Latest / THE SECRET LAW OF ATTRACTION: Manifest Wealth, Success & Abundance / PERCEPTIVE POWER - THE ART OF OBSERVATION: Manifesting Clarity and Success - William Walker Atkinson (1922)

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PERCEPTIVE POWER - THE ART OF OBSERVATION: Manifesting Clarity and Success - William Walker Atkinson (1922) · THE SECRET LAW OF ATTRACTION: Manifest Wealth, Success & Abundance

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  Speaker 1: Perceptive Power The Art of Observation by William Walker Atkinson,
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  Speaker 1: nineteen twenty two. Your World of Experience. In this book,
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  Speaker 1: we shall direct your attention to a very important phase
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  Speaker 1: or form of your personal power. Inasmuch as your personal
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  Speaker 1: power is a phase, form, aspect, or mode of the
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  Speaker 1: expression and manifestation of that power from which all power
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  Speaker 1: directly or indirectly proceeds, it follows that the particular form
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  Speaker 1: of power to which we are now proceeding to call
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  Speaker 1: your attention is one of the manifold manifestations and expressions
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  Speaker 1: of that all power of the universe. The particular phase
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  Speaker 1: or form of personal power which constitutes the subject matter
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  Speaker 1: of the present book is that known as perceptive power,
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  Speaker 1: the power by means of which you perceive, discern, observe, distinguish,
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  Speaker 1: and know the things of the outside world by means
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  Speaker 1: of the senses and the mental processes. Employing the raw
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  Speaker 1: material furnished by the sensory apparatus. By means of perceptive power,
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  Speaker 1: you see here feel the impressions received from the outside world.
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  Speaker 1: By means of perceptive power, you are able not only
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  Speaker 1: to know that outside things exist, but also to apprehend them.
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  Speaker 1: By the intellect to discern differences between them and to
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  Speaker 1: distinguish one class of things from others. Your percepts, i e.
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  Speaker 1: The products of your perception, furnish the elemental material from
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  Speaker 1: which all your concepts, notions, and ideas concerning things are derived, constituted, composed,
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  Speaker 1: or made up. Your percepts are the units with which memory, imagination, thought, reason,
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  Speaker 1: and judgment build their structures. All mental processes begin with
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  Speaker 1: perception and depend upon it for their material. Around and
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  Speaker 1: about you is a wonderful world of things, infinite and
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  Speaker 1: inexhaustible in its contents. But within this world is a
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  Speaker 1: smaller and far more restricted world, a finite world consisting
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  Speaker 1: of the scattered items of material which you have abstracted
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  Speaker 1: from that outside world by means by your perceptive power.
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  Speaker 1: No matter how great may be that outside world, this
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  Speaker 1: inner world represents all that you have perceived and observed
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  Speaker 1: of that greater realm. The size, the extent, the limits
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  Speaker 1: of that inner world are determined entirely by the degree
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  Speaker 1: of perceptive power which you have employed in the task
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  Speaker 1: of building up this little mental kingdom within yourself. You
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  Speaker 1: are its creator, its ruler, its architect, its builder, the
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  Speaker 1: maker of its boundaries. It is as large or as small,
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  Speaker 1: as great or as insignificant as you determine it to be,
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  Speaker 1: no more, no less. All that you know, have ever known,
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  Speaker 1: or ever will know of the great outside world is
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  Speaker 1: comprised in that particular mirrored representation or reflection of portions
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  Speaker 1: of it, which constitutes your individual world of experience. By
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  Speaker 1: experience is meant the practical knowledge gained by observation or trial,
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  Speaker 1: the acquaintance acquired by personal observation or experiment. Your world
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  Speaker 1: of experience is your world of actual perception, observation, and experiment.
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  Speaker 1: Whatever the outside world may or may not be in itself,
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  Speaker 1: it is certain that all you know of it is
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  Speaker 1: that knowledge gained by your direct or indirect experience and
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  Speaker 1: observation of it. This knowledge is originally mirrored upon your
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  Speaker 1: mind by perception. The rest is a matter of rational
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  Speaker 1: induction or deduction, consisting of inference based upon this original
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  Speaker 1: material of experience and observation. Your world of experience is
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  Speaker 1: your inner world. It is located in your mentality, on
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  Speaker 1: the conscious or subconscious planes or fields of your mental being.
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  Speaker 1: It is your own, your very own. No other person
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  Speaker 1: may enter into it or dwelt within its borders. It
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  Speaker 1: is sacred to yourself. It is different from the corresponding
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  Speaker 1: inner worlds of all other persons. No two persons possess
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  Speaker 1: identical worlds of experience. You yourself, have created this unique
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  Speaker 1: world of experience which is your very own. You, yourself,
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  Speaker 1: are still creating it, and will continue to create it
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  Speaker 1: so long as you live. You create it with that
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  Speaker 1: wonderful tool or instrument which you call the power of perception.
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  Speaker 1: That is, you, so create its elementary materials, which are
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  Speaker 1: then worked up and built up into more complex forms
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  Speaker 1: by the other faculties of your mind. You are the
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  Speaker 1: creator of this world of experience. If you are wise,
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  Speaker 1: you will perform your creative work so thoroughly and efficiently
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  Speaker 1: that in the end you will be justified in looking
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  Speaker 1: upon it and calling it good. Careful analysis of your
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  Speaker 1: mental operations, experience, and consciousness will always reveal to you
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  Speaker 1: the important fact that you, yourself are always the beginning,
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  Speaker 1: always the center, always the end of your world of experience.
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  Speaker 1: From that point of beginning, From that central point and
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  Speaker 1: toward that end, you have proceeded to the creation of
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  Speaker 1: your world of experience. You build from the center outward
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  Speaker 1: your horizon of experience constantly expands as your perceptive vision
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  Speaker 1: increases and takes in a grit area of the outside world.
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  Speaker 1: Through the glasses and tubes of the telescopes and the
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  Speaker 1: microscopes of the senses, you perceive and observe the things
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  Speaker 1: of the outside world and represent them in your own
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  Speaker 1: world of experience, which abides within yourself. But it is you, yourself,
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  Speaker 1: who are always at the observing end of these instruments.
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  Speaker 1: We now invite you to consider the processes by means
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  Speaker 1: of which you have created this unique world of experience,
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  Speaker 1: this inner world which is your very own. Plato well
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  Speaker 1: said that the ego is imprisoned in a body, like
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  Speaker 1: an oyster in his shell. You yourself, cannot get outside
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  Speaker 1: of this shell. At least while you are on this
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  Speaker 1: particular plane of existence. You cannot escape from its confining
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  Speaker 1: limits and thus secure immediate contact with the outside world
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  Speaker 1: and so acquire direct knowledge of its facts and events.
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  Speaker 1: On the contrary, you are entirely dependent upon certain channels
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  Speaker 1: of communication with that outside world for your reports from it.
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  Speaker 1: These reports are then converted by you into the finishment
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  Speaker 1: material with which you create that mirrored world of representation,
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  Speaker 1: Your world of experience. If these channels of communication had
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  Speaker 1: never been open to you, then you would never have
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  Speaker 1: been able to create your world of experience. There would
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  Speaker 1: exist no such world of experience for you. In such case,
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  Speaker 1: the fact of your own existence would constitute your only
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  Speaker 1: item of experience and knowledge. Your oyster shell would never
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  Speaker 1: have opened to admit an inflow of the waters in
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  Speaker 1: which it is immersed, and you would be unaware even
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  Speaker 1: that such waters existed. All that you know, ever have known,
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  Speaker 1: or ever can know, of the outside world becomes known
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  Speaker 1: to you by means of the reports furnished by the
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  Speaker 1: channels of communication with the outside world, the channels of
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  Speaker 1: the senses. While your higher mental faculties may select from
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  Speaker 1: these reports such as they choose, may examine, combine, and
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  Speaker 1: arrange them in logical classification, may draw inferences from them
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  Speaker 1: so as to learn the unknown from the known, may
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  Speaker 1: store them in memory, and rearrange them in the form
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  Speaker 1: of mental pictures of the imagination. Yet at the last
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  Speaker 1: you will find that in these reports of the senses
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  Speaker 1: you have your only possible raw materials of knowledge. Upon
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  Speaker 1: the strength, clearness, and truth of these reports, as well
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  Speaker 1: as upon their number and variety, depend the particular degree
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  Speaker 1: in character of knowledge and experience possible of acquirement by you.
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  Speaker 1: The I am I, which is yourself, is constantly receiving
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  Speaker 1: a stream of messages and experiences from the outside world.
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  Speaker 1: It is well within the facts of the case to
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  Speaker 1: compare that I am I, which is yourself, to the
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  Speaker 1: managing editor of a great metropolitan newspaper, seated at his desk,
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  Speaker 1: receiving from all parts of the world a multitude of
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  Speaker 1: messages of all kinds, which give him the news of
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  Speaker 1: the day, from which he makes up the next issue
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  Speaker 1: of his paper. From this point of the compass, and
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  Speaker 1: from that one pour in the messages he receives them all.
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  Speaker 1: Some of these messages he discards as non essential and uninteresting.
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  Speaker 1: Some he bids his assistance to a bridge, discarding a
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  Speaker 1: portion while retaining the rest. Some he accepts in their entirety.
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  Speaker 1: To others he adds previously received details. Some are headlined
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  Speaker 1: by him, in accordance with the traditional policy of his journal.
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  Speaker 1: Others he bids his editorial helpers to employ as premises
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  Speaker 1: from which to draw inferences to be expressed in the
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  Speaker 1: editorial columns. Others are condensed into brief items for the
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  Speaker 1: general summary of the news of the day. He is
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  Speaker 1: not actually in the outside world in which these events
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  Speaker 1: are happening. He remains seated at his desk receiving the
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  Speaker 1: messages from that outside world, and from these messages he
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  Speaker 1: is creating and building up a mirrored world, a representative
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  Speaker 1: symbolic world, which takes form in the printed newspaper. You
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  Speaker 1: are in a position very similar to that of this
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  Speaker 1: managing editor. You, yourself, the I am I element of yourself,
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  Speaker 1: are safely sheltered in the inner chamber of your being.
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  Speaker 1: Your I am I is not present in the outside world.
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  Speaker 1: It is present only at the center of your consciousness,
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  Speaker 1: your inner world, which is a mirrored representation of the
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  Speaker 1: world external to itself. All that your eye might knows
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  Speaker 1: of that outer world it knows by reason of the
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  Speaker 1: sensory messages received from it. This thought may never have
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  Speaker 1: occurred to you, but it is a fact that the
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  Speaker 1: only world you really know is this inner world of experience,
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  Speaker 1: which you have created for yourself from the reports received
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  Speaker 1: through the sense channels from the actual outer world. If
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  Speaker 1: your senses are normal and acute, your inner world of
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  Speaker 1: experience will represent the result of your possession of such
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  Speaker 1: sense qualities. If your senses are deficient or lacking in
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  Speaker 1: any respect, or if they are dull and untrained, then
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  Speaker 1: your inner world of experience will as truly represent such conditions.
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  Speaker 1: You see then, that your world of experience is not
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  Speaker 1: a complete representation of the outside world at all. It
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  Speaker 1: only represents such portions of that outside world which, in
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  Speaker 1: the first place, have been reported to you by your
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  Speaker 1: sense impressions, and in the second place, only such portions
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  Speaker 1: of these reports which have actually been accepted by you
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  Speaker 1: in perception. All the rest is life. Your world of experience, then,
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  Speaker 1: is merely a symbolic picture of certain aspects of the
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  Speaker 1: outside world which have been perceived by you and taken
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  Speaker 1: into your inner world. It is a work of art
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  Speaker 1: rather than a work of nature, and you are the
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  Speaker 1: artist who has created that work. Moreover, your world of
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  Speaker 1: experience is not permanent. It is constantly receiving finishing touches, improvements, alterations,
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  Speaker 1: and modifications at your hands, resulting from new reports reaching you. You,
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  Speaker 1: as you grow and change, are working incessantly and often involuntarily,
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  Speaker 1: at the task of creating your world of experience. It
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  Speaker 1: is a matter of the soundest philosophical and scientific teaching
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  Speaker 1: that you, yourself have created, are now creating, and so
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  Speaker 1: long as you live, will continue to create this inner
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  Speaker 1: world of experience, which constitutes the world to you. You
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  Speaker 1: create this world from the raw material furnished by sensation,
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  Speaker 1: accepted and interpreted by perception, your processes of classific caingation, inference, induction,
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  Speaker 1: and deduction, and your creation of ideas, concepts, and mental
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  Speaker 1: images from these worked up materials. You, yourself and none
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  Speaker 1: other but yourself, are the creator of this inner world,
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  Speaker 1: which is all the world to you, the only world
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  Speaker 1: that you really know at the last analysis. This is
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  Speaker 1: a statement of tremendous importance to you, if rightly understood,
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  Speaker 1: and you should not lightly pass it by. You should
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  Speaker 1: carefully consider and assimilate it. If you have any doubts
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  Speaker 1: concerning the truth of the above statements, and should feel
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  Speaker 1: desirous of further proof of them, you will find such
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  Speaker 1: proof at hand and in abundance. You need go no
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  Speaker 1: further than to consider how different the same outside world
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  Speaker 1: appears to different individuals observing it from the same place
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  Speaker 1: at the same time. Each individual will be found to
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  Speaker 1: have received messages from the same outside world under the
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  Speaker 1: same outer circumstances, but under different inner conditions, and each
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  Speaker 1: individual will have formed a different conception of that same
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  Speaker 1: outside world. The same outside world is present in each case,
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  Speaker 1: but the respective inner worlds of experience of the several
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  Speaker 1: individuals will be found to differ very materially from each other.
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  Speaker 1: No two will be exactly the same, and an almost
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  Speaker 1: incredible diversity and variety of perceptions have resulted. This fact
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  Speaker 1: of diversity and variety does not arise from any essential
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  Speaker 1: conditions of the outer world. You must remember. It is
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  Speaker 1: caused solely by the differences in the receiving instruments of sensation,
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  Speaker 1: the degrees of power and training of the faculty of perception,
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  Speaker 1: and by the use made of this material by the
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  Speaker 1: higher powers of the mind on the part of the
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  Speaker 1: respective several individuals. The difference comes from within, not from without.
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  Speaker 1: But here we wish to impress upon your mind a
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  Speaker 1: very important fact, namely the fact that the powers of perception, observation,
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  Speaker 1: and attention, those powers which, by their varying degrees of
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  Speaker 1: perfection cause the differences to which we have directed your attention,
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  Speaker 1: are capable of training, development, and cultivation. They respond readily
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  Speaker 1: to the proper methods employed for such purposes, and pay
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  Speaker 1: large returns for the investment of time and patience bestowed
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  Speaker 1: upon such tasks. It is a mistake to imagine that
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  Speaker 1: such powers are possible only to those who are born
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  Speaker 1: with it. It is an error to regard them as
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  Speaker 1: akin to the shape of the nose, which is born
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  Speaker 1: with one and which never can be altered or improved,
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  Speaker 1: or exchanged for another more in accord with one's wishes.
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  Speaker 1: On the contrary, there are no mental powers which respond
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  Speaker 1: more readily to training, development and cultivation than do these
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  Speaker 1: very ones now under consideration by us. By means of
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  Speaker 1: approved scientific methods, not only weak faculties of this class
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  Speaker 1: may be developed into strong ones, inefficient ones into efficient ones.
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  Speaker 1: But even those which are considered reasonably strong and efficient
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  Speaker 1: may be made still stronger and still more efficient. Very
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  Speaker 1: few persons have done more than merely to begin to
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  Speaker 1: employ the full inherent powers of these faculties. Most of
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  Speaker 1: us are content if we find ourselves in the class
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  Speaker 1: of the average in such respects. We little dream of
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  Speaker 1: the wonderful possibilities ahead of us in this direction. Here
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  Speaker 1: and there, however, are found thoughtful persons who are advocating
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  Speaker 1: the employment of methods of cultivating these faculties in the
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  Speaker 1: young as an important part of their education. These wise
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  Speaker 1: men and women very properly hold that such education would
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  Speaker 1: enable the child to learn by observation the scientific employment
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  Speaker 1: of the powers of attention, far more effectively than by
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  Speaker 1: simply committing to memory the mass of book knowledge, which
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  Speaker 1: constitutes so large a part of the average modern education.
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  Speaker 1: That such training, development and cultivation is well worth while
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  Speaker 1: to you. Will be apparent when you stop to consider
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  Speaker 1: that through these mental faculties in question you receive every
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  Speaker 1: constituent of your entire world of experience. That from such
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  Speaker 1: raw materials you obtain the only possible basis for your thoughts,
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  Speaker 1: your feelings, and your actions. If you seek a life
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  Speaker 1: rich in experience, in noth knowledge, in effective action, and
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  Speaker 1: in the highest emotional feeling, you will do well to
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  Speaker 1: begin here at the stage of the acquirement of these
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  Speaker 1: raw materials of knowledge, which are also the raw materials
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  Speaker 1: of all conscious experience and its expression. These raw materials
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  Speaker 1: are the bricks, the stone, the timbers from which the
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  Speaker 1: structures of our world of experience must be constructed. Moreover,
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  Speaker 1: they constitute also the ground upon which these structures are erected,
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  Speaker 1: the background, the scenery, the solid earth underfoot, and the
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  Speaker 1: blue skies above that world of experience. You are a
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  Speaker 1: creator of this world. Within whether or not you desire
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  Speaker 1: to be, you are creating. You must create a world
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  Speaker 1: of experience of some kind or character and some degree
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  Speaker 1: of efficiency and merit. You cannot avoid the task this being,
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  Speaker 1: so can you escape the conviction that it is your
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  Speaker 1: duty towards yourself, towards your fellows, toward the power which
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  Speaker 1: brought you into being, to build that world as well
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  Speaker 1: as effectively, as beautifully and as magnificently as lies within you.
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  Speaker 1: So to do it has well been said that by
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  Speaker 1: their works they shall be known. This world of experience
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  Speaker 1: is one of the greatest of your works. It is
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  Speaker 1: the work upon which much of your other works depend. Therefore,
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  Speaker 1: it is the standard and measure by which you are
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  Speaker 1: to be judged by others as well as by yourself.
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  Speaker 1: By it you shall be known. See to it that
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  Speaker 1: you are known well and favorably perceptive power the Art
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  Speaker 1: of Observation by William Walker Atkinson nineteen twenty two. Consciousness
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  Speaker 1: and sensation. Consciousness is one of the greatest mysteries of
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  Speaker 1: your being. You know perfectly well what it is to
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  Speaker 1: experience consciousness. But you know this largely by reason of
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  Speaker 1: its difference from unconsciousness. You find it almost impossible to
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  Speaker 1: define it satisfactorily, though you have not the slightest difficulty
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  Speaker 1: in distinguishing it from unconsciousness. It is unique. It is
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  Speaker 1: different from anything else of which you have knowledge or experience.
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  Speaker 1: This because it is only by means of it that
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  Speaker 1: you have any knowledge or experience of anything else. There
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  Speaker 1: are no other terms synonymous with it. If you seek
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  Speaker 1: to define it at all, you must employ the terms
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  Speaker 1: of consciousness in order to attempt the definition. The dictionaries
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  Speaker 1: help us but little, for they too must use the
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  Speaker 1: terms of consciousness in order to state the definition, and
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  Speaker 1: this is very unsatisfactory. The following examples of standard definitions
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  Speaker 1: of the term will illustrate this fact. Consciousness is the
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  Speaker 1: knowledge of one's own existence, sensations, mental operations, et cetera.
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  Speaker 1: Consciousness is the state of being aware of one's own existence,
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  Speaker 1: his condition, his sensations, his thoughts, feelings, and actions. Consciousness
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  Speaker 1: is that indefinable characteristic of mental states which causes us
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  Speaker 1: to be aware of them. From the position of strict
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  Speaker 1: logical thought. Consciousness is incapable of definition because there is
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  Speaker 1: nothing else except its negation, i e. Unconsciousness with which
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  Speaker 1: to compare it. It resembles nothing else, and a logical
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  Speaker 1: definition requires the terms of something else with which to
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  Speaker 1: define logically any certain thing. The only way then to
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  Speaker 1: understand consciousness is to experience it. Fortunately all of us
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  Speaker 1: have had such experience, Otherwise we should never be able
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  Speaker 1: to understand what is meant by the term. The least
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  Speaker 1: objectionable term to employ in an attempt to define it,
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  Speaker 1: perhaps is the term awareness. But at the last you
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  Speaker 1: perceive that you cannot be aware of anything unless you
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  Speaker 1: are conscious of it in at least some degree. When
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  Speaker 1: we pass from the realm of psychology to that of physiology,
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  Speaker 1: we are no more successful in our efforts to explain consciousness.
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  Speaker 1: We discover that the presence of nervous tissue is necessary
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  Speaker 1: in order to experience consciousness. But whether that nervous tissue
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  Speaker 1: is the cause of consciousness or is merely the machinery
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  Speaker 1: by which the latter is manifested, scientists are unable to
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  Speaker 1: decide to their perfect satisfaction. Even Huxley, with his giant intellect,
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  Speaker 1: was compelled to report that how it is that anything
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  Speaker 1: so remarkable as consciousness comes about by the result of
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  Speaker 1: irritating nervous tissue is just as unaccountable as the appearance
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  Speaker 1: of the gene when Aladdin rubbed his lamp. It is
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  Speaker 1: at least somewhat comforting to realize that one's own ignorance
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  Speaker 1: on this point is shared by even the greatest thinkers
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  Speaker 1: of past and present. It must not be supposed that
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: you are conscious of every impression made upon your mind,
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: of every sensation reaching you through the channels of the senses.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: Attention decides for you which of such reports from the
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: outside world rise to the plane of consciousness, and to
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: what degree, if any, they awaken your conscious perception of them.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: There are countless sensations reaching you through your sense organs
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: of which you are not even dimly conscious, and which
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: you do not perceive. Here attention performs its work of
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: selection for you, it itself being influenced by other other
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: mental states. Attention is that wonderful mental power or faculty,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: which may be described as either the focusing of consciousness
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: or else as detention in consciousness. Likewise, it is true
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: that your mind is at no time conscious of all
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: of its contents, its accumulated experiences. In fact, at any
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: one time, you are conscious of but a very small
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: portion of the contents of your mind. The remainder slumbers
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: quietly in the realms of the subconscious planes of your
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: mental empire, from whence they may be called forth when
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: needed by memory or imagination. As your world of experience enlarges,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: there is a constantly increasing store of these accumulated experiences
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: placed for safe keeping in the subconscious regions of your mind.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: They are preserved their awaiting their recall into consciousness by
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: the act of recollection or that of imagination. Finally, it
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: is an error to suppose that you are directly conscious
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: of the objects of the outside world. Your consciousness does
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: not come in direct contact with those outside objects. You
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: are conscious merely of certain mental states or conditions within you,
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: which in turn have arisen by reason of the excitation
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: of certain nervous tissue associated with your consciousing faculties, whatever
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: these may be. At the last, this excitation being caused
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: by the sensory impulses which pass to the nervous tissues
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: over the sensory nerves, the outer ends of which receive
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: the impressions arising from their contact with outside forces. For instance,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: when you see the pages of this book, you are
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: merely perceiving the existence of these mental states arising from
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: the excitation of certain nervous tissue connected with your optic nerves.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: The optic nerves report the contact with certain vibrations of
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: the light waves reflected from the surface of the page,
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: and which thus carry the image, shadow, or picture of
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: the printed page to the nervous tissue of the optical apparatus,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: just as they would carry them to the photographic plate
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: or film in the camera. There is a distinction here, however,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: one which make all the difference in the world. While
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: both the photographic plate and the retina of your eye
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: alike register the light waves and thus produce the image, picture,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: or shadow of the outside thing, nevertheless, the photographic plate
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: is unconscious of it. It has nothing with which to
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: do the consciousing. On the contrary, your mind is conscious
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: of it, for it has something which conscious and becomes
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: aware of such reports. The photographic plate neither knows nor
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: knows that it knows. But your mind not only knows
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: the report, but your iami also knows that your mind knows.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: You not only know, but you know that you know.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: This is more than a play on words. It represents
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: an important fact of conscious experience, that there is something
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: in the outside world, the world external to our minds.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: We know even the quite clever metaphysical reasoning of certain
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: extreme subjective idealists fails to shake our fundamental belief that
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: something exists outside of our own mental world. But just
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: what that something really i s philosophers inform us we
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: shall never know. They tell us that we have nothing
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: to know it with. All that we can directly know
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: is our mental pictures, representations or photographs of that something outside, which,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: as you have seen, are transmitted through our sense apparatus.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: Profound philosophers hold that nought but an omniscient mind possibly
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: can know the outside world in itself. What it is
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: in itself equals that which it is known to be
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: by and to such infinite mind. Our world of experience, then,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: is but the mind symbolic representation of the something outside
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: of that universe, as it is in itself, and as
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: an omniscient mind does or would know it to be
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: in its ultimate verity. At the best, our mental picture
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: of it is but symbolic and approximate its degree of
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: verity depends upon the effectiveness and efficiency of our mental photography,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: and this in turn ends upon the quality in efficient
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: employment of our mental photographic apparatus. This has led certain
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: schools of philosophy and psychology to assert, as an axiom
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: the following statement, the total content of consciousness is of
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: sense origin. The higher activities of mind, as well as
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: the lower, are results left by the impressions originally made
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: upon the mind by external objects through sensations. Our sensations
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: are our elementary modes of being conscious, our elementary elements
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: of experience, which are conditioned upon some of our organs
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: of sense. Psychology informs us that the redness of the
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: brick or of the rose is not in those objects themselves,
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: but is within ourselves. It says that the redness, as
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: you call it, is a question of relation between your
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: optic nerve and the light waves which it is unable
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: to absorb. In a lesser light, the redness will be purple.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: At night it will be black. A very little deviation
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: from normal vision on your part i e. Color blindness
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: would make it green. Ziehen speaks of the obvious error
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: of former centuries, first refuted by Locke, though still shared
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: by naive thought to day, i e. That the objects
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: about us are colored warm, cold, et cetera. The nervous
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: apparatus selects only certain motions of matter or of ether,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: which they transform into that form of nerve excitation with
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: which they are familiar. It is only this nerve excitation
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: which we perceive as red, warm, or hard. Dot Gordy says,
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: the rotors and sounds and odors that seem to fill
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: the scene before us are only mental facts, things which,
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: like the joys and sorrows, the hopes and fears that
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: make up our conscious life, exist in our own minds
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: and nowhere else. When we follow in imagination the vibrations
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: of air radiating from the singing birds in every direction,
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: and the waves of light radiating from the leaves of
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: the trees, we are forced to conclude that leaves, songs
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: of birds, blossoms flowers are only exciting causes of effects
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: which appear in our conscious life as sensations. The colors
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: and sounds that we think of an ordinary life, that
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: thrust themselves upon our notice at every moment, are not
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: the undulations of ether and vibrations of air, things that
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: science has learned about only after centuries of investigation, but
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: are the colors and sounds of experience sensations. Before we
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: began our investigations, we thought that the odors, sounds, and
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: colors of which we have direct knowledge are physical facts
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: external to the mind. But we have learned that these
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: supposed physical facts are not physical facts at all. We
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: must say either that the world of sounds and tastes,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: and odors and colors is purely subjective in the sense
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: of consisting of our own mental facts, or else that
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: the conclusions reached by us are wrong. But we caution
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: you here not to make the mistake common to many
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: who fail to realize that the little learning is a
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: dangerous thing, and who rush to the conclusion that the
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: outside some things have no existence whatever, outside of our
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: sensations concerning them. Even some brilliant philosophers have at times
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: made this mistake. It has well been said of this
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: extreme idealistic theory that though it has never been logically disproved,
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: yet no one really has ever believed and acted upon it.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: Even the metaphysicians asserting that the world is our dream
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: have failed to act upon that hypothesis. Something in us
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: tells us that something is there reason asserts itself, sanity
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: is preserved. The philosophers of more evenly balanced philosophical temper
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: have sought and found the golden mean, from which position
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: they assert that though we can never know that something
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: outside as it is in itself, as omniscient mind does
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: or would know it, and though we can know only
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: our more or less indistinct, distorted and imperfect symbolic pictures, shadows,
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: or photographs of it, nevertheless, common sense and practical reason
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: assures us that something is there, at the least certain
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: exciting forces which produce in us the exciting effects called sensations.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: In steering clear of the scylla of the naive beliefs
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: of the man on the street, who holds that the
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: substance of our sensations is in the things themselves rather
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: than in us, we must be equally careful to avoid
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: the charybdis of those schools of subjective idealism, which goes
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: so far as to hold that the things themselves have
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: no existence in themselves, but exist solely in our minds.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: Here as elsewhere, beware of the extremes, seek the middle
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: channel that middle of the road, strive to attain and
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: maintain the golden mean something is there and we are
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: conscious of it, though our consciousness is indirect the senses.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: You have seen that in the reports of sensation you
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: have the raw material of knowledge. Sensation is an elementary
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: state of consciousness resulting from nerve action. As you have seen,
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: when the retina is stimulated by light, the irritation is
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: carried by the optic nerve to the nervous tissue of
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: the brain. Excitation of that tissue arises, consciousness results, and
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: sensation occurs. You also have seen that just why this
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: happens is unknown to mankind, but this is how it happens.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: The same rule also applies to sensations arising from the
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: senses of hearing, taste, smell, or touch, from any or
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: all of the phases of the elementary sense of feeling.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: For know you that all the senses are but modifications
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: of the original sense of feeling. It is probable that
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: you do not as yet fully realize the tremendous importance
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: of the senses to you in the creation of your
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: world of experience, or how dependent you are upon these
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: sense reports from that outside world which the eye cannot
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: contact directly or without the intermediary of the sensory nervous system.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: Perhaps you will appreciate this fact more fully if you
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: will try to imagine what your consciousness would be had
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: you been born without any of the five senses. Make
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: the experiment, give your imagination a little exercise. The use
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: of your imagination in this way will reveal to you
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: the fact that, even if you had been born with
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: the most perfectly formed brain, composed of the finest grade
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: of brain matter, and with the advantages of the best
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: mental inheritance in the way of natural capacity for mental activity,
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: you would be absolutely devoid of any conscious world of experience,
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: had all the natural and normal inlets of the senses
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: remained closed by reason of physical imperfection. In such case,
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: your mind would remain as dormant as a sea buried
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: in soil unfitted to produce its germination. You would be
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: cut off from all that communication with the outer world
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: from which all of your original experiences must come, and
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: from which you receive all the knowledge which constitutes your
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: world of experience. You would not know, nor could you know,
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: anything whatsoever concerning what exists in that outer world or
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: what events are occurring there. Your only knowledge would be
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: that of your self existence, and even that you would
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: not be able to express in words or in the
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: symbols of thought. Professor R. P. Halleck has strikingly pictured
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: the condition of a person born with this frightful handicap
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: as follows. Suppose a child of intelligent parents were ushered
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: into the world without a nerve leading from his otherwise
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: perfect brain to any portion of his body. With no
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: optic nerve to transmit the glorious sensations from the eye,
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: no auditory nerve to convey the touch of a hand,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: no olfactory nerve to rouse the brain with the delicate
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: aroma from the orchards and the wild flowers in spring.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: No gustatory, thermal or muscular nerves could such a child live.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: As the years rolled on the books of Shakespeare and
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: of Milton would be opened in vain before the child's eyes.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: The wisest men might talk to him with utmost eloquence,
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: all to no purpose. Nature could not whisper one of
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: her inspiring truths into his deaf ear, could not light
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: up that dark mind with a picture of the rainbow
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: or of a human face, no matter how perfect might
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: be the child's brain and his inherited cap for mental activities,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: his faculties would remain for this life shrouded in Egyptian darkness,
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: perception could give memory nothing to retain, and thought could
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: not weave her matchless fabrics without materials. The above is
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: no mere fanciful picture. On the contrary, it is a
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: statement of the position of science and philosophy concerning the
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: dependence of the mind upon the avenues of sensation for
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: the materials of the higher and more complex mental processes.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: The mind is as much dependent upon the material of
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: sensations for its sustenance as is the body dependent upon
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: food for its nourishment. Both mind and body require for
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: their respective activities the material from the outside world. This applied,
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: both mind and body are able to convert, transform, and
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: transmute this material into more complex forms of activity in substance.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: A celebrated philosopher and psychologist once asked his students to
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: consider the fanciful possibilities arising from a case in which
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: the nerves of sight should be attached to the areas
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: of the brain concerned with the office of hearing, and
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: those of hearing with the areas of sight. The faculties
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: of the receiving apparatus thus exchanging duties. In such case,
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: one would hear all colors and would see all sounds.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: One would thus perceive the sounds of flowers and paintings,
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: and would see the beauties of the musical notes of
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: the great composers. In such a case, the outer world
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: would still be sending him the same messages, but he
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: would be interpreting them differently. A writer commenting on this
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: possibility has said, beauty would still be ours, though speaking
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: another tongue. The bird's song would then strike our retina
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: as a pageant of colors. We would see all the
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: magical tones of the wind here as a great fugue,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: the repeated and harmonized greens of the forest, the cadences
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: of stormy skies. This illustration, of course, is pure artistic fancy,
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: but the result is logically pictured. It will serve to
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: illustrate how dependent we are upon the mechanism of consciousness
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: in its phase of sensation. Psychologists have also pointed out
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: the fact that the world of experience of the individual
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: is decreased by the absence of the power of normal
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: functioning in any one or more of his several senses,
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: and that this world of experience would be increased if
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: you were able to evolve additional senses. This is more
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: than mere speculation, for science shows us that the sense
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: of feeling was the elementary sense from which all the
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: other senses have been evolved, and that is well within
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: the possibilities of evolution that additional senses may be unfolded
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: in the course of the evolutionary development of living forms.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: In order to give you a personal illustration of your
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: dependence upon your senses for the character and extent of
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: your world of experience, we ask you here to use
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: your imagination once more. Begin by imagining what the outside
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: world would mean to you. If you were merely a
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: one sense individual possessed merely of the sense of touch,
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: Your entire field of knowledge would be limited to your
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: idea of how things feel to your touch. It would
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: be a very small world of experience, would it not.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: Then imagine yourself as evolving the senses of taste and smell,
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: those half brothers in the sense world. Can you not
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: see how your world would enlarge and how its character
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: would change. Then imagine yourself as evolving the sense of hearing,
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: and realize the wonderful addition to your world of experience
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: that such would furnish. And then, last of all, imagine
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: that some wonderful day, your sense of sight would suddenly
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: unfold into activity, and the great world of sight experience
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: would unfold before your consciousness. Can you not see by
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: this how materially your world of experience depends upon sensation,
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: how each new sense adds to it, and each lacking
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: sense detracts and subtracts from it. Your imagination employed in
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: this flight has taught you a valuable lesson and a
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: true one. In the same way, you will see that
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: the possession of an additional sense, a sense as yet
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: not evolved by man, would enable you to know the
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: world in an entirely new way. There are undoubtedly properties
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: in material objects of which you remain in total ignorance,
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: solely by reason of the absence of appropriate senses through
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: which to become aware of them. Even as it is,
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: you are able to hear only a small portion of
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: the vibrations of sound, or to see only a small
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: portion of the waves of light. Instruments invented by science
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: are able to catch and record sound waves and light
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: waves which your senses fail to register. Only a very
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: small proportion of the outer world is really revealed to
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: you through your senses. This because of the fact that
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: your sense instruments are not capable of registering them. A
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: further evolution of your senses would enable you to become
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: aware of an entirely new world of things, which exists
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: on all sides of you, but which form no part
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: of your inner world of experience. The microscope, the telescope,
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: and other optical instruments show what your normal sight would perceive,
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: where your optical mechanism of a higher order. Delicate apparatus
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: reveal sounds which your normal hearing would perceive, where your
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: auditory organs of a finer order delicate photographic plates register
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: light waves which your eyes perceive not, but which would
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: become apparent to you were your optical mechanism more perfect.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: These supplementary senses, as these scientific appliances have been called,
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: reveal to you the presence of objects and qualities of
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: objects which are unknown to you when you depend upon
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: your normal sense organs. Moreover, certain of the lower animals
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: have a higher development of certain senses than has man.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: In fact, some careful thinkers even believe that certain of
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: the lower animals possess senses lacking in man. The far
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: seeing eye of the eagle and the hawk perceive distant
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: objects invisible to man. Most of the lower animals have
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: preserved that fine and delicate sense of smell which man
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: has lost by disuse in the course of his rise
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: to civilization, and some of the insects undoubtedly hear sounds
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: below the register of the human ear. An additional sense,
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: undoubtedly would open up a new world to youth. Fancy
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: the result of the development in you of a new
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: sense which would register the waves of electricity or magnetism.
