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.
■"'"V^naa^
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