strong desire_ that should carry you over the threshold of that first inertia into the wide field of reserve energy so rarely called upon and so rich in power. under the lashings of necessity, or the spur of love or ambition, men accomplish feats of mental and physical endurance of which they would have supposed themselves incapable. here is what a certain lawyer says of his early struggles: [sidenote: _how to release stored-up energies_] "when i was twenty-three years old, married, and with a family to support, i entered the law course of a great university. of the many students in my class, seven, including me, were making a living while studying law. "by special arrangement, i was relieved from attendance at lectures and simply required to pass examinations on the various subjects, and was thus enabled to retain my place as principal of a large public school. during the third and last year of my law course, i was principal of a public day school of two thousand children and an alternate night school with an enrolment of seven hundred and fifty, and i worked at the law three nights in the week and all day sunday. [sidenote: _the lawyer who "overworks"_] "after eight months of this, the final examinations came around. they consumed a full week--from nine in the morning until five or six at night. i had no opportunity for review, so i rented a room near the law school to save the time going and coming and reviewed each night the subjects of examination for the following day. "i did not sleep more than two hours any night in that week. on thursday, while bolting a bit of luncheon, a fishbone stuck in my throat. fearful of losing the result of my year's effort, i returned to my work, suffering much pain, and kept at it until saturday night, when the examinations were concluded. the next day the surgeon who removed the fishbone said there was no reason why i should not have had 'a bad case of gangrene.' "when i look back on that year's work i don't see how i stood it. i don't see how i kept myself at it, day in, day out, month after month without rest, recreation or relief. i am sure i could never go through it again, even if i had the courage to undertake it. "i ranked second in a class of one hundred and eighty in my law examinations, won the second prize for the best graduating thesis, received a complimentary vote for class oratorship, and much to my surprise was soon after offered an assistant superintendency of the public schools by the school board, who knew nothing of my studies and thought my work as a teacher worthy of promotion. "it was not only the hardest year's work but the best year's work i ever did. _it exemplifies my invariable experience that the more we want to do the more we can do and the better we can do it._" [sidenote: _excitement and the hero_] the following is an extract from a letter quoted by professor james as written by colonel baird-smith after the siege of delhi in , to the success of which he largely contributed: "my poor wife had some reason to think that war and disease, between them, had left very little of a husband to take under nursing when she got him again. an attack of scurvy had filled my mouth with sores, shaken every joint in my body and covered me all over with scars and livid spots, so that i was unlovely to look upon. a smart knock on the ankle joint from the splinter of a shell that burst in my face, in itself a mere bagatelle of a wound, had been of necessity neglected under the pressing and insistent calls upon me, and had grown worse and worse until the whole foot below the ankle became a black mass and seemed to threaten mortification. i insisted, however, on being allowed to use it until the place was taken, mortification or no; and though the pain was sometimes horrible i carried my point and kept up to the last. "on the day after the assault i had an unlucky fall on some bad ground, and it was an open question for a day or two whether i hadn't broken my arm at the elbow. fortunately it turned out to be only a severe sprain, but i am still conscious of the wrench it gave me. to crown the whole pleasant catalogue, i was worn to a shadow by a constant diarrhoea and consumed as much opium as would have done credit to my father-in-law (thomas de quincey). "however, thank god, i have a good share of tapleyism in me and come out strong under difficulties. i think i may confidently say that no man ever saw me out of heart or ever heard a complaining word from me even when our prospects were gloomiest. we were sadly crippled by cholera, and it was almost appalling to me to find that out of twenty-seven officers i could only muster fifteen for the operations of the attack. however, it was done,--and after it was done came the collapse. [sidenote: _enduring power of mind_] "don't be horrified when i tell you that for the whole of the actual siege, and in truth for some little time before, i almost lived on brandy. appetite for food i had none, but i forced myself to eat just sufficient to sustain life, and i had an incessant craving for brandy, as the strongest stimulant i could get. strange to say, i was quite unconscious of its affecting me in the slightest degree. "_the excitement of the work was so great that no lesser one seemed to have any chance against it, and i certainly never found my intellect clearer or my nerves stronger in my life._" such is the profound resourcefulness and enduring power of the human mind. chapter ii reserves of power [sidenote: _man's potential and kinetic energies_] stored-up energy not in use has been given a name by scientific men. they call it _potential energy_. in this way it is distinguished from _kinetic_ or circulating energy by which is meant energy that is at work. for example, a ton of coal in the bin contains a certain amount of potential energy, which is capable of being converted into kinetic energy by combustion. [sidenote: _holding the top pace_] you have a vast amount of potential energy over and above what you actually use. you have formed the habit of giving up trying a thing as soon as you have spent the usual amount of effort on it, and this without regard to whether or not you have accomplished anything. while we all have the power of sustained mental activity, not one in ten thousand of us holds to the top pace. worse still, even such mental energy as we do consume is dispersed and scattered over a multitude of trivial interests instead of being focused upon some one possessing aim. _we intend to show you how you can lose yourself in your work with an absorbing passion and how you can at any time make special requisition upon your hidden stores of potential energy and draw new supplies of power that will sweep you on to your goal._ [sidenote: _genius and the master man_] more than anything else, it is the ability to do this that lifts the great men of the race above the common run of mortals. it is this that distinguishes genius from mediocrity. the master man transforms his vast stores of reserve or potential energy into circulating or kinetic energy. his work glows with living fire. yet, for every such man there are a multitude of others, equally gifted in some respect, but wanting that mysterious "open sesame" which would discover their hidden mental riches, arouse them from their accustomed inferiority to their best selves, and transform potentiality into accomplishment. so it comes about that most of us are gems that shine but to illumine the "dark unfathomed caves of ocean," flowers born to "blush unseen." [sidenote: _mental effect of city life_] take an illustration of the way in which this reserve or potential energy is transformed into circulating or kinetic energy. suppose that you are a countryman and come to live in a large city. the speed with which we do things, our habits of quick decision, the whirlwind of activities of the busy man in town, appal you. you cannot see how we live through it. a day in the business district fills you with terror. the tumult and danger make it seem "like a permanent earthquake." but settle down to work here. and in a year you will have "caught the pulse beat," you will "vibrate to the city's rhythm," and if you only "make good" in your work, you will enjoy the strain and hurry, you will keep pace with the best of us, and you will get more out of yourself in a day in the city than you ever did in a week on the farm. _this change in degree of mental activity does not necessarily mean that you are making more of a success of life._ your activities may be ill-directed. your new-found powers may be misspent and dissipated. but you are mentally more alert your mental forces have been stimulated by the stirring environment. [sidenote: _new-found energies explained_] and, mark this particularly, _a number of mental pictures will pass across the screen of your consciousness today in the same time that one mental image formerly required._ _now, you have learned that with every idea catalogued in memory, there is wrapped up and stowed away an associated "feeling tone" and an associated impulse to some particular muscular action._ assuming this, you must at once see that here is an explanation of your new-found energy. your quickened step, your new-found decisiveness of action, your more observant eye, your clear-cut speech instead of the former drawling utterance, your livelier manner, your freshened enthusiasm and enjoyment of life--all of these are but manifestations of a quickened intelligence. [sidenote: _quickened mentality_] _they are the working out through the motor paths of mental impulses to muscular action._ and these impulses to muscular action come thronging into consciousness _because the livelier environment brings about a more rapid reproduction of memory pictures_. and here comes a particularly striking fact. one would naturally suppose that the more energy a man consumed, and the faster he lived, the more quickly his vitality would be exhausted and the shorter his life would be. as a matter of fact, by the divine beneficence of providence, _your organism is so ordered as to adapt itself within certain wide limits to the demands made upon it_. [sidenote: _fast living and long living_] you may call into play all the stored-up resources of your being and still not stake everything upon a single throw. for the supply of mental energy is as inexhaustible as the reservoir of all past experience, while the supply of physical energy involved in brain and nerve activity is, like the immortal liver of prometheus, renewed as fast as depleted. two sets of facts that have been established by elaborate scientific experiment will convince you of the truth of these propositions. [sidenote: _professor patrick's experiments_] professor patrick, of the state university of iowa, conducted some of these experiments. he caused three young men to remain awake for four successive days and nights. they were then allowed to go to sleep, the purpose of the experiment being to determine just how much time nature required to recuperate from the long vigil. they were allowed to sleep themselves out, and all woke up thoroughly rested. _yet the one who slept the longest slept only one-third longer than his customary night's sleep._ you have doubtless had the same experience yourself many times. it all goes to show that if we are awake four times as long as usual, we do not make up for it by sleeping four times as _long_, but four times as _soundly_, as customary. the hard-working mechanic requires no more hours of sleep than the corner loafer, the active man of affairs no more than the dawdler. [sidenote: _ratio between repair and demand_] _the time of tissue repair is about the same with all men under all conditions. it is the rate of repair that varies with the demand that has been put upon the body._ again, look at the same subject from the standpoint of food supply. on what you now eat and drink you have a certain average weight. eat, digest and assimilate a larger quantity of food and your weight will increase. this increase will be greatest at the start and will gradually slow up until you shall have reached the point beyond which you can gain no more. given the same hygienic conditions that you have been accustomed to, you will maintain yourself at the increased weight on the increased supply of food. [sidenote: _pygmies and giants_] now, all this involves clearly enough a greatly increased rate of activity on the part of the bodily organs of assimilation and repair. it is a situation on all fours with that of the countryman whose rate of brain activity has been stimulated by an increased mental demand. no man will maintain that better, more nourishing and more liberal food rations, transformed into increased bodily tissue, with a consequent greater weight and greater muscular strength, would result in a loss of vitality or the shortening of a man's life. [sidenote: _transforming inertness into alertness_] pygmies cannot become giants physically or intellectually. but as the puny youth can by systematic exercise broaden his frame and develop his muscles into at least a semblance of the athlete, and can then through his healthier appetite _and his faster rate of repair_ maintain himself without effort at the new standard; _so can the mentally inert call forth their reserves of energy and maintain a higher standard of activity and fruitfulness_. few men live on the plane of their highest efficiency. few search the recesses of the well-springs of power. the lives of most of us are passed among the shallows of the mind without thought of the possibilities that lurk within the deeper pools. [sidenote: _how the mind accumulates energy_] this accumulation of potential subconscious reserve energy is a result of the evolution of man and the growing complexity of his life. no man could, if he would, respond to all the impulses to muscular action aroused in him by sense-impressions. it would be still less possible for him to respond to every impulse to muscular action awakened from the past with the remembered thought with which it is associated. desire, interest, attention and the selective will must pick and choose among these multitudinous tendencies to action. here, then, is another fact that has immediate bearing upon your ability to carry out any ambition you may have. your every action is the net result of selection among a number of impulses and inhibitory forces or tendencies. [sidenote: _the threshold of inhibition_] as a general thing, consciousness is made up of a number of conflicting ideas, each with its associated feeling and its impulse to action. just what you do in any particular case depends upon what mental picture is strongest, is most vivid in consciousness, and thus able to overcome all contrary tendencies. as life becomes more and more complex, the number and variety of our sensory experiences increase correspondingly. and so it comes about, that _we have untold millions of sensory experiences, carrying with them the impulses to muscular response, none of which, on account of the multiplicity of conflicting ideas, is ever allowed to find release and actually take form in muscular activity_. [sidenote: _hidden strength_] the consequence is that only an exceedingly small proportion of the mental energy that is developed within us is ever actually displayed. _the rest is somehow and somewhere locked up behind the inhibitory threshold._ it is stored away in _subconsciousness_ with the sensory experiences of the past with which it is associated. [sidenote: _giving a man scope_] quoting mr. waldo p. warren: "much of the strength within men is hidden, awaiting an occasion to reveal it. the head of a department in a great manufacturing concern severed his connection with the firm, his work falling upon a young man of twenty-five years. the young man rose to the occasion, and in a very short time was conceded to be the stronger executive of the two. he had been with the concern for several years, and was regarded as a bright fellow, but his marked success was a surprise to all who knew him--even to himself. "the fact is, the young man had that ability all the time and didn't know it; and his employers didn't know it. he might have been doing greater things all along if there had been the occasion to reveal his strength. "do you employers and superior officers in business realize how much of this hidden strength there is in your men? perhaps a word from you, giving certain men more scope, would liberate that ability for the development of both your business and your men. "do you workers know your own strength? are you working up to your capacity? or are you accepting the limits which the circumstances place about you?" chapter iii the initiative energy of success [sidenote: _sources of persistence_] in such instances as we have recounted, men have found that persistent effort along certain lines has had the effect of making presently available what would otherwise be simply unused storage batteries of reserve power. what was the source and inspiration for this persistent effort? you will say that it was ambition or patriotism or some similar semi-emotional influence. and so it was. but what is ambition, what is patriotism, _what is any desire but a picturing to the mind's eye of the things desired, an awakening of a mental image_ of the result to be attained, the reward that is to follow certain efforts? and these mental pictures coming into consciousness have brought with them their associated emotions and their associated impulses to muscular action, impulses appropriate to the picture _and automatically tending to work its realization_. these impulses constitute the whole of man's achieving power. they are the initiative energy of all success. [sidenote: _importance of the mental setting_] when you are afflicted with doubt and fear, timidity and lack of confidence, this means that your mental inhibitions are too numerous, too high or too strong. remove them and access is had to the latent energy of accumulated and creative thought complexes. you will then become buoyant, cheerful, overflowing with enthusiasm, and ready for a fresh, definite, active part in life. _ideas, then, when latent, may be considered as possessing an energizing influence_. the same idea does not necessarily have the same effect upon the same persons at different times. what its effect may be at any time or with any individual depends upon the make-up of the consciousness in which it finds itself. [sidenote: _ideas all men respond to_] the setting of consciousness may be entirely different upon the present appearance of the particular idea from what it was on the occasion when this same idea last appeared. yesterday there may have been present no conflicting tendencies, and this particular idea may therefore have been allowed free and joyous expression. today other thoughts may be in the ascendency so that we look upon the idea of yesterday with a feeling of revulsion. the thought that aroused new energy in you yesterday may then sicken you at your task today. the thought that stirs the soul of a vigorous man may shock the sensibilities of a delicate woman. [sidenote: _how to exalt the personality_] yet there are some ideas to which all men in varying degrees seem alike to respond. how often in battle have the failing spirits of an army been revived by the appearance of the leader shouting his battle-cry and waving his shining sword! how often have men been roused to heights of heroic achievement by the strains of martial music! how often have troops spent with exhaustion responded to the call of such simple phrases as "the flag," "our country," "liberty," or such songs as "the marseillaise," "god save the king," "dixie"! these phrases are but the signs of ideas, yet the sounding of these phrases has summoned these ideas into consciousness, and the summoning of these ideas into consciousness has placed undreamed-of and immeasurable foot-pounds of energy on the hair-trigger of action. [sidenote: _"good starters" and "strong finishers"_] and so it is with you. down deep in the inmost chambers of your soul are untouched stores of energy that properly applied will exalt your personality and illumine your career. but to find and claim these hidden riches you must persevere. you must endure. in a marathon race it is endurance that wins. the graceful sprinter who is off with a leap at the bark of the pistol soon falls by the wayside. life is a marathon in which persistence triumphs. there are many "good starters," but few "strong finishers." that is why the failures so outnumber the successes. [sidenote: _steps in self-development_] the man who travels fastest does more than he is told to do. to merely comply with a fixed routine is to fall short of one's duty. the progressive man adds to the work of today his preparation for the work of tomorrow. he delights in attempting more and more difficult tasks, because in every task he sets himself he sees a step forward in the development of his own abilities. he loves his work more than he loves his pay, and he delves deeper than the exigencies of the moment require, because he craves the power to do more. most men start with enthusiasm. no hours are too long, no task too difficult. but soon they tire. and lacking will-power to persist, they succumb to the lure of distracting interests. they become disheartened and indifferent. and so they fail. [sidenote: _saving a thousand a year_] a young man married. he was proprietor of a flourishing "general" store in princeton, indiana. he and his bride forthwith resolved that they could and would lay aside out of their income a thousand dollars a year for ten years, by which time they would have ten thousand dollars and accumulated interest and could go into business in a big city. at the end of the first year, when they took stock of their savings, they decided that thereafter, instead of trying to save a thousand dollars a year for ten years, they would undertake to save ten dollars a year for a thousand years and would be more apt to succeed. today they are just where they began. you all know such men--men who are always starting and never finishing. [sidenote: _looking for a "soft snap"_] ninety-five per cent of the men who go into business are "quitters." the very first disappointment sends them scurrying to cover. they begin to look for a "soft snap" away from the firing line. is it any wonder that so few reach any great success? that there is an enormous lack of appropriation of energy in most men's lives is an undoubted fact. just where this energy is stored, and just what its eternal significance may be, is immaterial to our purpose. it may be that this reserve is nature's safeguard against our extravagance. it may be, as some philosophers contend, that the subconscious, with its vast stores of energy, is a higher, more spiritual phase of man. [sidenote: _drawing power from on high_] it may be that the subconscious is for each one of us his individual segment of the divine essence--that it marks our "at-one-ment" with god. it may be that to evoke these latent energies is to call upon those resources of our being which are the embodiment within us of the spirit of the creator of all things. it may be that this divine essence, if adequately aroused, may exert an absolute transcendence over material things and lift humanity to a god-like plane. "what we call man," wrote emerson, "the eating, drinking, planting, counting man, does not, as we know him, represent himself, but misrepresents himself. him we do not respect; but the real soul whose organ he is, would he let it appear through his action, would make our knees bend." "i said, ye are gods," quoth the psalmist. "be ye perfect, even as your father," was the injunction of the master. whatever the eternal significance of your latent energy may be, the fact remains that it is yours, and yours to use. if you are to succeed, if you are to do big things, you must be a man of "doggedness." you must keep your eyes trained everlastingly upon the vision of the thing you want. you must stay in the race until you get your "second wind." you must be master of yourself and draw freely on your stored-up powers. [sidenote: _the man who lasts_] do as we shall tell you in this _course_ and you will become a master man, the kind of man who "lasts," the kind of man who works his imagination overtime, the kind of man who can strain his energies to the utmost and then, finding himself still a failure, can rise "like the glow of the sun" to do bolder and bigger things--the kind of man who wins. chapter iv how to avoid wastes that drain the energy of success [sidenote: _speeding the bullet without aiming_] we have shown you that you have within you the potentialities of success in the form of latent mental energy. we have shown you that your ability to achieve depends upon your ability to utilize to the full your underground mental resources. but success demands that you do more than merely use all your mental energies. you must use them intelligently. [sidenote: _why most men fail_] most men fail because they speed the bullet without aiming. they fire at random, and so bag no game. your pent-up mental energy is the powder in the cartridge. its usefulness depends upon the man behind the gun. _to succeed in business you must intelligently control and direct_ ( ) _your own mental energies_, ( ) _the mental energies of others._ the course of the average man through life is an aimless zigzag. it has neither direction nor purpose. it represents wasted energy capriciously expended. mental energy is like water: it has a tendency to scatter. it is diffusive. it seeks release in a thousand different directions at the same time. as a boy, first learning to write, you were unable to prevent the simultaneous squirming of tongue and legs, all ludicrously irrelevant to your purpose of writing. so now, as a business man, unless you have learned the secret of self-mastery, you are unable to concentrate your efforts, your attention is easily distracted, you exhaust yourself in displays of passion, you are forever doing things during business hours that have no relation to your business, you are forever doing things in connection with your business that do not contribute to its progress, you expend just as much energy as the accomplished executive or the successful "hustler," but you fritter it away in unprofitable activities. [sidenote: _the successful promoter_] to correct this is to gain mastery and power. concentrate your mental energies on one thing at a time. stop spreading them around. the promoter may have a dozen big enterprises under way at once, but he takes them up one at a time. he transfers his whole mind and thought from one to the next. you cannot of course be eternally doing the same thing; but make no mistake about it, the only way to succeed at anything is to consciously control your mental energies. you may throw them now into this attack, now into another; but you must always have a tight grip on yourself, or you cannot succeed. [sidenote: _the human dynamo_] you will often hear some "live-wire" business man spoken of as a "human dynamo." he has the faculty of turning out a stupendous amount of work in a comparatively short time. how he can carry in his mind the details of so many large projects, how he can accomplish so much in actual, tangible results in many directions, how he can pull the strings of so many enterprises without getting lost in the maze of detail, is the marvel of his associates. and yet this man is never "hurried, nor flurried, nor worried." but every word and every act is straight to the point and productive of results worth while. [sidenote: _cool brains and hot boxes_] "a cool brain is the reverse of a hot box. it carries the business of the day along with a steady drive, and is invariably the mark of the big man. the man who dispatches his work quietly, promptly and efficiently, with no trace of fuss and flurry, is a big man. it is not the hurrying, clattering and chattering individual who turns off the most work. he may imagine he is getting over a lot of track, but he wastes far more than the necessary amount of steam in doing it. the fable of the hare and the tortoise would not be a bad primer for a number of us, and the lesson relearned would not only be beneficial in a business-producing way, but it would help us in the full enjoyment of our work." [sidenote: _marvelous increased efficiency handling "pig"_] progress in mental efficiency must result from the application of knowledge of the mental machine. just as we watch the steam-engine and the electric motor to see that they are not "overloaded," so we must watch the mental machine, that no more power be turned on than can be profitably employed. this principle has already been applied to physical labor by mr. frederick w. taylor in his ground-breaking studies in "scientific management." mr. taylor's celebrated experiments in the handling of pig-iron, by which the quantity handled in a day by one man was increased from twelve and one-half tons to forty-seven and one-half tons, "showed that a man engaged in such extremely heavy work could only be under load forty-three per cent of the working day, and must be entirely free from load for fifty-seven per cent, to attain the maximum efficiency." [sidenote: _"overloaded" human engines_] there is no reason why efficiency in mental effort should not be gauged just as accurately as in muscular activity. if there are times when your wits are not as keen, when you have not the same grasp of fundamentals, as at other times, it is because you are mentally "overloaded." it may be the result of a great variety of causes. it may be from too many hours of continuous mental effort. but the probabilities are that it is the result of vexation, worry, dissipation, or allowing the mind to be burdened with the strain of vicious, or at least irrelevant and distracting, impulses and desires. and so efficiency is lost. [sidenote: _scientific management of self_] the "human dynamo" is a man who long ago learned the lesson of scientific management of his own mental forces. he does one thing at a time, and does it the best he knows how. he directs the whole power of his mentality to the one problem and solves it with accuracy and dispatch. there is no more of a "load" on his "gray matter" than there is on that of the fretting, fuming, finger-biting fritterer, but every pound of steam is spent in useful work. look at the victim of st. vitus' dance. there you have an illustration of wasted energy. and it is mental energy, for every muscular movement represents the release of thought power. the mental lives of most men are equally aimless. they are lives of ceaseless activity producing nothing. [sidenote: _psychological causes of waste_] sometimes it happens that a man is not working to advantage because of some defect in his physical make-up. he may have defective vision or some peculiarity of hearing that renders him unable to respond as quickly as he should to the demands made upon him. if these defects are ascertained, it is usually a simple matter to correct the defects by mechanical means or readjust the relative duties of different persons so that the defects will be minimized. [sidenote: _tests for sensory defects_] where large numbers of people are employed, it is comparatively easy to use tests for discovering defects of sight or hearing by simple apparatus without requiring the services of a high-priced expert. by adopting these test methods any manager of a large industrial establishment can satisfy himself whether his employees are up to certain normal standards. he can even apply the tests to himself. optical tests can be conducted by securing an ordinary letter chart such as is used by oculists and opticians. seat the subject twenty feet away. if he can read all the lines of letters from the largest down to the smallest his eyesight is practically perfect. in a large percentage of cases the smaller lines of type are blurred and invisible. to detect the cause and degree of defects of the eyes it is necessary to try out the eyes by using a trial spectacle frame and inserting detached lenses before the right eye and the left eye alternately. one of the most common forms of defective vision is astigmatism. a chart has been designed with a series of circles and straight lines radiating from the center. if the subject is astigmatic he will see some of the straight lines distinctly while others will be blurred. for instance, one or two of the vertical lines may appear very black and strong while all others will look like a hazy network. this defect, due to unevenness of the spherical surface of the eyeball, is easily corrected with properly ground glasses. defects in hearing can be easily determined by means of an "acoumeter." this little instrument measures the acuteness of the hearing very accurately by means of shot dropped from varying heights upon strips of glass, copper and cardboard. tests with this device indicate whether the subject's hearing is above or below normal. [sidenote: _mental friction and inner whirlwinds_] _stop wasting your energy._ heretofore you have used your powers in a more or less haphazard way, with a vast amount of waste and no efficient direction. from now on you are to exercise more intelligence in this respect and make all your energies contribute to your business progress and your personal success. you are losing power in fruitless outward activities. you are losing power in the thinking of useless thoughts. you cannot stop the ceaseless activity of the mind. but you can conserve its forces by directing them into channels that are worth while. you are losing power in a turmoil of inward mental strains and inharmonies. catch yourself at some moment when you are forging ahead in a crowded day's work. you will then see what an inner whirlwind of excitement is in progress, what stresses and strains are at work, what contrary impulses, what frictions and obstacles are being overcome. now, to the engineer every one of these words--friction, obstacle, strain--spells loss of efficiency, and in this _course_ we shall teach you how you may do away with antagonistic impulses, may bring your combined mental forces to bear upon the common enemy, and may hurl yourself into the struggles of business and practical life with a joyful and headlong impetuosity that no obstacle can withstand. [sidenote: _prominent traits of great achievers_] professor walter dill scott, of northwestern university, has said: "in studying the lives of contemporary business men, two facts stand out pre-eminently. the first is that their labors have brought about results that to most of us would have seemed impossible. such men appear as giants in comparison with whom ordinary men sink to the size of pygmies. the second fact, which a study of successful business men (or any class of successful men) reveals, is that they never seem rushed for time. "such men have time to devote to objects in no way connected with their business. it cannot be regarded as accidental that this characteristic of mind is found so commonly among successful men during the years of their most fruitful labor. according to the american ideal, the man who is sure to succeed is the one who is continuously 'keyed up to concert pitch'--who is ever alert and is always giving attention to his business or profession." and again: "it is not necessarily true that the greatest and most constant display of energy accompanies the greatest presence of energy. the tug-boat on the river is constantly blowing off steam and making a tremendous display of energy, while the ocean liner proceeds on its way without noise and without commotion. the man who frets and fumes, who is nervous and excited, is strung up to such a pitch that energy is being dissipated in all directions." many business men know they are going at a pace that kills, and at the same time they feel that they are accomplishing too little. for such the pertinent question is, how may i reduce the expenditure of energy without reducing the efficiency of my labor? one of the busiest and most efficient men in england is quoted as having explained his own accomplishment of big results with the least expenditure of effort: "by organizing myself to run smoothly, as well as my business; by schooling myself to keep cool, and to do what i have to do without expending more nervous energy on the task than is necessary; by avoiding all needless friction. in consequence, when i finish my day's work, i feel nearly as fresh as when i started." [sidenote: _why a man breaks down_] the late professor james, of harvard university, often referred to as the founder of modern psychology, spoke thus disparagingly of untrained effort: "your convulsive worker breaks down and has bad moods so often that you never know where he may be when you most need his help,--he may be having one of his 'bad days.' we say that so many of our fellow-countrymen collapse and have to be sent abroad to rest their nerves, because they work so hard. i suspect that this is an immense mistake, i suspect that neither the nature nor the amount of our work is accountable for the frequency and the severity of our breakdowns, but that their cause lies rather in those absurd feelings of hurry and having no time, in the breathlessness and tension, that anxiety of feature and solicitude for results, that lack of inner harmony and ease, in short, by which with us the work is apt to be accompanied." [sidenote: _how to economize effort_] the fact is that to be a truly busy man you must be never in a hurry. you must work systematically. you must economize effort. you must permit no distractions and do your work leisurely. you must take time to think things over in a natural way. you must waste no thoughts in business hours on social or pleasurable pursuits that would dissipate your mental capital. you must work when you work, and you may play when you play, but your business must be the most fascinating of games and the only one you play during business hours. [sidenote: _how your mental capital is dissipated_] another thing you need is _poise_. one trouble with you now is that you waste your priceless powers in useless anxiety. the minute business falls off you begin to worry. you fritter your mental energies in fretting until you are incapable of real thought, and being unable to think your way out you get excited. remember it is all just a game, and you are in it only for the fun of the thing. you will never win out if you persist in tearing your hair. before he crossed the rubicon julius cæsar was staggered at the greatness of the undertaking before him. the more he reflected and took counsel of his friends, the greater loomed the difficulties of the attempt and the more appalling the calamities his passage of that river would bring upon the roman world. but when at last with the cry, "the die is cast!" he plunged into the river, there was an end for him to mental dissension, a freedom to plan and execute, an expansion of courage and power. [sidenote: _conquering indecision_] so it will be with you. with doubt and uncertainty the pressure may be high in the gauge, but the engine does not move. make up your mind, and you release energies previously wasted in conflicts between opposing thought complexes struggling for supremacy. [sidenote: _why "christian science" works_] a fine illustration of this is shown in the religious experience known as conversion. to the convert, conversion means the profound acceptance of a mighty spiritual truth. it means positive knowledge taking the place of doubt or indifference. conflicting ideas are no longer present in his consciousness. pent-up energies are released. he wants to do things. his soul is fired with overmastering impulses to action. he wants to go forth and preach the gospel of his faith. he is lifted to a high plane of exhilaration. he experiences the "peace that passeth understanding." "christian science," "truth," "the new thought," and similar movements all achieve their really marvelous results in much the same way. all proclaim doctrines of exuberant optimism, having a tendency to banish fear-thoughts and self-consciousness and self-depreciation, and to set up in their stead ideas of courage and of achievement and of individual power. if these teachings are successful--that is to say, if they inherently possess the right appeal for the particular individual--they have the happy effect of begetting a stoical indifference to petty physical disorders and social vexations and bringing about a concentration upon the main business of life of the mental energies thus previously wasted. [sidenote: _how to release pent-up power_] decide the matter that is troubling you. make an end of hesitation and uncertainty and fear. your very act of decision will release large stores of pent-up mental power and add immeasurably to your effectiveness. so long as you are in doubt and perplexity conflicting ideas and impulses balance each other. you are not then a man of action; you are a wavering coward. you are afflicted with paralysis of will and mental stagnation. _decide_ the matter--that is to say, _let one mental picture assume a greater vividness than the other until it possesses your soul--and forthwith the banked fires of your mental energy will burst into flame_. another thing: _stop wasting your time_. how much time do you spend in rest and relaxation? how much should you spend? can you answer these questions accurately? [sidenote: _proper ratio between work and rest_] thomas a. edison has contended for years that four hours' sleep a day was sufficient for any man. he has conducted experiments with a large number of men, giving careful attention to matters of diet and exercise, and the results have seemed in a measure to support his theory. dr. fred w. eastman reports that owing to pressure of work he was recently unable to get more than three or four hours' sleep out of the twenty-four during a period of many months, and that so far from being hurt by it he gained five pounds. he says: "if restoration during sleep is a task so relatively small, the question arises whether, in order to complete restoration, it is necessary for us to spend so much time in sleep as we do. perhaps on account of popular opinion and personal habit, we waste much time in this jelly-fish condition that could more profitably be spent in active pursuit of our ambitions. the answer, of course, depends upon the nature of our occupations. if there is muscular effort involved, with a correspondingly large amount of waste in the cells and blood, eight hours or more are probably necessary. but if the work is of a sedentary nature, and mainly of the brain, there is naturally a smaller quantity of accumulated waste, and less time is required for removal. many are the instances of great men, past and present, who have lived healthily and worked unceasingly and strenuously on only four or five hours of sleep, or half the laborer's portion. surely we do not suppose that these men were or are physically different from others, but rather that by inclination or necessity they have developed a habit of sleeping intensely for a short period, with resulting gain of time and efficiency." [sidenote: _determining your norm of efficiency_] so far as this matter of relaxation, rest and sleep is concerned, the rule to follow is obviously this: _determine accurately by experiment the proper relation between periods of work and periods of rest in your own case, then increase your efficiency by maintaining this relation_. in denmark they feed cows scientifically. day by day they increase the allowance of milk-producing food. day by day the yield of milk increases. at last there comes a day when measurement shows that there is no longer any increase in the production of milk. they then decrease the food till the output of milk diminishes. so they determine the normal. so with you and your hours of work and leisure. give more and more time to your business each day until there comes an impairment in the quality of your work. stop short of this. you have found your norm of efficiency. chapter v the secret of mental efficiency [sidenote: where energy is stored] you are called upon to master and conserve the innate energies of your mind. this means that you must ( ) find out where these energies are stored, and ( ) learn the conditions that determine their activity. _all past experiences are conserved within us in the form of complexes. these complexes consist of ideas, emotions and impulses to muscular activity. by the primary law of association the recall to consciousness of any one of these component elements of a complex brings with it all the rest_. [sidenote: _bodily effects of ideas_] for example, the ideas pertaining to any terrifying experience, when recalled to consciousness, bring with them the trembling, the wildly beating heart, the shaking knees, with which they were originally accompanied. the victim of stage-fright feels his knees give way and that he is sinking to the floor; his heart beats tumultuously, cold perspiration covers his body, he blushes, his mouth is dry, and his voice sticks in his throat. afterwards, alone in his own room, the memory of that dreadful moment, the thought of another appearance before that audience, will be accompanied by the same physiological effects. [sidenote: _impulses and inhibitions_] every such bodily movement is an expression of energy. the recall to consciousness of the terrifying experience, the recall of the picture of the assembled audience, these things automatically produce bodily activities. so we must conclude that _every idea in memory has associated with it the potential energy necessary for the production of muscular movement_. it does not necessarily follow that the recall to consciousness of a given idea will be invariably followed by an outwardly visible muscular activity expressive of its energy. just as the mere presence of an idea in consciousness tends to bring about a movement, so _the presence of a contrary idea will tend to inhibit it_. try to imagine that you are bending your forefinger. at the same time hold it straight. your finger will actually tremble with the dammed-up energy of the repressed impulse. but the finger will not actually move, because the idea of its not moving is just as much a part of your consciousness as the idea of its moving. put out of your consciousness this thought of the finger's not moving, and forthwith the finger will bend. your conduct during your waking hours is thus always the result of opposing forces, _some tending in one direction, others tending to counteract the first._ thus there comes about a great waste of mental power and an appalling loss of individual efficiency. [sidenote: _training for mental "team-work"_] in the language of sport, you are suffering from a lack of mental "team work." the effect is the same as if the members of a football team, instead of combining their forces against the opposing side, should spend their time in restraining one another. it requires but one step, and not a difficult one at that, to lead you to the conclusion that the solution of this problem lies in having in consciousness at any one moment only such ideas as harmonize. let that condition prevail, and the potential energies of all ideas in consciousness must flow together in a broad stream of useful and exhilarating activity. [sidenote: _rust and the "daily grind"_] your work should be a source of pleasure to you. if it is simply a disagreeable task that has to be performed, if it is a "daily grind," if you have to hold yourself to it by unremitting effort of the will, you are no better than a rusty engine, and all your workings will be accompanied by jars, frictions, and complaining squeaks that bespeak a positively wicked loss of power. hold the right thoughts persistently in mind, and you cannot help working steadily on toward the goal you are thinking of. keep steadily at work with the right thoughts persistently in mind and success is sure to come. _success, then, lies in the concentration of mental energies. and this concentration is to be brought about by holding in consciousness only those ideas that harmonize_. [sidenote: _ideas that harmonize_] there must be the greatest discrimination and care used in the selection of these ideas that are to constitute such a co-ordinating consciousness. there must be a "re-imaging" or imagination in a literal and practical sense of those ideas only that carry with them impulses to motion in the same general direction. you must have a set purpose in life, and you must yield your powers without hindrance and without reservation to the accomplishment of that set purpose. [sidenote: _five rules for conserving energy_] i. _you must exercise deliberate, patient and persistent watchfulness to detect and repress all useless bodily movements_. you have all sorts of silly habits, twitchings, jerkings, itchings, winkings, shrugs, frowns, coughs, snifflings and odd and meaningless gestures. watch yourself. do these things no more. save your eyes and ears and hands and nerves, all your mental energy, for useful effort. ii. _you must give yourself, mind and body, to one thing at a time, disregarding all that would lure you from your chosen task_. iii. _you must acquire a self-conscious sense of your own self-mastery._ it will help you to acquire this feeling if you will continually assert, "i can and will accomplish anything that i am determined upon! i have the power of will! i will accomplish this thing! i will!" make these assertions with all the force and intensity of your whole being until you are pervaded with a sense of your own power. do this faithfully, and in time this courageous and manly attitude will become an inherent part of your personality. iv. _you must have confidence._ and when we say confidence we do not mean a purely intellectual conviction. we mean a profoundly emotional faith. it will help you to cultivate this feeling of confidence if you will affirm many times a day, "i have implicit confidence in myself! i have perfect faith in my own powers! i am absolute master of myself and of my career!" practice affirmations of this kind persistently, and in time your mind will have permanently acquired the habit of facing the facts of life in the way essential to success. v. _you must exert a favorable influence upon the mental attitude of those about you_. this is not so difficult as it would appear. you cannot yourself acquire will-power, confidence and courage without impressing others with your possession of these qualities. personalities are revealed one to another by faint and suggestive activities all unconsciously perceived. your concentration of energy will inspire others. you will radiate an "atmosphere" of success. you will subtly influence your associates. you will be a force to reckon with, and the world will know it. your air of success will draw others to you, will bring business and goodwill, and men and money will seek a share in your enterprises. master your mental energies, train them, concentrate them,--thus only may you win riches with honor. thus broadly put, there is, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say there seems to be, nothing startlingly new about this proposition. the world has always realized that singleness of purpose, concentration of effort, is essential to success. _but in the past the world has possessed no formula by which these qualities might be acquired_. men have endeavored to create in themselves the necessary qualities for success, having no knowledge of the mental elements that went into their composition. _they have tried to run the mental engine knowing nothing of its mechanism_. [sidenote: _business luck and "blue-sky" theories_] some few have been lucky, but the path has been strewn with a thousand failures to one that passed on to success. there are some business men who look upon psychology as "blue-sky" theorizing or "new thought." there are others who have a hazy idea that it is a sort of unfathomable mystery intended to amuse long-haired scientists. the truth is that every one of these same business men, if he is getting ahead, is unconsciously using psychological principles to the profit of his own business every day in the year. [sidenote: _devices for commercial efficiency_] in the books that are to follow we shall show you the immense practical value of a truly scientific psychology. you shall come into the psychological laboratory with us and work out rational, scientific and exact methods by which, without possibility of failure and with but reasonable effort, you can at any moment completely concentrate your mental powers. you shall be instructed in simple devices for mastering scattered energies, repressing wasteful habits, banishing depressive moods and raising yourself to a far higher level of commercial efficiency. increasing personal efficiency women musical culture oratory self help some advice to young men _by_ russell h. conwell volume national extension university fifth avenue, new york observation--every man his own university copyright, , by harper & brothers printed in the united states of america _increasing personal efficiency_ i women some women may be superficial in education and accomplishments, extravagant in tastes, conspicuous in apparel, something more than self-assured in bearing, devoted to trivialities, inclined to frequent public places. it is, nevertheless, not without cause that art has always shown the virtues in woman's dress, and that true literature teems with eloquent tributes and ideal pictures of true womanhood--from homer's andromache to scott's ellen douglas, and farther. while shakespeare had no heroes, all his women except ophelia are heroines, even if lady macbeth, regan, and goneril are hideously wicked. in the moral world, women are what flowers and fruit are in the physical. "the soul's armor is never well set to the heart until woman's hand has braced it; and it is only when she braces it loosely that the honor of manhood fails." men will mainly be what women make them, and there can never be _entirely free men_ until there are _entirely free women_ with no special privileges, but with all her rights. the wife makes the home, the mother makes the man, and she is the creator of joyous boyhood and heroic manhood; when women fulfil their divine mission, all reform societies will die, brutes will become men, and men shall be divine. there are unkind things said of her in the cheaper writings of to-day--perhaps because their authors have seen her only in boarding-houses, restaurants, theaters, dance-halls, and at card-parties; and the poor, degraded stage with its warped mirror shows her up to the ridicule of the cheaper brood. the greatest writings and the greatest dramas of all time have more than compensated for all this indignity, and we have only to read deep into the great literature to be disillusioned of any vulgar estimations of womanhood, and to understand the beauty and power of soul of every woman who is true to the royalty of womanhood. there are few surer tests of a manly character than the estimation he has of women, and it is noteworthy that the men who stand highest in the esteem of both men and women are always men with worthy ideas of womanhood, and with praiseworthy ideals for their mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters. as men sink in self-respect and moral worth, their esteem of womanhood lowers. the women who become the theme for poets and philosophers and high-class playwrights are the women who have been bred mainly in the home. they seem without exception to abhor throngs, and only stern necessity can induce them to appear in them; the motherly, matronly, and filial graces appeal strongly to them--such as are portrayed in cornelia, portia, and cordelia. they may yearn for society, but it is the best society--for the "women whose beauty and sweetness and dignity and high accomplishments and grace make us understand the greek mythology, and for the men who mold the time, who refresh our faith in heroism and virtue, who make plato and zeno and shakespeare and all shakespeare's gentlemen possible again." if there is any inferiority in women, it is the result of environment and of lack of opportunity--never from lack of intelligence and other soul-powers. there is no sex in spiritual endowments, and woman seems entitled to all the rights of man--plus the right of protection. ruskin says, "we are foolish without excuse in talking of the superiority of one sex over the other; each has attributes the other has not, each is completed by the other, and the happiness of both depends upon each seeking and receiving from the other what the other can alone give." in speaking of the time when perfect manhood and perfect womanhood has come, tennyson says in "the princess": yet in the long years liker must they grow: the man be more of woman, she of man; he gain in sweetness and in moral height, nor lose the _wrestling_ thews that throw the world; she mental breadth, nor fail in childward care, nor lose the childlike in the larger mind. home is the true sphere for woman; her best work for humanity has always been done there, or has had its first impulse from within those four walls. it was home with all its duties that made the roman matron cornelia the type of the lofty woman of the world and the worthy mother. while it endowed her with the power to raise two sons as worthy as any known to history, who sacrificed their lives in defense of the roman poor, it also endowed her with courage to say to the second of her sons when he was leaving her for the battle which brought his death, "my son, see that thou returnest with thy shield or on it." napoleon claimed that it was the women of france who caused the loss at waterloo, not its men. "man's intellect is for speculation and invention, and his energy is for just war and just conquest; woman's intellect is for sweet ordering, arrangement, and decision; her energy is not for battle, but for rule." apparently relying upon man's magnanimity not to resent her abdicating her home, woman's exigencies--and perhaps her ambitions--have forced her more and more during the past fifty years into man's domains of speculation and energy--perhaps into some war and some conquest. the ever-increasing demand for her in these man-realms which she has invaded or into which she has intruded herself is abundant evidence that she has creditably acquitted herself in the betterment of business, education, and literature, as well as in the numberless things which she has invented to add beauty and comfort to the home, and to remove much of the bitter drudgery from house and office, and to promote the health and happiness of millions. all these helps she has given, even if she has undoubtedly lost some of the graces which have always made so lovable the woman of whom andromache, portia, and cordelia are but types. although matrimony and motherhood were the first conditions of women and only conditions that poets sing about and philosophers write about, and although these are still the conditions where she is doing her largest and noblest work in humanizing, yet her proper sphere is as man's, wherever she can live nobly and work nobly. how many myriads in this country alone are drudging or almost drudging in shops and offices to relieve the too stern pressure of pain or poverty from some one who is dear to them, yet are doing it unselfishly and uncomplainingly! a young woman lately told me that she had for several years been employed to interview women applicants for positions; that during these years she had interviewed scores of women daily, and had learned much of their private lives; that although the majority were working partly or entirely to maintain others, yet had she never heard one complaint of the sacrifices this service involved. hundreds of other women, like george eliot, charlotte brontë and helen hunt will long continue to bring pleasure and profit to millions through their writings. it is women, too, whose inventions have not only lightened domestic work and brightened the home, but also have so far removed the modern schoolroom from the little red schoolhouse of long ago; and it is women who have improved the books and the studies for children. they seem to have entered almost every activity outside of the home, and their finer powers of observation, aided by their innate love of the beautiful and the practicality they have learned while in service, seem mainly to have bettered conditions for wage-earners as well as for home and childhood. think of the thousands upon thousands in this land whose work with the smaller children of the school could never be so well done by men! think of the service daily rendered by women outside the home, and picture the confusion that would now arise if all these remained at home, even for one week! as a class, women do not speak so well as men, but they excel him as a talker. in truth it is less difficult for them to talk little, than to talk well. somebody has said that there is nothing a woman cannot endure if she can only talk. it is the woman who is ordained to teach talking to infancy. those who see short distances see clearly, which probably accounts for woman's being able to see into and through character so much better than men. a man admires a woman who is worthy of admiration. as dignity is a man's quality, loveliness is a woman's; her heart is love's favorite seat; women who are loyal to their womanhood can ever influence the gnarliest hearts. they go farther in love than men, but men go farther in friendship than women. women mourn for the lost love, says dr. brinton, men mourn for the lost loved-one. a woman's love consoles; a man's friendship supports. what a real man most desires in a woman is womanhood. as every woman despises a womanish man, so every man despises a mannish woman. men are more sincere with the women of most culture, although mere brain-women never please them so much as heart-women. men feel that it is the exceptional woman who should have exceptional rights; but they scorn women whose soul has shrunk into mere intellect, and a godless woman is a supreme horror to them. when to her womanly attributes she adds the lady's attributes of veracity, delicate honor, deference, and refinement, she becomes a high school of politeness for all who know her. "true women," says charles reade, "are not too high to use their arms, nor too low to cultivate their minds," but hamerton believes that her greatest negative quality is, that she does not of her own force push forward intellectually; that she needs watchful masculine influence for this. it is claimed that single women are mainly best comforters, best sympathizers, best nurses, best companions. dean swift says: "so many marriages prove unhappy because so many young women spend their time in making nets, not in making cages." perhaps this is why they say that, in choosing a wife, the ear is a safer guide than the eye. the gifts a gentlewoman seeks are packed and locked up in a manly heart. without a woman's love, a man's soul is without its garden. he is happiest in marriage who selects as his wife the woman he would have chosen as his bosom-companion, a happy marriage demands a soul-mate as for as a house-mate or a yoke-mate. spalding says that it is doubtful whether a woman should ever marry who cannot sing and does not love poetry. the conceptions of a wife differ. when the celt married, he put necklace and bracelets upon his wife; when the teuton married, he gave his wife a horse, an ox, a spear, and a shield. a true wife delights both sense and soul; with her, a man unfolds a mine of gold. like a good wine, the happiest marriages take years to attain perfection, and hamerton says that marriage is a long, slow intergrowth, like that of two trees closely planted in a forest. the marriage of a deaf man and a blind woman is always happy; but this does not imply that conjugal happiness is attained only under these conditions. the greatest merit of many a man is his wife, but no real woman ever wears her husband as her appendage. maternity is the loveliest word in the language, and every worthy mother is an aristocrat. mothers are the chief requisites of all educational systems, and the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. the home has always been the best school in the world, and nothing else that is known to education can ever supersede it. the cradle is the first room in the school of life, and what is learned there lasts to the grave. dearth of real mothers is responsible for dearth of real education. each boy and each man is what his mother has made him, and every worthy mother rears her children to stand upon their own two feet, and to do without her. while a thoughtful wife and mother is busied with the affairs of home, she is never done with her intellectual education, for she realizes early in her career that a mother loses half her influence with her children when she ceases to be their intellectual superior. women are far more observant of little things than men, and the greatest among them have marvelous powers of observation. it is this power that made mrs. gladstone and mrs. disraeli the sturdy helpmates they were to their husbands in all their trying cares of government. it is said of gladstone that it was not unusual for him to adjourn a cabinet meeting through a desire "to consult with catherine." had there not been large power of observation, we should never have had the works of george eliot, charlotte brontë, jane austin, helen hunt, and all the other notable women creators of fiction. charlotte cushman was the greatest actress america has ever produced because her observation was so close that not the smallest detail of the character she played escaped her or was neglected. the beautifying of athens owes its inception to aspasia rather than to pericles. ii musical culture of all the arts, none is more difficult to define than music. no two persons seem to agree as to what it is, and a harsh sound to one is often sweet music to another. when music is controlled by those who use carefully their powers of observation, it will be vastly more useful to mankind. the need of music in the advancement of humanity it too apparent to admit of discussion. from the greek instrument with one string down to the wonderful pipe-organ, music has been intensely attractive and marvelously helpful, and for the good of the human family. no art or science needs more to be developed to-day than that of music. its influence on soul and body has been noticed and advanced by some of the greatest thinkers of ancient and modern times, therefore it is not necessary to discuss the supreme need for real music to bring into harmony motives and movements for good. when we duly consider the subject of music, and ask where we shall find the great musicians who are to-day so much in demand, we feel that many so-called schools of music are often more misleading than instructive, and that they follow fashions that are far more unreasonable than the fashions of dress. the art of music needs philosophic study, and it should be begun with a far better understanding of the many causes which contribute to its composition. the singing of birds is literally one of the most discordant expressions of sound. indeed, the tones of the nightingale and the meadow-lark are only shrill whistles when they are considered with reference only to the tones of their voice, yet they furnish the ideal of some of the richest music to which the ear has ever listened, being one part of the delicate orchestra of nature. the lowing of the cow, the bellow of the bull, the bark of an angry dog echoing among the hills at eventide, combined with so many other different sounds and impressions, has become enticingly sweet to the pensive listener. the insect-choir of night has as much of the calming and refining influences as the bird-choir of the morning. real music requires not only that the tones should be clear and resonant, but that they should be uttered amid harmonious surroundings. "dixie" and "yankee doodle," sung with a banjo accompaniment on a lawn in the evening, surrounded by gay companions, may be the most delightful music, which will start the blood coursing or rest the disturbed mind, but it would not be called music if sung at a funeral. "i know that my redeemer liveth" is glorious music when it is sung in a great cathedral, with echoes from its shadowy arches and the dim light of its stained-glass windows. but the same solo would be in awful discord with a ballroom jig. harmonious circumstances and appropriate environment are as essential for perfect effects in music as is the concord of sweet sounds. the foolish idea that music consists in screaming up to the highest c and growling down to the lowest b has misled many an amateur, and destroyed her helpfulness to a world that has far too much misery and far too little of the joy that comes from a sweet-voiced songster. the beginner in voice culture who attempts to wiggle her voice like a hired mourner, and with her tremulous effects sets the teeth of her audience on edge, has surely been misled into darkest delusion as to music, and will soon be lost amid the throng of vocal failures. extremists are out of place anywhere, but the myriads of them in the musical world make humanity shudder. what is needed in music to-day more than anything else is a standard of musical culture which shall demand careful discipline in all the influences that contribute to good music. true music is the music that always produces benign effects, the music that holds the attention of the auditor and permanently influences him to nobler thought, feeling, and action. those large-hearted, artistic-souled men and women who are capable of interpreting into feeling what they have heard from voice or instrument must be the final court of appeal. a trapeze performance in acoustics is not music. it has been frequently shown that music is potent in its effects upon the body as well as upon the soul. in , a notable illustration of the power of music over disease was given at the samaritan hospital, connected with temple university in philadelphia, although the experiments were made under disadvantageous circumstances and environment. the patients were informed what the physicians were endeavoring to do, and the efforts of the first few months were wasted for the most part. many of the patients who were placed under the influence of the music grew confident that they were going to be cured. while the recovery of some seemed miraculous, those who conducted the experiments felt that the healing might be largely due to the influence of the mind and not directly to the music. the matter was dropped for several months, until the patients were nearly all new cases. the doctors charged the nurses not to let the patients know for what cause the music was placed in the hospital. they eliminated also the personal influence of the nurses as well as the use of drugs at the time the music was produced. the experiment convinced those who conducted it that music has a powerful restorative effect even upon a person who is suffering from a combination of diseases. so many of the patients who recovered at that time from the influence of the music are alive and in good health to-day that common honesty disposes us to conclude that there is some undiscovered benefit in music which should be immediately investigated. this will never be attained by musical faddists or by selfish musicians who sing or perform for applause or money. some plain, every day-man or woman will ultimately be the apostle of music for the people, and the experiments at samaritan hospital furnish only a suggestion of the resources of music which must soon be known to the world. there was one patient in the hospital who had lost his memory through "softening of the brain." he lay most of the time unconscious, but occasionally talked irrationally upon all sorts of subjects. a quartet sang several pieces in his ward, but the nurses who sat upon each side of him noticed no effect whatever upon him until the quartet sang "my old kentucky home." then his eyes brightened and he began to hum the tune. before they had finished the third verse, he asked the nurse about the singing, and requested the quartet to repeat the song. his intelligence seemed completely normal for a little while after the music ceased. he asked and answered questions clearly, but soon relapsed into his incoherent talk and listlessness. when the man's lawyer heard of the effects upon the patient, he asked that the song might be sung while he was present, that he might then ask the patient about some very important papers of great value to the patient's family. as soon as the song was again sung by the quartet his intelligence returned. he informed the lawyer accurately as to the bank vault in which his box was locked, and told where he had left the keys in a private drawer of his desk. although the effect of the music was not permanent as to his case, many persons who know of it feel that some time music may be so applied as permanently to cure even such cases, if kept up for a sufficient length of time. accidents to the skull, heart diseases, nervous exhaustion, and spinal ailments seem especially amenable to music. two of the hospital cases of paralysis were permanently relieved by music. in one of these cases instrumental music seemed to produce a strong electric effect. while four violins were accompanied by an organ, the patient could use his feet and hands, but it was several weeks before he could walk without music. in the other case, vocal music put an insomnia patient to sleep, but after sleeping through the program, the patient was better; after a few trials he returned home. some of the hundred cases experimented upon were complete failures. but those conducting the experiments were convinced that the failure was attributable to the fact that they were unable to find the right kind of music. in the use of religious selections, "pleyel's hymn" made the patients of every ward worse; but "the dead march" from saul was soothing to typhoid patients. when this march was rendered softly, the nurses discovered that two cases had been so susceptible to the influences of the music that the physicians omitted the usual treatment and the patients recovered sooner than some other patients who had the disease in a less dangerous form. children were helped by a different class of music from that used with adults, and difference in sex also was noted. mothers who sing to their children may become the best investigators as to the power of vocal music on the healthy development of childhood. in the baptist temple, philadelphia, several hymns were once forcefully rendered by the great chorus of the church to a congregation of three thousand people. at the close, slips of paper were passed to the worshipers, and they were asked to write upon the paper what thoughts the music had suggested to them. while there was nothing in the anthems suggestive of youth, and the burden of the stanzas seemed to divert from childhood, yet more than half of the two thousand slips returned attested that the hearer had been reminded of his schooldays and of the games of childhood; these slips were collected before the congregation had time to confer. it shows that the music was not in accord with the words, and that it had greater power upon the mind than the words had. it proves that, to produce its highest effects, sacred music must harmonize with the meaning of the words and with the environment. it also shows that the purpose for which one sings is an important factor--random vociferations or a display of vocal gymnastics even of the most cultured kind is both inartistic and unmusical. these pages have been written to suggest that music is still with the common people; that the future blessings which mankind shall derive from musical art and science are probably dependent upon some observant person who is free from the trammels of misguided and misdirected culture, and who may come to it with an independent genius, and handle the subject in the light of every-day common-sense. iii oratory oratory has always been a potent influence for good. the printing-press with its newspapers and magazines and tens of thousands of books has done much during the past fifty years to draw attention away from oratory. the printing-press is a huge blessing, and has greatly advanced during these years that oratory has declined in public esteem or public attention. but we are learning that there is yet something in the _living_ man, in his voice and his manner and his mesmeric force, which cannot be expressed through the cold lead of type. hence the need for orators, both men and women, has been steadily increasing during the past few years, until there seems to be a pressing demand for the restoration of the science and the art of oratory. the country lad or the hard-working laborer or mechanic who thinks that public speaking is beyond his reach has done himself a wrong. it was such as they who oftener than can be told have become some of the greatest orators of history. men who afterward became great as effective debaters made their first addresses to the cows in the pasture, to the pigs in pens, to the birds in