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: In such case, you would be able to see or
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: hear what is going on at great distances, even on
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: the other side of the globe. Fancy may even picture
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: you possessed of a sense enabling you to become aware
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: of the waves of wireless telegraphy. A sense capable of
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: registering that des ray waves would enable you to see
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: through a stone wall and to perceive what is going
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: on inside of a brick house or on the other
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: side of a closed door. A similar extension of your
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: sense of sight might enable you to see what is
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: happening on Mars, or to perceive the life of the
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: microscopic world. In the drop of water. If you had
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: appropriate sense instruments, you might even catch the vibrations of
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: the thought activities of others. A telepathic sense certainly would
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: be most interesting and instructive. Scientific imagination has pictured worlds
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: in which living creatures possess seven, nine, fifteen or more sense,
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: and this is possible theoretically, For seventeen senses would be
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: really no more wonderful than our five, though they would
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: seem so to five sense creatures. Listen to these statements
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: made by careful thinkers, Kay says, an additional sense might
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: probably make revelations to us no less surprising than the
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: sense of sight, to one whom Bob in born blind
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: Carpenter says, it does not seem at all improbable that
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: there are properties of matter of which none of our
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: senses can take immediate cognizance, and which other beings might
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: be formed to perceive in the same manner as we
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: are sensible to light, sound, et cetera. Mason says, if
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: a new sense or two were added to the present
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: normal number in man, that which is now the phenomenal
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: world for all of us, might, for all we know,
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: burst into something amazingly wider and different. In consequence of
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: the additional revelations through these new senses. Isaac Taylor says,
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: it is not to be thought that the eye of
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: man is the measure of the creator's power. Has he
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: created nothing which he has not exposed to our senses.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: The contrary seems much more than barely possible, ought we
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: not to think it almost certain. However, we have presented
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: to you the above stated speculative and apparently somewhat fanciful
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: ideas merely for the purpose of bringing to you a
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: clearer and more comprehensive conception of the relation between yourself
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: and the outside world, and to show you how dependent
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: you are upon your senses for the material with which
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: you build up and create your world of experience. We
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: have no desire to urge you to develop new senses,
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: rest assured, but our purpose is none the less constructive,
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: and in the direction of opening up to you new
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: worlds of knowledge, a new world of experience. For know
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: you that there is almost, if not quite as much
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: difference between the world of experience of the man of
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: untrained and undeveloped powers of attention, perception, and observation and
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: that of the man who has highly developed these mental powers,
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: as there would be between the latter individual and the
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: one who had developed one or more new senses. You
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: have but to contrast the man of highly developed perceptive
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: powers with one of the opposite type, to realize that
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: the two individuals dwell in entirely different worlds of experience.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: The former sees, hears, feels, and knows a multitude of
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: facts of life and nature which are entirely unperceived and
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: unknown to the latter type of individual. The developed man recognizes, considers,
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: and solves problems, the very existence of which is unknown
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: to the undeveloped man. It is as if the two
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: types see with different eyes, here, with different ears, feel
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: with different nerves of touch. In this book, we are
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: striving not to endow you with additional senses, but to
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: enable you to perfect the senses you already possess, to
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: perfect them to such an extent that they will take
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: on powers and possibilities, effectiveness and active qualities, which to
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: the uninitiated seem to be the result of additional mental
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: faculties possessed only by the favored few, and denas to
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: the great masses of the human race. Perceptive power, the
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: art of observation by William Walker Atkinson, nineteen twenty two.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: The mechanism of the senses, the sensory mechanism, the vital
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: machinery concerned with the processes of sensation, consists of certain
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: portions of the brain, certain portions of the nervous system,
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: and the special organs of sense the brain. What mind
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: in itself may be or may not be, whatever may
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: be the ultimate nature of its relation to the brain,
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: we must at least admit that the brain is the
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: physical mechanism through and by means of which the mental
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: processes are performed or manifested. Moreover, we are forced to
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: admit that the mind must depend upon certain portions of
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: the brain and of the nervous system for the reception
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: and perception of the messages from the outside world, which
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: compose the raw material of knowledge which constitute the elements
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: of the world of experience of the individual. The detailed
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: study of the physiology of the brain is outside of
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: the field sought to be covered by this book. Therefore,
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: we shall confine our description of it to the technical definition, viz.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: The brain is the whitish mass of soft matter which
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: is enclosed in the cartilagenous or bony cranium of vertebrate animals.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: It is the center of the nervous system and the
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: seed of consciousness and volition. Here we have the general
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: description of the physical aspect of the brain and the
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: statement that it is the seed of consciousness. This is
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: sufficient for our present purpose. The sensory nerves. The nerves
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: are bundles of fibers which transmit nervous impulses between nerve
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: centers and various parts of the animal body. They constitute
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: important elements of the great nervous system which traverses the body,
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: and which has been compared to a great telegraphic system.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: There are motor nerves which serve to transmit motor impulses
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: impulses producing motion to the various parts of the body.
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: So other classes of nerves which serve the performance of
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: certain physiological functions, such as digestion, secretion, excretion, and circulation.
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: With these classes of nerves, however, we are not concerned
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: in our consideration of the general subject of the senses.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: Our sole concern here is with what are called the
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: sensory nerves, that general class of nerves which transmit sensations
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: from the various parts of the body to the central
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: receiving office of the brain. These sensory nerves are the
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: great telegraphic wires, which report to the central office of
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: the brain that irritation or excitation which their surface terminal
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: ends experience by reason of their contact with the objects
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: of the outside world. When the surface terminal ends of
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: a sensory nerve are irritated or excited by reason of
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: such contact with the outside object, they send to the
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: brain a message demanding more or less attention. Whether these
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: nerves be nerves of touch, of sight, of hearing, of taste,
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: or of smell, the action is essentially the At the last,
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: all the sensory nerves are nerves of feeling. Fix this
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: last statement in your mind. It will aid you in
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: your comprehension of the processes manifested by the several particular
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: sense organs and mechanism the sense organs. There are five
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: general senses according to the popularly accepted classification, namely one touch,
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: two sight, three hearing, four smell, and five taste. Physiologists
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: and psychologists often note an additional sense called the muscular sense,
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: which reveals the state of our muscles and which furnishes
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: us with our ideas of weight spatial dimensions, et cetera.
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: Others would add certain other senses, namely those connected with
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: the feelings arising from the condition of certain internal physical organs,
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: and which furnish us with reports manifesting the feelings of hunger, thirst, sexuality, repletion, indigestion,
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: et cetera, or of burns, inflammation, bruises, cramps, et cetera.
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: These latter classes, however, for convenience, are usually included in
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: the class of the sense of touch, and we shall
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: not make the technical distinction in this book, interesting though
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: it is for academic consideration. Each particular sense has its
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: appropriate organ of reception and the special sensory nerves attached
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: to it, the latter conveying the reports from the receiving
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: organ to the brain. Thus, the sense of touch employs
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: the nervous centers upon the surface of the skin and
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: in the muscles, and the nerves attached to these which
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: lead to the brain. The sense of sight employs the
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: eye and its appropriate nerves. The sense of hearing employs
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: the ear and its nerves. The sense of smell employs
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: the nose and its nerves. The sense of taste employs
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: the tongue. Portions of the mouth and their nerves. Each
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: organ of sense is specially adapted for the reception of
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: the irritation or excitation arising from its appropriate stimus. No
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: organ of sense will report the stimuli appropriate to another.
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: Each organ of sense has its own particular kind of
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: irritation by which it is excited. Sound does not excite
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: the eye, nor light the ear. Each sense organ functions
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: only in its own special field. Each and every sensation
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: involves one an external stimulus, which, coming in contact with
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: the sense organ, serves to irritate or excite the latter.
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: Two a physical organ which receives the irritation or excitation
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: caused by contact with the external object and transmits it
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: to the brain by means of the connecting nerves. Three
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: the connecting nerves which serve to transmit the irritating or
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: exciting message from the sense organ to the brain center
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: concerned with the latter. For the brain center concerned with
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: the sense organ, and which receives the message from the
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: latter carried by the sensory nerves. And five the mental
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: impression or state of perceptive consciousness, which arises from the
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: physical impression, and which is the representation of the latter
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: on the mental plane. A sensation then is seen to
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: consist of one a physical condition of change arising from
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: contact with an external object. This condition of change involving
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: the sense organ, the transmitting nerves, and the brain, and
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: two the mental impression or state of perceptive consciousness resulting
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: from the physical change or condition. In short, a completed
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: sensation is perceived to be the mental representation of an
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: external fact by which it is produced, or a mental
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: representation which is the internal sign of an external fact
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: exciting it. It should be noted here that one may
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: have a partial sensation caused by the action of the imagination,
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: in which there is no external object involved. Likewise, the
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: external object may produce the physical irritation and excitement and
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: the resulting message to the brain, But if the attention
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: of the mind is strongly directed elsewhere, the mental state
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: or impression will not be produced. But in all all
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: cases of complete and full sensation, both the physical and
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: the mental elements must be involved actively. It is generally
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: accepted that all the various senses with their special organs,
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: are evolutions from the original sense and organs of feeling,
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: the most elementary form of the latter being the sense
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: of touch. In every sensation, something external must touch the
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: sensitive organ or nerves of the sense involved. Sight, hearing, taste, smell.
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: All these are but refined and more complex forms and
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: phases of touch or feeling, and their special organs are
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: but more complex organs of touch or feeling. Touch of
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: one kind or another of some degree or mode is
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: concerned in every act of sensation. Modern science tends to
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: verify the ancient contention of Democritus that all the senses
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: are but modifications of touch. Moreover, modern science informs us
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: that everything external that acts upon the organs of sense
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: acts in the form of motion. That nothing external can
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: act upon the senses or be taken up by them
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: unless it presents itself to them in the form of motion. Thus,
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: light is motion resulting from undulations in the ether. Sound
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: is motion resulting from vibrations of the air. Tastes and
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: smells are the result of motion arising from the chemical
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: changes in the particles of minute substances coming in contact
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: with the sensitive portions of the tongue and mouth and
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: of the nose. Touch results from the motion of objects
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: external to our bodies, or of portions of our body,
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: or both. All touch implies motion. The external world is
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: made manifest to you through your senses only by reason
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: of the motions caused by its energies. These external motions
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: being taken up and continued by your nervous system, and
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: finally brought to the attention and perception of your mind.
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: Science holds that the various nervous actions which result in
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: various sensations, must be regarded as definite series of motions.
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: The vibrations from outside yourself accelerate and are transformed into
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: the vibrations within your nervous system, and thus produce sensation.
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: All that is transmitted from an organ of sense to
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: the brain is a particular mode of motion. The particular
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: modes of motion thus transmitted are then variously interpreted by
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: the mind in the process of perception. All this serves
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: once more to bring us to the realization that your
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: world of experience is merely a representation of the outer world.
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: Such portion of that outer world which your senses are
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: able to receive and transmit to your mind, they are
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: to be interpreted and employed as the raw materials of knowledge.
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: You do not know the outside world directly and immediately,
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: all that you know of it is its reports to
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: you over the channels and through the medium of your senses.
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: As Helmholtz says, our sensations are for us only symbols
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: of the objects in the external world, and correspond to
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: them only in some such way as written characters or
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: articulate words, due to the things they denote. We ask
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: you now to consider in further detail, each of the
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: five great classes of the senses. The sense of touch,
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: the special receptive organ of the sense of touch, extends
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: practically over the entire outer surface of the body, though
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: it manifests in greatly varying degrees according to the particular
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: part of the body subjected to the contact with the
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: external objects. The skin covering your body is attached to
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: a very large number of sensory nerves which have their
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: ending in it. When these nerve ends come in contact
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: with an external object, they become irritated and excited and
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: report the degree in character of such contact to your brain,
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: employing for the transmission the entire length of the connecting nerves.
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: They convey to your brain a peculiar report of pressure
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: or contact, which your mind refers to the particular part
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: of your body in which the receiving nerve end is
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: located not only this, but they report also the particular
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: character or nature of the pressure or contact, so that
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: your mind perceives the differences which indicate what you call hardness, softness, roughness, smoothness,
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: et cetera, or what you call temperature, and what you
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: call weight, shape, form, or size, or what you call pressure.
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: Some of these nerve ends report mere contact and degree
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: of pressure. Others merely report temperature. Others report the other
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: several material sensation producing properties of the contacted object. Some
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: of these nerve ends are very sensitive, as for example,
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: the tip of the tongue, the finger tips, et cetera.
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: Others lack this degree of sensitiveness, as for instance, the
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: nerve ends located in the back. The nerve ends of
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: certain portions of the body respond far more readily than
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: do others to the excitement of temperature, as for example,
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: the nerve ends of the cheek. This is why a
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: woman will hold her hot iron near to her cheek
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: in order to test its temperature. Certain nerve ends abound
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: in heat spots on the body, while others are located
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: in the cold spots, the region of which is particularly
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: susceptible to impressions of cold others. Sensory nerves concerned with
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: the sense of touch have their ends in the muscles
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: as well as in the skin. The reports of such
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: nerves are the basis of that variation of the sense
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: of touch, which some psychologists call the muscular sense, in
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: contradistinction to the other forms of touch, the latter being
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: called the tactal sense, the true sense of touch. The
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: muscular sense reports differences in weight, space dimensions, pressure movements
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: in the contacted objects, and certain other physical conditions in
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: the contacted object. In fact, the term muscular sensations has
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: been applied to all those sensations originating in the tense
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: or relaxed muscles. The muscular sensation nerve ends are excited
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: not so much by the contact of the external object
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: as by the state of tension resulting from the extension
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: or contraction of the muscles. The sense of sight, the
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: special receptive organ of the sense of sight, consists of
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: that delicate piece of physical mechanism known as the high
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: wonderful instrument or piece of mechanism consists of several parts,
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: the actions of which are closely coordinated. The following description
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: of the mechanism of the eye made by Kirk will
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: give you a comprehensive and practical conception of it. The
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: optical apparatus may be supposed, for the sake of description,
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: to consist of several parts, first of a series of
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: transparent refracting surfaces in media, by means of which images
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: of external objects are brought to a focus upon the
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: back of the eye. And secondly of a sensitive screen
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: the retina, which is a specialized termination of the optic nerve,
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: capable of being stimulated by luminous objects and of sending
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: through the optic nerve such an impression as to produce
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: in the brain visual sensations. To these main parts may
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: be added. Thirdly, an apparatus for focusing objects at different
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: angles from the eye, called accommodation. Even this does not
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: complete the description of the whole organ of vision, since
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: both eyes are usually employed in vision, and so forth,
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: an arrangement exists by means of which the eyes may
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: be turned in the same direction by a system of muscles,
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: so that binocular vision is possible. The eye may be
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: compared to a photographic camera. The transparent media corresponding to
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: the photographic lens. In such a camera, images of objects
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: are thrown upon a ground glass screen at the back
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: of a box, the interior of which is painted black.
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: In the eye, the camera proper is represented by the
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: eyeball with its corroidal pigment, the screen by the retina,
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: and the lens by the refracting media. In the case
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: of the camera, the screen is enabled to receive clear
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: images of objects at different distances by an apparatus for focusing.
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: The corresponding apparatus in the eye is the accommodation the iris,
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: which is capable of allowing more or less light to
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: pass into the eye. Corresponds with the different sized diaphragms
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: used in photographic apparatus. But the eye does not really see.
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: The mind is that which actually sees. The eye is
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: merely a miniature natural photographic lens in which the rays
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: of light are focused upon the screen of the retina.
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: The retina is irritated and excited by these focused rays,
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: and by means of the optic nerve, it transmits this
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: excitement to certain areas of the brain. From these changes
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: in the brain cells of those areas, the physical phase
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: of sensation results the mental phase being performed by the mind,
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: which becomes aware of these brain changes in perception and
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: thus sees them. Seeing, at the last, is a mental process,
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: but the physical optical apparatus is required in order that
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: the mind may perform it the sense of hearing. The
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: special receptive organ of the sense of hearing is that
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: delicate piece of physical mechanism known as the tear. The
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: front portion of the internal ear is a labyrinthine cavity
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: consisting of intricate windings manifesting accurate scientific principles and mechanical arrangement.
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: Vity is so constructed that it may most effectively convey
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: to the back portion of the internal ear of the
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: sound waves reaching it from the external world. These sound
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: waves are vibrations of the air set in motion by
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: some physical activity or change in the inner part of
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: the ear. At the back of this cavity there is
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: located the tympanum or gear drum, which receives the focused
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: sound waves from the cavity, and which thereupon intensifies and
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: adapts them according to scientific mechanical principles. These intensified and
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: adapted sound vibrations are taken up by the ends of
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: the auditory nerve, the excitation of the latter being then
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: transmitted over the length of the auditory nerve to the brain.
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: The mind then becomes consciously aware of the excitement of
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: the auditory nerve and thus hears the sound. The mind
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: becomes conscious of and perceives and interprets those qualities and
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: properties of sound which we know as one pitch consisting
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: of the comparative number of vibrations, two intensity, or the
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: comparative volume or quantity of the vibrations, three quality, or
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: the special character or nature of the vibrations arising from
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: the character of the agent producing the sound and for relation,
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: or the comparative degree of harmony or discord, music or
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: noise resulting from the vibrations. The range of the sense
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: of hearing is limited in human beings to a very
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: narrow scale. There are many sound vibrations which are either
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: too low or too high for us to hear and know,
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: but which are registered by special scientific instruments designed for
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: the purpose the sense of smell. The special receptive organ
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: of the sense of smell is that more or less
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: efficient piece of physical mechanism known as the nose. The
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: nostrils or the external openings of the nose admit the
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: passage of minute portions of material objects, such as gaseous
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: matter or very small particles of solid matter. The admitted particles, however,
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: consisting principally of tenuous gases thrown off from scans, solid matter,
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: or fluids. The cavity of the nostrils is lined with
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: a thin mucous membrane, while filled with the ends of
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: minute olfactory nerves. The minute particles of matter coming in
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: contact with this delicate mucous membrane irritate and excite these
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: old factory nerve ends, and this excitement is transmitted by
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: the old factory nerves themselves to the brain. The brain
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: excitement awakens conscious attention on the part of the mind,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: and the mental process of sensation occurs. Some particles of
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: matter excite the old factory nerves much more than do others.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: The difference arises from the respective chemical composition of the
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: substances of which the particles consist. Some substances are very
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: penetrating in their action upon these nerves, as for instance, musk.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: This because of the fact that they give off a
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: large number of molecules. Other substances possess a strong property
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: of irritation in their action upon these nerves. As for instance, ammonia.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: This because of some chemical property strongly affecting the old
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: factory nerves. The sense of smell is very active and
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: efficient in the lower animals and in primitive man. In
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: civilized man, however, the sense is believed to have become
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: partially atrophied from disuse resulting from lack of necessity. The
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: sense of taste. The special receptive organ of the sense
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: of taste is that very efficient piece of physical machinery
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: known as the tongue. Certain portions of the mouth also
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: serve as receptive organs of taste. The tongue contains certain
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: tiny cells called taste buds. These are connected with the
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: gustatory nerves, which in turn lead to the brain. When
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: soluble material substances are taken into the mouth, the chemical
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: action of their constituents coming in contact with the taste
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: buds sets up an irritation or excitement in the nerve
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: ends connected with them. This excitement is transmitted over the
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: gustatory nerves to the brain. They're producing an excitement of
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: which the mind becomes conscious by attention. Taste has been
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: classified by some as follows. One bitter, two sweet, three sour,
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: four salty, five alkaline, six hot, as in the case
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: of pepper, mustard, horseradish, et cetera, and seven acrid i e.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: Bitter and hot combined. Much that we call taste really
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: is smell, there being a close connection in relation between
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: the physical organs and processes of these two respective senses.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: When your sense of smell is affected by a bad cold,
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: catar or similar condition, you will discover that your sense
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: of taste is seemingly affected. This because of the close
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: relation above noted. Some psychologists hold that other features usually
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: attributed to the sense of taste really are incidents of
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: the sense of touch. Hoff Ding, noting this fact, says,
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: the pleasantness of many sorts of food e g. Jelly
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: is certainly derived from their effect upon the delicate skin
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: of the palate, and is therefore much more a question
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: of touch than of taste. The Shah of Persia, visiting
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: in England, is said to have reproached Europeans for their
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: use of forks, saying, you do not know that the
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: sense of taste begins with the finger tips. Development of
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: the senses. That the senses may be developed, cultivated, and
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: trained to a marvelous degree is a fact known to
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: all practical psychologists. We shall give you specific instances in
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: methods when we consider the subjects of attention, perception, and observation.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: But it must always be remembered by you that such
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: training in development is mental and not physical. It is
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: the mind and not the body, which senses. At the last,
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: the sense instruments must be there, it is true, but
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: they serve merely as instruments, and are never, by any
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: chance the real that which experiences sensation, or that which
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: directs it. Training and development of the senses really is
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: training and development of the power of consciousing by the
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: direct action of the i Ami, which is yourself. We
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: need scarcely add that, inasmuch as the senses supply the
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: raw material of knowledge, it follows that your world of knowledge,
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: your world of experience, is greatly enlarged and enriched by
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: the scientific training development of your senses, and by their
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: rational culture. With the proper kind and quantity of the
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: raw materials, the finished product must be more satisfactory in
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: quantity and in quality. This is self evident perceptive power.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: The Art of Observation by William Walker Atkinson nineteen twenty
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: two Perception and discernment. Perception is the faculty or act
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: or consciousness, whereby it apprehends, comprehends, or takes cognizance of
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: the reports of the senses reaching it in the form
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: of sensation. James defines it as the consciousness of particular
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: material things present to sense. It is that power or
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: faculty of the mind by means of which the latter
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: interprets the raw materials of thought furnished through sensation. Discernment
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: is perception intelligently applied and consciously directed. You will remember
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: that in completed sensation, the final stage is that mental
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: state arising from the consciousness of the physical impression upon
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: the brain substance derived from the excitation of the sensory nerves.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: It is the mental representation of the physical impression. This
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: mental state also constitutes the elemental and primary stage of perception.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: The higher and more complex manifestations of perception involve the
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: exercise of memory, association, and a certain degree of reasoning power. Perception,
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: aided by the other mental faculties, to some extent, gives
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: to you your first real knowledge of the outside world.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: You will also remember that not all sensations are received
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: in consciousness, not all are perceived by the mind as
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: a fact, but a comparatively small number of your sensations
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: are so perceived. Moreover, in simple perception, there is but
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: a comparatively slight apprehension or cognizance, but a slight knowing
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: of the object perceived. It is only when voluntary attention
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: begins more actively to manifest its powers that your real
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: knowing actually begins. While perception depends upon the senses for
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: its raw materials, it relies for its fuller manifestation upon
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: thought in some degree or form. Perception then may be
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: regarded as the thought arising from the feeling of sensation.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: Sensation is feeling, Perception is the beginning of thought. Sensation
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: brings to you the feeling of the things of the
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: outside world. Perception interprets this feeling by identifying it with
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: the outside thing, arousing the feeling and referring it to
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: that outside thing. From perception, all of your higher mental
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: states arise. The processes of perception are as follows. One
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: attention causing consciousness to become aware of the definite sensation
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: arising from indefinite nervous excitement. Two thought interpreting the definite
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: sensation and attributing it to the outside object causing it,
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: and three reason based upon experience, perceiving the sensation producing
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: element of the outside object to be equality, property or
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: attribute of that outside object. For example, you touch a
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: piece of heated iron, you first one become aware of
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: a certain sensation reaching you through your sensory nerves, without
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: any consciousness of anything but that feeling element. Then two
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: you interpret this feeling as heat and attribute it to
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: the piece of iron. Then three you perceive that heat
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: to be a quality of iron in that particular condition.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: The above statement may seem to be merely a needless
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: elaboration of a familiar experience, But when you were a
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: little child, you actually gained this experience by passing through
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: precisely these several stages of perception, and all your knowledge
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: gained by actual experience has been so acquired the infant
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: or young child at first experiences. But in definite sensations,
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: it is not able to interpret these, nor to refer
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: them to particular external objects, nor to deduce that the
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: feeling producing powers constitute qualities in that in similar external objects.
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: As it grows older and gains experience, however, it begins
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: to realize that sensation has a practical meaning only in
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: so far as it refers to definite objects, causing it
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: that the meaning of sensation must be sought in perception.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: The natural education of the child consists almost entirely of
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: its discovering by perception the real meaning and source of sensation.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: It is only in this way that the child brings
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: about a harmonious relation and practical working unity between its
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: world of experience and the things of the outside world. Perception,
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: then is seen to consist of your power to apprehend
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: and cognize the qualities and relations of outside things reported
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: by sensation. The greater the extent of your discovery of
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: such qualities and relations, the greater is the degree of
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: practical knowledge and experience possessed by you. Your entire stock
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: of knowledge is built up in this way. This because
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: all that your mind is able to know about the
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: things of the outside world is the knowledge of the
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: characteristic qualities and relations of those things. When you define
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: a thing, you but state its qualities and its relations,
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: And such qualities and relations are known to you only
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: by means of perception. To know all the qualities and
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: relations of a thing is equivalent to knowing fully the
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: nature or character of that thing, at least so far
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: as human knowledge is capable of full knowledge of anything.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: In the higher acts of perception, all of the mental
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: faculties or powers are represented. For instance, you obtain a
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: sensation of form and color evidently related to a certain tree.
