The Project Gutenberg eBook ofPsychology and AchievementThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Psychology and AchievementAuthor: Warren HiltonRelease date: October 19, 2004 [eBook #13791]Most recently updated: October 28, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Bryan Ness and the PG Online Distributed Proofreading Team*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PSYCHOLOGY AND ACHIEVEMENT ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Psychology and AchievementAuthor: Warren HiltonRelease date: October 19, 2004 [eBook #13791]Most recently updated: October 28, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Bryan Ness and the PG Online Distributed Proofreading Team
Title: Psychology and Achievement
Author: Warren Hilton
Author: Warren Hilton
Release date: October 19, 2004 [eBook #13791]Most recently updated: October 28, 2024
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Bryan Ness and the PG Online Distributed Proofreading Team
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PSYCHOLOGY AND ACHIEVEMENT ***
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.
ChapterI. ATTAINMENT OF MIND CONTROL
THE MAN OF TOMORROWTHE DOLLARS AND CENTS OF MENTAL WASTETHE MEANS TO NOTABLE ACHIEVEMENTA PROCESS FOR "MAKING GOOD"INADEQUACY OF BODY TRAININGINADEQUACY OF BUSINESS SPECIALIZATIONFUTILITY OF ADVICE IN BUSINESSTHE WHY AND THE HOWFUNDAMENTAL TRAINING FOR EFFICIENCYTHE VIRUS OF FAILUREPRACTICAL FORMULAS FOR EVERY DAYYOUR UNDISCOVERED RESOURCESMAN'S MIND MACHINEABJURING MYSTICISMSPSYCHOLOGY, PHYSIOLOGY AND RELATIONSHIPSABODE AND INSTRUMENT OF MINDMANNER OF HANDLING MENTAL PROCESSESFUNDAMENTAL LAWS AND PRACTICAL METHODSSPECIAL BUSINESS TOPICSA STEP BEYOND COLLEGIATE PSYCHOLOGYTHE ETERNAL LAWS OF INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENTHOW TO MASTER OUR METHODS
II. TWO LAWS OF SUCCESS-ACHIEVEMENT
THE ONE-MAN BUSINESS CORPORATIONBUSINESS AND BODILY ACTIVITYTHE ENSLAVED BRAINFIRST STEP TOWARD SELF-REALIZATION
III. RELATION OF MIND ACTIVITY TO BODILY ACTIVITY
SPECULATION AND PRACTICAL SCIENCEPHILOSOPHIC RIDDLES AND PERSONAL EFFECTIVENESSWHAT WE WANT TO KNOWSPIRITUALIST, MATERIALIST AND SCIENTISTSCIENCE OF CAUSE AND EFFECTCAUSES AND "FIRST" CAUSESA COMMON PLATFORM FOR ALLTHOUGHTS TREATED AS CAUSESSCIENTIFIC METHOD WITH PRACTICAL PROBLEMSUSES OF SCIENTIFIC LAWS
IV. INTROSPECTIVE EVIDENCE OF MENTAL MASTERY
DOING THE THING YOU WANT TO DOSOURCE OF POWER OF WILLIMPELLENT ENERGY OF THOUGHTBODILY EFFECTS OF MENTAL STATESILLUSTRATIVE EXPERIMENTSSCOPE OF MIND POWERBODILY EFFECTS OF EMOTIONBODILY EFFECTS OF PERCEPTIONEXPERIMENTS OF PAVLOVTASTE AND DIGESTIONBODILY EFFECTS OF SENSATIONSTHE FUNDAMENTAL LAW OF EXPRESSION
V. PHYSIOLOGICAL EVIDENCE OF MENTAL MASTERY
INTROSPECTIVE KNOWLEDGEDISSECTION AND THE GOVERNING CONSCIOUSNESSSUBORDINATE MENTAL UNITSWHAT THE MICROSCOPE SHOWSTHE LITTLE UNIVERSE BEYONDTHE UNIT OF LIFECHARACTERISTICS OF LIVING CELLSTHE BRAIN OF THE CELLMIND LIFE OF ONE CELLTHE WILL OF THE CELLTHE CELL AND ORGANIC EVOLUTIONEVOLUTIONARY DIFFERENTIATIONSPLURALITY OF THE INDIVIDUALCOMBINED CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE MILLIONSEVOLUTION OF THE HUMAN ORGANISMTHE CROWD-MANFUNCTIONS OF DIFFERENT HUMAN CELLSCELL LIFE AFTER DEATHEXPERIMENTS OF DR. ALEXIS CARRELLMAN-FEDERATION OF INTELLIGENCESCREATIVE POWER OF THE CELLLAYING THE FOUNDATION FOR PRACTICAL DOINGTHREE NEW PROPOSITIONSAN INSTRUMENT FOR MENTAL DOMINANCEGATEWAYS OF EXPERIENCECOURIERS OF ACTIONNERVE SYSTEMSORGANS OF CONSCIOUSNESS AND SUBCONSCIOUSNESSLOOKING INSIDE THE SKULLDRUNKENNESS AND BRAIN EFFICIENCYSECONDARY BRAINSDEPENDENCE OF THE SUBCONSCIOUSUNCONSCIOUSNESS AND SUBCONSCIOUSNESSSYNTHESIS OF THE MAN-MACHINESUBSERVIENCY OF THE BODY
VI. THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIOUSNESS
STRIKING OFF THE MENTAL SHACKLESTHE AWAKENING OF ENLIGHTENMENTTHE VITAL PURPOSEYOUR RESERVOIR OF LATENT POWER
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?
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?
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.
The Means to Notable Achievement
Are you prepared to direct and deploy 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?
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 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.
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.
Thus in many fairly independent ways we are brought around to this same idea of a common structure underlying all the many seeming diversities manifested by what we call matter.
In thisBasic Course of Readingwe 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.
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.
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.
Futility of Advice in Business
It is well to tell you beforehand that in thisBasic Course of Readingwe 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.
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?
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.
Fundamental Training for Efficiency
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.
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.
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.
ThisBasic Course of Readingoffers 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.
Your Undiscovered Resources
We go even further, and say that thisBasic Course of Readingprovides 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.
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 thisBasic Course, and they will make you in a new sense the master of yourself and of your future.
In thisBasic Course of Readingwe shall begin by giving you a thorough understanding of certain mental operations and processes.
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.
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.
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.
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 thementalprocesses 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.
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.
Special Business Topics
In this way thisBasic Course of Readingwill 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 thisBasic 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 thisBasic Courseand for which it can serve only as an introduction.
The conclusion which our minds are forced to draw from the facts presented in this chapter is not doubtful, nor is it difficult to state. Matter is not now being brought into existence by any means that we call "natural."And yet the facts of radioactivity very positively forbid the past eternity of matter. Hence, the conclusion is syllogistic: matter must have originated at some time in the past by methods or means which are equivalent to a real Creation.
A Step Beyond Collegiate Psychology
In thisBasic Course of Readingwe shall show you how you may acquire perfect individual efficiency. And, most remarkable of all, we shall show you how you may acquire itwithout 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 thisBasic Courseare new and wonderful and inspiring. They have been established and attested by world-wide and exhaustive scientific research and experiment.
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 thisBasic Course of Readingwill 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.
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 thisBasic Coursewell 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 theCourseit 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.
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.
Business and Bodily Activity
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.
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.
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.
First Step Toward Self-Realization
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.
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 andcauseany 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.
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 isspeculative, the otherpractical.
Philosophic Riddles and Personal Effectiveness
Thespeculative point of viewis 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."
Thepractical point of viewis 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.
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.
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, andonlyas 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.
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?