trees, and to the dog and the cat upon the hearth. they often drew lessons concerning the effects of their addresses from the actions of the animal auditors which heard their talk, and were attracted or repulsed by what they heard and saw. there is a mystery about public speaking. after years of study and application, some men cannot accomplish as much by their addresses as some uncultured laborer can do with his very first attempt. some have imperfectly called this power "personal magnetism." while this is mainly born with men and women--as the power of the true poet and the true teacher--yet it can be cultivated to a surprising degree. the schools of elocution so often seem to fail to recognize the wide gulf that exists between elocution and oratory. the former is an art which deals primarily with enunciation, pronunciation, and gesture; the work of the later science is persuasive--it has to do mainly with influencing the head and the heart. there is a law of oratory which does not seem to be understood or recognized by elocution teachers. the plow-boy in a debating society of the country school may feel that natural law, like daniel webster, without being conscious that he is following it. but there is a danger of losing this great natural power through injurious cultivation. the powerful speaker is consciously or unconsciously observant at all times of his audience, and he naturally adopts the tones, the gesture, and the language which attract the most attention and leave the most potent influence upon the audience. that is the law of all oratory, whether it applies to the domestic animals, to conversation with our fellows, to debates or addresses, lectures, speeches, sermons, or arguments. where the orator has not been misdirected or misled by some superficial teacher of elocution, his aim will be first "to win the favorable attention of his audience" and then to strongly impress them with his opening sentence, his appearance, his manners, and his subject. his reputation will have also very much to do with winning this favorable impression at first. the words of the speaker either drive away or attract, and the speaker endeavors at the outset to command the attention of the hearers, whether they be dogs or congregation. the beginner in oratory who is true to his instincts strives to adopt the methods which he feels will favorably impress those for whom he has a message. in his oration at the funeral of julius cæsar, mark anthony disarmed the enemies of cæsar and of himself by opening his oration with, "friends, romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. i come to bury cæsar, not to _praise_ him." almost any man or woman can become an orator of power by keeping himself or herself natural while talking. the second condition of a successful oration is the statements of the important facts or truths. cicero, the elder pitt, and edward everett held strictly to the statement of all the facts at the outset of their speech. facts and truths are the most important things in all kinds of oratory; as they are the most difficult to handle, the audience is more likely to listen to them at the opening of the talk, and they must be placed before the hearers clearly and emphatically, before the speaker enters upon the next division of his address. the third condition of a successful address is the argument, or reasoning which is used to prove the conclusion he wishes his hearers to reach. it is here that logic has its special place; it is at this vital point that many political speakers fail to convince the men they address. after he has thus reasoned, the natural orator makes his appeal, which is the _chief purpose_ of all true oratory. it is here where the orator becomes vehement, here where he shows all the ornament of his talk in appropriate figures of speech. the most effective orators are always those whose hearts are in strong sympathy with humanity, and whose sympathies are always aroused to plead for men. this is the condition that accounts for the eloquence--the power to arouse hearers--which characterizes men like logan, the american indian, and which characterizes many of the religious enthusiasts like peter the hermit, who have surprised the world and often moved them to mighty deeds. so long as our government depends upon the votes of the people, just so long must there be a stirring need of men and women orators to teach the principles of government and to keep open to the light of truth the consciences of the thousands and millions whose votes will decide the welfare or the misfortune of our nation. as the speaker must adapt himself and his message to all kinds of people, it is difficult to advise any one in certain terms how to accomplish this. it is another instance of the necessity of cultivating the daily habit of observation, and of being always loyal to our instincts. while schools and colleges have their uses, they are by no means a necessity for those who will accomplish great things through their oratory. many a man laden with a wealth of college accomplishment has been an utter failure on the platform. where reading-matter is as abundant and as cheap as it is in america, the poor boy at work upon the farm or in the factory, with no time but his evenings for study, may get the essentials of education, and by observing those who speak may give himself forms of oratorical expression that will enable him to outshine those with scholarship who have been led into fads. we must be impressed with a high sense of duty in becoming an orator of any class; we must feel that it is our calling to adhere to the truth always and in all things, to warn our hearers of dangers, and to encourage the good and help those who are struggling to be so. we must have a passion for oratory which shall impel us to vigorous thought and eloquent expression. the greatest oratory is that which is most persuasive. it is not so fully in what an orator says or the vehemence with which he says it that counts, but the practical good that results from it. many an oration has been elegant enough from its choice diction and labored phraseology, yet it has fallen flat upon the audience. when a man has been worked into natural passion over his theme, his words will strike root and inspire his hearers into similar passion. it is wonderful how true are our instincts in detecting what comes from the heart and that which is mere words. the greatest orators have been those who have not learned "by rote" what they have spoken. when lincoln broke away in his celebrated cooper institute address, and pictured the word freedom written by the lord across the skies in rainbow hues, the hearts of his audience stopped beating for the instant. it is foolhardy for any one to presume to speak with no preparation, for those who wish to give themselves to oratory should carefully study the great debaters, learn how they expressed themselves, and then accumulate important truths and facts concerning their subject. but we must not forget that too much study as to nicety of expression may lose something of the mountainous effects of what we wish to state. when an orator _feels_ his subject, his soul overflows with a thrill indescribable, which is known only to those who have felt it. genius is lifted free for the moment to fly at will to the mountain heights, and finds supreme delight therein. everything that is food for the mind is helpful to the orator, whether it come from school or work. but it is an attainment which can be reached by the every-day plain man employed in any every-day occupation. demosthenes, the greatest orator the world has yet known, found his school of oratory along the shore talking to the waves. john b. gough and henry clay and both the elder and the younger pitt gained all their powers by means as humble. the mere study of grammar has never yet made a correct speaker; the mere study of rhetoric has never yet made a correct and powerful writer; and the study of elocution cannot make an orator. grammar, rhetoric, and elocution may teach him only the laws which govern speech, writing, oratory, and leave him ignorant of the best methods of execution. during the last hundred years the leading orators of congress have mainly come from among the humble and the poor, and all the learning they had of their art was got in the schoolhouse, the shop, the fields, and the university of hard knocks. it is a calling that seems to be open to every man and woman of fair talent. if you desire to become a platform orator, read the lives of successful orators, and apply to yourself the means which helped them to distinction. but be vigilant not to lose your own individuality, and never strive to be any one but yourself. in no place more than upon the platform does _sham_ mean _shame_; nothing is more transparent. iv self-help although samuel smiles's "self-help" is the first and perhaps the best of the many inspirational books that have been written of late years, it is by far the most serviceable of all to any one who wishes and intends to stand squarely on his own feet and to fight his own battle of life from start to finish. that book is attractive because it is anecdotal of life and character, and because of the interest that all men feel in those who have achieved great things through their own labors, their trials, and their struggles. it abounds with references to men who were forced to be self-helpful, who were born lowly enough, but died among god's gentlemen, and often among the aristocracy of the land, through sheer force of character, labor, and determination. they have left their "footprints on the sands of time" mainly because they were _self-reliant_ and _self-helpful_. the aids to the royal life are all within, and no life is worthless unless its owner wills it; the fountain of all good is within, and it will bubble up, if we dig. doctor holland used to say that there is a super-abundance of inspiration in america, but a lamentable dearth of perspiration. aspiration plus perspiration carries men to dizzy heights of success; aspiration minus perspiration often lands them in the gutter. self-help is not selfishness. the duty of helping oneself in the highest sense always involves the duty of helping others. the self-helpful are not always the men who have achieved greatest success in what vulgarians call success. that man's life is a success which has attained the end for which he started out--the greatest failure may sometimes be the hugest success through the discipline it has afforded. they tell us that men never fail who die in a worthy cause; that it is nobler to have failed in a noble cause than to have won in a low one; that it is not failure, but low aim, that is wicked. god sows the seed and starts us all out with about the same quantity and the same quality; whether the crop shall be abundant depends upon the environment in which we grow and the way we take care of the field. the supreme end of each man's life is to take individual care of his own garden. when this is neglected his life is wasted, and there is no immorality that is comparable to the immorality of a wasted life--and every life is wasted unless its owner has made it yield its full capacity. if it is only a ten-bushel-an-acre field, he has done worthy work who has reaped ten bushels from an acre; if it is a seventy-bushel-an-acre field it is dishonorable to have reaped sixty-nine bushels from an acre. god gives us the chance; the improvement of it we give ourselves. the spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth. help from the outside may be convenient, but it enfeebles; all self-help invigorates. the self-helper must be self-reliant; the measure of his self-help is always proportioned to the measure of his self-reliance. the self-reliant does not consider himself as the creature of circumstances, but the architect of them. "all that adam had, all that cæsar could, we have had and can." the self-reliant and the self-helpful are the minority; the majority are forever looking toward and relying upon some government or some institution to do for them what they should only do for themselves. a real man wants no protection; so long as his human powers are left to him, he asks nothing more than the freedom to win his own battles. the best any government or any institution can do for men is to leave them as free as possible from either guidance or help, so that they may best develop and improve themselves. as it has been during the centuries, we put too much faith in government and other institutions, and too little in ourselves. men who count for something do not wait for opportunities from any source--they help themselves to their opportunities. they can win who believe they can, and the strong-hearted always ultimately achieve success. a nation is worth just what the individuals of that nation are worth, and the highest philanthropy and patriotism does not wholly consist in aiding institutions and enacting laws--especially the laws which teach men to lean--but they rather consist in helping men to improve themselves through their own self-help. there is no aid comparable to the aid that is given a man to help himself--we may stand him upon his feet, but remaining upon them should be his own task. he is a magnificent somebody who steadfastly refuses to hang upon others; and nothing brings the blush sooner to the true-hearted man, than to feel that he has been unnecessarily helped to anything by men or by governments. there is no man who rides through life so well as the man who has learned to ride by being set upon the bare-backed horse called self-dependence. paradise was not meant for cowards; self-reliance and self-help is the manliness of the soul. the solid foundations of all liberty rest upon individual character, and individual character is the only sure guaranty for social security and national progress. whatever crushes individuality is despotism, no matter by what other name you call it. the gods are always on the side of the man who relies on himself and helps himself; men's arms are long enough to reach stars, if they will only stretch them. it is so contrary to the spirit of our nation to be anything but self-helpful. "the flag of freedom cannot long float over a nation of deadheads; only those who determine to pay their way from cradle to grave have a right to make the journey." schiller says that the kind of education that perfects the human race is action, conduct, self-culture, self-control. it has been said that the individual is perfected far more by work than by reading, by action more than by study, by character more than by biography; these are courses that are given by the university of life more completely than in all other institutions known to men. the great men of science, literature, art, action--those apostles of great thoughts and lords of the great heart--belong to no special rank. they come from colleges, workshops, farms, from poor men's huts and rich men's mansions; but they all began with reliance upon themselves, and with an instinctive feeling that they must help themselves solely in climbing to the work or the station which they had assigned to themselves. many of god's greatest apostles of thought and feeling and action have come from the humblest stations, but the most insuperable difficulties have not long been obstacles to them. these greatest of difficulties are true men's greatest helpers--they stimulate powers that might have lain dormant all through life, but often have readily yielded to the stout and reliant heart. there is no greater blessing in the world than poverty which is allied to self-reliance and the spirit of self-help. "poverty is the northwind which lashes men into vikings." lord bacon says that men believe too great things of riches, and too little of indomitable perseverance. every nation that has a history has a long list of men who began life in the humblest stations, yet rose to high station in honor and service. no inheritance and environments can do for a man what he can do for himself. cook, the navigator, brindley, the engineer, and burns, the poet, are three men who began life as day laborers; the most poetic of clergymen, jeremy taylor; the inventor of the spinning-jenny and founder of cotton manufacture, sir richard arkwright; the greatest of landscape painters, turner, and that most distinguished chief-justice tenterden were barbers. ben jonson, the poet; telford, the engineer; hugh miller, the geologist; cunningham, the sculptor, were english stone-masons. inigo jones, the architect; hunter, the physiologist; romney and poie, the painters; gibson, the sculptor; fox, the statesman; wilson, the ornithologist; livingstone, the missionary--started life as weavers. admiral sir cloudesly shovel; bloomfield, the poet; carey, the missionary--were shoemakers. bunyan, was a tinker; herschel, a musician; lincoln, a rail-splitter; faraday, a book-binder; stephenson, the inventor of the locomotive, a stoker; watt, the discoverer of steam-power, a watchmaker; franklin, a printer; president johnson, a tailor; president garfield, an employee on a canal-boat; louisa alcott, both housemaid and laundress; james whitcomb riley, an itinerant sign-painter; thoreau, a man-of-all-work for emerson; the poets, keats and drake, as well as sir humphry davy, were druggists. benjamin thompson was a humble new hampshire schoolmaster whose industry, perseverance, and integrity, coupled to his genius and a truly benevolent spirit, ultimately made him the companion of kings and philosophers, count rumford of the holy roman empire. he declined to participate in the revolution, and was compelled to flee from his home in rumford, now concord (new hampshire), leaving behind his mother, wife, and friends; but this persecution by his countrymen led to his greatness. in the spring of general howe sent him to england with important despatches for the ministry. at once the english government appreciated his worth and scientific men sought his acquaintance. in less than four years after he landed in england he became under-secretary of state. in , he left england with letters to the elector of bavaria, who immediately offered him honorable employment which the english government permitted him to accept after he had been knighted by the king. in bavaria he became lieutenant-general, commander-in-chief of staff, minister of war, member of the council of state, knight of poland, member of the academy of science in three cities, commander-in-chief of the general staff, superintendent of police of bavaria, and chief of the regency during the sovereign's compulsory absence in . during his ten years' service he made great civil and military reforms and produced such salutary changes in the condition of the people that they erected a monument in his honor in the pleasure-grounds of munich, which he had made for them. when munich was attacked by an austrian army in , he conducted the defense so successfully that he was accorded the highest praise throughout europe. the bavarian monarch showed his appreciation by making him a count; he chose the title of count rumford as an honor to the birthplace of his wife and child. he ended his days at paris in literary and scientific studies and in the society of the most learned men of europe. the rumford professorship at harvard was very liberally endowed by him, and he gave five thousand dollars to the american academy of arts and sciences in . v some advice to young men a life is divine when duty is a joy. the best work we ever do is the work we get pleasure from doing, and the work we are likeliest to enjoy most is the work we are best fitted to do with our talent. there is nothing in the world except marriage that we should be slower in taking upon ourselves than our life-work; therefore, think much, read much, inquire much before you assume any life career. when you have once decided what is best fitted for you, pursue it ceaselessly and courageously, no matter how far distant it may be, how arduous the labor attending it, or how difficult the ascent. the greater the difficulty surmounted, the more you will value your achievement and the greater power you will have for keeping on with your work after you have reached your goal. do your utmost to find a friend who is older than you, and consult him freely, and give every man your ear, for the humblest in station and those with the most meager acquirements in other matters may see some few things more clearly than other men, and may be well stored with what you most require. take each man's advice, but act according to your own judgment. teachers should be the best advisers of those about to enter upon their life-work, and no service of the schoolmaster or professor can ever be more helpful to the young intrusted to him than that of helping them to choose a career. the best work real teachers do for their pupils is by no means the teaching of a few minor branches--it is almost always the work he is not paid for, and which nobody outside of those who realize what real education is, seems ever to consider. it is sympathy for their students, getting them to understand the great things that are involved in the process of getting an education, making them realize that true education means growth of all our spiritual faculties--head and heart and will, and that what we get from textbooks is the very least part of an education. it is helping them to understand that knowledge got from books and from schoolmasters is always a menace to a man whose spiritual faculties of head, heart, and will have not been thoroughly disciplined. it is wise counsel in choosing a life career. instead of looking upon this side of the work as divine, instead of being wise counselors and friendly guides during this great transitional stage from youth to manhood, teachers can be far more interested in their individual concerns or in what they call "research-work"--the research-work may give some temporary glory to themselves, and give some little advertisement to the institutions that employ them; but the supreme duty they owe to their students, to god, and to humanity is to do their utmost to make full men, and worthy and successful men, out of the youths whose education they have taken upon themselves. no traitor is such a traitor to his country and to the whole world as the man who is unfaithful to this sacred trust. once again, find some sincere and prudent elder counselor, and turn to him in all your difficulties. get advice as to the best books to read--a good book is the best of counselors, for it is the best of some good man; and it is a patient counselor whom we may continually consult upon the same subject as often as we wish. but waste no time, especially at the opening of your career, upon books which have no message for your manhood and no helpfulness in the work you shall assume for life. when you have once taken up a book as your counselor, don't put it aside until it has been thoroughly digested and assimilated. one book read is worth a hundred books peeped through; and of all the dilettantes, a literary dilettante is the most contemptible. bacon says, "some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, some few to be chewed and digested." but it is only the books that are to be chewed and digested that we can afford to peruse at the outset in our career; the literary pleasure--gardens--may come later in life. do your utmost to understand poetic expression, for the poets are the greatest teachers in the world as well as the greatest of all legislators. it is they who teach the great in conduct and the pure in thought. without education that shall enable us to take them as our friends, life bears upon it the stamp of death. the great poets are now the only truth-tellers left to god. they are free, and they make their lovers free; the great poet is nature's masterpiece. at the touch of his imagination words blossom into beauty. a true poet is the most precious gift to a nation, for he feels keenest the glorious duty of serving truth; he cannot strive for despotism of any kind, for it is still the instinct of all great spirits to be free. more than other authors, the poets make us self-forgetful, make life and the whole human race nobler in our eyes; all things are friendly and sacred to them, all days holy, all good men divine. there is very little worthy work nowadays that does not need some schooling that it may be well done. if you have an opportunity to give yourself this help, don't neglect it. carefully select the courses that will be most helpful to you in your career, and don't be side-tracked by any of what we sentimentalists term "culture studies." there's nothing better in the world than culture study, if we can afford it and have time for it. but there is not a greater or more wicked waste of valuable time than the time spent upon what some sentimentalists term culture study. when you have once taken up the studies you have decided upon, keep steadily to your course and shun diversions. recreations are as essential to the student who intends to do high-class work as food is to the body; but diversions disqualify him for earnest work, and may breed a habit of halfness that shall bring his failure. don't be foolish and hope to be great in many lines. who sips of many arts drinks none. in every vocation to-day competition is so keen that the man who will succeed must be content to be supreme in one thing alone. _halfness_ weakens all our spiritual powers, and thoroughness is the _central_ passion of all worthy characters. it is nobler to be confined to one calling, and to excel in that, than to dabble in forty. there is some odor about a dabbler that makes him especially offensive to all clean high-class men and women. but when we have formed the habit of doing carelessly other tasks than our life-work, we shall soon get into the way of doing carelessly the work of our chosen calling. there is nothing that gives us greater assurance that our life-work will be thoroughly done than to habituate ourselves to do the slightest task completely. sing the last note fully, make the last letter of your name complete. eat the last morsel deliberately. in a real man's life there are no trifles. whatever is worth doing by him is worth doing well. the many-sided edward everett attributed his being able to do so many things well to his early habit of doing even the least thing thoroughly. he used to say that he prided himself upon the way he tied up the smallest paper parcel. although schools may be very helpful, don't forget to emphasize again that they are merely helpers. the man is somebody only when the fight is won within himself. without the schools men have often reached the pinnacles of success, through their own individual earnestness and energy. schools make wise men wiser, but they may make fools greater fools than ever. if colleges have fallen somewhat into disrepute, it is largely due to the fact that we may have sent more fools than wise men to college. many a man has been the better for being too poor to attend school, like franklin, lincoln, peter cooper, and ten thousand other americans. their thirst for what books had to give them forced them to work harder and to deny themselves all the enjoyments that so vulgarize yet so charm the cheaper brood. all that is won by sacrifice and downright hard work is priceless, and many noble men and women who have risen to high honor and station owe their place and power solely to this. be always mindful that power is the only safe foundation for reputation. thoughtful americans are not concerning themselves about who your ancestors were, and whether or not they were graduated from some college. like doctor holmes, they feel that old families and old trees generally have their best parts underground, and that the only progressive is the man who is bigger in thought and feeling and accomplishment than his father was. they believe that it is unimportant where you buy your educational tools, if you are only doing good work with them. there is only one _true aristocracy in america_--those with more spiritual power and individual accomplishment than the rest of men. emerson says that "all the winds that move the vanes of universities blow from antiquity," and this is responsible for many foolish words and many fool acts of schoolmen which are so often misleading the unsuspecting public. nothing is more foolish than the idea that any schooling is worthless which is obtained in schools after the regular school hours; and more than one attempt has been made to enact laws which shall hinder from practice physicians and lawyers who have been obliged to get their knowledge through channels other than the conventional. the victory of the general does not depend upon the place where he got his military training or the time of the day when he studied. oliver cromwell, the greatest general of his day, was a farmer until his fortieth year, when he entered the army of the parliament against charles i. the only question that concerns the nation that puts a general at the head of its forces is, has he the powers that shall make us victorious? men in distress don't ask for the pedigree of the life-saver, nor do they stop to inquire when he graduated. don't be frightened off by sticklers for what is customary. knowledge is the right of the poorest boy and girl in america, and it can be had by the humblest in the land. be convinced of this and enter the race. the world steps aside and lets the man pass who knows where he is going; all the world will shout to clear the track when they see a determined giant is coming. in choosing your career, don't be limited to the old professions. there are to-day many more occupations calling for the highest skill and offering the highest inducements than there were twenty years ago, and these positions are steadily increasing. many occupations which were recently regarded almost as menial have risen almost to professions--cooking, agriculture, decorative art, forestry, nursing, sanitation, designing apparel, and countless others; and the men and women qualified for these are surer of better positions than formerly, and far better rewards. but the youth who is imbued with the determination to _be_ right and to _do_ right must never lose sight of this truth--that life is vastly more than place and meat and raiment. living for self is suicide; men that are men get far greater enjoyment and far greater reward from making life a blessing for those who come their way than they get from all other things combined. no man lives so truly for himself as he who lives for other people, and one of the chiefest purposes of education is that it gives larger views of life and adds greater power to serve humanity. the man who is really in earnest to make his life count is studiously observant. each day and each place multiplies his means of happiness for himself and others. the end the silence: what it is and how to use it by david v. bush author of "the fundamentals of applied psychology", "applied psychology and scientific living", "practical psychology and sex life", "the universality of the master mind", "will power and success" editor, "mind power plus" below is a series of six c booklets by david v. bush entitled . "how to demonstrate prosperity" . "why some people fail in visualizing--rules for visualization" . "the influence of suggestion and auto-suggestion" . "the silence, what it is and how to use it" . "what to eat--scientific feeding" . "what is god?"[ ] these sell at c each--four for one dollar. order a set now and get as premiums two wall motto poems, artistically printed on beautiful cardboard, for home, office or business. check your choice for two wall motto poems from the list below: pep. old glory. where is success? misfits can win. pass it along. lift your head. where god is found. the boss is watching you. what is god? stick to it. charity. think right. opportunity. the real success. the bull dog grip. it's better to smile. troubles that never came. if you would be a friend to man. the silence: what it is, how to use it approach to the silence wrong thinking produces inharmony in our body, which in turn produces sickness. our bodies sometimes are instantly re-harmonized while in the silence. in the silence our minds become passive, open, free and loving, at which time the infinite master of harmony touches the mental chords of our being and we are well. just as the piano can be tuned, so can the mind. man's body is made up of twelve octaves the same as in music. all matter is music. all matter is composed of twelve octaves. wrong thinking brings inharmony in some of the octaves of our body. right thinking tunes these organs, puts them back into their normal condition. boys have their little steel magnets by which they pick up small pieces of steel, pins and so forth. when overworked, these magnets no longer attract. then the boys take their magnets, have them rubbed against strong magnets or remagnetized with an electric current and their power is quickly restored--so with our bodies. mind is the re-electrifier and re-harmonizer of the octaves into all harmony. right thinking, therefore, is the most important thing in life. as a man thinketh in his heart so is he. just as a tuning fork near a piano will respond with a vibration when a key of the same pitch is struck on the piano nearby, so likewise do the bodies of men respond to proper stimulus and become in tune. by right thinking man can re-harmonize himself, can achieve health, success and prosperity. to enter the silence one must first establish perfect relaxation in mind and body. then as the consciousness is brought from one part of the body to another the tuning takes place. if the leader in the silence should be intoning, there will be many in the audience who will feel tinkling sensations--vibrations--and often are instantly healed. they have been instantly re-harmonized. sometimes it may take several intonings in the silence for a complete healing. should you have a violent vibration, feel no fear, but thank god for your healing because the more violent the vibration perhaps the worse has been your condition and the more surely has the re-harmony begun. some people will feel this vibration for hours, even days, throughout which there is always healing. others may not feel the vibration at all, yet if there has been any inharmony in the bodily organs, these organs are unconscious to the conscious intoning re-harmonization. many people who have been healed of divers and many malignant diseases were at no time conscious of any vibration. never be discouraged if you feel no sensation. if you do feel a vibration, know that you are susceptible and on the high road to a healing demonstration. the one intoning may or may not be feeling vibrations. religion is the life of god in the soul of man. the silence is the medium by which the life of god and the soul of man are brought into at-one-ment. the silence is a medium by which man comes in a closer touch with the infinite; a medium by which man becomes conscious of his nearness to the infinite. the silence is the meeting place where man's spirit links with god's spirit; where spirit meets spirit and the marvel of his grace never ceases. the silence is another way of praying, which is another way of concentration. it is another way of visualization. "as a man thinketh in his heart so is he." in the silence a man can by his thoughts change his life, his conditions, his environment, his all. by right thinking man becomes harmonious. a harmonious man--in tune with the infinite--is on the king's highway to health, success, abundance, prosperity, happiness, love and peace. by means of wrong thinking our minds are put out of harmony with the great infinite spirit of god. "as a man thinketh in his heart so is he." when wrong thinking becomes right thinking, then man's right relationship to god is restored. he becomes an open channel for the influx of the spirit so that whatever demonstration he may desire he may have. in the silence a man may change his thinking as in no other way, therefore, may change his heart, change his whole being, change his environment, change every condition to which he was subject. the human body may be likened to a harp. when man thinks rightly his body is in tune; but wrong thinking creates inharmony in the body and produces sickness. wrong thinking produces inharmony in the mind, which, of course, disconnects man from rightful association with the divine. a man must, therefore, think right. yet, because of centuries of erroneous conception of god and of the world, man has been a negative instead of a positive being, and his unwisdom has reacted upon the present generation. we are mental sending and receiving stations. what we receive depends upon how we are thinking now. for success, health and happiness we must in the silent chambers of the soul change our thinking if we are holding negative or inharmonious thoughts. in the silence there is presented to man his greatest opportunity to change his thinking. wrong thinking produces inharmony of the body which in turn produces sickness. if we change to right thinking we have health, success and happiness. therefore the silence when properly used re-harmonizes our bodies and minds through the simple agency of right thinking. "there are steps of approach to the silence. stillness is one thing and the silence is another. one may quiet himself physically and not be still, and he may be still without entering the silence. when one becomes physically and mentally at rest, he is apt to become receptive to psychic influences; and when these are not desired it is advisable to protect oneself while mentally negative. one may affirm his oneness with god, his being surrounded and protected by the divine goodness, and may symbolize this by enveloping himself in thought with the white light of love or the mellowed tints of sunshine. "with the senses calmed and unresponsive to the slower vibrations, but responsive to the quicker ones, a peace and calm pervade one's mind, and it becomes consciously receptive to higher vibrations of vital energy. immune from the lesser harmonies, one opens himself to the greater ones, which are always seeking avenues of expression. with the greater influx of the one life, a sense of power steals over one and he becomes conscious of increased vigor and vitality. "in relinquishing specific thoughts, one opens inwardly rather than outwardly, and becomes receptive to subconscious impressions that are directed by his conscious affirmation of fundamental truth. the subconscious responds by returning to the conscious the logical sequences of the truths that have been consciously impressed upon it. the subconscious follows the lead given to it by the conscious affirmations of truth, and it brings back the consciousness of those truths in their various ramifications." health silence select one or more of the affirmations or formulas below to hold in thought while in the silence. you may change or vary these as you choose: soul is health, spirit is health, god is health, i am health. since there is but one mind, there is but one mentality. this mind and mentality is god; god is health. i am health. "i am whole, perfect, strong, powerful, loving, harmonious and happy and what i am myself i desire for everyone else." "i am filled with the abundant, intelligent, ever-present life of spirit. it flows through me freely, cleansing, healing, purifying and vitalizing every part. i am one with this life and in it i am every whit whole." "the all-powerful christ mind in me dissolves and dissipates every adverse thought. my body is the pure and holy temple of the living god, and every organ and every function is now in divine order and harmony." all the organs of my body are functioning normally and i am well, whole and complete. all is mind, all is god, all is universal energy. i am part of creative force and i am health, abundance, joy and peace. i am filled, i am thrilled with life eternal and i radiate that life within to me and without to all. every experience of my life has been for my good and i am happy in living. god is spirit. i (use your own name) am life. life spirit is now flowing through me freely and i am well, whole and complete. "be still and know that i am god." use the following as a basis for your meditation as you demonstrate health. of course, you may use other thoughts provided they are constructive health thoughts. you may practice the silence sitting, reclining, or in bed. there is no better way to learn how to relax than by going into the silence. are you tense? let go. relax. then direct the mind to go from one part of the body to another. take a deep breath between each change of your consciousness. be sure to use the diaphragmatic or abdominal breathing--breathing through the nostrils, mouth closed until the muscles of the abdomen expand. the best time to hold the silence is as you retire at night, and just as you awaken in the morning.[ ] but you should hold your thought at least three times a day, without stress or strain, without doubt or worry, passive in mind and body--perfectly relaxed. hold the silence or thought upon retiring at night, awakening in the morning, and at noon day. of course, you may take any other time that is convenient. you may concentrate on the roadway, street car, home or office, but it is well, if possible, to have one room for your silence. most people in that way will build up stronger vibrations. at noon now there are all over the world thousands of others holding silence so that there is a great combined mental force working together at one time for success, health, prosperity and happiness, and we therefore get the benefit of this great vibration. the more often you hold the silence without stress or strain, as a rule, the quicker may be the demonstration. the real part of me is spirit, not matter. i believe that this body of mine is a tabernacle for the spirit. the real "i am" within me is therefore spirit. the real "me" is spirit. this spirit is the god spirit. this is what jesus meant when in the fourteenth chapter of john and again in the seventeenth chapter of the same gospel, speaking to his disciples he referred to "i in you, you in me and we in god." my spirit is a part of the god spirit. god is health, god is perfection, god is abundance, god is harmonious. therefore, the real "i am" is god; the real "i am" is health, perfection, abundance and harmony. when i am sick i know that it is the material of me that is sick, not the god spirit; it is my _physical_ being which is out of harmony, it is this tabernacle of which paul speaks, housing my spirit, which gives me pain and suffering. the real "me" is not sick, it is _my body_. for centuries we have held to a wrong idea of life. we have thought that life is material; but life is spiritual, it is the invisible within me which is eternal, which is god. many still believe that life is material and matter, instead of mind and spirit. i no longer hold that conception. i believe that all is mind and spirit. just here is where the healing methods of drugs and the scientist's explanation of life is so limited. not until we recognize that life is really a thing of spirit--not matter but mind--not material but spiritual--do we come into an understanding of truth. jesus said, "god is spirit," and on different occasions told his disciples that this spirit was within them as well as within himself. therefore, this same spirit is within me and this same spirit is the god spirit of health, abundance, happiness, harmony and perfection. god is all health, all abundance, all harmony, peace and perfection. therefore the god spirit within me is the same. i am sick in body; not in mind, not in spirit. inasmuch as i cannot conceive of god being sick neither can i conceive of my spirit being sick. my spirit is health, perfection and harmony. my body may not be well, but since mind is all, since this material is subject to the spiritual, since matter is subject to mind, i believe and affirm that my health does not depend upon matter but upon the god spirit within me. it depends not upon the material but the spiritual, upon the god mind within. just as wood when made into a violin and properly tuned, will give forth harmony, so my body, though made in the material, when properly tuned by mind will give forth harmonious living, perfect health. as the tree standing in the forest may be made into the violin music box of harmony, so my body, the material in the forest of matter, may be put in tune, become harmonious and be raised to perfection by the master musician, god--his mind within me. god is all health. no one could conceive of god as being sick. i can visualize only the eternal spirit of the infinite father. perfection existing in everything and i being a child in spirit, am well, whole and complete in spirit. my real "i am" is well. science now asserts that matter is composed of twelve octaves, just as in music. my body is the composite of these twelve octaves. science also says that every cell atom, every electron in my body is intelligent. this spirit of mine is housed in the tabernacle of the body which is composed of millions and millions of cells, all of which having intelligence respond in my body according to the way i think. every word i entertain, every thought i hold, influences everyone of the millions of cells making up this tabernacle. my body is made whole and complete physically. that is, all the cells of my body are made over new every eleven months. the body i have today is not the body i had eleven months ago. i get a new body every eleven months and my body is today what my thinking was yesterday, the day before that and the months before that. my body in the future depends upon my thinking in the future. i am what i think i am. when i affirm that i am well, whole and complete; that i am perfect, harmonious and strong, i am suggesting to every atom in my body perfection and every atom in turn begins to make my body over, new in health and and in perfection. i may or i may not have to wait for the element of time to make over every cell. that may be done spontaneously and instantly. there is no limitation to the power of god so i shall not set a time limit for my healing, knowing that all things are possible with the father. i affirm that now i have that which i desire. i know that now the spirit of divine health is surging through me, touching and reaching every atom of my body and that now the god spirit within me is perfect and that spirit makes my body perfect. "man is a spiritual being. man expresses himself mentally and manifests himself physically. the one life animates all that exists. harmony of existence depends upon the polarities of the three aspects of life. the mind is at ease when open to the inflow of the spirit. it is discordant when it follows sensory impressions. the body is healthy when responsive to the direction of the spiritualized mind. it becomes diseased when it accepts the physical as its guide. one achieves mental ease and physical health through his mental polarity. if open to the physical and closed to the spiritual, discord will prevail. if open to the spiritual and closed to the physical, he lives the one life, in mental ease and physical health. i open my mind to the inflow of the spirit. i place my body under the control of my spiritualized mind. i feel the one life animate my mind and my body. i am a spiritual being. i am perfect health!" * * * * * miscellaneous silence[ ] thought to hold in the silence for abundance (see also abundance, page ) "the universal abundant spirit supplies all my needs." there is no want or limitation in the law. if, perchance, there should appear to be lack of, or need of, abundance in our lives, it is because of wrong thinking--not because there is a lack of abundance. therefore, we should enter the silence with the profound faith and conviction that the world is filled with plenty, and that all our needs are most bountifully supplied. the mind should be saturated with the conviction that all life is filled with abundance--all space is overflowing with abundance--all living comes from an abundant source of supply. in a universe where this is true, there can be no want, no lack for you or yours (for me or mine). as you take your exercises this month, take the affirmation above. as you walk on the street to your office, or place of business, continue this thought. as you go about your daily duties in the home or workshop, let the mind be saturated with a spirit, a feeling and thinking of abundance--"the opulence of the universal source of supply now meets all my needs," "the abundant life giving spirit of prosperity now leads and guides me into the paths of plenty, peace and power," "my mind is filled with prosperous thoughts, my being is pulsating in abundant rhythm, my soul is uplifted and sustained by a thousand thoughts of ever-present abundance, prosperity and opulence." as these thoughts are maintained and repeated again and again, absorbed and sunk deep into the subconscious mind, know that all of your needs are this minute supplied. know that you could not ask for anything from the universal spirit--father, god--without that spirit being most willing to supply, instantly, all your needs. the spirit and body are well, but the flesh is weak. allow your flesh to be stimulated, and your body to respond by thoughts of abundance, prosperity and opulence. "i am now rich in thought, rich in body and rich in spirit. i am now part of the abundant ever-present spirit of prosperity and opulence. all that i need is now mine, mine, mine." the universal abundant spirit supplies all my needs. * * * * * thought to hold in meditation in the silence for misfortunes, grief, mistakes, reverses, failure, sorrow, loss and disappointment "all is good." we are entering upon a new consciousness for the human race, a higher plane of mentality, and a greater development of the spiritual life. in spirit, of course, there is no wrong, no sorrow, no grief, no misfortune, no losses, no reverses. in short all is perfection. the age in which we are living has not yet developed this spiritual understanding. we are still of the earth--earthly--and we are still in that consciousness where the physical is affected by seeming misfortunes, reverses, sorrows, griefs, trouble, sickness, etc. we may be wise in not expecting that suddenly this generation of man will reach that spiritual plane where there will be no recognition of anything except good. we are a part of the infinite spirit ourselves and, of course, in spirit, we are perfection. but this physical body of ours manifests imperfection from time to time, because of our past training and past thinking, because of our own consciousness. in time there is no doubt in my mind but that the spirit within will make a perfect body without. this perfection will be recognized in health and in peace of mind. it will be recognized so that there will be no such thing as misfortunes, sorrows, reverses, failures, griefs, disappointments or losses being able to affect our mentality or our body. in this state of consciousness, as we are emerging from the chrysalis, material stage of man into the greater life, into the deeper spiritual understanding, we are subject to certain conditions not conducive to peace of mind without an effort. in other words, we recognize, or feel the effects of losses, misfortunes, disappointments, sorrows, griefs, etc. we recognize now, that the time is coming when the spirit will be so completely in control of matter in the body, that we will not recognize any inharmony. to reach that great spirit is one of the big forward steps in this generation. to reach that spiritual plane also means the right kind of thinking now. we plan, today, for tomorrow. this is true in every walk of life. we plan our home today--and build it tomorrow. we make our merchandise today and market it tomorrow. we sow our seed today and we reap the harvest tomorrow. we build our career today, little by little, and we reach the outcome tomorrow. therefore, our thinking today will change our tomorrow. the thinking of this generation will change the condition of tomorrow's generation. if tomorrow's generation is going to be free from the recognition of sorrows, misfortunes, griefs, fears, pain, losses, failures, reverses, inharmony, discord, etc., it depends upon our seed sowing. our seed sowing today should be "all is good." all is good in spirit. you can say that and be honest with yourself. all is perfection in spirit. all is good for us in spirit. all is good for our lives here. spirit transcends matter. when we recognize, affirm, and continue to hold the constructive thought that all is good in spirit, we are changing our own mental attitude, our own bodies, all matter in general--getting ready for the greater realization of the spiritual manifestation in the next generation. therefore, for your own good here today in success, prosperity and happiness as well as in health, peace and harmony, begin to pronounce over everything in life, _all is good_. if you have any misunderstandings, _all is good_. if you have any losses, _all is good_, any reverses, _all is good_, any sorrow, _all is good_, any inharmony, _all is good_. in everything at all that is out of perfection you must recognize only the good. all is good. sending your thought energy by repeating _all is good_, and thinking _all is good_, and living _all is good_, you will actually, in this day, overcome your difficulty, and turn all of your mistakes, blunders and misfortunes into stepping stones for your own success, health and happiness. i enter the silence this month, this day, this hour and this minute. my mind is obsessed and under control of the divine spirit, i recognize here and now only good. i see in my fellowmen only perfection and good. i see in nature all around me only perfection and good. i see in every transaction of life only the perfect good. i see in every activity of my experience, and in every form, color and thought, good. _all is good_ for me now, today and forever. god is spirit; spirit is love; love is perfection; god's spirit is harmonious, i am perfect, i am love, perfection and harmonious. all is good. * * * * * for harmony, peace, comfort base your thought for this silence upon the following. you may add any constructive thought you choose. "my subconscious mind, i desire and command you to have peace, harmony and justice reign in the hearts of men everywhere." i realize that there can be no negative thinking for my destruction, downfall or harm sent out by anyone else that can reach my consciousness, or do me ill, unless i am afraid that such negative thinking will produce the evil effects others are planning. i know that thought is energy. this is scientifically demonstrated, and i realize that a constructive thought has much more energy than a destructive thought. i know, because it has been conclusively proven, that constructive thinking will blast away every negative thought-current sent out by one person, or by a thousand. therefore, if there should be any inharmonious thoughts anywhere in the world--any discordant thought-current by those who seek my downfall, or block my progress, or by those who would endeavor to hurt my reputation--i know that by holding a harmonious attitude of peace, love, joy and success for everyone, including those who would do me wrong that such constructive thought-currents will blast away all of the discordant and inharmonious mental currents of evil so that they will not even reach my conscious mind. i also realize, when i hold my silent thought, "_my subconscious mind i desire and command you to have peace and harmony and justice reign_," that i am sending out the energy of construction which is bound to turn all of the efforts for my embarrassment and destruction into a higher current for my greater achievement. therefore, i send out blessings and thanksgiving to the very ones who would work my downfall. i charge my subconscious mind to let peace, harmony and justice reign so that all things will work together for the good for me and for those who are thinking evil. if i should think it hard to send out blessings to my enemies, i remember the affirmation of the greatest teacher of all ages who said, "forgive until seventy times seven." i remember that when he, himself, was reviled, reviled not in turn. i remember that when his merciless enemies had nailed him to the cross, had apparently crushed his fondest ambition, had scorned and reviled the kingdom of which he had spoken, and had tortured him as he hung on the cross, he uttered the immortal, lovable, constructive words which have rung throughout the centuries, and will continue to bless all mankind throughout eternity: "father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." so those who would try to block my way, curb my progress or put thorns in my crown are doing so "not knowing what they are doing." "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." instead of hurting me, they are sowing weed seeds, which shall bring forth a harvest of weeds and tares in their own lives, and not in mine. i, therefore, do not wish them harm, nor think that they should feel the reaction. i do not have to concern myself about the negative people in the world--for the law takes care of them. i shall always think constructive thoughts, harmonious thoughts and loving thoughts. "my subconscious mind, i desire and command you to have peace, harmony and justice reign, and know that all things are now working together for the good of my would-be enemies and for myself." i relax (here pause and wait), take time for meditation (here pause and rest relaxed) and i become happy in the silence--holding my thought of peace, harmony and justice reigning in the hearts of men everywhere--and, as i relax and wait, i feel my vibrations rise. i am resting at ease, in faith. (pause.) i am perfectly calm and contented. (pause.) i am sending out love, peace and harmonious thoughts, and, as they go, love, peace and harmony will come to me. these are now returning. they enter my being and uplift my soul. i am, therefore, sending out a strong current of spiritual blessings, with such a spirit of helpfulness, that i am getting back the same which i send out. my harvest shall be peace, love, joy, harmony, justice and contentment, because i am _sowing_ the seed of love, peace, harmony, joy, contentment and justice into the great subconscious soil of the universe. "my subconscious mind, i desire and command you to have peace, harmony and justice reign everywhere throughout the world." i wait--i rest--i am relaxed--i am at ease and filled with the spirit of harmony. i wait. i listen for the spirit within. i feel and hear the voice of infinite love sending back into my consciousness these thoughts which i send out. i know that my every constructive thought blasts away a thousand destructive ones. therefore, i think peace, joy, love, harmony and justice, and, as i utter these words slowly and prayerfully, i feel my vibration rising--i experience ease of mind and peace of soul. harmony is now within and without. i realize that i cannot send out my affirmation of peace, love, joy and harmony without peace, love, joy and harmony coming back to me. i, therefore, send out my affirmation: "my subconscious mind, i desire and command you to have peace, harmony and justice reign-in the hearts of men wherever they may be." i wait and listen--perfectly relaxed and at ease--and i feel the vibrations which i sent out coming back to me. i, therefore, know that no harm can befall my dwelling place. i know that whatever evil thoughts have been sent out for my destruction have been counter-blasted, and that now everything is working for my good. as i recognize, and realize, that all things work together for my good, i am sending out love-thoughts that all things are working together for the good of those who would do me wrong. "they know not what they do." they alone will have to reap the harvest of the weeds they are sowing. my wish for them is that they may learn their lesson easily and early. my blessings i send out to them. again i wait. again i listen. again i am at ease, happy, and at rest. love and blessings, peace and harmony, i send out--love and blessings, peace and harmony, come back. "my subconscious mind, i desire and command you to have peace, harmony and justice reign. my blessings upon all mankind--my love to everyone!" * * * * * thought to hold as a basis for this silence for success "i have faith and conviction in my ultimate success." i believe the scripture: "my ways are not your ways, saith the lord; neither are my thoughts your thoughts, for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my thoughts higher than your thoughts." i understand by this scripture that the thoughts of the infinite god are far above the understanding of finite me; that god's ways are higher than my ways. "god moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform." i also have faith and conviction in my ultimate success because i am a part of the infinite spirit, and in the infinite spirit, there can be no failure. i am harmonious, complete and successful in spirit--in god. i may not see my success today, or i may feel as though i have accomplished little, but i know that all my efforts and energies, in the past, present and future, are working together for my good. therefore, i shall hold the thought that my success has already been achieved. i am success, i have success now and forever! therefore, i think only success; i talk only success; i believe only in success; i am demonstrating success, and i know that success is mine. the needed lessons i am having now, have had in the past, and may require in the future, are but necessary stepping stones to my greater success. the apparent delay of my greater success means that i am now demonstrating more success than i could otherwise have. dreams that i have dreamed, visions that i have visualized, and the goal that i have mapped out, are all a part of my ultimate greater success. i have that now! i am successful now! as moses went into the land of midian, and spent forty years of his life as a shepherd in the wilderness--(apparently with no future before him--which, however, was the great schooling necessary for his greater triumphant success in the future)--so i may be, in _my_ land of midian, apparently, only a sheep herder, but in reality getting the necessary training for my greater and ultimate success. therefore, i now rejoice in every experience i have--giving thanks for every apparent set back, and for every "seeming" blocking of my purposes and aspirations. i believe that my past experiences, as well as present happenings, are for my benefit, and that i could not have been the great success i am, and shall be, had not the discouragements of yesterday, the perplexities of today and the drawbacks of tomorrow come into my life. i realize that i need to go into the land of midian; that it is as necessary for me, as it was for moses, to spend a few years in the wilderness of life's experience. i am happy to know that i am in such company as that of the great leader of his people, and rejoice in the thought that the lord has called me to spend my time in the land of midian, getting the necessary training for the greater things the lord has in store for me. there is no place in the world where clouds do not gather, and storms do not rage; but when the storms abate, and the skies clear, then do we appreciate more fully the glories and beauties of god, the universe and its natural laws, and infinite love. however, i know by experience in the land of midian, where clouds hover low, and where storms try the soul and body, that the dawn of a new day shall make life all the sweeter for me and mine. moses could not have enjoyed leading his people into the promised land, had he not been in the land of midian. if he had stayed forever in the court of pharaoh, with its attendant luxuries, life would have taken on a dull, monotonous hue, and his experience would have seemed drab, wearisome and pale. i am glad for the privilege accorded me to be in the land of midian for a short time! i know that, as did moses, i shall enjoy my promised land all the more when my greater success shall have been well worked out by the hand of divinity. faith and conviction in my ultimate greater success is stronger today than ever! i hold such a strong thought, and such a deep and courageous faith in the workings of god's plan, that i know i now have that which has been intended for me, and nothing can take from me that which the lord hath prepared for my success, health and happiness. i know, too, that i shall learn daily to enjoy, appreciate, and make better use of the success i now possess; that i shall unfold day by day into greater opportunities for more influence, power, friendship, charity, love, comradeship and service. i know that my present success is but a part of the greater success which the lord has waiting for me--"just around the corner". therefore, i shall offer up prayers of thanksgiving and gratitude; i shall work harder, being more particular in the preparation for my greater work, than i have been in the past--never doubting but that every moment spent in this greater preparation will bring added interests, and a greater success in the future. even as moses did not doubt the wisdom of the lord for a greater future (when in the land of midian for forty years), so shall i not doubt his ways today. i claim, with a joyful heart and an attitude of thanksgiving, that my life could not have been as great in the future had i been denied my present experience. i know that greater things are in store for me, because god's thoughts are greater than my thoughts; because he is giving me that training now, in my land of midian, which i most need. i trust the guiding spirit of infinite love to lead me, at the right time, into my life's promised land. the success today, in my land of midian, is attracting unto me the greater influence and power in my court of pharaoh, and in my leadership, as i lead others into that promised land which the lord has prepared for me and mine. i smile--i sing--i rejoice, and offer thanksgiving and gratitude for my success now and forever. surely i believe more and more: "my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways, saith the lord," and all things are now working together for my good. therefore, i have faith and conviction in my ultimate success--in my greater success--in my greatest success! * * * * * abundance (see also abundance, page ) "there is abundance in the world for me given by the bountiful hand of omnipotence. i gratefully claim and accept all the supply for my needs." the old idea of orthodox prayer was that of supplication and begging. i have spent a whole night at a time begging for a few pennies and supplicating for the salvation of others. what waste of energy. each time that we send up such a weak supplication as the attitude of a beggar, with the timid, frightful thoughts that only a beggar's mind can have--this condition of mind, cross circuits the power to bring into our lives the very things we most desire. when the beggar extends his hand for a copper, he knows that not everyone who passes is going to give him a coin. he, therefore, solicits more or less mechanically, with a mind not positive or sure. his hand is extended in timidity and weakness. now and then he gets a coin from a sympathetic passer-by. the same principle holds true for the man who prays in the old orthodox fashion. he utters his petitions with doubts and misgivings, with timidity and wonderings. some of his prayers are answered--just as the occasional coin is cast to the beggar. but most of the orthodox prayers sent up in the fashion of begging and supplicating are never answered. of necessity, they cannot be, because the concentration is filled with fear and trembling. only by positive and courageous thinking do we attract to ourselves the answers to our prayers. when we are permeated with the spirit of doubt, our petitions are cross-circuited. therefore, in making your affirmation this time, rest assured that the abundant spirit of the universal supply has everything you need, and has it now. you have only to put your mind in a condition to receive. you do not have to beg the sun for its rays, nor god for his love. it is there for the taking. many of us keep the sunshine of abundance out of our lives by pulling down the curtain of doubt--just as we may go into a room, pull down a shade and keep out the sun. james russell lowell, seventy-five years ago, told us the same story in "the vision of sir launfal," when he said that "heaven is given away and god may be had for the asking". by gratefully accepting all of the supply for your needs, you are running up the shade of positive faith and letting the sunlight of abundance in. send out the desire for your supply to the universal mind and then rest--feeling that it has been acquired. of course, the stronger you concentrate, without stress and strain (as outlined in "practical psychology and sex life," by the author, under the chapter "how to get what you want," and chapters on "concentration"), and the more positive and courageous your concentration, the stronger will be your mental thought currents and consequently the quicker your demonstration. _omnipotence has provided for me and mine_, i raise the shade of my faith and let in the sunlight of abundance. i know i do not have to beg for this, for it is mine now. when first i saw the light of day, the bountiful spirit of the father made all preparations for my life's necessities and pleasures. they have been in the world since i was born. i now claim and accept my supply. from now on the spirit goes before me--making easy and prosperous all my ways--and i have abundance for every need. from the bountiful hand of omnipotence i have abundant health--i have abundant love--i have abundant prosperity--i have abundant peace. my father careth for the grass of the field and the birds of the air--and he careth for me. i realize it. think it and live it now. abundance for all my needs is mine, now and forever. * * * * * health, success, prosperity, universal peace and brotherhood "god made from one blood all the nations of the world." as i enter the silence this time, expecting to get health, success, prosperity and happiness, i am going to have my mind filled with the spirit of divine unity. unity among the nations of the world, unity in abundance, unity in love, unity in prosperity, unity in health and unity in spirit. there can be no separation in spirit. all is mind, all is god, all is universal energy. i am part of the creative force. i am a part and parcel of the unity of love, nature and god. therefore, where god is, i recognize a completeness. and i, being a part of god, a part of this spirit, a part of the power with him, am, therefore, at one with god and all thought. i am therefore at one with god and all spirit. nothing can separate me from the love of god, but my own mental attitude. nothing can separate me from abundance, happiness, success, prosperity and love, but my own wrong thinking. love is dealt in the world in the spirit of god and, therefore, recognizing this unity of love, i am a part of it and have perfect love, success, prosperity, abundance and health. the ocean is composed of water. if i take a bucket of water from the ocean, it still is the water of the ocean. i may take this water to an island in the sea. though i have separated this water from the main body of the ocean, it still is the water from the sea. but, as the water is separated from the main body of the ocean, it loses its power, its strength and many of its cardinal properties. i am the same as the sea water when i, by wrong thinking:--whether it be jealousy, envy, hatred, misunderstanding, worry or fear--separate myself from the spirit of god. i am as one going upon an island of humanity. i am still of that same spirit; but it has been separated, so that within me, it has lost many of its cardinal virtues. these virtues are there, but i do not recognize them. separation has lessened my strength, my vitality, my power, my health, my happiness, my prosperity and my joy. just as it is necessary for the bucket of water to remain in the ocean in order to contain all of its original power and to retain all of its original strength, to be intact, so is it necessary for man to keep in the spirit of at-one-ment with the father, that we may manifest daily god's principle of unity with god, man and nature. when we have maintained that attitude of one-ness with the father in all respects, we are then recognizing and expecting, in this act, the fullness of our spirit. this fullness of our spirit will, therefore, give us health, prosperity and happiness. when i have a mind that is filled with negative, discordant or inharmonious thoughts, i am separating myself from the full expression of the divine within me. i am the bucket of water going stale on a human island; but, when i make my spirit at one with the father by harmonious thinking, by love, kindness, good will, fellowship and co-operation, i am not only maintaining all of my original properties, but i am in correspondence with the infinite spirit so that i can manifest and express his original spirit in every particular. where there is a unity of spirit, there is unity of all the good things of life. perhaps i am not drawing from the bank of life's experience everything that i ought to have--because i have separated myself from the spiritual board of directors in this bank of life, and am not getting my dividends on time. my mental attitude is the cause; therefore, as i enter the silence this time, i am going to maintain the faith and the love-spirit of my unity with all things. i maintain, therefore, my at-one-ment with god, with man and nature. i maintain that all of the original strength of spirit is mine. i hold that the manifestations of this original spirit will produce everything in my life for my ultimate good, because i am at one with the father. all things are mine. the silence, this day, finds me at one with all. the silence, this day, finds me at peace with god, man and nature. the silence, this day, finds me in at-one-ment with god and all, in unity with every conceivable thing in the universe. therefore, my unity, my at-one-ment with the father, my wholeness of spirit with god brings into my life everything for my good. all things work together for my good in my at-one-ment with man, god and nature--in my unity with all. * * * * * how to have more "i am unselfish in action, being and motive." the science of psychology as applied to everyday life is, strictly speaking, a new science. it is a matter of thousands of people in the world all of a sudden coming in contact with certain laws, which make them successful, healthy and prosperous. it is quite natural, because man is interested more in himself than in any one else, that, when he finds these laws may be applied to give him more abundance, the tendency may be to use these laws for selfish purposes. nothing could be more unpsychological. the laws should be used for the individual, but should not stop there. each individual who is profiting by the operation of the laws, or understanding of psychology, ought not only to get everything himself that psychology can give him, but he should pass these on to others; he should tell others about it; he should cry it from the housetops and megaphone it from the street corners. he should not want to get everything himself, but wish the same that he has to everyone else. by doing this, the law will rebound, and, instead of having less, he will have still more than he would have were he thinking about the laws for himself alone. the human race is made up of a whole lot of selfishness, and the man, or the woman, who hopes to get the most out of life and out of psychology, must learn at the very beginning of his or her understanding of the laws. then, only, will the best come to those who are absolutely unselfish. if there is any selfish motive or selfish desire in your heart, you may operate the law and get a certain amount of benefit, nay, you may even become rich by it and have great power, but it should not end there. your riches are for the use of others, as well as for yourselves, and the real psychologist, in getting his riches, will pass on to others that which he has. the real psychologist, in getting more power, will share it with others and will use it for the good of others, as well as for his own personal aggrandizement. therefore hold the thought: "i am unselfish in action, being and motive." many a person never will get the demonstrations he wants, because the channel of abundance and prosperity, happiness and joy, is clogged up with his own selfish attitude. the selfish person who does operate the laws, does so by overbalancing his selfishness with some other great virtue. but when he is extremely selfish, he may never have demonstrations as he wants; he may not have enough other virtues to outweigh his selfishness. he may live for years, and know what the laws are, and yet lack this one little thing, _unselfishness_, in operating the laws for his own abundance, prosperity or