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: Your memory, based upon experience, identifies this form and color
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: as connected with fruit. Your experience informs you that this
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: particular killer fruit is a peach. Examining the object closer,
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: you see that the peach is in that condition which
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: your experience interprets as ripe. Your memory and experience inform
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: you that ripe peaches are pleasant to the taste, and
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: your imagination makes a mental picture of the sweetness and
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: general satisfaction of the taste, which form qualities of that peach.
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: Then you will act to pluck that peach, if such
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: be deemed proper in the light of reason and feeling,
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: and to eat it. But all that you know about
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: that peach when you see it, has been gained by
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: experience along the lines of the gradual and progressive processes
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: of sensation, perception, memory, imagination, and thought. This again may
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: seem needless elaboration, but such is the way by which
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: you have learned about the qualities of peaches and the
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: processes by means of which you must learn about any
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: and every other thing when you first become acquainted with it.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: You learn only by experience, based upon your perception of
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: the qualities and relations of things, and your perception arises
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: from sensation. Your world of experience is created by perception.
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: You will do well to fix this fact in your mind,
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: for it is important distinction between sensation and perception. We
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: ask you to consider in the form of the following summary,
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: the distinction between sensation and perception. This distinction is a
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: somewhat difficult one for many students, and it is important
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: for the purpose of the present instruction that you should
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: be able clearly to make it. Here follows the summary.
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: In sensation, the mind is conscious simply of an inflowing feeling.
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: In perception, the mind goes out toward the object of
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: that feeling. Sensation flows inward, perception moves outward. In sensation,
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: the mind is passive. In perception, the mind is active.
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: Sensation necessarily implies in either the belief in nor the
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: conviction of the existence of an outside object. The infant's
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: early experiences show this plainly. Perception as necessarily implies a
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: belief in and conviction of the existence of an outside
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: object causing sensation. Sensation is concerned merely with inner mental states.
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: Perception involves also the recognition of outer things. Sensation requires
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: merely consciousness. Perception requires thought directed toward an outside object.
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: Sensation knows only the inner feeling giving rise to it.
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: Perception knows also the outside thing which causes the inner feeling.
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: Perception is a power of the mind, not of the
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: physical senses. It is capable of an almost incredible degree
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: of training, cultivation, and development. There are certain laws governing
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: its development and training. It is possible for you to
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: train and develop your powers of perception to such a
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: degree that you may become a veritable master of perception.
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: If your ambition does not reach such heights, you may
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: at least develop and train your powers of perception to
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: such a degree and extent that you will double or
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: treble your efficiency in your chosen field of endeavor, and
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: also fit yourself for still higher planes of work in
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: the world. You yourself, are the creator of your world
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: of experience, and you created largely by means of your
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: powers of perception. It is for you to decide just
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: what you wish to create. Your action upon that decision
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: will perform the creative work in order that you may
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: realize the full possibilities of the development of the powers
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: of perception along the lines of each of the several senses.
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: We call your attention to the following scientific statements of
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: examples and instances of cases in which certain individuals have
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: developed such powers far beyond that of the average person.
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: Such individuals were not possessed of abnormal senses or sense organs.
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: Their sense organs were probably no more efficient than are yours,
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: but their mental powers of perception had been so trained
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: and developed as to cause them to appear to be
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: gifted with abnormal powers visual perception. The mental power of
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: perception of the impressions received through the sense of sight,
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: is capable of extraordinary improvement by training. This improvement and
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: the training which produces it, proceeds along three general lines, viz.
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: One the line of increased quickness and readiness in a
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: visual perception of general or special objects. Two the line
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: of increased capacity for discerning perceiving minute objects which ordinarily
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: escape visual observation, And three the line of increased powers
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: of discriminating in perceiving the subtle and slight differences of form, size, color,
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: and general composition or arrangement of parts in the objects observed.
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: It should be noted in passing that one may train
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: his visual perception along any one of these three lines
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: and attain great efficiency in it, yet with but comparatively
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: little improvement in the other two lines. As examples of
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: trained visual perception along the above mentioned lines, the following
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: instances will serve to illustrate the principle. Hodin, who had
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: developed marvelous powers of visual perception, one said, I can
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: safely assert that a lady, seeing another pass at full
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: speed in a carriage, will have time to analyze her
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: toilette from her bonnet to her shoes, and be able
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: to describe not only the fashion and quality of the stuffs,
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: but also to say whether the lace be real or
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: only machine made. I have known ladies to do this.
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: Hodin himself acquired by practice and self training, the faculty
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: of being able to pass rapidly before a shop window,
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: bestowing but one full glance upon its contents, and then,
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: when out of sight of the window, correctly to call
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: off or write down a complete list of the windows contents.
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: Including even the merest trifles there displayed. Not only this,
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: but he also taught his assistants to perform the same
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: feat as a preparation for respective careers as conjurors. Celebrated
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: artists have won wagers by painting satisfactory portraits of persons
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: upon whom they had bestowed but a single though comprehensive glance.
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: Noted scholars have acquired by practice the art of reading
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: long sentences, paragraphs, or portions of printed pages at a
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: single glance. In fact, many students are able to read
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: a whole line of a printed column at a glance
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: after but slight practice. Professor Porter, once President of Yale,
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: is said to have been able to read, at a
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: single quick glance a quarter and sometimes a half page
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: of an ordinary text book. Instances of similar proficiency are
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: far from uncommon. Book reviewers frequently are able to catch
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: the spirit of a book and to obtain a very
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: comprehensive idea of its contents, by rapidly turning its pages
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: and skimming through it, stopping only here and that when
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: some particularly attractive passage presents itself. Others frequently handling books,
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: acquire a similar proficiency. Large department stores employ skilled observers
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: to report the special features displayed in the business establishments
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: of their rivals in trade. These observers promenade leisurely through
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: the u s, aisles and corridors of the rival establishments,
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: carefully noting the details of the articles of merchandise they're displayed,
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: or the arrangement of the goods, or other points concerning
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: which their employers desire information. They frequently attain wonderful proficiency
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: along these lines. Some of them are renowned for their
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: almost photographic powers of perception. Milliners and celebrated dressmakers are
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: very careful not to subject their advanced styles and models
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: to even the casual inspection of strangers, since these visitors
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: often turn out to be the trained observers employed by
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: others in the same lines of business. Along the same
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: general lines are the activities of the spies sent out
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: by professional thieves to discover and report the details of
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: the premises which have been selected as the scene of
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: future burglaries. Disguised as beggars, peddlers, telegraph messengers, baron boys,
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: telephone inspectors, electric light repairers, et cetera, these spies gain
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: access to the premises once in a house or the
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: spy glances hastily around, carefully noting the location of the doors, windows, locks, receptacles, stairways,
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: et cetera, from which observations a map is afterward drawn
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: to be used by the professional burglars or sneak thieves.
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: Military spies often attain wonderful proficiency along these lines. A
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: single glance frequently suffices to give them a comprehensive and
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: detailed idea and mental picture of important military preparations and plans.
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: Along the second lines of visual perception, we find scientists
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: and special workers in certain trades who have attained great
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: efficiency in the direction of perceiving minute objects which escape
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: the perceptive attention of the ordinary persons. Watchmakers possess this faculty.
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: Makers of delicate scientific instruments likewise have acquired the faculty
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: of distinguishing minute objects and parts of things. Microscopists, by
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: practice develop the power of perceiving very minute objects and
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: their details, where untrained observers gazing through the same lens
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: perceive merely a tiny speck or minute blur. The magnifying
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: instrument increases the strength of the minute physical impression, but
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: it requires the trained observer's mental power of perception to
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: perceive and to know that impression made upon his brain tissue.
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: Along the third lines of visual perception, we have many
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: instances of the wonderful efficiency of trained observers who are
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: able to perceive and to discriminate between the subtle and
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: slight differences in the form, size, color, and general composition
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: or arrangement of parts in the objects under observation by them.
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: In fact, specialists in any business, trade, art, or profession
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: must acquire proficiency of this kind in order to be
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: successful in their particular line. Bank employees become very expert
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: in handling coin or bank notes. Often they are able
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: to detect counterfeits almost instinctively. So keen have become their
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: powers of visual perception, though in this particular case they
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: are often aided by tactile perception. Experts in handwriting are
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: able to distinguish between the finest shades of difference in
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: the written words, often being able to discover differences arising
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: from the varying physical condition of the individual. As evidenced
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: in his several writings. Artists, as you well know, are
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: able to distinguish between shades and hues and combinations of color.
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: They are able to see diversity where the ordinary observer
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: perceives sameness and identity. Subtle distinctions which are imperceptible to
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: the ordinary observer, stand out most strikingly to the perceptive
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: faculties of the trained artist or worker in colors. Dyers
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: and dealers in colored fabrics, as well as many purchasers
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: of those fabrics, are able to distinguish between very minute
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: differences in shades, tints, and hues of color in fabrics.
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: The color sense of some trained observers sometimes seem to
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: other persons like an additional sense. Herschel said that the
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: highly trained visual perception of the workers upon on the
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: mosaics in the Vatican enabled them to distinguish correctly between
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: thirty thousand different shades of color. Expert readers of character
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: and good judges of human nature are often able so
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: accurately to distinguish between the different shades of expression manifested
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: by the human features that they can interpret with a
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: startling degree of correctness the inner feelings or thoughts of
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: the person at that time. Persons having much to do
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: with a number of subordinates. In a school, office, workshop, army,
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: et cetera. Often become very efficient in many cases in
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: sensing what is in the mind or feelings of those
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: in their charge or under their authority. The skilled school
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: teacher acquires proficiency in this line. The expert salesman also
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: becomes an adept in this direction. Women, as a rule,
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: seen by nature, to possess this particular phase of this
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: faculty well developed. This probably because their success and happiness
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: in life frequently depends to a great extent upon their
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: ability to sense and to act upon the moods of men.
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: Whatever may be the true reason, however, the woman of
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: experience often surprises men by her perception of what is
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: in the mind of the men and of other women.
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: We may like to call this intuition, but more often
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: it is merely the result of an unconsciously developed power
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: of accurate visual perception. Along these particular lines, the observer
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: knows what certain expressions mean, even though those manifesting them
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: are seeking to conceal their inner thoughts and feelings. Auditory perception,
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: the power of perception of impressions received through the sense
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: of hearing, is capable of extraordinary improvement by training. This
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: improvement and the training which produces it proceed along three
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: general lines viz. One, the line of increased capacity for
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: perception of the general distinction between the general properties of sound, namely,
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: the quality, intensity, and the volume or quantity of the
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: sound impressions. Two the line of the increased capacity for
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: perception of the musical attributes of sound, i e. The pitch,
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: the tone, the harmony. Three the line of the increased
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: capacity for perception of them articulateness, distance, and direction of sounds.
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: It should be noted, however, that one may train his
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: auditory perception along any one of these three lines and
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: attain great efficiency in it, yet with comparatively little improvement
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: in the other two lines. Physiologists and psychologists have made
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: the interesting discovery that in the case of many persons
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: who are supposed to be slightly deaf or somewhat hard
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: of hearing, there exists no physical deficiency whatever. The organs
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: and mechanism of hearing are normal in many of such cases.
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: The explanation of this apparent paradox is found in the
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: fact that such persons have failed to develop normally the
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: perceptive powers of that part of the mind which is
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: concerned in auditory perception. In short, such persons are deficient
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: in the power of attending to the sounds, reaching them
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: through their ears, and in the faculty of interpreting or
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: understanding them, of perceiving them mentally. It is gratifying to
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: be able to state that such cases are usually capable
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: of being cured of their deafness under the proper methods
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: of awakening the attention and of training the auditory perception.
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: In this connection, it is interesting to note the cases
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: of persons who seem to be deficient in hearing ordinary conversation,
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: but who will very quickly and distinctly hear even the
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: slightest whisper of the voices of persons who are discussing
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: the careless hearer, i e. Making personal remarks concerning him
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: or her. Here we have a familiar example of the
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: result of the failure to employ attention and the marked
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: improvement when attention is actually employed. As Harvey said, that
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: one half of the deafness that exists is the result
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: of an attention cannot be doubted. Some old women who
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: experience much difficulty in hearing ordinary conversation and complain that
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: they are hard of hearing, will be found to be
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: very keen in hearing a bit of whispered gossip or
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: the low tone criticisms of themselves on the part of others.
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: Attention follows interest in such cases, and perception follows attention.
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: It is generally held that auditory perception is more susceptible
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: of education, cultivation, and development, and may be more easily
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: in effectively trained than any other form of perception. You
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: may witness on all sides many convincing, illustrative examples of
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: its possibilities. In this direction. The blind depend upon this
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: highly developed perceptive faculty to a great extent. They can
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: walk easily through a crowded thoroughfare, guided only by the
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: sounds perceived and interpreted by them, but of which the
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: normal individual will not be aware. They can tell when
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: they are passing a stationary object such as a lamp post,
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: and frequently they can discriminate between a standing man and
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: the lamp post by means of the difference in the
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: reverberations of the sound of their own footsteps received through
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: the ear and interpreted by perception. They readily distinguish between
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: the respective rumbles of the different street cars, and can
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: inform you to what particular car line the passing car belongs.
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: We have known cases in which the blind man has
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: been able correctly to inform us of the size and
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: type of a passing automobile. Likewise, blind persons usually can
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: distinguish between an empty room and one in which another
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: person happens to be all by means of their keen
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: perception of sounds. The savage, by placing his ear upon
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: the ground, often is able to perceive the approach of
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: men or wild animals, frequently displaying an almost incredible degree
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: of perceptive power in this direction. The director of a
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: large orchestra usually can detect even the slightest failure or
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: mistake in time or tune on the part of one
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: of the many instruments under his direction, and to point
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: unerringly to the guilty performer. Skilled musicians will perceive and
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: shudder at slight in harmonies or similar imperfections occurring during
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: the rendition of some complicated and technical number by a
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: large orchestra, while others are totally unaware of any such occurrence.
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: There are persons who truthfully may be said never to
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: forget a voice once heard, even though years have elapsed.
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: We have known persons who could pick out the sound
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: of a particular footstep from among many others echoing along
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: the corridor of a large building. It is said that
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: a mother sheep can distinguish the bleat of her own
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: lamb from that of scores of other lambs in the flock.
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: Young animals usually can unerringly recognize the sound of the
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 1: voice of the mother. It is a poor chick which
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: cannot recognize the cluck of its own hen. Human mothers
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: frequently can distinguish the wail of their own particular infants
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: from those of others in the same building. We witnessed
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: a test of this several years ago, in which the
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: blindfolded mothers, almost without exception, moved directly toward the right
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: crying infant. Telegraphers know the difference between the sounds of
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: the respective messages sent by different operators. They can usually
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: name the particular operator, provided that they have had time
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: to become acquainted with his manner of sending. Engineers and
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: operatives in a ray railroad yard can distinguish between the
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: different whistles of a large number of locomotives. Old steamboat
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: men frequently know the whistles of every steamboat on the river,
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: and many boys living on the shores are equally proficient
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: in this respect. Machinists can detect the slightest difference in
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: the sound proceeding from the machine under their care, and
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: often know the precise point at which trouble exists and
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: the nature of the disturbance as well, all from the
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: slight difference in the general sound proceeding from the machine.
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: It is a very inattentive man who cannot distinguish between
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: the rings of his own telephone or door bell and
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: that of his neighbor. Instances and illustrations of this kind
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: might be multiplied almost indefinitely, but the principle involved is
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: the same in all such cases. This principle is auditory
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: perception is developed by attention and practice, and attention is
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: stimulated by interest or self interest. Destatory perception the power
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: of perception of impressions received through uugh. The sense of
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: taste is capable of extraordinary improvement by training. Unfortunately, however,
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: but few persons consider it worth while to cultivate the
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: sense of taste scientifically, except the few who make gods
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: of their stomachs, and who live to eat instead of
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: eating to live. Kay says, there can be no doubt
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: that if this sense taste were properly trained and directed,
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: instead of being as it generally is, led astray or
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: perverted by excessive indulgence, it would be a much more
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: reliable guide than it is at present. Professor G. Wilson says,
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: we eat what we should not eat, drink what we
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: should not drink, eat too much of what we may eat,
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: and drink too much of what we may drink, and
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: the result is that we ruin our health, enfeeble our bodies,
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: dull our intellects, brutalize our feelings, and harden our hearts. Moreover,
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: as some modern physiologists hold, we miss most of our
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: taste values by not understanding how to extract the taste
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: from our food, thus habituating ourselves to gross eating in
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: gluttony instead of being true epicures manifesting moderation in eating
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: and drinking, but securing the full taste values and a
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: high form of esthetic enjoyment. Epicures inform us that there
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: exists a harmony in tastes as well as in colors
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: and in sounds, some tastes modifying, intensifying, or harmonizing with
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: others with which they are associated. Doctor Muller says, in
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: the art of cooking, attention has at times been paid
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: to the consonants or harmony of flavors in their combination
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: or order of succession. Just as in painting and music,
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: the fundamental principles of harmony have been employed empirically while
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: the theoretical laws were unknown. Examples of highly developed gustatory
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: perception are had in the case of the tea tasters
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: and the wine tasters of commerce. The tea taster is
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: employed to pass upon the flavor, quality, and value of
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: submitted samples of tea. If experienced, he will be able
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: to inform you as to the technical merits for d
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: emerits of the sample, its general grade, the locality of
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: its production, the method of its curing, and also its
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: current market value, all this resulting from the mere passing
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: of the drawn tea over his tongue. The wine taster
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: performs a similar service in much the same way in
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: both of the above cited cases. However, the sense of
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: smell plays a considerable part in the perceptive process. In
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: certain lines of business in which articles of food are
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: dealt with, there are men who are adepts in tasting
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: such articles and thus determining their quality and value. This
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: faculty is acquired by practice and training, interest and attention
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: developing the perception. Certain chemists also possess marked ability in
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: this particular direction. Moreover, certain skilled epicures are said to
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: be able to state correctly just what are the ingredients
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: of any given sauce or dressing, as well as its
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: relative proportions, and also to state correctly the manner in
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: which has been killed the animal whose meat they are eating.
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: Roman epicures were able to tell by the taste whether
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: the fish was caught above or below a certain bridge,
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: and some modern epicures claim to be able to decide
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: by taste on which leg the partridge was accustomed to sleep.
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 1: Such things, however, are entirely outside the world of the
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 1: ordinary individual. Olfactory perception, the power of perception of impressions
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: received through the sense of smell, is capable of extraordinary
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: improvement by training. But few modern civilized persons, however, deem
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: it worth while to undertake any such development or training.
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 1: Smell has grown out of fashion. It would seem some
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: modern seem even to regard it as an unworthy and
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: animal like sense, probably because of its lack of cultivation
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: and training in modern times and in civilized communities. The ancients, however,
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: regarded this sense as of high value and importance, and
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: treated it with marked respect. Incense and perfumes played a
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: large part in the lives of the ancients, and even
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 1: today the Orientals pay much attention to them. Thoughtful men
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: have regretted the modern relegation of this sense to the background.
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: They point out that mental associations frequently cluster around sensations
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 1: of smell, far more strongly than around other classes of sensations.
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 1: There is romance in the recollection of the smell of
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 1: a favorite perfume or of a certain flower, a romance
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: which is readily revived by a present day experience of
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: that same odor. Did you ever read that wonderful poem
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: that begins, but oh, the smell of that jasmine flower.
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: There is a suggestive power and value to odors far
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: surpassing those of sights or sounds. They appeal to the
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: emotions most powerfully, their memories persist longer. Many hold that
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: as a valuable source of pleasure and of mental enjoyment,
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: the sense of smell demands far more care and attention
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: than it commonly receives. The lower animals and the primitive
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: races of mankind, as as well as the blind of
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: our own time and land, have very highly developed senses
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: of smell. This due to use, habit, and necessity. Some
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: young children also possess the power of effective olfactory perception,
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: but disuse serves to eliminate this as they grow older
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: in most cases. Some psychologists, however, hold that the human
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: race frequently exercises this sense and perceptive power along subconscious lines,
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: and that many of our likes and dislikes are influenced thereby.
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: Certain perfumes are held to be sexual excitements. Perfumers, Chemists,
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: and men whose business necessitates the knowledge of the odor
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: and aroma of their wares, as for instance, dealers in
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: certain kinds of food, tobacco, flowers, et cetera, frequently possess
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: a highly developed power of olfactory perception. We see here
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: the operation of the same general principle of development, namely, interest,
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: attention and perception tactile perception. The power of perception of
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: the impressions received through the sense of touch is capable
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: of extraordinary improvement by training. This improvement and the training
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: which produces it, proceeds along four general lines, viz. One,
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: the line of increased perception of minute objects or parts
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: of objects. Two the line of increased perception of certain
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: qualities and conditions of objects and their details or composition,
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: arrangement or relation of their parts or attachments. Three the
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: line of increased perception of temperature. Four the line of
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: increased perception of conditions of weight, spatial dimensions, et cetera.
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: By the so called muscular sense, watchmakers and others who
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: constantly handle minute objects and adjust delicate parts of mechanical
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: contrivances are found to possess wonderfully developed tactile perception. Their
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: sensitive finger tips become almost like organs of sight, so
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: far as is concerned their efficiency in the delicate work
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 1: in which they are engaged. Likewise, the manufacturer and the
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: professional buyer of woolen, silk, or cotton fabrics frequently depends
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: materially upon this highly trained sense of touch. Wolf sorters
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: instantly grade the wool passing through their hands, and wool
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: buyers depend upon the same sense in deciding the value
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: of the materials under examination. The engraver passes his hand
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: lightly over the engraved plate and is able to detect
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: instantly even the slightest imperfection upon it. Experts in various
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 1: lines of trade are often paid large salaries by reason
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: of their developed and trained tactile perception. We need scarcely
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 1: call your attention to the highly developed sense of touch
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: of the blind. To witness a trained blind man read
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: rapidly by means of applying his fingertips to the surface
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: of the raised letters of a book is a revelation.
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 1: And to witness his manual dexterity in successfully performing technical,
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: delicate work, which would be difficult even for a man
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: of keen sight, is almost like witnessing a miracle. As
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: Taine says, at present, we have only rough discrimination as
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: to the tactile sensations. We can hardly distinguish their shades
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: of difference for want of being compelled to do so.
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: With some blind persons, the sense of touch surpasses all imagination.
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: It is enough to see blind men employ this sense
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: to comprehend all the discrimination which our touch might have
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 1: but has not acquired. Persons whose occupations necessitate a quick
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 1: and ready perception of temperature will be found to have
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: acquired the necessary development of this phase of the sense
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: of touch. Cooks discriminate nicely in this matter, and manufacturing chemists, preservers, canners,
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: makers of toilet preparations, and others become very proficient in
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: the art of detecting the fine, nice distinctions and variations
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: of temperature found necessary in their processes of manufacture. Some
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: indeed become so expert as justly to be entitled to
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 1: their title of human thermometers. The average housewife is able
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: to gauge with a high degree of correctness the temperature
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 1: of her oven, or of her cooking dishes, or of
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 1: her iron. The experienced physician often is able to determine
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: whether a patient has a temperature the moment he applies
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 1: his hand, this being remarkable when it is remembered that
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: the difference so detected is that merely of a few degrees.
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: That phase of tactile perception, which is often called the
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: muscular sense, also is capable of the highest development and training.
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 1: In fact, instances of such cultivation are to be seen
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 1: in the case of every skilled artisan. This phase of
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: tactile perception employs the muscles, especially the voluntary muscles, as
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 1: its organs and instruments of impression, by means of which
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: it detects differences in weight, pressure, force, resistance, hardness, softness,
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: spatial dimensions, et cetera. It is by means of this
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 1: form of perception that you become aware of the effort
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 1: being put forth by the muscles in performing certain movements,
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: and thus may direct and regulate them. Without it, all luntary,
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: purposeful muscular movements would be impossible, except in so far
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: as the other senses might supply the deficiency, even in
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 1: the simple act of walking, dressing using knife and fork,
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 1: or shaving. We have evidences of training of this form
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 1: of tactile perception in drawing, painting, engraving, and other forms
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: of manual exertion. We display a still greater degree of
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 1: training when you detect differences of weight or of size
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 1: by means of the hands. You manifest the same kind
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 1: of training. The manual dexterity of the pianist, the skill
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 1: of the rope walker, the juggler, the conjurer, the acrobat,
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: the skilled touch of the masser, the osteopathic or chiropractic
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: physician depend upon the training of this phase of perception.
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 1: The billiard player depends for his skill upon this training,
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 1: and so likewise does the expert baseball batter, the artisan,
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 1: or the tradesman who takes hold of an object in
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 1: order to determine its weight or size, is manifesting the
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 1: s skill which he has gained in the training of
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 1: this phase of perception. The blind man employs it to
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 1: a still greater extent. By means of it, he obtains
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 1: all of his ideas of weight and size. The blind man,
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 1: wishing to ascertain the size and shape of a table,
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 1: passes his hand around it. Wishing to ascertain its weight,
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 1: he lifts it. Many of us instinctively take hold of
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 1: an object when we wish to obtain an idea of
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 1: its weight, and most of us find it much easier
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 1: to estimate the size, length, breadth, height, or depth of
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: an object by placing our hands upon it instead of
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 1: depending solely upon visual perception. Important as is this phase
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: of tactile perception, which is technically known as the muscular sense,
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 1: It is a surprising fact that but few of us
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: have ever realized that it existed, at least until our
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 1: attention has been directed to it. We have taken it
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 1: for granted, far more than has been the case concerning
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 1: the other phases of sensation and perception. The consideration of
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: the foregoing instances and examples illustrating the principle of the
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 1: special development. Cultivation and training of perception should cause you
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: to realize the wonderful possibilities existing for you in a
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 1: similar direction what others have done, can do, and are
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 1: now doing, that you also can do. If you have
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: employed your powers of analysis, you will have already perceived
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 1: the general principles underlying each in every one of these
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: instances of special development viz. One interest or self interest.
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: Two desire or strong wish to attain. Three Purposeful determination
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 1: or the will to attain for practice or acquiring the habit.
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 1: Five exercise or strengthening the habit. Six judgment or the
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 1: right direction of the application of the new faculty. And
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 1: seven use or the actual efficient employment of the faculty
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 1: for some definite purpose, end and service. Perceptive power. The
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: art of observation by William Walker Atkinson, nineteen twenty two,
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 1: Observation and experiment. Observation is the act or faculty of
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 1: observing or taking notice with care. To observe is to
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: notice carefully, to turn the attention to to regard carefully
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 1: and attentively for the purpose of discovering, noting, or detecting anything.
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 1: Thus you see. Observation is the act of attentive perception
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 1: exercised for the purpose of discovering, noting, or detecting the
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 1: qualities or relations of things. It is perception attentively directed
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: and applied with a definite purpose, and that purpose is
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 1: the discovery of facts concerning that which is observed in
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: our everyday life. Observation constitutes an important factor of efficiency.
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 1: Men must know something about the things connected with their occupations,
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 1: and this knowing about is acquired only by investigation, inquiry,
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 1: and observation. In the keen battle which constitutes the struggle
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: for existence in modern business, industrial, or professional life, the
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: efficient observer gradually works to the front, and the poor
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 1: observer is crowded to the rear. There are, of course
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 1: other mental factors involved in success, but if the faculty
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 1: of efficient observation be lacking, the other factors are likely
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 1: to avail little or nothing. The man striving for success
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 1: must begin by cultivating observation. The man who knows and
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 1: who knows how is in demand in all walks of life.
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 1: It will always be found that such knowing is based
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 1: upon efficient observation. Unless one discovers and detects the qualities
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 1: and relations of things which are involved in his work
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 1: in life, he will not know those things. At the last,
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 1: all that we can know about a thing are the
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 1: facts concerning the qualities and relations of that thing. We
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 1: discover these facts only by means of direct or indirect observation.
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 1: Observation is the basis of all scientific knowledge, of all
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 1: practical business knowledge, or all practical knowledge of any kind.
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: Observation is a fundamental requisite for success in all lines
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 1: of human endeavor, and of all individual culture. One may
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 1: obtain much important theoretical information from textbooks, but such information
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 1: is actually valuable only when it is added to or
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 1: corroborated by individual observation. The real use of textbooks is
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: that of pointing out to one the direction in which
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 1: he should apply his powers of observation. The ideal plan
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 1: is to establish a harmonious combination between books and personal observation,
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 1: But too many omit the latter element of the combination,
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 1: and thus they become bookish theoretical instead of practical, and
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 1: are sooner or later pushed aside in the battle of
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 1: life by the individuals who have supplemented their book knowledge
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 1: with that gained at first hand by observation. In this connection, moreover,
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 1: it must not be forgotten that books, in so far
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 1: as they are practical and use, are themselves the result
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 1: of the observation of their authors or of the authorities
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 1: accepted by the latter. The entire structure of our scientific
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 1: and technical knowledge has been evolved slowly from the discoveries
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 1: made by observation. Qualities and relations of individual objects are
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 1: first observed. Then comparison results in classifications of those objects
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 1: according to their degrees of likeness and unlikeness. Then general
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: classes and general principles are formulated and hypotheses are advanced.
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 1: Then experimental observation demonstrates clearly the truth or fallacy of
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 1: those hypotheses, and finally general laws are established. But the
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 1: entire structure of knowledge rests upon the solid basis of observation.
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 1: Unless every part of it stands the test of observation,
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 1: the strength of the whole edifice is doubtful and its
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 1: security is questionable. Observation is concerned with facts. Facts are
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 1: discovered only by observation. Facts constitute the materialis for practical knowledge.
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 1: The practical individual is he who bases his knowledge upon
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 1: actual observation and upon logical induction and deduction from premises
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: thus supplied Not only is the no of the practical
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 1: man derived from observation, but his know how also comes
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 1: from the same source. Books are employed by such a
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 1: man not as fetish is to be bowed down to
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: and worshiped, but rather as valuable servants and assistance to
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: him in his work of observation. To the practical man,
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 1: the ordinary books do not constitute the text of his
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 1: book of knowledge. They are to him merely the footnotes
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 1: of that great volume. Eminent educators are sounding a warning
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 1: note concerning the tendency to supplant observation by mere books.
