THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Perigord
 
 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 
 
 ISSUED UNDER 
 THE AUSPICES OF 
 
 THE SOCIETY OF APPLIED 
 PSYCHOLOGY
 
 COPYRIGHT I 914 
 
 BY THE APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY PRESS 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Chapter 
 
 I. THE TWO FUNDAMENTAL PROC- 
 ESSES OF MIND 
 
 MIND AS A MEANS TO ATTAINMENT 
 THREE POSTULATES FOR THIS COURSE 
 EXPERIENCE AND ABSTRACTIONS 
 PRIMARY MENTAL OPERATIONS 
 
 Pag* 
 
 3 
 4 
 5 
 6 
 
 11. SENSATIONS AND OUR PERCEP- 
 TION OF THEM 
 
 mind's SOURCE OF SUPPLIES 9 
 
 DOES MATTER EXIST? lO 
 
 FIRST-HAND KNOWLEDGE I I 
 
 SECOND-HAND KNOWLEDGE I 2 
 
 ETHERIC VIBRATIONS AS CAUSING SENSATIONS I 3 
 
 THE ROAD TO PERCEPTION 1 4 
 
 THE PLACE WHERE SENSATION OCCURS 15 
 LABORATORY PROOF OF SENSE-PERCEPTIVE 
 
 PROCESS 16 
 
 REACTION-TIME 1 7 
 
 THE HUMAN TELEPHONE I 8 
 
 THE LIVING TELEGRAPH I 9 
 
 THE SIX STEPS TO REACTION 20 
 
 UNOPENED MENTAL MAIL 21 
 
 SELECTIVE PROCESS THAT DETERMINES CONDUCT 2 2 
 
 IN TUNE WITH LIFE-INTEREST 23 
 
 PRACTICAL ASPECTS OF PERCEPTION PROCESS 24 
 
 630031
 
 29 
 
 32 
 33 
 
 34 
 35 
 
 Contents 
 
 Chapter 
 
 in. SENSORY ILLUSIONS AND 
 
 SUGGESTIONS FOR THEIR USE p,^, 
 
 UNRELIABILITY OF SENSE-ORGANS 27 
 
 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 36 
 
 A GUIDE TO OCCUPATIONAL SELECTION 37 
 
 TEST FOR ATTENTION TO DETAILS 38 
 
 OTHER BUSINESS APPLICATIONS 39 
 
 IV. INWARDNESS OF ENVIRONMENT 
 
 FACTORS OF SUCCESS OR FAILURE 43 
 
 SHOULD SEEING BE BELIEVING? 44 
 
 HEARING THE LIGHTNING 46 
 
 IMPORTANCE OF THE MENTAL MAKE-UP 47 
 
 UNREALITY OF "THE REAl" 48 
 "things" AND THEIR MENTAL DUPLICATES 49 
 
 EFFECT OF CLOSING ONe's EYES 50 
 
 IF MATTER WERE ANNIHILATED 5 I 
 
 IF MIND WERE ANNIHILATED 52 
 
 AS MANY WORLDS AS MINDS 53 
 
 V. ESSENTIAL LAW OF PRACTICAL 
 
 SELF-MASTERY 
 
 OPTION AND OPPORTUNITY 57 
 
 PRE-ARRANGING YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS 58 
 
 HOW TO DEFINITELY SELECT ITS ELEMENTS 59
 
 Contents 
 
 Page 
 
 AN INFALLIBLE RECIPE FOR SELF-POSSESSION 6o 
 
 USING "UNSEEN EAR PROTECTORS*' 6 I 
 
 HOW TO AVOID WORRY, MELANCHOLY 62 
 
 PUTTING CIRCUMSTANCES UNDER FOOT 63 
 
 RUNNING YOUR MENTAL FACTORY 64 
 
 ACQUIRING MENTAL BALANCE 65 
 
 DISSIPATING MENTAL SPECTERS 66 
 
 HOW TO CONTROL YOUR DESTINY 67
 
 THE TWO FUNDAMENTAL 
 PROCESSES OF MIND
 
 
 