happiness. if you are not having the demonstrations you want, it is because there is a kink in the mind somewhere. the kink may be selfishness, or it may be pride, haughtiness, duplicity, dishonesty, hatred, envy or jealousy. this time we are going to hold the thought: "i am unselfish in action, being and motive," and each time we go into the silence, this unselfish spirit shall be the guiding-star of our thoughts. it will be the personal touch with the infinite spirit itself. the beginning of life's happiness, as well as the end thereof, is the spirit of unselfishness. "i am unselfish in action, being and motive." * * * * * all things are in divine order "divine harmony and peace actuate every thought and action of my being." i realize that all things are in divine order for me and mine. there can be no disturbance in the world without or the world within my being but that is in perfect harmony with the infinite. the circumstances outside of my life are all for my good. my environment where i am now and the conditions in which i am living, i make harmonize for me by my attitude of mind. i think only peace, i breathe only love, i speak only harmony. my conditions and my environment, although outwardly inharmonious to my likes and tendencies, are changed by the alchemy of my thinking into a perfect symphony of happiness for me now. "divine harmony and peace actuate every thought and action of my being." this thought is energy, this thought is life, this thought is power. the energy, life and power of this thought weaves all of my diversified life's experiences into a divine pattern of perfection for me. there can be no trouble, disappointments, sorrow, reverses, loss or discord but that shall be changed for my good when i think spirit and live the affirmation of today, namely, "divine harmony and peace actuate every thought and action of my being." all things are in divine order. the spirit of divinity prompts my thinking. the divine within me actuates my actions. the god powers within, this minute are working all things together for my good. there can be no danger come nigh my dwelling for my body is the temple of the living god. therefore, the god spirit within me protects me from all harm, inspires me to high ideals, lifts me to heights of righteousness and fills my soul with love. love for my circumstances, love for my present conditions, love for my environment, love for every one in the world, love for all of the creation of god. therefore i have no enemies, for i love all. i recognize no misfortunes, for the love energy within turns all misfortunes and sorrows into stepping stones for my greater advancement and achievement. the god energy within transforms all inharmonious conditions without into a perfect harmony within. the kingdom of god now reigns within me and i am at ease, at peace and at-one-ment with all nature and god. the harmony therefore within me in nature and in god gives me perfect peace within and perfect peace without. divine thought and energy, love and blessing actuate every action of my being. where divine love reigns there can be no trouble, no discord, no inharmony, no lack, no limitation, no sorrow, no grief, no sickness, no failure. the energy of divine love transforms all things into my good. the love and peace of the father abideth within me and is manifested without so that my life is one harmonious whole touching the lives of all others who come in contact with me so that they, too, feel my vibrations of at-one-ment with the father and they in turn become harmonious and complete in spirit with man and god. divine harmony and peace actuate every thought and action of my being. all things are in divine order. * * * * * thought to hold in silence and to meditate upon during the day for justice "there's a spirit of justice that secures me in which is my own." if we reach a consciousness of justice, we need have no doubts as to our care in every particular while journeying between the two peaks of eternity--from birth to the great divide. there is nothing that can defeat justice; and the person who has a consciousness of justice will attract to himself every conceivable thing needed for this life, because it will be the logical objective of justice to supply to each individual that justice for which he thinks. that is the reason why this affirmation is so complete in itself; namely, "there is a spirit of justice that secures me in which is my own, and this security is provided already for us by the spirit of justice." it would be a psychological paradox to think that justice could be defeated. that could not be. perhaps it appears to you that your own has not yet been secured to you, but, remember that life is fleeting--that a year is as a tale that is told--and that a decade is but as "ships that pass in the night"--when the years have vanished in the distance. if you have lived a life of justice, and it appears now that your own is not coming to you, that someone else is having more of the good things of life than you, and that someone seems to have used the art of the man of injustice, be not deceived, god is not mocked, for "whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap." if you have sowed equity and justice in the days that are gone, be sure that the same equity and justice will be secured to you. the scriptures tell us not to think too much of the man who is nourishing like a green bay tree, for his efforts are soon cut off and he vanisheth away. one who is astride the scales of justice, and who thinks that he can hold the balance, is gravely mistaken. he may have occupied his present position for many years, first putting his weight on one side and then on the other in an effort to keep his equilibrium. perhaps today it appears that the scales of justice are being well manipulated by his insincerity, duplicity or trickery--but it is like the green bay tree. it will soon pass away. justice is as eternal as god himself, and there is no more possibility of defeating it in the individual's life, in your own life, in the life of a nation or in the history of mankind, than there is likelihood that the sun can get away from its own rays. the justice of god is eternal, or, in other words, god always is justice, personified. where god rules, and where his laws and mandates have been given by his own fiat, "man, neither flesh nor the devil" can defeat the ultimate outcome of justice. your own is secured to you. man himself is fashioned by the finger of divinity. the crown of justice is placed upon his brow and no ruthless hand of greed, duplicity or evil dexterity can ever tear it away. it is there to stay, and the man who has been thus crowned because he has lived in this consciousness of justice--in the consciousness of god himself--is bound to have come back to him that which he has thought, that which he has sowed--justice. you are secured by this spirit of justice. perhaps already your life has had the law of compensation bring to you more than to others of whom you may think, and who, because of their bank account, get more out of life than you. a man may have a million dollars, and yet not be as happy as the laborer living in a thatched cottage. _perhaps justice has tipped the scales in your favor already--and you have failed to recognize it. perhaps you have children, loved ones, family and fireside which bring more comfort to you than the land owner gets who lives in his palace on the hill_. half of life, or the joys of life, depend upon our ability to recognize and appreciate the blessings we already have. therefore, in counting your blessings, or discounting your blessings, be sure that you use a moral standard, instead of a material standard, in gauging whether justice has been meted out to you or not. the justice of the eternal secures me, the spirit of justice secures me in which is mine own. believe it, think it, live it, claim it and justice shall be yours. * * * * * question--in practicing the silence, the mind seems to flutter all about and there is great nervous tension. what is wrong? answer--lack of concentration. this person ought to follow some simple exercise of concentration, such as given below, until the mind has control over the body. by practicing a few of the simple exercises given below, fifteen minutes a day, and then taking the silence a few hours after these exercises have been practiced, the mind will begin to be under control. the nervous tension is caused because of this lack of control, and in the effort to bring the scattering mind into one focus the reaction comes upon the nervous system which, in turn, reacts upon the body. practice and exercises for lack of concentration follow. exercises by thos. parker boyd ( ) select some part of the body, a foot or hand, with the idea of heat. while holding the mind in this attitude, breathe deeply and steadily, and, in from one to four minutes, you will feel the warm glow coming to the foot. in this way, you can soon master the entire body. begin with the sense of feeling. if there is an itching of the body, make it stop by the force of your will. in from three days to three weeks, you can stop the itching sensation at will. then try the habit of sneezing; stubbornly resist the inclination to sneeze, and you will soon have the mastery. now try your will on coughing. when the tickling sensation comes, stop it by the exercise of your will. you can soon master it. next try it on pain. when you feel a pain in the body, instead of rubbing on liniment, rub in a little will power; soon it will ease your pain as if by magic. with the fingers of one hand rub the skin on the back of the other hand, stroking toward the elbow, and will that all feeling shall disappear. in from one to three minutes, take a needle, and you can stick it through the skin on the back of the hand without pain. you may have to try it a dozen times, but persistence will bring success. having mastered the sense of feeling, take up that of hearing. ( ) it may seem impossible at first thought, but you have seen people so absorbed in what they were reading or thinking that they heard nothing, although you addressed them directly. they are simply abstracted from all else, and are thinking of one thing--to the exclusion of everything else. they entered this state of abstractedness unconsciously. to do so intentionally, you go by the law of indirectness. for instance, take sight; concentrate your vision and your whole attention upon some object, real or imaginary, until soon the sense of hearing becomes dormant. a little practice will enable you to study, think or sleep, regardless of noise. ( ) having mastered hearing, begin on sight. you have known people who walked on the street, looked at you and passed by without recognition, although they knew you well. a person deeply thinking on some subject, neither sees nor hears, but uses the mental sense entirely. the method is to let the eyes be open, but concentrate the thoughts on hearing or feeling. ( ) after getting control of your sight, take up the taste. take some tasteless thing on the tongue, abstract the mind to something else until the taste becomes dormant. then take something with more taste to it, abstracting the taste, until by this gradual process you can make the sourest pickle sweet. ( ) finally take some light odor, and hold it before the nostrils, abstracting the attention from the sense of smell, by hearing or seeing, etc., until by practice you can pass through the foulest odor without inconvenience or notice. sit or stand absolutely motionless, except your breathing, for one to five minutes at a time. do this often. practice closing each finger in rotation; then, when all are closed, open one at a time very slowly, keeping the attention fixed on what you are doing. keep all the other fingers still, save the one you are exercising with. inhale gradually for ten seconds, then exhale in the same way and time. look steadily at some point or object for a minute without winking the eye, keeping your attention fixed on the object. look at a picture critically, then close your eyes and mentally reconstruct it. close your eyes and construct the face of a friend, feature by feature. fix your attention on a hand or foot, hold on it the idea of heat and continue until the hand or foot feels warm. then try cold; then try pain. will that the person in front of you shall turn around or put his hand on his head or neck. hold your hand on some one in pain and say, "i will the pain to depart." repeat till the pain goes. * * * * * note.--for a scientific understanding of positive and negative concentration, see "practical psychology and sex life," by the author. silent treatment those at a distance or those who cannot attend my classes may have silent treatments--distance is no barrier--race or creed no bar to those who earnestly want to benefit from the silent treatment. many marvelous cures have been reported through silent treatment. business has been increased, positions secured, bad habits broken, prosperity demonstrated, peace and harmony restored in home and business. this is one of the strongest of dr. bush's study features. use blank on opposite page for yourself, your friends or those whom you desire to help. you may begin it at any time. you will get the vibration of the campaign and the power of thousands of minds working for you and with you for your health and happiness. these silent treatments will help the sick rise above disease, overcome despair, and bring to themselves the positive healing vibration of dr. bush and his class. use blank on next page and bold the thought of the demonstration you desire--there is no fee. give in proportion as you hope to secure. "freely ye have received, freely give." the law of compensation demonstrates this truth. please use this blank ----------------------------------------------------------------------- in order that we may mentally treat your particular case more specifically, please answer the following questions and return this blank: date............................................................... what is the nature of your ailment?................................ ................................................................... how long so affected?.............................................. ever taken silent treatment?....................................... ever had a severe accident, shock, great sorrow or disappointment? please give particulars. ................................................................... ................................................................... are you subject to moods; high tempered; erratic?.................. are you reading dr. bush's books?.................................. which ones?........................................................ are you willing to earnestly work in harmony with the treatment when sent out?........................................................ name............................................................... address, street and no............................................. ................................................................... city.................................state......................... ---------------------------------------------------------------- enclosed find $..................as my love offering. send to david v. bush ---- franklin avenue st. louis, mo. dr. david v. bush's famous silence records new--different--startling made by dr. david v. bush in person this famous "silence record" is unlike anything else ever produced. it brings right to the privacy of your own room the actual words, affirmations and intonations of dr. bush as he leads thousands in the silence. those who cannot be present at dr. bush's famous "silence classes" will find the use of these "silence records" interesting, helpful and stimulating. they teach you how to enter the "silence" and how to intone and use it constructively for your good and that of others. can be used on any phonograph that uses a needle. it is the largest size that can be made. there is no other record like this made and it can only be bought direct from "the universal fellowship." order this famous "silence" record today and begin at once to get in harmony with dr. bush's healing and inspirational "silence." price, each..........................................$ . kinks in the mind--the cause and cure of sickness by david v. bush what is the kink in your mind? does your subconscious mind entertain thoughts of fear, sickness, poverty, unhappiness--do you lack courage--have you been hampered in reaching your success goal--do you want to be master of self and your own destiny? do you wish to conquer disease--strengthen your personality--be more and do more? here then is a way to overcome all these mental handicaps and develop within yourself constructive action. dr. bush, through his vast experience in handling thousands of cases, has proven beyond a doubt that all sickness, poverty and unhappiness is caused by "kinks" in the mind. when the store house of the intellect, the subconscious mind, becomes clogged up with morbid thoughts and destructive suggestions the physical being refuses to work in harmony. dr. bush tells you how to train your subconscious mind along the path of creative thinking. he points out the means of attaining the very things in life that your better self has longed for. he explains how you make your "dreams of success come true" and he gives you actual examples. the secret of success, health and prosperity will no longer remain a secret for you, if you will read and follow the instructions of this wonderful teacher. if you are sick this book tells you why you are sick--it explains the mental processes that react on your physical nature--it places within your reach the means of curing yourself and others. after reading it you will understand better the process of positive thinking--and you will be able to attune your physical nature so that it will work in harmony with your mental nature--you will understand how to take the "kinks" out of the mind. a book that may mean the turning point in your life--one that you should get and read now--without a day's delay. price, per copy..................................... c how to demonstrate prosperity most people fail to become prosperous because they lack a definite working plan. dr. david v. bush has prepared a simple chart so that you may analyze your failings and conquer them. with it you may demonstrate prosperity--it will point out your weak points and show the way to actual accomplishment. whatever your walk in life--no matter how many failures you have had--no matter how discouraged and despondent you may feel--you need this self-analysis chart right now. send for it today. just c, money order or stamps. why some people fail in visualizing rules for visualization to visualize and concentrate successfully, certain definite principles underlying the laws that control the functions of the mind must be understood and applied. my experience in thousands of cases shows that failure is often due to the wrong application of these laws--to a misunderstanding of the mental processes necessary to properly focus the thought waves upon some definite desire and the urge of the conscious mind for too hasty action. the laws of visualization and concentration are well defined and when properly exercised are without limitation as to success, but to accomplish results one must understand and use these laws properly. you will more readily grasp the principle that governs the laws of visualization and concentration after reading this little booklet. in it dr. david bush has gone right down to bed rock--he thoroughly explains these necessary laws--he puts you right and shows you your mistakes--he starts you off on the right foot so that you may apply these laws for your benefit and profit. dr. bush believes, from his own vast experience, that more people fail on concentration and visualization than on any other operation of the laws of mind now being studied or applied, because they only partly understand these laws. in this pamphlet he shows _why_ the vast majority of people fail in visualizing. there are natural laws which are very often cross-circuited by well intentioned people trying to operate them for their good, all because they fail to understand the right way. you will understand visualization after you read "why some people fail in visualization." send for this book today--you will understand this subject after reading it--you need it now---send c in stamps or coin. the influence of suggestion and auto-suggestion in this little booklet dr. david v. bush discusses suggestion and auto-suggestion from a different angle than that in "practical psychology and sex life" and "applied psychology and scientific living." he takes the practical side of suggestion and points out its value and usefulness. he explains the limitations of suggestion and deals in a different way with the mental laws that control this powerful factor for your success. no matter what thought you have given to this interesting subject--no matter how much you studied suggestion, you will be surprised and delighted with the plain everyday way in which dr. bush explains this mental phenomena. this is a different angle of suggestion than in either "applied psychology and scientific living" or "practical psychology and sex life." also a different angle than has been printed in the fifty-cent series by the same author under "the subconscious mind." this pamphlet not only deals differently with the law of suggestion as mentioned above, but it is most entertaining, readable and likeable from the practical side of suggestion. there will be stimulation, inspiration and mental cerebration in reading this pamphlet--"the influence of suggestion." you will welcome this little booklet as a new avenue for increasing your knowledge of this fascinating study and you will acquire a newer and different understanding of its usefulness. by all means secure this little booklet without delay. your copy is ready. just cents, coin or stamps, will start it by first mall. what to eat your capacity for constructive thinking is in exact ratio to the kind of food you put in your stomach. your physical being and cellular development is retarded or improved by the food you eat. sickness is, in many instances, the result of wrong diet. what you eat determines your fitness to fight and conquer in life's battles. "what to eat" is a book that you must read. it shows you the value of eating right--it explains the cause of disease from wrong eating--it gives you the proper diet and explains why. to succeed--to have poise and courage--to be immune from sickness--to be strong and sturdy--to think fast and act quickly--to be married happily--consider your diet. when you read this book you will be able to choose a combined diet that will nourish your body and build mentality. all life is a battle for place--the fittest only survive--stop putting poison into your stomach--learn the secret of vigorous health and long life. written by a dietitian of long experience in collaboration with dr. bush himself. you will want this book now. only a limited number will be printed. heavy cardboard cover--price, only cents per copy. will power and success by david v. bush you want to know how to get the maximum amount of success--this book will unlock the hidden treasure. you do not have to live in lack and limitation when there are natural laws to give you abundance, success and happiness. this book makes plain the great laws for success, health and abundance. you cannot fail to understand or operate those fundamental laws for your success, as dr. bush outlines them here. you will find it different from any other work ever written on will power. the culmination of over twenty years of research and study, it deals in simple language with the possibilities of every man--how you and everyone else may rise from the slough of mediocrity to the pinnacle of wealth and fame. it teaches the great laws of success, health and abundance. it teaches the simple, easy, everyday, workaday rules which will bring to you abundance--success--happiness--love. this book has been a guide-post which has steered many a traveler out of the ruts and mire of dismal struggle on to the smooth, oiled turnpike of a successful, happy, useful life. there is nothing mysterious, mystical, or supernatural in the elements of success and happiness. there is nothing in this book which the humblest among us cannot understand and yet it appeals to those who are versed in literature and science as well. in the simple everyday language of the people it tells in an interesting, fascinating way, the rules easily applicable to everyday life. price: in uniform bed cloth binding............................. $ . in novelette binding (leather)............................ . mind power plus david v. bush, editor if you want to keep abreast of the times in all lines of mental science, new thought, applied psychology and metaphysics, you should subscribe for mind power plus, the pace-making periodical in the field of mental science and advanced thought. in this magazine you will find more special departments, and more worth-while articles of a practical nature than in any other periodical of its kind on the market. you will find features in mind power plus that will not only be of intense interest but also of extremely practical value. mind power plus brings to you the latest and the best in all branches of applied psychology. it will help you to solve your problems. it will be a constant companion, guide, inspiration and source of comfort throughout the year. if you have taken any psychology, metaphysical or mental science courses you will get more out of them by reading mind power plus. if you have never taken such a course you will easily grasp every message in mind power plus because all the articles are written in such a simple, interesting, popular way. you will be introduced to the most fascinating subject on earth--you. this magazine is dedicated to the purpose of helping you--to success, health, prosperity aid happiness. that is its mission. mind power plus is a big -page monthly magazine that will help you "know self". subscription price per year......................................... $ . per copy........................................... . fifty-cent series of booklets by david v. bush the universality of the master mind. grit and gumption. kinks in the mind--the cause and cure of sickness.[ ] the law of vibration and its uses. applied psychology and what it is.[ ] what is love--how to keep it. the chemistry of thought.[ ] the law of abundance. how to double your efficiency. how to develop personality.[ ] life's greatest bet. the power of visualization. how to make your dreams come true.[ ] smile, smile, smile. man's worst enemy.[ ] the functions of the subconscious mind. psychological law of suggestion and auto-suggestion.[ ] special offer order four for $ . and you may have any one of the others free. works of david v. bush cloth novelette practical psychology and sex life $ . $ . character analysis--how to read people at sight . applied psychology and scientific living . . will power and success . . how to make love and marry--sex harmony . inspirational poems . . soul poems and love lyrics . . poems of mastery and love verse . . the universality of the master mind, paper, c . grit and gumption, paper, c . . the fundamentals of applied psychology. ------------------------------------------------------------------ editor mind power plus, per year, $ . . ------------------------------------------------------------------ address: david v. bush, publisher ---- franklin ave. st. louis, mo. notes [ : taken from applied psychology and scientific living.] [ : for complete study of how to charge the subconscious mind, see chapters on the "subconscious mind," "how to cleanse the aura," "how to get what you want," "concentration" and "visualization," in "practical psychology and sex life" by the author.] [ : scientific explanation of the silence and how to enter the silence and the benefits derived thereby, will be found in "practical psychology and sex life" by david v. bush.] [ : this is from the fundamentals of applied psychology.] [ : this is from applied psychology and scientific living.] none applied psychology making your own world _being the second of a series of twelve volumes on the applications of psychology to the problems of personal and business efficiency_ by warren hilton, a.b., l.l.b. founder of the society of applied psychology issued under the auspices of the literary digest for the society of applied psychology new york and london copyright by the applied psychology press san francisco contents chapter page i. the two fundamental processes of mind mind as a means to attainment three postulates for this course experience and abstractions primary mental operations ii. sensations and our perception of them mind's source of supplies does matter exist? first-hand knowledge second-hand knowledge etheric vibrations as causing sensations the road to perception the place where sensation occurs laboratory proof of sense-perceptive process reaction-time the human telephone the living telegraph the six steps to reaction unopened mental mail selective process that determines conduct in tune with life-interest practical aspects of perception process iii. sensory illusions and suggestions for their use unreliability of sense-organs being and seeming use of illusions in business making an article look big testing the confidential man tests for credulity what colors look nearest testing the range of attention a guide to occupational selection test for attention to details other business applications iv. inwardness of environment factors of success or failure should seeing be believing? hearing the lightning importance of the mental make-up unreality of "the real" "things" and their mental duplicates effect of closing one's eyes if matter were annihilated if mind were annihilated as many worlds as minds v. essential law of practical self-mastery option and opportunity pre-arranging your consciousness how to definitely select its elements an infallible recipe for self-possession using "unseen ear protectors" how to avoid worry, melancholy putting circumstances under foot running your mental factory acquiring mental balance dissipating mental specters how to control your destiny chapter i the two fundamental processes of mind [sidenote: _mind as a means to achievement_] in the preceding book, "psychology and achievement," we established the truth of two propositions: i. _all human achievement comes about through bodily activity._ ii. _all bodily activity is caused, controlled and directed by the mind._ to these two fundamental propositions we now append a third, which needs no proof, but follows as a natural and logical conclusion from the other two: iii. _the mind is the instrument you must employ for the accomplishment of any purpose._ [sidenote: _three postulates for this course_] with these three fundamental propositions as postulates, it will be the end and aim of this course of reading to develop plain, simple and specific methods and directions for the most efficient use of the mind in the attainment of practical ends. _to comprehend these mental methods and to make use of them in business affairs you must thoroughly understand the two fundamental processes of the mind._ these two fundamental processes are the sense-perceptive process and the judicial process. the sense-perceptive process is the process by which knowledge is acquired through the senses. knowledge is the result of experience and all human experience is made up of sense-perceptions. [sidenote: _experience and abstractions_] the judicial process is the reasoning and reflective process. it is the purely "intellectual" type of mental operation. it deals wholly in abstractions. abstractions are constructed out of past experiences. consequently, the sense-perceptive process furnishes the raw material, sense-perceptions or experience, for the machinery of the judicial process to work with. [sidenote: _primary mental operations_] in this book we shall give you a clear idea of the sense-perceptive process and show you some of the ways in which an understanding of this process will be useful to you in everyday affairs. the succeeding book will explain the judicial process. chapter ii sensations and our perception of them [sidenote: _mind's source of supplies_] whatever you know or think you know, of the external world comes to you through some one of your five primary senses, sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell, or some one of the secondary senses, such as the muscular sense and the sense of heat and cold. the impressions you receive in this way may be true or they may be false. they may constitute absolute knowledge or they may be merely mistaken impressions. yet, such as they are, they constitute all the information you have or can have concerning the world about you. [sidenote: _does matter exist?_] philosophers have been wrangling for some thousands of years as to whether we have any real and absolute knowledge, as to whether matter actually does or does not exist, as to the reliability or unreliability of the impressions we receive through the senses. but there is one thing that all scientific men are agreed upon, and that is that such knowledge as we do possess comes to us by way of perception through the organs of sense. if you have never given much thought to this subject, you have naturally assumed that you have direct knowledge of all the material things that you _seem_ to perceive about you. it has never occurred to you that there are intervening physical agencies that you ought to take into account. [sidenote: _first-hand knowledge_] when you look up at the clock, you instinctively feel that there is nothing interposed between it and your mind that is conscious of it. you seem to feel that your mind reaches out and envelops it. as a matter of fact, your sense impression of that bit of furniture must filter through a great number of intervening physical agencies before you can become conscious of it. direct perception of an outside reality is impossible. [sidenote: _second-hand knowledge_] before you can become aware of any object there must first arise between it and your mind a chain of countless distinct physical events. modern science tells us that light is due to undulations or wave-like vibrations of the ether, sound to those of the air, etc. these vibrations are transmitted from one particle of ether or air to another, and so from the thing perceived to the body of man. think, then, what crisscross of air currents and confusion of ether vibrations, what myriad of physical events, must intervene between any distant object and your own body before sensations come and bring a consciousness of that object's existence! nor can you be sure, even after any particular vibration has reached the surface of your body, that it will reach your mind unaltered and intact! [sidenote: _etheric vibrations as causing sensations_] what goes on in the body itself is made clear by your knowledge of the cellular structure of man. you know that you have a system of nerves centering in the brain and with countless ramifications throughout the structural tissues of the body. you know that part of these nerves are sensory nerves and part of them are motor nerves. you know that the sensory nerves convey to the brain the impressions received from the outer world and that the motor nerves relay this information to the rest of the body coupled with commands for appropriate muscular action. [illustration: diagram showing the four chief association centers of the human brain] [sidenote: _the road to perception_] the outer end of every sensory nerve exposes a sensitive bit of gray matter. these sensitive, impression-receiving ends constitute together what is called the "sensorium" of the body. when vibrations of light or sound impinge upon the sensorium, they are relayed from nerve cell to nerve cell until they reach the central brain. then it is, and not until then, that sensations and perceptions occur. consider, now, the infinitesimal size of a nerve cell and you will have some conception of the number of hands through which the message must pass before it is received by the central office. many of our sensations, especially those of touch, seem to occur on the periphery of the body--that is to say, at that part of the exposed surface of the body which is apparently affected. if your finger is crushed in a door, the sensation of the blow and the pain all seem to occur in the finger itself. [sidenote: _the place where sensation occurs_] as a matter of fact, this is not the case, for if one of your arms should be amputated, you would still feel a tingling in the fingers of the amputated arm. thus has arisen a superstition that leads many people to bury any part of the body lost in this way, thinking that they will never be entirely relieved of pain until the absent member is finally at rest. of course, the fact is that you would only _seem_ to have feeling in the amputated arm. the sensation would really occur in the central brain tissue as the organ of the governing intelligence, the organ of consciousness. [sidenote: _laboratory proof of sense-perceptive process_] and you may set it down as an established principle that _all states of consciousness, whether seemingly localized on the surface of the body or not, are connected with the brain as the dominant center_. the facts we have been recounting have been established by the experiments of physiological psychology. thus, the work of the laboratory has shown that between the moment when a sense vibration reaches the body and the moment when sensation occurs a measurable interval of time intervenes. if your eyes were to be blindfolded and your hand unexpectedly pricked with a white-hot needle, the time that would elapse before you could jerk your hand away could be readily measured in fractions of a second with appropriate instruments. [sidenote: _reaction time_] this interval is known as _reaction-time_. it varies greatly with different persons. during this reaction-time, the cell or cells attacked upon the surface of the hand have conveyed news of the assault through numberless intermediate sensory nerve cells to the brain. the brain in turn has sent out its mandate through the appropriate motor nerve cells to all the muscle and other cells surrounding the injured cell, commanding them to remove it from the point of danger. the work of the nervous system in dealing with the ether vibrations that are constantly impinging upon the surface of the body has been likened to that of the transmitter, connecting wire and receiver of a telephone. air-waves striking against the transmitter of the telephone awaken a similar vibratory movement in the transmitter itself. this movement is passed along the wire to the receiver, which vibrates responsively and imparts a corresponding wave-like motion to the air. [sidenote: _the human telephone_] these air-waves when heard are what we call _sound_. in the same way, air-waves striking the ear are communicated by the auditory nerve to the brain, where they awaken a corresponding sensation of sound. but these waves must be vibrating at between and , times a second. if they are vibrating so slowly or so rapidly as not to come within this range, we cannot hear them. [sidenote: _the living telegraph_] this process is by no means a mechanical affair. on the contrary, it is a series of _mental_ acts. every cell in the living telegraph must receive the message and transmit it. _every cell_ must exercise a form of intelligence, from the auditory cell reporting a sound-wave or the skin cell reporting an injury to the muscle cells that ultimately receive and understand a message directing them to remove the part from danger. reaction-time, so called, is thus occupied by cellular action in the form of _mental_ processes intervening between the nerve-ends and the brain center, in much the same way that light and sound vibrations intervene between the object perceived and the surface of the body. [sidenote: _the six steps to reaction_] for even the simplest of sense-perceptions we have, then, this sequence of events: first, the object perceived; second, the series of vibrations of ether particles intervening between the object and the body; third, the impression upon the surface of the body; fourth, the series of mental processes, cell after cell, in the nerve filaments leading to the brain; fifth, when these impressions or messages have reached the brain, a determination of what is to be done; and, sixth, a transmission by cellular action of a new message that will awaken some response in the muscular tissues. [sidenote: _unopened mental mail_] this process is completely carried out, however, in only comparatively few instances. the vast majority of sense-impressions awaken no reaction. they are registered in the mind, but they are not perceived. we are not conscious of them. they form a part, not of consciousness, but of subconsciousness. they are messages that reach the mind but are laid aside like unopened mail because they possess no present interest. wherever and however you may be placed, you are always and everywhere immersed in a flood of etheric vibrations. light, sound and tactual vibrations press upon you from every side. at a busy corner of a city street these vibrations rise to a tumultuous fortissimo; in the hush of a night upon the plains they sink to pianissimo. yet at every moment of your day or night they are there in greater or less degree, titillating the unsleeping nerve-ends of the sensorium. [sidenote: _selective process that determines conduct_] your mind cannot take time to make all these sense-impressions the subject of conscious thought. it can trouble itself only with those that bear in some way upon your interests in life. _your mind is like the receiving apparatus of the wireless telegraph which picks from the air those particular vibrations to which it is attuned. your mind is selective. it is discriminating. it seizes upon those few sensory images that are related to your interests in life and thrusts them forward to be consciously perceived and acted upon. all others it diverts into a subconscious reservoir of temporary oblivion._ [sidenote: _in tune with life-interest_] you will have a clearer understanding of the sense-perceptive processes and a more vital realization of the practical significance of these facts when you consider how they affect your knowledge of material things and your conception of the external world. this subject possesses two distinct aspects. one aspect has to do with the inability of the sense-organs to record the facts of the outer world with perfect precision. these organs are the result of untold ages of evolution, and, generally speaking, have become wonderfully efficient, but they display surprising inaccuracies. these inaccuracies are called sensory illusions. [sidenote: _practical aspects of perception process_] the other aspect of the sense-perceptive process has to do with the mental interpretation of environment. both these aspects are distinctly practical. you should know something of the weaknesses and deficiencies of the sense-perceptive organs, because all your efforts at influencing other men are directed at their organs of sense. you should understand the relationship between your mind and your environment, since they are the two principal factors in your working life. chapter iii sensory illusions and suggestions for their use [sidenote: _unreliability of sense-organs_] figure shows two lines of equal length, yet the vertical line will to most persons seem longer than the horizontal one. [illustration: fig. .] in figure the lines a and b are of the same length, yet the lower seems much longer. [illustration: fig. .] those things look smallest over which the eye moves with least resistance. in figure , the distance from a to b looks longer than the distance from b to c because of the time we involuntarily take to notice each dot, yet the distances are equal. [illustration: fig. .] [sidenote: _being and seeming_] for the same reason, the hatchet line (a-b) appears longer than the unbroken line (c-d) in figure , and the lines e and f appear longer than the space (g) between them, although all are of equal length. [illustration: fig. .] filled spaces look larger than empty ones because the eye unconsciously stops to look over the different parts of the filled area, and we base our estimate upon the extent of the eye movements necessary to take in the whole field. thus the filled square in figure looks larger than the empty one, though they are of equal size. [illustration: fig. .] white objects appear much larger than black ones. a white square looks larger than a black one. it is said that cattle buyers who are sometimes compelled to guess at the weight of animals have learned to discount their estimate on white animals and increase it on black ones to make allowances for the optical illusion. [illustration: this man and this boy are of equal height, but association of ideas makes the man look much the larger] [sidenote: _use of illusions in business_] the dressmaker and tailor are careful not to array stout persons in checks and plaids, but try to convey an impression of sylph-like slenderness through the use of vertical lines. on the other hand, you have doubtless noticed in recent years the checkerboard and plaid-covered boxes used by certain manufacturers of food products and others to make their packages look larger than they really are. the advertiser who understands sensory illusions gives an impression of bigness to the picture of an article by the artful use of lines and contrasting figures. if his advertisement shows a picture of a building to which he wishes to give the impression of bigness, he adds contrasting figures such as those of tiny men and women so that the unknown may be measured by the known. if he shows a picture of a cigar, he places the cigar vertically, because he knows that it will look longer that way than if placed horizontally. [sidenote: _making an article look big_] a subtle method of conveying an idea of bigness is by placing numbers on odd-shaped cards or blocks, or on any blank white space. the object or space containing the figures always appears larger than the corresponding space without the figures. this fact has been made the basis of a psychological experiment to determine the extent to which a subject's judgment is influenced by suggestion. to perform this experiment cut bits of pasteboard into pairs of squares, circles, stars and octagons and write numbers of two figures each, say , , , , etc., upon the different pieces. tell the subject to be tested to pick out the forms that are largest. the susceptible person who is not trained to discriminate closely will pick out of each pair the card that has the largest number upon it. [sidenote: _testing the confidential man_] this test can be made one of a series used in examining applicants for commercial positions. it can also be used to discover the weakness of certain employees, such as buyers, secretaries and others who are entrusted with secrets and commissions requiring discretion, and who must be proof against the deceptions practiced by salesmen, promoters and others with seductive propositions. [sidenote: _tests for credulity_] this examination can be carried still further to test the subject's credulity or power of discrimination. what is known as the "force card" test was originally devised by a magician, but has been adopted in experimental psychology. take a pack of cards and shuffle them loosely in the two hands, making some one card, say the ace of spades, especially prominent. the subject is told to "take a card." the suggestive influence of the proffered card will cause nine persons out of ten to pick out that particular card. turning from illusions of suggestion, shape and size, another field of peculiar sensory illusions is found in color aberration. some colors look closer than others. for instance, paint an object red and it seems nearer than it would if painted green. [sidenote: _what colors look nearest_] aside from the obvious uses to which these sense-illusions can be put, they form the basis for a number of psychological experiments to test the abilities of persons in many ways. here is a test which deals with the range of attention. if you desire to discover the capacity of any person to pay attention to unfamiliar questions or subjects which might at some future time have great importance, try this test. have a piece of pasteboard cut into squares, circles, triangles, halfmoons, stars and other forms. then write upon each piece some such word as hat, coat, ball or bat. the objects are then placed under a cloth cover and the subject to be examined is told to concentrate his attention on the shapes alone, paying no attention to the words. the cloth is lifted for five seconds and then replaced. the subject is then told to draw with a pencil the different shapes and such _words_ as he may chance to remember. the experiment should then be repeated, with the injunction to pay no attention to the shapes but to remember as many words as possible, and write them down on such _forms_ as he may happen to recall. [sidenote: _testing the range of attention_] of course, the real object is to determine whether the subject will see more than he is told, or whether he is a mere automaton. the result will tell whether his attention is of the narrow or broad type. if it be narrow, he will see only the forms in the first case and no words, and in the second case he will remember the words but be unable to recall the shape of the pieces of cardboard. [sidenote: _a guide to occupational selection_] his breadth of attention will be shown by the number of correct forms and words combined which he is able to remember in both cases. in other words, this will measure his ability to pay attention to more than one thing at a time. other things being equal, the narrow type of attention belongs to a man fitted for work as a bookkeeper or mechanic, while the broad type of attention fits one for work as a foreman or superintendent or, lacking executive ability, for work requiring the supervision of mechanical operations widely separated in space. [sidenote: _test for attention to details_] the ordinary man sees but one thing at a time, while the exceptional man sees many things at every glance and is prepared to remember and act upon them in emergency. having determined a person's scope of attention, you may want to test his accuracy in details as compared with other men. to conduct such an experiment dictate a statement which will form one typewritten letterhead sheet. this statement should comprise facts and figures about your business of which the subjects to be tested are supposed to have accurate knowledge. after this original page is written, have your typist write out another set of sheets in which there are a large number of errors both in spelling and figures. then have each of the persons to be examined go through one of these sheets and cross out all the wrong letters or figures. time this operation. the man who does it in the quickest time and overlooks the fewest errors, naturally ranks highest in speed and accuracy of work. [sidenote: _other business applications_] look into your own business and you will undoubtedly find some department, whether it be store decoration, office furnishing, window dressing, advertising, landscape work or architecture, in which a systematic application of a knowledge of sensory illusions will produce good results. chapter iv inwardness of environment [sidenote: _factors of success or failure_] the aspect of the sense-perceptive process that deals with the relation of mind to environment is of greatest practical value. look at this subject for a moment and you will see that the world in which you live and work is a world of your own making. all the factors of success or failure are factors of your own choosing and creation. if there is anything in the world you feel sure of, it is that you can depend upon the "evidence of your own senses," eyes, ears, nose, etc. you rest serene in the conviction that your senses picture the world to you exactly as it is. it is a common saying that "seeing is believing." [sidenote: _should seeing be believing?_] yet how can you be sure that any object in the external world is actually what your sense-perceptions report it to be? you have learned that a countless number of physical agencies must intervene before your mind can receive an impression or message through any of the senses. under these conditions you cannot be sure that your impression of a green lamp-shade, for instance, comes through the same sort of etheric and cellular activities that convey a picture of the same lamp-shade to the brain of another. if the physical agencies through which your sense-impressions of the lamp-shade filter are not identical with the agencies through which they pass to the other person's brain, then your mental picture and his mental picture cannot be the same. you can never be sure that what both you and another may describe as green may not create an entirely different impression in your mind from the impression it creates in his. other facts add to your uncertainty. thus, _the same stimulus_ acting on _different organs_ of sense will produce _different sensations_. a blow upon the eye will cause you to "see stars"; a similar _blow_ upon the ear will cause you to _hear_ an explosive sound. in other words, the vibratory effect of a _touch_ on eye or ear is the same as that of _light_ or _sound_ vibrations. [sidenote: _hearing the lightning_] the notion you may form of any object in the outer world depends solely upon what part of your brain happens to be connected with that particular nerve-end that receives an impression from the object. you _see_ the sun without being able to _hear_ it because the only nerve-ends tuned to vibrate in harmony with the ether-waves set in action by the sun are nerve-ends that are connected with the brain center devoted to sight. "if," says professor james, "we could splice the outer extremities of our optic nerves to our ears, and those of our auditory nerves to our eyes, we should hear the lightning and see the thunder, see the symphony and hear the conductor's movements." [sidenote: _importance of the mental make-up_] in other words, the kind of impressions we receive from the world about us, the sort of mental pictures we form concerning it, in fact the character of the outer world, the nature of the environment in which our lives are cast--_all these things depend for each one of us simply upon how he happens to be put together, simply upon his individual mental make-up_. there is another way of examining into the intervening agencies that influence our mental conception of the material world about us. [sidenote: _unreality of "the real"_] look at the table or any other familiar object in the room in which you are sitting. has it ever occurred to you that this object may have no existence apart from your mental impression of it? have you ever realized that no object ever has been or ever could be known to exist unless there was an individual mind present to note its existence? if you have never given much thought to questions of this kind, you will be tempted to answer boldly that the table is obviously a reality, that you have a direct intuitive knowledge of it, and that you can at once assure yourself of its existence by looking at it or touching it. you will conceive your perception of the table as a sort of projection of your mind comfortably enfolding the table within itself. [sidenote: _"things" and their mental duplicates_] but perception is obviously only a state of mind. can it, then, go outside of the mind to meet the table or even "hover in midair like a bridge between the two"? if you perceive the table, must not your perception of it exist wholly within your own mind? if, then, the table has any existence outside of and apart from your perception of it, then the table and your mental image of the table are two separate and distinct things. in other words, you are on the horns of a dilemma. if you insist that the table exists _outside_ of your mind, you must admit that your knowledge of it is not direct, immediate and intuitive, but _indirect_ and representative, because of intervening physical agencies, and that the only thing directly known is the _mental impression_ of the table. on the other hand, if you insist that your knowledge of the table is direct, immediate and intuitive you must admit that the table is only a mental image, a mental reality, if it is any sort of reality at all, and that it has no existence outside of the mind. [sidenote: _effect of closing one's eyes_] you may easily convince yourself that the table you directly perceive can be nothing other than a mental picture. how? simply close your eyes. it has now ceased to exist. what has ceased to exist? the external table of wood and glue and bolts? by no means. simply its mental duplicate. and by alternately opening and closing your eyes, you can successively create and destroy this mental duplicate. [sidenote: _if matter were annihilated_] clearly, then, the table of which you are directly and immediately conscious when your eyes are open is always this _mental duplicate_, this aggregate of color, form, size and touch _impressions_; while the real table, the physical table, may be something other than the one of which you are directly aware. this other thing, this physical table, whatever it is, can never be directly known, if indeed it has any existence, a fact that many distinguished philosophers have had the courage to deny. imagine, then, for a moment that everything except mind should suddenly cease to exist, but that your sense-perceptions--that is to say, your perception of sensory impressions--were to continue to follow one another as before. would not the physical world be for you just exactly what it is today, and would you not have the same reasons for believing in its existence that you now have? [sidenote: _if mind were annihilated_] and, conversely, if the world of matter were to go on, but all mental images, all perception of sense-impressions, were to come to an end, would not all matter be annihilated for you when your perceptions ceased? _it is obvious that the world is not the same for all of us; but that it is for each one of us simply the world of his individual perceptions._ [sidenote: _as many worlds as minds_] the whole subject of sense-impressions, sensation and perception may, therefore, be looked at from the standpoint of the mind as an active influence, as well as from the standpoint of outside objects as the exciting causes of sense-impressions. chapter v essential law of practical self-mastery [sidenote: _option and opportunity_] _external objects excite sensory impressions, but the perception of them is purely at the option of the mind._ this is of the greatest practical importance. consider its consequences. it means that sense-impressions and your perception of them are two very different things. it means that sense-impressions may throng in upon you as they will. they are the work of external stimuli impressing themselves upon the sensorium as upon a mechanical register. you are helpless to discriminate among them. you cannot accept some and exclude others. you are a perambulating dry plate upon which outside objects produce their images. [sidenote: _prearranging your consciousness_] but, and this is a vital distinction, perception is an act of the mind. it is initiated from within. it permits you to discriminate among sensations in the sense that you may dwell upon some and ignore others. it enables you to definitely select, if you will, the elements that shall make up the content of your consciousness. _perception as an independent mental process thus enables you to predetermine what elements of passing sensory experience may be made the basis of your conscious judgments and of your feelings and emotions._ [sidenote: _how to definitely selects its elements_] bear this in mind when you think of your environment and its supposed influence upon your life. remember that your environment is no hard-and-fast thing, an aggregate of physical realities. your environment, so far as it affects your judgment and your conduct, is made up, not of physical realities, but of mental pictures. _your environment is within you._ get this conclusion clearly in your mind. hold fast to the point of view that, _environment, the environment that influences your conduct and your life, is not a chance massing of outward circumstances, but is the product of your own mind_. [sidenote: _an infallible recipe for self-possession_] think what this means to you. it means that by deliberately selecting for attention only those sense-impressions, those elements of consciousness, that can serve your purpose, you can free yourself from all distractions and make peaceful progress in the midst of turmoil. [sidenote: _using "unseen ear protectors"_] "in the busiest part of new york, a broker occupied a desk in a room with six other men who had many visitors constantly moving about and talking. the gentleman was at first so sensitive to disturbances that he accomplished almost nothing during business hours, and returned home every evening with a severe headache. one day a man of impressive personality and extremely calm demeanor entered the office, and noticing the agitated broker, smilingly said: 'i see that you are disturbed by the noise made by your neighbors in the conduct of their affairs; pardon me if i leave with you an infallible recipe for peace in the midst of commotion: _hear only what you will to hear_.' with this terse counsel he quietly bade the astonished listener adieu. after his visitor had departed, the nervous man felt unaccountably calm, and was constrained to meditate upon his friend's advice, and no sooner did he seek to put it into practical use than he learned for the first time that it was his rightful prerogative to use unseen ear protectors as well as to employ his ears. six or seven weeks elapsed before he saw his mysterious visitor again, and by that time he had so successfully practiced the simple though forceful injunction, that he had reached a point in self-control where the babel of tongues about him no longer reached his consciousness." [sidenote: _how to avoid worry, melancholy_] herein lies a remedy for worry, with its sleepless nights and kindred torments; for melancholy and despair, with their train of physical and financial disaster. how? simply by shutting off the flow of disagreeable thoughts and substituting others that are pleasant and refreshing. you are master. you can change the setting of your mental stage from portentous gloom to sun-lit assurance. you can concentrate your thought upon the useful, the helpful and the cheerful, ignore the useless and annoying, and make your life a life of hope and joy, of promise and fulfilment. [sidenote: _putting circumstances under foot_] you will not question the statement that what you do with your life is the combined result of heredity and environment. at the same time you doubtless possess a more or less hazy belief in the freedom of your own will. the chances are that in any previous reflections on this subject you have magnified the influence of outside agencies and wondered just how a man could make himself the master rather than the victim of circumstances. you now realize that your environment is an environment of thought, that your material universe is a thing your own making, and that you can mold it as you will simply by the intelligent control of your own thinking. [sidenote: _running your mental factory_] in book i. you learned that-- i. _all human achievement comes about through bodily activity._ ii. _all bodily activity is caused, controlled and directed by the mind._ in this volume you have added to these propositions a third, namely: iii. _the mind is the instrument you must employ for the accomplishment of any purpose._ acting on this third postulate, you have begun the consideration of primary mental operations with a view to evolving methods and devices for the scientific and systematic employment of the mind in the attainment of success. you have concluded your study of the first of the two fundamental processes of the mind, the sense-perceptive process, and have learned to distinguish between seeing or hearing or feeling on the one hand and perceiving on the other. [sidenote: _acquiring mental balance_] realizing this distinction and applying it to your daily life, you can at once set to work to acquire mental poise and practical self-mastery, the essence of personal efficiency. there never has been a moment in all your life when sense-impressions were not pouring in upon you from every side, tending to disturb and annoy you and interfere with your concentration and progress. heretofore you have struggled blindly with these distracting influences, not knowing the elements with which you had to deal nor how to deal with them. [sidenote: _dissipating mental specters_] but the mask has been torn from the specter of distraction, and hereafter when irrelevant sights, sounds and other sensations threaten to interrupt your work, just stop a moment and consider. so far as you and your actual knowledge are concerned, nothing exists in substance and reality outside your mental picture of it. so far as you and your actual knowledge are concerned, all matter is simply thought, and you have never doubted your ability to dismiss a thought. it is for you, then, here and now, to decide whether you will harbor sensory pictures that impede your progress and allow them to harass and dominate you and interfere with the achievement of your ambition, or whether you will ignore these intruders and thereby annihilate them. [sidenote: _how to control your destiny_] success is a variable term. in the last analysis, it means simply getting the thing that _you_ want to have. whether you succeed or fail depends altogether upon your own attitude toward the external facts of life. you have within you a living force against which all the world is powerless. you have only to know it and to learn how to use it. learn the lesson of your own powers, the secret of controlling the selective and creative energy within you, and you can bring any project to the goal of accomplishment. in the closing volumes of this _course_ we shall instruct you in practical methods by which the selection of those elements of experience that are helpful may be made absolutely automatic. transcriber's note: some illustrations have been moved from their original positions, so as to be nearer to their corresponding text, or for ease of navigation around paragraphs. duplicate chapter headers have been removed from the text version of this ebook and hidden in the html version. the word 'prearranging' appears both with and without a hyphen. this variance matches the original text. produced from scanned images of public domain material from the google print project.) applied psychology driving power of thought _being the third of a series of twelve volumes on the applications of psychology to the problems of personal and business efficiency_ by warren hilton, a.b., l.l.b. founder of the society of applied psychology issued under the auspices of the literary digest for the society of applied psychology new york and london copyright by the applied psychology press san francisco (_printed in the united states of america_) contents chapter page i. judicial mental operations vitalizing influence of certain ideas work of prince, gerrish, sidis, janet, binet the two types of thought ii. causal judgments elementary conclusions first effort of the mind distorted eye pictures elements that make up an idea causal judgments and the outer world iii. classifying judgments the marvel of the mind the indelible impress how ideas are created the archives of the mind iv. the four prime laws of association the seeming chaos of mind predicting your next idea the bonds of intellect brands and tags how experience is systematized how language is simplified processes of reasoning and reflection v. emotional energy in business ideas that stimulate pivotal law of business passion energizing emotions cross-roads of success or failure the life of effort the motive power of progress the value of an idea the hard work required to fail creative power of thought conscious and unconscious training two ways of attacking business problems cutting into the quick executives, real and sham mental attitude of one's business psychological engineering vi. how to select employees a clue to adaptability mapping the mentality the kind of "help" you need tests for different mental traits test of uncontrolled associations test for quick thinking measuring speed of thought range of mental tests tests for army and navy tests for railroad employees what one factory saved professor mÜnsterberg's experiments tests for hiring telephone girls memory test test for attention test for general intelligence test for exactitude test for rapidity of movement test for accuracy of movement results of experiments theory and practice how to identify the unfit means to great business economies round pegs in square holes the danger in two-fifths of a second picking a private secretary finding out the close-mouthed a test for suggestibility selecting a stenographer tests for auditory acuity a test for rote memory a test for range of vocabulary crime-detection by psychological tests the factory operative's attention power kinds of testing apparatus analysis of different callings exercises for developing special faculties principles that bear on practical affairs chapter i judicial mental operations [sidenote: _vitalizing influence of certain ideas_] one of the greatest discoveries of modern times is the impellent energy of thought. that every idea in consciousness is energizing and carries with it an impulse to some kind of muscular activity is a comparatively new but well-settled principle of psychology. that this principle could be made to serve practical ends seems never to have occurred to anyone until within the last few years. [sidenote: _the work of prince, gerrish, sidis, janet, binet_] certain eminent pioneers in therapeutic psychology, such men as prince, gerrish, sidis, janet, binet and other physician-scientists, have lately made practical use of the vitalizing influence of certain classes of ideas in the healing of disease. we shall go farther than these men have gone and show you that the impellent energy of ideas is the means to all practical achievement and to all practical success. preceding books in this course have taught that-- i. _all human achievement comes about through some form of bodily activity._ ii. _all bodily activity is caused, controlled and directed by the mind._ iii. _the mind is the instrument you must employ for the accomplishment of any purpose._ [sidenote: _the two types of thought_] you have learned that the fundamental processes of the mind are the sense-perceptive process and the judicial process. so far you have considered only the former--that is to say, sense-impressions and our perception of them. you have learned through an analysis of this process that the environment that prescribes your conduct and defines your career is wholly mental, the product of your own selective attention, and that it is capable of such deliberate molding and adjustment by you as will best promote your interests. but the mere perception of sense-impressions, though a fundamental part of our mental life, is by no means the whole of it. the mind is also able to look at these perceptions, to assign them a meaning and to reflect upon them. these operations constitute what are called the judicial processes of the mind. the judicial processes of the mind are of two kinds, so that, in the last analysis, there are, in addition to sense-perceptions, two, and only two, types of thought. one of these types of thought is called a causal judgment and the other a classifying judgment. chapter ii causal judgments a causal judgment interprets and explains sense-perceptions. for instance, the tiny baby's first vague notion that _something_, no knowing what, must have caused the impressions of warmth and whiteness and roundness and smoothness that accompany the arrival of its milk-bottle--this is a causal judgment. [sidenote: _elementary conclusions_] the very first conclusion that you form concerning any sensation that reaches you is that something produced it, though you may not be very clear as to just what that something is. the conclusions of the infant mind, for example, along this line must be decidedly vague and indefinite, probably going no further than to determine that the cause is either inside or outside of the body. even then its judgment may be far from sure. [sidenote: _first effort of the mind_] yet, baby or grown-up, young or old, the first effort of every human mind upon the receipt and perception of a sensation is to find out what produced it. the conclusion as to what did produce any particular sensation is plainly enough a judgment, and since it is a judgment determining the cause of the sensation, it may well be termed a causal judgment. causal judgments, taken by themselves, are necessarily very indefinite. they do not go much beyond deciding that each individual sensation has a cause, and is not the result of chance on the one hand nor of spontaneous brain excitement on the other. taken by themselves, causal judgments are disconnected and all but meaningless. [sidenote: _distorted eye pictures_] i look out of my window at the red-roofed stone schoolhouse across the way, and, _so far as the eye-picture alone is concerned_, all that i get is an impression of a flat, irregularly shaped figure, part white and part red. the image has but two dimensions, length and breadth, being totally lacking in depth or perspective. it is a flat, distorted, irregular outline of two of the four sides of the building. it is not at all like the big solid masonry structure in which a thousand children are at work. my causal judgments trace this eye-picture to its source, but they do not add the details of distance, perspective, form and size, that distinguish the reality from an architect's front elevation. these causal judgments of visual perceptions must be associated and compared with others before a real "idea" of the schoolhouse can come to me. [sidenote: _elements that make up an idea_] taken by themselves, then, causal judgments fall far short of giving us that truthful account of the outside world which we feel that our senses can be depended on to convey. [sidenote: _causal judgments and the outer world_] if there were no mental processes other than sense-perceptions and causal judgments, every man's mind would be the useless repository of a vast collection of facts, each literally true, but all without arrangement, association or utility. our notion of what the outside world is like would be very different from what it is. we would have no concrete "ideas" or conceptions, such as "house," "book," "table," and so on. instead, all our "thinking" would be merely an unassorted jumble of simple, disconnected sense-perceptions. what, then, is the process that unifies these isolated sense-perceptions and gives us our knowledge of things as concrete wholes? chapter iii classifying judgments [sidenote: _the marvel of the mind_] a classifying judgment associates and compares present and past sense-perceptions. it is the final process in the production of that marvel of the mind, the "idea." the simple perception of a sensation unaccompanied by any other mental process is something that never happens to an adult human being. in the infant's mind the arrival of a sense-impression arouses only a perception, a consciousness of the sense-impression. in the mind of any other person it awakens not only this present consciousness but also the _associated_ memories of past experiences. [sidenote: _the indelible impress_] upon the slumbering mind of the newborn babe the very first message from the sense-organs leaves its exquisite but indelible impress. the next sense-perception is but part of a state of consciousness, in which the memory of the first sense-perception is an active factor. this is a higher type of mental activity. it is a something other and more complex than the mere consciousness of a sensory message and the decision as to its source. the moment, then, that we get beyond the first crude sense-perception _consciousness consists not of detached sensory images but of "ideas," the complex product of present sense-perceptions, past sense-perceptions and the mental processes known to psychology as association and discrimination_. [sidenote: _how ideas are created_] every concrete conception or idea, such as "horse," "rose," "mountain," is made up of a number of associated properties. it has mass, form and various degrees of color, light and shade. every quality it possesses is represented by a corresponding visual, auditory, tactual or other sensation. thus, your first sense-perception of coffee was probably that of _sight_. you perceived a brown liquid and your causal judgment explained that this sense-perception was the result of something outside of your body. standing alone, this causal judgment meant very little to you, so far as your knowledge of coffee was concerned. so also the causal judgment that traced your sense of the smell of coffee to some object in space meant little until it was added to and associated with your eye-vision of that same point in space. and it was only when the causal judgment explaining the _taste_ of coffee was added to the other two that you had an "_idea_" of what coffee really was. when you look at a building, you receive a number and variety of simultaneous sensations, all of which, by the exercise of a causal judgment, you at once ascribe to the same point in space. from this time on the same flowing together of sensations from the same place will always mean for you that particular material thing, that particular building. you have a sensation of yellow, and forthwith a causal judgment tells you that something outside of your body produced it. but it would be a pretty difficult matter for you to know just what this something might be if there were not other simultaneous sensations of a different kind coming from the same point in space. so when you see a yellow color and at the same time experience a certain familiar taste and a certain softness of touch, all arising from the same source, then by a series of classifying judgments you put all these different sensations together, assign them to the same object, and give that object a name--for example, "butter." [sidenote: _the archives of the mind_] this process of grouping and classification that we are describing under the name of "classifying judgments" is no haphazard affair. it is carried on in strict compliance with certain well-defined laws. these laws prescribe and determine the workings of your mind just as absolutely as the laws of physics control the operations of material forces. while each of these laws has its own special province and jurisdiction, yet all have one element in common, and that is that they all relate to those mental operations by which sense-perceptions, causal judgments, and even classifying judgments, past, present and imaginative, are grouped, bound together, arranged, catalogued and pigeonholed in the archives of the mind. these laws, taken collectively, are therefore called the laws of association. chapter iv the four prime laws of association [sidenote: _the seeming chaos of mind_] if there is any one thing in the world that seems utterly chaotic, it is the way in which the mind wanders from one subject of thought to another. it requires but a moment for it to flash from new york to san francisco, from san francisco to tokio, and around the globe. yet mental processes are as law-abiding as anything else in nature. [sidenote: _predicting your next idea_] so much is this true, that if we knew every detail of your past experience from your first infantile sensation, and knew also just what you are thinking of at the present moment, we could predict to a mathematical certainty just what ideas would next appear on the kaleidoscopic screen of your thoughts. this is due to laws that govern the association of ideas. these laws are, in substance, that the way in which judgments and ideas are classified and stored away, and the order in which they are brought forth into consciousness depends upon what other judgments and ideas they have been associated with most _habitually_, _recently_, _closely_ and _vividly_. there are, therefore, four prime laws of association--the law of habit, the law of recency, the law of contiguity and the law of vividness. every idea that can possibly arise in your thoughts has its vast array of associates, to each of which it is linked by some one element in common. thus, you see or dream of a yellow flower, and the one property of yellowness links the idea of that flower with everything you ever before saw or dreamed of that was similarly hued. [sidenote: _the bonds of intellect_] but the yellow-flower thought is not tied to all these countless associates by bonds of equal strength. and which associate shall come next to mind is determined by the four prime laws of association. the law of habit requires that _frequency_ of association be the one test to determine what idea shall next come into consciousness, while the laws of recency, contiguity and vividness emphasize respectively recency of occurrence, closeness in point of space and intensity of impression. which law and which element shall prevail is all a question of degree. the most important of these laws is the _law of habit_. in obedience to this law, _the next idea to enter the mind will be the one that has been most frequently associated with the interesting part of the subject you are now thinking of_. the sight of a pile of manuscript on your desk ready for the printer, the thought of a printer, the word "printer," spoken or printed, calls to mind the particular printer with whom you have been dealing for some years. the word "cocoa," the thought of a cup of cocoa, the mental picture of a cup of cocoa, may conjure with it not merely a steaming cup before the mind's eye and the flavor of the contents, but also a daintily clad figure in apron and cap bearing the brand of some well-known cocoa manufacturer. if a typist or pianist has learned one system of fingering, it is almost impossible to change, because each letter, each note on the keyboard is associated with the idea of movement in a particular finger. constant use has so welded these associations together that when one enters the mind it draws its associate in its train. test the truth of these principles for yourself. try them out and see whether the elements of habit, contiguity, recency and intensity do not determine all questions of association. [sidenote: _brands and tags_] if you wanted to buy a house, what local subdivision would come first to your mind, and why? if you were about to purchase a new tire for your automobile or a few pairs of stockings, what brand would you buy, and why? when you think of a camera or a cake of soap, what particular make comes first to your mind? when you think of a home, what is the mental picture that rises before you, and why? whatever the article, whether it be one of food or luxury or investment, or even of sentiment, you will find that it is tagged with a definite associate--a name, a brand, or a personality characterized by frequency, recency, closeness or vividness of presentation to your consciousness. the grouping together of sensations into integral ideas is one step in the complicated mental processes by which useful knowledge is acquired. but the associative processes go much beyond this. [sidenote: _how experience is systematized_] we also compare the different objects of present and past experience. we carefully and thoroughly catalogue them into groups, divisions and subdivisions for convenient and ready reference. this we do by the processes of memory, of association and of discrimination, previously referred to. [sidenote: _how language is simplified_] through these processes our knowledge of the world, derived from the whole vast field of experience, is unified and systematized. through these processes is order realized from chaos. through these processes it comes about that not only individual thought, but the communication of thought from one person to another, is vastly simplified. language is enabled to deal with ideas instead of with isolated sense-perceptions. the single word "horse" suffices to convey a thought that could not be adequately set forth in a page-long enumeration of disconnected sense-perceptions. the associative process covers a wide range. it includes, for example, not only the simple definition of an aggregate of sense-perceptions, as "horse" or "cow"; it includes as well the inferential process of abstract reasoning. [sidenote: _processes of reasoning and reflection_] the only real difference between these widely diverse mental acts, one apparently so much less complicated and profound than the other, is that the former involves _no act of memory_, while the latter is based wholly on sensory experiences _of the past_. _abstract reasoning is merely reasoning from premises and to conclusions which are not present to our senses at the time._ chapter v emotional energy in business [sidenote: _ideas that stimulate_] it is a recognized fact of observation that _every idea has a certain emotional quality associated with it, a sort of "feeling tone."