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 1: They insist that unless this tendency be counteracted, observation will
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 1: become a lost art and practical knowledge merely tradition. They
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 1: point out that whatever one learns by direct observation is
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 1: far better learned than what one learns or thinks that
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 1: he learned from books or the reports of others. They
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 1: advance the theory that the child should not be taught
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 1: from books anything which it can observe for itself until
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 1: after it has employed fully its power of direct observation
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 1: in the direction of that thing. Books say they should
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 1: be regarded as supplementary to observation. Educational experts have reported
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 1: a sad deficiency among school children in the matter of
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 1: the correct observation of familiar objects. For instance, pupils usually
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 1: are unable to distinguish between marble and granite, or between
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 1: an oak tree and a beech tree, between cast iron
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 1: and wrought iron, between iron and steel. Even farmer's children
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 1: usually are unable to state correctly whether the years of
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 1: the cow are in front of her horns or behind them,
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 1: over them or under them, whether cats to send trees
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 1: head first or hind feet first, whether horses and cows
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 1: rise with their fore or hind feet first, and weather
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 1: horses and cows differ from each other in this respect.
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 1: Other children are unable to state correctly how many legs
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 1: has a fly and how many a spider, whether the
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 1: fourth hour on the watch dial is designated by the
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 1: Roman numerals for or IIII, and other presumably familiar facts.
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 1: As an ideal example of careful and effective observation, we
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 1: ask you to consider the following statement of Mopisant, in
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 1: which he relates how Flaubert laid down to him the
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 1: fundamental rules of literary descriptive expression. Mopisant says that Flaubert
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: told him talent is nothing but long patience, go to work.
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 1: Everything which one desires to express must be looked at
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 1: with sufficient attention and during a sufficiently long time, to
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 1: discover in it some aspect which no one has yet
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 1: seen or described. In everything, there is still some spot unexplored,
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 1: because we are accustomed only to use our eyes with
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 1: the recollection of what others before us have taught on
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 1: the subject which we contemplate. The smallest object contains something unknown.
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 1: Find it to describe a fire that flames and a
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 1: tree on a plane. Look keep looking at that flame
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 1: and that tree, until in your eyes they have lost
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 1: all resemblance to any other tree or any other fire.
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 1: That is the way to be original. Mopisant adds the
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 1: following comment, Having besides laid down this truth that there
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: are not in the whole world two grains of sand,
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 1: two specks, two hands, or two noses exactly alike, Flaubert
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: compelled me to describe in a few phrases of being
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 1: or an object in such a manner as clearly to
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 1: particularize it and to distinguish it from all other beings
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 1: or all other objects of the same race or the
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 1: same species. He said to me when you pass a
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 1: grocer seated at his shop door, a janitor smoking his pipe,
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 1: a stand of Hackney coaches. Show me that grocer and
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 1: that janitor, their attitude, their whole physical appearance, embracing, likewise,
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 1: as indicated by the skillfulness of the picture, their whole
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 1: moral nature, so that I cannot confound them with any
• 1:49:59
  Speaker 1: other grocers or any other janitor. Make me see, in
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 1: one word, that a certain cab horse does not resemble
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 1: the fifty others that follow or preceded dot. George Randolph Chester,
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 1: the popular story writer, gives to those who seek to
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 1: become writers the following advice concerning the important part played
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 1: by observation in the work of the writer. Observation is
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 1: the faculty upon which both creation and imagination are built.
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 1: After all, we have finite minds, and man only creates
• 1:50:30
  Speaker 1: after known forms. He only imagines upon material foundations. Our
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 1: most brilliant castles in the air are but more delicate
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 1: variants of familiar structures of brick and stone. The most
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 1: expert builders of air castles than are those who have
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 1: most closely observed and mentally indexed to minutest detail, are
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 1: mundane castles. There is no end of information scarcely obtainable
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 1: from reference books, which the observing mind will and must acquire.
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 1: What trees are indigenous to certain localities, and what are
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 1: their characteristics of sprouting their leaves and developing and shedding them,
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 1: of blossoming in budding, and bearing fruit. Have you noticed
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 1: how the white undersides of leaves, while fluttering up in
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 1: a breeze, give quite a different shade of green to
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 1: a tree? Have you observed the differing apparent color of
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 1: still or running water at differing times of the day,
• 1:51:22
  Speaker 1: at differing times of the year, under differing atmospheric conditions.
• 1:51:26
  Speaker 1: How many common insects can you recall and describe? What
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 1: effect has a frown upon the other features of man's countenance?
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 1: How many sorts of sunsets, as infinite in their variety
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 1: as the shapes of clouds can you, at this moment
• 1:51:41
  Speaker 1: mentally catalog and briefly describe. Have you ever noticed the
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 1: peculiar heave of the body given by a man straightening
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 1: up under a hot of brick, or the unconscious rhythmic
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 1: pauses for rest of the muscles indulged in by a
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 1: man mixing mortar. The importance of this faculty can scarcely
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 1: be overestimated, as you will discover to your later humiliation
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 1: if you set down details without knowing them to be
• 1:52:04
  Speaker 1: entirely accurate. The three factors of efficient observation. Your attention
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 1: is now called to the three factors of efficient observation
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 1: i e. The three elemental and fundamental elements of efficient
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 1: observation I Attention. It is scarcely necessary to do more
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 1: than merely to call your attention to the fact that
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 1: attention is the first requisite of purposeful observation, attention being
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 1: the key to perception, and perception being the basis of observation,
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 1: it follows that attention is the prime factor of efficient observation.
• 1:52:38
  Speaker 1: Your observation becomes effective in the degree in which your
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 1: attention is directed to the task, the degree in which
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 1: you consciously and voluntarily attend to it. A subsequent section
• 1:52:49
  Speaker 1: of this book is devoted to the special consideration of
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 1: the subject of attention two. Interest. Attention proceeds along the
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 1: lines of interest. The greater interest an object or a
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 1: subject possesses for you, the greater degree of attention do
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 1: you direct toward it. You will perceive this fact more
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 1: fully in your consideration of the subject of attention in
• 1:53:11
  Speaker 1: a subsequent section of this book. In this connection, it
• 1:53:15
  Speaker 1: should be noted that interest may be awakened, stimulated, and
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 1: continued by attention intelligently applied under the rules of attention,
• 1:53:22
  Speaker 1: which we shall present for your consideration in that section
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 1: of this book in which the subject of attention is
• 1:53:28
  Speaker 1: considered in detail. Three. Discrimination. One may cultivate observation on
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 1: general principles by directing it to all objects without regard
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 1: to their importance, a sensiality, or special purpose. But such
• 1:53:43
  Speaker 1: observation will not be efficient observation. Efficient observation requires discrimination
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 1: along the lines of purpose. Efficient observation is purposive observation.
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 1: Purposive observation is observation directed toward the discovery in detection
• 1:53:59
  Speaker 1: of facts which will be useful to you in the
• 1:54:02
  Speaker 1: general or special fields with which are concerned your work,
• 1:54:05
  Speaker 1: your recreation, your studies, your culture. If you proceed upon
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 1: the principle that any and all kinds of observation, the
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 1: observation of all manners, sorts, and kinds of things, is
• 1:54:16
  Speaker 1: efficient observation, you will have failed to catch the spirit
• 1:54:20
  Speaker 1: of this instruction. If you had all eternity in which
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 1: to observe and in which to accomplish an infinity of
• 1:54:26
  Speaker 1: creative work. Then this indiscriminate observation might serve your purposes
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 1: and thus be advisable. But inasmuch as you have only
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 1: a limited time in which to observe, and a limited
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 1: number of tasks possible of attainment by you in this life,
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 1: then it behooves you to exercise an intelligent discrimination concerning
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 1: the general or special classes of objects or subjects towards
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 1: which you are to exercise efficient observation. To observe on
• 1:54:51
  Speaker 1: general principles is as impracticable and inefficient as to think
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 1: on general principles. In either case, you will get nowhere,
• 1:54:59
  Speaker 1: as the current day so forcibly expresses it. In such cases,
• 1:55:03
  Speaker 1: you will be so occupied in observing or thinking about
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 1: the non essentials that you will have no time left
• 1:55:08
  Speaker 1: in which to observe or think about the essential, necessary,
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 1: efficient things in your particular field of activity. You will
• 1:55:16
  Speaker 1: be like the squirrel in his wheel, continually traveling but
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 1: never arriving anywhere. You will simply be wasting your time
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 1: and energy. Your efficient observation, then, must have a definite purpose,
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 1: and must proceed in a definite direction. It must be
• 1:55:31
  Speaker 1: concerned with the lines of activity which represents your chief
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 1: purposes in life, and it must be kept within at
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 1: least the general limits of such purposes. This purposive observation
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 1: may proceed along two general lines viz. One simple observation
• 1:55:47
  Speaker 1: i e. The observation of the qualities of the objects
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 1: brought into attention by reason of their presence in or
• 1:55:52
  Speaker 1: association with your general or special lines of work or study,
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 1: to the end that you discover and detect, so far
• 1:55:59
  Speaker 1: as is possible, their areas, general character, and nature i e.
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 1: The whatness of them. Two experimental observation i e. The
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 1: observation of the aforesaid classes of things belong them lines
• 1:56:11
  Speaker 1: of trial, experiment, or test, directed to the discovery and
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 1: detection of their workability in certain directions, the way in
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 1: which they will work or work out under certain applied conditions.
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 1: In the latter form of observation, the assistance of constructive
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 1: imagination is required. In simple observation, you merely discover or
• 1:56:31
  Speaker 1: detect certain qualities or circumstances concerned with the object under observation.
• 1:56:36
  Speaker 1: In experimental observation, you proceed to change or vary the
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 1: circumstance that you may perceive the working out of those
• 1:56:43
  Speaker 1: qualities under different relations. In simple observation, you simply watch
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 1: natural phenomena. In experimental observation, you set nature to work
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 1: in order to make further discoveries or to detect the
• 1:56:55
  Speaker 1: results arising from new conditions. Thus, Man, for sense, observed
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 1: the phenomena concerned with thunderstorms and learn some very important
• 1:57:04
  Speaker 1: facts concerning them. Later, Franklin, by means of his Kite
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 1: and key, applied the method of experimental observation to the
• 1:57:11
  Speaker 1: same phenomena and discovered the identity of their causing power
• 1:57:15
  Speaker 1: with the better known forms of electricity. Simple observation is
• 1:57:19
  Speaker 1: employed in the initial stages of science, art, and handiwork.
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 1: Experimental observation marks their more advanced stages when a knowledge
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 1: gained by the simpler phase has greatly progressed and has
• 1:57:31
  Speaker 1: been subjected to the tests of experiment and trial. In
• 1:57:34
  Speaker 1: many cases and under varying circumstances. In simple observation, you
• 1:57:39
  Speaker 1: observe what exists and what happens without your active interference.
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 1: In experimental observation, you interfere with things and then watch
• 1:57:46
  Speaker 1: the result. Experimental observation, therefore, is simple observation plus your
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 1: deliberate interference with and regulation of the active processes of
• 1:57:56
  Speaker 1: the observed object. Thus you observe certain actions of a
• 1:58:01
  Speaker 1: young dog, and make certain discoveries concerning them. Then you
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 1: proceed by experiment to test the dog's actions under changed
• 1:58:08
  Speaker 1: conditions and relations with other things, and from the results
• 1:58:11
  Speaker 1: thus obtained you make additional discoveries which give you a
• 1:58:14
  Speaker 1: fuller understanding of the actions originally observed. Experimental observation is
• 1:58:20
  Speaker 1: a short cut in observation. If you had all eternity
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 1: in which to observe, and could perceive every natural happening
• 1:58:27
  Speaker 1: anywhere in the universe, then you would not require experimental observation.
• 1:58:32
  Speaker 1: In such case, Nature would sooner or later present to
• 1:58:34
  Speaker 1: your simple observation the entire materials for a complete knowledge
• 1:58:38
  Speaker 1: concerning all of her processes. But inasmuch as your time
• 1:58:42
  Speaker 1: and powers of perception are limited, you proceed to take
• 1:58:45
  Speaker 1: the short cut of experiment, and thus anticipate many of
• 1:58:49
  Speaker 1: Nature's future in distant revelations, and bring to the present
• 1:58:52
  Speaker 1: time and place the actual events and happenings. Thus man
• 1:58:57
  Speaker 1: has discovered, by scientific experiment in reasoning many things which
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 1: would have required innumerable years for him to have discovered
• 1:59:03
  Speaker 1: by simple observation. The animal and the primitive man employ
• 1:59:07
  Speaker 1: simple observation alone. Reasoning man has enormously increased his effective
• 1:59:12
  Speaker 1: power by applying it under the forms and methods of test,
• 1:59:15
  Speaker 1: trial and scientific experiment. The following general rules of observation
• 1:59:21
  Speaker 1: apply more particularly to simple observation along the general lines
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 1: of perception rules of observation. One concentration. Employ concentrated attention
• 1:59:33
  Speaker 1: when you are deliberately observing an object. The clearness of
• 1:59:37
  Speaker 1: your perception and the strength of its impressions upon your
• 1:59:40
  Speaker 1: memory depend materially upon the degree of concentration which you
• 1:59:43
  Speaker 1: apply in the observation. See final section of this book
• 1:59:47
  Speaker 1: for special instruction concerning concentration. Two. Interest Throw as much
• 1:59:54
  Speaker 1: interest as possible into every act of deliberate observation. Interest
• 1:59:58
  Speaker 1: brings forth the full power of attention, and attention is
• 2:00:02
  Speaker 1: the working power by means of which effective observation is accomplished.
• 2:00:06
  Speaker 1: The greater the degree of interest, the easier becomes the
• 2:00:09
  Speaker 1: application of concentrated attention and its continuance free the whole
• 2:00:15
  Speaker 1: and the parts. Observe the whole thing before you observe
• 2:00:19
  Speaker 1: its constituent parts. See the observed thing as a whole
• 2:00:23
  Speaker 1: ie in its general outlines, in its main characteristics, in
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 1: its appearance as a whole thing. Before you proceed to
• 2:00:30
  Speaker 1: observe its constituent parts, its details, its minor characteristics. Get
• 2:00:35
  Speaker 1: your main facts and your general outlines well fixed in
• 2:00:39
  Speaker 1: mind and memory. This done, proceed to add your subordinate
• 2:00:42
  Speaker 1: parts and to fill in your details. Study first the
• 2:00:46
  Speaker 1: tree as that whole thing called a tree, until you
• 2:00:49
  Speaker 1: understand clearly its main characteristics in general outlines. Then proceed
• 2:00:53
  Speaker 1: to a study of its roots, its trunk, its limb,
• 2:00:56
  Speaker 1: its branches, its leaves, its blossoms, and its fruit. Then
• 2:01:00
  Speaker 1: proceed to the study of its soil, its normal environment,
• 2:01:04
  Speaker 1: et cetera. Observe the tree and its parts in logical
• 2:01:07
  Speaker 1: sequence and classification. In this way, your reasoning powers will
• 2:01:11
  Speaker 1: be able to take hold of it more effectively, and
• 2:01:14
  Speaker 1: your memory of it will be much clearer. Lay a
• 2:01:17
  Speaker 1: sound foundation, and build from the ground upwards. An important
• 2:01:21
  Speaker 1: psychological principle is involved in this rule. You will do
• 2:01:25
  Speaker 1: well to make a careful note of it. Four Reviewing
• 2:01:28
  Speaker 1: observations in observing an object subsequently to your original observation
• 2:01:34
  Speaker 1: of it, review in your memory your previously observed facts,
• 2:01:37
  Speaker 1: concerning that object, and then add to these your additional
• 2:01:40
  Speaker 1: discoveries and detected facts. In this way, you combine the
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 1: two sets of perceived facts in your memory, so that
• 2:01:47
  Speaker 1: when you think of the one, you will also remember
• 2:01:49
  Speaker 1: the other. You also will thus associate logically the two
• 2:01:52
  Speaker 1: respective sets of discovered facts, and by so doing, will
• 2:01:55
  Speaker 1: be able to reason far more effectively concerning the entire
• 2:01:58
  Speaker 1: subject or object of your opbeas, you will also do
• 2:02:02
  Speaker 1: well frequently to revive in memory the results of your
• 2:02:04
  Speaker 1: observations of the object or subject, even though you are
• 2:02:08
  Speaker 1: not conducting a fresh observation. This, for reasons similar to
• 2:02:11
  Speaker 1: those just mentioned five. Combined observation in observing an object,
• 2:02:18
  Speaker 1: employ as many channels of sense impression as possible discover
• 2:02:22
  Speaker 1: not only how the thing looks, but also, when possible
• 2:02:26
  Speaker 1: and expedient, how it sounds, tastes, smells, and how it
• 2:02:30
  Speaker 1: feels to the touch and the muscular sense. This not
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 1: only because the memory obtains a clearer impression when the
• 2:02:36
  Speaker 1: reports concerning a thing reach it through several channels, but
• 2:02:40
  Speaker 1: also because it is probable that certain forms of your
• 2:02:42
  Speaker 1: sense perception are more effective than are the others in
• 2:02:45
  Speaker 1: such case. By this method, the weak perceptive impression of
• 2:02:49
  Speaker 1: the one sense is reinforced and supported by the strong
• 2:02:52
  Speaker 1: report from the other sense or senses. Six visualized observations.
• 2:02:58
  Speaker 1: Wherever possible, you should endeavor to visualize or create a
• 2:03:02
  Speaker 1: mental picture of the object as you have observed it.
• 2:03:05
  Speaker 1: The better and clearer, the deeper, and the stronger the
• 2:03:08
  Speaker 1: mental picture of the observed thing you are able to create,
• 2:03:11
  Speaker 1: the clearer will be your idea concerning it, and the
• 2:03:14
  Speaker 1: better will you remember the results of your observation. You
• 2:03:18
  Speaker 1: will do well frequently to recall this picture in recollection.
• 2:03:22
  Speaker 1: If you are unable to see and remember it clearly,
• 2:03:24
  Speaker 1: you should remedy the deficiency when you again observe it.
• 2:03:27
  Speaker 1: Continue this until you can mentally picture and remember it
• 2:03:30
  Speaker 1: in complete detail or nearly so. By following this plan,
• 2:03:35
  Speaker 1: you will both know and remember the observed thing as
• 2:03:38
  Speaker 1: a whole and in detail, far better than otherwise. Seven
• 2:03:42
  Speaker 1: Naming observations. Wherever possible, you should endeavor to learn and
• 2:03:47
  Speaker 1: remember the name of each of the qualities, parts, elements, factors,
• 2:03:51
  Speaker 1: or general and special characteristics of the observed thing. That
• 2:03:55
  Speaker 1: is to say, just as in the preceding rule, you
• 2:03:58
  Speaker 1: have been advised to visualize or see the observed thing
• 2:04:02
  Speaker 1: as a whole and in its parts. So you are
• 2:04:04
  Speaker 1: now advised to learn that name of such whole and parts.
• 2:04:08
  Speaker 1: The ancient philosophers, particularly the Oriental teachers, had much to
• 2:04:12
  Speaker 1: say concerning name and form. They have implied that in
• 2:04:16
  Speaker 1: the knowledge of name and form consists all possible knowledge
• 2:04:19
  Speaker 1: of a phenomenal thing. Be this as it may, it
• 2:04:23
  Speaker 1: is a fact that the better you know that name
• 2:04:25
  Speaker 1: and form of an observed object and its parts, the
• 2:04:28
  Speaker 1: better do you practically and effectively know the same, and
• 2:04:31
  Speaker 1: the better do you remember it. Your perceptions of the
• 2:04:35
  Speaker 1: names and forms of things are the bricks with which
• 2:04:37
  Speaker 1: are built up the greater part of your structure of knowledge.
• 2:04:40
  Speaker 1: Add to this your perceptions of how the things act,
• 2:04:43
  Speaker 1: and there is very little missing in the full conception.
• 2:04:46
  Speaker 1: Words serve to crystallize thoughts. You will do well to
• 2:04:50
  Speaker 1: write down that names above referred to when you are
• 2:04:53
  Speaker 1: conducting a deliberate and earnest observation of anything. Put down
• 2:04:57
  Speaker 1: on paper the facts which you have discovered and detected
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 1: in your observation whenever such is possible, and expedient review
• 2:05:05
  Speaker 1: this list frequently, particularly before each new observation of the thing.
• 2:05:10
  Speaker 1: It is not necessary to go into a technical explanation
• 2:05:13
  Speaker 1: concerning this principle enough to know that it is scientifically sound,
• 2:05:18
  Speaker 1: and above all that it works out. If, however, you
• 2:05:22
  Speaker 1: insist upon some sort of an explanation, here is one.
• 2:05:26
  Speaker 1: Just as words are crystallized observations, so are written or
• 2:05:29
  Speaker 1: printed words the hard crystals of observation. Unwritten words, too
• 2:05:34
  Speaker 1: often are like the crystals of snow or ice, which
• 2:05:37
  Speaker 1: melt away by reason of a slight change of the
• 2:05:39
  Speaker 1: emotional temperature. While this is not an academic technical definition,
• 2:05:44
  Speaker 1: it is at least an efficient pragmatic explanation. It will
• 2:05:47
  Speaker 1: work out in actual practice. The general rule, a general
• 2:05:53
  Speaker 1: rule concerning deliberate and purposeful observation is this, what is
• 2:05:57
  Speaker 1: worth deliberately observing is worth observing the thirstsoro. What is
• 2:06:01
  Speaker 1: worth observing thoroughly is worth observing as completely as may be.
• 2:06:05
  Speaker 1: If you wish to know thing thoroughly and completely because
• 2:06:09
  Speaker 1: of its importance to you as an item of knowledge,
• 2:06:11
  Speaker 1: you must proceed as does the child sucking a sweet orange.
• 2:06:15
  Speaker 1: You must extract every drop of sweetness in it, or
• 2:06:19
  Speaker 1: you must be as a weasel sucking an egg. You
• 2:06:21
  Speaker 1: must suck it dry. Just as the egg is full
• 2:06:25
  Speaker 1: of meat, or the orange full of sweet juice, so
• 2:06:28
  Speaker 1: is every worthwhile object full of facts, and it is
• 2:06:31
  Speaker 1: your business to extract those facts from it. You must
• 2:06:34
  Speaker 1: attack the observed object from all angles, all sides, not
• 2:06:38
  Speaker 1: forgetting that everything has two sides, the outside and the inside.
• 2:06:43
  Speaker 1: You must go to its center and extend your observation
• 2:06:46
  Speaker 1: to its full circumference. Worthwhile knowledge is the knowledge of facts.
• 2:06:52
  Speaker 1: Every worthwhile object or subject is full of facts. These
• 2:06:57
  Speaker 1: facts may be extracted by observation conduct did under the
• 2:07:00
  Speaker 1: principles of scientific analysis, dissection, and separation. You yourself have
• 2:07:06
  Speaker 1: all the elements of an efficient observer within you. It
• 2:07:09
  Speaker 1: is for you to decide, however, whether you wish to
• 2:07:12
  Speaker 1: express them. We can merely point out the principles to you.
• 2:07:16
  Speaker 1: You must do the rest. Concluding our consideration of the
• 2:07:20
  Speaker 1: general subject of observation, we ask you carefully and earnestly
• 2:07:24
  Speaker 1: to consider the following true incident in the life of
• 2:07:27
  Speaker 1: an eminent scientist. The story embodies in it most, if
• 2:07:31
  Speaker 1: indeed not all, of the essential elements of efficient perception
• 2:07:35
  Speaker 1: and purposive observation. If you will grasp the spirit of
• 2:07:39
  Speaker 1: the story, Then will you realize just what observation actually
• 2:07:42
  Speaker 1: is in its full meaning. When you comprehend the lesson
• 2:07:46
  Speaker 1: of this true story, then will you understand the art
• 2:07:48
  Speaker 1: and science of observation. We advise you to fix well
• 2:07:52
  Speaker 1: in your memory the essential features of this remarkable story,
• 2:07:56
  Speaker 1: true as it is in every detail, and in its
• 2:07:58
  Speaker 1: sequel follows the story how Agassy taught observation. Lewis Agassy
• 2:08:06
  Speaker 1: was one of the world's greatest naturalists. Moreover, he was
• 2:08:10
  Speaker 1: renowned as a teacher of his special branch of science.
• 2:08:14
  Speaker 1: His pupils were noted for their keen powers of perception,
• 2:08:17
  Speaker 1: scientific analysis, and synthesis. He could lecture on the subject
• 2:08:22
  Speaker 1: of an animal of apparently no interest whatsoever, and his
• 2:08:25
  Speaker 1: audience would listen as if to an entrancing story. This
• 2:08:28
  Speaker 1: because he knew the really interesting facts about the apparently
• 2:08:31
  Speaker 1: uninteresting creature and could make others perceive them. He taught
• 2:08:35
  Speaker 1: his students to know the facts of animal life so
• 2:08:38
  Speaker 1: well that they frequently were able to reconstruct the picture
• 2:08:41
  Speaker 1: of an animal from being shown merely a few of
• 2:08:43
  Speaker 1: its unimportant bones. His advice to his students was see observe.
• 2:08:48
  Speaker 1: Remember interest is the key to these three doors of knowledge.
• 2:08:53
  Speaker 1: One day there arrived at Agassy's laboratory a pupil from
• 2:08:56
  Speaker 1: a distance. He had traveled far to learn the science
• 2:08:59
  Speaker 1: of zoe zology at the school of the Master. The
• 2:09:02
  Speaker 1: great teacher, instead of directing him to study certain textbooks,
• 2:09:06
  Speaker 1: simply made him take a chair. Placing before the seated
• 2:09:10
  Speaker 1: student of fish taken from its jar of alcohol, Agassy
• 2:09:13
  Speaker 1: told him to observe the creature carefully, noting down on
• 2:09:16
  Speaker 1: paper every fact he could discover from an examination of
• 2:09:19
  Speaker 1: its body without cutting it open or using any instruments.
• 2:09:23
  Speaker 1: He then excused himself, telling the student to continue at
• 2:09:27
  Speaker 1: his task until his return. The student was a little
• 2:09:30
  Speaker 1: piqued at the simplicity of the task. He felt that
• 2:09:34
  Speaker 1: he knew all about a fish's body, but he cursorily
• 2:09:37
  Speaker 1: examined the specimen, more as a matter of politeness and
• 2:09:39
  Speaker 1: of duty than from any belief in the value of
• 2:09:42
  Speaker 1: the task or its result. He examined the fish for
• 2:09:45
  Speaker 1: about fifteen minutes, noting down carefully the few things he
• 2:09:49
  Speaker 1: perceived concerning its shape, size, conformation, color, etc. Then he
• 2:09:55
  Speaker 1: waited somewhat impatiently for the teacher's return. But the teacher
• 2:09:58
  Speaker 1: failed to come back to him. He asked the assistants
• 2:10:02
  Speaker 1: to find the professor, but they reported that he had
• 2:10:04
  Speaker 1: seemingly dropped out of sight. However, they advised the student
• 2:10:08
  Speaker 1: to await his return and to continue the task. While
• 2:10:11
  Speaker 1: doing so, the student was disgusted, to state it mildly,
• 2:10:17
  Speaker 1: He looked at that fish from nose to tail. He
• 2:10:19
  Speaker 1: turned it over and looked at the under side of it.
• 2:10:22
  Speaker 1: He discovered a few additional facts, but very few. He
• 2:10:26
  Speaker 1: felt that there was no one, even the great teacher,
• 2:10:29
  Speaker 1: who could discover anything more about that fish. He began
• 2:10:33
  Speaker 1: to think that he had made a mistake in coming
• 2:10:35
  Speaker 1: to that particular teacher. The man must be silly to
• 2:10:38
  Speaker 1: set him at such a task and then to go
• 2:10:40
  Speaker 1: away and forget him. He went out for lunch. When
• 2:10:44
  Speaker 1: he returned, the teacher was still away. The assistants told
• 2:10:48
  Speaker 1: him that the professor had returned during his absence and
• 2:10:51
  Speaker 1: had left word for the young man to continue the
• 2:10:53
  Speaker 1: task set him. Then he became more than disgusted. He
• 2:10:57
  Speaker 1: was filled with impotent rage. In his anger, he took
• 2:11:01
  Speaker 1: another look at that despised fish. He grew tired of
• 2:11:05
  Speaker 1: the monotonous gazing at the creature, and in desperation he
• 2:11:08
  Speaker 1: began to classify and count its scales. This over with,
• 2:11:12
  Speaker 1: he drew a picture of the fish in order to
• 2:11:14
  Speaker 1: pass the time. In making the drawing, he discovered that
• 2:11:18
  Speaker 1: the fish had no eyelids. Agassy afterward told him that
• 2:11:22
  Speaker 1: a pencil is the best of eyes. Continuing with the sketch,
• 2:11:27
  Speaker 1: he made a number of similar discoveries and finally began
• 2:11:30
  Speaker 1: to work up a little interest in the task. He
• 2:11:33
  Speaker 1: forgot his former weariness and disgust, and the returning teacher
• 2:11:37
  Speaker 1: found him deeply engrossed in his discoveries concerning the fish.
• 2:11:41
  Speaker 1: But Agossy said, you have missed nearly all the interesting points.
• 2:11:45
  Speaker 1: Keep on observing. The young man felt a bit disappointed,
• 2:11:49
  Speaker 1: for he had expected to be commended, but he kept
• 2:11:52
  Speaker 1: on and was reluctant to leave when called. A hour
• 2:11:55
  Speaker 1: or so later, his interest had begun to awaken. His
• 2:11:59
  Speaker 1: attention followed in interest, and he had begun to manifest
• 2:12:02
  Speaker 1: purposive observation with concentrated attention. That evening, in his room,
• 2:12:07
  Speaker 1: the pupil began to think about that fish. He recalled
• 2:12:10
  Speaker 1: the many facts he had discovered about it, and he
• 2:12:12
  Speaker 1: began to see where other facts might be sought and found.
• 2:12:16
  Speaker 1: He became impatient at the slow passage of the time.
• 2:12:19
  Speaker 1: He longed to be at his work. He had begun
• 2:12:22
  Speaker 1: to extract facts from that fish, and his intellectual appetite
• 2:12:26
  Speaker 1: had been sharpened by his success. Attention had awakened interest,
• 2:12:30
  Speaker 1: and interest has resulted in further and closer attention. He
• 2:12:35
  Speaker 1: had discovered the endless chain of attention, interest, attention, interest, attention,
• 2:12:38
  Speaker 1: and so on and on and on. The next day,
• 2:12:42
  Speaker 1: and for several days thereafter, that student eagerly worked over
• 2:12:46
  Speaker 1: the same fish. He drew pictures of everything he discovered,
• 2:12:50
  Speaker 1: and he sought for and wrote down the names of
• 2:12:52
  Speaker 1: the detected qualities and relations. He had recognized the value
• 2:12:57
  Speaker 1: of name and form as a working principle of observation.