 Chapter I 
 
 THE TWO FUNDAMENTAL 
 PROCESSES OF MIND 
 
 N THE preceding book, " Psychol- 
 ogy and Achievement," we estab- 
 lished the truth of two proposi- 
 tions: 
 
 I. All human achievement comes 
 about through bodily activity. 
 
 II. All bodily activity is caused, con- 
 trolled and directed by the mind. 
 
 To these two fundamental proposi- 
 tions we now append a third, which 
 needs no proof, but follows as a natural 
 and logical conclusion from the other 
 two: 
 
 Mind as a 
 ileans to 
 {ttainmeni
 
 Applied Psychology 
 
 Three III. The Mind is the instrument you 
 
 Postulates 1 t 1 T 1 r 
 
 for this must employ for the accomplishment of 
 
 Course . 
 
 any purpose. 
 
 With these three fundamental prop- 
 ositions 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 attain- 
 ment of practical ends. 
 
 To comprehend these mental meth- 
 ods and to make use of them in busi- 
 ness affairs you must thoroughly under- 
 stand 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
 
 Making Your Own World q 
 
 process by which knowledge is acquired Experience 
 through the senses. Knowledge is the "Ihstnxcuons 
 result of experience and all human ex- 
 perience is made up of sense-percep- 
 tions. 
 
 The Judicial Process is the reasoning 
 and reflective process. It is the purely 
 "intellectual" type of mental operation. 
 It deals wholly in abstractions. Ab- 
 stractions 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. 
 
 In this book we shall give you a clear 
 idea of the Sense-Perceptive Process 
 and show you some of the ways in which
 
 Applied Psychology 
 
 pyimary an Understanding of this process will be 
 OMations useful to you in everyday affairs. The 
 succeeding book will explain the Judi- 
 cial Process.
 
 SENSATIONS 
 
 AND OUR PERCEPTION 
 
 OF THEM
 
 Chapter II 
 
 SENSATIONS 
 
 AND OUR PERCEPTION 
 
 OF THEM 
 
 HATEVER you know, or Mind's Som-a 
 
 think you know, of the 
 
 ^T7 
 
 ^L/ ^j external world comes to 
 ▼ » you through some one 
 
 of your five primary senses, sight, hear- 
 ing, 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 knowl-
 
 Does Mailer 
 
 Exist: 
 
 I o Applied Psychology 
 
 edge 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. 
 
 Philosophers have been wrangling 
 for some thousands of years as to 
 whether we have any real and absolute 
 knowledge, as to whether matter actu- 
 ally does or does not exist, as to the re- 
 liability or unreliability of the impres- 
 sions 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 nat-
 
 Making Tour Own World \ \ 
 
 urally 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. 
 
 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 envel- 
 ops it. 
 
 As a matter of fact, your sense-im- 
 pression of that bit of furniture must 
 filter through a great number of inter- 
 vening physical agencies before you 
 can become conscious of it. 
 
 Direct perception of an outside re- 
 ality is impossible. 
 
 First-liafid
 
 <'coud-liand 
 Knotvledse 
 
 1 2 Applied Psychology 
 
 Before you can become aware of any 
 object there must first arise between it 
 and your mind a chain of countless dis- 
 tinct physical events. 
 
 Modern science tells us that both 
 light and sound are due to undulations 
 or wave-like vibrations of the ether. 
 These vibrations are transmitted from 
 one particle of ether to another, and so 
 from the thing perceived to the body 
 of man. 
 
 Think, then, what crisscross of ether 
 currents and confusion of ether vibra- 
 tions, what myriad of physical events, 
 must intervene between any distant ob- 
 ject and your own body before sensa- 
 tions come and bring you a conscious- 
 ness of that object's existence! 
 
 Nor can you be sure, even after any
 
 >>CllS(lllOUS 
 
 Making Your Own World \ o 
 particular vibration has reached the i-^incnc 
 
 ^ _ I'ibratioiis OS 
 
 surface of your body, that it will reach Causing 
 your mind unaltered and intact! 
 