_ if ideas of health and triumphant achievement are brought into consciousness, we at the same time experience a state of energy, a feeling of courage and capability and joy and a stimulation of all the bodily processes. if, on the other hand, ideas of disease and death and failure are brought into consciousness, we at the same time experience feelings of sorrow and mental suffering and a state of lethargy, a feeling of inertia, impotence and fatigue. the law _exalted ideas have associated with them a vitalizing and energizing emotional quality. depressive memories or ideas have associated with them a depressing and disintegrating emotional quality._ [sidenote: _pivotal law of business passion_] the wise application of this law will lead you to vigorous health and material prosperity. its disregard or misuse brings deterioration and failure. the distinction between wise use and misuse lies in _whether disintegrating or creative thoughts, with their correspondingly energizing or depressing emotions or feelings, are allowed to hold sway in consciousness._ [sidenote: _energizing emotions_] when we speak of _energizing_ emotions or feelings we mean love, courage, brightness, earnestness, cheer, enthusiasm. when we speak of _depressing_ emotions or feelings we mean doubt, fear, worry, gloom. no elements are more essential to a successful business or a successful life than the right kind of emotional elements. yet they are rarely credited with the importance to which they are entitled. to the unthinking the word "emotion" has the same relation to success that foam has to the water beneath. yet nothing could be farther from the truth. emotion, earnestness, fire, enthusiasm--these are the very life of effort. they are steam to the engine; they are what the lighted fuse is to the charge of dynamite. they are the elements that give flash to the eye, spring to the step, resoluteness to the languid and certainty to effort. they are the elements that distinguish the living, acting forces of achievement from the spiritless forces of failure. [sidenote: _cross-roads of success or failure_] no man ever rose very high who did not possess strong reserves of emotional energy. napoleon said, "i would rather have the ardor of my soldiers, and they half-trained, than have the best fighting machines in europe without this element." emotional energy of the right kind makes one fearless and undaunted in the face of any discouragement. it is never at rest. it feeds on its own achievements. it is the love of an heloise and the ambition of an alexander. [sidenote: _the life of effort_] it is this emotional energy that makes business passion, that makes men love their business, that brings their hearts into harmony with their undertakings, and that gives them splendid visions of commercial greatness. [sidenote: _the motive power of progress_] through all the ages great souls have drowsed in spiritless acquiescence until some tide of emotional energy swept over them, "as the breeze wanders over the dead strings of some aeolian harp, and sweeps the music which slumbers upon them now into divine murmurings, now into stormy sobs." and then, and then, these joans of arc, these hermit peters, these abraham lincolns, these pierpont morgans, these warriors, statesmen, financiers, business men, salesmen, these practical crusaders and business enthusiasts, have sent out their influence into measureless fields of achievement. emotional energy generated on proper lines, and based on the support of a fixed intent, is a force that nothing can withstand, and we tell you that every idea that comes into your mind has its emotional quality, and that by the intelligent direction of your conscious "_thinking_" you can call into your life or drive out of it these powerful emotional influences for good or evil. [sidenote: _the value of an idea_] as mr. waldo p. warren says, "who can measure the value of an idea? starting as the bud of an acorn, it becomes at last a forest of mighty oaks; or beginning as a spark it consumes the rubbish of centuries. "ideas are as essential to progress as a hub to a wheel, for they form the center around which all things revolve. ideas begin great enterprises, and the workers of all lands do their bidding. ideas govern the governors, rule the rulers, and manage the managers of all nations and industries. ideas are the motive power which turns the tireless wheels of toil. ideas raise the plowboy to president, and constitute the primal element of the success of men and nations. ideas form the fire that lights the torch of progress, leading on the centuries. ideas are the keys which open the storehouses of possibility. ideas are the passports to the realms of great achievement. ideas are the touch-buttons which connect the currents of energy with the wheels of history. ideas determine the bounds, break the limits, move on the goal, and waken latent capacity to successive sunrises of better days." even without our telling you, you know that whenever a man makes up his mind that he is beaten in some fight his very thinking so helps on the fatal outcome. [sidenote: _the hard work required to fail_] the truth is, _it takes just as much brain work to accomplish a failure as it does to win success_--just as much effort to build up a depressive mental attitude as an energizing one. [sidenote: _creative power of thought_] take for granted that you have the courage, the energy, the self-confidence and the enthusiasm to do what you want to do, and you will find yourself in possession of these splendid qualities when the need arises. consciously or unconsciously, you have already trained your mind to discriminate among sense-impressions. it perceives some and ignores others. for each perception it selects such associates as you have trained it to select. have you trained it wisely? does it associate the new facts of observation with those memory-pictures that will make the new ideas useful and productive of fruitful bodily activities? [sidenote: _conscious and unconscious training_] if not, it is time for you to turn over a new leaf and habitually and persistently direct your attention to those associative elements in each new-learned fact that will make for health and happiness and success. train your mind deliberately, and day by day, to such constant incorporation of feelings of courage and confidence and assurance into all your thoughts that the associated impulses to bodily activity will inevitably influence your whole life. at the outset of every undertaking you are confronted with two ways of attacking it. one is with _doubt and uncertainty_; the other is with _courage and confidence_. [sidenote: _two ways of attacking business problems_] the first of these mental attitudes is purely negative. it is inhibitory. it is made up of mental pictures of yourself in direful situations, and these mental pictures bring with them depressing emotions and _muscular inhibitions_. the second attitude is positive. it is inspiring. it is made up of mental pictures of yourself bringing the affair to a triumphant issue, and these mental pictures bring with them stimulating emotions and the impulses to those bodily activities that will _realize your aims_. you have only to start the thing off with the right mental attitude and hold to it. all the rest is automatic. think this over. put this same idea into your business. analyze your business with reference to its _mental attitude_. of course, you know all about its organization, its various departments, its machinery and equipment, its methods, its cost system, its organized efficiency. but what about its mental attitude? every store, every industrial establishment has an air of its own, an indefinite something that distinguishes it from every other. this is why you buy your cigars at one place instead of at another. [sidenote: _cutting into the quick_] look behind the methods and the systems and all the wooden machinery of your business and you come to its throbbing life. there you find the characteristic quality that governs its future. there you find the attitude, the mental attitude, that pulls the strings determining the conduct of clerks and salesmen, managers and superintendents, and this attitude is in the last analysis a reflection of the mental attitude of the executive head himself--not necessarily the nominal executive head, but the real executive head, however he be called. [sidenote: _executives real and sham_] does the truckman whistle at his work? is the salesman proud of his line and his house? does he approach his "prospect" with the confident enthusiasm that brings orders? does the shipping clerk take a delighted interest in getting out his deliveries? they must have this mental attitude, or you will never win. are you yourself "making good" in this respect? remember that, whether you know it or not, your inmost thoughts are reflected in your voice and manner, your every act. and all your subordinates, whether they know it or not, see these things and reflect your attitude. [sidenote: _mental attitude of one's business_] therefore, in all you do, and in all you think, do it and think it with courage and with unwavering faith, fearing nothing. later on we shall instruct you in specific methods that will enable you to follow this injunction. for the present we must be content with emphasizing its importance. [sidenote: _psychological engineering_] in what follows in this book we shall bring forth no new principle of mental operation, but shall illustrate those already learned by reference to certain practical uses to which they can be applied. our purpose in this is to impress you with the immense practical value of the knowledge you are acquiring, and to show you that this course of reading has nothing to do with telepathy, spiritism, clairvoyance, animal magnetism, fortune-telling, astrology or witchcraft, but, on the contrary, that in its revelation of mental principles and processes it is laying a scientific basis for a highly differentiated type of efficiency engineering. chapter vi how to select employees in the preceding volume, entitled "making your own world," you learned that reaction-time is the interval that elapses between the moment when a sense-vibration reaches the body and the moment when perception is made known by some outward response. [sidenote: _a clue to adaptability_] reaction-time can be made to furnish a clue to the adaptability of the individual for any business, profession or vocation. to determine the character, accuracy and rapidity of the mental reactions of different individuals under different conditions, various scientific methods have been evolved and cunning devices invented. [sidenote: _mapping the mentality_] there are decisive reaction-time tests by which you may readily map out your own mentality or that of any other person, including, for instance, those who may seek employment under you. have you been harboring the delusion that "quick as thought" is a phrase expressive of flash-like quickness? have you had the idea that thought is instantaneous? if so, you must alter your conceptions. the fact is that your merely automatic reactions from sense-impressions can be measured in tenths of a second, while a really intellectual operation of the simplest character requires from one to several seconds. an important thing for you to know in this connection is that no two people are alike in this respect. some think quickly along certain lines; some along other lines. [sidenote: _the kind of "help" you need_] and the man or woman that you need in any department of your business is that one _whose mind works swiftly in the particular way required for your business_. how rapidly does your mind work? how fast do your thoughts come, compared to the average man in your field of activity? how fast does your stenographer think? your clerk? your chauffeur? are they up to the average of those engaged in similar work? if not, you had best make a change. [sidenote: _tests for different mental traits_] a large number of tests and mechanical devices, some of them most complicated, have been scientifically formulated or invented to measure the quickness of different kinds of mental operations in the individual. one very simple test which we give merely to illustrate the principle is called the "test of uncontrolled association." all the materials needed for this test are a stop-watch and a blank form containing numbered spaces for one hundred words. [sidenote: _test of uncontrolled associations_] give these instructions to the person you are examining: "when i say 'now!' i want you to start in with some word, any one you like, and keep on saying words as fast as you can until you have given a hundred different words. you may give any words you like, but they must not be in sentences. i will tell you when to stop." you then start your stop-watch with the command "now!" and write the words on the blank form as fast as they are spoken. mere abbreviations or shorthand will suffice. when the hundredth word is reached, stop the watch and note the time. the average time for lists of words written in this fashion is about seconds. [sidenote: _test for quick thinking_] this is a fair test of the rapidity of the associative processes of the mind. it will reveal many strange and characteristic idiosyncrasies. on the other hand, considering the vast number of words available, it is remarkable to note the degree of community to be found in the words that will be given by a number of persons. thus, "in fifty lists ( , words) only , words were different, only , occurred but once, while the one hundred most frequent words made up three-tenths of the whole number." professor jastrow, of wisconsin university, has found also that the "class to which women contribute most largely is that of articles of dress, one word in every eleven belonging to this class. the inference from this, that dress is the predominant category of the feminine (or of the privy feminine) mind, is valid, with proper reservations." [sidenote: _measuring speed of thought_] another method of testing speed of thought is to pronounce a series of words and after each word have the subject speak the first word that comes to him. the answers are taken down and are timed with a stop-watch. about the quickest answers by an alert person will be made in one second, or one and one-fifth seconds, while most persons take from one and three-fifths to two and three-fifths seconds to answer, under the most favorable circumstances. puzzling words or conflicting emotions will prolong this time to five and ten seconds in many cases. much depends upon the kind of words propounded to the subject, starting with such simple words as "hat" and "coat," and changing to words that tend to arouse emotion. a list of words may be carefully selected to fit the requirements of different classes of subjects. [sidenote: _range of mental tests_] by appropriate tests, the quickness of response to sense-impressions, the character of the associations of ideas, the workings of the individual imagination, the nature of the emotional tendencies, the character and scope of the powers of attention and discrimination, the degree of persistence of the individual and his susceptibility to fatigue in certain forms of effort, the visual, auditory and manual skill, and even the moral character of the subject, can be more or less clearly and definitely determined. [illustration: testing sharpness of hearing with acoumeter. private laboratory, society of applied psychology] it is possible by these tests to distinguish individual differences in thought processes as conditioned by age, sex, training, physical condition, and so on, to analyze the comparative mental efficiency of the worker at different periods in the day's work as affected by long hours of application, by monotony and variety of occupation and the like, and even to reveal obscure mental tendencies and to disclose motives or information that are being intentionally concealed. [sidenote: _tests for army and navy_] among the simplest of such tests are those for vision, hearing and color discrimination. tests of this kind are now given to all applicants for enlistment in the army, the navy and the marine corps, and more exacting tests of the same sort are given to candidates for licenses as pilots and for positions as officers of ships. [sidenote: _tests for railroad employees_] employees of railroads, and in some cases those of street railroads, also, are subjected to tests for vision, hearing and color-discrimination. in the case of trainmen the color-discrimination tests result in the rejection of about four per cent of the applicants. the tests are repeated every two years for all the men and at intervals of six months for those suspected of defects in color discrimination. in all of these cases the tests have for their object the detection and rejection of unfit applicants. [sidenote: _what one factory saved_] one of the earliest instances of work of this kind was the introduction a few years ago of reaction-time tests in selecting girls for the work of inspecting for flaws the steel balls used in ball bearings. this work requires a concentrated type of attention, good visual acuity and quick and keen perception, accompanied by quick responsive action. the scientific investigator went into a bicycle ball factory and with a stop-watch measured the reaction-time of all the girls then at work. all those who showed a long time between stimulus and reaction-time were then eliminated. the final outcome was that thirty-five girls did the work formerly done by one hundred and twenty; the accuracy of the work was increased by sixty-six per cent; the wages of the girls were doubled; the working day was shortened from ten and one-half hours to eight and one-half hours; and the profit of the factory was substantially increased. [sidenote: _professor münsterberg's experiments_] to illustrate the methods employed and the importance of work of this kind, we quote the following from the recent ground-breaking book, "psychology and industrial efficiency," by professor hugo münsterberg, of harvard university. this extract is an account of professor münsterberg's experimental method for determining in advance the mental fitness of persons applying for positions as telephone operators. such information would be of immense value to telephone companies, as each candidate who satisfies formal entrance requirements receives several months' training in a telephone school and is paid a salary while she is being trained. [sidenote: _tests for hiring telephone girls_] one company alone employs twenty-three thousand operators, and more than one-third of those employed and trained at the company's expense prove unfitted and leave within six months, with a heavy resulting financial loss to the company. the tests are numerous and somewhat complicated and require more time to conduct them than tests in other lines of work, but for these very reasons will be particularly illuminating. professor münsterberg says: "after carefully observing the service in the central office for a while, i came to the conviction that it would not be appropriate here to reproduce the activity at the switchboard in the experiment, but that it would be more desirable to resolve that whole function into its elements and to undertake the experimental test of a whole series of elementary mental dispositions. every one of these mental acts can then be examined according to well-known laboratory methods without giving to the experiments any direct relation to the characteristic telephone operation as such. i carried on the first series of experiments with about thirty young women who a short time before had entered into the telephone training-school, where they are admitted only at the age between seventeen and twenty-three years. i examined them with reference to eight different psychological functions. * * * a part of the psychological tests were carried on in individual examinations, but the greater part with the whole class together. [sidenote: _memory test_] [sidenote: _test for attention_] "these common tests referred to memory, attention, intelligence, exactitude and rapidity. i may characterize the experiments in a few words. the memory examination consisted of reading the whole class at first two numbers of four digits, then two of five digits, then two of six digits, and so on up to figures of twelve digits, and demanding that they be written down as soon as a signal was given. the experiments on attention, which in this case of the telephone operators seemed to me especially significant, made use of a method the principle of which has frequently been applied in the experimental psychology of individual differences, and which i adjusted to our special needs. the requirement is to cross out a particular letter in a connected text. every one of the thirty women in the classroom received the same first page of a newspaper of that morning. i emphasize that it was a new paper, as the newness of the content was to secure the desired distraction of the attention. as soon as the signal was given, each one of the girls had to cross out with a pencil every 'a' in the text for six minutes. after a certain time, a bell signal was given, and each then had to begin a new column. in this way we could find out, first, how many letters were correctly crossed out in those six minutes; secondly, how many letters were overlooked; and thirdly, how the recognition and the oversight were distributed in the various parts of the text. in every one of these three directions strong individual differences were indeed noticeable. some persons crossed out many, but also overlooked many; others overlooked hardly any of the 'a's,' but proceeded very slowly, so that the total number of the crossed-out letters was small. moreover, it was found that some at first do poor work, but soon reach a point at which their attention remains on a high level; others begin with a relatively high achievement, but after a short time their attention flags, and the number of crossed-out letters becomes smaller or the number of unnoticed, overlooked letters increases. fluctuations of attention, deficiencies and strong points can be discovered in much detail. [sidenote: _test for general intelligence_] "the third test, which was tried with the whole class, referred to the intelligence of the individuals. * * * the psychological experiments carried on in the schoolroom have demonstrated that this ability can be tested by the measurement of some very simple mental activities. * * * among the various proposed schemes for this purpose, the figures suggest that the most reliable one is the following method, the results of which show the highest agreement between the rank order based on the experiments and the rank order of the teachers. the experiment consists in reading to the pupils a long series of pairs of words of which the two members of the pair always logically belong together. later, one word of each pair will be read to them and they have to write down the word which belonged with it in the pair." (for example, "thunder" and "lightning" are words that "logically belong together," while "horse" and "bricks" are unrelated terms.--_editor's note._) "this is not a simple experiment on memory. the tests have shown that if, instead of logically connected words, simply disconnected chance words are offered and reproduced, no one can keep such a long series of pairs in mind, while with the words which have related meaning, the most intelligent pupils can master the whole series. the very favorable results which this method had yielded in the classroom made me decide to try it in this case, too. i chose for an experiment twenty-four pairs of words from the sphere of experience of the girls to be tested." (for instance, "door, house"; "pillow, bed"; "letter, word"; "leaf, tree"; "button, dress"; "nose, face"; "cover, kettle"; "page, book"; "engine, train"; "glass, window"; "enemy, friend"; "telephone, bell"; "thunder, lightning"; "ice, cold"; "ink, pen"; "husband, wife"; "fire, burn"; "sorry, sad"; "well, strong"; "mother, child"; "run, fast"; "black, white"; "war, peace"; "arm, hand."--_editor's note._) [sidenote: _test for exactitude_] "two class experiments belonged rather to the periphery of psychology. "the exactitude of space-perceptions was measured by demanding that each divide first the long and then the short edge of a folio sheet into two equal halves by a pencil-mark. [sidenote: _test for rapidity of movement_] "and finally, to measure the rapidity of movement, it was demanded that every one make with a pencil on the paper zigzag movements of a particular size during the ten seconds from one signal to another. "after these class experiments, i turned to individual tests. "first, every girl had to sort a pack of forty-eight cards into four piles as quickly as possible. the time was measured in fifths of a second, with an ordinary stop-watch. [sidenote: _test for accuracy of movement_] "the following experiment which referred to the accuracy of movement impulses demanded that every one try to reach with the point of a pencil three different points on the table in the rhythm of metronome beats. on each of these three places a sheet of paper was fixed with a fine cross in the middle. the pencil should hit the crossing point, and the marks on the paper indicated how far the movement had fallen short of the goal. one of these movements demanded the full extension of the arm and the other two had to be made with half-bent arm. i introduced this last test because the hitting of the right holes in the switchboard of the telephone office is of great importance. [illustration: testing steadiness of motor control--involuntary movement private laboratory, society of applied psychology] "the last individual experiment was an association test. i called six words, like 'book,' 'house,' 'rain,' and had them speak the first word which came to their minds. the time was measured in fifths of a second only, with an ordinary stop-watch, as subtler experiments, for which hundredths of a second would have to be considered, were not needed. [sidenote: _results of experiments_] "in studying the results, so far as the memory experiments were concerned, we found that it would be useless to consider the figures with more than ten digits. we took the results only of those with eight, nine and ten digits. there were fifty-four possibilities of mistakes. the smallest number of actual mistakes was two, the largest twenty-nine. in the experiment on attention made with the crossing-out of letters, we found that the smallest number of correctly marked letters was , the largest number in the six minutes, ; the smallest number of overlooked letters was two, the largest ; but this last case of abnormal carelessness stood quite isolated. on the whole, the number of overlooked letters fluctuated between five and sixty. if both results, those of the crossed-out and those of the overlooked letters, are brought into relations, we find that the best results were a case of letters marked, with only two overlooked, and one of marked, with four overlooked. the very interesting details as to the various types of attention which we see in the distribution of mistakes over the six minutes were not taken into our final table. the word experiments by which we tested the intelligence showed that no one was able to reproduce more than twenty-two of the twenty-four words. the smallest number of words remembered was seven. "the mistakes in the perception of distances fluctuated between one and fourteen millimeters; the time for the sorting of the forty-eight cards, between thirty-five and fifty-eight seconds; the association-time for the six associated words taken together was between nine and twenty-one seconds. the pointing experiments could not be made use of in this first series, as it was found that quite a number of participants were unable to perform the act with the rapidity demanded. "several ways were open to make mathematical use of these results. i preferred the simplest way. i calculated the grade of the girls for each of these achievements. the same candidate who stood in the seventh place in the memory experiment was in the fifteenth place with reference to the number of letters marked, in the third place with reference to the letters overlooked, in the twenty-first place with reference to the number of word pairs which she had grasped, in the eleventh place with reference to the exactitude of space-perception, in the sixteenth place with reference to the association-time, and in the sixth place with reference to the time of sorting. as soon as we had all these independent grades, we calculated the average and in this way ultimately gained a common order of grading. * * * "with this average rank list, we compared the practical results of the telephone company after three months had passed. these three months had been sufficient to secure at least a certain discrimination between the best, the average, and the unfit. the result of this comparison was on the whole satisfactory. first, the skeptical telephone company had mixed with the class a number of women who had been in the service for a long while, and had even been selected as teachers in the telephone school. i did not know, in figuring out the results, which of the participants in the experiments these particularly gifted outsiders were. if the psychological experiments had brought the result that these individuals who stood so high in the estimation of the telephone company ranked low in the laboratory experiment, it would have reflected strongly on the reliability of the laboratory method. the results showed, on the contrary, that these women who had proved most able in practical service stood at the top of our list. correspondingly, those who stood the lowest in our psychological rank list had in the mean time been found unfit in practical service, and had either left the company of their own accord or else had been eliminated. the agreement, to be sure, was not a perfect one. one of the list of women stood rather low in the psychological list, while the office reported that so far she had done fair work in the service, and two others, to whom the psychological laboratory gave a good testimonial were considered by the telephone office as only fair. [sidenote: _theory and practice_] "but it is evident that certain disagreements would have occurred even with a more ideal method, as on the one side no final achievement in practical service can be given after only three months, and because on the other side a large number of secondary factors may enter which entirely overshadow the mere question of psychological fitness. poor health, for instance, may hinder even the most fit individual from doing satisfactory work, and extreme industry and energetic will may for a while lead even the unfit to fair achievement, which, to be sure, is likely to be coupled with a dangerous exhaustion. the slight disagreements between the psychological results and the practical valuation, therefore, do not in the least speak against the significance of such a method. on the other hand, i emphasize that this first series meant only the beginning of the investigation, and it can hardly be expected that at such a first approach the best and most suitable methods would at once be hit upon. a continuation of the work will surely lead to much better combinations of test experiments and to better adjusted schemes." [sidenote: _how to identify the unfit_] analytical test studies such as the foregoing form an almost infallible means for finding out the unfit at the very beginning instead of after a long and costly experimental trying-out in vocational training-school or in actual service. whatever your line of business may be, you may rest assured that an analysis of its needs will disclose numerous departments in which specific mental tests and devices may be employed with a great saving in time and money and a vastly increased efficiency and output of working energy. [sidenote: _means to great business economies_] suppose that you are the manager of a street railroad employing a large number of motormen. would it not be of the greatest value to you if in a few moments you could determine in advance whether any given applicant for a position possessed the quickness of response to danger signals that would enable him to avoid accidents? think what this would mean to the profits of your company in cutting down the number of damage claims arising from accidents! some electric railroad companies have as many as fifty thousand accident indemnity cases per year, which involve an expense amounting in some cases to thirteen per cent of the annual gross earnings. yet a comparatively simple mechanism has been devised for determining by the reaction-time of any applicant whether he would or would not be quick enough to stop his car if a child ran in front of its wheels. [sidenote: _round pegs in square holes_] the general employment of this test would result in the rejection of about twenty-five per cent of those who are now employed as motormen with a correspondingly large reduction in the number of deaths and injuries from street-car accidents. and on the other hand, the general use of psychological tests in other lines of work would make room for these men in places for which they are peculiarly adapted and where their earning power would be greater. if, for example, the applicant responds to the signs of an emergency in three-fifths of a second or less, and has the mental characteristics that will enable him at the same time to maintain the speed required by the schedule, he may be mentally fitted for the "job" of motorman; while if it takes him one second or more to act in an emergency, he may be a dangerous man for the company and for the public. [sidenote: _the danger in two-fifths of a second_] two-fifths of a second difference in time-reactions may mark the line between safety and disaster. how absurd it is to trust to luck in matters of this kind when by means of scientific experimental tests you can accurately gauge your man before he has a chance to involve you or your company in a heart-breaking tragedy and serious financial loss! you can readily see that very similar tests could be devised to meet the needs of the employer of chauffeurs, as, for example, the manager of a taxicab company, or the requirements of a railroad in the hiring of its engineers. [sidenote: _picking a private secretary_] you should not employ as private secretary a person whose reactions indicate a natural inability to keep a secret. this quality of mind can be simply and unerringly detected by psychological tests. [sidenote: _finding out the close-mouthed_] one quality entering into the ability to keep a secret is the degree of suggestibility of the individual. that person who most quickly and automatically obeys and responds to suggested commands possesses the least degree of conscious self-control. the quality referred to is illustrated by the child's game of "thumbs up, thumbs down," and "simon says thumbs up" and "simon says thumbs down." those persons who are unable to wait for the "simon says," but mechanically obey the command "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" would be those least able to resist a trap artfully laid to compel them to disclose what they wished to conceal. like efficiency in observation, attention and memory, however, suggestibility is specific, not general, in character--that is to say, persons may be easily influenced by certain kinds of suggestion while possessing a strong degree of resistance to other kinds. consequently actual tests of this quality cannot be limited to one method. [illustration: determining suggestibility by progressive line test private laboratory, society of applied psychology] for purposes of illustration, here is a simple form of what is known as the "line" test for suggestibility. the subject is seated about two feet away from and in front of a revolving drum on which is a strip of white paper. on this strip of white paper are drawn twenty parallel straight lines. these lines begin at varying distances from the left-hand margin. each of the first four lines is fifty per cent longer than the one before it, but the remaining sixteen lines are all of the same length. [sidenote: _a test for suggestibility_] the examiner says to the subject, "i want to see how good your 'eye' is. i'll show you a line, say an inch or two long, and i want you to reproduce it right afterwards from memory. some persons make bad mistakes; they may make a line two inches long when i show them one three inches long; others make one four or five inches long. let's see how well you can do. i shall show you the line through this slit. take just one look at it, then make a mark on this paper [cross-section paper] just the distance from this left-hand margin that the line is long. do that with each line as it appears." the lines are then shown one at a time, and after each is noted it is turned out of sight. as the lines of equal length are presented, the examiner says alternately, "here is a longer one," "here is a shorter one," and so on. the extent to which these misleading suggestions of the examiner are accepted and acted upon by the subject in plain violation of the evidence of his senses tests in a measure his suggestibility, his automatic, mechanical and immediate responsiveness to the influence of others and his comparative lack of strong resistance to such outside influences. inability to satisfactorily meet this and similar tests for suggestibility would indicate an unfitness for such duties as those required by a private secretary, who must at all times have himself well in hand and not be easily lured into embarrassing revelations. [sidenote: _selecting a stenographer_] you should not employ as stenographer a person whose time-reactions indicate a slowness of auditory response or an inability to carry in mind a long series of dictated words, or whose vocabulary is too limited for the requirements of your business. [sidenote: _tests for auditory acuity_] the quickness of auditory response may be determined either by speech tests or by instrumental tests. in either case the acuteness of hearing of the applicant is measured by the ability to promptly and correctly report sounds at various known ranges, the acuity of the normal ear under precisely similar conditions having been previously determined. speech involves a great variety of combinations--of pitch, accent, inflection and emphasis. consequently a scientific speech test involves the preparation of lists of words based upon an analysis of the elements of whispered and spoken utterance. this work has been done, and such lists and tests are available. [sidenote: _a test for rote memory_] for testing the ability to remember a series of dictated words the following lists of words are recommended: _concrete_ _abstract_ _concrete_ _abstract_ _concrete_ _abstract_ street scope coat time pen law ink proof woman aft clock thought lamp scheme house route man plot spoon form salt phase floor glee horse craft glove work sponge life chair myth watch truth hat rhythm stone rate box thing chalk faith ground cause mat tact knife mirth the examiner should repeat these lists of words to the subject one at a time, alternating the concrete and abstract lists. to insure the presentation of the words with an even tempo, a metronome may be had by simply swinging a small weight on a string, having the string of just sufficient length so that the beats come at intervals of one second. each word should be pronounced distinctly in time with the beat of the metronome, but without rhythm. after each list has been pronounced, have the subject write the list from memory. the lists thus made up by the subject from memory are then to be inspected with reference to the following points: . memory errors (omissions and displacements), concrete lists. . memory errors (omissions and displacements), abstract lists. every omission counts two errors; every displacement counts two-thirds when the displacement is by one remove only, one and one-third when by more than one move. . insertions. these are words added by the subject. they count for two errors each, unless the added word resembles the word given in sound, in which case it counts one and one-third. . perseverations. these are reproductions in a given series of words already given in a previous series. if frequent, this indicates a low order of intelligence, with weak self-control and poor critical judgment. each perseveration counts four. . substitution of synonyms, when a word of like meaning but different sound is substituted for the word given; counts one and one-third. [sidenote: _a test for range of vocabulary_] an approximate determination of the range of vocabulary of your prospective stenographer can be had by the use of the following comparatively short and simple test. hand the applicant a printed slip bearing the list of one hundred words given here and ask him to mark the words carefully according to these instructions. place _before_ each word one of these three signs: (i) a plus sign (+) if you know the word. (ii) a minus sign (-) if you do not know the word. (iii) a question mark (?) if you are in doubt. when you have finished, count the marks and fill out these blanks, making sure that the numbers add to one hundred. number known ........... number unknown ........... number doubtful ........... abductor decide interim rejoice abeam deception lanuginose rejoin abed disentomb lanuginous rejoinder abet disentrance lanugo rejuvenate amalgamation disepalous lanyard scroll amanuensis disestablish matting scrub amaranth eschar mattock scruff baron escheat mattress scrunch baroscope escort maturate skylight barouche eschalot muff skyrocket barque filiform muffin skysail bottle-holder filigree muffle skyward bottom filing mufti subcutaneous bottomry fill page sub-let boudoir gourd pagoda subdue channel gout paid tenderloin chant govern pail tendinous chanticleer gown photograph tendon chaos hodman photographer tendril concatenate hoe photography tycoon concatenation hoecake photo-lithograph tymbal concave hog publication type conceal intercede pudding virago decemvirate interdict puddle virescent decency interest pudgy virgin by adding find the total number of "plus" marks on the applicant's slip. multiply this number by , and you will then have obtained the applicant's absolute vocabulary. an absolute vocabulary of twenty thousand words or over may be graded as excellent; , to , words, good; , to , , fair; and below , , poor. you should not employ as train-dispatcher a person whose time-reactions indicate a tendency to confuse associated ideas. the associated ideas may be related in time, place or a variety of ways, and the memory of one who has an inherent tendency to substitute an associate for the thing itself is a treacherous instrument. the tendency to confuse associated ideas can be measured by psychological tests. your own knowledge of the work of the world will suggest other employments besides that of train-dispatcher in which such a test could be used in hiring men to the improvement of the service. [sidenote: _crime-detection by psychological tests_] the employment of psychological tests in the detection of crime is fast supplanting the brutalities of the "third degree." thus, for example, by the use of highly sensitive instruments we are able to detect the quickened heart-beat, the shudder, and other evidences of emotion not otherwise discernible, but due to the deliberate presentation of the details and evidences of a crime. though the subject may not himself be aware of the slightest physical expression of emotion, these signs of a disturbed mentality are unerringly revealed by the delicate instruments of the psychologist. [sidenote: _the factory operative's attention power_] in some factories the operative is called upon to simultaneously keep watch over a large number of parts of a moving mechanism, and to note and quickly correct a disturbance in any part. eye and ear must have a wide range, must be able to take account of a large number of operations widely separated in space. [illustration: testing the range of visual attention. private laboratory, society of applied psychology] for the scientific determination of the operative's range of visual attention, the "disc tachistoscope," shown facing page , may be used. this is a form of short-exposure apparatus. the essential idea is to furnish a field upon which the subject may for a moment fasten his attention, and then to substitute for this field another containing certain prepared test-material. this last field is exposed for but a brief instant and removed, and the subject is then called upon to report all that he has seen during the last exposure. tests of this kind have demonstrated that the range of visual attention is a comparatively constant quantity with each individual, having but little relation to general ability or intelligence and being but little affected by practice. it matters not how painstaking the individual may be, he will fail in a test of this kind and at work of this kind if the type of attention that nature gave him is unfitted for such an "expanded" watchfulness. yet in any type of work requiring a focusing of the attention upon a minute operation so as to note nice discriminations and detect subtle differences, he might prove a most excellent worker. [sidenote: _kinds of testing apparatus_] the kind of apparatus, the method to be employed and the place for the experiment are all matters that vary with the conditions of the special problem. the apparatus may be simple and easily devised, or it may be intricate and the result of years of investigation and a large expenditure of money. if there seems to you to be anything impracticable in the employment of tests in the manner we have indicated, please remember that for many years those seeking employment as railroad engineers have been required to pass tests for color-blindness, tests just as truly psychological as any that we have here referred to and differing from them only in respect to the character and complexity of the qualities tested. [sidenote: _analysis of different callings_] every calling can be analyzed and the mental elements requisite for success in that particular line can be scientifically disentangled. methods for testing the individual as to his possession of any one or all of the mental elements required in any given vocation may then be devised in the psychological laboratory. furthermore, definite and scientific exercises can be formulated whereby the individual may train and develop special senses, faculties and powers so as the better to fit himself for his chosen field of work. [sidenote: _exercises for developing special faculties_] the use of the experimental method is new to every department of science. crude and occasional experiments have marked the advance of physics, physiology and chemistry, but it is only with the recent innovation of the scientific laboratory that these sciences have made their greatest strides. the employment of this method in dealing with problems of the mind is particularly new. so far as we are aware there is no school in all the world that employs definite and scientific exercises in the discipline and training of its pupils in power of observation, imagination and memory. you have now completed a brief survey of the fundamental processes of the mind and seen something of the practical utility of this knowledge. you have before you "sense-perceptions," "causal judgments," "classifying judgments," and "associated emotional qualities" or "feeling tones." every suggested idea, every act of reasoning is in the last analysis the product of one or more of these elementary forms of mental activity. we shall now go on to consider the operations of these mental processes in connection with certain mental phenomena. [sidenote: _principles that bear on practical affairs_] our purpose in all this is not to teach you the elements of psychology as it is ordinarily conceived or taught. our aim is to conduct you through certain special fields of psychological investigation, fields that within the past few years have produced remarkable discoveries of which the world, outside of a few specialists, knows little or nothing. in this way you will be fitted to comprehend the practical instruction, the application of these principles to practical affairs, toward which this _course_ is tending. transcriber's note: illustrations have been moved from their original positions, so as to be nearer to their corresponding text, or for ease of navigation around paragraphs. duplicate chapter headers have been removed from the text version of this ebook and hidden in the html version. the following typographical corrections have been made to this text: contents: changed unconcious to unconscious (unconscious training) page : changed to (shown facing page ), to reflect repositioning of illustration in this ebook. file was produced from images generously made available by the internet archive/million book project) applied psychology the trained memory _being the fourth of a series of twelve volumes on the applications of psychology to the problems of personal and business efficiency_ by warren hilton, a.b., l.l.b. founder of the society of applied psychology issued under the auspices of the literary digest for the society of applied psychology new york and london copyright by the applied psychology press san francisco (_printed in the united states of america_) contents chapter i. the elements of memory four special memory processes ii. the mental treasure vault and its lost combination what everyone thinks causes of forgetfulness seeing with "half an eye" the man on broadway waxen tablets not how, but how much remembering the unperceived speaking a forgotten tongue living past experiences over again the "flash of inspiration" the totality of retention possibilities of self-discovery "acres of diamonds" iii. the mechanism of recall the right stimulus "complexes" of experience the thrill of recollection "complexes" and functional derangements automatically working mental mechanisms two classes of "complexes" the subconscious storehouse iv. the laws of recall the law of integral recall what ordinary "thinking" amounts to the reverse of complex formation prolixity and terseness the law of contiguity laws of habit and intensity applications to advertising effect of repetitions ratio of size to value risks in advertising v. the science of forgetting the skilled artisan how the attention works iron filings and mental magnets the compartment of subconscious forgetfulness making experience count how habits are formed vi. the fallacy of most memory systems practice in memorizing inadequate torture of the drill real cause of failing memory the manufactured interest memory lure of a desire vii. a scientific memory system for business success importance of associates "cramming" and "willing" basic principle of thought-reproduction methods of pick scientific pedagogy how to remember names five exercises for developing observation invention and thought-memory three exercises for developing thought-memory how to compel recollection formation of correct memory habits now! persistence, accuracy, dispatch memory signs and tokens the mental combination revealed the elements of memory [illustration: decorative header] chapter i the elements of memory [sidenote: _four special memory processes_] you have learned of the sense-perceptive and judicial processes by which your mind acquires its knowledge of the outside world. you come now to a study of the phenomenon of memory, the instrument by which your mind retains and makes use of its knowledge, the agency that has power to resurrect the buried past or power to enfold us in a paradise of dreams more perfect than reality. in the broadest sense, memory is the faculty of the mind by which we ( ) _retain_, ( ) _recall_, ( ) _picture to the mind's eye_, and ( ) _recognize_ past experiences. memory involves, therefore, four elements, _retention_, _recall_, _imagination_ and _recognition_. the mental treasure vault and its lost combination [illustration: decorative header] chapter ii the mental treasure vault and its lost combination [sidenote: _what everyone thinks_] almost everyone seems to think that we retain in the mind _only_ those things that we can voluntarily recall; that memory, in other words, is limited to the power of voluntary reproduction. this is a profound error. it is an inexcusable error. the daily papers are constantly reporting cases of the lapse and restoration of memory that contain all the elements of underlying truth on this subject. [sidenote: _causes of forgetfulness_] it is plain enough that the memory _seems_ decidedly limited in its scope. this is because our power of voluntary recall is decidedly limited. but it does not follow simply because we are without the power to deliberately recall certain experiences that all mental trace of those experiences is lost to us. _those experiences that we are unable to recall are those that we disregarded when they occurred because they possessed no special interest for us. they are there, but no mental associations or connections with power to awaken them have arisen in consciousness._ [sidenote: _seeing with "half an eye"_] things are continually happening all around us that we see with but "half an eye." they are in the "fringe" of consciousness, and we deliberately ignore them. many more things come to us in the form of sense-impressions that clamorously assail our sense-organs, but no effort of the will is needed to ignore them. we are absolutely impervious to them and unconscious of them because by the selection of our life interests we have closed the doors against them. in either case, whether in the "fringe" of consciousness or entirely outside of consciousness, these unperceived sensations will be found to be sensory images that have no connection with the present subject of thought. they therefore attract, and we spare them, no part of our attention. just as each of our individual sense-organs selects from the multitude of ether vibrations constantly beating upon the surface of the body only those waves to the velocity of which it is attuned, so each one of us as an integral personality selects from the stream of sensory experiences only those particular objects of attention that are in some way related to the present or habitual trend of thought. [sidenote: _the man on broadway_] just consider for a moment the countless number and variety of impressions that assail the eye and ear of the new yorker who walks down broadway in a busy hour of the day. yet to how few of these does he pay the slightest attention. he is in the midst of a cataclysm of sound almost equal to the roar of niagara and he does not know it. observe how many objects are right now in the corner of your mind's eye as being within the scope of your vision while your entire attention is apparently absorbed in these lines. you see these other things, and you can look back and realize that you have seen them, but you were not aware of them at the time. let two individuals of contrary tastes take a day's outing together. both may have during the day practically identical sensory images; but each one will come back with an entirely different tale to tell of the day's adventures. [sidenote: _waxen tablets_] _all sensory impressions, somehow or other, leave their faint impress on the waxen tablets of the mind. few are or can be voluntarily recalled._ just where and how memories are retained is a mystery. there are theories that represent sensory experiences as actual physiological "impressions" on the cells of the brain. they are, however, nothing but theories, and the manner in which the brain, as the organ of the mind, keeps its record of sensory experiences has never been discovered. microscopic anatomy has never reached the point where it could identify a particular "idea" with any one "cell" or other part of the brain. [sidenote: _not how, but how much_] for us, the important question is not _how_, but _how much_; _not the manner in which, but the extent to which_, sensory impressions are preserved. now, all the evidences indicate that _absolutely every impression received upon the sensorium is indelibly recorded in the mind's substance_. a few instances will serve to illustrate the remarkable power of retention of the human mind. sir william hamilton quotes the following from coleridge's "literaria biographia": "a young woman of four- or five-and-twenty, who could neither read nor write, was seized with a nervous fever, during which, according to the asseverations of all the priests and monks of the neighborhood, she became 'possessed,' and, as it appeared, by a very learned devil. she continued incessantly talking latin, greek and hebrew in very pompous tones, and with most distinct enunciation. sheets full of her ravings were taken down from her own mouth, and were found to consist of sentences coherent and intelligible each for itself but with little or no connection with each other. of the hebrew, a small portion only could be traced to the bible; the remainder seemed to be in the rabbinical dialect." [sidenote: _remembering the unperceived_] the case was investigated by a physician, who learned that the girl had been a waif and had been taken in charge by a protestant clergyman when she was nine years old and brought up as his servant. this clergyman had for years been in the habit of walking up and down a passage of his house into which the kitchen door opened and at the same time reading to himself in a loud voice from his favorite book. a considerable number of these books were still in the possession of his niece, who told the physician that her uncle had been a very learned man and an accomplished student of hebrew. among the books were found a collection of rabbinical writings, together with several of the greek and latin fathers; and the physician succeeded in identifying so many passages in these books with those taken down at the bed-side of the young woman that there could be no doubt as to the true origin of her learned ravings. now, the striking feature of all this, it will be observed, is the fact that the subject was an illiterate servant-girl to whom the greek, latin and hebrew quotations were _utterly unintelligible,_ that _normally she had no recollection of them, that she had no idea of their meaning_, and finally that they had been impressed upon her mind _without her knowledge_ while she was engaged in her duties in her master's kitchen. several cases are reported by dr. abercrombie, and quoted by professor hyslop, in which mental impressions long since forgotten beyond the power of voluntary recall have been revived by the shock of accident or disease. "a man," he says, "mentioned by mr. abernethy, had been born in france, but had spent the greater part of his life in england, and, for many years, had entirely lost the habit of speaking french. but when under the care of mr. abernethy, on account of the effects of an injury to the head, he always spoke french." [sidenote: _speaking a forgotten tongue_] "a similar case occurred in st. thomas hospital, of a man who was in a state of stupor in consequence of an injury to the head. on his partial recovery he spoke a language which nobody in the hospital understood but which was soon ascertained to be welsh. it was then discovered that he had been thirty years absent from wales, and, before the accident, had entirely forgotten his native language. "a lady mentioned by dr. pritchard, when in a state of delirium, spoke a language which nobody about her understood, but which was afterward discovered to be welsh. none of her friends could form any conception of the manner in which she had become acquainted with that language; but, after much inquiry, it was discovered that in her childhood she had a nurse, a native of a district on the coast of brittany, the dialect of which is closely analogous to welsh. the lady at that time learned a good deal of this dialect but had entirely forgotten it for many years before this attack of fever." [sidenote: _living past experiences over again_] dr. carpenter relates the following incident in his "mental physiology": "several years ago, the rev. s. mansard, now rector of bethnal green, was doing clerical duty for a time at hurstmonceaux, in sussex; and while there he one day went over with a party of friends to pevensey castle, which he did not remember to have ever previously visited. as he approached the gateway he became conscious of a very vivid impression of having seen it before; and he 'seemed to himself to see' not only the gateway itself, but donkeys beneath the arch and people on top of it. his conviction that he must have visited the castle on some former occasion--although he had neither the slightest remembrance of such a visit nor any knowledge of having ever been in the neighborhood previously to his residence at hurstmonceaux--made him inquire from his mother if she could throw any light on the matter. she at once informed him that being in that part of the country, when he was but _eighteen months old_, she had gone over with a large party and had taken him in the pannier of a donkey; that the elders of the party, having brought lunch with them, had eaten it on the roof of the gateway, where they would have been seen from below, whilst he had been left on the ground with the attendants and donkeys." "an italian gentleman," says dr. rush, of philadelphia, "who died of yellow fever in new york, in the beginning of his illness spoke english, in the middle of it french, but on the day of his death only italian." striking as these instances are, they are not unusual. everyone on reflection can supply similar instances. who among us has not at one time or another been impressed with a mysterious feeling of having at some time in the past gone through the identical experience which he is living now? [sidenote: _the "flash of inspiration"_] on such occasions the sense of familiarity is sometimes so persistent as to fill one with a strange feeling of the supernatural and to incline our minds to the belief in a reincarnation. the "flash of inspiration" which, for the lawyer, solves a novel legal issue arising in the trial of a case, or, for the surgeon, sees him successfully through the emergencies of a delicate operation, has its origin in the forgotten learning of past experience and study. [sidenote: _the totality of retention_] succeeding books in this _course_ will bring to light numerous other facts less commonly observed, drawn indeed from the study of abnormal mental states, indicating that we retain a great volume of sense-impressions of whose very recording we are at the time unaware. in other words, all the evidences point to the absolute totality of our retention of all sensory experiences. they indicate that every sense-impression you ever received, whether you actually perceived and were conscious of it or not, has been retained and preserved in your memory, and can be "brought to mind" when you understand the proper method of calling it into service. a vast wealth of facts is stored in the treasure vaults of your mind, but there are certain inner compartments to which you have lost the combination. [sidenote: _possibilities of self-discovery_] the author of "thoughts on business" says: "it is a great day in a man's life when he truly begins to discover himself. the latent capacities of every man are greater than he realizes, and he may find them if he diligently seeks for them. a man may own a tract of land for many years without knowing its value. he may think of it as merely a pasture. but one day he discovers evidences of coal and finds a rich vein beneath his land. while mining and prospecting for coal he discovers deposits of granite. in boring for water he strikes oil. later he discovers a vein of copper ore, and after that silver and gold. these things were there all the time--even when he thought of his land merely as a pasture. but they have a value only when they are discovered and utilized." "not every pasture contains deposits of silver and gold, neither oil nor granite, nor even coal. but beneath the surface of every man there must be, in the nature of things, a latent capacity greater than has yet been discovered. and one discovery must lead to another until the man finds the deep wealth of his own possibilities. history is full of the acts of men who discovered somewhat of their own capacity; but history has yet to record the man who fully discovered all that he might have been." [sidenote: _"acres of diamonds"_] you who are a bit vain of your visits to other lands, your wide reading, your experience of men and things; you who secretly lament that so little of what you have seen and read remains with you, behold, your "acres of diamonds" are within you, needing but the mystic formula that shall reveal the treasure! the mechanism of recall [illustration: decorative header] chapter iii the mechanism of recall [sidenote: _the right stimulus_] somehow, somewhere, all experiences, whether subject to voluntary recall or not, are preserved, and are capable of reproduction when the right stimulus comes along. and it is a law that _those experiences which are associated with each other, whether ideas, emotions or voluntary or involuntary muscular movements, tend to become bound together into groups, and these groups tend to become bound together into systems_. [sidenote: _"complexes" of experience_] such a system of associated groups of experiences is technically known as a "complex." pay particular attention to these definitions, as "groups" of ideas and "complexes" of ideas, emotions and muscular movements are terms that we shall constantly employ. you learned in a former lesson that mental experiences may consist not only of sense-perceptions based on excitements arising in the memory nerves, but also of bodily emotions, the "feeling tones" of ideas, and of muscular movements based on stimuli arising in the motor nerves. _groups consist, therefore, not only of associated ideas, but of associated ideas coupled with their emotional qualities and impulses to muscular movements._ all groups bound together by a mutually related idea constitute a single "complex." every memory you have is an illustration of such "complexes." [sidenote: _the thrill of recollection_] suppose, for example, you once gained success in a business deal. your recollection of the other persons concerned in that transaction, of any one detail in the transaction itself, will be accompanied by the faster heartbeat, the quickened circulation of the blood, the feeling of triumph and elation that attended the original experience. [sidenote: _"complexes" and functional derangements_] complexes formed out of harrowing earthquakes, robberies, murders or other dreadful spectacles, which were originally accompanied on the part of the onlooker by trembling, perspiration and palpitation of the heart, when lived over again in memory, are again accompanied by all these bodily activities. your memory of a hairbreadth escape will bring to your cheek the pallor that marked it when the incident occurred. the formation and existence of "complexes" explains the origin of many functional diseases of the body--that is to say, diseases involving no loss or destruction of tissue, but consisting simply in a failure on the part of some bodily organ to perform its allotted function naturally and effectively. [sidenote: _automatically working mental mechanisms_] thus, in hay fever or "rose cold" the tears, the inflammation of the membranes of the nose, the cough, the other trying symptoms, all are linked with the sight of a rose, or dust, or sunlight, or some other outside fact to which attention has been called as the cause of hay fever, into a complex, "an automatically working mechanism." and the validity of this explanation of the regular recurrence of attacks of this disease is sufficiently demonstrated by the fact that a paper rose is likely to prove just as effective in producing all the symptoms of the disease as a rose out of nature's garden. another striking illustration of the working of this principle is afforded by two gentlemen of my acquaintance, brothers, each of whom since boyhood has had unfailing attacks of sneezing upon first arising in the morning. no sooner is one of these men awake and seated upon the edge of his bed for dressing than he begins to sneeze, and he continues to sneeze for fifteen or twenty minutes thereafter, although he has no "cold" and never sneezes at any