• 2:13:01
  Speaker 1: Aided merely by an occasional general suggestion from the teacher,
• 2:13:04
  Speaker 1: the young man persisted until he knew practically everything there
• 2:13:07
  Speaker 1: was to be known about the external facts concerning its habits,
• 2:13:10
  Speaker 1: et cetera. When he was finally relieved from his task,
• 2:13:14
  Speaker 1: it was said that he knew more about that particular
• 2:13:17
  Speaker 1: kind of fish from the outside than any living man
• 2:13:20
  Speaker 1: except Agassy himself, a tribute well worth while his fellow
• 2:13:24
  Speaker 1: students thought the student himself afterward developed into an eminent scientist,
• 2:13:30
  Speaker 1: and carried into his own work and instruction the fundamental
• 2:13:33
  Speaker 1: principles which Agassy had imparted to him in that lesson
• 2:13:36
  Speaker 1: upon the fish, trifling and tiresome as the task had
• 2:13:39
  Speaker 1: at first appeared to be. In after years, when he
• 2:13:42
  Speaker 1: had won renown and fame on his own account, this
• 2:13:45
  Speaker 1: one time student said in a public address after telling
• 2:13:48
  Speaker 1: the tale, that was the best zoological lesson I ever had,
• 2:13:52
  Speaker 1: A lesson whose influence has extended to the details of
• 2:13:55
  Speaker 1: every subsequent study, A legacy that Agassy has left to me,
• 2:13:58
  Speaker 1: as he left it to many others, of an estimable
• 2:14:01
  Speaker 1: value which we could not buy, with which we cannot part.
• 2:14:05
  Speaker 1: We are not asking you to emulate this student. You
• 2:14:08
  Speaker 1: probably have different needs and other aims in life. But
• 2:14:12
  Speaker 1: we do ask you to try to catch the spirit
• 2:14:14
  Speaker 1: of the teacher, which he successfully passed on to this pupil.
• 2:14:19
  Speaker 1: Once you have grasped the spirit of the idea, the
• 2:14:21
  Speaker 1: details will unfold themselves. Perceptive power. The Art of Observation
• 2:14:27
  Speaker 1: by William Walker Atkinson, nineteen twenty two. Cultivating Observation, in
• 2:14:34
  Speaker 1: addition to the general rules concerning observation, which we have
• 2:14:37
  Speaker 1: presented for your consideration, and in addition to that illuminating
• 2:14:41
  Speaker 1: story of the pupil of agacy, we wish to direct
• 2:14:44
  Speaker 1: your attention to several special exercises designed for the cultivation
• 2:14:48
  Speaker 1: of the several particular forms of observation concerned with the
• 2:14:51
  Speaker 1: five respective phases of sense perception. These exercises, however, are
• 2:14:56
  Speaker 1: not presented as cut and dried methods, but rather are
• 2:15:00
  Speaker 1: given as suggestive illustrations of certain effective forms of exercise
• 2:15:04
  Speaker 1: and training along the special lines indicated. Site observation. Exercises
• 2:15:10
  Speaker 1: for the cultivation and training of perception and observation through
• 2:15:13
  Speaker 1: the channels of the sense of sighte fall into two
• 2:15:15
  Speaker 1: general classes viz. One exercises for training site observation along
• 2:15:20
  Speaker 1: the lines of rapid perception and two exercises for training
• 2:15:25
  Speaker 1: site observation along the lines of full and comprehensive perception.
• 2:15:29
  Speaker 1: It will be well for you to train your powers
• 2:15:31
  Speaker 1: of site observation along both of these lines, the ideal,
• 2:15:35
  Speaker 1: of course, being that of comprehensive perception performed as rapidly
• 2:15:39
  Speaker 1: as is consistent with efficiency. In exercises and methods along
• 2:15:44
  Speaker 1: the lines of rapid visual perception. The main purpose is
• 2:15:47
  Speaker 1: to develop the power of seeing clearly as many things
• 2:15:50
  Speaker 1: or details as possible in one rapid, though comprehensive glance.
• 2:15:54
  Speaker 1: It is astonishing how greatly this power may be increased
• 2:15:57
  Speaker 1: by deliberate exercise and practice. We have pointed out to
• 2:16:01
  Speaker 1: you that young thieves are trained in this way by
• 2:16:04
  Speaker 1: the master criminals. They are trained gradually, proceeding from simple
• 2:16:08
  Speaker 1: tasks to more complex ones. The teachers proceeding according to
• 2:16:12
  Speaker 1: strict scientific principles which they have learned by experience, while
• 2:16:17
  Speaker 1: deploring the evil uses to which such principles have been prostituted.
• 2:16:20
  Speaker 1: In such cases, we must admit their efficiency. The plan
• 2:16:25
  Speaker 1: is as follows. A few small articles are shown to
• 2:16:28
  Speaker 1: the student, and he is allowed to give to them
• 2:16:30
  Speaker 1: but a single swift glance, endeavoring to note as many
• 2:16:33
  Speaker 1: points as possible. At first, he is able to observe
• 2:16:37
  Speaker 1: few objects and still fewer details, But from day to
• 2:16:40
  Speaker 1: day he increases his capacity, until in a comparatively short
• 2:16:44
  Speaker 1: time he is able to display almost incredible proficiency. Howden's
• 2:16:48
  Speaker 1: method of passing rapidly before a shop window, observing as
• 2:16:52
  Speaker 1: many objects or details as possible in a single glance
• 2:16:56
  Speaker 1: also serves as the basis of many exercises along this line.
• 2:17:00
  Speaker 1: This exercise may be varied by rapidly noting the details
• 2:17:04
  Speaker 1: of the dress of a passing person. Women usually have
• 2:17:06
  Speaker 1: already developed marked proficiency in this direction. Interesting games have
• 2:17:11
  Speaker 1: been invented for the purpose of developing this particular form
• 2:17:14
  Speaker 1: of perception. One of them is performed as follows. Place
• 2:17:18
  Speaker 1: a number of small objects on a table under a cloth,
• 2:17:22
  Speaker 1: remove the cloth for a moment, and let the participants
• 2:17:25
  Speaker 1: take a single glance at the objects. Then replace the cloth.
• 2:17:29
  Speaker 1: The participants must then each write down what they have observed.
• 2:17:33
  Speaker 1: At first, they will be found to have observed very little,
• 2:17:36
  Speaker 1: but after a little practice, they will surprise themselves and
• 2:17:39
  Speaker 1: the observers by their rapidly developing proficiency. In Italy, the
• 2:17:44
  Speaker 1: little boys play a game called Morro, in which the
• 2:17:47
  Speaker 1: same general principles are employed. One boy exhibits a closed
• 2:17:52
  Speaker 1: fist from which he suddenly extends one or more fingers.
• 2:17:55
  Speaker 1: The other boy must state instantly the exact number of
• 2:17:58
  Speaker 1: extended fingers, the penalty for failure being a sharp blow.
• 2:18:02
  Speaker 1: This sounds as if the task were simple. We suggest
• 2:18:05
  Speaker 1: that you play the games several times before passing final judgment.
• 2:18:10
  Speaker 1: In other countries, a similar game is played by the children,
• 2:18:13
  Speaker 1: the principles of which are as follows. The first child
• 2:18:16
  Speaker 1: places a number of dried peas or beans in his hand.
• 2:18:19
  Speaker 1: The closed hand is held before the other child and
• 2:18:22
  Speaker 1: then suddenly opened. The observing child must name exactly and
• 2:18:26
  Speaker 1: without a moment's hesitation, the number of objects in a hand,
• 2:18:30
  Speaker 1: the penalty being a sharp slap on the cheek. Games
• 2:18:33
  Speaker 1: of this kind develop marked powers of rapid site perception
• 2:18:37
  Speaker 1: on the part of the gamins playing them, which powers
• 2:18:39
  Speaker 1: are often of benefit or service to them in the
• 2:18:41
  Speaker 1: later years. Kipling gives an interesting and instructive illustration of
• 2:18:46
  Speaker 1: a similar game in his story entitled Kim the Boy.
• 2:18:50
  Speaker 1: Kim and a native boy are being trained by a
• 2:18:52
  Speaker 1: master hand for the Indian Secret Service, Old Leg and Sahib.
• 2:18:57
  Speaker 1: The instructor places fifteen jewels on a tray and bids
• 2:19:01
  Speaker 1: the two boys to take a rapid but careful glance
• 2:19:03
  Speaker 1: at them, the tray then being withdrawn. Kim, a novice,
• 2:19:08
  Speaker 1: reports that he has seen on the tray five blue stones,
• 2:19:11
  Speaker 1: one big, one smaller, and three quite small. He says
• 2:19:16
  Speaker 1: that there were four green stones, and one with a
• 2:19:18
  Speaker 1: hole in it. Also one yellow stone that he could
• 2:19:21
  Speaker 1: see through, and one stone like a pipe stem. Also
• 2:19:24
  Speaker 1: two red stones and one ivory object, little and brownish.
• 2:19:28
  Speaker 1: This is as far as Kim can go. The native child,
• 2:19:32
  Speaker 1: who has received some previous training along the same lines,
• 2:19:36
  Speaker 1: reports that on the tray he has perceived first two
• 2:19:39
  Speaker 1: flawed sapphires, one of two rudas, and one of four.
• 2:19:42
  Speaker 1: As he should judge, the four ratte sapphire is chipped
• 2:19:46
  Speaker 1: at the edge. He saw also one turkestan turquoise plain
• 2:19:49
  Speaker 1: with green veins. Also two other stones inscribed, one with
• 2:19:54
  Speaker 1: the name of God in gilt, the other which had
• 2:19:57
  Speaker 1: come from an old ring, being cracked across so that
• 2:19:59
  Speaker 1: the inscription could not be read. He saw also five
• 2:20:03
  Speaker 1: blue stones for flamed emeralds, one drilled in two places,
• 2:20:08
  Speaker 1: and one a little carbon, their weights being three, five
• 2:20:11
  Speaker 1: and four rudas, respectively. So far as he could judge.
• 2:20:16
  Speaker 1: He also saw one piece of greenish amber and a
• 2:20:19
  Speaker 1: cheap cut topaz from Europe. One ruby of Burma of
• 2:20:22
  Speaker 1: two rudas and without a flaw, and one ballast ruby
• 2:20:26
  Speaker 1: flawed weighing two rudas. Also a carved ivory from China,
• 2:20:30
  Speaker 1: representing a rat sucking an egg, and finally a ball
• 2:20:34
  Speaker 1: of crystal as big as a beam, set in gold leaf,
• 2:20:38
  Speaker 1: old leg and Sahib. Comforting the chagrin, Kim tells him
• 2:20:42
  Speaker 1: that the secret consists in doing it many times over
• 2:20:45
  Speaker 1: till it is done perfectly, for it is worth doing.
• 2:20:49
  Speaker 1: In this game, there is material for an almost unlimited
• 2:20:51
  Speaker 1: variety and consequently of an almost unlimited interest, the latter
• 2:20:56
  Speaker 1: being an important element of such game exercises. Another game
• 2:21:00
  Speaker 1: exercise along the same general lines is that in which
• 2:21:03
  Speaker 1: the participants are seated before a screen or curtain. The
• 2:21:07
  Speaker 1: person behind the curtain or screen tosses up an object,
• 2:21:10
  Speaker 1: which of course is seen only for a moment by
• 2:21:13
  Speaker 1: those in front. The latter write down a statement of
• 2:21:16
  Speaker 1: what they have seen. The one having the best total
• 2:21:18
  Speaker 1: average winning the game. In case of skilled players, several
• 2:21:23
  Speaker 1: objects may be tossed up at one time. Another game
• 2:21:27
  Speaker 1: is that in which the observer is asked to name
• 2:21:29
  Speaker 1: correctly the total number of spots on a domino displayed
• 2:21:32
  Speaker 1: for a moment, then of two dominoes, and then of
• 2:21:35
  Speaker 1: a greater number as the skill of the players increases. Similarly,
• 2:21:40
  Speaker 1: the observer may be asked to name correctly the color, suit,
• 2:21:43
  Speaker 1: and number of spots on a playing card shown him
• 2:21:46
  Speaker 1: for a moment, the number of cards then being added to. Likewise,
• 2:21:50
  Speaker 1: the observer may be asked to name as many words
• 2:21:53
  Speaker 1: as possible of a printed page presented to his view
• 2:21:56
  Speaker 1: for a moment. The principle in all such formal methods
• 2:21:59
  Speaker 1: of ECXA exercise or game exercises in rapid site observation
• 2:22:03
  Speaker 1: is the same viz. That of observing rapidly and comprehensively
• 2:22:07
  Speaker 1: an object or number of objects presented to the view
• 2:22:10
  Speaker 1: for a brief period of inspection. Skill is attained only
• 2:22:14
  Speaker 1: by practice and experiment. A surprising degree of skill and
• 2:22:18
  Speaker 1: efficiency in this direction results from even a moderate amount
• 2:22:21
  Speaker 1: of practice and exercise. As we have said, the element
• 2:22:25
  Speaker 1: of interest should be introduced into the exercises so far
• 2:22:29
  Speaker 1: as is possible, for it is the keystone of the
• 2:22:31
  Speaker 1: arch of observation. Exercises and methods designed for the cultivation
• 2:22:36
  Speaker 1: and training of the power of comprehensive site observation proceed
• 2:22:40
  Speaker 1: along the same general lines indicated in the preceding pages
• 2:22:43
  Speaker 1: i e. Along the lines of practice and exercise of
• 2:22:46
  Speaker 1: the perceptive faculty involved proceeding from the simple to the complex,
• 2:22:50
  Speaker 1: from the easy to the more difficult feats. In this
• 2:22:54
  Speaker 1: class of exercises, however, the element of time of rapidity
• 2:22:58
  Speaker 1: of perception is not the dominant one. The element of comprehensiveness,
• 2:23:02
  Speaker 1: completeness and inclusiveness is the important one. The idea here
• 2:23:07
  Speaker 1: is not how rapidly but how thoroughly one perceives and observes.
• 2:23:12
  Speaker 1: The following typical exercises will illustrate the general principle involved
• 2:23:17
  Speaker 1: in all methods of this class. Go into a room
• 2:23:20
  Speaker 1: in which there are no other persons present, taking your
• 2:23:23
  Speaker 1: time for the observation, note the details of the room
• 2:23:26
  Speaker 1: and its furnishings, writing down on paper that which you observe.
• 2:23:31
  Speaker 1: Take note of the approximate size of the room, its shape,
• 2:23:34
  Speaker 1: the location of the windows and doors, the alcoves if any.
• 2:23:38
  Speaker 1: Then note the details of the papering, the color of
• 2:23:41
  Speaker 1: the wood of the doors, window frame and panel. Note
• 2:23:44
  Speaker 1: the furniture and pictures, the carpets or rugs, and similar
• 2:23:48
  Speaker 1: items of furnishings or decoration. In short, note anything everything
• 2:23:53
  Speaker 1: concerning the room and its contents. A day or so later,
• 2:23:57
  Speaker 1: repeat the process. You will find that many little things
• 2:24:00
  Speaker 1: have been omitted from your first list. Remember the experience
• 2:24:04
  Speaker 1: of Agassy's pupil, yours will be similar or following the
• 2:24:09
  Speaker 1: same general plan, carefully observe some small object, again, bearing
• 2:24:13
  Speaker 1: in mind the pupil of Agassy in his method. Some
• 2:24:17
  Speaker 1: time after, repeat the process and discover how many points
• 2:24:20
  Speaker 1: you missed the first time. Or in the same way,
• 2:24:24
  Speaker 1: take a short walk, mentally noting the buildings, details of paving,
• 2:24:28
  Speaker 1: and the thousand and one things which you perceive when
• 2:24:30
  Speaker 1: your attention is directed toward them. In all probability, you
• 2:24:34
  Speaker 1: will discover that you have really known very little about
• 2:24:37
  Speaker 1: the house in which you live. Try to draw a
• 2:24:40
  Speaker 1: rough picture of it, including the location and shape of
• 2:24:43
  Speaker 1: its doors and windows, its rooms, its cornice, its steps,
• 2:24:47
  Speaker 1: its porch, its chimneys. You will be surprised to discover
• 2:24:51
  Speaker 1: how little you had previously observed conserving the house, though
• 2:24:54
  Speaker 1: you may have lived in it for many years. Or again,
• 2:24:58
  Speaker 1: walk through a park or bit of wood woods, noting
• 2:25:00
  Speaker 1: the different kinds of trees and plants coming under your
• 2:25:03
  Speaker 1: interested observation. In all of these exercises, you will do
• 2:25:07
  Speaker 1: well to use the pencil for writing down names and
• 2:25:10
  Speaker 1: for drawing outlines. Maps, et cetera. The pencil is a
• 2:25:14
  Speaker 1: wonderful aid to perception. Refer to the previously mentioned statement
• 2:25:19
  Speaker 1: of Mopissant, in which he tells how Flaubert instructed him
• 2:25:22
  Speaker 1: in the art of observing persons and things. Note his
• 2:25:25
  Speaker 1: statement that there are no two things exactly alike. Each
• 2:25:28
  Speaker 1: thing is a little different. Then try to discover by
• 2:25:31
  Speaker 1: observation those particular distinguishing points of difference. Note also Chester's
• 2:25:37
  Speaker 1: advice to would be writers. In it, the same principle
• 2:25:40
  Speaker 1: is emphasized. Another writer has said that every individual may
• 2:25:45
  Speaker 1: be described in a single paragraph. Try to so observe
• 2:25:49
  Speaker 1: that you may write that paragraph concerning the person under observation.
• 2:25:53
  Speaker 1: Start a paragraph record of your friends and acquaintances. It
• 2:25:58
  Speaker 1: will be extremely interesting and very instructive. We might fill
• 2:26:03
  Speaker 1: page after page with exercises and methods of practicing this
• 2:26:06
  Speaker 1: form of perception and observation through the sense of sight,
• 2:26:09
  Speaker 1: but the general principle involved in each would be the same.
• 2:26:12
  Speaker 1: We have sought to impress this principle upon you in
• 2:26:15
  Speaker 1: the foregoing statements and typical exercises. In practicing the above
• 2:26:20
  Speaker 1: suggested exercises, or any of your own along the same lines,
• 2:26:24
  Speaker 1: you must not lose sight of the general rules of
• 2:26:26
  Speaker 1: observation stated in the preceding section of this book. These
• 2:26:30
  Speaker 1: rules apply in all cases coming under your observation. Above all,
• 2:26:35
  Speaker 1: remember the tale of the pupil of agacy hearing observation.
• 2:26:40
  Speaker 1: In developing and training perception and observation through the channels
• 2:26:43
  Speaker 1: of the sense of hearing, the general principles of site
• 2:26:46
  Speaker 1: observation should be observed, the only difference being that instead
• 2:26:50
  Speaker 1: of seeing things attentively, you hear them. In that way,
• 2:26:54
  Speaker 1: Listen to what is going on around you when you
• 2:26:56
  Speaker 1: wish to exercise and practice in this way. There are
• 2:27:00
  Speaker 1: plenty of things to hear if you will turn your
• 2:27:02
  Speaker 1: attention to them. Refer to the previous section of this book,
• 2:27:06
  Speaker 1: in which we have called your attention to the efficient
• 2:27:08
  Speaker 1: auditory perception of persons in different occupations requiring the same.
• 2:27:12
  Speaker 1: This will give you a clearer idea of the character
• 2:27:15
  Speaker 1: of the tasks you should set yourself in this work.
• 2:27:18
  Speaker 1: You will not suffer from lack of material for your exercises.
• 2:27:21
  Speaker 1: Never fear you will learn something by closing your eyes
• 2:27:25
  Speaker 1: and trying to locate and know things through the attentive
• 2:27:28
  Speaker 1: sense of hearing. Study the voices of persons. Noting their accent,
• 2:27:33
  Speaker 1: tones and personal characteristics, you may learn readily to determine
• 2:27:38
  Speaker 1: the nationality of different speakers, and even to tell from
• 2:27:41
  Speaker 1: what particular part or section of your own country they
• 2:27:44
  Speaker 1: have come. Study the sounds of the footsteps of different persons.
• 2:27:49
  Speaker 1: You will soon discover that there is character in footsteps
• 2:27:52
  Speaker 1: as well as mere physical habit. When you attend concerts
• 2:27:56
  Speaker 1: and musical recitals, practice listening to one particular instant turement,
• 2:28:00
  Speaker 1: shutting from your attention all the other instruments. In short,
• 2:28:04
  Speaker 1: if you wish to cultivate and train your powers of
• 2:28:07
  Speaker 1: hearing observation, begin to take an interest in sounds, tones, voices,
• 2:28:11
  Speaker 1: and other forms of impressions concerned with the sense of hearing.
• 2:28:14
  Speaker 1: This will set into operation the attention, which in turn
• 2:28:18
  Speaker 1: will awaken new interest and so on. Interest is the
• 2:28:22
  Speaker 1: first step, and probably the most important one. Tasting and
• 2:28:26
  Speaker 1: smelling observation. We do not think it necessary to go
• 2:28:30
  Speaker 1: into details concerning the cultivation and training of the power
• 2:28:33
  Speaker 1: of taste or smell, perception and observation. The general principles
• 2:28:38
  Speaker 1: previously mentioned apply equally in the present case. Interest, attention, use, practice,
• 2:28:45
  Speaker 1: and exercise the employment of these will bring the desired
• 2:28:48
  Speaker 1: end and result. An interesting experiment in taste perception is
• 2:28:52
  Speaker 1: that in which, while a bottle of perfume is held
• 2:28:55
  Speaker 1: under his nose, a blindfolded person is asked to distinguish
• 2:28:59
  Speaker 1: between the taste of sars several familiar foods placed in
• 2:29:01
  Speaker 1: his mouth. The distraction of his sense of smell from
• 2:29:04
  Speaker 1: the food will be found to affect materially the clearness
• 2:29:07
  Speaker 1: of his taste perception. Testing the sense of smell when
• 2:29:11
  Speaker 1: the person is blindfolded will also show how poorly that
• 2:29:14
  Speaker 1: sense is developed in most persons, and at the same
• 2:29:16
  Speaker 1: time will furnish an excellent method of developing and training
• 2:29:19
  Speaker 1: that particular sense perception. Blindfold an habitual smoker who is
• 2:29:24
  Speaker 1: a good judge of tobacco, and also place cotton batting
• 2:29:27
  Speaker 1: in his nostrils. Then let him try to report the
• 2:29:29
  Speaker 1: quality of the tobacco he is smoking by taste alone.
• 2:29:33
  Speaker 1: The result in most cases is surprising. Touch perception and
• 2:29:38
  Speaker 1: observation should proceed along all of the several lines mentioned
• 2:29:41
  Speaker 1: in our previous consideration of the sense of touch. You
• 2:29:45
  Speaker 1: should learn effectively to distinguish between the different perceptions in
• 2:29:48
  Speaker 1: the following classes, viz. One, the perception of minute objects
• 2:29:53
  Speaker 1: or parts of objects. Two the perception of the details
• 2:29:56
  Speaker 1: of composition, arrangement, or relations of the parts of object,
• 2:30:00
  Speaker 1: including the qualities of hardness, softness, roughness, smoothness, et cetera.
• 2:30:05
  Speaker 1: And three the perception of differences in temperature. In this connection,
• 2:30:11
  Speaker 1: practice and exercise directed toward the cultivation and training of
• 2:30:15
  Speaker 1: the muscular sense is important and interesting. Such exercises and
• 2:30:19
  Speaker 1: training may proceed along the lines of developing the perception
• 2:30:23
  Speaker 1: of weight, size, pressure, resistance, form, shape, et cetera, and
• 2:30:28
  Speaker 1: as well in the development of skill in using tools, instruments,
• 2:30:31
  Speaker 1: and similar appliances. Manual training in all of its forms
• 2:30:35
  Speaker 1: is valuable training not only in itself and for its
• 2:30:38
  Speaker 1: immediate results, but also by reason of the fact that
• 2:30:41
  Speaker 1: it tends to develop and train certain very important brain areas,
• 2:30:45
  Speaker 1: and thus to render one more generally efficient along many
• 2:30:48
  Speaker 1: lines of mental work and activity expectant attention. Your consideration
• 2:30:54
  Speaker 1: of the subject of the training and cultivation of efficient
• 2:30:56
  Speaker 1: perception and observation will be incomplete if you fail to
• 2:31:00
  Speaker 1: note the part expectant attention plays in the process of perception.
• 2:31:04
  Speaker 1: Let us illustrate expectant attention as follows. You have read
• 2:31:07
  Speaker 1: the preceding page, Did you notice whether the letter M
• 2:31:11
  Speaker 1: occurred frequently or seldom in its lines? Did that letter
• 2:31:15
  Speaker 1: appear there at all? You cannot answer these questions without
• 2:31:18
  Speaker 1: referring to the page itself. You are not looking for MS,
• 2:31:22
  Speaker 1: and so cannot with certainty say anything concerning the appearance
• 2:31:25
  Speaker 1: of that letter on that particular page. Now, then glance
• 2:31:30
  Speaker 1: over the page with the letter M in mind, and
• 2:31:33
  Speaker 1: note how this letter literally stands out in each line.
• 2:31:37
  Speaker 1: Why because you are looking for it this time, your
• 2:31:41
  Speaker 1: expectant attention has been directed toward it. The above illustrates
• 2:31:45
  Speaker 1: the principle of expectant attention, i e. That we see
• 2:31:49
  Speaker 1: that for which we look and which is in our mind.
• 2:31:53
  Speaker 1: The moral is keep in mind that which you are
• 2:31:55
  Speaker 1: looking for dot. This is the mental preparation for the
• 2:31:59
  Speaker 1: perception of task, and should be noted and applied in
• 2:32:02
  Speaker 1: every deliberate act of attention and perception, as well as
• 2:32:05
  Speaker 1: in all manifestation of observation. As Kay says, the mind
• 2:32:10
  Speaker 1: as well as the eye, perceives only that which it
• 2:32:13
  Speaker 1: possesses the power to perceive. You daily fail to perceive
• 2:32:17
  Speaker 1: many things simply because you have not prepared your mind
• 2:32:20
  Speaker 1: to look for them and to recognize them when they
• 2:32:22
  Speaker 1: are found. In such cases, you are really absent minded.
• 2:32:27
  Speaker 1: So far as those unperceived things are concerned. You will
• 2:32:31
  Speaker 1: do well to fix this fact in your memory and understanding.
• 2:32:34
  Speaker 1: It is an important one perceptive power. The Art of
• 2:32:38
  Speaker 1: Observation by William Walker Atkinson, nineteen twenty two, The Science
• 2:32:44
  Speaker 1: of Apperception. In our foregoing consideration of the subject of perception,
• 2:32:49
  Speaker 1: we have confined ourselves to that general phase of the subject,
• 2:32:52
  Speaker 1: which is concerned chiefly with the perception of the qualities, properties,
• 2:32:56
  Speaker 1: and attributes of the objects under consideration. That phase of
• 2:33:00
  Speaker 1: the subject comprises practically all that is usually included in
• 2:33:04
  Speaker 1: the category of perception. But of late years psychologists have
• 2:33:08
  Speaker 1: been inclined to include also in that category a form
• 2:33:11
  Speaker 1: of apprehension and cognition, which is concerned with the discovery
• 2:33:14
  Speaker 1: of the relations and associations of the observed things. Although
• 2:33:19
  Speaker 1: some would hold that such mental processes more properly belong
• 2:33:22
  Speaker 1: to the category of reflection than to that of perception,
• 2:33:25
  Speaker 1: the tide of psychological opinion seems to be running in
• 2:33:28
  Speaker 1: the direction of the latter day classification just mentioned. This
• 2:33:32
  Speaker 1: additional phase of perception is known as apperception. Apperception is
• 2:33:37
  Speaker 1: defined as perception called forth by the relations existing between
• 2:33:41
  Speaker 1: the external object and other objects already known. Another definition
• 2:33:46
  Speaker 1: is perception arising from the likeness or association of the
• 2:33:50
  Speaker 1: observed object with other objects previously perceived and known. A
• 2:33:54
  Speaker 1: third definition is apperception is the discernment of the relations
• 2:33:58
  Speaker 1: and associations between a newly perceived thing and one previously perceived.
• 2:34:03
  Speaker 1: It is the blending of perception and association. Perhaps the
• 2:34:07
  Speaker 1: following illustrative story will convey the idea better than do
• 2:34:10
  Speaker 1: the formal definitions. A boy concealed in a tree watches
• 2:34:15
  Speaker 1: the passers by. One passer by, noticing the tree, remarks
• 2:34:20
  Speaker 1: to a friend, what a fine stick of timber. The
• 2:34:23
  Speaker 1: boy says to himself, good morning, mister lumberman. The next
• 2:34:28
  Speaker 1: passerby says, mighty good bark on that tree. The boy mutters,
• 2:34:33
  Speaker 1: good morning, mister tanner. The third man says, I'll bet
• 2:34:37
  Speaker 1: there's a squirrel's nest in that tree. The boy whispers,
• 2:34:41
  Speaker 1: good morning, mister hunter. In the above story, each passer
• 2:34:46
  Speaker 1: by perceives the same general external aspect of the tree,
• 2:34:49
  Speaker 1: but in addition, each apt perceives those certain related or
• 2:34:52
  Speaker 1: associated elements possessed by the tree, which particularly concerns him
• 2:34:57
  Speaker 1: because of his interest or interests. Each whichapp perceives the
• 2:35:00
  Speaker 1: tree according to the relations and association arising from his
• 2:35:04
  Speaker 1: own most interesting experiences. And finally, the boy is seen
• 2:35:08
  Speaker 1: to have apperceived the tree in its qualities as a
• 2:35:11
  Speaker 1: hiding place according to his own previous experience and their
• 2:35:14
  Speaker 1: related associations. In the broad sense, for that matter, all
• 2:35:19
  Speaker 1: the higher acts of perception are really also acts of apperception.
• 2:35:24
  Speaker 1: This because each higher perceptive act or process involves memory, association, thought,
• 2:35:29
  Speaker 1: and imagination as well as simple perception. Apperception blends into
• 2:35:34
  Speaker 1: reasoning and logical thoughts so closely that it is often
• 2:35:37
  Speaker 1: difficult to distinguish between the two respective processes. Moreover, your
• 2:35:42
  Speaker 1: perceptions are nearly always more or less colored by your apperceptions.
• 2:35:47
  Speaker 1: You see things in their relations to and associations with
• 2:35:50
  Speaker 1: your previous experience, rather than as they really are. Apart
• 2:35:54
  Speaker 1: from the latter, you build associative links to things, and
• 2:35:58
  Speaker 1: thereafter find it difficult to detach the latter from their
• 2:36:00
  Speaker 1: relations and associated things. Apperception often tends to cause you
• 2:36:05
  Speaker 1: to entertain preconceived ideas and prejudices for or against things
• 2:36:09
  Speaker 1: under observation. This, too, frequently interferes with true efficient perception.