 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 sen- 
 sory nerves convey to the brain the im- 
 pressions received from the outer world 
 and that the motor nerves relay this 
 information to the rest of the body 
 coupled with commands for appropri- 
 ate muscular action.
 
 p,-, ,-,,/,;„,,, 
 
 1 4 Applied Psychology 
 
 iheRoad The outcr 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 sen- 
 sations 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
 
 DIAfiRAM SHOWINC; IHK I (UK e llli:i ASSOCIATION CKNTEKS 
 OK THK HUMAN BRAIN
 
 Making Your Own World \ r 
 periphery of the body — that is to say, at The Place 
 
 Where 
 
 that part of the exposed surface of the sensation 
 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. 
 
 As a matter of fact, this is not the 
 case, for if one of your arms should be 
 amputated, you would still feel a tin- 
 gling 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 ampu- 
 tated arm. The sensation would really
 
 1 6 Applied Psychology 
 
 Laboratory occuT in the Central brain tissue as the 
 '^Sense- Organ of the governing intelligence, the 
 Perceptive organ of consciousncss. 
 
 Process ° 
 
 And you may set it down as an 
 established principle that all states of 
 consciousness, whether seemingly local- 
 ized on the surface of the body or not, 
 are connected with the brain as the dom- 
 inant center. 
 
 The facts we have been recounting 
 have been established by the experi- 
 ments 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
 
 Making Tour Own World \ n 
 with a white-hot needle, the time that Reactum 
 
 Time 
 
 would elapse before you could jerk 
 your hand away could be readily meas- 
 ured in fractions of a second with 
 appropriate instruments. 
 
 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 intermedi- 
 ate 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, command- 
 ing them to remove it from the point of 
 danger. 
 
 The work of the nervous system in
 
 I 8 Applied Psychology 
 
 The Human dealing with the ether vibrations that 
 
 Telephone , . . . 
 
 are constantly impinging upon the sur- 
 face 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 respon- 
 sively and imparts a corresponding 
 wave-like motion to the air. 
 
 These air-waves when heard are 
 what we call sound. 
 
 In the same way, air-waves striking 
 the ear are communicated by the audi- 
 tory nerve to the brain, where they 
 awaken a corresponding sensation of 
 sound. But these waves must be vibrat-
 
 Making Your Own TForld jg 
 ing at between 14,000 and 40,000 times The Living 
 
 Telegraph 
 
 a second. If they are vibrating so slowly 
 or so rapidly as not to come within this 
 range, we cannot hear them. 
 
 This process is by no means a me- 
 chanical affair. On the contrary, it is a 
 series of mental acts. Every cell in the 
 living telegraph must receive the mes- 
 sage 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 in- 
 jury to the muscle cells that ultimately 
 receive and understand a message di- 
 recting them to remove the part from 
 danger. 
 
 Reaction-time, so called, is thus occu- 
 pied by cellular action in the form of 
 mental processes intervening between
 
 ao 
 
 Applied Psychology 
 
 The Six Steps the ncrvc-ends and the brain center, in 
 
 to Reaction , , • , i i 
 
 much the same way that light and sound 
 vibrations intervene between the object 
 perceived and the surface of the body. 
 For even the simplest of sense-per- 
 ceptions we have, then, this sequence of 
 events: first, the object perceived; sec- 
 ond, the series of vibrations of ether 
 particles intervening between the ob- 
 ject 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 ac- 
 tion of a new message that will awaken 
 some response in the muscular tissues.
 
 Making Your Own World 
 
 21 
 
 This process is completely carried Unopened 
 
 1 . , . , Mental 
 
 out, however, in only comparatively \[„ji 
 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 con- 
 scious of them. They form a part, not 
 of consciousness, but of subconscious- 
 ness. 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 vibra- 
 tions. Light, sound and tactual vibra- 
 tions press upon you from every side. 
 At a busy corner of a city street these 
 vibrations rise to a tumultuous fortis-
 
 2 2 Applied Psychology 
 
 Selective simo ; in the hush of a night upon the 
 
 Process that 
 
 Determines plains they sink to pianissimo. Yet at 
 
 Conduct 
 
 every moment of your day or night they 
 are there in greater or less degree, titil- 
 lating the unsleeping nerve-ends of the 
 sensorium. 
 