other time. [sidenote: _two classes of "complexes"_] obviously, if absolutely all mental experiences are preserved, they consist altogether of two broad classes of complexes: first, those that are momentarily _active in consciousness_, forming part of the present mental picture, and, second, all the others--that is to say, all past experiences that are _not at the present moment before the mind's eye_. there are, then, _conscious_ complexes and _subconscious_ complexes, complexes of _consciousness_ and complexes of _subconsciousness_. [sidenote: _the subconscious storehouse_] and of the complexes of subconsciousness, some are far more readily recalled than others. some are forever popping into one's thoughts, while others can be brought to the light of consciousness only by some unusual and deep-probing stimulus. and _the human mind is a vast storehouse of complexes, far the greater part buried in subconsciousness_, yet somehow, like impressions on the wax cylinder of a phonograph, preserved with life-like truth and clearness. turn back for a moment to our definition of memory. you will observe that its second essential element is recall. recall is the process by which the experiences of the past are summoned from the reservoir of the subconscious into the light of present consciousness. we necessarily touched upon this process in a previous book, in considering the laws of association, but here, in relation to memory, we shall go into the matter somewhat more analytically. the laws of recall [illustration: decorative header] chapter iv the laws of recall [sidenote: _the law of integral recall_] law i. the primary law of recall is this: _the recurrence or stimulation of one element in a complex tends to recall all the others._ in our explanation of "complex" formation we necessarily cited instances that illustrate this principle as well, since _recall is merely a reverse operation from that involved in "complex" formation_. [sidenote: _what ordinary "thinking" amounts to_] for example, in running through a book i come upon a flower pressed between its pages. at once the memory of the friend who gave it to me springs into consciousness and becomes the subject of reminiscence. this recalls the mountain village where we last met. this recalls the fact that a railroad was at the time under process of construction, which should transform the village into a popular resort. this in turn suggests my coming trip to the seashore, and i am reminded of a business appointment on which my ability to leave town on the appointed day depends. and so on indefinitely. far the greater part of your successive states of consciousness, or even of your ordinary "thinking," commonly so-called, consists of trains of mental pictures "suggested" one by another. if the associated pictures are of the everyday type, common to everyone, you have a prosaic mind; if, on the other hand, the associations are unusual or unique, you are happily possessed of wit and fancy. [sidenote: _the reverse of complex formation_] these instances of the action of the law of recall illustrate but one phase of its activity. they show simply that groups of ideas are so strung together on the string of some common element that _the activity of one "group" in consciousness is apt to be automatically followed by the others. but the law of association goes deeper than this. it enters into the activity of every individual group, and causes all the elements of every group, ideas, emotions and impulses to muscular movements, to be simultaneously manifested._ [sidenote: _prolixity and terseness_] there is no principle to which we shall more continually refer than this one. our explanation of hay fever a moment ago illustrates our meaning. get the principle clearly in your mind, and see how many instances of its operation you can yourself supply from your own daily experience. so far as the mere linking together of groups of ideas is concerned, this classifying quality is developed in some persons to a greater degree than in others. it finds its extreme exemplar in the type of man who can never relate an incident without reciting all the prolix and minute details and at the same time wandering far from the original subject in pursuit of every suggested idea. [sidenote: _the law of contiguity_] law ii. _similarity and nearness in time or space between two experiential facts causes the thought of one to tend to recall the thought of the other._ this is the associative law of contiguity considered from the standpoint of recall. the points of contiguity are different for different individuals. similarities and nearnesses will awaken all sorts of associated groups of ideas in one person that are not at all excitable in the same way in another whose experiences have been different. law iii. _the greater the frequency and intensity of any given experience, the greater the ease and likelihood of its reproduction and recall._ [sidenote: _laws of habit and intensity_] this explains why certain groups in any complex are more readily recalled than others--why some leap forth unbidden, why some come next and before others, why some arrive but tardily or not at all. this is how the associative laws of habit and intensity affect the power of recall. * * * * * [sidenote: _applications to advertising_] there is no department of business to which the application of these laws of recall is so apparent as the department of advertising. the most carefully worded and best-illustrated advertisement may fail to pay its cost unless the underlying principles of choice of position, selection of medium and size of space are understood. the advertisers in metropolitan newspapers and magazines of large circulation are the ones who have most at stake. but whatever the field to be reached, it is well to bear in mind certain facts based on the laws of recall that have been established by psychological experiment. most advertisers have a general idea that certain relative positions on the newspaper or magazine page are to be preferred over others, but they have no conception of the real differences in relative recall value. when the great cost of space in large publications is considered the financial value of such knowledge is evident. by a great number of tests the relative recall value of every part of the newspaper page has been approximately determined. it has been found, for example, that a given space at the upper right-hand corner of the page has more than twice the value of the same amount of space in the lower left-hand corner. [sidenote: _effect of repetitions_] many advertisers adopt the policy of repeating full-page advertisements at long intervals instead of advertising in a small way continually. laboratory tests have shown, on the contrary, that a quarter-page advertisement appearing in four successive issues of a newspaper is fifty per cent more effective than a full-page advertisement appearing only once. it does not follow, however, that an eighth-page advertisement repeated eight times is correspondingly more effective; for below a certain relative size the value of an advertisement decreases much more rapidly than the cost. there are, of course, modifying conditions, such as special sales of department stores, where occasional displays and announcements make it desirable to use either full pages, or even double pages, but the great bulk of advertising is not of this character. [sidenote: _ratio of size to value_] every year in the united states alone six hundred millions of dollars are expended in advertising the sale of commodities, and for the most part expended in a haphazard, experimental and unscientific way. the investment of this vast sum with risk of perhaps total loss, or even possible injury, through the faulty construction or improper placing of advertisements should stimulate the interest of every advertiser in the work that psychologists have done and are doing toward the accumulation of a body of exact knowledge on this subject. [sidenote: _risks in advertising_] the science of forgetting [illustration: testing the memory with professor jastrow's memory apparatus private laboratory, society of applied psychology] [illustration: decorative header] chapter v the science of forgetting [sidenote: _the skilled artisan_] attention is the instrumentality through which the laws of recall operate. wittingly or unwittingly, consciously or unconsciously, every man's attention swings in automatic obedience to the laws of recall. attention is the artisan that, bit by bit, and with lightning quickness, constructs the mosaic of consciousness. having the whole vast store of all present and past experiences to draw upon, he selects only those groups and those isolated instances that are related to our general interests and aims. he disregards others. [sidenote: _how the attention works_] the attention operates in a manner complementary to the general laws of recall. it is an active principle not of association, but of _dissociation_. you choose, for example, a certain aim in life. you decide to become the inventor of an aeroplane of automatic stability. this choice henceforth determines two things. first, it determines just which of the sensory experiences of any given moment are most likely to be selected for your conscious perception. secondly, it determines just which of your past experiences will be most likely to be recalled. such a choice, in other words, determines to some extent the sort of elements that will most probably be selected to make up at any moment the contents of your consciousness. [sidenote: _iron filings and mental magnets_] from the instant that you make such a choice you are on the alert for facts relevant to the subject of your ambition. upon them you concentrate your attention. they are presented to your consciousness with greater precision and clearness than other facts. all facts that pertain to the art of flying henceforth cluster and cling to your conscious memory like iron filings to a magnet. all that are impertinent to this main pursuit are dissociated from these intensely active complexes, and in time fade into subconscious forgetfulness. [sidenote: _the compartment of subconscious forgetfulness_] by subconscious forgetfulness we mean a _compartment_, as it were, of that reservoir in which all past experiences are stored. _consciousness is a momentary thing._ it is a passing state. it is ephemeral and flitting. it is made up _in part of present sense-impressions_ and in part of past experiences. these past experiences are brought forth from subconsciousness. some are voluntarily brought forth. some present themselves without our conscious volition, but by the operation of the laws of association and dissociation. some we seem unable voluntarily to recall, yet they may appear when least we are expecting them. it is these last to which we have referred as lost in subconscious forgetfulness. as a matter of fact, _none_ are ever actually _lost_. [sidenote: _making experience count_] all the wealth of your past experience is still yours--a concrete part of your personality. all that is required to make it available for your present use is a sufficient concentration of your attention, _a concentration of attention that shall dwell persistently and exclusively upon those associations that bear upon the fact desired_. the tendency of the mind toward dissociation, a function limiting the indiscriminate recall of associated "groups," is also manifested in all of us in the transfer to unconsciousness of many _muscular activities_. [sidenote: _how habits are formed_] as infants we learn to walk only by giving to every movement of the limbs the most deliberate conscious attention. yet, in time, the complicated co-operation of muscular movements involved in walking becomes involuntary and unconscious, so that we are no longer even aware of them. it is the same with reading, writing, playing upon musical instruments, the manipulation of all sorts of mechanical devices, the thousand and one other muscular activities that become what we call _habitual_. the moment one tries to make these habitual activities again dependent on the conscious will he encounters difficulties. "the centipede was happy quite, until the toad, for fun, said, 'pray which leg goes after which?' this stirred his mind to such a pitch, he lay distracted in a ditch, considering _how_ to run." _all these habitual activities are started as acts of painstaking care and conscious attention. all ultimately become unconscious._ they may, however, be started or stopped at will. they are, therefore, still related to the conscious mind. they occupy a semi-automatic middle ground between conscious and subconscious activities. the fallacy of most memory systems [illustration: decorative header] chapter vi the fallacy of most memory systems [sidenote: _practice in memorizing inadequate_] it is evident that if what we have been describing as the process of recall is true, then the commonly accepted idea that _practice_ in memorizing makes memorizing _easier_ is false, and that there is no truth in the popular figure of speech that likens the memory to a muscle that grows stronger with use. so far as the memory is concerned, however, practice may result in a more or less unconscious improvement in the _methods_ of memorizing. _by practice we come to unconsciously discover and employ new associative methods in our recording of facts, making them easier to recall, but we can certainly add nothing to the actual scope and power of retention._ [sidenote: _torture of the drill_] yet many books on memory-training have wide circulation whose authors, showing no conception of the processes involved, seek to develop the general ability to remember by incessant practice in memorizing particular facts, just as one would develop a muscle by exercise. the following is quoted from a well-known work of this character: "i am now treating a case of loss of memory in a person advanced in years, who did not know that his memory had failed most remarkably until i told him of it. he is making vigorous efforts to bring it back again, and with partial success. the method pursued is to spend two hours daily, one in the morning and one in the evening, in exercising this faculty. the patient is instructed to give the closest attention to all that he learns, so that it shall be impressed on his mind clearly. he is asked to recall every evening all the facts and experiences of the day, and again the next morning. every name heard is written down and impressed on his mind clearly and an effort made to recall it at intervals. ten names from among public men are ordered to be committed to memory every week. a verse of poetry is to be learned, also a verse from the bible, daily. he is asked to remember the number of the page of any book where any interesting fact is recorded. these and _other_ methods are slowly resuscitating a failing memory." [sidenote: _real cause of failing memory_] as remarked by professor james, "it is hard to believe that the memory of the poor old gentleman is a bit the better for all this torture except in respect to the particular facts thus wrought into it, the occurrences attended to and repeated on those days, the names of those politicians, those bible verses, etc., etc." the error in the book first quoted from lies in the fact that its author looks upon a failing memory as indicating a loss of retentiveness. the _real_ cause is the loss of an intensity of interest. _it is the failure to form sufficiently large groups and complexes of related ideas, emotions and muscular movements associated with the particular fact to be remembered. there is no reason to believe that the retention of sensory experiences is not at all times perfectly mechanical and mechanically perfect._ interest is a mental yearning. it is the offspring of desire and the mother of memory. it goes out spontaneously to anything that can add to the sum of one's knowledge about the thing desired. [sidenote: _the manufactured interest_] a manufactured interest is counterfeit. when a thing is done because it has to be done, desire dies and "duty" is born. in proportion as a subject is associated with "duty," it is divorced from interest. [sidenote: _memory lure of a desire_] if you want to impress anything on another man's mind so that he will remember it, harness it up with the lure of a desire. diffused interest is the cause of all unprofitable forgetfulness. do not allow your attention to grope vaguely among a number of things. whatever you do, make a business of doing it with your whole soul. turn the spotlight of your mind upon it, and you will not forget it. [illustration: testing ability to observe, remember and report things seen private laboratory, society of applied psychology] a scientific memory system for business success [illustration: decorative header] chapter vii a scientific memory system for business success [sidenote: _importance of associates_] we recall things by their associates. _when you set your mind to remember any particular fact, your conscious effort should be not vaguely to will that it shall be impressed and retained, but analytically and deliberately to connect it with one or more other facts already in your mind._ [sidenote: _"cramming" and "willing"_] the student who "crams" for an examination makes no permanent addition to his knowledge. there can be no recall without association, and "cramming" allows no time to form associations. if you find it difficult to remember a fact or a name, do not waste your energies in "willing" it to return. try to recall some other fact or name associated with the first in time or place or otherwise, and lo! when you least expect it, it will pop into your thoughts. if your memory is good in most respects, but poor in a particular line, it is because you do not interest yourself in that line, and therefore have no material for association. blind tom's memory was a blank on most subjects, but he was a walking encyclopedia on music. [sidenote: _basic principle of thought-reproduction_] _to improve your memory you must increase the number and variety of your mental associations._ many ingenious methods, scientifically correct, have been devised to aid in the remembering of particular facts. these methods are based wholly on the principle that _that is most easily recalled which is associated in our minds with the most complex and elaborate groupings of related ideas_. [sidenote: _methods of pick_] thus, pick, in "memory and its doctors," among other devices, presents a well-known "figure-alphabet" as of aid in remembering numbers. each figure of the arabic notation is represented by one or more letters, and the number to be recalled is translated into such letters as can best be arranged into a catch word or phrase. to quote: "the most common figure-alphabet is this: t n m r l sh g f b s d j k v p o ch c g qu z "to briefly show its use, suppose it is desired to fix , feet in a second as the velocity of sound, t, t, r, n, are the letters and order required. fill up with vowels forming a phrase like 'tight run' and connect it by some such flight of the imagination as that if a man tried to keep up with the velocity of sound, he would have a 'tight run.'" [sidenote: _scientific pedagogy_] the same principle is at the basis of all efficient pedagogy. the competent teacher endeavors by some association of ideas to link every new fact with those facts which the pupil already has acquired. in the pursuit of this method the teacher will "compare all that is far off and foreign to something that is near home, making the unknown plain by the example of the known, and connecting all the instruction with the personal experience of the pupil--if the teacher is to explain the distance of the sun from the earth, let him ask, 'if anyone there in the sun fired off a cannon straight at you, what should you do?' 'get out of the way,' would be the answer. 'no need of that,' the teacher might reply; 'you may quietly go to sleep in your room and get up again; you may wait till your confirmation day, you may learn a trade, and grow as old as i am--_then only_ will the cannon-ball be getting near, _then_ you may jump to one side! see, so great as that is the sun's distance!'" we shall now show you how to apply this principle in improving your memory and in making a more complete use of your really vast store of knowledge. rule i. _make systematic use of your sense-organs._ [sidenote: _how to remember names_] do you find it difficult to remember names? it is because you do not link them in your mind with enough associations. every time a man is introduced to you, look about you. who is present? take note of as many and as great a variety of surrounding facts and circumstances as possible. think of the man's name, and take another look at his face, his dress, his physique. think of his name, and at the same time his voice and manner. think of his name, and mark the place where you are now for the first time meeting him. think of his name in conjunction with the name and personality of the friend who presented him. memory is not a distinct faculty of mind in the sense that one man is generously endowed in that respect while another is deficient. memory, as meaning the power of voluntary recall, is wholly a question of trained habits of mental operation. your memory is just as good as mine or any other man's. it is your indifference to what you would call "irrelevant facts" that is at fault. therefore, cultivate habits of observation. fortify the observed facts you wish to recall with a multitude of outside associations. never rest with a mere halfway knowledge of things. [sidenote: _five exercises for developing observation_] to assist you in training yourself in those habits of observation that make a good memory of outside facts, we append the following exercises: _a._ walk slowly through a room with which you are not familiar. then make a list of all the contents of the room you can recall. do this every day for a week, using a different room each time. do it not half-heartedly, but as if your life depended on your ability to remember. at the end of the week you will be surprised at the improvement you have made. _b._ as you walk along the street, observe all that occurs in a space of one block, things heard as well as things seen. two hours later make a list of all you can recall. do this twice a day for ten days. then compare results. _c._ make a practice of recounting each night the incidents of the day. the prospect of having this to do will cause you unconsciously to observe more attentively. this is the method by which thurlow weed acquired his phenomenal memory. as a young man with political ambitions he had been much troubled by his inability to recall names and faces. so he began the practice each night of telling his wife the most minute details of incidents that had occurred during the day. he kept this up for fifty years, and it so trained his powers of observation that he became as well known for his unfailing memory as for his political adroitness. _d._ glance once at an outline map of some state. put it out of sight and draw one as nearly like it as you can. then compare it with the original. do this frequently. [sidenote: _invention and thought-memory_] _e._ have some one read you a sentence out of a book and you then repeat it. do this daily, gradually increasing the length of the quotation from short sentences to whole paragraphs. try to find out what is the extreme limit of your ability in this respect compared with that of other members of your family. rule ii. _fix ideas by their associates._ there are other things to be remembered besides facts of outside observation. you are not one whose life is passed entirely in a physical world. you live also within. your mind is unceasingly at work with the materials of the past painting the pictures of the future. you are called upon to scheme, to plan, to devise, to invent, to compose and to foresee. if all this mental work is not wasted energy, you must be able to recall its conclusions when occasion requires. a happy thought comes to you--will you remember it tomorrow when the hour for action arrives? there is but one way to be sure, and that is by making a study of the whole associative mental process. review the train of ideas by which you reached your conclusion. carry the thought on in mind to its legitimate conclusion. see yourself acting upon it. mark its relations to other persons. note all the details of the mental picture. in other words, to remember thoughts, cultivate thought-observation just as you cultivate sense-observation to remember outside matters. [sidenote: _three exercises for developing thought-memory_] to train yourself in thought-memory, use the following exercises: _a._ every morning at eight o'clock, sharp on the minute, fix upon a certain idea and determine to recall it at a certain hour during the day. put your whole will into this resolution. try to imagine what activities you will be engaged in at the appointed hour, and think of the chosen idea as identified with those activities. associate it in your mind with some object that will be at hand when the set time comes. having thus fixed the idea in your mind, forget it. do not refer to it in your thoughts. with practice you will find yourself automatically carrying out your own orders. persist in this exercise for at least three months. _b._ every night when you retire fix upon the hour at which you wish to get up in the morning. in connection with your waking at that hour, think of all the sounds that will be apt to be occurring at that particular time. bar every other thought from your consciousness and fall asleep with the intense determination to arise at the time set. by all means, get up instantly when you awaken. keep up this exercise and you will soon be able to awaken at any hour you may wish. [sidenote: _how to compel recollection_] _c._ every morning outline the general plan of your activities for the day. select only the important things. do not bother with the details. determine upon the logical order for your day's work. think not so much of _how_ you are to do things as of the _things_ you are to do. keep your mind on results. and having made your plan, stick to it. be your own boss. let nothing tempt you from your set purpose. make this daily planning a habit and hold to it through life. it will give you a great lift toward whatever prize you seek. rule iii. _search systematically and persistently._ when once you have started upon an effort at recollection, persevere. the date or face or event that you wish to recall _is bound up with a multitude of other facts of observation and of your mind life_ of the past. success in recalling it depends simply upon your ability _to hit upon some idea so indissolubly associated with the object of search that the recall of one automatically recalls the other_. consequently the thing to do is to hold your attention to one definite line of thought until you have exhausted its possibilities. you must pass in review all the associated matters and suppress or ignore them until the right one comes to mind. this may be a short-cut process or a roundabout process, but it will bring results nine times out of ten, and if habitually persisted in will greatly improve your power of voluntary recall. [sidenote: _formation of correct memory habits_] rule iv. _the instant you recollect a thing to be done, do it._ every idea that memory thrusts into your consciousness carries with it the impulse to act upon it. if you fail to do so, the matter may not again occur to you, or when it does it may be too late. _your mental mechanism will serve you faithfully only as long as you act upon its suggestions._ [sidenote: _now!_] this is as true of bodily habits as of business affairs. the time to act upon an important matter that just now comes to mind is not "tomorrow" or a "little later," but _now_. what you do from moment to moment tells the story of your career. ideas that come to you should be compared as to their relative importance. but do this honestly. do not be swayed by distracting impulses that inadvertently slip in. and having gauged their importance give free rein at once to the impulse to do everything that should not make way for something more important. [sidenote: _persistence, accuracy, dispatch_] if, for any reason, action must be deferred, fix the matter in your mind to be called up at the proper time. drive all other thoughts from your consciousness. give your whole attention to this one matter. determine the exact moment at which you wish it to be recalled. then put your whole self into the determination to remember it at precisely the right moment. and finally, and perhaps most important of all,-- rule v. _have some sign or token._ this memory signal may be anything you choose, but it must somehow be directly connected with the hour at which the main event is to be recalled. [sidenote: _memory signs and tokens_] make a business of observing the memory signs or tokens you have been habitually using. practice tagging those matters you wish to recall with the labels that form a part of your mental machinery. make it a habit to do things when they ought to be done and in the order in which you ought to do them. habits like this are "paths" along which the mind "moves," paths of least resistance to those qualities of promptness, energy, persistence, accuracy, self-control, and so on, that create success. success in business, success in life, can come only through the formation of right habits. a right habit can be deliberately acquired only by _doing a thing consciously until it comes to be done unconsciously and automatically_. [sidenote: _the mental combination revealed_] every man, consciously or unconsciously, forms his own memory habits, good or bad. form your memory habits consciously according to the laws of the mind, and in good time they will act unconsciously and with masterful precision. "'amid the shadows of the pyramids,' bonaparte said to his soldiers, 'twenty centuries look down upon you,' and animated them to action and victory. but all the centuries," says w.h. grove, "and the eternities, and god, and the universe, look down upon us--and demand the highest culture of body, mind and spirit." a good memory is yours for the making. but _you_ must make it. we can point the way. _you_ must act. the laws of association and recall are the combination that will unlock the treasure-vaults of memory. apply these laws, and the riches of experience will be available to you in every need. * * * * * the purpose of this book has been to make clear certain mental principles and processes, namely, those of retention, association and recall. incidentally, as with every book in this _course_, it contains some facts and instructions of immediate practical utility. but primarily it is intended only to help prepare your mind to understand a scientific system for success-achievement that will be unfolded in subsequent volumes. applied psychology psychology and achievement _being the first of a series of twelve volumes on the applications of psychology to the problems of personal and business efficiency_ by warren hilton, a.b., l.l.b. founder of the society of applied psychology issued under the auspices of the literary digest for the society of applied psychology new york and london by the applied psychology press san francisco prefatory note _lest in the text of these volumes credit may not always have been given where credit is due, grateful acknowledgment is here made to professor hugo münsterberg, professor walter dill scott, dr. james h. hyslop, dr. ernst haeckel, dr. frank channing haddock, mr. frederick w. taylor, professor morton prince, professor f.h. gerrish, mr. waldo pondray warren, dr. j.d. quackenbos, professor c.a. strong, professor paul dubois, professor joseph jastrow, professor pierre janet, dr. bernard hart and professor g.m. whipple, of the indebtedness to them incurred in the preparation of this work._ contents chapter i. attainment of mind control the man of tomorrow the dollars and cents of mental waste the means to notable achievement a process for "making good" inadequacy of body training inadequacy of business specialization futility of advice in business the why and the how fundamental training for efficiency the virus of failure practical formulas for every day your undiscovered resources man's mind machine abjuring mysticisms psychology, physiology and relationships abode and instrument of mind manner of handling mental processes fundamental laws and practical methods special business topics a step beyond collegiate psychology the eternal laws of individual achievement how to master our methods ii. two laws of success-achievement the one-man business corporation business and bodily activity the enslaved brain first step toward self-realization iii. relation of mind activity to bodily activity speculation and practical science philosophic riddles and personal effectiveness what we want to know spiritualist, materialist and scientist science of cause and effect causes and "first" causes a common platform for all thoughts treated as causes scientific method with practical problems uses of scientific laws iv. introspective evidence of mental mastery doing the thing you want to do source of power of will impellent energy of thought bodily effects of mental states illustrative experiments scope of mind power bodily effects of emotion bodily effects of perception experiments of pavlov taste and digestion bodily effects of sensations the fundamental law of expression v. physiological evidence of mental mastery introspective knowledge dissection and the governing consciousness subordinate mental units what the microscope shows the little universe beyond the unit of life characteristics of living cells the brain of the cell mind life of one cell the will of the cell the cell and organic evolution evolutionary differentiations plurality of the individual combined consciousness of the millions evolution of the human organism the crowd-man functions of different human cells cell life after death experiments of dr. alexis carrell man-federation of intelligences creative power of the cell laying the foundation for practical doing three new propositions an instrument for mental dominance gateways of experience couriers of action nerve systems organs of consciousness and subconsciousness looking inside the skull drunkenness and brain efficiency secondary brains dependence of the subconscious unconsciousness and subconsciousness synthesis of the man-machine subserviency of the body vi. the supremacy of consciousness striking off the mental shackles the awakening of enlightenment the vital purpose your reservoir of latent power attainment of mind control chapter i attainment of mind control [sidenote: the man of tomorrow] the men of the nineteenth century have harnessed the forces of the outer world. the age is now at hand that shall harness the energies of mind, new-found in the psychological laboratory, and shall put them at the service of humanity. are you fully equipped to take a valiant part in the work of the coming years? [sidenote: the dollars and cents of mental waste] the greatest of all eras is at hand! are you increasing your fitness to appreciate it and take part in it, or are you merely passing your time away? take careful note for a week of the incidents of your daily life--your methods of work, habits of thought, modes of recreation. you will discover an appalling waste in your present random methods of operation. how many foot-pounds of energy do you suppose you annually dump into the scrap-heap of wasted effort? what does this mean to you in dollars and cents? in conscious usefulness? in peace and happiness? [sidenote: the means to notable achievement] individual mental efficiency is an absolute prerequisite to any notable personal achievement or any great individual success. your mental energies are the forces with which you must wage your battles in this world. are you prepared to direct and deploy _achievement__ these forces with masterful control and strategic skill? are you prepared to use all your reserves of mental energy in the crises of your career? a mighty and intelligent power resides within you. its marvelous resources are just now coming to be recognized. recent scientific research has revealed, beyond the world of the senses and beyond the domain of consciousness, a wide and hitherto hidden realm of human energies and resources. [sidenote: a process for "making good"] these are mental energies and resources. they are phases of the mind, not of the "mind" of fifty years ago, but of a "mind" of whose operations you are unconscious and whose marvelous breadth and depth and power have but recently been revealed to the world by scientific experiment. in this _basic course of reading_ we shall lay before you in simple and clear-cut but scientific form the proof that you have at your command mental powers of which you have never before dreamed. and we shall give you such specific directions for the use of these new-found powers, that whatever your environment, whatever your business, whatever your ambition, _you need but follow our plain and simple instructions in order to do the thing you want to do, to be the man you want to be, or to get the thing you want to have._ [sidenote: inadequacy of body training] if you have any thought that the control of your hidden mental energies is to be acquired by mere hygienic measures, put it from you. the idea that you may come into the fulness of your powers through mere wholesome living, outdoor sports and bodily exercise is an idea that belongs to an age that is past. good health is not necessary to achievement. it is not even a positive influence for achievement. it is merely a negative blessing. with good health you may hope to reach your highest mental and spiritual development free from the harassment of soul-racking pain. but without good health men have reached the summit of parnassus and have dragged their tortured bodies up behind them. [sidenote: inadequacy of business specialization] nor does success necessarily follow or require long preparation in a particular field. the first occupation of the successful man is rarely the one in which he achieves his ultimate triumph. in the changing conditions of our day, one needs a better weapon than the mere knowledge of a particular trade, vocation or profession. _he needs that mastery of himself and others that is the fundamental secret of success in all fields of endeavor_. [sidenote: futility of advice in business] it is well to tell you beforehand that in this _basic course of reading_ we shall be content with no mere cataloguing of the factors that are commonly regarded as essential to success. we shall do no moralizing. you will find here no elaboration of the ancient aphorisms, "honesty is the best policy," and "genius is the infinite capacity for taking pains." the world has had its fill of mere exhortations to industry, frugality and perseverance. for some thousands of years men have preached to the lazy man, "be industrious," and to the timid man, "be bold." but such phrases never have solved and never can solve the problem for the man who feels himself lacking in both industry and courage. [sidenote: the why and the how] it is easy enough to tell the salesman that he must approach his "prospect" with tact and confidence. but tact and confidence are not qualities that can be assumed and discarded like a sunday coat. industry and courage and tact and confidence are well enough, but we must know the why and the how of these things. it is well enough to preach that the secret of achievement is to be found in "courage-faith" and "courage-confidence," and that the way to acquire these qualities is to assume that you have them. there is no denying the undoubted fact that men and women have been rescued from the deepest mire of poverty and despair and lifted to planes of happy abundance by what is known as "faith." but what is "faith"? and "faith" in what? and why? and how? [sidenote: fundamental training for efficiency] obviously we cannot achieve certain and definite results in this or any other field so long as we continue to deal with materials we do not understand. yet that is what all men are doing today. the elements of truth are befogged in vague and amateurish mysticism, and the subject of individual efficiency when we get beyond mere preaching and moralizing is a chaos of isms. the time is ripe for a real analysis of these important problems,--a serious and scientific analysis with a clear and practical exposition of facts and principles and rules for conduct. men and women must be fundamentally trained so that they can look deep into their own minds and see where the screw is loose, where oil is needed, and so readjust themselves and their living for a greater efficiency. [sidenote: the virus of failure] the embittered, the superstitious, the prejudiced, all those who scorpion-like sting themselves with the virus of failure, must be given an antidote of understanding that will repair their deranged mental machinery. the conscientious but foolish business man who is worrying himself into failure and an early grave must be taught the physiological effects of ideas and given a new standard of values. the profligate must be lured from his emotional excesses and debaucheries, not by moralizings, but by showing him just how these things fritter his energies and retard his progress. [sidenote: practical formulas for every day] it must be made plain to the successful promoter, to the rich banker, how a man may be a financial success and yet a miserable failure so far as true happiness is concerned, and how by scientific self-development he can acquire greater riches within than all his vaults of steel will hold. this _basic course of reading_ offers just such an analysis and exposition of fundamental principles. it furnishes definite and scientific answers to the problems of life. it will reveal to you unused or unintelligently used mental forces vastly greater than those now at your command. [sidenote: your undiscovered resources] we go even further, and say that this _basic course of reading_ provides a practicable formula for the everyday use of these vast resources. it will enable you to acquire the magical qualities and still more magical effects that spell success and happiness, without straining your will to the breaking point and making life a burden. it will give you a definite prescription like the physician's, "take one before meals," and as easily compounded, which will enable you to be prosperous and happy. in the development of one's innate resources, such as powers of observation, imagination, correct judgment, alertness, resourcefulness, application, concentration, and the faculty of taking prompt advantage of opportunities, the study of the mental machine is bound to be the first step. it must be the ultimate resource for self-training in efficiency for the promoter with his appeal to the cupidity and imaginations of men as surely as for the artist in his search for poetic inspiration. [sidenote: man's mind machine] no man can get the best results from any machine unless he understands its mechanism. we shall draw aside the curtain and show you the mind in operation. 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. from a study of the bodily machine, we shall advance to a consideration of the mental processes themselves, not after the usual manner of works on psychology, but solely from the standpoint of practical utility and for the establishment of a scientific concept of the mind capable of everyday use. [sidenote: fundamental laws and practical methods] the elucidation of every principle of mental operation will be accompanied by illustrative material pointing out just how that particular law may be employed for the attainment of specific practical ends. there will be numerous illustrative instances and methods that can be at once made use of by the merchant, the musician, the salesman, the advertiser, the employer of labor, the business executive. [sidenote: special business topics] in this way this _basic course of reading_ will lay a firm and broad foundation, first, for an understanding of the methods and devices whereby any man may acquire full control and direction of his mental energies and may develop his resources to the last degree; second, for an understanding of the psychological methods for success in any specific professional pursuit in which he may be particularly interested; and third, for an understanding of the methods of applying psychological knowledge to the industrial problems of office, store and factory. the first of these--that is to say, instruction in methods for the attainment of any goal consistent with native ability--will follow right along as part of this _basic course of reading._ the second and third--that is to say, the study of special commercial and industrial topics--are made the subject of special courses supplemental to this _basic course_ and for which it can serve only as an introduction. [sidenote: a step beyond collegiate psychology] in this _basic course of reading_ we shall show you how you may acquire perfect individual efficiency. and, most remarkable of all, we shall show you how you may acquire it _without that effort to obtain it, that straining of the will, that struggling with wasteful inclinations and desires, that is itself the essence of inefficiency_. the facts and principles set forth in this _basic course_ are new and wonderful and inspiring. they have been established and attested by world-wide and exhaustive scientific research and experiment. [sidenote: the eternal laws of individual achievement] you may be a college graduate. you may have had the advantage of a college course in psychology. but you have probably had no instruction in the practical application of your knowledge of mental operations. so far as we are aware, there are few universities in the world that embrace in their curricula a course in "applied" psychology. for the average college man this _basic course of reading_ will be, therefore, in the nature of a post-graduate course, teaching him how to make practical use of the psychology he learned at college, and in addition giving him facts about the mind unknown to the college psychology of a few years ago. in these books you will probe deeply into the normal human mind. you will see also the fantastic and distorted shape of its manifestations in disease. you will learn the eternal laws of individual achievement. [sidenote: how to master our methods] and you will be taught how to apply them to your own business or profession. but mark this word of warning. to comprehend the teachings of this _basic course_ well enough to put them into practice demands from you careful study and reflection. it requires persistent application. do not attempt to browse through the pages that follow. they are worth all the time that you can put upon them. the mind is a complex mechanism. each element is alone a fitting subject for a lifetime's study. do not lose sight of the whole in the study of the parts. all the books bear upon a central theme. they will lead you on step by step. gradually your conception of your relations to the world will change. a new realization of power will come upon you. you will learn that you are in a new sense the master of your fate. you will find these books, like the petals of a flower, unfolding one by one until a great and vital truth stands revealed in full-blown beauty. to derive full benefit from the _course_ it is necessary that you should do more than merely understand each sentence as you go along. you must grasp the underlying train of thought. you must perceive the continuity of the argument. it is necessary, therefore, that you do but a limited amount of reading each day, taking ample time to reflect on what you have read. if any book is not entirely clear to you at first, go over it again. persistence will enable any man to acquire a thorough comprehension of our teachings and a profound mastery of our methods. two laws of success-achievement chapter ii two laws of success-achievement [sidenote: the one-man business corporation] as a working unit you are a kind of one-man business corporation made up of two departments, the mental and the physical. your mind is the executive office of this personal corporation, its directing "head." your body is the corporation's "plant." eyes and ears, sight and smell and touch, hands and feet--these are the implements, the equipment. we have undertaken to teach you how to acquire a perfect mastery of your own powers and meet the practical problems of your life in such a way that success will be swift and certain. [sidenote: business and bodily activity] first of all it is necessary that you should accept and believe two well-settled and fundamental laws. i. _all human achievement comes about through bodily activity._ ii. _all bodily activity is caused, controlled and directed by the mind._ give the first of these propositions but a moment's thought. you can conceive of no form of accomplishment which is not the result of some kind of bodily activity. one would say that the master works of poetry, art, philosophy, religion, are products of human effort furthest removed from the material side of life, yet even these would have perished still-born in the minds conceiving them had they not found transmission and expression through some form of bodily activity. you will agree, therefore, that the first of these propositions is so self-evident, so axiomatic, as neither to require nor to admit of formal proof. the second proposition is not so easily disposed of. it is in fact so difficult of acceptance by some persons that we must make very plain its absolute validity. furthermore, its elucidation will bring forth many illuminating facts that will give you an entirely new conception of the mind and its scope and influence. [sidenote: the enslaved brain] remember, when we say "mind," we are not thinking of the brain. the brain is but one of the organs of the body, and, by the terms of our proposition as stated, is as much the slave of the mind as is any other organ of the body. to say that the mind controls the body presupposes that mind and body are distinct entities, the one belonging to a spiritual world, the other to a world of matter. that the mind is master of the body is a settled principle of science. but we realize that its acceptance may require you to lay aside some preconceived prejudices. you may be one of those who believe that the mind is nothing more nor less than brain activity. you may believe that the body is all there is to man and that mind-action is merely one of its functions. [sidenote: first step toward self-realization] if so, we want you nevertheless to realize that, while as a matter of philosophic speculation you retain these opinions, you may at the same time for practical purposes regard the mind as an independent causal agency and believe that it can and does control and determine and _cause_ any and every kind of bodily activity. we want you to do this because this conclusion is at the basis of a practical system of mental efficiency and because, as we shall at once show you, it is capable of proof by the established methods of physical science. relation of mind activity to bodily activity chapter iii relation of mind activity to bodily activity point of view from which you must approach this problem [sidenote: speculation and practical science] the fact is, one's opinion as to whether mind controls body or body makes mind-action depends altogether upon the point of view. and the first step for us to take is to agree upon the point of view we shall assume. two points of view are possible. one is _speculative_, the other _practical_. [sidenote: philosophic riddles and personal effectiveness] the _speculative point of view_ is that of the philosopher and religionist, who ponder the tie that binds "soul" and body in an effort to solve the riddle of "creation" and pierce the mystery of the "hereafter." the _practical point of view_ is that of the modern practical scientist, who deals only with actual facts of human experience and seeks only immediate practical results. the speculative problem is the historical and religious one of the mortality or immortality of the soul. the practical problem is the scientific one that demands to know what the mental forces are and how they can be used most effectively. [sidenote: what we want to know] there is no especial need here to trace the historical development of these two problems or enter upon a discussion of religious or philosophical questions. our immediate interest in the mind and its relationship to the body is not because we want to be assured of the salvation of our souls after death. _we want to know all we can about the reality and certainty and character of mental control of bodily functions because of the practical use we can make of such knowledge in this life, here and now._ [sidenote: spiritualist, materialist and scientist] the practical scientist has nothing in common with either spiritualists, soul-believers, on the one hand, or materialists on the other. so far as the mortality of the soul is concerned, he may be either a spiritualist or a materialist but spiritualism or materialism is to him only an intellectual pastime. it is not his trade. in his actual work he seeks only practical results, and so confines himself wholly to the actual facts of human experience. the practical scientist knows that as between two given facts, and _only_ as between these two, one may be the "cause" of the other. but he is not interested in the "creative origin" of material things. he does not attempt to discover "first" causes. [sidenote: science of cause and effect] the practical scientist ascribes all sorts of qualities to electricity and lays down many laws concerning it without having the remotest idea as to what, in the last analysis, electricity may actually be. he is not concerned with ultimate truths. he does his work, and necessarily so, upon the principle that for all practical purposes he is justified in using any given assumption as a working hypothesis if everything happens just as if it were true. the practical scientist applies the term "cause" to any object or event that is the invariable predecessor of some other object or event. for him a "cause" is simply any object or event that may be looked upon as forecasting the action of some other object or the occurrence of some other event. the point with him is simply this, does or does not this object or this event in any way affect that object or that event or determine its behavior? [sidenote: causes and "first" causes] no matter where you look you will find that every fact in nature is relatively cause and effect according to the point of view. thus, if a railroad engine backs into a train of cars it transmits a certain amount of motion to the first car. this imparted motion is again passed on to the next car, and so on. the motion of the first car is, on the one hand, the effect of the impact of the engine, and is, on the other hand, the "cause" of the motion of the second car. and, in general, what is an "effect" in the first car becomes a "cause" when looked at in relation to the second, and what is an "effect" in the second becomes a "cause" in relation to the third. so that even the materialist will agree that "cause" and "effect" are relative terms in dealing with any series of facts in nature. [sidenote: a common platform for all] a man may be either a spiritualist, believing that the mind is a manifestation of the super-soul, or he may be a materialist, and in either case he may at the same time and with perfect consistency believe, as a practical scientist, that the mind is a "cause" and has bodily action as its "effect." naturally this point of view offers no difficulties whatever to the spiritualist. he already looks upon the mind or soul as the "originating cause" of everything. [sidenote: thoughts treated as causes] but the materialist, too, may in accordance with his speculative theory continue to insist that _brain-action_ is the "originating cause" of mental life; yet if the facts show that certain thoughts are invariably followed by certain bodily activities, the materialist may without violence to his theories agree to the great practical value of _treating these thoughts as immediate causes_, no matter what the history of creation may have been. whatever the brand of your materialism or your religious belief, you can join us in accepting this practical-science point of view as a common platform upon which to approach our second fundamental proposition, that "all bodily activity is caused, controlled and directed by the mind." [sidenote: scientific method with practical problems] ignoring all religious and metaphysical questions, we have, then, to ask ourselves merely: _can the mind be relied upon to bring about or stop or in any manner influence bodily action? and if it can, what is the extent of the mind's influence?_ in answering these questions we shall follow the method of the practical scientist, whose method is invariably the same whatever the problem he is investigating. this method involves two steps: first, the collection and classification of facts; second, the deduction from those facts of general principles. [sidenote: uses of scientific laws] the scientist first gathers together the greatest possible array of experiential facts and classifies these facts into sequences--that is to say, he gathers together as many instances as he can find in which one given fact follows directly upon the happening of another given fact. having done this, he next formulates in broad general terms the common principle that he finds embodied in these many similar sequences. such a formula, if there are facts enough to establish it, is what is known as a scientific law. its value to the world lies in this, that whenever the given fact shall again occur our knowledge of the scientific law will enable us to predict with certainty just what events will follow the occurrence of that fact. first, then, let us marshal our facts tending to prove that bodily activities are caused by the mind. introspective evidence of mental mastery chapter iv introspective evidence of mental mastery [sidenote: doing the thing you want to do] the first and most conspicuous evidential fact is voluntary bodily action; that is to say, bodily action resulting from the exercise of the conscious will. [sidenote: source of power of will] if you will a bodily movement and that movement immediately follows, you are certainly justified in concluding that your mind has caused the bodily movement. every conscious, voluntary movement that you make, and you are making thousands of them every hour, is a distinct example of mind activity causing bodily action. in fact, the very will to make any bodily movement is itself nothing more nor less than a mental state. _the will to do a thing is simply the belief, the conviction, that the appropriate bodily movement is about to occur._ the whole scientific world is agreed on this. for example, in order to bend your forefinger do you first think it over, then deliberately put forth some special form of energy? not at all: the very thought of bending the finger, if unhindered by conflicting ideas, is enough to bend it. [sidenote: impellent energy of thought] note this general law: _the idea of any bodily action tends to produce the action._ this conception of thought as impellent--that is to say, as impelling bodily activity--is of absolutely fundamental importance. the following simple experiments will illustrate its working. ask a number of persons to think successively of the letters "b," "o," and "q." they are not to pronounce the letters, but simply to think hard about the sound of each letter. [sidenote: bodily effects of mental states] now, as they think of these letters, one after the other, watch closely and you will see their lips move in readiness to pronounce them. there may be some whose lip-movements you will be unable to detect. if so, it will be because your eye is not quick enough or keen enough to follow them in every case. have a friend blindfold you and then stand behind you with his hands on your shoulders. while in this position ask him to concentrate his mind upon some object in another part of the house. yield yourself to the slightest pressure of his hands or arms and you will soon come to the object of which he has been thinking. if he is unfamiliar with the impelling energy of thought, he will charge the result to mind-reading. [sidenote: illustrative experiments] the same law is illustrated by a familiar catch. ask a friend to define the word "spiral." he will find it difficult to express the meaning in words. and nine persons out of ten while groping for appropriate words will unconsciously describe a spiral in the air with the forefinger. swing a locket in front of you, holding the end of the chain with both hands. you will soon see that it will swing in harmony with your thoughts. if you think of a circle, it will swing around in a circle. if you think of the movement of a pendulum, the locket will swing back and forth. these experiments not only illustrate the impelling energy of thought and its power to induce bodily action, but they indicate also that the bodily effects of mental action are not limited to bodily movements that are conscious and voluntary. [sidenote: scope of mind power] _the fact is, every mental state whether you consider it as involving an act of the will or not, is followed some kind of bodily effect, and every bodily action is preceded by some distinct kind of mental activity. from the practical science point of view every thought causes its particular bodily effects._ this is true of simple sensations. it is true of impulses, ideas and emotions. it is true of pleasures and pains. it is true of conscious mental activity. it is true of unconscious mental activity. it is true of the whole range of mental life. since the mental conditions that produce bodily effects are not limited to those mental conditions in which there is a conscious exercise of the will, it follows that _the bodily effects produced by mental action are not limited to movements of what are known as the voluntary muscles._ on the contrary, they include changes and movements in all of the so-called involuntary muscles, and in every kind of bodily structure. they include changes and movements in every part of the physical organism, from changes in the action of heart, lungs, stomach, liver and other viscera, to changes in the secretions of glands and in the caliber of the tiniest blood-vessels. a few instances such as are familiar to the introspective experience of everyone will illustrate the scope of the mind's control over the body. [sidenote: bodily effects of emotion] emotion always causes numerous and intense bodily effects. furious anger may cause frowning brows, grinding teeth, contracted jaws, clenched fists, panting breath, growling cries, bright redness of the face or sudden paleness. none of these effects is voluntary; we may not even be conscious of them. fright may produce a wild beating of the heart, a death-like pallor, a gasping motion of the lips, an uncovering or protruding of the eye-balls, a sudden rigidity of the body as if "rooted" to the spot. grief may cause profuse secretion of tears, swollen, reddened face, red eyes and other familiar symptoms. shame may cause that sudden dilation of the capillary blood-vessels of the face known as "blushing." [sidenote: bodily effects of perception] the sight of others laughing or yawning makes us laugh or yawn. the sound of one man coughing will become epidemic in an audience. the thought of a sizzling porter-house steak with mushrooms, baked potatoes and rich _gravy_ makes the mouth of a hungry man "water." suppose i show you a lemon cut in half and tell you with a wry face and puckered mouth that i am going to suck the juice of this exceedingly sour lemon. as you merely read these lines you may observe that the glands in your mouth have begun to secrete saliva. there is a story of a man who wagered with a friend that he could stop a band that was playing in front of his office. he got three lemons and gave half of a lemon to each of a number of street urchins. he then had these boys walk round and round the band, sucking the lemons and making puckered faces at the musicians. that soon ended the music. [sidenote: experiments of pavlov] a distinguished german scientist, named pavlov, has recently demonstrated in a series of experiments with dogs that the sight of the plate that ordinarily bears their food, or the sight of the chair upon which the plate ordinarily stands, or even the sight of the person who commonly brings the plate, may cause the saliva to flow from their salivary glands just as effectively as the food itself would do if placed in their mouths. [sidenote: taste and digestion] there was a time, and that not long ago, when the contact of food with the lining of the stomach was supposed to be the immediate cause of the secretion of the digestive fluids. yet recent observation of the interior of the stomach through an incision in the body, has shown that just as soon as the food is _tasted_ in the mouth, a purely mental process, the stomach begins to well forth those fluids that are suitable for digestion. [sidenote: bodily effects of sensations] the press recently contained an account of a motorcycle race in newark, new jersey. the scene was a great bowl-shaped motor-drome. in the midst of cheering thousands, when riding at the blinding speed of ninety-two miles an hour, the motorcycle of one of the contestants went wrong. it climbed the twenty-eight-foot incline, hurled its rider to instant death and crashed into the packed grandstand. before the whirling mass of steel was halted by a deep-set iron pillar four men lay dead and twenty-two others unconscious and severely injured. then the twisted engine of death rebounded from the post and rolled down the saucer-rim of the track. around the circular path, his speed scarcely less than that of his ill-fated rival, knowing nothing of the tragedy, hearing nothing of the screams of warning from the crowd, came another racer. the frightened throng saw the coming of a second tragedy. the sound that came from the crowd was a low moaning, a sighing, impotent, unconscious prayer of the thousands for the mercy that could not come. the second motorcycle struck the wreck, leaped into the air, and the body of its rider shot fifty feet over the handlebars and fell at the bottom of the track unconscious. two hours later he was dead. what was the effect of this dreadful spectacle upon the onlookers? confusion, cries of fright and panic, while throughout the grandstand women fainted and lay here and there unconscious. many were afflicted with nausea. with others the muscles of speech contracted convulsively, knees gave way, hearts "stopped beating." observe that these were wholly the effects of _mental_ action, effects of _sight_ and _sound sensations_. [sidenote: the fundamental law of expression] why multiply instances? all that you need to do to be satisfied that the mind is directly responsible for any and every kind of bodily activity is to examine your own experiences and those of your friends. they will afford you innumerable illustrations. you will find that not only is your body constantly doing things because your mind wills that it should do them, but that your body is incessantly doing things simply because they are the expression of a passing thought. the law that _every idea tends to express itself in some form of bodily activity_, is one of the most obviously demonstrable principles of human life. bear in mind that this is but another way of expressing the second of our first two fundamental principles of mental efficiency, and that we are engaged in a scientific demonstration of its truth so that you will not confuse it with mere theory or speculation. to recall these fundamental principles to your mind and further impress them upon you, we will restate them: i. _all human achievement comes about through some form of bodily activity_. ii. _all bodily activity is caused, controlled and directed by the mind._ physiological evidence of mental mastery chapter v physiological evidence of mental mastery [sidenote: introspective knowledge] we have been considering the relationship between mind and body from the standpoint of the mind. our investigation has been largely introspective; that is to say, we simply looked within ourselves and considered the effects of our mental operations upon our own bodies. the facts we had before us were facts of which we had direct knowledge. we did not have to go out and seek them in the mental and bodily activities of other persons. we found them here within ourselves, inherent in our consciousness. to observe them we had merely to turn the spotlight into the hidden channels of our own minds. [sidenote: dissection and the governing consciousness] we come now to examine the mind's influence upon the body from the standpoint of the body. to do this we must go forth and investigate. we must use eye, ear and hand. we must use the forceps and scalpel and microscope of the anatomist and physiologist. [sidenote: subordinate mental units] _but it is well worth while that we should do this. for our investigation will show a bodily structure peculiarly adapted to control by a governing consciousness. it will reveal to the eye a physical mechanism peculiarly fitted for the dissemination of intelligence throughout the body. and, most of all, it will disclose the existence within the body of subordinate mental units, each capable of receiving, understanding and acting upon the intelligence thus submitted. and we shall have strongly corroborative evidence of the mind's complete control over every function of the body._ examine a green plant and you will observe that it is composed of numerous parts, each of which has some special function to perform. the roots absorb food and drink from the soil. the leaves breathe in carbonic acid from the air and transform it into the living substance of the plant. every plant has, therefore, an anatomical structure, its parts and tissues visible to the naked eye. [sidenote: what the microscope shows] put one of these tissues under a microscope and you will find that it consists of a _honeycomb of small compartments or units_. these compartments are called "cells," and the structure of all plant tissues is described as "cellular." wherever you may look in any plant, you will find these cells making up its tissues. the activity of any part or tissue of the plant, and consequently all of the activities of the plant as a whole, are but the combined and co-operating activities of the various individual cells of which the tissues are composed. _the living cell, therefore, is at the basis of all plant life._ [sidenote: the little universe beyond] in the same way, if you turn to the structure of any animal, you will find that it is composed of parts or organs made up of different kinds of tissues, and these tissues examined under a microscope will disclose a cellular structure similar to that exhibited by the plant. _look where you will among living things, plant or animal, you will find that all are mere assemblages of cellular tissues._ extend your investigation further, and examine into forms of life so minute that they can be seen only with the most powerful microscope and you will come upon a _whole universe of tiny creatures consisting of a single cell_. [sidenote: the unit of life] indeed, it is a demonstrable fact that these tiny units of life consisting of but a single cell are far more numerous than the forms of life visible to the naked eye. you will have some idea of their size and number when we tell you that millions may live and die and reproduce their kind in a single thimbleful of earth. _every plant, then, or every animal, whatever its species, however simple or complicated its structure, is in the last analysis either a single cell or a confederated group of cells._ all life, whether it be the life of a single cell or of an unorganized group of cells or of a republic of cells, has as its basis the life of the cell. for all the animate world, two great principles stand established. first, that _every living organism_, plant or animal, big or little, develops from a cell, and is itself a composite of cells, and that the cell is the unit of all life. secondly, that _the big and complex organisms have through long ages developed out of simpler forms_, the organic life of today being the result of an age-long process of evolution. what, then, is the cell, and what part has it played in this process of evolution? to begin with, a cell is visible only through a microscope. a human blood cell is about one-three-thousandth of an inch across, while a bacterial cell may be no more than one-twenty-five-thousandth of an inch in diameter. [sidenote: characteristics of living cells] yet, small as it is, the cell exhibits all of the customary phenomena of independent life; that is to say, it nourishes itself, it grows, it reproduces its kind, it moves about, and _it feels_. it is a _living, breathing, feeling, moving, feeding thing_. the term "cell" suggests a walled-in enclosure. this is because it was originally supposed that a confining wall or membrane was an invariable and essential characteristic of cell structure. it is now known, however, that while such a membrane may exist, as it does in most plant cells, it may be lacking, as is the case in most animal cells. the only absolutely essential parts of the cell are the inner _nucleus_ or kernel and the tiny mass of living jelly surrounding it, called the _protoplasm_. [sidenote: the brain of the cell] the most powerful microscopes disclose in this protoplasm a certain definite structure, a very fine, thread-like network spreading from the nucleus throughout the semi-fluid albuminous protoplasm. it is certainly in line with the broad analogies of life, to suppose that in each cell the nucleus with its network is the brain and nervous system of that individual cell._ all living organisms consist, then simply of cells. those consisting of but one cell are termed unicellular; those comprising more than one cell are called pluricellular. the unicellular organism is the unit of life on this earth. yet tiny and ultimate as it is, every unicellular organism is possessed of an independent and "free living" existence. [sidenote: mind life of one cell] to be convinced of this fact, just consider for a moment the scope of development and range of activities of one of these tiny bodies. "we see, then," says haeckel, "that it performs all the essential life functions which the entire organism accomplishes. every one of these little beings grows and feeds itself independently. it assimilates juices from without, absorbing them from the surrounding fluid. each separate cell is also able to reproduce itself and to increase. this increase generally takes place by simple division, the nucleus parting first, by a contraction round its circumference, into two parts; after which the protoplasm likewise separates into two divisions. the single cell is able to move and creep about; from its outer surface it sends out and draws back again finger-like processes, thereby modifying its form. finally, the young cell has feeling, and is more or less sensitive. it performs certain movements on the application of chemical and mechanical irritants." [sidenote: the will of the cell] the single living cell moves about in search of food. when food is found it is enveloped in the mass of protoplasm, digested and assimilated. the single cell has the _power of choice_, for it refuses to eat what is unwholesome and extends itself mightily to reach that which is nourishing. [sidenote: the cell and organic evolution] moebius and gates are convinced that the single cell possesses _memory_, for having once encountered anything dangerous, it knows enough to avoid it when presented under similar circumstances. and having once found food in a certain place, it will afterwards make a business of looking for it in the same place. and, finally, verwörn and binet have found in a single living cell manifestations of _the emotions of surprise and fear_ and the rudiments of _an ability to adapt means to an end_. let us now consider pluricellular organisms and consider them particularly from the standpoint of organic evolution. the pluricellular organism is nothing more nor less than a later development, a confederated association of unicellular organisms. mark the development of such an association. [sidenote: evolutionary differentiation] originally each separate cell performed all the functions of a separate life. the bonds that united it to its fellows were of the most transient character. gradually the necessities of environment led to a more and more permanent grouping, until at last the bonds of union became indissoluble. meanwhile, the great laws of "adaptation" and "heredity," the basic principles of evolution, have been steadily at work, and slowly there has come about a differentiation