• 2:36:13
  Speaker 1: On your part, apperception is an excellent servant, but a
• 2:36:18
  Speaker 1: very tyrannical master, often a very unjust one. An understanding
• 2:36:22
  Speaker 1: of apperception will explain many things which have heretofore perplexed you.
• 2:36:27
  Speaker 1: It will give you the solution of that perplexing question
• 2:36:30
  Speaker 1: as to why different persons readily find entirely opposite qualities
• 2:36:33
  Speaker 1: and properties existing in the same thing. Their respective reports
• 2:36:37
  Speaker 1: frequently differ so greatly as to be most difficult to
• 2:36:40
  Speaker 1: reconcile them intelligently. A perception, untrained and unrestrained, causes persons
• 2:36:46
  Speaker 1: to find just what they expect to find. A man
• 2:36:50
  Speaker 1: harboring certain preconceived notions concerning a particular subject or object
• 2:36:54
  Speaker 1: will most likely apperceive and it just those qualities or
• 2:36:57
  Speaker 1: attributes which agree with his particular notions, while another man
• 2:37:01
  Speaker 1: with opposite notions will apperceive facts quite opposite to those
• 2:37:04
  Speaker 1: apperceived by the first man. Each finds that for which
• 2:37:08
  Speaker 1: he looks and which he expects to find, and each
• 2:37:11
  Speaker 1: ignores or fails to apperceive the opposite set of facts
• 2:37:14
  Speaker 1: or conditions. Interest, self interest, preconceived notions, prejudices, previous associations,
• 2:37:22
  Speaker 1: previous experiences. These tend to color your apperception and to
• 2:37:26
  Speaker 1: cause you to see through their colored glasses instead of
• 2:37:29
  Speaker 1: through the clear, colorless glasses of truth and reason. You
• 2:37:33
  Speaker 1: will find yourself inclined to see things not as they
• 2:37:35
  Speaker 1: really are, but according to their degree of agreement or
• 2:37:38
  Speaker 1: disagreement with your previous associations and experience, or with your
• 2:37:42
  Speaker 1: prejudices and preconceived ideas. Other facts connected with them will
• 2:37:47
  Speaker 1: almost seem not to exist for you. Unless you are careful,
• 2:37:51
  Speaker 1: a fact related to your previous experience will tend to
• 2:37:54
  Speaker 1: outweigh a half dozen equally valuable facts with which you
• 2:37:57
  Speaker 1: have had no previous experience. This will doubtless be all
• 2:38:01
  Speaker 1: right if you wish to become a bitter partisan or
• 2:38:04
  Speaker 1: an enthusiastic advocate of some particular cause or interest, But
• 2:38:08
  Speaker 1: it will not be right for you if you wish
• 2:38:10
  Speaker 1: to become an honest, consistent, logical thinker. If you seek
• 2:38:14
  Speaker 1: truth for the sake of its truth, then you must
• 2:38:17
  Speaker 1: always be on the lookout for this phase of apperception,
• 2:38:19
  Speaker 1: for it is always at your elbow, playing the part
• 2:38:22
  Speaker 1: of the tempter and deceiver. But, as we have said,
• 2:38:25
  Speaker 1: apperception is an excellent servant, although a poor master. You
• 2:38:30
  Speaker 1: may set it to efficient work as a servant by
• 2:38:32
  Speaker 1: impressing it with the strong idea of the general direction
• 2:38:35
  Speaker 1: of your search for knowledge, by fixing strongly upon it
• 2:38:38
  Speaker 1: the idea of the special or general class of information
• 2:38:41
  Speaker 1: for which you are seeking, and then bidding it to
• 2:38:43
  Speaker 1: discover facts in accord and harmony with them and with
• 2:38:46
  Speaker 1: the things which will aid and serve your general purpose
• 2:38:49
  Speaker 1: and aim. A perception so trained will invariably and inevitably
• 2:38:53
  Speaker 1: seek out the desired, related, or associated facts for you
• 2:38:57
  Speaker 1: whenever they abide in the object or subject under observation
• 2:39:00
  Speaker 1: or investigation. It will always seek to discover for you
• 2:39:04
  Speaker 1: the facts related to or associated with your main purposes
• 2:39:07
  Speaker 1: and aims. It will do this by the force of
• 2:39:10
  Speaker 1: interested attention, concentration, and subconscious mentation. Moreover, by your understanding
• 2:39:17
  Speaker 1: of the principles of apperception, you will be able to
• 2:39:19
  Speaker 1: acquire knowledge of the right kind and in a logical manner.
• 2:39:23
  Speaker 1: By learning the correct basic principles of any subject which
• 2:39:27
  Speaker 1: you wish to master, and by setting these before your
• 2:39:29
  Speaker 1: attention in the proper manner you tend to arouse the
• 2:39:32
  Speaker 1: power of apperception, and to direct it toward the building
• 2:39:35
  Speaker 1: of a logical and scientific structure of thought upon the
• 2:39:38
  Speaker 1: solid foundations which you have exhibited to it. In such cases,
• 2:39:42
  Speaker 1: apperception will eagerly search for facts with which to build
• 2:39:46
  Speaker 1: the structure. It will seek for them in almost every
• 2:39:48
  Speaker 1: act of simple perception. It will seek in every experience
• 2:39:52
  Speaker 1: something which will fit into the structure. It will seek
• 2:39:56
  Speaker 1: this material as the essential facts of experience, and will
• 2:40:00
  Speaker 1: lightly pass over the non essentials. Trained and well directed
• 2:40:04
  Speaker 1: apperception stands by always eager to pounce upon any presented
• 2:40:08
  Speaker 1: facts which it believes to be directly associated with and
• 2:40:10
  Speaker 1: related to the general structure of your thought and feelings.
• 2:40:14
  Speaker 1: If you wish for an actual illustration of this action
• 2:40:17
  Speaker 1: on the part of the faculty of apperception, this power
• 2:40:20
  Speaker 1: which seeks to aid and assist you in your pursuit
• 2:40:22
  Speaker 1: of knowledge and information, you will find many such within
• 2:40:25
  Speaker 1: your own everyday experience. A little exercise of the memory
• 2:40:30
  Speaker 1: will show you that whenever you have begun to become
• 2:40:32
  Speaker 1: specially interested in an object or subject, there has begun
• 2:40:35
  Speaker 1: to be manifested a peculiar awakening of something within you
• 2:40:39
  Speaker 1: which displayed great eagerness to discover and uncover facts, details, relations,
• 2:40:44
  Speaker 1: and associations concerning the subject or object of your interest.
• 2:40:48
  Speaker 1: You will find that your attention frequently was suddenly directed
• 2:40:51
  Speaker 1: to and caught by some item in a newspaper or magazine,
• 2:40:55
  Speaker 1: or some portion of a book, which had a direct
• 2:40:57
  Speaker 1: or indirect relation to, or association with them that subject
• 2:41:00
  Speaker 1: or object. In fact, you will find it was difficult
• 2:41:04
  Speaker 1: for you to pick up any newspaper, magazine, per book
• 2:41:07
  Speaker 1: without finding such related or associated information, even though you
• 2:41:11
  Speaker 1: might have read its pages several times before without discovering
• 2:41:14
  Speaker 1: any such thing in it. You will find that your
• 2:41:17
  Speaker 1: world of experience then extended its boundaries rapidly in the
• 2:41:20
  Speaker 1: locality of that special object or subject of your interest.
• 2:41:25
  Speaker 1: A new world of facts was discovered by you, and
• 2:41:28
  Speaker 1: a new body of relations and associations was uncovered for you.
• 2:41:32
  Speaker 1: That something within you is an excellent servant, an untiring
• 2:41:36
  Speaker 1: worker in your interest. It will work even while you
• 2:41:40
  Speaker 1: are asleep, for it proceeds along subconscious as well as
• 2:41:43
  Speaker 1: conscious lines of activity. This power of apperception, once set
• 2:41:48
  Speaker 1: to work by you in a definite direction and with
• 2:41:50
  Speaker 1: a well defined purpose, will call to its aid the
• 2:41:53
  Speaker 1: powers of memory and constructive imagination as well as those
• 2:41:57
  Speaker 1: of perception and observation. It will be work well for
• 2:42:00
  Speaker 1: you to come to an understanding with your faculty of
• 2:42:02
  Speaker 1: apperception and to issue your commands to it, But you
• 2:42:06
  Speaker 1: should always retain the mastery of it, for while it
• 2:42:09
  Speaker 1: is an excellent servant, it will develop into a tyrannical
• 2:42:12
  Speaker 1: master if you surrender control to it. It is but
• 2:42:15
  Speaker 1: a tool and instrument for the use of that master,
• 2:42:17
  Speaker 1: which you, yourself, should always be in your world of experience.
• 2:42:22
  Speaker 1: The faculty of apperception is essentially concerned with the establishment
• 2:42:26
  Speaker 1: of relations and associations between a newly perceived fact and
• 2:42:30
  Speaker 1: other facts previously perceived and already known. Apperception is a
• 2:42:35
  Speaker 1: relating activity. Apperception has well been described as the combining
• 2:42:40
  Speaker 1: activity of the mind that brings order and harmony into
• 2:42:43
  Speaker 1: our mental life. By transforming the consciousness of related facts
• 2:42:46
  Speaker 1: into the consciousness of relations. Perception brings to you the
• 2:42:50
  Speaker 1: apprehension of particular facts actually related and associated. But apperception
• 2:42:55
  Speaker 1: is required before you may discern such relationship and association.
• 2:43:00
  Speaker 1: When it is remembered that thought is concerned largely with
• 2:43:02
  Speaker 1: the discovery of the relations between different particular things. The
• 2:43:06
  Speaker 1: importance of apperception begins to be realized. Apperception also may
• 2:43:11
  Speaker 1: be said to be that phase of thought by which
• 2:43:13
  Speaker 1: you perceive and discern the relations existing between the different
• 2:43:17
  Speaker 1: items of knowledge existing in your inner world of experience.
• 2:43:21
  Speaker 1: Two separate known facts may have places in your world
• 2:43:24
  Speaker 1: of experience, having been placed there by perception, but you
• 2:43:28
  Speaker 1: may not be consciously aware of any relation or association
• 2:43:31
  Speaker 1: existing between them. When your mind wakes up to the
• 2:43:35
  Speaker 1: fact that the two facts are related in certain ways,
• 2:43:38
  Speaker 1: and that there is a logical association existing between them,
• 2:43:41
  Speaker 1: then you have exercised the faculty of apperception. Or again,
• 2:43:46
  Speaker 1: you may perceive a new fact but have not as
• 2:43:48
  Speaker 1: yet become aware that it has any logical or practical
• 2:43:51
  Speaker 1: relation to other facts previously known to you. In such case,
• 2:43:55
  Speaker 1: also apperception supplies the missing connection, and the two facts
• 2:43:59
  Speaker 1: become welldern in your thought. Men had perceived many facts
• 2:44:03
  Speaker 1: concerning electricity, but apperception was required to relate these facts
• 2:44:07
  Speaker 1: to lighting, heating, motive, power, transmission of messages, et cetera.
• 2:44:12
  Speaker 1: Coal had been perceived ages before it was apperceived as
• 2:44:15
  Speaker 1: related to the subject of heating. Petroleum had been perceived
• 2:44:20
  Speaker 1: long before it was apperceived in its relation to the
• 2:44:22
  Speaker 1: subject of lighting, heating, motive power, et cetera. Certain gases
• 2:44:27
  Speaker 1: were perceived long before it was apperceived that they bore
• 2:44:30
  Speaker 1: an important relation to raising a balloon. Wool was perceived
• 2:44:35
  Speaker 1: long before the primitive man apperceived its relation to warm
• 2:44:38
  Speaker 1: covering for the human body. The heat generated by friction
• 2:44:42
  Speaker 1: was perceived long before some one apperceived its relation to
• 2:44:45
  Speaker 1: fire producing activity. The progress of the human race has
• 2:44:49
  Speaker 1: resulted largely by reason of man's faculty of apperception, the
• 2:44:53
  Speaker 1: power of discovering new relations in things. The future progress
• 2:44:57
  Speaker 1: of the race depends largely upon the further exercise of
• 2:45:00
  Speaker 1: the faculty of apperception in the direction of additional discoveries
• 2:45:04
  Speaker 1: of new relations between things already perceived. The progressive man
• 2:45:09
  Speaker 1: is ever on the lookout for the discernment of new
• 2:45:11
  Speaker 1: relations concerning the things already perceived by him. All discoveries
• 2:45:16
  Speaker 1: in science and all inventions are the result of this
• 2:45:19
  Speaker 1: discernment of new relations by the exercise of apperception. A
• 2:45:24
  Speaker 1: prominent college professor was wont to advise his pupils be
• 2:45:27
  Speaker 1: ever on the hunt for relations. The only progress possible
• 2:45:31
  Speaker 1: is that arising from the discovery of new relations. No
• 2:45:35
  Speaker 1: matter what is a man's occupation. His success depends largely
• 2:45:39
  Speaker 1: upon his close study of relations. A faulty knowledge of
• 2:45:43
  Speaker 1: relations frequently results in failure. Whenever you learn a new
• 2:45:47
  Speaker 1: thing apparently unrelated to any other part of your knowledge,
• 2:45:51
  Speaker 1: make haste to establish relations and associations for it. Your
• 2:45:55
  Speaker 1: degree of knowledge of anything depends materially upon your knowledge
• 2:45:58
  Speaker 1: of its relations and association. In fact, about all that
• 2:46:03
  Speaker 1: you can ever hope to know concerning anything is one
• 2:46:06
  Speaker 1: its qualities and characteristics, and two its relations and associations.
• 2:46:12
  Speaker 1: You know a thing only as you know these two
• 2:46:15
  Speaker 1: classes of facts concerning it. The first class is known
• 2:46:19
  Speaker 1: to you through perception, the second through apperception. Apperception is
• 2:46:24
  Speaker 1: the connecting link between simple perception and simple thought. It
• 2:46:27
  Speaker 1: partakes of the nature of both of these mental powers,
• 2:46:30
  Speaker 1: which it likewise connects and binds together in the mental processes.
• 2:46:35
  Speaker 1: Apperception is manifested in two general ways, the active principle
• 2:46:39
  Speaker 1: of both being the same. These two ways are as follows. One,
• 2:46:44
  Speaker 1: the way of experimental observation, in which you set things
• 2:46:47
  Speaker 1: to work, in which you test them under varying circumstances,
• 2:46:51
  Speaker 1: in which you try them out and conduct experiments with them,
• 2:46:54
  Speaker 1: all on the physical plane, though under your mental observation,
• 2:46:58
  Speaker 1: and two the way of constructive imagination, in which you
• 2:47:02
  Speaker 1: perform various experiments with things similar to those above noted,
• 2:47:06
  Speaker 1: but this time on the mental plane instead of the physical.
• 2:47:10
  Speaker 1: In the first of the above noted ways, you do
• 2:47:12
  Speaker 1: your work with your hands and in the world of matter.
• 2:47:15
  Speaker 1: In the second way, you perform the work all in
• 2:47:17
  Speaker 1: your mind and with the aid of the mental faculties alone.
• 2:47:21
  Speaker 1: The inventor on the physical plane employs both of these ways.
• 2:47:25
  Speaker 1: The inventors on the mental plane the great planners, designers,
• 2:47:29
  Speaker 1: constructors who see first the thing as ideal, to be
• 2:47:32
  Speaker 1: afterward materialized as real. These men employ the second way principally.
• 2:47:38
  Speaker 1: But in either case, the raw materials of apperception are
• 2:47:42
  Speaker 1: furnished by perception. They can come from no other source.
• 2:47:46
  Speaker 1: When one holds before his mind a definite, clear and
• 2:47:49
  Speaker 1: strong ideal which he insistently desires, confidently expects, and persistently
• 2:47:54
  Speaker 1: wills to become materialized into reality, then he sets into
• 2:47:58
  Speaker 1: activity the powers of apperception in behalf of the realization
• 2:48:01
  Speaker 1: of that ideal, toward making that ideal become real. Then,
• 2:48:06
  Speaker 1: as a writer has well said, your apperceptive conceptions stand
• 2:48:09
  Speaker 1: like armed soldiers within the strongholds of consciousness, ready to
• 2:48:13
  Speaker 1: seize upon everything likely to prove of service to the
• 2:48:16
  Speaker 1: great cause. Without the definite, clear, strong, positive ideal, these
• 2:48:21
  Speaker 1: soldiers are asleep and accordingly fail to seize upon the
• 2:48:25
  Speaker 1: valuable related facts, and you never become conscious of them.
• 2:48:29
  Speaker 1: When apperception is aroused, you become aware of a great
• 2:48:33
  Speaker 1: world of related facts of which you had previously been unaware.
• 2:48:37
  Speaker 1: But without the incentive of the ideal or subject held
• 2:48:40
  Speaker 1: in mind, apperception will not be aroused. In such case,
• 2:48:44
  Speaker 1: your apperceiving conceptions will have been asleep, and their natural
• 2:48:47
  Speaker 1: prey will have escaped them. The field of apperception must
• 2:48:51
  Speaker 1: be cultivated by interest, definite ideals, and fixed purpose before
• 2:48:56
  Speaker 1: it will bring forth its crop of related and associated ideas.
• 2:48:59
  Speaker 1: In fact, teachers realize this when their leading authorities bid
• 2:49:03
  Speaker 1: them to prepare the mind of the pupil for the
• 2:49:05
  Speaker 1: efficient assimilation of the knowledge to be imparted to them,
• 2:49:08
  Speaker 1: And that we must prepare the minds of our pupils
• 2:49:11
  Speaker 1: for the apperception of concepts. We must help them to
• 2:49:14
  Speaker 1: array in their minds their apperceiving conceptions, and let us
• 2:49:18
  Speaker 1: put a definite question before them, which is the definite
• 2:49:20
  Speaker 1: aim of the lessons to answer. Also, we must bring
• 2:49:24
  Speaker 1: out of the memory and experience perceptions of the pupils
• 2:49:27
  Speaker 1: everything that bears upon the lesson. This can be done
• 2:49:30
  Speaker 1: best by asking them questions, because in this way we
• 2:49:33
  Speaker 1: secure the greatest amount of mental activity on their part.
• 2:49:37
  Speaker 1: You will do well to note the above suggestions concerning
• 2:49:40
  Speaker 1: the knowledge extracting power of questions. While it is true
• 2:49:44
  Speaker 1: that the present volume has for its sole field the
• 2:49:46
  Speaker 1: consideration of perceptive power, the associated subjects of creative power,
• 2:49:51
  Speaker 1: constructive imagination, subconscious mentation, et cetera, forming the respective fields
• 2:49:56
  Speaker 1: of companion volumes, yet we feel that we should at
• 2:49:59
  Speaker 1: least call to your attention the general principles of the
• 2:50:02
  Speaker 1: application of apperception in the other mental processes to which
• 2:50:05
  Speaker 1: we have just referred. The following paragraphs will be devoted
• 2:50:09
  Speaker 1: to that purpose. The careful consideration of what is stated
• 2:50:12
  Speaker 1: in them should at least set you on the right
• 2:50:14
  Speaker 1: road and point out the way toward further training along
• 2:50:17
  Speaker 1: those particular lines. If you should so, elect, those who
• 2:50:21
  Speaker 1: have accomplished great results by the employment of apperception along
• 2:50:24
  Speaker 1: the lines of ideation and constructive imagination, report that they
• 2:50:28
  Speaker 1: owe their success largely to an observance of certain fundamental rules,
• 2:50:32
  Speaker 1: which may be stated as follows. One, Fill the mind
• 2:50:36
  Speaker 1: with the raw materials furnished by the perception of the
• 2:50:39
  Speaker 1: important facts in your special field of endeavor and work.
• 2:50:43
  Speaker 1: In the present book, the accepted methods of accomplishing this
• 2:50:46
  Speaker 1: stage of the process have been pointed out and practical
• 2:50:49
  Speaker 1: working plans presented to you. Two. Create a strong, clear,
• 2:50:54
  Speaker 1: positive definite ideal of that which you wish to accomplish,
• 2:50:58
  Speaker 1: accompanied with a positive, definite purpose to attain and accomplish
• 2:51:02
  Speaker 1: the materialization of that ideal. Set before your mind the
• 2:51:06
  Speaker 1: definite question which you wish to be answered. Make the
• 2:51:09
  Speaker 1: demand that your mind shall answer that question by means
• 2:51:11
  Speaker 1: of bringing out from the great storehouse of memory the
• 2:51:14
  Speaker 1: related and associated concepts and facts which have been placed
• 2:51:17
  Speaker 1: there by perception, and by means of causing the constructive
• 2:51:20
  Speaker 1: imagination to picture these concepts and facts in new orders, combinations,
• 2:51:25
  Speaker 1: and arrangements, so as to conduct an effective process of
• 2:51:29
  Speaker 1: mental testing, trying out, and experimentation. Three, by means of
• 2:51:35
  Speaker 1: your definite ideals, insistent desire, confident expectation, and persistent determination,
• 2:51:41
  Speaker 1: set into operation the activities of the great planes of
• 2:51:44
  Speaker 1: subconscious mentation, which are at your disposal, and which will
• 2:51:47
  Speaker 1: readily respond to the demand. By doing this, you will
• 2:51:51
  Speaker 1: start that process of unconscious rumination which all great inventors
• 2:51:55
  Speaker 1: and discoverers in any field have experienced. Place before your
• 2:51:59
  Speaker 1: subconscious faculties the questions which you wish to be answered,
• 2:52:03
  Speaker 1: the questions concerning the new relations and associations between certain
• 2:52:07
  Speaker 1: known facts and others not as yet recognized as related
• 2:52:10
  Speaker 1: to or associated with them. For from time to time,
• 2:52:15
  Speaker 1: indulge in the mental process of revery, go into the silence,
• 2:52:18
  Speaker 1: as some of our metaphysical friends call it, not into
• 2:52:21
  Speaker 1: a condition of day dreaming, but rather that of a
• 2:52:24
  Speaker 1: state of shutting out outside perceptions so as to concentrate
• 2:52:27
  Speaker 1: the attention upon the inner field of apperception. Some advise
• 2:52:32
  Speaker 1: that this process should be undertaken at the same hour
• 2:52:34
  Speaker 1: on each successive day until the problem is solved. Others
• 2:52:38
  Speaker 1: hold that the subconscious faculties themselves will serve notice upon
• 2:52:42
  Speaker 1: you that they are ready to report progress. In either case,
• 2:52:46
  Speaker 1: at such times, you should roll over in your mind
• 2:52:48
  Speaker 1: the question before you, discovering just what relations and associations
• 2:52:52
  Speaker 1: you know concerning the thing in question, and seeking to
• 2:52:55
  Speaker 1: discover at least the general direction of other relations and associations. Experiment, test,
• 2:53:02
  Speaker 1: and try out mentally any arrangement, plan, process, or combination
• 2:53:07
  Speaker 1: which may present itself to you. You will find that
• 2:53:10
  Speaker 1: from the sub conscious realms of your mentality there will
• 2:53:12
  Speaker 1: at times flash out or pop out some entirely new
• 2:53:16
  Speaker 1: plan or idea involved in the general question. When you
• 2:53:20
  Speaker 1: have ruminated sufficiently to exhaust the material presented to you
• 2:53:24
  Speaker 1: in this way, you should bring the sitting to a
• 2:53:26
  Speaker 1: close and once more dismiss the entire subject from your
• 2:53:29
  Speaker 1: conscious field of mentation, with a parting demand upon your
• 2:53:33
  Speaker 1: sub conscious faculties to do some more work on this question. Five.
• 2:53:38
  Speaker 1: The above successive processes of conscious stock taking and sub
• 2:53:42
  Speaker 1: conscious rumination should be continued until you feel that you
• 2:53:46
  Speaker 1: have exhausted the subject for the time being. Then take
• 2:53:49
  Speaker 1: a rest, at least so far as is concerned your
• 2:53:52
  Speaker 1: conscious field of mentation. Your subconscious field will continue at work,
• 2:53:57
  Speaker 1: as you will discover when you consult it again after
• 2:53:59
  Speaker 1: your intervals. If this process and method should seem somewhat
• 2:54:04
  Speaker 1: fantastical to you, rest assured that the reports coming from
• 2:54:07
  Speaker 1: some of the most practical and hard headed workers along
• 2:54:10
  Speaker 1: the lines of invention and discovery in many different fields
• 2:54:13
  Speaker 1: of human endeavor show that they have followed some such
• 2:54:16
  Speaker 1: plan and method, although they may use different terms in
• 2:54:19
  Speaker 1: which to express it. The essence of the above rules
• 2:54:23
  Speaker 1: may be expressed as follows. In your world of experience,
• 2:54:26
  Speaker 1: you have stored away thousands of facts and ideas composed
• 2:54:29
  Speaker 1: of the raw materials of your perception. They are all there,
• 2:54:33
  Speaker 1: though you may have apparently forgotten many of them. All
• 2:54:36
  Speaker 1: that is needed is the discovery and discernment of the
• 2:54:38
  Speaker 1: connecting links of relation and association. These will prove to
• 2:54:42
  Speaker 1: be the loose ends by means of which you may
• 2:54:44
  Speaker 1: unravel the ball of subconscious memory. By employing the above
• 2:54:48
  Speaker 1: methods of apperceptive subconsciousing, you will bring to the surface
• 2:54:52
  Speaker 1: of consciousness these missing facts and ideas, and in addition,
• 2:54:55
  Speaker 1: your constructive imagination will work over into new combinations and
• 2:54:59
  Speaker 1: arrangements of relation and association the materials sent up from
• 2:55:03
  Speaker 1: the subconscious storehouse of memory. But last, as first, the
• 2:55:07
  Speaker 1: materials supplied by perception constitute the entire materials of which
• 2:55:12
  Speaker 1: your world of experience is constructed. Remember that here, as elsewhere,
• 2:55:17
  Speaker 1: you can get out of anything only what has been
• 2:55:19
  Speaker 1: put into it. Therefore proceed to cultivate efficient apperception by
• 2:55:24
  Speaker 1: first developing efficient perception. The working materials of apperception are
• 2:55:29
  Speaker 1: but the combined elements deposited in the subconscious by the
• 2:55:32
  Speaker 1: processes of perception. Apperception can uncover only that which has
• 2:55:36
  Speaker 1: previously been registered in the mind by perception. Apperception works
• 2:55:41
  Speaker 1: up the raw materials of perception into more complex forms
• 2:55:44
  Speaker 1: of percepts or concepts. Perceptive power The Art of Observation
• 2:55:50
  Speaker 1: by William Walker Atkinson, nineteen twenty two. The Power of Attention.
• 2:55:56
  Speaker 1: We wish now to direct your attention to that wonderful
• 2:55:59
  Speaker 1: power of the mind, which is known as attention, and
• 2:56:02
  Speaker 1: to indicate to use certain fundamental laws of its activity.
• 2:56:06
  Speaker 1: Attention is defined as the mental act, process or faculty
• 2:56:11
  Speaker 1: of application to any object of sense, representation, or thought,
• 2:56:15
  Speaker 1: or the act of concentrating the mind on any object
• 2:56:18
  Speaker 1: of sense or on any mental conception. A more technical
• 2:56:22
  Speaker 1: definition is consciousness concentrated in order intellectually to conquer a
• 2:56:27
  Speaker 1: particular object or subject. The scientific conception of attention is
• 2:56:32
  Speaker 1: well illustrated by the following celebrated statement of Sir William Hamilton.
• 2:56:36
  Speaker 1: Attention is consciousness and something more. It is consciousness voluntarily
• 2:56:41
  Speaker 1: applied under its law of limitations to some determinate object.
• 2:56:46
  Speaker 1: It is consciousness concentrated. Attention is consciousness applied by an
• 2:56:50
  Speaker 1: act of will or desire under a particular law. This law,
• 2:56:55
  Speaker 1: which we call the law of limitation, is that the
• 2:56:58
  Speaker 1: intention of our knowledge is in the inverse ratio of
• 2:57:01
  Speaker 1: its extension. In other words, that the fewer the objects
• 2:57:04
  Speaker 1: we consider at once, the clearer and more distinct will
• 2:57:07
  Speaker 1: be our knowledge of them. An act of attention, that is,
• 2:57:11
  Speaker 1: an act of concentration, seems as necessary to every exertion
• 2:57:15
  Speaker 1: of consciousness as a certain contraction of the pupil is
• 2:57:18
  Speaker 1: requisite to every exertion of vision. Attention is to consciousness
• 2:57:22
  Speaker 1: what the contraction of the pupil is to cite, or
• 2:57:25
  Speaker 1: to the eye of the mind, what the microscope or
• 2:57:27
  Speaker 1: telescope is to the bodily eye. The faculty of attention
• 2:57:31
  Speaker 1: is not therefore a special faculty, but is merely consciousness
• 2:57:36
  Speaker 1: acting under the law of limitation, to which it is subjected.
• 2:57:40
  Speaker 1: But whatever be its relation to the special faculties, attention
• 2:57:43
  Speaker 1: doubles all their efficiency and affords them a power of
• 2:57:46
  Speaker 1: which they would otherwise be destitute. It is in fact
• 2:57:50
  Speaker 1: as we are at present constituted the primary condition of
• 2:57:54
  Speaker 1: their activity. Attention, then, is that action of the mind
• 2:57:58
  Speaker 1: whereby it brings into consciousness any subject or object to
• 2:58:02
  Speaker 1: which that action is directed. It is the focusing of consciousness,
• 2:58:06
  Speaker 1: or some prefer to say it is a detention in consciousness.
• 2:58:11
  Speaker 1: The sun's rays may be scattered over a large surface,
• 2:58:14
  Speaker 1: and its heat scarcely be perceptible, or on the other hand,
• 2:58:18
  Speaker 1: they may be focused through a sunglass to such an
• 2:58:20
  Speaker 1: extent that they burn a hole in a piece of
• 2:58:22
  Speaker 1: hard wood. In the same way, you may spread your
• 2:58:26
  Speaker 1: consciousness over a number of objects, and thus become but
• 2:58:29
  Speaker 1: dimly aware of any of them. And on the other hand,
• 2:58:32
  Speaker 1: you may concentrate and focus your consciousness by an act
• 2:58:35
  Speaker 1: of attention, so as to become most intensely and most
• 2:58:38
  Speaker 1: vividly aware of the facts concerning that object. As Hamilton
• 2:58:42
  Speaker 1: has said in the above quoted statement, the fewer objects
• 2:58:46
  Speaker 1: we consider at once, the clearer and more distinct will
• 2:58:48
  Speaker 1: be our knowledge of them. Psychologists usually divide the activities
• 2:58:53
  Speaker 1: of attention into two general classes, viz. One involuntary attention
• 2:58:59
  Speaker 1: and two voluntary attention. Involuntary attention is that form of
• 2:59:04
  Speaker 1: attention which you give to the passing objects which arouse
• 2:59:07
  Speaker 1: your interest or curiosity, or even by your passing notice.