 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 ap- 
 paratus of the wireless telegraph which 
 picks from the air those particular vi- 
 brations 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 con-
 
 Making Your Own World 2 X 
 
 sciously perceived and acted upon. All In Tune with 
 
 ... . , . Life-Interest 
 
 others it diverts into a subconscious 
 reservoir of temporary oblivion. 
 
 You will have a clearer understand- 
 ing of the sense-perceptive processes 
 and a more vital realization of the prac- 
 tical significance of these facts v^hen 
 you consider how they affect your 
 knowledge of material things and your 
 conception of the external world. 
 
 This subject possesses two distinct as- 
 pects. 
 
 One aspect has to do with the inability 
 of the sense-organs to record the facts 
 of the outer world with perfect pre- 
 cision. These organs are the result of 
 untold ages of evolution, and, generally 
 speaking, have become wonderfully 
 efficient, but they display surprising
 
 Process 
 
 24 Applied Psychology 
 
 rmctuat inaccuracies. These inaccuracies are 
 Perception Called Scnsory Illusions. 
 
 The other aspect of the Sense-Per- 
 ceptive Process has to do with the men- 
 tal interpretation of environment. 
 
 Both these aspects are distinctly prac- 
 tical. 
 
 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 relation- 
 ship between your mind and your en- 
 vironment, since they are the two prin- 
 cipal factors in your working life.
 
 SENSORY ILLUSIONS 
 
 AND SUGGESTIONS FOR 
 
 THEIR USE
 
 Chapter III 
 
 SENSORY ILLUSIONS 
 
 AND SUGGESTIONS FOR 
 
 THEIR USE 
 
 IGURE 1 shows two lines of Unreliability 
 
 equal length, yet the vertical orgZ^' 
 line will to most persons seem 
 longer than the horizontal one. 
 
 Fig. 1. 
 
 27
 
 2 8 Applied Psychology 
 
 Unreliability In FiguTC 2 the Ifncs A and B are of 
 
 of Sense- 
 
 Organs the samc length, yet the lower seems 
 • much longer. 
 
 -^— ^ > 
 
 > ^ < 
 
 Fig. 2. 
 
 Those things look smallest over 
 which the eye moves with least resist- 
 ance. 
 
 In Figure 3, the distance from A to B 
 looks longer than the distance from B 
 to C because of the time we involun- 
 tarily take to notice each dot, yet the 
 distances are equal. 
 
 Fig. 3.
 
 Making Tour Own World 20 
 
 For the same reason, the hatchet Being and 
 line (A — B) appears longer than the 
 unbroken line (C — D) in Figure 4, and 
 the lines E and F appear longer than 
 the space (G) between them, although 
 all are of equal length. 
 
 f^ ////////////// ^ c- 
 
 ///yMm "" //////////// 
 
 Fig. 4. 
 
 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.
 
 3° 
 
 Applied Psychology 
 
 Being and Thus the filled Square in Figure 5 looks 
 larger than the empty one, though they 
 are of equal size. 
 
 Fig. 5. 
 
 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 com- 
 pelled to guess at the weight of animals 
 have learned to discount their estimate 
 on white animals and increase it on
 
 
 »s 
 
 %^-; 
 
 X 
 
 1 HIS MAN AM) I HIS li<)V AkK ol- K<JLAI. MKU.Il 1 
 
 BUT ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS MAKES THE MAN 
 
 LOOK MUCH THE LARCER
 
 iusuiess 
 
 Making Your Own World n j 
 black ones to make allowances for the Use of 
 
 . Illusions in 
 
 optical illusion. St 
 
 The dressmaker and tailor are care- 
 ful 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 no- 
 ticed 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
 
 n 2 Applied Psychology 
 
 Making an to givc thc impression of bigness, he 
 
 Article J J . - , , 
 
 Look Big ^dds contrasting figures such as those 
 of tiny men and women so that the un- 
 known 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. 
 