of cell function, an apportionment among the different cells of the different kinds of labor. [sidenote: plurality of the individual] as the result of such differentiation, the pluricellular organism, as it comes ultimately to be evolved, is composed of many different kinds of cells. each has its special function. each has its field of labor. each lives its own individual life. each reproduces its own kind. yet all are bound together as elements of the same "cell society" or organized "cell state." among pluricellular organisms man is of course supreme. he is the one form of animal life that is most highly differentiated. [sidenote: combined consciousness of the millions] knowing what you now know of microscopic anatomy, you cannot hold to the simple idea that the human body is a single life-unit. this is the naïve belief that is everywhere current among men today. inquire among your own friends and acquaintances and you will find that not one in a thousand realizes that he is, to put it jocularly, singularly plural, that he is in fact an assemblage of individuals. [illustration: microscopic studies in human anatomy, private laboratory, society of applied psychology] not only is the living human body as a whole alive, but "every part of it as large as a pin-point is alive, with a separate and independent life all its own; every part of the brain, lungs, heart, muscles, fat and skin." no man ever has or ever can count the number of these parts or cells, some of which are so minute that it would take thousands in a row to reach an inch. "feeling" or "consciousness" is the sum total of the feelings and consciousness of millions of cells, just as an orchestral harmony is a composite of the sounds of all the individual instruments. [sidenote: evolution of the human organism] in the ancient dawn of evolution, all the cells of the human body were of the same kind. but nature is everywhere working out problems of economy and efficiency. and, to meet the necessities of environment, there has gradually come about a parceling out among the different cells of the various tasks that all had been previously called upon to perform for the support of the human institution. this differentiation in kinds of work has gradually brought about corresponding and appropriate changes of structure in the cells themselves, whereby each has become better fitted to perform its part in the sustenance and growth of the body. [sidenote: the crowd-man] when you come to think that these processes of adaptation and heredity in the human body have been going on for _countless millions of years_, you can readily understand how it is that the human body of today is made up of more than thirty different kinds of cells, each having its special function. [sidenote: functions of different human cells] we have muscle cells, with long, thin bodies like pea-pods, who devote their lives to the business of contraction; thin, hair-like connective tissue cells, whose office is to form a tough tissue for binding the parts of the body together; bone cells, a trades-union of masons, whose life work it is to select and assimilate salts of lime for the upkeep of the joints and framework; hair, skin, and nail cells, in various shapes and sizes, all devoting themselves to the protection and ornamentation of the body; gland cells, who give their lives, a force of trained chemists, to the abstraction from the blood of those substances that are needed for digestion; blood cells, crowding their way through the arteries, some making regular deliveries of provisions to the other tenants, some soldierly fellows patrolling their beats to repel invading disease germs, some serving as humble scavengers; liver cells engaged in the menial service of living off the waste of other organs and at the same time converting it into such fluids as are required for digestion; windpipe and lung cells, whose heads are covered with stiff hairs, which the cell throughout its life waves incessantly to and fro; and, lastly, and most important and of greatest interest to us, brain and nerve cells, the brain cells constituting altogether the organ of objective intelligence, the instrument through which we are conscious of the external world, and the nerve cells serving as a living telegraph to relay information, from one part of the body to another, with the "swiftness of thought." says one writer, referring to the cells of the inner or true skin: "as we look at them arranged there like a row of bricks, let us remember two things: first, that this row is actually in our skin at this moment; and, secondly, that each cell is a living being--it is born, grows, lives, breathes, eats, works, decays and dies. a gay time of it these youngsters have on the very banks of a stream that is bringing down to them every minute stores of fresh air in the round, red corpuscles of the blood, and a constant stream of suitable food in the serum. but it is not all pleasure, for every one of them is hard at work." [sidenote: cell life after death] and again, speaking of the cells that line the air-tubes, he says: "the whole interior, then, of the air-tubes resembles nothing so much as a field of corn swayed by the wind to and fro, the principal sweep, however, being always upwards towards the throat. all particles of dust and dirt inhaled drop on this waving forest of hairs, and are gently passed up and from one to another out of the lungs. when we remember that these hairs commenced waving at our birth, and have never for one second ceased since, and will continue to wave a short time after our death, we are once more filled with wonder at the marvels that surround us on every side." [sidenote: experiments of dr. alexis carrel] remarkable confirmatory evidence of the fact that every organ of the body is composed of individual cell intelligences, endowed with an instinctive knowledge of how to perform their special functions, is found in the experiments of dr. alexis carrel, the recipient of the nobel prize for science for . _dr. carrel has taken hearts, stomachs and kidneys out of living animals, and by artificial nourishment has succeeded in keeping them steadily at work digesting foods, and so on, in his laboratory, for months after the death of the bodies from which they were originally taken._ [sidenote: man-federation of intelligences] we see, then, that every human body is an exceedingly complex association of units. it is a marvelously correlated and organized community of countless microscopic organisms. it is a sort of _cell republic_, as to which we may truthfully paraphrase: life and union, one and inseparable. every human body is thus made up of countless cellular intelligences, each of which instinctively utilizes ways and means for the performance of its special functions and the reproduction of its kind. these cell intelligences carry on, without the knowledge or volition of our central consciousness--that is to say, _subconsciously_--the vital operations of the body. [sidenote: creative power of the cell] under normal conditions, conditions of health, each cell does its work without regard to the operations of its neighbors. but in the event of accident or disease, it is called upon to repair the organism. and in this it shows an energy and intelligence that "savor of creative power." with what promptness and vigor the cells apply themselves to heal a cut or mend a broken bone! in such cases all that the physician can do is to establish outward conditions that will favor the co-operative labors of these tiny intelligences. _the conclusion to be drawn from all this is obvious. for, if every individual and ultimate part of the body is a mind organism, it is very apparent that the body as a whole is peculiarly adapted to control and direction by mental influences. [sidenote: laying the foundation for practical doing] do not lose sight of the fact that in proving such control we are laying the foundation for a scientific method of achieving practical success in life, since all human achievement comes about through some form of bodily activity._ we assume now your complete acceptance of the following propositions, based as they are upon facts long since discovered and enunciated in standard scientific works: _a_. the whole body is composed of cells, each of which is an intelligent entity endowed with mental powers commensurate with its needs. [sidenote: three new propositions] _b._ the fact that every cell in the body is a _mind_ cell shows that the body, by the very nature of its component parts, is peculiarly susceptible to mental influence and control. to these propositions we now append the following: _c._ a further examination of the body reveals a central mental organism, the brain, composed of highly differentiated cells whose intelligence, as in the case of other cells, is commensurate with their functions. _d._ it reveals also a physical mechanism, the nervous system, peculiarly adapted to the communication of intelligence between the central governing intelligence and the subordinate cells. [sidenote: an instrument for mental dominance] _e._ the existence of this mind organism and this mechanism of intercommunication is additional evidence of the control and direction of bodily activities by _mental energy_. the facts to follow will not only demonstrate the truth of these propositions, but will disclose the existence within every one of us of a store of mental energies and activities of which we are entirely unconscious. the brain constitutes the organ of central governing intelligence, and the nerves are the physical means employed in bodily intercommunication. brain and nerves are in other words the physical mechanism employed by the mind to dominate the body. [sidenote: gateways of experience] single nerve fibers are fine, thread-like cells. they are so small as to be invisible to the naked eye. some of them are so minute that it would take twenty thousand of them laid side by side to measure an inch. every nerve fiber in the human body forms one of a series of connecting links between some central nerve cell in the brain or spinal cord on the one hand and some bodily tissue on the other. all nerves originating in the brain may be divided into two classes according as they carry currents to the brain or from it. those carrying currents to the brain are called _sensory_ nerves, or nerves of sensation; those carrying currents from the brain are called _motor_ nerves, or nerves of motion. [sidenote: couriers of action] among the sensory nerves are the nerves of consciousness; that is, the nerves whereby we receive sense impressions from the external world. these include the nerves of touch, sight, pain, hearing, temperature, taste and smell. motor nerves are those that carry messages from the brain and spinal cord on the one hand to the muscles on the other. they are the lines along which flash all orders resulting in bodily movements. [sidenote: nerve systems] another broad division of nerves is into two great nerve systems. there are the _cerebro-spinal_ system and the _sympathetic_ system. the first, the cerebro-spinal system, includes all the nerves of _consciousness_ and of _voluntary action_; it includes all nerves running between the brain and spinal cord on the one hand and the voluntary muscles on the other. the second, the sympathetic nerve system, consists of all the nerves of the unconscious or functional life; it therefore includes all nerves running between the brain and sympathetic or involuntary nerve centers on the one hand and the involuntary muscles on the other. every bodily movement or function that you can start or stop at will, even to such seemingly unconscious acts as winking, walking, etc., is controlled through the cerebro-spinal system. all other functions of the body, including the great vital processes, such as heart pulsation and digestion, are performed unconsciously, are beyond the direct control of the will, and are governed through the sympathetic nerve system. [sidenote: organs of consciousness and subconsciousness] it is obvious that the cerebro-spinal nerve system is the organ of consciousness, the apparatus through which the mind exercises its conscious and voluntary control over certain functions of the body. it is equally obvious that the _sympathetic system is not under the immediate control of consciousness, is not subject to the will, but is dominated by mental influences that act without, or even contrary to, our conscious will and sometimes without our knowledge._ yet you are not to understand that these two great nerve systems are entirely distinct in their operations. on the contrary, they are in many respects closely related. [illustration: separate nerve centers, plexuses and ganglia, the "little brains" of the human body] thus, the heart receives nerves from both centers of government, and besides all this is itself the center of groups of nerve cells. the power by which it beats arises from a ganglionic center within the heart itself, so that the heart will continue to beat apart from the body if it be supplied with fresh blood. but the rapidity of the heart's beating is regulated by the cerebro-spinal and sympathetic systems, of which the former tends to retard the beat and the latter tends to accelerate it. in the same way, your lungs are governed in part by both centers, for you can breathe slowly or rapidly as you will, but you cannot, by any power of your conscious will, stop breathing altogether. your interest in the brain and nerve system is confined to such facts as may prove to be of use to you in your study of the mind. these anatomical divisions interest you only as they are identified with conscious mental action on the one hand and unconscious mental action on the other. it is, therefore, of no use to you to consider the various divisions of the sympathetic nerve system, since the sympathetic nerve system in its entirety belongs to the field of unconscious mental action. it operates without our knowledge and without our will. [sidenote: looking inside the skull] the cerebro-spinal system consists of the spinal cord and the brain. the brain in turn is made up of two principal subdivisions. first, there is the greater or upper brain, called the cerebrum; secondly, there is the lower or smaller brain, called the cerebellum. the cerebrum in turn consists of three parts: the convoluted _surface_ brain, the _middle_ brain and the _lower_ brain. so that in all we have the _surface_ brain, the _middle_ brain, the _lower_ brain and the _cerebellum_. all these parts consist of masses of brain cells with connecting nerve fibers. [sidenote: brains parts and functions] and now, as to the functions of these various parts. beginning at the lowest one and moving upward, we find first that the _spinal cord_ consists of through lines of nerves running between the brain and the rest of the body. at the same time it contains within itself certain nerve centers that are sufficient for many simple bodily movements. these bodily movements are such as are instinctive or habitual and require no distinct act of the will for their performance. they are mere "reactions," without conscious, volitional impulse. moving up one step higher, we find that the _cerebellum_ is the organ of equilibrium, and that it as well as the spinal cord operates independently of the conscious will, for no conscious effort of the will is required to make one reel from dizziness. as to the divisions of the greater brain or cerebrum, we want you to note that the _lower brain_ serves a double purpose. first, it is the channel through which pass through lines of communication to and from the upper brain and the mid-brain on the one hand and the rest of the body on the other. secondly, it is itself a central office for the maintenance of certain vital functions, such as lung-breathing, heart-beating, saliva-secreting, swallowing, etc., all involuntary and unconscious in the sense that consciousness is not necessary to their performance. the next higher division, or _mid-brain_, is a large region from which the conscious will issues its edicts regulating all voluntary bodily movements. it is also the seat of certain special senses, such as sight. lastly, the _surface brain_, known as the cortex, is the interpretative and reflective center, the abode of memory, intellect and will. [sidenote: drunkenness and brain efficiency] the functions of these various parts are well illustrated by the effects of alcohol upon the mind. if a man takes too much alcohol, its first apparent effect will be to paralyze the higher or cortical center. this leaves the mid-brain without the check-rein of a reflective intellect, and the man will be senselessly hilarious or quarrelsome, jolly or dejected, pugnacious or tearful, and would be ordinarily described as "drunk." if in spite of this he keeps on drinking, the mid-brain soon becomes deadened and ceases to respond, and the cerebellum, the organ of equilibrium, also becomes paralyzed. all voluntary bodily activities must then cease, and he rolls under the table, helpless and "dead" drunk, or in language that is even more graphically appreciative of the physiological effects of alcohol, "paralyzed." however, the deep-seated sympathetic system is still alive. no assault has yet been made upon the vital organs of the body; the heart continues to beat and the lungs to breathe. but suppose that some playful comrade pours still more liquor down the victim's throat. the medulla, or lower brain, then becomes paralyzed, the vital organs cease to act and the man is no longer "dead" drunk. he has become a sacrifice to bacchus. he is literally and actually dead. it seems, then, that the surface brain and mid-brain constitute together the organ of consciousness and will. consciousness and will disappear with the deadening or paralysis of these two organs. [sidenote: secondary brains] yet these two organs constitute but a small proportion of the entire mass of brain and nervous tissue of the body. in addition to these, there are not only the lower brain and the spinal cord and the countless ramifications of motor and sensory nerves throughout the body, but there are also separate nerve-centers or ganglia in every one of the visceral organs of the body. these ganglia have the power to maintain movements in their respective organs. _they may in fact be looked upon as little brains developing nerve force and communicating it to the organs._ [sidenote: dependence of the subconscious] all these automatic parts of the bodily mechanism are dominated by departments of the mind entirely distinct from ordinary consciousness. in fact, ordinary consciousness has no knowledge of their existence excepting what is learned from outward bodily manifestations. all these different organic ganglia constitute together the sympathetic nerve system, organ of that part of the mind which directs the vital operations of the body in apparent independence of the intelligence commonly called "the mind," an intelligence which acts through the cerebro-spinal system. yet this independence is far from being absolute. for, as we have seen, not only is the cerebro-spinal system, which is the organ of consciousness, the abode of all the special senses, such as sight, hearing, etc., and therefore our only source of information of the external world, but many organs of the body are under the joint control of both systems. _so it comes about that these individual intelligences governing different organs of the body, with their intercommunications, are dependent upon consciousness for their knowledge of such facts of the outer world as have a bearing on their individual operations, and they are subject to the influence of consciousness as the medium that interprets these facts._ it is unnecessary for us to go into this matter deeply. it is enough if you clearly understand that, in addition to consciousness, the department of mind that knows and directly deals with the facts of the outer world, there is also a deep-seated and seemingly unconscious department of mind consisting of individual organic intelligences capable of receiving, understanding and acting upon such information as consciousness transmits. [sidenote: unconsciousness and subconsciousness] we have spoken of conscious and "seemingly unconscious" departments of the mind. in doing so we have used the word "seemingly" advisedly. obviously we have no right to apply the term "unconscious" without qualification to an intelligent mentality such as we have described. "unconscious" simply means "not conscious." in its common acceptation, it denotes, in fact, an absence of all mental action. it is in no sense descriptive. it is merely negative. death is unconscious; but unconsciousness is no attribute of a mental state that is living and impellent and constantly manifests its active energy and power in the maintenance of the vital functions of the body. hereafter, then, we shall continue to use the term consciousness as descriptive of that part of our mentality which constitutes what is commonly known as the "mind"; while that mental force, which, so far as our animal life is concerned, operates through the sympathetic nerve system, we shall hereafter describe as "_sub_conscious." [sidenote: synthesis of the man-machine] [sidenote: subserviency of the body] let us summarize our study of man's physical organism. we have learned that the human body is a confederation of various groups of living cells; that in the earliest stages of man's evolution, these cells were all of the same general type; that as such they were free-living, free-thinking and intelligent organisms as certainly as were those unicellular organisms which had not become members of any group or association; that through the processes of evolution, heredity and adaptation, there has come about in the course of the ages, a subdivision of labor among the cells of our bodies and a consequent differentiation in kind whereby each has become peculiarly fitted for the performance of its allotted functions; that, nevertheless, these cells of the human body are still free-living, intelligent organisms, of which each is endowed with the inherited, instinctive knowledge of all that is essential to the preservation of its own life and the perpetuation of its species within the living body; that, as a part of the specializing economy of the body, there have been evolved brain and nerve cells performing a twofold service--first, constituting the organ of a central governing intelligence with the important business of receiving, classifying, and recording all impressions or messages received through the senses from the outer world, and, second, communicating to the other cells of the body such part of the information so derived as may be appropriate to the functions of each; that finally, as such complex and confederated individuals, each of us possesses a direct, self-conscious knowledge of only a small part of his entire mental equipment; that we have not only a _consciousness_ receiving sense impressions and issuing motor impulses through the cerebro-spinal nervous system, but that we have also a _subconsciousness_ manifesting itself, so far as bodily functions are concerned, in the activity of the vital organs through the sympathetic nerve system; that this subconsciousness is dependent on consciousness for all knowledge of the external world; that, in accordance with the principles of evolution, man as a whole and as a collection of cell organisms, both consciously and unconsciously, is seeking to adapt himself to his external world, his environment; that the human body, both as a whole and as an aggregate of cellular intelligences, is therefore subject in every part and in every function to the influence of the special senses and of the mind of consciousness. the supremacy of consciousness chapter vi the supremacy of consciousness conclusions drawn from studies in human psychology, anatomy and physiology [sidenote: striking off the mental shackles] stop a moment and mark the conclusion to which you have come. you have been examining the human body with the scalpel and the microscope of the anatomist and physiologist. in doing so and by watching the bodily organs in operation, you have learned that _every part of the body, even to those organs commonly known as involuntary, is ultimately subject to the influence or control of consciousness_, that part of the human intelligence which is popularly known as "the mind." prior to this, as a matter of direct introspective knowledge, we had come to the conclusion that the influence of the mind over all the organs of the body was one of the most obvious facts of human life. so, our study of the body as the instrument of the mind has brought us to the same conclusion as did our study of the mind in its relations to the body. looked at from the practical science standpoint, the evidences that mental activity can and does produce bodily effects are so clear and numerous as to admit of no dispute. the world has been slow to acknowledge the mastery of mind over body. this is because the world long persisted in looking at the question from the point of view of the philosopher and religionist. it is because the thought of the world has been hampered by its own definitions of terms. the spiritualist has been so busy in the pursuit of originating "first" causes, and the materialist has so emphasized the dependence of mind upon physical conditions, that the world has received with skepticism the assertion of the influence of mind over body, and in fact doubted the intuitive evidence of its own consciousness. [sidenote: the awakening of enlightenment] the distinction between the two points of view has gradually come to be recognized. today the fact that the mind may act as a "cause" in relationship with the body is a recognized principle of applied science. the world's deepest thinkers accept its truth. and the interest of enlightened men and women everywhere is directed toward the mind as an agency of undreamed resource for the cure of functional derangements of the body and for the attainment of the highest degree of bodily efficiency. in some respects it is unfortunate that you should have been compelled to begin these studies in mental efficiency and self-expression with lessons on the relationship between the mind and the body. there is the danger that you may jump at the conclusion that this course has some reference to "mental healing." please disabuse your mind of any such mistaken idea. [sidenote: the vital purpose] health is a boon. it is not the greatest boon. health is not life. health is but a means to life. life is service. life is achievement. health is of value in so far as it contributes to achievement. our study of the relation between mind and body at this time has had a deeper, broader and more vital purpose. it is the foundation stone of an educational structure in which we shall show you how the mind may be brought by scientific measures to a certainty and effectiveness of operation far greater than is now common or ordinarily thought possible. [sidenote: your reservoir of latent power] remember the two fundamental propositions set forth in this book. i. _all human achievement comes about through some form of bodily activity._ ii. _all bodily activity is caused, controlled and directed by the mind._ the truth of these propositions must now be obvious to you. you must realize that the mind is the one instrument by which it is possible to achieve anything in life. your next step must be to learn how to use it. _in succeeding volumes, we shall sound the depths of the reservoir of latent mental power. we shall find the means of tapping its resources. and so we shall come to give you the master key to achievement and teach you how to use it with confidence and with the positive assurance of success._ [note: for this online edition i have moved the table of contents to the beginning of the text and slightly modified it to conform with the online format. i have also made two spelling corrections: "chippendale" to "chippendale" and "closely interpendent" to "closely interdependent."] the beautiful an introduction to psychological aesthetics by vernon lee author of "beauty and ugliness" "laurus nobilis" etc. cambridge: at the university press new york: g.p. putnam's sons [illustration: title page] _with the exception of the coat of arms at the foot, the design on the title page is a reproduction of one used by the earliest known cambridge printer, john siberch,_ contents preface and apology v i. the adjective "beautiful" ii. contemplative satisfaction iii. aspects versus things iv. sensations v. perception of relations vi. elements of shape vii. facility and difficulty of grasping viii. subject and object, or, nominative and accusative ix. empathy (einfühlung) x. the movement of lines xi. the character of shapes xii. from the shape to the thing xiii. from the thing to the shape xiv. the aims of art xv. attention to shapes xvi. information about things xvii. co-operation of things and shapes xviii. aesthetic responsiveness xix. the storage and transfer of emotion xx. aesthetic irradiation and purification xxi. conclusion (evolutional) bibliography index preface and apology i have tried in this little volume to explain aesthetic preference, particularly as regards visible shapes, by the facts of mental science. but my explanation is addressed to readers in whom i have no right to expect a previous knowledge of psychology, particularly in its more modern developments. i have therefore based my explanation of the problems of aesthetics as much as possible upon mental facts familiar, or at all events easily intelligible, to the lay reader. now mental facts thus available are by no means the elementary processes with which analytical and, especially experimental, psychology has dealings. they are, on the contrary, the everyday, superficial and often extremely confused views which practical life and its wholly unscientific vocabulary present of those ascertained or hypothetical scientific facts. i have indeed endeavoured (for instance in the analysis of perception as distinguished from sensation) to impart some rudiments of psychology in the course of my aesthetical explanation, and i have avoided, as much as possible, misleading the reader about such fearful complexes and cruxes as _memory, association_ and _imagination._ but i have been obliged to speak in terms intelligible to the lay reader, and i am fully aware that these terms correspond only very approximately to what is, or at present passes as, psychological fact. i would therefore beg the psychologist (to whom i offer this little volume as a possible slight addition even to his stock of facts and hypotheses) to understand that in speaking, for instance, of empathy as involving a _thought_ of certain activities, i mean merely that whatever happens has the same result _as if we thought_; and that the processes, whatever they may be (also in the case of measuring, comparing and co-ordinating), translate themselves, _when they are detected,_ into _thoughts;_ but that i do not in the least pre-judge the question whether the processes, the "thoughts," the measuring, comparing etc. exist on subordinate planes of consciousness or whether they are mainly physiological and only occasionally abutting in conscious resultants. similarly, lack of space and the need for clearness have obliged me to write as if shape-preference invariably necessitated the detailed process of ocular perception, instead of being due, as is doubtless most often the case, to every kind of associative abbreviation and equivalence of processes. vernon lee maiano _near_ florence,_ easter_ . chapter i the adjective "beautiful" this little book, like the great branch of mental science to which it is an introduction, makes no attempt to "form the taste" of the public and still less to direct the doings of the artist. it deals not with _ought_ but with _is,_ leaving to criticism the inference from the latter to the former. it does not pretend to tell how things can be made beautiful or even how we can recognise that things _are_ beautiful. it takes beauty as already existing and enjoyed, and seeks to analyse and account for beauty's existence and enjoyment. more strictly speaking, it analyses and accounts for beauty not inasmuch as existing in certain objects and processes, but rather as calling forth (and being called forth by) a particular group of mental activities and habits. it does not ask: what are the peculiarities of the things (and the proceedings) which we call _beautiful?_ but: what are the peculiarities of our thinking and feeling when in the presence of a thing to which we apply this adjective? the study of single beautiful things, and even more, the comparison of various categories thereof, is indeed one-half of all scientific aesthetics, but only inasmuch as it adds to our knowledge of the particular mental activities which such "beautiful" (and vice versa "ugly") things elicit in us. for it is on the nature of this active response on our own part that depends the application of those terms _beautiful_ and _ugly_ in every single instance; and indeed their application in any instances whatsoever, their very existence in the human vocabulary. in accordance with this programme i shall not start with a formal definition of the word _beautiful,_ but ask: on what sort of occasions we make use of it. evidently, on _occasions when we feel satisfaction rather than dissatisfaction,_ satisfaction meaning willingness either to prolong or to repeat the particular experience which has called forth that word; and meaning also that if it comes to a choice between two or several experiences, we _prefer_ the experience thus marked by the word _beautiful. beautiful,_ we may therefore formulate, _implies on our part an attitude of satisfaction and preference._ but there are other words which imply that much; first and foremost the words, in reality synonyms, useful and good. i call these synonyms because _good_ always implies _good for,_ or _good in,_ that is to say fitness for a purpose, even though that purpose may be masked under _conforming to a standard_ or _obeying a commandment,_ since the standard or commandment represents not the caprice of a community, a race or a divinity, but some (real or imaginary) utility of a less immediate kind. so much for the meaning of _good_ when implying standards and commandments; ninety-nine times out of a hundred there is, however, no such implication, and _good_ means nothing more than _satisfactory in the way of use and advantage._ thus a _good_ road is a road we prefer because it takes us to our destination quickly and easily. a _good_ speech is one we prefer because it succeeds in explaining or persuading. and a _good_ character (good friend, father, husband, citizen) is one that gives satisfaction by the fulfilment of moral obligations. but note the difference when we come to _beautiful._ a _beautiful_ road is one we prefer because it affords views we like to look at; its being devious and inconvenient will not prevent its being _beautiful._ a _beautiful_ speech is one we like to hear or remember, although it may convince or persuade neither us nor anybody. a _beautiful_ character is one we like to think about but which may never practically help anyone, if for instance, it exists not in real life but in a novel. thus the adjective _beautiful_ implies _an attitude of preference, but not an attitude of present or future turning to our purposes._ there is even a significant lack of symmetry in the words employed (at all events in english, french and german) to distinguish what we like from what we dislike in the way of weather. for weather which makes us uncomfortable and hampers our comings and goings by rain, wind or mud, is described as _bad;_ while the opposite kind of weather is called _beautiful, fine,_ or _fair,_ as if the greater comfort, convenience, usefulness of such days were forgotten in the lively satisfaction afforded to our mere contemplation. _our mere contemplation!_ here we have struck upon the main difference between our attitude when we use the word _good_ or _useful,_ and when we use the word _beautiful._ and we can add to our partial formula "beautiful implies satisfaction and preference"--the distinguishing predicate--"_of a contemplative kind._" this general statement will be confirmed by an everyday anomaly in our use of the word beautiful; and the examination of this seeming exception will not only exemplify what i have said about our attitude when employing that word, but add to this information the name of the emotion corresponding with that attitude: the emotion of _admiration._ for the selfsame object or proceeding may sometimes be called _good_ and sometimes _beautiful,_ according as the mental attitude is practical or contemplative. while we admonish the traveller to take a certain road because he will find it _good,_ we may hear that same road described by an enthusiastic coachman as _beautiful, anglicè fine_ or _splendid,_ because there is no question of immediate use, and the road's qualities are merely being contemplated with admiration. similarly, we have all of us heard an engineer apply to a piece of machinery, and even a surgeon to an operation, the apparently far-fetched adjective beautiful, or one of the various equivalents, fine, splendid, glorious (even occasionally _jolly!)_ by which englishmen express their admiration. the change of word represents a change of attitude. the engineer is no longer bent upon using the machine, nor the surgeon estimating the advantages of the operation. each of these highly practical persons has switched off his practicality, if but for an imperceptible fraction of time and in the very middle of a practical estimation or even of practice itself. the machine or operation, the skill, the inventiveness, the fitness for its purposes, are being considered _apart from action,_ and advantage, means and time, to-day or yesterday; _platonically_ we may call it from the first great teacher of aesthetics. they are being, in one word, contemplated with admiration. and _admiration_ is the rough and ready name for the mood, however transient, for the emotion, however faint, wherewith we greet whatever makes us contemplate, because contemplation happens to give satisfaction. the satisfaction may be a mere skeleton of the "i'd rather than not" description; or it may be a massive alteration in our being, radiating far beyond the present, evoking from the past similar conditions to corroborate it; storing itself up for the future; penetrating, like the joy of a fine day, into our animal spirits, altering pulse, breath, gait, glance and demeanour; and transfiguring our whole momentary outlook on life. but, superficial or overwhelming, _this hind of satisfaction connected with, the word beautiful is always of the contemplative order._ and upon the fact we have thus formulated depend, as we shall see, most of the other facts and formulae of our subject. this essentially unpractical attitude accompanying the use of the word _beautiful_ has led metaphysical aestheticians to two famous, and i think, quite misleading theories. the first of these defines aesthetic appreciation as _disinterested interest,_ gratuitously identifying self-interest with the practical pursuit of advantages we have not yet got; and overlooking the fact that such appreciation implies enjoyment and is so far the very reverse of disinterested. the second philosophical theory (originally schiller's, and revived by herbert spencer) takes advantage of the non-practical attitude connected with the word _beautiful_ to define art and its enjoyment as a kind of _play._ now although leisure and freedom from cares are necessary both for play and for aesthetic appreciation, the latter differs essentially from the former by its contemplative nature. for although it may be possible to watch _other people_ playing football or chess or bridge in a purely contemplative spirit and with the deepest admiration, even as the engineer or surgeon may contemplate the perfections of a machine or an operation, yet the concentration on the aim and the next moves constitutes on the part of the players _themselves_ an eminently practical state of mind, one diametrically opposed to contemplation, as i hope to make evident in the next section. chapter ii contemplative satisfaction we have thus defined the word _beautiful_ as implying an attitude of contemplative satisfaction, marked by a feeling, sometimes amounting to an _emotion,_ of admiration; and so far contrasted it with the practical attitude implied by the word _good._ but we require to know more about the distinctive peculiarities of contemplation as such, by which, moreover, it is distinguished not merely from the practical attitude, but also from the scientific one. let us get some rough and ready notions on this subject by watching the behaviour and listening to the remarks of three imaginary wayfarers in front of a view, which they severally consider in the practical, the scientific and the aesthetic manner. the view was from a hill-top in the neighbourhood of rome or of edinburgh, whichever the reader can best realise; and in its presence the three travellers halted and remained for a moment absorbed each in his thoughts. "it will take us a couple of hours to get home on foot"--began one of the three. "we might have been back for tea-time if only there had been a tram and a funicular. and that makes me think: why not start a joint-stock company to build them? there must be water-power in these hills; the hill people could keep cows and send milk and butter to town. also houses could be built for people whose work takes them to town, but who want good air for their children; the hire-purchase system, you know. it might prove a godsend and a capital investment, though i suppose some people would say it spoilt the view. the idea is quite a _good_ one. i shall get an expert--" "these hills," put in the second man--"are said to be part of an ancient volcano. i don't know whether that theory is _true!_ it would be _interesting_ to examine whether the summits have been ground down in places by ice, and whether there are traces of volcanic action at different geological epochs; the plain, i suppose, has been under the sea at no very distant period. it is also _interesting_ to notice, as we can up here, how the situation of the town is explained by the river affording easier shipping on a coast poor in natural harbours; moreover, this has been the inevitable meeting-place of seafaring and pastoral populations. these investigations would prove, as i said, remarkably full of interest." "i wish"--complained the third wayfarer, but probably only to himself--"i wish these men would hold their tongues and let one enjoy this exquisite place without diverting one's attention to _what might be done_ or to _how it all came about._ they don't seem to feel how _beautiful_ it all is." and he concentrated himself on contemplation of the landscape, his delight brought home by a stab of reluctance to leave. meanwhile one of his companions fell to wondering whether there really was sufficient pasture for dairy-farming and water-power for both tramway and funicular, and where the necessary capital could be borrowed; and the other one hunted about for marks of stratification and upheaval, and ransacked his memory for historical data about the various tribes originally inhabiting that country. "i suppose you're a painter and regretting you haven't brought your sketching materials?" said the scientific man, always interested in the causes of phenomena, even such trifling ones as a man remaining quiet before a landscape. "i reckon you are one of those literary fellows, and are planning out where you can use up a description of this place"--corrected the rapid insight of the practical man, accustomed to weigh people's motives in case they may be turned to use. "i am _not_ a painter, and i'm _not_ a writer"--exclaimed the third traveller, "and i thank heaven i'm not! for if i were i might be trying to engineer a picture or to match adjectives, instead of merely enjoying all this beauty. not but that i should like to have a sketch or a few words of description for when i've turned my back upon it. and heaven help me, i really believe that when we are all back in london i may be quite glad to hear you two talking about your tramway-funicular company and your volcanic and glacial action, because your talk will evoke in my mind the remembrance of this place and moment which you have done your best to spoil for me--" "that's what it is to be aesthetic"--said the two almost in the same breath. "and that, i suppose"--answered the third with some animosity--"is what you mean by being practical or scientific." now the attitude of mind of the practical man and of the man of science, though differing so obviously from one another (the first bent upon producing new and advantageous _results,_ the second examining, without thought of advantage, into possible _causes),_ both differed in the same way from the attitude of the man who was merely contemplating what he called the beauty of the scene. they were, as he complained, thinking of _what might be done_ and of _how it had all come about._ that is to say they were both thinking _away_ from that landscape. the scientific man actually turned his back to it in examining first one rock, then another. the practical man must have looked both at the plain in front and at the hill he was on, since he judged that there was pasture and water-power, and that the steepness required supplementing the tramway by a funicular. but besides the different items of landscape, and the same items under different angles, which were thus offered to these two men's bodily eyes, there was a far greater variety, and rapider succession of items and perspectives presented to the eyes of their spirit: the practical man's mental eye seeing not only the hills, plain, and town with details not co-existing in perspective or even in time, but tram-lines and funiculars in various stages of progress, dairy-products, pasture, houses, dynamos, waterfalls, offices, advertisements, cheques, etc., etc., and the scientific man's inner vision glancing with equal speed from volcanoes to ice-caps and seas in various stages of geological existence, besides minerals under the microscope, inhabitants in prehistoric or classic garb, let alone probably pages of books and interiors of libraries. moreover, most, if not all these mental images (blocking out from attention the really existing landscape) could be called images only by courtesy, swished over by the mental eye as by an express train, only just enough seen to know what it was, or perhaps nothing seen at all, mere words filling up gaps in the chain of thought. so that what satisfaction there might be in the case was not due to these rapidly scampered through items, but to the very fact of getting to the next one, and to a looming, dominating goal, an ultimate desired result, to wit, pounds, shillings, and pence in the one case, and a coherent explanation in the other. in both cases equally there was a kaleidoscopic and cinematographic succession of aspects, but of aspects of which only one detail perhaps was noticed. or, more strictly speaking, there was no interest whatever in aspects as such, but only in the possibilities of action which these aspects implied; whether actions future and personally profitable, like building tram-lines and floating joint-stock companies, or actions mainly past and quite impersonally interesting, like those of extinct volcanoes or prehistoric civilisations. now let us examine the mental attitude of the third man, whom the two others had first mistaken for an artist or writer, and then dismissed as an aesthetic person. chapter iii aspects _versus_ things having settled upon a particular point of view as the one he liked best, he remained there in contemplation of the aspect it afforded him. had he descended another twenty minutes, or looked through powerful glasses, he would have seen the plain below as a juxtaposition of emerald green, raw sienna, and pale yellow, whereas, at the distance where he chose to remain, its colours fused into indescribably lovely lilacs and russets. had he moved freely about he would have become aware that a fanlike arrangement of sharply convergent lines, tempting his eye to run rapidly into their various angles, must be thought of as a chessboard of dikes, hedges, and roads, dull as if drawn with a ruler on a slate. also that the foothills, instead of forming a monumental mass with the mountains behind them, lay in a totally different plane and distracted the attention by their aggressive projection. while, as if to spoil the aspect still more, he would have been forced to recognise (as ruskin explains by his drawing of the cottage roof and the matterhorn peak) that the exquisitely phrased skyline of the furthermost hills, picked up at rhythmical intervals into sharp crests, dropping down merely to rush up again in long concave curves, was merely an illusion of perspective, nearer lines seeming higher and further ones lower, let alone that from a balloon you would see only flattened mounds. but to how things might look from a balloon, or under a microscope, that man did not give one thought, any more than to how they might look after a hundred years of tramways and funiculars or how they had looked before thousands of years of volcanic and glacial action. he was satisfied with the wonderfully harmonised scheme of light and colour, the pattern (more and more detailed, more and more co-ordinated with every additional exploring glance) of keenly thrusting, delicately yielding lines, meeting as purposefully as if they had all been alive and executing some great, intricate dance. he did not concern himself whether what he was looking at was an aggregate of things; still less what might be these things' other properties. he was not concerned with things at all, but only with a particular appearance (he did not care whether it answered to reality), only with one (he did not want to know whether there might be any other) _aspect._ for, odd as it may sound, a _thing_ is both much more and much less than an _aspect._ much more, because a _thing_ really means not only qualities of its own and reactions of ours which are actual and present, but a far greater number and variety thereof which are potential. much _less,_ on the other hand, because of these potential qualities and reactions constituting a thing only a minimum need be thought of at any given time; instead of which, an aspect is all there, its qualities closely interdependent, and our reactions entirely taken up in connecting them as whole and parts. a rose, for instance, is not merely a certain assemblage of curves and straight lines and colours, seen as the painter sees it, at a certain angle, petals masking part of stem, leaf protruding above bud: it is the possibility of other combinations of shapes, including those seen when the rose (or the person looking) is placed head downwards. similarly it is the possibility of certain sensations of resistance, softness, moisture, pricking if we attempt to grasp it, of a certain fragrance if we breathe in the air. it is the possibility of turning into a particular fruit, with the possibility of our finding that fruit bitter and non-edible; of being developed from cuttings, pressed in a book, made a present of or cultivated for lucre. only one of these groups of possibilities may occupy our thoughts, the rest not glanced at, or only glanced at subsequently; but if, on trial, any of these grouped possibilities disappoint us, we decide that this is not a real rose, but a paper rose, or a painted one, or no rose at all, but some _other thing._ for, so far as our consciousness is concerned, _things_ are merely groups of actual and potential reactions on our own part, that is to say of expectations which experience has linked together in more or less stable groups. the practical man and the man of science in my fable, were both of them dealing with _things_: passing from one group of potential reaction to another, hurrying here, dallying there, till of the actual _aspect_ of the landscape there remained nothing in their thoughts, trams and funiculars in the future, volcanoes and icecaps in the past, having entirely altered all that; only the material constituents and the geographical locality remaining as the unshifted item in those much pulled about bundles of thoughts of possibilities. every _thing_ may have a great number of very different _aspects;_ and some of these _aspects_ may invite contemplation, as that landscape invited the third man to contemplate it; while other _aspects_ (say the same place after a proper course of tramways and funiculars and semi-detached residences, or _before_ the needful volcanic and glacial action) may be such as are dismissed or slurred as fast as possible. indeed, with the exception of a very few cubes not in themselves especially attractive, i cannot remember any _things_ which do not present quite as many displeasing aspects as pleasing ones. the most beautiful building is not beautiful if stood on its head; the most beautiful picture is not beautiful looked at through a microscope or from too far off; the most beautiful melody is not beautiful if begun at the wrong end. . . . here the reader may interrupt: "what nonsense! of course the building _is_ a building only when right side up; the picture isn't a picture any longer under a microscope; the melody isn't a melody except begun at the beginning"--all which means that when we speak of a building, a picture, or a melody, we are already implicitly speaking, no longer of a _thing,_ but of one of the possible _aspects_ of a thing; _and that when we say that a thing is beautiful, we mean that it affords one or more aspects which we contemplate with satisfaction._ but if a beautiful mountain or a beautiful woman could only be _contemplated,_ if the mountain could not also be climbed or tunnelled, if the woman could not also get married, bear children and have (or not have!) a vote, we should say that the mountain and the woman were not _real things._ hence we come to the conclusion, paradoxical only as long as we fail to define what we are talking about, _that what we contemplate as beautiful is an aspect of a thing, but never a thing itself._ in other words: beautiful is an adjective applicable to aspects not to things, or to things only, inasmuch as we consider them as possessing (among other potentialities) beautiful aspects. so that we can now formulate: _the word beautiful implies the satisfaction derived from the contemplation not of things but of aspects._ this summing up has brought us to the very core of our subject; and i should wish the reader to get it by heart, until he grow familiarised therewith in the course of our further examinations. before proceeding upon these, i would, however, ask him to reflect how this last formula of ours bears upon the old, seemingly endless, squabble as to whether or not beauty has anything to do with truth, and whether art, as certain moralists contend, is a school of lying. for _true_ or _false_ is a judgment of existence; it refers to _things;_ it implies that besides the qualities and reactions shown or described, our further action or analysis will call forth certain other groups of qualities and reactions constituting the _thing which is said to exist._ but aspects, in the case in which i have used that word, _are_ what they are and do not necessarily imply anything beyond their own peculiarities. the words _true_ or _false_ can be applied to them only with the meaning of _aspects truly existing_ or _not truly existing;_ _i.e._ aspects of which it is true or not to _say that they exist._ but as to an aspect being true or false in the sense of _misleading,_ that question refers not to the _aspect_ itself, but to the thing of which the aspect is taken as a part and a sign. now the contemplation of the mere aspect, the beauty (or ugliness) of the aspect, does not itself necessitate or imply any such reference to a thing. our contemplation of the beauty of a statue representing a centaur may indeed be disturbed by the reflexion that a creature with two sets of lungs and digestive organs would be a monster and not likely to grow to the age of having a beard. but this disturbing thought need not take place. and when it takes place it is not part of our contemplation of the _aspect_ of that statue; it is, on the contrary, outside it, an excursion away from it due to our inveterate (and very necessary) habit of interrupting the contemplation of _aspects_ by the thinking and testing of _things._ the aspect never implied the existence of a thing beyond itself; it did not affirm that anything was true, _i.e._ that anything could or would happen besides the fact of our contemplation. in other words the formula that _beautiful is an adjective applying only to aspects,_ shows us that art can be truthful or untruthful only in so far as art (as is often the case) deliberately sets to making statements about the existence and nature of things. if art says "centaurs can be born and grow up to man's estate with two sets of respiratory and digestive organs"--then art is telling lies. only, before accusing it of being a liar, better make sure that the statement about the possibility of centaurs has been intended by the art, and not merely read into it by ourselves. but more of this when we come to the examination of subject and form. chapter iv sensations in the contemplation of the _aspect_ before him, what gave that aesthetic man the most immediate and undoubted pleasure was its colour, or, more correctly speaking, its colours. psycho-physiologists have not yet told us why colours, taken singly and apart from their juxtaposition, should possess so extraordinary a power over what used to be called our animal spirits, and through them over our moods; and we can only guess from analogy with what is observed in plants, as well as from the nature of the phenomenon itself, that various kinds of luminous stimulation must have some deep chemical repercussion throughout the human organism. the same applies, though in lesser degree, to sounds, quite independent of their juxtaposition as melodies and harmonies. as there are colours which _feel, i.e._ make _us_ feel, more or less warm or cool, colours which are refreshing or stifling, depressing or exhilarating quite independent of any associations, so also there are qualities of sound which enliven us like the blare of the trumpet, or harrow us like the quaver of the accordion. similarly with regard to immediacy of effect: the first chords of an organ will change our whole mode of being like the change of light and colour on first entering a church, although the music which that organ is playing may, after a few seconds of listening, bore us beyond endurance; and the architecture of that church, once we begin to take stock of it, entirely dispel that first impression made by the church's light and colour. it is on account of this doubtless physiological power of colour and sound, this way which they have of invading and subjugating us with or without our consent and long before our conscious co-operation, that the man-on-the-hill's pleasure in the aspect before him was, as i have said, first of all, pleasure in colour. also, because pleasure in colour, like pleasure in mere sound-quality or _timbre,_ is accessible to people who never go any further in their aesthetic preference. children, as every one knows, are sensitive to colours, long before they show the faintest sensitiveness for shapes. and the timbre of a perfect voice in a single long note or shake used to bring the house down in the days of our grandparents, just as the subtle orchestral blendings of wagner entrance hearers incapable of distinguishing the notes of a chord and sometimes even incapable of following a modulation. the man on the hill, therefore, received immediate pleasure from the colours of the landscape. _received_ pleasure, rather than _took_ it, since colours, like smells, seem, as i have said, to invade us, and insist upon pleasing whether we want to be pleased or not. in this meaning of the word we may be said to be _passive_ to sound and colour quality: our share in the effects of these sensations, as in the effect of agreeable temperatures, contacts and tastes, is a question of bodily and mental reflexes in which our conscious activity, our voluntary attention, play no part: we are not _doing,_ but _done to_ by those stimulations from without; and the pleasure or displeasure which they set up in us is therefore one which we _receive,_ as distinguished from one which _we take._ before passing on to the pleasure which the man on the hill _did take,_ as distinguished from thus passively _receiving,_ from the aspect before him, before investigating into the activities to which this other kind of pleasure, _pleasure taken, not received,_ is due, we must dwell a little longer on the colours which delighted him, and upon the importance or unimportance of those colours with regard to that _aspect_ he was contemplating. these colours--particularly a certain rain-washed blue, a pale lilac and a faded russet--gave him, as i said, immediate and massive pleasure like that of certain delicious tastes and smells, indeed anyone who had watched him attentively might have noticed that he was making rather the same face as a person rolling, as meredith says, a fine vintage against his palate, or drawing in deeper draughts of exquisitely scented air; he himself, if not too engaged in looking, might have noticed the accompanying sensations in his mouth, throat and nostrils; all of which, his only active response to the colour, was merely the attempt to _receive more_ of the already received sensation. but this pleasure which he received from the mere colours of the landscape was the same pleasure which they would have given him if he had met them in so many skeins of silk; the more complex pleasure due to their juxtaposition, was the pleasure he might have had if those skeins, instead of being on separate leaves of a pattern-book, had been lying tangled together in an untidy work-basket. he might then probably have said, "those are exactly the colours, and in much the same combination, as in that landscape we saw such and such a day, at such and such a season and hour, from the top of that hill." but he would never have said (or been crazy if he had) "those skeins of silk are the landscape we saw in that particular place and oh that particular occasion." now the odd thing is that he would have used that precise form of words, "that is the landscape," etc. etc., if you had shown him a pencil drawing or a photograph taken from that particular place and point of view. and similarly if you had made him look through stained glass which changed the pale blue, pale lilac and faded russet into emerald green and blood red. he would have exclaimed at the loss of those exquisite colours when you showed him the monochrome, and perhaps have sworn that all his pleasure was spoilt when you forced him to look through that atrocious glass. but he would have identified the aspect as the one he had seen before; just as even the least musical person would identify "god save the king" whether played with three sharps on the flute or with four flats on the trombone. there is therefore in an _aspect_ something over and above the quality of the colours (or in a piece of music, of the sounds) in which that aspect is, at any particular moment, embodied for your senses; something which can be detached from the particular colours or sounds and re-embodied in other colours or sounds, existing meanwhile in a curious potential schematic condition in our memory. that something is _shape._ it is shape which we contemplate; and it is only because they enter into shapes that colours and sounds, as distinguished from temperatures, textures, tastes and smells, can be said to be contemplated at all. indeed if we apply to single isolated colour or sound-qualities (that blue or russet, or the mere timbre of a voice or an orchestra) the adjective _beautiful_ while we express our liking for smells, tastes, temperatures and textures merely by the adjectives _agreeable, delicious_; this difference in our speech is doubtless due to the fact that colours or sounds are more often than not connected each with other colours or other sounds into a shape and thereby become subject to contemplation more frequently than temperatures, textures, smells and tastes which cannot themselves be grouped into shapes, and are therefore objects of contemplation only when associated with colours and sounds, as for instance, the smell of burning weeds in a description of autumnal sights, or the cool wetness of a grotto in the perception of its darkness and its murmur of waters. on dismissing the practical and the scientific man because they were _thinking away from aspects to things,_ i attempted to inventory the _aspect_ in whose contemplation their aesthetic companion had remained absorbed. there were the colours, that delicious recently-washed blue, that lilac and russet, which gave the man his immediate shock of passive and (as much as smell and taste) bodily pleasure. but besides these my inventory contained another kind of item: what i described as a fan-like arrangement of sharply convergent lines and an exquisitely phrased sky-line of hills, picked up at rhythmical intervals into sharp crests and dropping down merely to rush up again in long rapid concave curves. and besides all this, there was the outline of a distant mountain, rising flamelike against the sky. it was all these items made up of _lines_ (skyline, outline, and lines of perspective!) which remained unchanged when the colours were utterly changed by looking through stained glass, and unchanged also when the colouring was reduced to the barest monochrome of a photograph or a pencil drawing; nay remained the same despite all changes of scale in that almost colourless presentment of them. those items of the aspect were, as we all know, _shapes._ and with altered colours, and colours diminished to just enough for each line to detach itself from its ground, those shapes could be contemplated and called beautiful. chapter v perception of relations why should this be the case? briefly, because colours (and sounds) as such are forced upon us by external stimulation of our organs of sight and hearing, neither more nor less than various temperatures, textures, tastes and smells are forced upon us from without through the nervous and cerebral mechanism connected with our skin, muscle, palate and nose. whereas shapes instead of being thus nilly willy _seen_ or _heard,_ are, at least until we know them, _looked_ at or _listened_ to, that is to say _taken in_ or _grasped,_ by mental and bodily activities which meet, but may also refuse to meet, those sense stimulations. moreover, because these mental and bodily activities, being our own, can be rehearsed in what we call our memory without the repetition of the sensory stimulations which originally started them, and even in the presence of different ones. in terms of mental science, colour and sound, like temperature, texture, taste and smell, are _sensations_; while _shape_ is, in the most complete sense, a _perception._ this distinction between _sensation_ and _perception_ is a technicality of psychology; but upon it rests the whole question why shapes can be contemplated and afford the satisfaction connected with the word _beautiful,_ while colours and sounds, except as grouped or groupable into shapes, cannot. moreover this distinction will prepare us for understanding the main fact of all psychological aesthetics: namely that the satisfaction or the dissatisfaction which we get from shapes is satisfaction or dissatisfaction in what are, directly or indirectly, activities of our own. etymologically and literally, _perception_ means the act of _grasping_ or _taking_ in, and also the result of that action. but when we thus _perceive_ a shape, what is it precisely that we grasp or take in? at first it might seem to be the _sensations_ in which that form is embodied. but a moment's reflection will show that this cannot be the case, since the sensations are furnished us simply without our performing any act of perception, thrust on us from outside, and, unless our sensory apparatus and its correlated brain centre were out of order, received by us passively, nilly willy, the man on the hill being invaded by the sense of that blue, that lilac and that russet exactly as he might have been invaded by the smell of the hay in the fields below. no: what we grasp or take in thus actively are not the sensations themselves, but the _relations_ between these sensations, and it is of these relations, more truly than of the sensations themselves, that a shape is, in the most literal sense, _made up._ and it is this _making up of shapes,_ this grasping or taking in of their constituent relations, which is an active process on our part, and one which we can either perform or not perform. when, instead of merely _seeing_ a colour, we _look at_ a shape, our eye ceases to be merely passive to the action of the various light-waves, and becomes active, and active in a more or less complicated way; turning its differently sensitive portions to meet or avoid the stimulus, adjusting its focus like that of an opera glass, and like an opera glass, turning it to the right or left, higher or lower. moreover, except in dealing with very small surfaces, our eye moves about in our head and moves our head, and sometimes our whole body, along with it. an analogous active process undoubtedly distinguishes _listening_ from mere _hearing;_ and although psycho-physiology seems still at a loss for the precise adjustments of the inner ear corresponding to the minute adjustments of the eye, it is generally recognised that auditive attention is accompanied by adjustments of the vocal parts, or preparations for such adjustments, which account for the impression of _following_ a sequence of notes as we follow the appearance of colours and light, but as we do _not_ follow, in the sense of _connecting by our activity,_ consecutive sensations of taste or smell. besides such obvious or presumable bodily activities requisite for looking and listening as distinguished from mere seeing and hearing, there is moreover in all perception of shape, as in all _grasping of meaning,_ a mental activity involving what are called _attention_ and _memory._ a primer of aesthetics is no place for expounding any of the various psychological definitions of either of these, let us call them, faculties. besides i should prefer that these pages deal only with such mental facts as can be found in the reader's everyday (however unnoticed) experience, instead of requiring for their detection the artificial conditions of specialised introspection or laboratory experiment. so i shall give to those much fought over words _attention_ and _memory_ merely the rough and ready meaning with which we are familiar in everyday language, and only beg the reader to notice that, whatever psychologists may eventually prove or disprove _attention_ and _memory_ to be, these two, let us unscientifically call them _faculties,_ are what chiefly distinguishes _perception_ from _sensation._ for instance, in grasping or taking stock of a visible or an audible shape we are doing something with our attention, or our attention is doing something in us: a travelling about, a returning to starting points, a summing up. and a travelling about not merely between what is given simultaneously in the present, but, even more, between what has been given in an immediately proximate past, and what we expect to be given in an immediately proximate future; both of which, the past which is put behind us as past, and the past which is projected forwards as future, necessitate the activity of _memory._ there is an adjustment of our feelings as well as our muscles not merely to the present sensation, but to the future one, and a buzz of continuing adjustment to the past. there is a holding over and a holding on, a reacting backwards and forwards of our attention, and quite a little drama of expectation, fulfilment and disappointment, or as psychologists call them, of tensions and relaxations. and this little drama involved in all looking or listening, particularly in all taking stock of visible or audible (and i may add intellectual or _verbal_) shape, has its appropriate accompaniment of emotional changes: the ease or difficulty of understanding producing feelings of victory or defeat which we shall deal with later. and although the various perceptive activities remain unnoticed in themselves (so long as easy and uninterrupted), we become aware of a lapse, a gap, whenever our mind's eye (if not our bodily one!) neglects to sweep from side to side of a geometrical figure, or from centre to circumference, or again whenever our mind's ear omits following from some particular note to another, just as when we fall asleep for a second during a lecture or sermon: we have, in common parlance, _missed the hang_ of some detail or passage. what we have missed, in that lapse of attention, is a _relation,_ the length and direction of a line, or the span of a musical interval, or, in the case of words, the references of noun and verb, the co-ordination of tenses of a verb. and it is such relations, more or less intricate and hierarchic, which transform what would otherwise be meaningless juxtapositions or sequences of sensations into the significant entities which can be remembered and recognised even when their constituent sensations are completely altered, namely _shapes._ to our previous formula that _beautiful_ denotes satisfaction in contemplating an aspect, we can now add that an _aspect_ consists of sensations grouped together into _relations_ by our active, our remembering and foreseeing, perception. chapter vi elements of shape let us now examine some of these relations, not in the genealogical or hierarchic order assigned to them by experimental psychology, but in so far as they constitute the elements of _shape,_ and more especially as they illustrate the general principle which i want to impress on the reader, namely: that the perception of shape depends primarily upon movements which _we_ make, and the measurements and comparisons which _we_ institute. and first we must examine mere _extension_ as such, which distinguishes our active dealings with visual and audible sensations from our passive reception of the sensations of taste and smell. for while in the case of the latter a succession of similar stimulations affects us as "more taste of strawberry" or "more smell of rose" when intermittent, or as a vague "there _is_ a strong or faint taste of strawberry" and a "there is a smell of lemon flower"--when continuous; our organ of sight being mobile, reports not "more black on white" but "so many inches of black line on a white ground," that is to say reports a certain _extension_ answering to its own movement. this quality of extension exists also in our sound-perceptions, although the explanation is less evident. notes do not indeed exist (but only sounding bodies and air-vibrations) in the space which we call "real" because our eye and our locomotion coincide in their accounts of it; but notes are experienced, that is thought and felt, as existing in a sort of imitation space of their own. this "musical space," as m. dauriac has rightly called it, has limits corresponding with those of our power of hearing or reproducing notes, and a central region corresponding with our habitual experience of the human voice; and in this "musical space" notes are experienced as moving up and down and with a centrifugal and centripetal direction, and also as existing at definite spans or _intervals_ from one another; all of which probably on account of presumable muscular adjustments of the inner and auditive apparatus, as well as obvious sensations in the vocal parts when we ourselves produce, and often when we merely think of, them. in visual perception the sweep of the glance, that is the adjustment of the muscles of the inner eye, the outer eye and of the head, is susceptible of being either interrupted or continuous like any other muscular process; and its continuity is what unites the mere successive sensations of colour and light into a unity of extension, so that the same successive colour-and-light-sensations can be experienced either as _one_ extension, or as two or more, according as the glance is continuous or interrupted; the eye's sweep, when not excessive, tending to continuity _unless a new direction requires a new muscular adjustment._ and, except in the case of an _extension_ exceeding any single movement of eye and head, a new adjustment answers to what we call _a change of direction. extension_ therefore, as we have forestalled with regard to sound, has various modes, corresponding to something belonging to ourselves: a _middle,_ answering to the middle not of our field of vision, since that itself can be raised or lowered by a movement of the head, but to the middle of our body; and an _above_ and _below,_ a _right_ and a _left_ referable to our body also, or rather to the adjustments made by eye and head in the attempt to see our own extremities; for, as every primer of psychology will teach you, mere sight and its muscular adjustments account only for the dimensions of height (up and down) and of breadth (right and left) while the third or cubic dimension of _depth_ is a highly complex result of locomotion in which i include prehension. and inasmuch as we are dealing with _aspects_ and not with _things,_ we have as yet nothing to do with this _cubic_ or _third dimension,_ but are confining ourselves to the two dimensions of extension in height and breadth, which are sufficient for the existence, the identity, or more correctly the _quiddity,_ of visible shapes. such a shape is therefore, primarily, a series of longer or shorter _extensions,_ given by a separate glance towards, or away from, our own centre or extremities, and at some definite angle to our own axis and to the ground on which we stand. but these acts of extension and orientation cease to be thought of as measured and orientated, and indeed as accomplished, by ourselves, and are translated into objective terms whenever our attention is turned outwards: thus we say that each line is of a given length and direction, so or so much off the horizontal or vertical. so far we have established relations only to ourselves. we now compare the acts of extension one against the other, and we also measure the adjustment requisite to pass from one to another, continuing to refer them all to our own axis and centre; in everyday speech, we perceive that the various lines are _similar_ and _dissimilar_ in length, direction and orientation. we _compare;_ and comparing we _combine_ them in the unity of our intention: thought of together they are thought of as belonging together. meanwhile the process of such comparison of the relation of each line with us to the analogous relation to us of its fellows, produces yet further acts of measurement and comparison. for in going from one of our lines to another we become aware of the presence of--how shall i express it?