• 2:59:11
  Speaker 1: Your attention is attracted easily to such objects or events
• 2:59:15
  Speaker 1: without any effort on your part. This form of attention
• 2:59:19
  Speaker 1: is an almost automatic, instinctive or purely reflex action, arising
• 2:59:24
  Speaker 1: from the stimulation of the senses or appeal to the feelings.
• 2:59:28
  Speaker 1: No effort of the will is required in such cases.
• 2:59:31
  Speaker 1: In fact, it often requires a distinct effort of the
• 2:59:34
  Speaker 1: will to direct the attention away from such distracting sensations
• 2:59:37
  Speaker 1: or feelings. Young children, even infants, and the lower animals,
• 2:59:42
  Speaker 1: manifest involuntary attention to a marked degree. In fact, it
• 2:59:46
  Speaker 1: is held that very young children are incapable of any
• 2:59:49
  Speaker 1: other form of attention. Uncultured persons manifest but very little attention.
• 2:59:54
  Speaker 1: Other than this, many persons who have failed to cultivate
• 2:59:58
  Speaker 1: voluntary attention properly get but slightly beyond the stage of
• 3:00:01
  Speaker 1: involuntary attention. At any time, they may habitually manifest such
• 3:00:06
  Speaker 1: reflex conscious action. Almost any passing stimulus will take their
• 3:00:10
  Speaker 1: attention away from their work or tasks. Involuntary attention is
• 3:00:14
  Speaker 1: awakened chiefly by one or more of the following general causes.
• 3:00:18
  Speaker 1: One present enjoyment or pleasurable sensation, the attentive process continuing
• 3:00:23
  Speaker 1: merely so long as the sensation affords pleasure. The same
• 3:00:26
  Speaker 1: rule applies to pain and painful sensations. To curiosity or
• 3:00:31
  Speaker 1: curious interest, the attentive process continuing merely so long as
• 3:00:36
  Speaker 1: the curiosity remains unsatisfied. Free novelty or unexplained objects or events,
• 3:00:42
  Speaker 1: the attentive process continuing merely so long is there explanation
• 3:00:47
  Speaker 1: is lacking, or until the novelty passes away. For sudden
• 3:00:51
  Speaker 1: impressions upon the senses, such as sudden and startling movements, sights,
• 3:00:56
  Speaker 1: or sounds, the attentive process continuing merely so long is
• 3:00:59
  Speaker 1: the sudden and startling quality of the sensation persists. Five
• 3:01:04
  Speaker 1: intensity of sensation, such as that arising from a flash
• 3:01:07
  Speaker 1: of lightning, an explosion, loud speaking or cries, or any
• 3:01:11
  Speaker 1: similar intensely exciting object or event reported by sensation. The
• 3:01:16
  Speaker 1: distinguishing characteristic of involuntary attention of any in all forms
• 3:01:20
  Speaker 1: is this. It is called forth by the influence on
• 3:01:23
  Speaker 1: the mind directly exerted by an external object or event itself.
• 3:01:27
  Speaker 1: It is not directed by conscious will. Its activity is
• 3:01:30
  Speaker 1: practically automatic, instinctive, or reflex and not voluntary or deliberate.
• 3:01:36
  Speaker 1: Voluntary attention is that form of attention which you give
• 3:01:39
  Speaker 1: to objects or subjects selected or determined by your reason,
• 3:01:43
  Speaker 1: and which is directed by an act of your will,
• 3:01:45
  Speaker 1: accompanied by more or less sense of mental effort. It
• 3:01:48
  Speaker 1: is always consciously directed to some object or subject of
• 3:01:51
  Speaker 1: your own selection, and is always manifested with at least
• 3:01:55
  Speaker 1: a slight degree of the peculiar sense of conscious effort
• 3:01:58
  Speaker 1: which distinguishes all will activities. This characteristic sense of conscious
• 3:02:03
  Speaker 1: voluntary direction and effort is the test between the activities
• 3:02:06
  Speaker 1: of voluntary attention and involuntary attention. It is always present
• 3:02:10
  Speaker 1: in the former and always lacking in the latter. By
• 3:02:13
  Speaker 1: many of the best psychologists, voluntary attention is regarded as
• 3:02:17
  Speaker 1: one of the most important and one of the most
• 3:02:20
  Speaker 1: characteristic activities of the will. Voluntary attention is one of
• 3:02:24
  Speaker 1: the leading characteristics of individuals manifesting marked wal power, men
• 3:02:28
  Speaker 1: of culture and practical mental development, students who succeed successful
• 3:02:33
  Speaker 1: men of affairs, inventors, discoverers. In short of men and
• 3:02:37
  Speaker 1: women who are mental masters instead of mental slaves. It
• 3:02:41
  Speaker 1: is a mark of experience, reasoning power, and will power.
• 3:02:45
  Speaker 1: It distinguishes the individuals of deliberation, of determination of purposive resolution.
• 3:02:52
  Speaker 1: To develop it in children is one of the first,
• 3:02:54
  Speaker 1: and often the most difficult of the tasks of the teacher.
• 3:02:58
  Speaker 1: It may be stated as a general principle or rule
• 3:03:01
  Speaker 1: that every individual who has accomplished anything worth while in
• 3:03:04
  Speaker 1: any field of voluntary endeavor has done so largely by
• 3:03:08
  Speaker 1: his or her developed and trained powers of voluntary attention.
• 3:03:12
  Speaker 1: It may be stated with equal certainty that no individual
• 3:03:16
  Speaker 1: lacking in development of the power of voluntary attention ever
• 3:03:19
  Speaker 1: has accomplished anything worth white in the field of voluntary endeavor,
• 3:03:23
  Speaker 1: so long as such lack persists. The distinguishing characteristic of
• 3:03:27
  Speaker 1: voluntary attention, of any and of all forms is this.
• 3:03:31
  Speaker 1: It is called forth not by the direct influence upon
• 3:03:34
  Speaker 1: the mind exerted by an external object or event itself,
• 3:03:37
  Speaker 1: but instead by the influence exerted upon the mind by
• 3:03:41
  Speaker 1: reason of the perceived relation existing between the observed subject, object,
• 3:03:45
  Speaker 1: or event and something else, which in and of itself
• 3:03:48
  Speaker 1: attracts the thought, feeling, and will by reason of its
• 3:03:51
  Speaker 1: own qualities. There must always be an attraction calling forth attention.
• 3:03:56
  Speaker 1: It is true, but an involuntary attention. The attraction is direct,
• 3:04:00
  Speaker 1: while in voluntary attention it is indirect. Involuntary attention acts
• 3:04:05
  Speaker 1: in direct response to a simple feeling, while voluntary attention
• 3:04:09
  Speaker 1: acts because of a purpose or determination to do, to know,
• 3:04:13
  Speaker 1: or to attain something. Involuntary attention is elementary and instinctive.
• 3:04:18
  Speaker 1: Voluntary attention is derivative and complex, and is an acquired faculty.
• 3:04:23
  Speaker 1: The former moves to satisfy a simple feeling. The latter
• 3:04:27
  Speaker 1: moves to accomplish a purpose based upon the satisfaction of
• 3:04:30
  Speaker 1: a higher, deeper, and more complex feeling. The former is
• 3:04:34
  Speaker 1: superficial and transient. The latter is more fundamental and stable.
• 3:04:39
  Speaker 1: From this point, our consideration of attention shall be confined
• 3:04:42
  Speaker 1: to voluntary attention, for that is the phase and form
• 3:04:45
  Speaker 1: of attention which you must develop, cultivate, and train in
• 3:04:48
  Speaker 1: order to attain to that phase of personal power which
• 3:04:51
  Speaker 1: is the subject matter of this book, i e. Perceptive power,
• 3:04:56
  Speaker 1: voluntary attention, and sensation. In our previous can consideration of
• 3:05:00
  Speaker 1: the subject of sensation, we have called your attention to
• 3:05:03
  Speaker 1: the fact that you are conscious merely of a very
• 3:05:06
  Speaker 1: few of the many reports of sensation which reach you
• 3:05:08
  Speaker 1: over the channels of your senses, and that such reports
• 3:05:11
  Speaker 1: fail to reach the plane of your conscious recognition. As
• 3:05:15
  Speaker 1: all of these reports are more or less calculated to
• 3:05:17
  Speaker 1: arouse your involuntary attention, why is it that some of
• 3:05:20
  Speaker 1: them succeed while others fail. The answer to the last
• 3:05:24
  Speaker 1: question is that, in many cases, the more familiar sensations
• 3:05:28
  Speaker 1: fail to register because of their lack of novelty, their
• 3:05:31
  Speaker 1: lack of appeal to curiosity, or from similar failure to
• 3:05:34
  Speaker 1: satisfy the demands of your involuntary attention, which we have
• 3:05:37
  Speaker 1: previously classified. But there is another reason, namely, that your
• 3:05:42
  Speaker 1: voluntary attention tends to shut out and inhibit to a
• 3:05:45
  Speaker 1: great extent those sensations which are not in harmony and
• 3:05:48
  Speaker 1: agreement with certain thoughts, feelings, or purposes which your mind
• 3:05:52
  Speaker 1: is set upon, and tends to give welcome admission to
• 3:05:55
  Speaker 1: those which possess the requisite quality of harmony and agreement.
• 3:05:59
  Speaker 1: May not be fully conscious of this work of selection,
• 3:06:02
  Speaker 1: but your voluntary attention is aware of it and is
• 3:06:05
  Speaker 1: performing it all the time. There is a constant struggle
• 3:06:09
  Speaker 1: for existence in your consciousness, manifested by the sensations flowing
• 3:06:13
  Speaker 1: in through the various channels of the senses. The law
• 3:06:17
  Speaker 1: of the survival of the fittest decides the struggle. But
• 3:06:20
  Speaker 1: the fittest are always those to which the greatest degree
• 3:06:23
  Speaker 1: of voluntary attention is given by you. If your power
• 3:06:27
  Speaker 1: of voluntary attention is developed and trained by practice and habit,
• 3:06:31
  Speaker 1: it will shut out from consciousness those inflowing sensations which
• 3:06:35
  Speaker 1: are not in accord with what is on your mind,
• 3:06:37
  Speaker 1: while admitting and welcoming those which are in accord with it.
• 3:06:41
  Speaker 1: It is an axiom of psychology that if attention is
• 3:06:44
  Speaker 1: centered upon one of several classes of sensations, that selected
• 3:06:48
  Speaker 1: class will at once assume greatly increased strength and intensity,
• 3:06:51
  Speaker 1: while those opposed to it will lose power and intensity.
• 3:06:55
  Speaker 1: This is particularly true when the attention happens to be
• 3:06:58
  Speaker 1: voluntary attention. The moral is obvious. It has well been
• 3:07:03
  Speaker 1: said that persons of weak powers of voluntary attention are
• 3:07:06
  Speaker 1: practically at the mercy of their sensations, that they belong
• 3:07:10
  Speaker 1: less to themselves than to any subject or object which
• 3:07:13
  Speaker 1: happens to attract their involuntary attention. It being remembered that
• 3:07:17
  Speaker 1: the intensity of a sensation depends largely upon the degree
• 3:07:20
  Speaker 1: of attention bestowed upon it. You should choose well the
• 3:07:23
  Speaker 1: many candidates for attention which throng the corridors of sensation
• 3:07:27
  Speaker 1: seeking admission through your door of perception. You doubtless have
• 3:07:31
  Speaker 1: had many personal experiences in which your attention was so
• 3:07:34
  Speaker 1: strongly attracted and held by certain objects or ideas that
• 3:07:38
  Speaker 1: you became almost totally oblivious to all else that was
• 3:07:40
  Speaker 1: going on around you. One in a brown study or
• 3:07:44
  Speaker 1: indulging in a day dream often has this experience. An
• 3:07:49
  Speaker 1: ardent lover frequently becomes oblivious of everything else and everybody
• 3:07:52
  Speaker 1: else in the world, except oneself and the loved one.
• 3:07:55
  Speaker 1: You remember the old line about only one world and
• 3:07:58
  Speaker 1: only two persons in it, do you not? Science ignores
• 3:08:02
  Speaker 1: the indwelling romance and sees in this phenomenon merely another
• 3:08:06
  Speaker 1: case of concentrated attention and inhibition of subordinate sensations. How
• 3:08:12
  Speaker 1: often have you become so engrossed in your newspaper or
• 3:08:15
  Speaker 1: in your thoughts that you have been carried past your
• 3:08:17
  Speaker 1: railroad station or other destination. The same explanation applies to
• 3:08:22
  Speaker 1: such cases. A celebrated French writer, intensely occupied with his work,
• 3:08:27
  Speaker 1: was totally oblivious of the terrible happenings of the massacre
• 3:08:30
  Speaker 1: of Saint Bartholomew, although the center of the carnage was
• 3:08:33
  Speaker 1: directly beneath his windows. A noted German philosopher was so
• 3:08:38
  Speaker 1: deeply buried in his studies that he did not hear
• 3:08:40
  Speaker 1: the great guns of the bombardment of his college town,
• 3:08:43
  Speaker 1: and after the surrender of the town, he was surprised
• 3:08:46
  Speaker 1: when the soldiers of Napoleon broke into his room searching
• 3:08:48
  Speaker 1: for escaped prisoners. Socrates once became so thoroughly engrossed in
• 3:08:53
  Speaker 1: philosophical thought when he was in the army that he
• 3:08:56
  Speaker 1: stood stock still and allowed the entire army to pass
• 3:08:59
  Speaker 1: on without being aware of anything unusual. It was only
• 3:09:03
  Speaker 1: when hours later he solved the perplexing problem that he
• 3:09:07
  Speaker 1: discovered that the army was many miles away from where
• 3:09:09
  Speaker 1: he had been standing. He was forced to march half
• 3:09:12
  Speaker 1: the night to overtake his company. Many instances are recorded
• 3:09:16
  Speaker 1: in which persons have been severely wounded, but who, by
• 3:09:19
  Speaker 1: reason of their intense mental concentration upon something else, have
• 3:09:22
  Speaker 1: not perceived their pain for some time afterward. Public speakers
• 3:09:26
  Speaker 1: suffering great physical pain have temporarily inhibited the perception of
• 3:09:30
  Speaker 1: it by concentrating their attention upon their addresses. Noted writers
• 3:09:35
  Speaker 1: suffering from excruciating neuralgia have been known to inhibit continuance
• 3:09:39
  Speaker 1: of the pain by concentrating upon their work. Many persons
• 3:09:43
  Speaker 1: have inhibited the pain of minor surgical operations or of
• 3:09:46
  Speaker 1: wounds by intently thinking about something else. There is every
• 3:09:51
  Speaker 1: difference between the painful sensation upon which the mind is
• 3:09:54
  Speaker 1: kept and a similar one ware the mind is kept
• 3:09:57
  Speaker 1: off it. As all physicians know. It is related of
• 3:10:01
  Speaker 1: Henry Clay that he once became so intensely engrossed in
• 3:10:04
  Speaker 1: the delivery of one of his great speeches in Congress
• 3:10:07
  Speaker 1: that he failed to perceive the repeated prickings of a
• 3:10:09
  Speaker 1: large pin vigorously applied by a fellow congressman. This latter
• 3:10:13
  Speaker 1: performance resulting from a previous request from Clay that he
• 3:10:16
  Speaker 1: be halted in his speech after a certain time had elapsed.
• 3:10:20
  Speaker 1: The pin wounds repeatedly drew blood from his leg, but
• 3:10:23
  Speaker 1: Clay never felt the sensation. Some have held that the
• 3:10:27
  Speaker 1: stoical endurance of the American Indian and the spiritual endurance
• 3:10:31
  Speaker 1: of the martyrs arose from the same general cause. In
• 3:10:34
  Speaker 1: the one case, the dominant idea of traditional courage and
• 3:10:37
  Speaker 1: endurance occupied the attention. In the other case, the exaltation
• 3:10:41
  Speaker 1: of faith was the inhibiting factor. The same psychological principle
• 3:10:45
  Speaker 1: was involved in each case, voluntary attention In observation, thought,
• 3:10:50
  Speaker 1: and memory, voluntary attention is an indispensable factor of intelligent
• 3:10:55
  Speaker 1: observation and thought. What we actually perceive and observe concerning
• 3:11:00
  Speaker 1: any subject or object depends almost entirely upon the degree
• 3:11:04
  Speaker 1: of voluntary attention that we bestow upon it. The great
• 3:11:08
  Speaker 1: difference between the man of great powers of observation and
• 3:11:11
  Speaker 1: reflection and the ordinary man is that the former attentively
• 3:11:14
  Speaker 1: observes the facts concerning matters which he is investigating, and
• 3:11:18
  Speaker 1: perceives resemblances and differences between them, which later form the
• 3:11:21
  Speaker 1: basis of his reasoning on the subject. Some have asserted
• 3:11:25
  Speaker 1: that the principal difference between the efficient man and the
• 3:11:28
  Speaker 1: inefficient one ties in the greater capacity of the former
• 3:11:31
  Speaker 1: for close, continuous, concentrated voluntary attention. Some indeed have asserted
• 3:11:38
  Speaker 1: that in a capacity for concentrated voluntary attention is to
• 3:11:41
  Speaker 1: be found the secret of genius. Newton was fond of
• 3:11:44
  Speaker 1: asserting that the sole difference between himself and ordinary men
• 3:11:48
  Speaker 1: consisted of his greater power of concentrated voluntary attention. It
• 3:11:52
  Speaker 1: is an axiom of memory culture that memory depends primarily
• 3:11:56
  Speaker 1: upon the degree of attention given to the original impression
• 3:11:59
  Speaker 1: and to its reps petitions in the process of its recollection.
• 3:12:03
  Speaker 1: As might be expected from the foregoing, it has been
• 3:12:06
  Speaker 1: found that one of the most marked characteristics of a
• 3:12:08
  Speaker 1: weak mind is that of a lack of ability to
• 3:12:10
  Speaker 1: concentrate the voluntary attention upon a subject or object for
• 3:12:14
  Speaker 1: any marked length of time or with any marked degree
• 3:12:17
  Speaker 1: of intensity. Medical science informs us that imbeciles and idiots
• 3:12:22
  Speaker 1: are practically destitute of the power of concentrated voluntary attention,
• 3:12:26
  Speaker 1: and that in certain forms of mental disorders, one of
• 3:12:28
  Speaker 1: the most characteristic symptoms is that of steadily weakening voluntary attention.
• 3:12:33
  Speaker 1: In old age, when the mind begins to weaken and fail,
• 3:12:36
  Speaker 1: it will be noticed that the aged person is able
• 3:12:39
  Speaker 1: to remember quite well the events of his early years,
• 3:12:42
  Speaker 1: but that he is unable to concentrate sufficient attention upon
• 3:12:45
  Speaker 1: present happenings to fix them in his memory. In illness,
• 3:12:49
  Speaker 1: the power of voluntary attention often is temporarily weakened the following.
• 3:12:54
  Speaker 1: Several quotations from eminent psychologists may prove of interest in
• 3:12:58
  Speaker 1: this connection. Hamilton says attention constitutes the better half of
• 3:13:03
  Speaker 1: all intellectual power. Brodie says it is attention, more than
• 3:13:08
  Speaker 1: any difference in the abstract power of reasoning, which constitutes
• 3:13:11
  Speaker 1: the vast difference which exists between minds of different individuals.
• 3:13:16
  Speaker 1: Butler says, the most important intellectual habit that I know
• 3:13:19
  Speaker 1: of is the habit of attending exclusively to the matter
• 3:13:22
  Speaker 1: in hand. It is commonly said that genius cannot be
• 3:13:26
  Speaker 1: infused by education. Yet this power of concentrated attention, which
• 3:13:30
  Speaker 1: belongs as a part of His gift to every great discoverer,
• 3:13:33
  Speaker 1: is unquestionably capable of almost indefinite augmentation by resolute practice.
• 3:13:39
  Speaker 1: The laws of voluntary attention. The following are the most
• 3:13:43
  Speaker 1: general and important laws of voluntary attention. One, the value
• 3:13:48
  Speaker 1: of interest. Attention attaches itself more easily to interesting subjects
• 3:13:53
  Speaker 1: or objects. It rebels against attachment to uninteresting subjects or objects.
• 3:13:59
  Speaker 1: The greater the degree of interest that exists or can
• 3:14:02
  Speaker 1: be created in a subject or object to which it
• 3:14:05
  Speaker 1: is desired that attention shall attach itself, the greater the
• 3:14:08
  Speaker 1: ease with which attention is directed towards such and the
• 3:14:11
  Speaker 1: greater the ease in holding it there. But where interest
• 3:14:15
  Speaker 1: is originally lacking in the subject or object of attention,
• 3:14:18
  Speaker 1: it may be created by associating these with other subjects
• 3:14:21
  Speaker 1: or objects in which interest abides, or else by examining
• 3:14:25
  Speaker 1: the original subject or object for possible points of interest,
• 3:14:29
  Speaker 1: the latter usually being discovered in the course of the examination,
• 3:14:32
  Speaker 1: or else being awakened by the latter two variety of stimulus.
• 3:14:38
  Speaker 1: Attention tends to decline and weaken if the original stimulus
• 3:14:41
  Speaker 1: remains unvaried and becomes monotonous. Novelty in an object or
• 3:14:46
  Speaker 1: subject tends to awaken interest and thus to give intensity
• 3:14:50
  Speaker 1: to attention. When the novelty vanishes, interest wanes and attention
• 3:14:54
  Speaker 1: loses its stimulus. The remedy is found in so conducting
• 3:14:58
  Speaker 1: the observation as grot gradually to unfold new attributes in
• 3:15:01
  Speaker 1: the subject or object, or else by changing the viewpoint
• 3:15:05
  Speaker 1: so as to present the subject or object from a
• 3:15:08
  Speaker 1: new angle of interest. The discovery of new attributes, properties, qualities,
• 3:15:13
  Speaker 1: or associations in objects or subjects under consideration will usually
• 3:15:17
  Speaker 1: awaken new interest, and as a consequence renewed attention. Such
• 3:15:22
  Speaker 1: process of awakening new interest at the same time tends
• 3:15:26
  Speaker 1: to vary the stimulus and to add variety to the
• 3:15:29
  Speaker 1: mental task. Free physical strain. When attention is directed constantly
• 3:15:35
  Speaker 1: toward a certain object or subject for too long a
• 3:15:38
  Speaker 1: period of time, the nervous system, including the brain cells,
• 3:15:42
  Speaker 1: become wearied and their efficiency becomes temporarily impaired. The remedy
• 3:15:47
  Speaker 1: for this is found in the method of dividing the
• 3:15:49
  Speaker 1: subject or object into mental sections or classes, each class
• 3:15:53
  Speaker 1: or section being observed, examined, or considered separately, the attention
• 3:15:57
  Speaker 1: then being directed to the next section or class, and
• 3:16:00
  Speaker 1: signs of weariness manifest themselves. By breaking up the process
• 3:16:05
  Speaker 1: in this way, you obtain not only the relief from
• 3:16:07
  Speaker 1: the physical strain, but also add new interest, varying stimulus,
• 3:16:12
  Speaker 1: and a better impression upon the memory. Four. Resting attention.
• 3:16:17
  Speaker 1: When voluntary attention becomes wearied from too constant application to
• 3:16:21
  Speaker 1: a certain task, it should be rested, but it is
• 3:16:25
  Speaker 1: not necessary to give it the rest of an entire
• 3:16:28
  Speaker 1: absence of attention to any object or subject, as in sleep, drowsiness,
• 3:16:33
  Speaker 1: or similar states, though of course a normal amount of
• 3:16:36
  Speaker 1: sleep is necessary for health and efficiency. The voluntary attention,
• 3:16:41
  Speaker 1: or rather your powers of voluntary attention, may be effectively
• 3:16:44
  Speaker 1: rested by several methods. The two most important are the
• 3:16:47
  Speaker 1: following one by directing the voluntary attention into entirely different channels,
• 3:16:53
  Speaker 1: or two by withdrawing the voluntary effort and allowing involuntary
• 3:16:57
  Speaker 1: attention to occupy the field for a time. The reason
• 3:17:01
  Speaker 1: for each of these methods is given in the following paragraphs. A.
• 3:17:06
  Speaker 1: By directing the voluntary attention into different channels, you bring variety,
• 3:17:10
  Speaker 1: new interest, and a new stimulus into play. The mental
• 3:17:13
  Speaker 1: spirit of attention is invigorated and re energized, and your
• 3:17:17
  Speaker 1: physical nervous system and brain cells are rested by reason
• 3:17:20
  Speaker 1: of the change of the direction of the attention. Many
• 3:17:23
  Speaker 1: busy men rest themselves by changing their mental tasks from
• 3:17:26
  Speaker 1: time to time. Under this method, by thinking of something else.
• 3:17:31
  Speaker 1: B By allowing involuntary attention to exert itself for the time,
• 3:17:35
  Speaker 1: such as by looking out of the window, light reading,
• 3:17:38
  Speaker 1: taking a walk, playing an out of door game, attending
• 3:17:41
  Speaker 1: a play or movie picture. You obtain rest under this
• 3:17:44
  Speaker 1: second method, this also being true if you indulge in
• 3:17:47
  Speaker 1: a reverie or day dream, allowing imagination full sway for
• 3:17:51
  Speaker 1: the time being. Some of the brightest thinkers have rested
• 3:17:55
  Speaker 1: themselves after periods of intense application of voluntary attention, by
• 3:17:59
  Speaker 1: reading light stories or detective tales, by playing simple games
• 3:18:03
  Speaker 1: or romping with the children, or by similar forms of diversion.
• 3:18:07
  Speaker 1: Perceptive Power The Art of Observation by William Walker Atkinson,
• 3:18:13
  Speaker 1: nineteen twenty two. Mental Concentration. You have heard much of
• 3:18:18
  Speaker 1: the value and importance of mental concentration. You have, in
• 3:18:22
  Speaker 1: a general way, realized that it plays an important part
• 3:18:25
  Speaker 1: in all perceptive and reasoning processes. You doubtless have felt
• 3:18:30
  Speaker 1: at times that you lack the power of mental concentration,
• 3:18:33
  Speaker 1: or at least that it would be well if your
• 3:18:35
  Speaker 1: powers of this kind were more highly developed. You have felt, strongly,
• 3:18:40
  Speaker 1: particularly when your mind has manifested a decided tendency to
• 3:18:44
  Speaker 1: wander away from the subject or object, under consideration, that
• 3:18:47
  Speaker 1: a greater degree of mental concentration on your part would
• 3:18:50
  Speaker 1: be very desirable. But in all probability, you have never
• 3:18:55
  Speaker 1: stopped to consider just what this power really is. We
• 3:18:58
  Speaker 1: trust that when you have finished the reading and study
• 3:19:01
  Speaker 1: of this part of our book, you will have a
• 3:19:02
  Speaker 1: clearer and more definite idea of the nature and meaning
• 3:19:05
  Speaker 1: of mental concentration, and a better understanding of the methods
• 3:19:08
  Speaker 1: whereby it may be developed and employed. The term concentration,
• 3:19:13
  Speaker 1: in its general sense, means the act or process of bringing, coming, approaching,
• 3:19:19
  Speaker 1: or directing toward a common point or center, or of
• 3:19:22
  Speaker 1: bringing to or meeting in one point. Mental concentration, then,
• 3:19:27
  Speaker 1: is bringing and holding the mind to one point, of
• 3:19:30
  Speaker 1: focusing its powers upon a central point. As the average
• 3:19:34
  Speaker 1: person would express it, it is keeping one's mind on
• 3:19:37
  Speaker 1: the subject. The ancient Oriental philosophers called it keeping the mind.
• 3:19:41
  Speaker 1: One pointed. Mental concentration, however, is not a special faculty
• 3:19:47
  Speaker 1: or power of the mind. It is simply a high
• 3:19:50
  Speaker 1: degree of voluntary attention. It is voluntary attention manifested in
• 3:19:55
  Speaker 1: a positive manner, in a quite definite direction, and with
• 3:19:58
  Speaker 1: a clearly defined purpose. Indeed, in all forms, phases, or
• 3:20:03
  Speaker 1: degrees of attention, there is a certain manifestation of mental concentration,
• 3:20:07
  Speaker 1: the holding of the mind. One pointed. Even in involuntary attention,
• 3:20:12
  Speaker 1: there is some degree of focused attention, and that shutting
• 3:20:15
  Speaker 1: out of other sensations and perceptions. For example, the child
• 3:20:19
  Speaker 1: gazing with fascination upon the passing procession, upon the organ
• 3:20:23
  Speaker 1: grinder and his monkey, or upon the window of the
• 3:20:25
  Speaker 1: toy store or candy shop. In voluntary attention, there is
• 3:20:30
  Speaker 1: a still greater degree of mental concentration, a greater contraction
• 3:20:34
  Speaker 1: of the field of consciousness, and a greater limitation of
• 3:20:37
  Speaker 1: the scope of observation. In the popular conception, the idea
• 3:20:41
  Speaker 1: of mental concentration is usually associated with the process of
• 3:20:45
  Speaker 1: holding the mind rigidly and immovably fixed upon some one point.
• 3:20:50
  Speaker 1: This conception is erroneous. Such a process would soon result
• 3:20:54
  Speaker 1: in a state of self hypnosis, and hypnosis would then
• 3:20:57
  Speaker 1: be the achievement of the highest degree of mental concentration.
• 3:21:01
  Speaker 1: Such process would have as its end and aim the
• 3:21:04
  Speaker 1: thinking of nothing, for the attention so held would speedily
• 3:21:07
  Speaker 1: develop a state of dim consciousness, soon passing into semi
• 3:21:10
  Speaker 1: consciousness and finally into unconsciousness. Mental concentration, in the true sense,
• 3:21:17
  Speaker 1: is not this process of thinking of nothing, but rather
• 3:21:20
  Speaker 1: that of intensive thinking of some one subject or object
• 3:21:23
  Speaker 1: in its various phases, accompanied by an inhibition or shutting
• 3:21:27
  Speaker 1: out of other impressions and other thoughts. Mental concentration consists
• 3:21:32
  Speaker 1: of the three following elements. Viz. One, the application of
• 3:21:36
  Speaker 1: earnest voluntary attention upon one particular subject or object. Two
• 3:21:40
  Speaker 1: the application of perception, observation, apperception, and thought upon that
• 3:21:45
  Speaker 1: subject or object, with the determined and definite purpose of
• 3:21:48
  Speaker 1: extracting from it all possible information concerning its qualities and relations.