 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 ap- 
 pears 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 judg- 
 ment is influenced by suggestion. To
 
 Making Your Own World n n 
 perform this experiment cut bits of Testing the 
 
 Confidential 
 
 pasteboard mto pairs of squares, circles, Man 
 stars and octagons and write numbers of 
 two figures each, say 25, 50, 34, 87, etc., 
 upon the different pieces. Tell the sub- 
 ject to be tested to pick out the forms 
 that are largest. The susceptible per- 
 son who is not trained to discriminate 
 closely will pick out of each pair the 
 card that has the largest number upon 
 it. 
 
 This test can be made one of a series 
 used in examining applicants for com- 
 mercial 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 dis- 
 cretion, and who must be proof against
 
 34 Applied Psychology 
 
 Tests for the deceptions practiced by salesmen, 
 
 Credulity 
 
 promoters and others with seductive 
 propositions. 
 
 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 orig- 
 inally devised by a magician, but has 
 been adopted in experimental psychol- 
 ogy. Take a pack of cards and shuffle 
 them loosely in the two hands, making 
 some one card, say the ace of spades, es- 
 pecially prominent. The subject is told 
 to " take a card." The suggestive influ- 
 ence 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
 
 Making Your Own World ^ r 
 
 sensory illusions is found in color aber- whai Colors 
 ration. Some colors look closer than ^''«*^^«''^^' 
 others. For instance, paint an object red 
 and it seems nearer than it would if 
 painted green. 
 
 Aside from the obvious uses to which 
 these sense-illusions can be put, they 
 form the basis for a number of psycho- 
 logical 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 unfa- 
 miliar 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
 
 n 6 Applied Psychology 
 
 Testing the somc such word as hat, coat, ball or 
 Attcnfion bat. The objects are then placed under 
 a cloth cover and the subject to be ex- 
 amined is told to concentrate his atten- 
 . tion on the shapes alone, paying no at- 
 tention to the words. The cloth is lifted 
 for five seconds and then replaced. The 
 subject is then told to draw with a pen- 
 cil the different shapes and such words 
 as he may chance to remember. The ex- 
 periment 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. 
 Of course, the real object is to deter- 
 mine whether the subject will see more 
 than he is told, or whether he is a mere 
 automaton. The result will tell whether
 
 Making Your Own World o n 
 his attention is of the narrow or broad a Guide to 
 
 n. 1 1 -ii 1 Occupational 
 
 It be narrow, he will see only selection 
 
 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. 
 
 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 superin- 
 tendent or, lacking executive ability,
 
 n 8 Applied Psychology 
 
 Test for for work requiring the supervision of 
 
 Attention to , . , . . , , 
 
 Details mechanical operations widely separ- 
 ated in space. 
 
 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 experi- 
 ment 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 sup- 
 posed to have accurate knowledge. 
 After this original page is written, have
 
 Making Your Own World og 
 
 your typist write out another set of other Busines 
 sheets in which there are a large num- ' ^^ ""twns 
 her 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 let- 
 ters 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 ac- 
 curacy of work. 
 
 Look into your own business and you 
 will undoubtedly find some depart- 
 ment, whether it be store decoration, 
 office furnishing, window dressing, ad- 
 vertising, landscape work or architec- 
 ture, in which a systematic application 
 of a knowledge of sensory illusions will 
 produce good results.
 
 INWARDNESS 
 OF ENVIRONMENT
 
 Chapter IV 
 
 INWARDNESS 
 OF ENVIRONMENT 
 
 
 HE aspect of the sense-per- Factors of 
 
 Success or 
 
 _ ceptive process that deals p^a^ 
 I with the relation of mind 
 -^^^ to environment is of great- 
 est 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 
 
 43
 
 44 Applied Psychology 
 
 Should Seeing upon the " cvidence of your own senses," 
 
 Be Believing? 
 
 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 believ- 
 ing." 
 