--well of a _nothing_ between them, what we call _blank space,_ because we experience a _blank_ of the particular sensations, say red and black, with which we are engaged in those lines. between the red and black sensations of the lines we are looking at, there will be a possibility of other colour sensations, say the white of the paper, and these white sensations we shall duly receive, for, except by shutting our eyes, we could not avoid receiving them. but though received these white sensations will not be attended to, because they are not what we are busied with. we shall be _passive_ towards the white sensations while we are _active_ towards the black and red ones; we shall not measure the white; not sweep our glance along it as we do along the red and the black. and as _ceteris paribus_ our tense awareness of active states always throws into insignificance a passive state sandwiched between them; so, bent as we are upon our red and black extensions, and their comparative lengths and directions, we shall treat the uninteresting white extensions as a _blank,_ a gap, as that which separates the objects of our active interest, and takes what existence it has for our mind only from its relation of separating those interesting actively measured and compared lines. thus the difference between our _active perception_ and our merely _passive sensation_ accounts for the fact that every visible shape is composed of lines (or bands) measured and compared with reference to our own ocular adjustments and our axis and centre; lines existing, as we express it, in _blank space,_ that is to say space not similarly measured; lines, moreover, _enclosing_ between each other more of this blank space, which is not measured in itself but subjected to the measurement of its enclosing lines. and similarly, every _audible_ shape consists not merely of sounds enclosing _silence,_ but of heard tones between which we are aware of the intervening _blank interval_ which _might have been_ occupied by the intermediary tones and semitones. in other words, visible and audible shape is composed of alternations between _active,_ that is _moving,_ measuring, referring, comparing, attention; and _passive,_ that is comparatively sluggish _reception_ of mere sensation. this fact implies another and very important one, which i have indeed already hinted at. if perceiving shape means comparing lines (they may _be bands,_ but we will call them _lines),_ and the lines are measured only by consecutive eye movements, then the act of comparison evidently includes the co-operation, however infinitesimally brief, of _memory._ the two halves of this chippendale chair-back exist simultaneously in front of my eyes, but i cannot take stock simultaneously of the lengths and orientation of the curves to the right and the curves of the left. i must hold over the image of one half, and unite it, somewhere in what we call "the mind"--with the other; nay, i must do this even with the separate curves constituting the patterns each of which is measured by a sweep of the glance, even as i should measure them successively by applying a tape and then remembering and comparing their various lengths, although the ocular process may stand to the tape-process as a minute of our time to several hundreds of years. this comes to saying that the perception of visible shapes, even like that of audible ones, takes place _in time,_ and requires therefore the co-operation of _memory._ now memory, paradoxical as it may sound, practically implies _expectation:_ the use of the past, to so speak, is to become that visionary thing we call the _future._ hence, while we are measuring the extension and direction of one line, we are not only _remembering_ the extent and direction of another previously measured line, but we are also _expecting_ a similar, or somewhat similar, act of measurement of the _next_ line; even as in "following a melody" we not only remember the preceding tone, but _expect_ the succeeding ones. such interplay of present, past and future is requisite for every kind of _meaning,_ for every _unit of thought_; and among others, of the meaning, the _thought,_ which we contemplate under the name of _shape._ it is on account of this interplay of present, past and future, that wundt counts feelings _of tension_ and _relaxation_ among the _elements_ of form-perception. and the mention of such _feelings,_ i.e. rudiments of _emotion,_ brings us to recognise that the remembering and foreseeing of our acts of measurement and orientation constitutes a microscopic psychological drama--shall we call it the drama of the soul molecules?--whose first familiar examples are those two peculiarities of visible and audible shape called _symmetry_ and _rythm._ both of these mean that a measurement has been made, and that the degree of its _span_ is kept in memory to the extent of our expecting that the next act of measurement will be similar. _symmetry_ exists quite as much in _time_ (hence in shapes made up of sound-relations) as in _space;_ and _rythm,_ which is commonly thought of as an especially musical relation, exists as much in _space_ as in _time_; because the perception of shape requires time and movement equally whether the relations are between objectively co-existent and durable marks on stone or paper, or between objectively successive and fleeting sound-waves. also because, while the single relations of lines and of sounds require to be ascertained successively, the combination of those various single relations, their relations with one another _as whole and parts,_ require to be grasped by an intellectual synthesis; as much in the case of notes as in the case of lines. if, in either case, we did not remember the first measurement when we obtained the second, there would be no perception of shape however elementary; which is the same as saying that for an utterly oblivious mind there could be no relationships, and therefore no meaning. in the case of symmetry the relations are not merely the lengths and directions of the single lines, that is to say their relations to ourselves, and the relation established by comparison between these single lines; there is now also the relation of both to a third, itself of course related to ourselves, indeed, as regards visible shape, usually answering to our own axis. the expectation which is liable to fulfilling or balking is therefore that of a repetition of this double relationship remembered between the lengths and directions on one side, by the lengths and directions on the other; and the repetition of a common relation to a central item. the case of rythm is more complex. for, although we usually think of rythm as a relation of _two_ items, it is in reality a relation of four (or more ); because what we remember and expect is a mixture of similarity with dissimilarity between lengths, directions or impacts. or impacts. for with rythm we come to another point illustrative of the fact that all shape-elements depend upon our own activity and its modes. a rythmical arrangement is not necessarily one between _objectively_ alternated elements like objectively longer or shorter lines of a pattern, or _objectively_ higher or lower or longer and shorter notes. rythm exists equally where the objective data, the sense stimulations, are uniform, as is the case with the ticks of a clock. these ticks would be registered as exactly similar by appropriate instruments. but our mind is not such an impassive instrument: our mind (whatever our mind may really be) is subject to an alternation of _more_ and _less,_ of _vivid_ and _less vivid, important_ and _less important,_ of _strong_ and _weak;_ and the objectively similar stimulations from outside, of sound or colour or light, are perceived as vivid or less vivid, important or less important, according to the beat of this mutual alternation with which they coincide: thus the uniform, ticking of the clock will be perceived by us as a succession in which the stress, that is the importance, is thrown upon the first or the second member of a group; and the recollection and expectation are therefore of a unity of dissimilar importance. we hear strong-weak; and remembering _strong-weak,_ we make a new _strong-weak_ out of that objective uniformity. here there is no objective reason for one rythm more than another; and we express this by saying that the tickings of a clock have no intrinsic form. for _form,_ or as i prefer to call it, _shape,_ although it exists only in the mind capable of establishing and correlating its constituent relationships, takes an objective existence when the material stimulations from the outer world are such as to force all normally constituted minds to the same series and combinations of perceptive acts; a fact which explains why the artist can transmit the shapes existing in his own mind to the mind of a beholder or hearer by combining certain objective stimulations, say those of pigments on paper or of sound vibrations in time, so as to provoke perceptive activities similar to those which would, _ceteris paribus,_ have been provoked in himself if that shape had not existed first of all _only_ in his mind. a further illustration of the principle that shape-perception is a combination of active measurements and comparisons, and of remembrance and expectations, is found in a fact which has very great importance in all artistic dealings with shapes. i have spoken, for simplicity's, sake, as if the patches of colour on a blank (i.e. uninteresting) ground along which the glance sweeps, were invariably contiguous and continuous. but these colour patches, and the sensations they afford us, are just as often, discontinuous in the highest degree; and the lines constituting a shape may, as for instance in constellations, be entirely imaginary. the fact is that what we feel as a line is not an objective continuity of colour-or-light-patches, but the continuity of our glance's sweep which may either accompany this objective continuity or replace it. indeed such imaginary lines thus established between isolated colour patches, are sometimes felt as more vividly existing than real ones, because the glance is not obliged to take stock of their parts, but can rush freely from extreme point to extreme point. moreover not only half the effectiveness of design, but more than half the efficiency of practical life, is due to our establishing such imaginary lines. we are inevitably and perpetually dividing visual space (and something of the sort happens also with "musical space") by objectively non-existent lines answering to our own bodily orientation. every course, every trajectory, is of this sort. and every drawing executed by an artist, every landscape, offered us by "nature," is felt, because it is measured, with reference to a set of imaginary horizontals or perpendiculars. while, as i remember the late mr g. f. watts showing me, every curve which we look at is _felt as being_ part of an imaginary circle into which it could be prolonged. our sum of measuring and comparing activities, and also our dramas of remembrance and expectation, are therefore multiplied by these imaginary lines, whether they connect, constellation-wise, a few isolated colour indications, or whether they are established as standards of reference (horizontals, verticals, etc.) for other really existing lines; or whether again they be thought of, like those circles, as _wholes_ of which objectively perceived series of colour patches might possibly be _parts._ in all these cases imaginary lines are _felt,_ as existing, inasmuch as we feel the movement by which we bring them into existence, and even feel that such a movement might be made by us when it is not. so far, however, i have dealt with these imaginary lines only as an additional proof that shape-perception is an establishment of two dimensional relationships, through our own activities, and an active remembering, foreseeing and combining thereof. chapter vii facility and difficulty of grasping of this we get further proof when we proceed to another and less elementary relationship implied in the perception of shape: the relation of whole and parts. in dealing with the _ground_ upon which we perceive our red and black patches to be extended, i have already pointed out that our operations of measuring and comparing are not applied to all the patches of colour which we actually see, but only to such as we _look at_; an observation equally applicable to sounds. in other words our attention selects certain sensations, and limits to these all that establishing of relations, all that measuring and comparing, all that remembering and expecting; the other sensations being excluded. now, while whatever is thus merely seen, but not looked at, is excluded as so much _blank_ or _otherness_; whatever is, on the contrary, _included_ is thereby credited with the quality of belonging, that is to say being included, together. and the more the attention alternates between the measuring of _included_ extensions and directions and the expectation of equivalent (symmetrical or rythmical) extensions or directions or stresses, the closer will become the relation of these items _included_ by our attention and the more foreign will become the _excluded otherness_ from which, as we feel, they _detach themselves._ but--by an amusing paradox--these lines measured and compared by our attention, are themselvesnot only _excluding_ so much _otherness or blank;_ they also tend, so soon as referred to one another, to _include_ some of this uninteresting blankness; and it is across this more or less completely included blankness that the eye (and the imagination!) draw such imaginary lines as i have pointed out with reference to the constellations. thus a circle, say of red patches, _excludes_ some of the white paper on which it is drawn; but it _includes_ or _encloses_ the rest. place a red patch somewhere on that _enclosed_ blank; our glance and attention will now play not merely along the red circumference, but to and fro between the red circumference and the red patch, thereby establishing imaginary but thoroughly measured and compared lines between the two. draw a red line from the red patch to the red circumference; you will begin expecting similar lengths on the other sides of the red patch, and you will become aware that these imaginary lines are, or are not, equal; in other words, that the red patch is, or is not, equidistant from every point of the red circumference. and if the red patch is not thus in the middle, you will expect, and imagine another patch which _is;_ and from this _imaginary centre_ you will draw imaginary lines, that is you will make by no means imaginary glance-sweeps, to the red circumference. thus you may go on adding real red lines and imaginary lines connecting them with the circumference; and the more you do so the more you will feel that all these real lines and imaginary lines and all the blank space which the latter measure, are connected, or susceptible of being connected, closer and closer, every occasional excursion beyond the boundary only bringing you back with an increased feeling of this interconnexion, and an increased expectation of realising it in further details. but if on one of these glance-flickings beyond the circumference, your attention is caught by some colour patch or series of colour patches outside of it, you will either cease being interested in the circle and wander away to the new colour patches; or more probably, try to connect that outlying colour with the circle and its radii; or again failing that, you will "overlook it," as, in a pattern of concentric circles you overlook a colour band which, as you express it "has nothing to do with it," that is with what you are looking at. or again listening to. for if a church-bell mixes its tones and rythm with that of a symphony you are listening to, you may try and bring them in, make a place for them, _expect_ them among the other tones or rythms. failing which you will, after a second or two, cease to notice those bells, cease to listen to them, giving all your attention once more to the sonorous whole whence you have expelled those intruders; or else, again, the intrusion will become an interruption, and the bells, once _listened to,_ will prevent your listening adequately to the symphony. moreover, if the number of extensions, directions, real or imaginary lines or musical intervals, alternations of _something_ and _nothing,_ prove too great for your powers of measurement and comparison, particularly if it all surpass your habitual interplay of recollection and expectation, you will say (as before an over intricate pattern or a piece of music of unfamiliar harmonies and rythm) that "you can't grasp it"--that you "miss the hang of it." and what you will feel is that you cannot keep the parts within the whole, that the boundary vanishes, that what has been included unites with the excluded, in fact that all _shape_ welters into chaos. and as if to prove once more the truth of our general principle, you will have a hateful feeling of having been trifled with. what has been balked and wasted are all your various activities of measuring, comparing and co-ordinating; what has been trifled with are your expectations. and so far from contemplating with satisfaction the objective cause of all this vexation and disappointment, you will avoid contemplating it at all, and explain your avoidance by calling that chaotic or futile assemblage of lines or of notes "ugly." we seem thus to have got a good way in our explanation; and indeed the older psychology, for instance of the late grant allen, did not get any further. but to explain why a shape difficult to perceive should be disliked and called "ugly," by no means amounts to explaining why some other shape should be liked and called "beautiful," particularly as some ugly shapes happen to be far easier to grasp than some beautiful ones. the reader will indeed remember that there is a special pleasure attached to all overcoming of difficulty, and to all understanding. but this double pleasure is shared with form-perception by every other successful grasping of meaning; and there is no reason why that pleasure should be repeated in the one case more than in the other; nor why we should repeat looking at (which is what we mean by contemplating) a shape once we have grasped it, any more than we continue to dwell on, to reiterate the mental processes by which we have worked out a geometrical proposition or unravelled a metaphysical crux. the sense of victory ends very soon after the sense of the difficulty overcome; the sense of illumination ends with the acquisition of a piece of information; and we pass on to some new obstacle and some new riddle. but it is different in the case of what we call _beautiful. beautiful_ means satisfactory for contemplation, _i.e._ for reiterated perception; and the very essence of contemplative satisfaction is its desire for such reiteration. the older psychology would perhaps have explained this reiterative tendency by the pleasurableness of the sensory elements, the mere colours and sounds of which the easily perceived shape is made up. but this does not explain why, given that other shapes are made up of equally agreeable sensory elements, we should not pass on from a once perceived shape or combination of shapes to a new one, thus obtaining, in addition to the sensory agreeableness of colour or sound, a constantly new output of that feeling of victory and illumination attendant on every successful intellectual effort. or, in other words, seeing that painting and music employ sensory elements already selected as agreeable, we ought never to wish to see the same picture twice, or to continue looking at it; we ought never to wish to repeat the same piece of music or its separate phrases; still less to cherish that picture or piece of music in our memory, going over and over again as much of its shape as had become our permanent possession. we return therefore to the fact that although balked perception is enough to make us reject a shape as _ugly, i.e._ such that we avoid entering into contemplation of it, easy perception is by no means sufficient to make us cherish a shape _as beautiful, i.e._ such that the reiteration of our drama of perception becomes desirable. and we shall have to examine whether there may not be some other factor of shape-perception wherewith to account for this preference of reiterated looking at the same to looking at something else. meanwhile we may add to our set of formulae: difficulty in shape-perception makes contemplation disagreeable and impossible, and hence earns for aspects the adjective _ugly._ but facility in perception, like agreeableness of sensation by no means suffices for satisfied contemplation, and hence for the use of the adjective beautiful. chapter viii subject and object but before proceeding to this additional factor in shape-perception, namely that of empathic interpretation, i require to forestall an objection which my reader has doubtless been making throughout my last chapters; more particularly that in clearing away the ground of this objection i shall be able to lay the foundations of my further edifice of explanation. the objection is this: if the man on the hill was aware of performing any, let alone all, of the various operations described as constituting shape-perception, neither that man nor any other human being would be able to enjoy the shapes thus perceived. my answer is: when did i say or imply that he was _aware_ of doing any of it? it is not only possible, but extremely common, to perform processes without being aware of performing them. the man was not _aware,_ for instance, of making eye adjustments and eye movements, unless indeed his sight was out of order. yet his eye movements could have been cinematographed, and his eye adjustments have been described minutely in a dozen treatises. he was no more aware of _doing_ any measuring or comparing than we are aware of _doing_ our digestion or circulation, except when we do them badly. but just as we are aware of our digestive and circulatory processes in the sense of being aware of the animal spirits resulting from their adequate performance, so he was aware of his measuring and comparing, inasmuch as he was aware that the line a--b was longer than the line c--d, or that the point e was half an inch to the left of the point f. for so long as we are neither examining into ourselves, nor called upon to make a choice between two possible proceedings, nor forced to do or suffer something difficult or distressing, in fact so long as we are attending to whatever absorbs our attention and not to our processes of attending, those processes are replaced in our awareness by the very facts--for instance the proportions and relations of lines--resulting from their activity. that these results should not resemble their cause, that mental elements (as they are called) should appear and disappear, and also combine into unaccountable compounds (browning's "not a third sound, but a star") according as we attend to them, is indeed the besetting difficulty of a science carried on by the very processes which it studies. but it is so because it is one of psychology's basic facts. and, so far as we are at present concerned, this difference between mental processes and their results is the fact upon which psychological aesthetics are based. and it is not in order to convert the man on the hill to belief in his own acts of shape-perception, nor even to explain why he was not aware of them, that i am insisting upon this point. the principle i have been expounding, let us call it that of the _merging of the perceptive activities of the subject in the qualities of the object of perception,_ explains another and quite as important mental process which was going on in that unsuspecting man. but before proceeding to that i must make it clearer how that man stood in the matter of _awareness of himself._ he was, indeed, aware of himself whenever, during his contemplation of that landscape, the thought arose, "well, i must be going away, and perhaps i shan't see this place again"--or some infinitely abbreviated form, perhaps a mere sketched out gesture of turning away, accompanied by a slight feeling of _clinging,_ he couldn't for the life of him say in what part of his body. he was at that moment acutely aware that he _did not want_ to do something which it was optional to do. or, if he acquiesced passively in the necessity of going away, aware that he _wanted to come back,_ or at all events wanted to carry off as much as possible of what he had seen. in short he was aware of himself either making the effort of tearing himself away, or, if some other person or mere habit, saved him this effort, he was aware of himself making another effort to impress that landscape on his memory, and aware of a future self making an effort to return to it. i call it _effort_; you may, if you prefer, call it will; at all events the man was aware of himself as nominative of a verb to _cling to,_ (in the future tense) _return to,_ to _choose as against some other alternative_; as nominative of a verb briefly, _to like_ or _love._ and the accusative of these verbs would be the landscape. but unless the man's contemplation was thus shot with similar ideas of some action or choice of his own, he would express the situation by saying "this landscape _is_ awfully beautiful." this is. i want you to notice the formula, by which the landscape, ceasing to be the accusative of the man's looking and thinking, becomes the nominative of a verb _to be so-and-so._ that grammatical transformation is the sign of what i have designated, in philosophical language, _as the merging of the activities of the subject in the object._ it takes place already in the domain of simple sensation whenever, instead of saying "_i_ taste or _i_ smell something nice or nasty" we say--"_this thing_ tastes or smells nice or nasty." and i have now shown you how this tendency to put the cart before the horse increases when we pass to the more complex and active processes called perception; turning "i measure this line"--"i compare these two angles" into "this line _extends_ from a to b"--"these two angles _are equal_ to two right angles." but before getting to the final inversion--"this landscape _is_ beautiful" instead of "_i_ like this landscape"--there is yet another, and far more curious merging of the subject's activities in the qualities of the object. this further putting of the cart before the horse (and, you will see, attributing to the cart what only the horse can be doing!) falls under the head of what german psychologists call _einfühlung,_ or "infeeling"--which prof. titchener has translated _empathy._ now this new, and comparatively newly discovered element in our perception of shape is the one to which, leaving out of account the pleasantness of mere colour and sound sensations as such, we probably owe the bulk of whatever satisfaction we connect with the word beautiful. and i have already given the reader an example of such empathy when i described the landscape seen by the man on the hill as consisting of a skyline "_dropping down merely to rush up again in rapid concave curves_"; to which i might have added that there was also a plain which _extended,_ a valley which _wound along,_ paths which _climbed_ and roads which _followed_ the _undulations_ of the land. but the best example was when i said that opposite to the man there was a distant mountain _rising_ against the sky. chapter ix empathy _the mountain rises._ what do we mean when we employ this form of words? some mountains, we are told, have originated in an _upheaval._ but even if this particular mountain did, we never saw it and geologists are still disputing about how and whether. so the _rising_ we are talking about is evidently not that probable or improbable _upheaval._ on the other hand all geologists tell us that every mountain is undergoing a steady _lowering_ through its particles being weathered away and washed down; and our knowledge of landslips and avalanches shows us that the mountain, so far from rising, is _descending._ of course we all know that, objects the reader, and of course nobody imagines that the rock and the earth of the mountain is rising, or that the mountain is getting up or growing taller! all we mean is that the mountain _looks_ as if it were rising. the mountain _looks!_ surely here is a case of putting the cart before the horse. no; we cannot explain the mountain _rising_ by the mountain _looking,_ for the only _looking_ in the business is _our_ looking _at_ the mountain. and if the reader objects again that these are all _figures of speech,_ i shall answer that _empathy_ is what explains why we employ figures of speech at all, and occasionally employ them, as in the case of this rising mountain, when we know perfectly well that the figure we have chosen expresses the exact reverse of the objective truth. very well; then, (says the reader) we will avoid all figures of speech and say merely: when we look at the mountain _we somehow or other think of the action of rising._ is that sufficiently literal and indisputable? so literal and indisputable a statement of the case, i answer, that it explains, when we come to examine it, why we have said that the mountain rises. for if the reader remembers my chapter on shape-perception, he will have no difficulty in answering why we should have a thought of rising when we look at the mountain, since we cannot look at the mountain, nor at a tree, a tower or anything of which we similarly say that it _rises,_ without lifting our glance, raising our eye and probably raising our head and neck, all of which raising and lifting unites into a general awareness of something _rising._ the rising of which we are aware is going on in us. but, as the reader will remember also, when we are engrossed by something outside ourselves, as we are engrossed in looking at the shape (for we can _look_ at only the shape, not the _substance)_ of that mountain we cease thinking about ourselves, and cease thinking about ourselves exactly in proportion as we are thinking of the mountain's shape. what becomes therefore of our awareness of raising or lifting or _rising?_ what can become of it (so long as it continues to be there!) except that it coalesces with the shape we are looking at; in short that the _rising_ continuing to be thought, but no longer to be thought of with reference to ourselves (since we aren't thinking of ourselves), is thought of in reference to what we _are_ thinking about, namely the mountain, or rather the mountain's shape, which is, so to speak, responsible for any thought of rising, since it obliges us to lift, raise or rise ourselves in order to take stock of it. it is a case exactly analogous to our transferring the measuring done by our eye to the line of which we say that it _extends_ from a to b, when in reality the only _extending_ has been the extending of our glance. it is a case of what i have called the tendency to merge the _activities_ of the perceiving subject with the qualities of the perceived object. indeed if i insisted so much upon this tendency of our mind, i did so largely because of its being at the bottom of the phenomenon of _empathy,_ as we have just seen it exemplified in the _mountain which rises._ if this is empathy, says the reader (relieved and reassured), am i to understand that empathy is nothing beyond _attributing what goes on in us when we look at a shape to the shape itself?_ i am sorry that the matter is by no means so simple! if what we attributed to each single shape was only the precise action which we happen to be accomplishing in the process of looking at it, empathy would indeed be a simple business, but it would also be a comparatively poor one. no. the _rising_ of the mountain is an idea started by the awareness of our own lifting or raising of our eyes, head or neck, and it is an idea containing the awareness of that lifting or raising. but it is far more than the idea merely of that lifting or raising which we are doing at this particular present moment and in connexion with this particular mountain. that present and particular raising and lifting is merely the nucleus to which gravitates our remembrance of all similar acts of raising, or _rising._ which we have ever accomplished or seen accomplished, _raising_ or _rising_ not only of our eyes and head, but of every other part of our body, and of every part of every other body which we ever perceived to be rising. and not merely the thought of past _rising_ but the thought also of future rising. all these risings, done by ourselves or watched in others, actually experienced or merely imagined, have long since united together in our mind, constituting a sort of composite photograph whence all differences are eliminated and wherein all similarities are fused and intensified: the general idea of _rising,_ not "i rise, rose, will rise, it rises, has risen or will rise" but merely _rising as_ such, _rising_ as it is expressed not in any particular tense or person of the verb _to rise,_ but in that verb's infinitive. it is this universally applicable notion of rising, which is started in our mind by the awareness of the particular present acts of raising or rising involved in our looking at that mountain, and it is this general idea of rising, _i.e._ of _upward movement,_ which gets transferred to the mountain along with our own particular present activity of raising some part of us, and which thickens and enriches and marks that poor little thought of a definite raising with the interest, the emotional fullness gathered and stored up in its long manifold existence. in other words: what we are transferring (owing to that tendency to merge the activities of the perceiving subject with the qualities of the perceived object) from ourselves to the looked at shape of the mountain, is not merely the thought of the rising which is really being done by us at that moment, but the thought and emotion, the _idea of rising as such_ which had been accumulating in our mind long before we ever came into the presence of that particular mountain. and it is this complex mental process, by which we (all unsuspectingly) invest that inert mountain, that bodiless shape, with the stored up and averaged and essential modes of our activity--it is this process whereby we make the mountain _raise itself,_ which constitutes what, accepting prof. titchener's translation[*] of the german word _einfühlung,_ i have called empathy. [*] from _en_ and _pascho, epathon_. the german word _einfühlung_ "feeling into"--derived from a _verb to feel oneself into something_ ("sich in etwas ein fühlen") was in current use even before lotze and viscber applied it to aesthetics, and some years before lipps ( ) and wundt ( ) adopted it into psychological terminology; and as it is now consecrated, and no better occurs to me, i have had to adopt it, although the literal connotations of the german word have surrounded its central meaning (as i have just defined it) with several mischievous misinterpretations. against two of these i think it worth while to warn the reader, especially as, while so doing, i can, in showing what it is not, make it even clearer what empathy really is. the first of these two main misinterpretations is based upon the reflexive form of the german verb "_sich einfühlen_" (to feel _oneself_ into) and it defines, or rather does not define, empathy as a metaphysical and quasi-mythological projection of the ego into the object or shape under observation; a notion incompatible with the fact that empathy, being only another of those various mergings of the activities of the perceiving subject with the qualities of the perceived object wherewith we have already dealt, depends upon a comparative or momentary abeyance of all thought of an ego; if we became aware that it is _we_ who are thinking the rising, we who are _feeling_ the rising, we should not think or feel that the mountain did the rising. the other (and as we shall later see) more justifiable misinterpretation of the word empathy is based on its analogy with _sympathy,_ and turns it into a kind of sympathetic, or as it has been called, _inner, i.e._ merely _felt, mimicry_ of, for instance, the mountain's _rising._ such mimicry, not only _inner_ and _felt,_ but outwardly manifold, does undoubtedly often result from very lively _empathic_ imagination. but as it is the mimicking, inner or outer, of movements and actions which, like the _rising_ of the mountain, take place only in our imagination, it presupposes such previous animation of the inanimate, and cannot therefore be taken either as constituting or explaining empathy itself. such as i have defined and exemplified it in our rising mountain, empathy is, together with mere sensation, probably the chief factor of preference, that is of an alternative of satisfaction and dissatisfaction, in aesthetic contemplation, the muscular adjustments and the measuring, comparing and coordinating activities by which empathy is started, being indeed occasionally difficult and distressing, but giving in themselves little more than a negative satisfaction, at the most that of difficulty overcome and suspense relieved. but although nowhere so fostered as in the contemplation of shapes, empathy exists or tends to exist throughout our mental life. it is, indeed, one of our simpler, though far from absolutely elementary, psychological processes, entering into what is called imagination, sympathy, and also into that inference from our own inner experience which has shaped all our conceptions of an outer world, and given to the intermittent and heterogeneous sensations received from without the framework of our constant and highly unified inner experience, that is to say, of our own activities and aims. empathy can be traced in all of modes of speech and thought, particularly in the universal attribution of _doing_ and _having_ and _tending_ where all we can really assert is successive and varied _being._ science has indeed explained away the anthropomorphic implications of _force_ and _energy, attraction_ and _repulsion_; and philosophy has reduced _cause_ and _effect_ from implying intention and effort to meaning mere constant succession. but empathy still helps us to many valuable analogies; and it is possible that without its constantly checked but constantly renewed action, human thought would be without logical cogency, as it certainly would be without poetical charm. indeed if empathy is so recent a discovery, this may be due to its being part and parcel of our thinking; so that we are surprised to learn its existence, as molière's good man was to hear that be talked prose. chapter x the movement of lines any tendency to empathy is perpetually being checked by the need for practical thinking. we are made to think in the most summary fashion from one to another of those grouped possibilities, past, present and future, which we call a thing; and in such discursive thinking we not only leave far behind the _aspect,_ the shape, which has started a given scheme of empathy, a given _movement of lines,_ but we are often faced by facts which utterly contradict it. when, instead of looking at a particular _aspect_ of that mountain, we set to climbing it ourselves, the mountain ceases to "rise"; it becomes passive to the activity which our muscular sensations and our difficulty of breathing locate most unmistakably in ourselves. besides which, in thus dealing with the mountain as a _thing,_ we are presented with a series of totally different aspects or shapes, some of which suggest empathic activities totally different from that of rising. and the mountain in question, seen from one double its height, will suggest the empathic activity of _spreading itself out._ moreover practical life hustles us into a succession of more and more summary perceptions; we do not actually see more than is necessary for the bare recognition of whatever we are dealing with and the adjustment of our actions not so much to what it already is, as to what it is likely to become. and this which is true of seeing with the bodily eye, is even more so of seeing, or rather _not_ seeing but _recognising,_ with the eye of the spirit. the practical man on the hill, and his scientific companion, (who is merely, so to speak, a man _unpractically_ concerned with practical causes and changes) do not thoroughly see the shapes of the landscape before them; and still less do they see the precise shape of the funiculars, tramways, offices, cheques, volcanoes, ice-caps and prehistoric inhabitants of their thoughts. there is not much chance of empathy and empathy's pleasures and pains in their lightning-speed, touch-and-go visions! but now let us put ourselves in the place of their aesthetically contemplative fellow-traveller. and, for simplicity's sake, let us imagine him contemplating more especially one shape in that landscape, the shape of that distant mountain, the one whose "rising"--came to an end as soon as we set to climbing it. the mountain is so far off that its detail is entirely lost; all we can see is a narrow and pointed cone, perhaps a little _toppling_ to one side, of uniform hyacinth blue _detaching_ itself from the clear evening sky, into which, from the paler misty blue of the plain, it _rises,_ a mere bodiless shape. it _rises._ there is at present no doubt about its _rising._ it rises and keeps on rising, never stopping unless _we_ stop looking at it. it rises and never _has_ risen. its drama of two lines _striving_ (one with more suddenness of energy and purpose than the other) to _arrive_ at a particular imaginary point in the sky, _arresting_ each other's _progress_ as they _meet_ in their _endeavour,_ this simplest empathic action of an irregular and by no means rectilinear triangle, goes on repeating itself, like the parabola of a steadily spirting fountain: for ever accomplishing itself anew and for ever accompanied by the same effect on the feelings of the beholder. it is this reiterative nature which, joined to its schematic definiteness, gives empathy its extraordinary power over us. empathy, as i have tried to make clear to the reader, is due not only to the movements which we are actually making in the course of shape-perception, to present movements with their various modes of speed, intensity and facility and their accompanying intentions; it is due at least as much to our accumulated and averaged past experience of movements of the same kind, also with _their_ cognate various modes of speed, intensity, facility, and _their_ accompanying intentions. and being thus residual averaged, and essential, this empathic movement, this movement attributed to the lines of a shape, is not clogged and inhibited by whatever clogs and inhibits each separate concrete experience of the kind; still less is it overshadowed in our awareness by the _result_ which we foresee as goal of our real active proceedings. for unless they involve bodily or mental strain, our real and therefore transient movements do not affect us as pleasant or unpleasant, because our attention is always outrunning them to some momentary goal; and the faint awareness of them is usually mixed up with other items, sensations and perceptions, of wholly different characters. thus, in themselves and apart from their aims, our bodily movements are never interesting except inasmuch as requiring new and difficult adjustments, or again as producing perceptible repercussions in our circulatory, breathing and balancing apparatus: a waltz, or a dive or a gallop may indeed be highly exciting, thanks to its resultant organic perturbations and its concomitants of overcome difficulty and danger, but even a dancing dervish's intoxicating rotations cannot afford him much of the specific interest of movement as movement. yet every movement which we accomplish implies a change in our debit and credit of vital economy, a change in our balance of bodily and mental expenditure and replenishment; and this, if brought to our awareness, is not only interesting, but interesting in the sense either of pleasure or displeasure, since it implies the more or less furtherance or hindrance of our life-processes. now it is this complete awareness, this brimfull interest in our own dynamic changes, in our various and variously combined facts of movement inasmuch as _energy_ and _intention,_ it is this sense of the _values of movement_ which empathy, by its schematic simplicity and its reiteration, is able to reinstate. the contemplation, that is to say the _isolating and reiterating perception,_ of shapes and in so far of the qualities and relations of movement which empathy invests them with, therefore shields our dynamic sense from all competing interests, clears it from all varying and irrelevant concomitants, gives it, as faust would have done to the instant of happiness, a sufficient duration; and reinstating it in the centre of our consciousness, allows it to add the utmost it can to our satisfaction or dissatisfaction. hence the mysterious importance, the attraction or repulsion, possessed by shapes, audible as well as visible, according to their empathic character; movement and energy, all that we feel as being life, is furnished by them in its essence and allowed to fill our consciousness. this fact explains also another phenomenon, which in its turn greatly adds to the power of that very empathy of which it is a result. i am speaking once more of that phenomenon called _inner mimicry_ which certain observers, themselves highly subject to it, have indeed considered as empathy's explanation, rather than its result. in the light of all i have said about the latter, it becomes intelligible that when empathic imagination (itself varying from individual to individual) happens to be united to a high degree of (also individually very varying) muscular responsiveness, there may be set up reactions, actual or incipient, _e.g._ alterations of bodily attitude or muscular tension which (unless indeed they withdraw attention from the contemplated object to our own body) will necessarily add to the sum of activity empathically attributed to the contemplated object. there are moreover individuals in whom such "mimetic" accompaniment consists (as is so frequently the case in listening to music) in changes of the bodily balance, the breathing and heart-beats, in which cases additional doses of satisfaction or dissatisfaction result from the participation of bodily functions themselves so provocative of comfort or discomfort. now it is obvious that such mimetic accompaniments, and every other associative repercussion into the seat of what our fathers correctly called "animal spirits," would be impossible unless reiteration, the reiteration of repeated acts of attention, had allowed the various empathic significance, the various _dynamic values,_ of given shapes to sink so deeply into us, to become so habitual, that even a rapid glance (as when we perceive the upspringing lines of a mountain from the window of an express train) may suffice to evoke their familiar dynamic associations. thus contemplation explains, so to speak, why contemplation may be so brief as to seem no contemplation at all: past repetition has made present repetition unnecessary, and the empathic, the dynamic scheme of any particular shape may go on working long after the eye is fixed on something else, or be started by what is scarcely a perception at all; we feel joy at the mere foot-fall of some beloved person, but we do so because he is already beloved. thus does the reiterative character essential to empathy explain how our contemplative satisfaction in shapes, our pleasure in the variously combined _movements of lines,_ irradiates even the most practical, the apparently least contemplative, moments and occupations of our existence. but this is not all. this reiterative character of empathy, this fact that the mountain is always rising without ever beginning to sink or adding a single cubit to its stature, joined to the abstract (the _infinitive of the verb)_ nature of the suggested activity, together account for art's high impersonality and its existing, in a manner, _sub specie aeternitatis._ the drama of lines and curves presented by the humblest design on bowl or mat partakes indeed of the strange immortality of the youths and maidens on the _grecian urn,_ to whom keats, as you remember, says:-- "fond lover, never, never canst thou kiss, though winning near the goal. yet, do not grieve; she cannot fade; though thou hast not thy bliss, for ever wilt thou love, and she be fair." and thus, in considering the process of aesthetic empathy, we find ourselves suddenly back at our original formula: beautiful means satisfactory in contemplation, and contemplation not of things but of shapes which are only aspects of them. chapter xi the character of shapes in my example of the rising mountain, i have been speaking as if empathy invested the shapes we look at with only one mode of activity at a time. this, which i have assumed for the simplicity of exposition, is undoubtedly true in the case either of extremely simple shapes requiring _few_ and homogeneous perceptive activities. it is true also in the case of shapes of which familiarity (as explained on p. ) has made the actual perception very summary; for instance when, walking quickly among trees, we notice only what i may call their dominant empathic gesture of _thrusting_ or _drooping_ their branches, because habit allows us to pick out the most characteristic outlines. but, except in these and similar cases, the _movement_ with which empathy invests shapes is a great deal more complex, indeed we should speak more correctly of movements than of movement of lines. thus the mountain rises, and does nothing but rise so long as we are taking stock only of the relation of its top with the plain, referring its lines solely to real or imaginary horizontals. but if, instead of our glance making a single swish upwards, we look at the two sides of the mountain successively and compare each with the other as well as with the plain, our impression (and our verbal description) will be that _one slope goes up while the other goes down._ when the empathic scheme of the mountain thus ceases to be mere _rising_ and becomes _rising plus descending,_ the two _movements_ with which we have thus invested that shape will be felt as being interdependent; one side _goes down_ because the other has _gone up,_ or the movement rises _in order to_ descend. and if we look at a mountain chain we get a still more complex and co-ordinated empathic scheme, the peaks and valleys (as in my description of what the man saw from his hillside) appearing to us as a sequence of risings and sinkings with correlated intensities; a slope _springing up_ in proportion as the previously seen one _rushed down_; the movements of the eye, slight and sketchy in themselves, awakening the composite dynamic memory of all our experience of the impetus gained by switch-back descent. moreover this sequence, being a sequence, will awaken expectation of repetition, hence sense of rythm; the long chain of peaks will seem to perform a dance, they will furl and unfurl like waves. thus as soon as we get a combination of empathic _forces_ (for that is how they affect us) these will henceforth be in definite relation to one another. but the relation need not be that of mere give and take and rythmical cooperation. lines meeting one another may conflict, check, deflect one another; or again resist each other's effort as the steady determination of a circumference resists, opposes a "quos ego!" to the rushing impact of the spokes of a wheel-pattern. and, along with the empathic suggestion of the mechanical forces experienced in ourselves, will come the empathic suggestion of spiritual characteristics: the lines will have aims, intentions, desires, moods; their various little dramas of endeavour, victory, defeat or peacemaking, will, according to their dominant empathic suggestion, be lighthearted or languid, serious or futile, gentle or brutal; inexorable, forgiving, hopeful, despairing, plaintive or proud, vulgar or dignified; in fact patterns of visible lines will possess all the chief dynamic modes which determine the expressiveness of music. but on the other hand there will remain innumerable emphatic combinations whose poignant significance escapes verbal classification because, as must be clearly understood, empathy deals not directly with mood and emotion, but with dynamic conditions which enter into moods and emotions and take their names from them. be this as it may, and definable or not in terms of human feeling, these various and variously combined (into coordinate scenes and acts) dramas enacted by lines and curves and angles, take place not in the marble or pigment embodying those contemplated shapes, but solely in ourselves, in what we call our memory, imagination and feeling. ours are the energy, the effort, the victory or the peace and cooperation; and all the manifold modes of swiftness or gravity, arduousness or ease, with which their every minutest dynamic detail is fraught. and since we are their only real actors, these empathic dramas of lines are bound to affect us, either as corroborating or as thwarting our vital needs and habits; either as making our felt life easier or more difficult, that is to say as bringing us peace and joy, or depression and exasperation. quite apart therefore from the convenience or not of the adjustments requisite for their ocular measurement, and apart even from the facility or difficulty of comparing and coordinating these measurements, certain shapes and elements of shape are made welcome to us, and other ones made unwelcome, by the sole working of empathy, which identifies the modes of being and moving of lines with our own. for this reason meetings of lines which affect us as neither victory nor honourable submission nor willing cooperation are felt to be ineffectual and foolish. lines also (like those of insufficiently tapered doric columns) which do not _rise with enough impetus_ because they do not seem _to start with sufficient pressure at the base;_ oblique lines (as in certain imitation gothic) which _lose their balance_ for lack of a countervailing _thrust_ against them, all these, and alas many hundreds of other possible combinations, are detestable to our feelings. and similarly we are fussed and bored by the tentative lines, the uncoordinated directions and impacts, of inferior, even if technically expert and realistically learned draughtsmen, of artists whose work may charm at first glance by some vivid likeness or poetic suggestion, but reveal with every additional day their complete insignificance as movement, their utter empathic nullity. indeed, if we analyse the censure ostensibly based upon engineering considerations of material instability, or on wrong perspective or anatomical "out of drawing" we shall find that much of this hostile criticism is really that of empathic un-satisfactoriness, which escapes verbal detection but is revealed by the finger _following,_ as we say (and that is itself an instance of empathy) the movement, the development of, boring or fussing lines. empathy explains not only the universally existing preferences with regard to shape, but also those particular degrees of liking which are matters of personal temperament and even of momentary mood (_cf_. p. ). thus mantegna, with his preponderance of horizontals and verticals will appeal to one beholder as grave and reassuring, but repel another beholder (or the same in a different mood) as dull and lifeless; while the unstable equilibrium and syncopated rythm of botticelli may either fascinate or repel as morbidly excited. and leonardo's systems of whirling interlaced circles will merely baffle (the "enigmatic" quality we hear so much of) the perfunctory beholder, while rewarding more adequate empathic imagination by allowing us to live, for a while, in the modes of the intensest and most purposeful and most harmonious energy. intensity and purposefulness and harmony. these are what everyday life affords but rarely to our longings. and this is what, thanks to this strange process of empathy, a few inches of painted canvas, will sometimes allow us to realise completely and uninterruptedly. and it is no poetical metaphor or metaphysical figment, but mere psychological fact, to say that if the interlacing circles and pentacles of a byzantine floor-pattern absorb us in satisfied contemplation, this is because the modes of being which we are obliged to invest them with are such as we vainly seek, or experience only to lose, in our scattered or hustled existence. chapter xii from the shape to the thing such are the satisfactions and dissatisfactions, impersonal and unpractical, we can receive, or in reality, give ourselves, in the contemplation of shape. but life has little leisure for contemplation; it demands _recognition,_ inference and readiness for active adaptation. or rather life forces us to deal with shapes mainly inasmuch as they indicate the actual or possible existence of other groups of qualities which may help or hurt us. life hurries us into recognising _things._ now the first peculiarity distinguishing _things_ from _shapes_ is _that they can occupy more or less cubic space:_ we can hit up against them, displace them or be displaced by them, and in such process of displacing or resisting displacement, we become aware of two other peculiarities distinguishing things from shapes: they have _weight_ in varying degrees and _texture_ of various sorts. otherwise expressed, things have _body,_ they exist in three dimensional space; while _shapes_ although they are often aspects of things (say statues or vases) having body and cubic existence, shapes _as_ shapes are two dimensional and bodiless. so many of the critical applications of aesthetic, as well as of the historical problems of art-evolution are connected with this fact or rather the continued misunderstanding of it, that it is well to remind the reader of what general psychology can teach us of the perception of the third dimension. a very slight knowledge of cubic existence, in the sense of _relief,_ is undoubtedly furnished as the stereoscope furnishes it, by the inevitable slight divergence between the two eyes; an even more infinitesimal dose of such knowledge is claimed for the surfaces of each eye separately. but whatever notions of three-dimensional space might have been developed from such rudiments, the perception of cubic existence which we actually possess and employ, is undeniably based upon the incomparably more important data afforded by locomotion, under which term i include even the tiny pressure of a finger against a surface, and the exploration of a hollow tooth by the tip of the tongue. the muscular adjustments made in such locomotion become associated by repetition with the two-dimensional arrangements of colour and light revealed by the eye, the two-dimensional being thus turned into the three-dimensional in our everyday experience. but the mistakes we occasionally make, for instance taking a road seen from above for a church-tower projecting out of the plain, or the perspective of a mountain range for its cubic shape, occasionally reveal that we do not really _see_ three-dimensional objects, but merely _infer_ them by connecting visual data with the result of locomotor experience. the truth of this commonplace of psychology can be tested by the experiment of making now one, now the other, colour of a floor pattern seem convex or concave according as we think of it as a light flower on a dark ground, or as a white cavity banked in by a dark ridge. and when the philistine (who may be you or me!) exclaims against the "out of drawing" and false perspective of unfamiliar styles of painting, he is, nine times out of ten, merely expressing his inability to identify two-dimensional shapes as "representing" three-dimensional things; so far proving that we do not decipher the cubic relations of a picture until we have guessed what that picture is supposed to stand for. and this is my reason for saying that visible shapes, though they may be aspects of cubic objects, have no body; and that the thought of their volume, their weight and their texture, is due to an interruption of our contemplation of shape by an excursion among the recollections of qualities which shapes, _as_ shapes, cannot possess. and here i would forestall the reader's objection that the feeling of effort and resistance, essential to all our empathic dealings with two-dimensional shapes, must, after all, be due to _weight,_ which we have just described as a quality shapes cannot possess. my answer is that empathy has extracted and schematised effort and resistance by the elimination of the thought of weight, as by the elimination of the awareness of our bodily tensions; and that it is just this elimination of all incompatible qualities which allows us to attribute activities to those two-dimensional shapes, and to feel these activities, with a vividness undiminished by the thought of any other circumstances. with cubic existence (and its correlative three-dimensional space), with weight and texture we have therefore got from the contemplated shape to a thought alien to that shape and its contemplation. the thought, to which life and its needs and dangers has given precedence over every other: what _thing_ is behind this shape, what qualities must be inferred from this _aspect?_ after the possibility of occupying so much space, the most important quality which things can have for our hopes and fears, is _the possibility of altering their occupation of space;_ not our locomotion, but _theirs._ i call it _locomotion_ rather than _movement,_ because we have _direct_ experience only of our own movements, and _infer_ similar movement in other beings and objects because of their change of place either across our motionless eye or across some other object whose relation to our motionless eye remains unchanged. i call it _locomotion_ also to accentuate its difference from the _movement_ attributed to the shape of the rising mountain, movement _felt_ by us to be going on but not expected to result in any change of the mountain's space relations, which are precisely what would be altered by the mountain's _locomotion._ the _practical_ question about a shape is therefore: does it warrant the inference of a _thing_ able to change its position in three-dimensional space? to advance or recede from us? and if so in what manner? will it, like a loose stone, fall upon us? like flame, rise towards us? like water, spread over us? or will it change its place only if _we_ supply the necessary _locomotion?_ briefly: is the thing of which we see the shape inert or active? and if this shape belongs to a thing possessing activity of its own, is its locomotion of that slow regular kind we call the growth and spreading of plants? or of the sudden, wilful kind we know in animals and men? what does this shape tell us of such more formidable locomotion? are these details of curve and colour to be interpreted into jointed limbs, can the _thing_ fling out laterally, run after us, can it catch and swallow us? or is it such that _we_ can do thus by it? does this shape suggest the thing's possession of desires and purposes which we can deal with? and if so, _why is it where it is?_ whence does it come? what is it going to do? what is it _thinking_ of (if it can think)? how will it _feel_ towards us (if it can feel)? what would it say (if it could speak)? what will be its future and what may have been its past? to sum all up: what does the presence of this shape lead us to think and do and feel? such are a few of the thoughts started by that shape and the possibility of its belonging to a thing. and even when, as we shall sometimes find, they continually return back to the shape and play round and round it in centrifugal and centripetal alternations, yet all these thoughts are excursions, however brief, from the world of definite unchanging shapes into that of various and ever varying things; interruptions, even if (as we shall later see) intensifying interruptions, of that concentrated and coordinated contemplation of shapes, with which we have hitherto dealt. and these excursions, and a great many more, from the world of shapes into that of things, are what we shall deal with, when we come to art, under the heading of _representation_ and _suggestion,_ or, as is usually said, of _subject_ and _expression_ as opposed to _form._ chapter xiii from the thing to the shape the necessities of analysis and exposition have led us from the shape to the thing, from aesthetic contemplation to discursive and practical thinking. but, as the foregoing chapter itself suggests, the real order of precedence, both for the individual and the race, is inevitably the reverse, since without a primary and dominant interest in things no creatures would have survived to develop an interest in shapes. indeed, considering the imperative need for an ever abbreviated and often automatic system of human reactions to sense data, it is by no means easy to understand (and the problem has therefore been utterly neglected) how mankind ever came to evolve any process as lengthy and complicated as that form-contemplation upon which all aesthetic preference depends. i will hazard the suggestion that familiarity with shapes took its original evolutional utility, as well as its origin, from the dangers of over rapid and uncritical inference concerning the qualities of things and man's proper reactions towards them. it was necessary, no doubt, that the roughest suggestion of a bear's growl and a bear's outline should send our earliest ancestors into their sheltering caves. but the occasional discovery that the bear was not a bear but some more harmless and edible animal must have brought about a comparison, a discrimination between the visible aspects of the two beasts, and a mental storage of their difference in shape, gait and colour. similarly the deluding resemblance between poisonous and nutritious fruits and roots, would result, as the resemblance between the nurse's finger and nipple results with the infant, in attention to visible details, until the acquisition of vivid mental images became the chief item of the savage man's education, as it still is of the self-education of the modern child. this evolution of interest in visible aspects would of course increase tenfold as soon as mankind took to making things whose usefulness (_i.e._ their still non-existent qualities) might be jeopardised by a mistake concerning their shape. for long after _over_ and _under, straight_ and _oblique, right_ and _left,_ had become habitual perceptions in dealing with food and fuel, the effective aim of a stone, the satisfactory flight of an arrow, would be discovered to depend upon more or less of what we call horizontals and perpendiculars, curves and angles; and the stability of a fibrous tissue upon the intervals of crossing and recrossing, the rythmical or symmetrical arrangements revealed by the hand or eye. in short, _making,_ being inevitably _shaping,_ would have developed a more and more accurate perception and recollection of every detail of shape. and not only would there arise a comparison between one shape and another shape, but between the shape actually under one's eyes and the shape no longer present, between the shape as it really was and the shape as it ought to be. thus in the very course of practical making of things there would come to be little interludes, recognised as useful, first of more and more careful looking and comparing, and then of real contemplation: contemplation of the arrow-head you were chipping, of the mat you were weaving, of the pot you were rubbing into shape; contemplation also of the _other_ arrow-head or mat or pot existing only in your wishes; of the shape you were trying to obtain with a premonitory emotion of the effect which its peculiarities would produce when once made visible to your eye! for the man cutting the arrow-head, the woman plaiting the mat, becoming familiar with the appropriate shapes of each and thinking of the various individual arrow-heads or mats of the same type, _would become aware of the different effect which such shapes had on the person who looked at them._ some of these shapes would be so dull, increasing the tediousness of chipping and filing or of laying strand over strand; others so alert, entertaining and likeable, as if they were helping in the work; others, although equally compatible with utility, fussing or distressing one, never doing what one expected their lines and curves to do. to these suppositions i would add a few more suggestions regarding the evolution of shape-contemplation out of man's perfunctory and semi-automatic seeing of "things." the handicraftsman, armourer, weaver, or potter, benefits by his own and his forerunners' practical experience of which shape is the more adapted for use and wear, and which way to set about producing it; his technical skill becomes half automatic, so that his eye and mind, acting as mere overseers to his muscles, have plenty of time for contemplation so long as everything goes right and no new moves have to be made. and once the handicraftsman contemplates the shape as it issues from his fingers, his mind will be gripped by that liking or disliking expressed by the words "beautiful" and "ugly." neither is this all. the owner of a weapon or a vessel or piece of tissue, is not always intent upon employing it; in proportion to its usefulness and durability and to the amount of time, good luck, skill or strength required to make or to obtain it, this chattel will turn from a slave into a comrade. it is furbished or mended, displayed to others, boasted over, perhaps sung over as alan breck sang over his sword. the owner's eye (and not less that of the man envious of the owner!) caresses its shape; and its shape, all its well-known ins-and-outs and ups-and-downs, haunts the memory, ready to start into vividness whenever similar objects come under comparison. now what holds good of primaeval and savage man holds good also of civilized, perhaps even of ourselves among our machine made and easily replaced properties. the shape of the things we make and use offers itself for contemplation in those interludes of inattention which are half of the rythm of all healthful work. and it is this normal rythm of attention swinging from effort to ease, which explains how art has come to be a part of life, how mere aspects have acquired for our feelings an importance rivalling that of things. i therefore commend to the reader the now somewhat unfashionable hypothesis of semper and his school, according to which the first preference for beauty of shape must be sought for in those arts like stone and metal work, pottery and weaving, which give opportunities for repetition, reduplication, hence rythm and symmetry, and whose material and technique produce what are called geometric patterns, meaning such as exist in two dimensions and do not imitate the shapes of real objects. this theory has been discredited by the discovery that very primitive and savage mankind possessed a kind of art of totally different nature, and which analogy with that of children suggests as earlier than that of pattern: the art which the ingenious hypothesis of mr henry balfour derives from recognition of accidental resemblances between the shapes and stains of wood or stone and such creatures and objects as happen to be uppermost in the mind of the observer, who cuts or paints whatever may be needed to complete the likeness and enable others to perceive the suggestion. whether or not this was its origin, there seems to have existed in earliest times such an art of a strictly representative kind, serving (like the spontaneous art of children) to evoke the idea of whatever was interesting to the craftsman and his clients, and doubtless practically to have some desirable magic effect upon the realities of things. but (to return to the hypothesis of the aesthetic primacy of geometric and non-representative art) it is certain that although such early representations occasionally attain marvellous life-likeness and anatomical correctness, yet they do not at first show any corresponding care for symmetrical and rythmical arrangement. the bisons and wild boars, for instance, of the altamira cave frescoes, do indeed display vigour and beauty in the lines constituting them, proving that successful dealing with shape, even if appealing only to practical interest, inevitably calls forth the empathic imagination of the more gifted artists; but these marvellously drawn figures are all huddled together or scattered as out of a rag-bag; and, what is still more significant, they lack that insistence on the feet which not only suggests ground beneath them but, in so doing, furnishes a horizontal by which to start, measure and take the bearings of all other lines. these astonishing palaeolithic artists (and indeed the very earliest egyptian and greek ones) seem to have thought only of the living models and their present and future movements, and to have cared as little for lines and angles as the modern children whose drawings have been instructively compared with theirs by levinstein and others. i therefore venture to suggest that such aesthetically essential attention to direction and composition must have been applied to representative art when its realistic figures were gradually incorporated into the patterns of the weaver and the potter. such "stylisation" is still described by art historians as a "degeneration" due to unintelligent repetition; but it was on the contrary the integrating process by which the representative element was subjected to such aesthetic preferences as had been established in the manufacture of objects whose usefulness or whose production involved accurate measurement and equilibrium as in the case of pottery or weapons, or rythmical reduplication as in that of textiles. be this question as it may (and the increasing study of the origin and evolution of human faculties will some day settle it!) we already know enough to affirm that while in the very earliest art the shape-element and the element of representation are usually separate, the two get gradually combined as civilisation advances, and the shapes originally interesting only inasmuch as suggestions (hence as magical equivalents) or things, and employed for religious, recording, or self-expressive purposes, become subjected to selection and rearrangement by the habit of avoiding disagreeable perceptive and empathic activities and the desire of giving scope to agreeable ones. nay the whole subsequent history of painting and sculpture could be formulated as the perpetual starting up of new representative interests, new interests in _things,_ their spatial existence, locomotion, anatomy, their reaction to light, and also their psychological and dramatic possibilities; and the subordination of these ever-changing interests in things to the unchanging habit of arranging visible shapes so as to diminish