• 3:21:52
  Speaker 1: Three the restriction and limitation of the field of attention
• 3:21:56
  Speaker 1: by means of a determined inhibition or shutting out of
• 3:22:00
  Speaker 1: other sensations, perceptions, and thoughts. This third element, usually ignored
• 3:22:06
  Speaker 1: in popular thought on the subject of mental concentration, is
• 3:22:10
  Speaker 1: really the characteristic and most essential element involved in the process.
• 3:22:15
  Speaker 1: Mental concentration calls into action the power of the will.
• 3:22:18
  Speaker 1: For that matter, voluntary attention, as its name indicates, is
• 3:22:22
  Speaker 1: distinctly an act of will. Mental concentration, as we have said,
• 3:22:27
  Speaker 1: is merely an intensive form of voluntary attention. It is
• 3:22:31
  Speaker 1: voluntary attention, only a little more so. In ordinary voluntary attention,
• 3:22:36
  Speaker 1: the will act so as to direct and hold the
• 3:22:38
  Speaker 1: attention upon a particular subject or object. In mental concentration,
• 3:22:43
  Speaker 1: theo will manifest itself, especially in the coordinate action of
• 3:22:46
  Speaker 1: keeping out of the field of consciousness other impressions, perceptions,
• 3:22:50
  Speaker 1: and thoughts. In this dual action there is obtained one
• 3:22:54
  Speaker 1: keeping in mind the selected subject or object, and two
• 3:22:59
  Speaker 1: keeping out of the mind and all other subjects or objects.
• 3:23:03
  Speaker 1: Mental concentration imposes a continuity of attention to the same subject.
• 3:23:08
  Speaker 1: But this continuity of attention is by no means fully
• 3:23:12
  Speaker 1: insured by the mere act of keeping in mind the
• 3:23:14
  Speaker 1: selected subject or objective thought. It requires also that keeping
• 3:23:19
  Speaker 1: out of the mind all disturbing or distracting influences. If
• 3:23:23
  Speaker 1: the will relaxes its hold upon the attention, then the
• 3:23:26
  Speaker 1: latter is quite likely to be attracted to and carried
• 3:23:28
  Speaker 1: away by some of the countless thoughts, ideas, or notions
• 3:23:32
  Speaker 1: which constitute the stream of thought, and which are brought
• 3:23:35
  Speaker 1: into consciousness by means of the law of association. In
• 3:23:39
  Speaker 1: order to secure efficient mental concentration, the will must be
• 3:23:42
  Speaker 1: trained to prevent the attention from being seduced, allured, enticed, decoyed, inveigled,
• 3:23:48
  Speaker 1: and led astray by attractive passing thoughts. Gordy brings out
• 3:23:53
  Speaker 1: this idea very clearly in the following passage. As you
• 3:23:56
  Speaker 1: use your will to give your attention to geometry, although
• 3:23:59
  Speaker 1: it attracts you life less than a number of other subjects.
• 3:24:01
  Speaker 1: So if you really study it, you will use your
• 3:24:03
  Speaker 1: will to prevent your mind from being dragged away from
• 3:24:06
  Speaker 1: it by the interests that are constantly importuning you. He
• 3:24:09
  Speaker 1: who possesses this power in a high degree possesses in
• 3:24:12
  Speaker 1: a high degree the power of voluntary attention to give
• 3:24:16
  Speaker 1: steadiness to the mind, to prevent it from going capriciously
• 3:24:19
  Speaker 1: here and there under the influence of the interests that
• 3:24:21
  Speaker 1: happen to be present at the particular moment. The secret
• 3:24:25
  Speaker 1: of mental concentration, then is seen to consist of the
• 3:24:28
  Speaker 1: manifestation of its essential characteristic, the added characteristic superimposed upon
• 3:24:33
  Speaker 1: those of ordinary voluntary attention, namely that of keeping out,
• 3:24:38
  Speaker 1: shutting out, or inhibiting the influence of distracting, disturbing, and
• 3:24:42
  Speaker 1: diverting outside thought or other ideas. Voluntary attention, once directed
• 3:24:48
  Speaker 1: and held by the will upon a certain object or subject,
• 3:24:51
  Speaker 1: will readily permit the efficient activity of perception, apperception and thought,
• 3:24:56
  Speaker 1: provided that by mental concentration, the other or outside at
• 3:24:59
  Speaker 1: tra actions are shut out and kept out of consciousness.
• 3:25:04
  Speaker 1: We ask you to consider carefully and to fix in
• 3:25:07
  Speaker 1: your mind this fact of the importance of the shutting
• 3:25:10
  Speaker 1: out and keeping out process. If you will acquire the
• 3:25:14
  Speaker 1: knack of this keeping out and shutting out process, you
• 3:25:17
  Speaker 1: will have mastered the art and science of mental concentration,
• 3:25:21
  Speaker 1: for voluntary attention will do the rest for you. A
• 3:25:25
  Speaker 1: writer on the subject of practical psychology has aptly compared
• 3:25:28
  Speaker 1: this shutting out process to the act of placing blinkers
• 3:25:32
  Speaker 1: on a horse. The blinkers prevent the horse from seeing
• 3:25:36
  Speaker 1: things which are likely to disturb, distract, or divert his
• 3:25:39
  Speaker 1: attention from his business of life. They shut out and
• 3:25:43
  Speaker 1: keep out the sensations and perceptions of other and outside things.
• 3:25:48
  Speaker 1: They narrow his field of attention and therefore limit and
• 3:25:51
  Speaker 1: concentrate his area of present consciousness. They render him practically
• 3:25:56
  Speaker 1: blind to distracting, diverting, and disturbing sights. Hence, they are
• 3:26:00
  Speaker 1: sometimes called blinders, and are defined as leather screens on
• 3:26:04
  Speaker 1: the bridle, serving to hinder a horse from seeing objects
• 3:26:07
  Speaker 1: at the side. If you wish to develop your power
• 3:26:10
  Speaker 1: of mental concentration, he should acquire the knack of applying
• 3:26:13
  Speaker 1: these mental blinkers or blinders, and should habituate yourself to
• 3:26:17
  Speaker 1: their employment at times in which concentrated thought is desirable.
• 3:26:21
  Speaker 1: Mental concentration is a valuable instrument of efficient perception, observation,
• 3:26:26
  Speaker 1: and thought. Its value arises from the fact expressed in
• 3:26:30
  Speaker 1: that axiom of psychology which states that the fewer the
• 3:26:33
  Speaker 1: objects observed at one time, the greater is the intensity
• 3:26:37
  Speaker 1: of the concentrated voluntary attention employed in the observation. It
• 3:26:41
  Speaker 1: greatly magnifies the powers of the perceptive and reflective faculties
• 3:26:45
  Speaker 1: of the mind. Because it diminishes the area of the
• 3:26:48
  Speaker 1: field of attention. It gives a steadiness to the mind
• 3:26:52
  Speaker 1: and bestows a wonderfully increased power of accomplishment upon the
• 3:26:55
  Speaker 1: faculties involved in the mental processes. In one way, mental
• 3:26:59
  Speaker 1: concentration may be compared to the microscope, which makes mentally
• 3:27:03
  Speaker 1: visible the minute details of the observed object. In another way,
• 3:27:07
  Speaker 1: it may be compared to the telescope, which brings the
• 3:27:10
  Speaker 1: observed object nearer to the eye of the mind. The
• 3:27:13
  Speaker 1: best way of beginning to develop mental concentration is that
• 3:27:16
  Speaker 1: of acquiring the habit of thinking of or doing but
• 3:27:20
  Speaker 1: one thing at a time. Such habit, in itself is
• 3:27:24
  Speaker 1: valuable and tends directly toward efficiency and economy of thought.
• 3:27:28
  Speaker 1: The opposite habit results in squandering time and energy. Many
• 3:27:32
  Speaker 1: prominent men have testified to the value of attending to
• 3:27:35
  Speaker 1: but one thing at a time, giving to it the
• 3:27:37
  Speaker 1: undivided attention for the time being, than withdrawing that attention
• 3:27:41
  Speaker 1: completely and focusing it upon the next thing to be
• 3:27:43
  Speaker 1: observed or considered. Lies says it is necessary in mental
• 3:27:48
  Speaker 1: concentration that one single impression at a time shall be
• 3:27:51
  Speaker 1: imprinted on the sensorium, and that the elements of the
• 3:27:54
  Speaker 1: sensorium themselves shall be in a kind of silence and
• 3:27:56
  Speaker 1: receptive calm. K says it is a us one is
• 3:28:00
  Speaker 1: able to shut out every other object from the mind,
• 3:28:03
  Speaker 1: every idea, even that of self, that he attains the
• 3:28:06
  Speaker 1: highest degree of mental power. If we would possess the
• 3:28:10
  Speaker 1: power of concentrated attention to a high degree, we must
• 3:28:13
  Speaker 1: cultivate the habit of attending to what is directly before
• 3:28:16
  Speaker 1: the mind to the exclusion of all else. All distracting
• 3:28:20
  Speaker 1: thoughts and feelings that tend to withdraw the mind from
• 3:28:23
  Speaker 1: what is immediately before it are therefore to be avoided.
• 3:28:26
  Speaker 1: This habit of attending to but one thing at a
• 3:28:29
  Speaker 1: time has also another valuable feature, i e. That of
• 3:28:33
  Speaker 1: enabling you to put out of your mind, to shut
• 3:28:36
  Speaker 1: out and keep out of mind the subject or object
• 3:28:39
  Speaker 1: which you previously have been considering, but which you have
• 3:28:41
  Speaker 1: now laid aside for the time being. By means of
• 3:28:45
  Speaker 1: this habit, you are enabled to put that subject or
• 3:28:47
  Speaker 1: object into its appropriate compartment of the mind, to shut
• 3:28:51
  Speaker 1: that compartment, and to keep it closed until you once
• 3:28:53
  Speaker 1: more wish to examine its contents. With all the other
• 3:28:57
  Speaker 1: mental compartments closed, you will be able to examine, consider,
• 3:29:01
  Speaker 1: and decide upon the contents of the particular one which
• 3:29:04
  Speaker 1: you have now before you. This ability to put aside
• 3:29:07
  Speaker 1: subjects and objects of thought when one is through with
• 3:29:10
  Speaker 1: his present consideration of them, this shutting the particular compartment
• 3:29:14
  Speaker 1: of the mind containing them, is one of the marked
• 3:29:16
  Speaker 1: powers of men and women who have attained prominence in
• 3:29:19
  Speaker 1: the various fields of human endeavor. Many prominent persons, analyzing
• 3:29:24
  Speaker 1: the causes of their success in efficient perception, observation, thought,
• 3:29:28
  Speaker 1: and action, have attributed it largely to this power, which
• 3:29:31
  Speaker 1: they have acquired by practice and through habit. To be
• 3:29:34
  Speaker 1: able to take your mind off a thing when you
• 3:29:37
  Speaker 1: are through with it is quite as important as to
• 3:29:39
  Speaker 1: be able to put your mind on a thing when
• 3:29:42
  Speaker 1: you wish to observe or consider it. We advise you
• 3:29:45
  Speaker 1: to acquire, by practice and exercise, the faculty and habit
• 3:29:49
  Speaker 1: of attending to but one thing at a time, and
• 3:29:52
  Speaker 1: that of passing from that thing to another when you
• 3:29:54
  Speaker 1: wish to do so, with ease and facility, but never
• 3:29:58
  Speaker 1: carrying the loose end of thought of war one thing
• 3:30:00
  Speaker 1: over into the thought of the next thing. Napoleon, that
• 3:30:04
  Speaker 1: great master of mental concentration, frequently said that his mind
• 3:30:07
  Speaker 1: was like a great chest of many drawers. When he
• 3:30:10
  Speaker 1: wished to consider the contents of any particular drawer, he
• 3:30:13
  Speaker 1: pulled it out. When he was through considering these, he
• 3:30:16
  Speaker 1: closed the drawer, and then kept it closed until he
• 3:30:19
  Speaker 1: wished to open it once more for a definite purpose.
• 3:30:22
  Speaker 1: He was careful not to mix the contents of the
• 3:30:24
  Speaker 1: respective drawers, and he never had two drawers opened at
• 3:30:28
  Speaker 1: the same time. The senior J. Pierpont Morgan is said
• 3:30:32
  Speaker 1: to have developed by training a similarly efficient mind. When
• 3:30:35
  Speaker 1: he was considering a subject, he regarded it with absolute
• 3:30:38
  Speaker 1: mental concentration. When the consideration was concluded, he dismissed it
• 3:30:42
  Speaker 1: completely from his field of conscious attention and turned to
• 3:30:45
  Speaker 1: some other subject. Granville said, a frequent cause of failure
• 3:30:50
  Speaker 1: in the faculty of concentrated attention is that of striving
• 3:30:53
  Speaker 1: to think of more than one thing at a time.
• 3:30:55
  Speaker 1: Beattie says, while employed on any one subject, our thoughts
• 3:30:59
  Speaker 1: should not wander to another. This rule holds good of
• 3:31:03
  Speaker 1: our rest, play or recreation, as well as of our work.
• 3:31:07
  Speaker 1: When we go to the fields of exercise, we should
• 3:31:10
  Speaker 1: leave all our speculations behind. Otherwise we will fatigue the bodying,
• 3:31:14
  Speaker 1: distract the mind, and will confirm ourselves in those habits
• 3:31:17
  Speaker 1: of an attention, which, when persisted in, constitute what is
• 3:31:20
  Speaker 1: called an absent minded person. What at first may seem
• 3:31:24
  Speaker 1: an exception to the rule of mental concentration is found
• 3:31:27
  Speaker 1: in the fact that often one finds himself better able
• 3:31:30
  Speaker 1: to concentrate upon a subject or object, and his attention
• 3:31:33
  Speaker 1: is faintly stirred by something else, by something of but
• 3:31:36
  Speaker 1: slight interest, such as, for instance, a dull sermon, a
• 3:31:40
  Speaker 1: piece of light music, or the voices of persons engaged
• 3:31:43
  Speaker 1: in idle or light conversation. This apparent exception, however, when
• 3:31:49
  Speaker 1: rightly understood, is really a verification of the rule, rather
• 3:31:52
  Speaker 1: than an exception to it. It is explained by the
• 3:31:55
  Speaker 1: well known fact that a slight stimulus often serves to
• 3:31:58
  Speaker 1: attract feebly and hold lightly the idol involuntary attention to
• 3:32:02
  Speaker 1: keep it busy, thus preventing it from being attracted by
• 3:32:05
  Speaker 1: stronger and more active sensory or representative stimuli which would
• 3:32:09
  Speaker 1: tend to distract, divert and disturb the voluntary attention from
• 3:32:13
  Speaker 1: its definite task. We once heard a lady explain this
• 3:32:16
  Speaker 1: process as follows. It is like giving the baby an
• 3:32:19
  Speaker 1: empty spool to play with in order to keep it
• 3:32:22
  Speaker 1: out of mischief. This furnishes the explanation of the familiar
• 3:32:26
  Speaker 1: phenomenon of a person whittling a stick or drawing figures
• 3:32:29
  Speaker 1: on a sheet of paper in order better to think
• 3:32:32
  Speaker 1: about thing under consideration. It also gives the reason for
• 3:32:36
  Speaker 1: the fact that many a time, while listening to a
• 3:32:39
  Speaker 1: dull sermon, uninteresting lecture, or tiresome play, one is able
• 3:32:43
  Speaker 1: to think out certain problems or questions which have previously
• 3:32:46
  Speaker 1: been too much for him. Thus, the dull preacher or
• 3:32:50
  Speaker 1: his brother in other fields of public work often is
• 3:32:53
  Speaker 1: a blessing in disguise, though few such would appreciate. A
• 3:32:56
  Speaker 1: testimonial to this effect. In the early stages of our
• 3:33:01
  Speaker 1: present consideration of this particular subject. We directed your attention
• 3:33:05
  Speaker 1: to the fact that mental concentration is not a state
• 3:33:07
  Speaker 1: of thinking about nothing, but rather is one of intense
• 3:33:10
  Speaker 1: thinking about something. That something, however, does not consist of
• 3:33:15
  Speaker 1: some one indivisible point of thought or perception. If it
• 3:33:19
  Speaker 1: were this, then the conscious attention would soon flag, and
• 3:33:22
  Speaker 1: a state of lessen consciousness such as drowsiness or even
• 3:33:25
  Speaker 1: sleep would intervene. Continued focused attention upon an indivisible point,
• 3:33:30
  Speaker 1: or upon any other abstract thing, would result in at
• 3:33:33
  Speaker 1: least some degree of self hypnosis, unless sleep asserted itself.
• 3:33:38
  Speaker 1: The one thing must be a concrete thing, i e.
• 3:33:41
  Speaker 1: An actual thing made up of parts, elements, factors. Haslett
• 3:33:46
  Speaker 1: says concentration does not, as popularly supposed, mean keeping the
• 3:33:51
  Speaker 1: mind fastened on one object or idea or in one place.
• 3:33:55
  Speaker 1: It consists in having a problem or purpose constantly before one.
• 3:34:00
  Speaker 1: It means keeping our thought moving toward one desired end.
• 3:34:04
  Speaker 1: Mental concentration is not like a stagnant pool of water.
• 3:34:08
  Speaker 1: It is not motionless. It is in constant and continuous motion,
• 3:34:12
  Speaker 1: intense motion. It is like an active swift whirlpool, abiding
• 3:34:17
  Speaker 1: in one place or point in an extream of thought.
• 3:34:20
  Speaker 1: Its worlds draw to it all that it needs from
• 3:34:22
  Speaker 1: the mental waters around it. It moves, is always moving,
• 3:34:26
  Speaker 1: yet it moves not from its own place. This leads
• 3:34:30
  Speaker 1: us to a reference to the laws of attention set
• 3:34:32
  Speaker 1: forth in the preceding section of this book, for in
• 3:34:35
  Speaker 1: the understanding application of those principles is to be found
• 3:34:38
  Speaker 1: the effective working method of mental concentration. These laws of attention,
• 3:34:43
  Speaker 1: stated briefly, are as follows. One the law of interest,
• 3:34:48
  Speaker 1: whereby the presence of a lively interest is a necessary
• 3:34:51
  Speaker 1: factor of the manifestation of attention. Two the law of
• 3:34:54
  Speaker 1: variety of stimulus, whereby the element of novelty is a
• 3:34:58
  Speaker 1: necessary factor in the manif infestation of the continuation of attention.
• 3:35:02
  Speaker 1: Free the law of physical strain, whereby the element of
• 3:35:06
  Speaker 1: breaking up the object or subject of attention is necessary
• 3:35:09
  Speaker 1: in order to avoid the exhaustion of the nervous mechanism
• 3:35:13
  Speaker 1: employed in attention. For the law of rest, whereby the
• 3:35:17
  Speaker 1: element of variation in the direction of the attention is
• 3:35:20
  Speaker 1: necessary in order to comply with the requisites of the
• 3:35:22
  Speaker 1: respective laws of interest, variety of stimulus, and physical strain.
• 3:35:28
  Speaker 1: Reference to the detailed statement of the laws of attention
• 3:35:31
  Speaker 1: appearing in the concluding pages of the previous section of
• 3:35:34
  Speaker 1: this book is advised at this stage of your study
• 3:35:36
  Speaker 1: of the present phase of voluntary attention, the phase of
• 3:35:39
  Speaker 1: mental concentration. Now, then in your practice of mental concentration,
• 3:35:45
  Speaker 1: you will find it practically impossible to observe these laws
• 3:35:48
  Speaker 1: of attention if you attempt to concentrate continuously upon an
• 3:35:51
  Speaker 1: abstract idea, i e. Upon the idea of a subject
• 3:35:55
  Speaker 1: or object lacking concreteness, divisibility, and analysis into parts, elements,
• 3:36:00
  Speaker 1: and factors. For this reason, such attempted continued concentration of
• 3:36:04
  Speaker 1: attention results in less and conscious or even in sleep,
• 3:36:08
  Speaker 1: self hypnosis, or unconsciousness of some kind. But when your
• 3:36:13
  Speaker 1: subject or object is concrete and therefore capable of analysis
• 3:36:17
  Speaker 1: into parts, elements, or factors, then you will find it
• 3:36:20
  Speaker 1: possible and comparatively easy to observe these laws of attention,
• 3:36:24
  Speaker 1: and therefore to apply efficiently the principle of mental concentration.
• 3:36:29
  Speaker 1: The best way to proceed to apply these laws and
• 3:36:32
  Speaker 1: principles is to divide your subject or object under consideration
• 3:36:36
  Speaker 1: into its several parts, elements, and factors, than to proceed
• 3:36:39
  Speaker 1: to consider each of these constituent groups in regular logical
• 3:36:43
  Speaker 1: order passing from one to another. When weariness, lessened activity,
• 3:36:47
  Speaker 1: and decreased power of concentration manifest themselves. In this way,
• 3:36:52
  Speaker 1: and in this way alone, is it possible for you
• 3:36:55
  Speaker 1: to maintain continuous interest, variety of stimulus, avoidance of physical strain,
• 3:37:00
  Speaker 1: and to obtain rest for the attention. The variety of
• 3:37:03
  Speaker 1: stimulus provides a continuous interest, avoids physical strain, and provides
• 3:37:08
  Speaker 1: rest for the attention. Here also we ask you to
• 3:37:12
  Speaker 1: refer to that section of this book entitled Observation and Experiment,
• 3:37:16
  Speaker 1: and to note the rules of observation therein presented. Note
• 3:37:21
  Speaker 1: especially the reference to the whole and the parts, combined observation,
• 3:37:26
  Speaker 1: visualized observations, naming observations, and the general rule. These rules
• 3:37:32
  Speaker 1: of observation should be observed by you in your practice
• 3:37:35
  Speaker 1: of mental concentration. The rule of the whole and the
• 3:37:39
  Speaker 1: parts points out the course to be pursued in your
• 3:37:41
  Speaker 1: mental concentration. If you would observe the laws of attention,
• 3:37:45
  Speaker 1: and observe them you must. If you wish to attain
• 3:37:47
  Speaker 1: efficient mental concentration, you should concentrate first on the more
• 3:37:52
  Speaker 1: general aspect of the subject or object under consideration. The
• 3:37:56
  Speaker 1: thing as a whole. But this whole must be a
• 3:37:59
  Speaker 1: real whole, made up of parts, elements, and factors, and
• 3:38:03
  Speaker 1: not merely an abstract whole thought of as existing in
• 3:38:06
  Speaker 1: of and by itself. For instance, if you wish to
• 3:38:10
  Speaker 1: concentrate upon the subject house, you must concentrate upon an
• 3:38:14
  Speaker 1: actual house or real house, either one in existence, one
• 3:38:18
  Speaker 1: which has been in existence, or one which is possible
• 3:38:21
  Speaker 1: of being in existence, made up of all the constituent
• 3:38:24
  Speaker 1: parts of a house, not of the abstract idea of house.
• 3:38:28
  Speaker 1: It must be a house, and not merely house, the
• 3:38:31
  Speaker 1: latter being a mere word, name, or term, and not
• 3:38:35
  Speaker 1: a representation of a real or possible thing. Read over
• 3:38:39
  Speaker 1: this statement until you get it, until you catch the idea.
• 3:38:43
  Speaker 1: Abstract things have no real existence outside of abstract thought.
• 3:38:47
  Speaker 1: Only concrete things actually exist or can so exist. Abstract ideas,
• 3:38:53
  Speaker 1: in the words of the popular humorist, are all right,
• 3:38:56
  Speaker 1: but they don't mean anything from your concentrated can consideration
• 3:39:00
  Speaker 1: of the whole of your subject or object, then proceed
• 3:39:03
  Speaker 1: to concentrate upon the leading parts, elements, or factors of
• 3:39:06
  Speaker 1: that whole. Exhausting this or feeling fatigue or loss of interest,
• 3:39:12
  Speaker 1: then proceed to a minor or subordinate class of parts,
• 3:39:15
  Speaker 1: elements or factors, and so on and on and on,
• 3:39:19
  Speaker 1: until finally you have given concentrated attention to all the parts, elements,
• 3:39:23
  Speaker 1: and factors of that whole. This may take more than
• 3:39:26
  Speaker 1: one sitting. In most cases it will require many such
• 3:39:31
  Speaker 1: Keep at it, however, until you have sucked the jews
• 3:39:34
  Speaker 1: from the orange or extracted the meat from the egg.
• 3:39:38
  Speaker 1: Let your ideal end and purpose be to exhaust the
• 3:39:40
  Speaker 1: subject or object of all possible information concerning all of
• 3:39:44
  Speaker 1: its qualities and relations. Let your method be to work
• 3:39:48
  Speaker 1: from the whole to its parts, from general to particulars.
• 3:39:52
  Speaker 1: Pursue the investigation along the lines of analysis, i e.
• 3:39:56
  Speaker 1: That of analyzing, dissecting, separating, taking a part, resolving, and
• 3:40:01
  Speaker 1: refining the subject or object into its constituent composing correlated parts,
• 3:40:06
  Speaker 1: elements and factors, and into the disclosure of its relations
• 3:40:09
  Speaker 1: and associations. The nearer you come to this, the closer
• 3:40:14
  Speaker 1: will you be to the attainment of your ideal end
• 3:40:16
  Speaker 1: and purpose, aim and intention. You will be helped in
• 3:40:19
  Speaker 1: your task if you will hold before you the concrete, actual,
• 3:40:23
  Speaker 1: illustrative example of the pupil of agacy, of whom we
• 3:40:26
  Speaker 1: have told you. Finally, never overlook the all important fact
• 3:40:30
  Speaker 1: that interest is the arouser and maintainer of attention, and
• 3:40:34
  Speaker 1: its corollary interest may be aroused, increased, and maintained by attention.
• 3:40:39
  Speaker 1: The endless chain of efficient observation and perception is composed
• 3:40:43
  Speaker 1: of these links interest, attention, interest, attention, interest, attention, interest, attention, interest,
• 3:40:47
  Speaker 1: and so on, ad infinitum. Interest always precedes attention, and
• 3:40:52
  Speaker 1: attention always precedes interest. Like the familiar argument in the
• 3:40:57
  Speaker 1: old time debating societies, in which the question which comes
• 3:41:01
  Speaker 1: first the chicken or the egg is never answered, so
• 3:41:04
  Speaker 1: is it impossible to say which comes first interest or attention?
• 3:41:09
  Speaker 1: It is like the old song we're here because we're here,
• 3:41:12
  Speaker 1: because we're here because et cetera. There is no beginning
• 3:41:16
  Speaker 1: and no ending. The endless chain is endless because it
• 3:41:20
  Speaker 1: has no ends, i e. Because it is like a
• 3:41:23
  Speaker 1: ring or circle, having no point of beginning or ending.
• 3:41:27
  Speaker 1: And now, once more, let us remind you that you
• 3:41:29
  Speaker 1: are the creator of your world of experience. You create
• 3:41:33
  Speaker 1: it with that instrument which you call your mind. Create
• 3:41:37
  Speaker 1: it well, the best that is within You should be
• 3:41:39
  Speaker 1: devoted to the task. Build it strong, build it wide,
• 3:41:43
  Speaker 1: Build it high. Be not content with the narrow expanse
• 3:41:47
  Speaker 1: of the world of experience of the average man. Build
• 3:41:50
  Speaker 1: it wide, and then continue to widen and expand it
• 3:41:53
  Speaker 1: so long as you live. Be not content with the
• 3:41:56
  Speaker 1: lowlands of knowledge and with the limited view to which
• 3:41:59
  Speaker 1: you are restricted by life on the lower plains of perception.
• 3:42:03
  Speaker 1: Insist upon ascending the amount of achievement around which wins
• 3:42:06
  Speaker 1: the path of knowledge. At each turn of the spiral road,
• 3:42:10
  Speaker 1: you will obtain a fuller and wider view of the
• 3:42:12
  Speaker 1: surrounding country, a more comprehensive vision, a truer perspective, by
• 3:42:17
  Speaker 1: means of which you may more intelligently and more justly
• 3:42:20
  Speaker 1: estimate the comparative proportions and value of the things on
• 3:42:23
  Speaker 1: the plains or plains below. So build your world of
• 3:42:28
  Speaker 1: experience that when it is completed, you may be able
• 3:42:31
  Speaker 1: to gaze upon it and say, it is a good
• 3:42:33
  Speaker 1: and well built world. I have done my best. The
• 3:42:37
  Speaker 1: best that I have found within me is represented in it.
• 3:42:41
  Speaker 1: In conclusion, let us remind you that in the development
• 3:42:44
  Speaker 1: and cultivation of perceptive power, as in every other task
• 3:42:47
  Speaker 1: set by human desire and executed by human will, you
• 3:42:50
  Speaker 1: will proceed more satisfactorily if you will bear in mind
• 3:42:53
  Speaker 1: and act upon the principle of the master formula of attainment,
• 3:42:56
  Speaker 1: which forms an important element of the instruction contained in
• 3:42:59
  Speaker 1: a Personal Power books, of which the present volume is one.
• 3:43:04
  Speaker 1: The master formula of attainment is as follows. One definite ideals,
• 3:43:09
  Speaker 1: two insistent desire, three confident expectation for persistent determination, five
• 3:43:16
  Speaker 1: balanced compensation. Reduced to popular terms, it is as follows,
• 3:43:21
  Speaker 1: you may have anything you want, provided that you one
• 3:43:25
  Speaker 1: know exactly what you want, two want it hard enough,
• 3:43:28
  Speaker 1: three confidently expect to obtain it for persistently determined to
• 3:43:32
  Speaker 1: obtain it, and five are willing to pay the price
• 3:43:35
  Speaker 1: of its attainment. The cultivation and development of perceptive power
• 3:43:40
  Speaker 1: also meets the requirements of the touchstone of positivity, which
• 3:43:43
  Speaker 1: is frequently referred to in the several books forming this series.
• 3:43:47
  Speaker 1: The touchstone of positivity is the following test question applied
• 3:43:51
  Speaker 1: to any in every undertaking contemplated by you, will this
• 3:43:54
  Speaker 1: make me stronger, better, and more efficient? That well developed
• 3:43:59
  Speaker 1: and cultivated perceptive power will tend to make you stronger,
• 3:44:02
  Speaker 1: better and more efficient. Is self evident that you will
• 3:44:06
  Speaker 1: be able to develop and cultivate perceptive power is assured
• 3:44:10
  Speaker 1: provided that you know exactly what you want, want it
• 3:44:13
  Speaker 1: hard enough, confidently expect to attain it, persistently determine to
• 3:44:17
  Speaker 1: obtain it, and are willing to pay the price of
• 3:44:19
  Speaker 1: its attainment.