 Yet how can you be sure that any ob- 
 ject 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 inter- 
 vene 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
 
 Making Tour Own World a^ 
 activities that convey a picture of the should Seeing 
 
 1 u J ^ ^u u • r B^ Believing? 
 
 same lamp-shade to the bram of an- 
 other. If the physical agencies through 
 v^hich 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 dif- 
 ferent organs of sense will produce dif- 
 ferent sensations. A blow upon the eye 
 will cause you to ^^see stars"; a similar
 
 A 6 Applied Psychology 
 
 Hearing the blow upon the ear will cause you to 
 
 Lightning j x i 
 
 near an explosive sound. In other 
 words, the vibratory efifect of a touch 
 on eye or ear is the same as that of 
 light or sound vibrations. 
 
 The notion you may form of any ob- 
 ject 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
 
 Making Your Own World An 
 to our ears, and those of our auditory impurtanceof 
 
 the Mental 
 
 nerves to our eyes, we should hear the Make-up 
 lightning and see the thunder, see the 
 symphony and hear the conductor's 
 movements." 
 
 In other words, the kind of impres- 
 sions 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 en- 
 vironment in which our lives are cast — 
 all these things depend for each one of 
 us simply upon how he happens to he 
 put together, simply upon his indi- 
 vidual mental make-up. 
 
 There is another way of examining 
 into the intervening agencies that in- 
 fluence our mental conception of the 
 material world about us.
 
 Unreality of 
 "The Real- 
 
 ms Applied Psychology 
 
 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 ex- 
 istence apart from your mental impres- 
 sion of it? Have you ever realized that 
 no object ever has been or ever could 
 be know^n 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 your- 
 self of its existence by looking at it or 
 touching it. You will conceive your 
 perception of the table as a sort of pro-
 
 Making Tour Own lFo7'ld aq 
 jection of your mind comfortably en- '^Things" and 
 
 their Mentc 
 Duplicates 
 
 folding the table within itself. their Mental 
 
 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
 
 r o Applied Psychology 
 
 Effect of indirect and representative, because of 
 One's Eyes 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, imme- 
 diate and intuitive you must admit that 
 the table is only a mental image, a men- 
 tal reality, if it is any sort of reality at 
 all, and that it has no existence outside 
 of the mind. 
 
 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 alter-
 
 Making Your Own IForld r i 
 
 nately opening and closing your tyt^, if Matter 
 you can successively create and destroy Annihilated 
 this mental duplicate. 
 
 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 impres- 
 sions; 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 philoso- 
 phers have had the courage to deny. 
 
 Imagine, then, for a moment that 
 everything except mind should sud- 
 denly cease to exist, but that your sense-
 
 r 2 Applied Psychology 
 
 ifMindWere pcrceptlons — that is to say, your per- 
 Annihiiated ccption of sensory impressions — were 
 to continue to follow one another as be- 
 fore. 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? 
 
 And, conversely, if the world of mat- 
 ter 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? 
 
 // is obvious that the world is not the 
 same for all of us, hut that it is for each 
 one of us simply the world of his indi- 
 vidual perceptions. 
 
 The whole subject of sense-impres-
 
 Making Your Own Jf^orld r n 
 
 slons, sensation and perception may, 'ly^rid^as 
 therefore, be looked at from the stand- ^^'"'"'•^ 
 point of the mind as an active influence, 
 as well as from the standpoint of out- 
 side objects as the exciting causes of 
 sense-impressions.
 
 ESSENTIAL 
 
 LAW OF PRACTICAL 
 
 SELF-MASTERY
 
 Chapter V 
 
 ESSENTIAL 
 
 LAW OF PRACTICAL 
 
 SELF-MASTERY 
 
 XTERNAL objects excite sensory 
 
 J J option and 
 
 impressions, but the percep- opportunity 
 
 ■"^ tion of them is purely at the 
 B ^ option of the mind. 
 This is of the greatest practical im- 
 portance. 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 ex- 
 ternal stimuli impressing themselves 
 
 S7
 
 r 8 Applied Psychology 
 
 Pre-arranging uDon the scnsorium as upon a mechani- 
 Consciousness cal register. You are helpless to dis- 
 criminate among them. You cannot ac- 
 cept some and exclude others. You are 
 a perambulating dry plate upon which 
 outside objects produce their images. 
 