opportunities for the contemplative dissatisfaction and increase opportunities for the contemplative satisfaction to which we attach the respective names of "ugly" and "beautiful." chapter xiv the aims of art we have thus at last got to art, which the reader may have expected to be dealt with at the outset of a primer on the beautiful. why this could not be the case, will be more and more apparent in my remaining chapters. and, in order to make those coming chapters easier to grasp, i may as well forestall and tabulate the views they embody upon the relation between the beautiful and art. these generalisations are as follows: although it is historically probable that the habit of avoiding ugliness and seeking beauty of shape may have been originally established by utilitarian attention to the non-imitative ("geometrical") shapes of weaving, pottery and implement-making, and transferred from these crafts to the shapes intended to represent or imitate natural objects, yet the distinction between _beautiful_ and _ugly_ does not belong either solely or necessarily to what we call _art._ therefore the satisfaction of the shape-perceptive or aesthetic preferences must not be confused with any of the many and various other aims and activities to which art is due and by which it is carried on. conversely: although in its more developed phases, and after the attainment of technical facility, art has been differentiated from other human employment by its foreseeing the possibility of shape-contemplation and therefore submitting itself to what i have elsewhere called the _aesthetic imperative,_ yet art has invariably started from some desire other than that of affording satisfactory shape-contemplation, with the one exception of cases where it has been used to keep or reproduce opportunities of such shape contemplation already accidentally afforded by natural shapes, say, those of flowers or animals or landscapes, or even occasionally of human beings, which had already been enjoyed as beautiful. all art therefore, except that of children, savages, ignoramuses and extreme innovators, invariably avoids ugly shapes and seeks for beautiful ones; _but art does this while pursuing all manner of different aims._ these non-aesthetic aims of art may be roughly divided into (a) the making of useful objects ranging from clothes to weapons and from a pitcher to a temple; (b) the registering or transmitting of facts and their visualising, as in portraits, historical pictures or literature, and book illustration; and (c) the awakening, intensifying or maintaining of definite emotional states, as especially by music and literature, but also by painting and architecture when employed as "aids to devotion." and these large classes may again be subdivided and connected, if the reader has a mind to, into utilitarian, social, ritual, sentimental, scientific and other aims, some of them not countenanced or not avowed by contemporary morality. how the aesthetic imperative, i.e. the necessities of satisfactory shape-contemplation, qualifies and deflects the pursuit of such non-aesthetic aims of art can be shown by comparing, for instance, the mere audible devices for conveying conventional meaning and producing and keeping up emotional conditions, viz. the hootings and screechings of modern industrialism no less than the ritual noises of savages, with the arrangements of well constituted pitch, rythm, tonality and harmony in which military, religious or dance music has disguised its non-aesthetic functions of conveying signals or acting on the nerves. whatever is unnecessary for either of these motives (or any others) for making a noise, can be put to the account of the desire to avoid ugliness and enjoy beauty. but the workings of the aesthetic imperative can best be studied in the art of the visual-representative group, and especially in painting, which allows us to follow the interplay of the desire to be told (or tell) _facts about things_ with the desire to _contemplate shapes,_ and to contemplate them (otherwise we should _not_ contemplate!) with sensuous, intellectual and empathic satisfaction. this brings us back to the third dimension, of which the possession is, as have we seen, the chief difference between _things,_ which can alter their aspect in the course of their own and our actions, and _shapes,_ which can only be contemplated by our bodily and mental eye, and neither altered nor thought of as altered without more or less jeopardising their identity. i daresay the reader may not have been satisfied with the reference to the locomotor nature of cubic perception as sufficient justification of my thus connecting cubic existence with things rather than with shapes, and my implying that aesthetic preference, due to the sensory, intellectual and empathic factors of perception, is applicable only to the two other dimensions. and the reader's incredulity and surprise will have been all the greater, because recent art-criticism has sedulously inculcated that the suggestion of cubic existence is the chief function of pictorial genius, and the realisation of such cubic existence the highest delight which pictures can afford to their worthy beholder. this particular notion, entirely opposed to the facts of visual perception and visual empathy, will repay discussion, inasmuch as it accidentally affords an easy entrance into a subject which has hitherto presented inextricable confusion, namely the relations of _form_ and _subject,_ or, as i have accustomed the reader to consider them, the _contemplated shape_ and the _thought-of thing._ let us therefore examine why art-criticism should lay so great a stress on the suggestion and the acceptance of that suggestion, of three-dimensional existence in paintings. _in paintings._ for this alleged aesthetic desideratum ceases to be a criterion of merit when we come to sculpture, about which critics are more and more persistently teaching (and with a degree of reason) that one of the greatest merits of the artist, and of the greatest desiderata of the beholder, is precisely the reduction of real cubic existence by avoiding all projection beyond a unified level, that is to say by making a solid block of stone look as if it were a representation on a flat surface. this contradiction explains the origin of the theory giving supreme pictorial importance to the third dimension. for art criticism though at length (thanks especially to the sculptor hildebrand) busying itself also with plastic art, has grown up mainly in connexion with painting. now in painting the greatest scientific problem, and technical difficulty, has been the suggestion of three-dimensional existences by pigments applied to a two-dimensional surface; and this problem has naturally been most successfully handled by the artists possessing most energy and imagination, and equally naturally shirked or bungled or treated parrot-wise by the artists of less energy and imagination. and, as energy and imagination also show themselves in finer perception, more vivid empathy and more complex dealings with shapes which are only two-dimensional, it has come about that the efficient and original solutions of the cubic problem have coincided, _ceteris paribus,_ with the production of pictures whose two-dimensional qualities have called forth the adjective _beautiful,_ and _beautiful_ in the most intense and complicated manner. hence successful treatment of cubic suggestion has become an habitual (and threatens to become a rule-of-thumb) criterion of pictorial merit; the more so that qualities of two-dimensional shape, being intrinsic and specific, are difficult to run to ground and describe; whereas the quality of three-dimensional suggestion is ascertainable by mere comparison between the shapes in the picture and the shapes afforded by real things when seen in the same perspective and lighting. most people can judge whether an apple in a picture "looks as if" it were solid, round, heavy and likely to roll off a sideboard in the same picture; and some people may even, when the picture has no other claims on their interest, experience incipient muscular contractions such as would eventually interfere with a real apple rolling off a real sideboard. apples and sideboards offer themselves to the meanest experience and can be dealt with adequately in everyday language, whereas the precise curves and angles, the precise relations of directions and impacts, of parts to whole, which together make up the identity of a two-dimensional shape, are indeed perceived and felt by the attentive beholder, but not habitually analysed or set forth in words. moreover the creation of two-dimensional shapes satisfying to contemplation depends upon two very different factors: on traditional experience with regard to the more general arrangements of lines, and on individual energy and sensitiveness, i.e. on genius in carrying out, and ringing changes on, such traditional arrangements. and the possession of tradition or genius, although no doubt the most important advantage of an artist, happens not to be one to which he can apply himself as to a problem. on the other hand a problem to be solved is eternally being pressed upon every artist; pressed on him by his clients, by the fashion of his time and also by his own self inasmuch as he is a man interested not only in _shapes_ but in _things._ and thus we are back at the fact that the problem given to the painter to solve by means of lines and colours on a flat surface, is the problem of telling us something new or something important about _things:_ what things are made of, how they will react to our doings, how they move, what they feel and think; and above all, i repeat it, what amount of space they occupy with reference to the space similarly occupied, in present or future, by other things including ourselves. our enquiry into the excessive importance attributed by critics to pictorial suggestion of cubic existence has thus led us back to the conclusion contained in previous chapters, namely that beauty depending negatively on ease of visual perception, and positively upon emphatic corroboration of our dynamic habits, is a quality of _aspects,_ independent of cubic existence and every other possible quality of _things_; except in so far as the thought of three-dimensional, and other, qualities of things may interfere with the freedom and readiness of mind requisite for such highly active and sensitive processes as those of empathic form interpretation. but the following chapter will, i trust, make it clear that such interference of the _thought about things_ with the _contemplation of shapes_ is essential to the rythm of our mental life, and therefore a chief factor in all artistic production and appreciation. chapter xv attention to shapes to explain how art in general, and any art in particular, succeeds in reconciling these contradictory demands, i must remind the reader of what i said (p. ) about the satisfactory or unsatisfactory possibilities of shapes having begun to be noticed in the moments of slackened attention to the processes of manufacturing the objects embodying those shapes, and in the intervals between practical employment of these more or less _shapely_ objects. and i must ask him to connect with these remarks a previous passage (p. ) concerning the intermittent nature of normal acts of attention, and their alternation as constituting _on-and-off beats._ the deduction from these two converging statements is that, contrary to the a-priori theories making aesthetic contemplation an exception, a kind of bank holiday, to daily life, it is in reality one-half of daily life's natural and healthy rythm. that the real state of affairs, as revealed by psychological experiment and observation, should have escaped the notice of so many aestheticians, is probably due to their theories starting from artistic production rather than from aesthetic appreciation, without which art would after all probably never have come into existence. the production of the simplest work of art cannot indeed be thought of as one of the alternations of everyday attention, because it is a long, complex and repeatedly resumed process, a whole piece of life, including in itself hundreds and thousands of alternations of _doing_ and _looking,_ of discursive thinking of aims and ways and means and of contemplation of aesthetic results. for even the humblest artist has to think of whatever objects or processes his work aims at representing, conveying or facilitating; and to think also of the objects, marble, wood, paints, voices, and of the processes, drawing, cutting, harmonic combining, by which he attempts to compass one of the above-mentioned results. the artist is not only an aesthetically appreciative person; he is, in his own way, a man of science and a man of practical devices, an expert, a craftsman and an engineer. to produce a work of art is not an interlude in his life, but his life's main business; and he therefore stands apart, as every busy specialist must, from the business of other specialists, of those ministering to mankind's scientific and practical interests. but while it takes days, months, sometimes years to produce a work of art, it may require (the process has been submitted to exact measurement by the stop-watch) not minutes but seconds, to take stock of that work of art in such manner as to carry away its every detail of shape, and to continue dealing with it in memory. the unsuspected part played by memory explains why aesthetic contemplation can be and normally is, an intermittent function alternating with practical doing and thinking. it is in memory, though memory dealing with what we call the present, that we gather up parts into wholes and turn consecutive measurements into simultaneous relations; and it is probably in memory that we deal empathically with shapes, investing their already perceived directions and relations with the remembered qualities of our own activities, aims and moods. and similarly it is thanks to memory that the brief and intermittent acts of aesthetic appreciation are combined into a network of contemplation which intermeshes with our other thoughts and doings, and yet remains different from them, as the restorative functions of life remain different from life's expenditure, although interwoven with them. every reader with any habit of self-observation knows how poignant an impression of beauty may be got, as through the window of an express train, in the intermittence of practical business or abstract thinking, nay even in what i have called the _off-beat_ of deepest personal emotion, the very stress of the practical, intellectual or personal instant (for the great happenings of life are measured in seconds!) apparently driving in by contrast, or conveying on its excitement, that irrelevant aesthetic contents of the _off-beat_ of attention. and while the practical or intellectual interest changes, while the personal emotion subsides, that aesthetic impression remains; remains or recurs, united, through every intermittence, by the feeling of identity, that identity which, like _the rising of the mountain,_ is due to the reiterative nature of shape-contemplation: the fragments of melody may be interrupted in our memory by all manner of other thoughts, but they will recur and coalesce, and recurring and coalescing, bring with them the particular mood which their rythms and intervals have awakened in us and awaken once more. that diagrammatic man on the hill in reality _thought away_ from the landscape quite as much as his practical and scientific companions; what he did, and they did not, was to think _back_ to it; and think back to it always with the same references of lines and angles, the same relations of directions and impacts, of parts and wholes. and perhaps the restorative, the healing quality of aesthetic contemplation is due, in large part, to the fact that, in the perpetual flux of action and thought, it represents reiteration and therefore stability. be that as it may, the intermittent but recurrent character of shape contemplation, the fact that it is inconceivably brief and amazingly repetitive, that it has the essential quality of identity because of reiteration, all this explains also two chief points of our subject. first: how an aesthetic impression, intentionally or accidentally conveyed in the course of wholly different interests, can become a constant accompaniment to the shifting preoccupations of existence, like the remembered songs which sing themselves silently in our mind and the remembered landscapes becoming an intangible background to our ever-varying thoughts. and, secondly, it explains how art can fulfil the behests of our changing and discursive interest in things while satisfying the imperious unchanging demands of the contemplated preference for beautiful aspects. and thus we return to my starting-point in dealing with art: that art is conditioned by the desire for beauty while pursuing entirely different aims, and executing any one of a variety of wholly independent non-aesthetic tasks. chapter xvi information about things among the facts which painting is set to tell us about things, the most important, after cubic existence, is locomotion. indeed in the development of the race as well as in that of the individual, pictorial attention to locomotion seems to precede attention to cubic existence. for when the palaeolithic, or the egyptian draughtsman, or even the sixth century greek, unites profile legs and head with a full-face chest; and when the modern child supplements the insufficiently projecting full-face nose by a profile nose tacked on where we expect the ear, we are apt to think that these mistakes are due to indifference to the cubic nature of things. the reverse is, however, the case. the primitive draughtsman and the child are recording impressions received in the course of the locomotion either of the thing looked at or of the spectator. when they unite whatever consecutive aspects are most significant and at the same time easiest to copy, they are in the clutches of their cubic experience, and what they are indifferent about, perhaps unconscious of, is the _two-dimensional_ appearance which a body presents when its parts are seen simultaneously and therefore from a single point of view. the progress of painting is always from representing the consecutive to representing the simultaneous; perspective, foreshortening, and later, light and shade, being the scientific and technical means towards this end. upon our knowledge of the precise stage of such pictorial development depends our correct recognition of what things, and particularly what spatial relations and locomotion, of things, the painter is intended to represent. thus when a byzantine draughtsman puts his figures in what look to us as superposed tiers, he is merely trying to convey their existence behind one another on a common level. and what we take for the elaborate contortions of athletes and athenas on sixth century vases turns out to be nothing but an archaic representation of ordinary walking and running. the suggestion of locomotion depends furthermore on anatomy. what the figures of a painting are intended to be doing, what they are intended to have just done and to be going to do, in fact all questions about their action and business, are answered by reference to their bodily structure and its real or supposed possibilities. the same applies to expression of mood. the impassiveness of archaic apollos is more likely to be due to anatomical difficulties in displacing arms and legs, than to lack of emotion on the part of artists who were, after all, contemporaries either of sappho or pindar. and it is more probable that the sculptors of aegina were still embarrassed about the modelling of lips and cheeks than that, having homer by heart, they imagined his heroes to die silently and with a smirk. i have entered into this question of perspective and anatomy, and given the above examples, because they will bring home to the reader one of the chief principles deduced from our previous examination into the psychology of our subject, namely that _all thinking about things is thinking away from the shapes suggesting those things, since it involves knowledge which the shapes in themselves do not afford._ and i have insisted particularly upon the dependence of representations of locomotion upon knowledge of three-dimensional existence, because, before proceeding to the relations of subject and form in painting, i want to impress once more upon the reader the distinction between the _locomotion of things_ (locomotion active or passive) and what, in my example of the _mountain which rises,_ i have called the _empathic movement of lines._ such _movement of lines_ we have seen to be a scheme of activity suggested by our own activity in taking stock of a two-dimensional-shape; an _idea,_ or _feeling_ of activity which we, being normally unaware of its origin in ourselves, project into the shape which has suggested it, precisely as we project our sensation of _red_ from our own eye and mind into the object which has deflected the rays of light in such a way as to give us that _red_ sensation. such _empathic,_ attributed, movements of lines are therefore intrinsic qualities of the shapes whose active perception has called them forth in our imagination and feeling; and being qualities of the shapes, they inevitably change with every alteration which a shape undergoes, every shape, actively perceived, having its own special _movement of lines;_ and every _movement of lines,_ or _combination of movements of lines_ existing in proportion as we go over and over again the particular shape of which it is a quality. the case is absolutely reversed when we perceive or think of, the _locomotion of things._ the thought of a thing's locomotion, whether locomotion done by itself or inflicted by something else, necessitates our thinking away from the particular shape before us to another shape more or less different. in other words locomotion necessarily alters what we are looking at or thinking of. if we think of michel angelo's seated moses as getting up, we think _away_ from the approximately pyramidal shape of the statue to the elongated oblong of a standing figure. if we think of the horse of marcus aurelius as taking the next step, we think of a straightened leg set on the ground instead of a curved leg suspended in the air. and if we think of the myronian discobolus as letting go his quoit and "recovering," we think of the matchless spiral composition as unwinding and straightening itself into a shape as different as that of a tree is different from that of a shell. the pictorial representation of locomotion affords therefore the extreme example of the difference between discursive thinking about things and contemplation of shape. bearing this example in mind we cannot fail to understand that, just as the thought of _locomotion_ is opposed to the thought of _movement of lines,_ so, in more or less degree, the thought of the objects and actions represented by a picture or statue, is likely to divert the mind from the pictorial and plastic shapes which do the representing. and we can also understand that the problem unconsciously dealt with by all art (though by no means consciously by every artist) is to execute the order of suggesting interesting facts about things in a manner such as to satisfy at the same time the aesthetic demand for shapes which shall be satisfactory to contemplate. unless this demand for sensorially, intellectually and empathically desirable shapes be complied with a work of art may be interesting as a diagram, a record or an illustration, but once the facts have been conveyed and assimilated with the rest of our knowledge, there will remain a shape which we shall never want to lay eyes upon. i cannot repeat too often that the differentiating characteristic of art is that it gives its works a value for contemplation independent of their value for fact-transmission, their value as nerve-and-emotion-excitant and of their value for immediate, for practical, utility. this aesthetic value, depending upon the unchanging processes of perception and empathy, asserts itself in answer to every act of contemplative attention, and is as enduring and intrinsic as the other values are apt to be momentary and relative. a greek vase with its bottom knocked out and with a scarce intelligible incident of obsolete mythology portrayed upon it, has claims upon our feelings which the most useful modern mechanism ceases to have even in the intervals of its use, and which the newspaper, crammed full of the most important tidings, loses as soon as we have taken in its contents. chapter xvii the co-operation of things and shapes during the middle ages and up to recent times the chief task of painting has been, ostensibly, the telling and re-telling of the same scripture stories; and, incidentally, the telling them with the addition of constantly new items of information about _things:_ their volume, position, structure, locomotion, light and shade and interactions of texture and atmosphere; to which items must be added others of psychological or (pseudo)-historical kind, how it all came about, in what surroundings and dresses, and accompanied by what feelings. this task, official and unofficial, is in no way different from those fulfilled by the man of science and the practical man, both of whom are perpetually dealing with additional items of information. but mark the difference in the artist's way of accomplishing this task: a scientific fact is embodied in the progressive mass of knowledge, assimilated, corrected; a practical fact is taken in consideration, built upon; but the treatise, the newspaper or letter, once it has conveyed these facts, is forgotten or discarded. the work of art on the contrary is remembered and cherished; or at all events it is made with the intention of being remembered and cherished. in other words and as i shall never tire of repeating, the differentiating characteristic of art is that it makes _you think back to the shape_ once that shape has conveyed its message or done its business of calling your attention or exciting your emotions. and the first and foremost problem, for instance of painting, is that of preventing the beholder's eye from being carried, by lines of perspective, outside the frame and even persistently out of the centre of the picture; the sculptor (and this is the real reason of the sculptor hildebrand's rules for plastic composition) obeying a similar necessity of keeping the beholder's eye upon the main masses of his statue, instead of diverting it, by projections at different distances, like the sticking out arms and hands of roman figures. so much for the eye of the body: the beholder's curiosity must similarly not be carried outside the work of art by, for instance, an incomplete figure (legs without a body!) or an unfinished gesture, this being, it seems to roe, the only real reason against the representation of extremely rapid action and transitory positions. but when the task of conveying information implies that the beholder's thoughts be deliberately led from what is represented to what is not, then this centrifugal action is dealt with so as to produce a centripetal one back to the work of art: the painter suggests questions of _how_ and _why_ which get their answers in some item obliging you to take fresh stock of the picture. what is the meaning of the angels and evidently supernatural horseman in the foreground of raphael's _heliodorus?_ your mind flies to the praying high priest in the central recess of the temple, and in going backwards and forwards between him, the main group and the scattered astonished bystanders, you are effectually enclosed within the arches of that marvellous composition, and induced to explore every detail of its lovely and noble constituent shapes. the methods employed thus to keep the beholder's attention inside the work of art while suggesting things beyond it, naturally vary with the exact nature of the non-aesthetic task which has been set to the artist; and with the artist's individual endowment and even more with the traditional artistic formulae of his country and time: raphael's devices in _heliodorus_ could not have been compassed by giotto; and, on the other hand, would have been rejected as "academic" by manet. but whatever the methods employed, and however obviously they reveal that satisfactory form-contemplation is the one and invariable _condition_ as distinguished from the innumerable varying _aims,_ of all works of art, the reader will find them discussed not as methods for securing attention to the shape, but as methods of employing that shape for some non-aesthetic purpose; whether that purpose be inducing you to drink out of a cup by making its shape convenient or suggestive; or inducing you to buy a particular commodity by branding its name and virtues on your mind; or fixing your thoughts on the madonna's sorrows; or awaking your sympathy for isolde's love tragedy. and yet it is evident that the artist who shaped the cup or designed the poster would be horribly disappointed if you thought only of drinking or of shopping and never gave another look to the cup or the poster; and that perugino or wagner would have died of despair if his suggestion of the madonna's sorrows or of isolde's love-agonies had been so efficacious as to prevent anybody from looking twice at the fresco or listening to the end of the opera. this inversion of the question is worth inquiring into, because, like the analogous paradox about the pictorial "realisation" of cubic existence, it affords an illustration of some of the psychological intricacies of the relation between art and the beautiful. this is how i propose to explain it. the task to which an artist is set varies from one work to another, while the shapes employed for the purpose are, as already said, limited by his powers and especially by the precise moment in artistic evolution. the artist therefore thinks of his available shapes as something given, as _means,_ and the subject he is ordered to represent (or the emotion he is commissioned to elicit) as the all-important _aim._ thus he thinks of himself (and makes the critic think of him) not as preventing the represented subject or expressed emotion from withdrawing the beholder from the artistic shapes, but, on the contrary, as employing these artistic shapes for the sole purpose of that representation or emotional expression. and this most explicable inversion of the real state of affairs ends by making the beholder believe that what _he_ cares for in a masterpiece is not the beauty of shape which only a masterpiece could have, but the efficacy of bringing home a subject or expressing an emotion which could be just as efficaciously represented or elicited by the vilest daub or the wretchedest barrel organ! this inevitable, and i believe, salutary illusion of the artist, is further in creased by the fact that while the artist's ingenuity must be bent on avoiding irrelevance and diminishing opportunities for ugliness, the actual beauty of the shapes he is creating arises from the depths of his unreasoned, traditional and organised consciousness, from activities which might be called automatic if they were not accompanied by a critical feeling that what is produced thus spontaneously and inevitably is either turning out as it must and should, or, contrariwise, insists upon turning out exactly as it _should not._ the particular system of curves and angles, of directions and impacts of lines, the particular "whole-and-part" scheme of, let us say, michelangelo, is due to his modes of aesthetic perceiving, feeling, living, added to those of all the other artists whose peculiarities have been averaged in what we call the school whence michelangelo issued. he can no more depart from these shapes than he can paint rembrandt's pilgrims of emmaus without rembrandt's science of light and shade and rembrandt's oil-and-canvas technique. there is no alternative, hence no choice, hence no feeling of a problem to resolve, in this question of shapes to employ. but there are dozens of alternatives and of acts of choice, there is a whole series of problems when michelangelo sets to employing these inevitable shapes to telling the parting of the light from the darkness, or the creation of adam on the vault of the sixtine, and to surrounding the stories from genesis with prophets and sibyls and ancestors of christ. is the ceiling to remain a unity, or be broken up into irrelevant compositions? here comes in, alongside of his almost automatic genius for shapes, the man's superhuman constructive ingenuity. see how he divides that ceiling in such a way that the frames of the separate compositions combine into a huge structure of painted rafters and brackets, nay the prophets and sibyls, the ancestors and ancestresses themselves, and the naked antique genii, turn into architectural members, holding that imaginary roof together, securing its seeming stability, increasing, by their gesture its upspring and its weightiness, and at the same time determining the tracks along which the eye is forced to travel. backwards and forwards the eye is driven by that living architecture, round and round in its search now for completion of visible pattern, now for symbolic and narrative meaning. and ever back to the tale of the creation, so that the remote historic incidents of the ancestors, the tremendous and tremendously present lyric excitement and despair of the prophetic men and women, the pagan suggestion of the athletic genii, all unite like the simultaneous and consecutive harmonies of a titanic symphony, round the recurrent and dominant phrases of those central stories of how the universe and man were made, so that the beholder has the emotion of hearing not one part of the old testament, but the whole of it. but meanwhile, and similarly interchanging and multiplying their imaginative and emotional appeal, the thought of those most memorable of all written stories unites with the perception and empathy of those marvellous systems of living lines and curves and angles, throbbing with their immortal impacts and speeds and directions in a great coordinated movement that always begins and never ends, until it seems to the beholder as if those painted shapes were themselves the crowning work of some eighth day of creation, gathering up in reposeful visible synthesis the whole of creation's ineffable energy and harmony and splendour. this example of michelangelo's ceiling shows how, thanks to the rythmical nature of perception, art fulfils the mission of making us think from shapes to things and from things back to shapes. and it allows us to see the workings of that psychological law, already manifest in the elementary relations of line to line and dot to dot, by which whatever can be thought and felt in continuous alternation tends to be turned into a whole by such reiteration of common activities. and this means that art adds to its processes of selection and exclusion a process of _inclusion,_ safeguarding aesthetic contemplation by drawing whatever is not wholly refractory into that contemplation's orbit. this turning of non-aesthetic interests from possible competitors and invaders into co-operating allies is an incomparable multiplying factor of aesthetic satisfaction, enlarging the sphere of aesthetic emotion and increasing that emotion's volume and stability by inclusion of just those elements which would have competed to diminish them. the typical instance of such a possible competitor turned into an ally, is that of the cubic element, which i have described (p. ) as the first and most constant intruder from the thought of _things_ into the contemplation of _shapes._ for the introduction into a picture of a suggested third dimension is what prevents our _thinking away from_ a merely two-dimensional aspect by supplying subsidiary imaginary aspects susceptible of being co-ordinated to it. so perspective and modelling in light and shade satisfy our habit of locomotion by allowing us, as the phrase is, _to go into_ a picture; and _going into,_ we remain there and establish on its imaginary planes schemes of horizontals and verticals besides those already existing on the real two-dimensional surface. this addition of shapes due to perspective increases the already existing dramas of empathy, instead of interrupting them by our looking away from the picture, which we should infallibly do if our exploring and so to speak _cubic-locomotor_ tendencies were not thus employed inside the picture's limits. this alliance of aesthetic contemplation with our interest in cubic existence and our constant thought of locomotion, does more however than merely safeguard and multiply our chances of empathic activity. it also increases the sensory discrimination, and hence pleasureableness, of colour, inasmuch as colour becomes, considered as light and shade and _values,_ a suggestion of three-dimensional _things_ instead of merely a constituent of two-dimensional _shapes._ moreover, one easily tires of "following" verticals and horizontals and their intermediate directions; while empathic imagination, with its dynamic feelings and frequent semi-mimetic accompaniments, requires sufficient intervals of repose; and such repose, such alternation of different mental functions, isprecisely afforded by thinking in terms of cubic existence. art-critics have often pointed out what may be called the thinness, the lack of _staying power,_ of pictures deficient in the cubic element; they ought also to have drawn attention to the fatiguing, the almost hallucinatory excitement, resulting from uninterrupted attention to two-dimensional pattern and architectural outlines, which were, indeed, intended to be incidentally looked at in the course of taking stock of the cubic qualities of furniture and buildings. and since the limits of this volume have restricted me to painting as a type of aesthetic contemplation, i must ask the reader to accept on my authority and if possible verify for himself, the fact that what i have been saying applies, _mutatis mutandis,_ to the other arts. as we have already noticed, something analogous to a third dimension exists also in music; and even, as i have elsewhere shown,[*] in literature. the harmonies accompanying a melody satisfy our tendency to think of other notes and particularly of other allied tonalities; while as to literature, the whole handling of words, indeed the whole of logical thinking, is but a cubic working backwards and forwards between _what_ and _how,_ a co-ordinating of items and themes, keeping the mind enclosed in one scheme of ideas by forestalling answers to the questions which would otherwise divert the attention. and if the realisation of the third dimension has come to be mistaken for the chief factor of aesthetic satisfaction, this error is due not merely to the already noticed coincidence between cubic imagination and artistic genius, but even more to the fact that cubic imagination is the type of the various multiplying factors by which the empathic, that is to say the essentially aesthetic, activity, can increase its sphere of operations, its staying power and its intensity. [*] _the handling of words,_ english review, - . chapter xviii aesthetic responsiveness our examination has thus proceeded from aesthetic contemplation to the work of art, which seeks to secure and satisfy it while furthering some of life's various other claims. we must now go back to aesthetic contemplation and find out how the beholder meets these efforts made to secure and satisfy his contemplative attention. for the reader will by this time have grasped that art can do nothing without the collaboration of the beholder or listener; and that this collaboration, so far from consisting in the passive "being impressed by beauty" which unscientific aestheticians imagined as analogous to "being impressed by sensuous qualities," by hot or cold or sweet or sour, is in reality a combination of higher activities, second in complexity and intensity only to that of the artist himself. we have seen in the immediately preceding chapter that the most deliberate, though not the essential, part of the artist's business is to provide against any possible disturbance of the beholder's responsive activity, and of course also to increase by every means that output of responsive activity. but the sources of it are in the beholder, and beyond the control of the most ingenious artistic devices and the most violent artistic appeals. there is indeed no better proof of the active nature of aesthetic appreciation than the fact that such appreciation is so often not forthcoming. even mere sensations, those impressions of single qualities to which we are most unresistingly passive, are not pleasurable without a favourable reaction of the body's chemistry: the same taste or smell will be attractive or repulsive according as we have recently eaten. and however indomitably colour- and sound-sensations force themselves upon us, our submission to them will not be accompanied by even the most "passive" pleasure if we are bodily or mentally out of sorts. how much more frequent must be lack of receptiveness when, instead of dealing with _sensations_ whose intensity depends after all two thirds upon the strength of the outer stimulation, we deal with _perceptions_ which include the bodily and mental activities of exploring a shape and establishing among its constituent sensations relationships both to each other and to ourselves; activities without which there would be for the beholder no shape at all, but mere ragbag chaos!--and in calculating the likelihood of a perceptive empathic response we must remember that such active shape-perception, however instantaneous as compared with the cumbrous processes of locomotion, nevertheless requires a perfectly measurable time, and requires therefore that its constituent processes be held in memory for comparison and coordination, quite as much as the similar processes by which we take stock of the relations of sequence of sounds. all this mental activity, less explicit but not less intense or complex than that of logically "following" an argument, is therefore such that we are by no means always able or willing to furnish it. not able, because the need for practical decisions hurries us into that rapid inference from a minimum of perception to a minimum of associated experience which we call "recognising things," and thus out of the presence of the perfunctorily dealt with shapes. not willing, because our nervous condition may be unable for the strain of shape perception; and our emotional bias (what we call our _interest)_ may be favourable to some incompatible kind of activity. until quite recently (and despite fechner's famous introductory experiments) aesthetics have been little more than a branch of metaphysical speculation, and it is only nowadays that the bare fact of aesthetic responsiveness is beginning to be studied. so far as i have myself succeeded in doing so, i think i can assure the reader that if he will note down, day by day, the amount of pleasure he has been able to take in works of art, he will soon recognise the existence of aesthetic responsiveness and its highly variable nature. should the same reader develop an interest in such (often humiliating) examination into his own aesthetic experience, he will discover varieties of it which will illustrate some of the chief principles contained in this little book. his diary will report days when aesthetic appreciation has begun with the instant of entering a collection of pictures or statues, indeed sometimes pre-existed as he went through the streets noticing the unwonted charm of familiar objects; other days when enjoyment has come only after an effort of attention; others when, to paraphrase coleridge, _he saw, not felt, how beautiful things are;_ and finally, through other varieties of aesthetic experience, days upon which only shortcomings and absurdities have laid hold of his attention. in the course of such aesthetical self-examination and confession, the reader might also become acquainted with days whose experience confirmed my never sufficiently repeated distinction between _contemplating shapes and thinking about things_; or, in ordinary aesthetic terminology between _form_ and _subject._ for there are days when pictures or statues will indeed afford pleasurable interest, but interest in the things _represented,_ not in the _shapes;_ a picture appealing even forcibly to our dramatic or religious or romantic side; or contrariwise, to our scientific one. there are days when he may be deeply moved by a guido reni martyrdom, or absorbed in the "marriage à la mode"; days when even giorgione's pastoral may (as in rossetti's sonnet) mean nothing beyond the languid pleasure of sitting on the grass after a burning day and listening to the plash of water and the tuning of instruments; the same thought and emotion, the same interest and pleasure, being equally obtainable from an inn-parlour oleograph. then, as regards scientific interest and pleasure, there may be days when the diarist will be quite delighted with a hideous picture, because it affords some chronological clue, or new point of comparison. "this _dates_ such or such a style"--"_plein air_ already attempted by a giottesque! degas forestalled by a cave dweller!" etc. etc. and finally days when the diarist is haunted by the thought of what the represented person will do next: "would michelangelo's jeremiah knock his head if he got up?"--"how will the discobolus recover when he has let go the quoit?"--or haunted by thoughts even more frivolous (though not any less aesthetically irrelevant!) like "how wonderfully like mrs so and so!" "the living image of major blank!"--"how i detest auburn people with sealing-wax lips!" _ad lib._ such different _thinkings away from the shapes_ are often traceable to previous orientation of the thoughts or to special states of body and feelings. but explicable or not in the particular case, these varieties of one's own aesthetic responsiveness will persuade the reader who has verified their existence, that contemplative satisfaction in shapes and its specific emotion cannot be given by the greatest artist or the finest tradition, unless the beholder meets their efforts more than half way. the spontaneous collaboration of the beholder is especially indispensable for aesthetic empathy. as we have seen, empathic modes of movement and energy and intention are attributed to shapes and to shape elements, in consequence of the modes of movement and energy involved in mere shape perception; but shape perception does not necessarily call forth empathic imagination. and the larger or smaller dynamic dramas of effort, resistance, reconciliation, cooperation which constitute the most poignant interest of a pictorial or plastic composition, are inhibited by bodily or mental states of a contrary character. we cease to _feel_ (although we may continue, like coleridge, to _see_) that the lines of a mountain or a statue _are rising,_ if we ourselves happen to feel as if our feet were of lead and our joints turning to water. the coordinated interplay of empathic movement which makes certain mediaeval floor patterns, and also leonardo's compositions, into whirling harmonies as of a planetary system, cannot take place in our imagination on days of restlessness and lack of concentration. nay it may happen that arrangements of lines which would flutter and flurry us on days of quiet appreciativeness, will become in every sense "sympathetic" on days when we ourselves feel fluttered and flurried. but lack of responsiveness may be due to other causes. as there are combinations of lines which take longer to perceive because their elements or their coordinating principles are unfamiliar, so, and even more so, are there empathic schemes (or dramas) which baffle dynamic imagination when accustomed to something else and when it therefore meets the new demand with an unsuitable empathic response. empathy is, even more than mere perception, a question of our activities and therefore of our habits; and the aesthetic sensitiveness of a time and country (say the florentine fourteenth century) with a habit of round arch and horizontals like that of pisan architecture, could never take with enthusiasm to the pointed ogeeval ellipse, the oblique directions and unstable equilibrium, the drama of touch and go strain and resistance, of french gothic; whence a constant readmission of the round arched shapes into the imported style, and a speedy return to the familiar empathic schemes in the architecture of the early renaissance. on the other hand the persistence of gothic detail in northern architecture of the sixteenth and occasionally the seventeenth century, shows how insipid the round arch and straight entablature must have felt to people accustomed to the empathy of gothic shapes. nothing is so routinist as imagination and emotion; and empathy, which partakes of both, is therefore more dependent on familiarity than is the perception by which it is started: spohr, and the other professional contemporaries of beethoven, probably heard and technically understood all the peculiarities of his last quartets; but they liked them none the better. on the other hand continued repetition notoriously begets indifference. we cease to look at a shape which we "know by heart" and we cease to interpret in terms of our own activities and intentions when curiosity and expectation no longer let loose our dynamic imagination. hence while utter unfamiliarity baffles aesthetic responsiveness, excessive familiarity prevents its starting at all. indeed both perceptive clearness and empathic intensity reach their climax in the case of shapes which afford the excitement of tracking familiarity in novelty, the stimulation of acute comparison, the emotional ups and downs of expectation and partial recognition, or of recognition when unexpected, the latter having, as we know when we notice that a stranger has the trick of speech or gesture of an acquaintance, a very penetrating emotional warmth. such discovery of the novel in the familiar, and of the familiar in the new, will he frequent in proportion to the definiteness and complexity of the shapes, and in proportion also to the sensitiveness and steadiness of the beholder's attention; while on the contrary "obvious" qualities of shape and superficial attention both tend to exhaust interest and demand change. this exhaustion of interest and consequent demand for change unites with the changing non-aesthetic aims imposed on art, together producing innovation. and the more superficial the aesthetic attention given by the beholders, the quicker will style succeed style, and shapes and shape-schemes be done to death by exaggeration or left in the lurch before their maturity; a state of affairs especially noticeable in our own day. the above is a series of illustrations of the fact that aesthetic pleasure depends as much on the activities of the beholder as on those of the artist. unfamiliarity or over-familiarity explain a large part of the aesthetic non-responsiveness summed up in the saying _that there is no disputing of tastes._ and even within the circle of habitual responsiveness to some particular style, or master, there are, as we have just seen, days and hours when an individual beholder's perception and empathic imagination do not act in such manner as to afford the usual pleasure. but these occasional, even frequent, lapses must not diminish our belief either in the power of art or in the deeply organised and inevitable nature of aesthetic preference as a whole. what the knowledge of such fluctuations ought to bring home is that beauty of shape is most spontaneously and completely appreciated when the attention, instead of being called upon, as in galleries and concerts, for the mere purpose of aesthetic enjoyment, is on the contrary, directed to the artistic or "natural" beauty of shapes, in consequence of some other already existing interest. no one except an art-critic sees a new picture or statue without first asking "what does it represent?"; shape-perception and aesthetic empathy arising incidentally in the examination which this question leads to. the truth is that even the art-critic is oftenest brought into enforced contemplation of the artistic shape by some other question which arises from his particular bias: by whom? of what precise date? even such technical questions as "where and when restored or repainted?" will elicit the necessary output of attention. it is possible and legitimate to be interested in a work of art for a dozen reasons besides aesthetic appreciation; each of these interests has its own sentimental, scientific, dramatic or even moneymaking emotion; and there is no loss for art, but rather a gain, if we fall back upon one of them when the specific aesthetic response is slow or not forthcoming. art has other aims besides aesthetic satisfaction; and aesthetic satisfaction will not come any the quicker for turning our backs upon these non-aesthetic aims. the very worst attitude towards art is that of the holiday-maker who comes into its presence with no ulterior interest or business, and nothing but the hope of an aesthetic emotion which is most often denied him. indeed such seeking of aesthetic pleasure for its own sake would lead to even more of the blank despondency characteristic of so many gallery goers, were it not for another peculiarity of aesthetic responsiveness, which is responsible for very puzzling effects. this saving grace of the tourist, and (as we shall see) this pitfall of the art-expert, is what i propose to call the _transferability of aesthetic emotion._ chapter xix the storage and transfer of emotion in dealing with familiarity as a multiplying factor of aesthetic appreciation, i have laid stress on its effect in facilitating the perception and the empathic interpretation of shapes. but repetition directly affects the emotion which may result from these processes; and when any emotion has become habitual, it tends to be stored in what we call memory, and to be called forth not merely by the processes in which it originated, but also independently of the whole of them, or in answer to some common or equivalent factor. we are so accustomed to this psychological fact that we do not usually seem to recognise its existence. it is the explanation of the power of words, which, apart from any images they awaken, are often irresistibly evocative of emotion. and among other emotions words can evoke the one due to the easy perception and to the life-corroborating empathic interpretation of shapes. the word _beautiful,_ and its various quasi synonyms, are among the most emotionally suggestive in our vocabulary, carrying perhaps a vague but potent remembrance of our own bodily reaction to the emotion of admiration; nay even eliciting an incipient rehearsal of the half-parted lips and slightly thrown-back head, the drawn-in breath and wide-opened eyes, with which we are wont to meet opportunities of aesthetic satisfaction. be this last as it may, it is certain that the emotion connected with the word _beautiful_ can be evoked by that word alone, and without an accompanying act of visual or auditive perception. indeed beautiful shapes would lose much of their importance in our life, if they did not leave behind them such emotional traces, capable of revival under emotionally appropriate, though outwardly very dissimilar, circumstances; and thereby enormously increasing some of our safest, perhaps because our most purely subjective, happiness. instead therefore of despising the raptures which the presence of a venus of milo or a sixtine madonna can inspire in people manifestly incapable of appreciating a masterpiece, and sometimes barely glancing at it, we critical persons ought to recognise in this funny, but consoling, phenomenon an additional proof of the power of beauty, whose specific emotion can thus be evoked by a mere name and so transferred from some past experience of aesthetic admiration to a. present occasion which would otherwise be mere void and disappointment. putting aside these kind of cases, the transfer (usually accomplished by a word) of the aesthetic emotion, or at least of a willingness for aesthetic emotion, is probably one of the explanations of the spread of aesthetic interest from one art to another, as it is the explanation of some phases of aesthetic development in the individual. the present writer can vouch for the case of at least one real child in whom the possibility of aesthetic emotion, and subsequently of aesthetic appreciation, was extended from music and natural scenery to pictures and statues, by the application of the word _beautiful_ to each of these different categories. and something analogous probably helped on the primaeval recognition that the empathic pleasures hitherto attached to geometrical shapes might be got from realistic shapes, say of bisons and reindeer, which had hitherto been admired for their lifelikeness and skill, but not yet subjected to any aesthetic discrimination (_cf_. p. ). similarly, in our own times, the delight in natural scenery is being furthered by the development of landscape painting, rather than furthering it. nay i venture to suggest that it was the habit of the aesthetic emotion such as mediaeval men received from the proportions, directions, and coordination of lines in their cathedrals of stone or brick which set their musicians to build up, like browning's _abt vogler,_ the soul's first balanced and coordinated dwellings made of sounds. be this last as it may, it is desirable that the reader should accept, and possibly verify for himself, the psychological fact of the _storage and transfer of aesthetic emotion._ besides, the points already mentioned, it helps to explain several of the cruxes and paradoxes of aesthetics. first and foremost that dictum _de gustibus non est disputandum_ which some philosophers and even aestheticians develop into an explicit denial of all intrinsic shape-preferences, and an assertion that _beautiful_ and _ugly_ are merely other names for _fashionable_ and _unfashionable, original_ and _unoriginal,_ or _suitable_ and _unsuitable._ as i have already pointed out, differences of taste are started by the perceptive and empathic habits, schematically various, of given times and places, and also by those, especially the empathic habits, connected with individual nervous condition: people accustomed to the round arch finding the gothic one unstable and eccentric; and, on the other hand, a person taking keen pleasure in the sudden and lurching lines of lotto finding those of titian tame and humdrum. but such intrinsically existing preferences and incompatibility are quite enormously increased by an emotional bias for or against a particular kind of art; by which i mean a bias not due to that art's peculiarities, but preventing our coming in real contact with them. aesthetic perception and especially aesthetic empathy, like other intellectual and emotional activities, are at the mercy of a hostile mental attitude, just as bodily activity is at the mercy of rigidity of the limbs. i do not hesitate to say that we are perpetually refusing to look at certain kinds of art because, for one reason or another, we are emotionally prepossessed against them. on the other hand, once the favourable emotional condition is supplied to us, often by means of words, our perceptive and empathic activities follow with twice the ease they would if the business had begun with them. it is quite probable that a good deal of the enhancement of aesthetic appreciation by fashion or sympathy should be put to the account, not merely of gregarious imitativeness, but of the knowledge that a favourable or unfavourable feeling is "in the air." the emotion precedes the appreciation, and both are genuine. a more personally humiliating aesthetic experience may be similarly explained. unless we are very unobservant or very self-deluded, we are all familiar with the sudden checking (often almost physically painful) of our aesthetic emotion by the hostile criticism of a neighbour or the superciliousness of an expert: "dreadfully old-fashioned," "_archi-connu,_""second-rate school work," "completely painted over," "utterly hashed in the performance" (of a piece of music), "mere prettiness"--etc. etc. how often has not a sentence like these turned the tide of honest incipient enjoyment; and transformed us, from enjoyers of some really enjoyable quality (even of such old-as-the-hills elements as clearness, symmetry, euphony or pleasant colour!) into shrivelled cavillers at everything save brand-new formulae and tip-top genius! indeed, while teaching a few privileged persons to taste the special "quality" which botticelli has and botticelli's pupils have not, and thus occasionally intensifying aesthetic enjoyment by distinguishing whatever differentiates the finer artistic products from the commoner, modern art-criticism has probably wasted much honest but shamefaced capacity for appreciating the qualities common, because indispensable, to, all good art. it is therefore not without a certain retributive malignity that i end these examples of the storage and transfer of aesthetic emotion, and of the consequent bias to artistic appreciation, with that of the nemesis dogging the steps of the connoisseur. we have all heard of some purchase, or all-but-purchase, of a wonderful masterpiece on the authority of some famous expert; and of the masterpiece proving to be a mere school imitation, and occasionally even a certified modern forgery. the foregoing remarks on the storage and transfer of aesthetic emotion, joined with what we have learned about shape-perception and empathy, will enable the reader to reduce this paradoxical enormity to a natural phenomenon discreditable only when not honestly owned up to. for a school imitation, or a forgery, must possess enough elements in common with a masterpiece, otherwise it could never suggest any connexion with it. given a favourable emotional attitude and the absence of obvious _extrinsic_ (technical or historical) reasons for scepticism, these elements of resemblance must awaken the vague idea, especially the empathic scheme, of the particular master's work, and his name--shall we say leonardo's?--will rise to the lips. but _leonardo_ is a name to conjure with, and in this case to destroy the conjurer himself: the word _leonardo_ implies an emotion, distilled from a number of highly prized and purposely repeated experiences, kept to gather strength in respectful isolation, and further heightened by a thrill of initiate veneration whenever it is mentioned. this _leonardo-emotion,_ once set on foot, checks all unworthy doubts, sweeps out of consciousness all thoughts of inferior work (_inferiority_ and _leonardo_ being emotionally incompatible!), respectfully holds the candle while the elements common to the imitation and the masterpiece are gone over and over, and the differentiating elements exclusively belonging to leonardo evoked in the expert's memory, until at last the objective work of art comes to be embedded in recollected masterpieces which impart to it their emotionally communicable virtue. and when the poor expert is finally overwhelmed with ridicule, the philistine shrewdly decides that a sham leonardo is just as good as a genuine one, that these are all matters of fashion, and that there is really no disputing of tastes! chapter xx aesthetic irradiation and purification the storage and transfer of aesthetic emotion explain yet another fact, with which indeed i began this little book: namely that the word _beautiful_ has been extended from whatever is satisfactory in our contemplation of shapes, to a great number of cases where there can be no question of shapes at all, as in speaking of a "beautiful character" and a "fine moral attitude"; or else, as in the case of a "beautiful bit of machinery," a "fine scientific demonstration" or a "splendid surgical operation" where the shapes involved are not at all such as to afford contemplative satisfaction. in such cases the word _beautiful_ has been brought over with the emotion of satisfied contemplation. and could we examine microscopically the minds of those who are thus applying it, we might perhaps detect, round the fully-focussed thought of that admirable but nowise _shapely_ thing or person or proceeding, the shadowy traces of half-forgotten shapes, visible or audible, forming a halo of real aesthetic experience, and evoked by that word _beautiful_ whose application they partially justify. nor is this all. recent psychology teaches that, odd as it at first appears, our more or less definite images, auditive as well as visual, and whether actually perceived or merely remembered, are in reality the intermittent part of the mind's contents, coming and going and weaving themselves on to a constant woof of our own activities and feelings. it is precisely such activities and feelings which are mainly in question when we apply the words _beautiful_ and _ugly._ thus everything which has come in connexion with occasions for satisfactory shape-contemplation, will meet with somewhat of the same reception as that shape-contemplation originally elicited. and even the merest items of information which the painter conveys concerning the visible universe; the merest detail of human character conveyed by the poet; nay even the mere nervous intoxication furnished by the musician, will all be irradiated by the emotion due to the shapes they have been conveyed in, and will therefore be felt as beautiful. moreover, as the "beautiful character" and "splendid operation" have taught us, rare and desirable qualities are apt to be contemplated in a "platonic" way. and even objects of bodily desire, so long as that desire is not acute and pressing, may give rise to merely contemplative longings. all this, added to what has previously been said, sufficiently explains the many and heterogeneous items which are irradiated by the word _beautiful_ and the emotion originally arising from the satisfied contemplation of mere shapes. and that this contemplation of beautiful shapes should be at once so life-corroborating and so strangely impersonal, and that its special emotion should be so susceptible of radiation and transfer, is sufficient explanation of the elevating and purifying influence which, ever since plato, philosophers have usually ascribed to the beautiful. other moralists however have not failed to point out that art has, occasionally and even frequently, effects of the very opposite kind. the ever-recurrent discussion of this seeming contradiction is, however, made an end of, once we recognise that art has many aims besides its distinguishing one of increasing our contemplation of the beautiful. indeed some of art's many non-aesthetic aims may themselves be foreign to elevation and purification, or even, as for instance the lewd or brutal subjects of some painting and poetry, and the nervous intoxication of certain music, exert a debasing or enervating influence. but, as the whole of this book has tried to establish, the contemplation of beautiful shapes involves perceptive processes in themselves mentally invigorating and refining, and a play of empathic feelings which realise the greatest desiderata of spiritual life, viz. intensity, purposefulness and harmony; and such perceptive and empathic activities cannot fail to raise the present level of existence and to leave behind them a higher standard for future experience. this exclusively elevating effect of beautiful shape as such, is of course proportioned to the attention it receives and the exclusion of other, and possibly baser, interests connected with the work of art. on the other hand the purifying effects of beautiful shapes depend upon the attention oscillating to and fro between them and those other interests, e.g. _subject_ in the _representative_ arts, _fitness_ in the _applied_ ones, and _expression_ in music; all of which non-aesthetic interests benefit (enhanced if noble, redeemed if base) by irradiation of the nobler feelings wherewith they are thus associated. for we must not forget that where opposed groups of feeling are elicited, whichever happens to be more active and complex will neutralise its opponent. thus, while an even higher intensity and complexity of aesthetic feelings is obtained when the "subject" of a picture, the use of a building or a chattel, or the expression of a piece of music, is in itself noble; and a degas ballet girl can never have the dignity of a phidian goddess, nor a gambling _casino_ that of a cathedral, nor the music to wilde's salome that of brahms' _german requiem,_ yet whatever of beauty there may be in the shapes will divert the attention from the meanness or vileness of the non-aesthetic suggestion. we do not remember the mercenary and libertine allegory embodied in correggio's _danaë,_ or else we reinterpret that sorry piece of mythology in terms of cosmic occurrences, of the earth's wealth increased by the fecundating sky. similarly it is a common observation that while _unmusical_ bayreuth-goers often attribute demoralising effects to some of wagner's music, the genuinely musical listeners are unaware, and usually incredulous, of any such evil possibilities. this question of the purifying power of the beautiful has brought us back to our starting-point. it illustrates the distinction between _contemplating an aspect_ and _thinking about things,_ and this distinction's corollary that shape as such is yon-side of _real_ and _unreal,_ taking on the character of reality and unreality only inasmuch as it is thought of in connexion with a _thing._ as regards the possibility of being _good_ or _evil,_ it is evident from all the foregoing that _shape as shape,_ and without the suggestion of things, can be evil only in the sense of being ugly, ugliness diminishing its own drawbacks by being, _ipso facto,_ difficult to dwell upon, inasmuch as it goes against the grain of our perceptive and empathic activities. the contemplation of beautiful shape is, on the other hand, favoured by its pleasurableness, and such contemplation of beautiful shape lifts our perceptive and empathic activities, that is to say a large part of our intellectual and emotional life, on to a level which can only be spiritually, organically, and in so far, morally beneficial. chapter xxi conclusion (evolutional) some of my readers, not satisfied by the answer implicit in the last chapter and indeed in the whole of this little book, may ask a final question concerning our subject. not: what is the use of art? since, as we have seen, art has many and various uses both to the individual and to the community, each of which uses is independent of the attainment of beauty. the remaining question concerns the usefulness of the very demand for beauty, of that _aesthetic imperative_ by which the other uses of art are more or less qualified or dominated. in what way, the reader may ask, has sensitiveness to beauty contributed to the survival of mankind, that it should not only have been preserved and established by evolutional selection, but invested with the tremendous power of the pleasure and pain alternative? the late william james, as some readers may remember, placed musical pleasure between sentimental love and sea-sickness as phenomena unaccountable by any value for human survival, in fact masteries, if not paradoxes, of evolution. the riddle, though not necessarily the mystery, does not consist in the survival of the aesthetic instinct of which the musical one is a mere sub-category, but in the origin and selectional establishment of its elementary constituents, say for instance space-perception and empathy, both of which exist equally outside that instinct which is a mere compound of them and other primary tendencies. for given space-perception and empathy and their capacity of being felt as satisfactory or unsatisfactory, the aesthetic imperative is not only intelligible but inevitable. instead therefore of asking: why is there a preference for what we call beauty? we should have to ask: why has perception, feeling, logic, imagination, come to be just what it is? indeed why are our sense-organs, our bodily structure and chemical composition, what they are; and why do they exist at all in contradistinction to the ways of being of other living or other inanimate things? so long as these elementary facts continue shrouded in darkness or taken for granted, the genesis and evolutional reason of the particular compound which we call aesthetic preference must remain only one degree less mysterious than the genesis and evolutional reason of its psychological components. meanwhile all we can venture to say is that as satisfaction derived from shapes we call _beautiful,_ undoubtedly involves intense, complex, and reiterative mental activities, as it has an undeniable power for happiness and hence for spiritual refreshment, and as it moreover tends to inhibit most of the instincts whose superabundance can jeopardise individual and social existence, the capacity for such aesthetic satisfaction, once arisen, would be fostered in virtue of a mass of evolutional advantages which are as complex and difficult to analyse, but also as deep-seated and undeniable, as itself. bibliography i. _lipps._ raumaesthetik, leipzig, . " aesthetik, vol. i. part ii., leipzig, . ii. _karl groos._ aesthetik, giessen, . " der aesthetische genuss, giessen, . iii. _wundt._ physiologische psychologie ( th edition, ), vol. iii. pg. to . but the whole volume is full of indirect suggestion on aesthetics. iv. _münsterberg._ the principles of art education, new york, . (statement of lipps' theory in physiological terms.) v. _külpe._ der gegenwärtige stand der experimentellen aesthetik, . vi. _vernon lee and anstruther-thomson._ beauty and ugliness, (contains abundant quotations from most of the above works and other sources). vii. _ribot._ le rôle latent des images motrices. revue philosophique, march . viii. _witasek._ psychologie der raumwahrnehmung des auges ( ). these two last named are only indirectly connected with visual aesthetics. for art-evolutional questions consult: ix. _haddon._ evolution in art, . x. _yrjö hirn._ origins of art, macmillan, . xi. _levinstein._ kinderzeichnungen, leipzig, . xii. _loewy._ nature in early greek art (translation), duckworth, . xiii. _delia seta._ religione e arte figurata, rome, . xiv. _spearing._ the childhood of art, . xv. _jane harrison._ ancient art and ritual, . index aesthetic: aridity, - ; imperative, - ; irradiation, - ; purification, - ; responsiveness, active nature of, - ; habit and familiarity affecting, - altamira cave frescoes, art: differential characteristic of, - ; non-aesthetic aims of, - , - ; utility of, - aspect: aesthetics concerned with, , , ; shape the determining feature of, - attention, a factor distinguishing perception from sensation, balfour, h., beautiful: aesthetic irradiation proceeding from use of adjective, - ; attitude implied by use of adjective, - , - ; empathy the chief factor of preference, - ; implies desire for reiterated perception, - botticelli, brahms' _german requiem,_ browning's _abt vogler,_ coleridge's _ode to dejection,_ colour, passive reception of, - , contemplative satisfaction marking aesthetic attitude, - correggio's _danae,_ cubic existence: perception of, ; pictorial suggestion of, importance attached to, discussed, - _discobolus,_ einfühlung, ; misinterpretations of, - emotion, storage and transfer of, - empathy, - ; complexity of movements of lines, - ; movements of lines, - ; second element of shape-perception, - extension existing in perception, - fechner, hildebrand, , inner mimicry, - james, w., keats' _grecian urn,_ levinstein, lipps, locomotion of things, distinction between, and empathic movement of lines, - lotze, mantegna, memory: a factor distinguishing perception from sensation, ; in perception, - michel angelo, , movement of lines, distinction between, and locomotion of things, - ; _see also_ empathy object of perception, subject's activities merged in, , perception: active process involved in, - , - ; distinguished from sensation, ; subject and object of, - raphael's _heliodorus,_ relaxation an element of form-perception, rembrandt, rythm, - semper, hypothesis regarding shape-preference, sensations: distinguished from perceptions, ; perception of relation between, - shape: character of, - ; contemplation of, its intermittent but recurrent character, - ; determines contemplation of an aspect, - ; elements of, - ; empathy an element of perception of, ; facility and difficulty of grasping, - ; a perception, - ; practical causes regarding evolution of, - ; preference, its evolution, - ; and things, their co-operation, - ; thinking away from, to things, - , - sound, passive reception of, - , subject of perception, extent of awareness of self, - symmetry, - tension, an element of form-perception, things and shapes, their cooperation, - ; thoughts about, entering into shape-contemplation, - third dimension, locomotor nature of knowledge of, - , titchener, vinci, leonardo da, , - vischer, watts, g. f., whole and parts, perception of relation of, - wilde's _salome,_ wundt, ,