 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 def- 
 initely 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 predeter- 
 mine what elements of passing sensory 
 experience may be made the basis of
 
 Making Your Own World rg 
 your conscious judgments and of your How to 
 
 f 1 ■ I . • Definitely 
 
 feelings and emotions. Select it's 
 
 Bear this in mind when you think of ^'''""'"^•^ 
 your environment and its supposed in- 
 fluence upon your life. Remember that 
 your environment is no hard-and-fast 
 thing, an aggregate of physical reali- 
 ties. Your environment, so far as it af- 
 fects 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 in- 
 fluences your conduct and your life, is 
 not a chance massing of outward cir- 
 cumstances, but is the product of your 
 own mind.
 
 6o Applied Psychology 
 
 , .r , „.., Think what this means to you. It 
 
 /J )i Infallible "^ 
 
 Recipe for mcans that by deliberately selecting for 
 
 Self- 
 
 Possession attention only those sense-impressions, 
 those elements of consciousness, that can 
 serve your purpose, you can free your- 
 self from all distractions and make 
 peaceful progress in the midst of tur- 
 moil. 
 
 " 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
 
 Making Your Own World 5 1 
 noticing the agitated broker, smilingly ^'-^/"^ 
 
 <=> <^ f o J 'Unseen Ear 
 
 said: 'I see that you are disturbed by Protectors" 
 the noise made by your neighbors in the 
 conduct of their afifairs; 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 con- 
 strained 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
 
 62 Applied Psychology 
 
 How to Avoid time he had so successfully practiced 
 
 IVofry, 
 
 Melancholy the simplc though foFCcful iujunction, 
 that he had reached a point in self-con- 
 trol where the Babel of tongues about 
 him no longer reached his conscious- 
 ness." 
 
 Herein lies a remedy for worry, with 
 its sleepless nights and kindred tor- 
 ments; for melancholy and despair, 
 with their train of physical and finan- 
 cial disaster. 
 
 How? Simply by shutting off the 
 flow of disagreeable thoughts and sub- 
 stituting others that are pleasant and 
 refreshing. 
 
 You are master. You can change the 
 setting of your mental stage from por- 
 tentous gloom to sun-lit assurance. You 
 can concentrate your thought upon the
 
 Making Your Own World 6 % 
 useful, the helpful and the cheerful, Puttmg 
 
 Circumstances 
 
 ignore the useless and annoying, and Under Foot 
 make your life a life of hope and joy, 
 of promise and fulfilment. 
 
 You will not question the statement 
 that what you do with your life is the 
 combined result of heredity and en- 
 vironment. At the same time you doubt- 
 less 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 environ- 
 ment is an environment of thought, that 
 your material universe is a thing of your
 
 64 Applied Psychology 
 
 Running Your own making, and that you can mold it 
 Fac'tory ^s you wiU simply by the intelligent 
 control of your own thinking. 
 In Book I. you learned that — 
 
 I. All human achievement comes 
 about through bodily activity. 
 
 II. All bodily activity is caused, con- 
 trolled 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 pri- 
 mary mental operations with a view to 
 evolving methods and devices for the
 
 Making Tour Own World 6c 
 scientific and systematic employment of Acquiring 
 
 . , . , . f Mental 
 
 the mind m the attamment of success. Balance 
 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. 
 
 Realizing this distinction and apply- 
 ing 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
 
 66 
 
 Dissipating 
 
 Mental 
 
 Specters 
 
 Applied Psychology 
 
 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. 
 
 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 knowl- 
 edge are concerned, nothing exists in 
 substance and reality outside your men- 
 tal 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 har-
 
 Making Tour Own World 67 
 
 bor sensory pictures that impede your How to 
 progress and allow them to harass ^^J/f^ 
 and dominate you and interfere with 
 the achievement of your ambition, or 
 whether you will ignore these intru- 
 ders and thereby annihilate them. 
 
 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 to- 
 ward the external facts of life. 
 
 You have within you a living Force 
 against which all the world is power- 
 less. 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
 
 6 8 Applied Psychology 
 
 How to can bring any project to the goal of ac- 
 
 Control Your , . , 
 
 j;)c,;tiny complishment. 
 
 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.
 
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