The Pelman System of Mind and Memory Training - Lessons I to XII. Anon

to make full use of such qualities is sometimes intense. What is the source of the difficulty? It lies in the fault of turning the mind’s attention inwards. He is morbidly affected by what other people think of him, and shows extreme sensitiveness to an adverse opinion—or even the possibility of one. When he enters a room full of people he does not think of them but of himself: he believes they are all looking at him and probably criticising him. This has an inevitable result in awkwardness of movement, blunders in speech, and other social crudities—he being all the while conscious of his failures. It is the same in business. To have to appear at a Board Meeting and answer questions is an agony instead of being a fine opportunity; to see a less endowed man forging ahead arouses anger instead of compelling action.

       Avoid Introspection.

      13. The remedy is to give attention to other people and other things instead of focusing it on his own feelings and thoughts. This transfer of attention from the inward to the outward is best accomplished by having a definite aim in life. It is almost impossible to pursue ardently a business policy without losing practically all this absurd self-consciousness, even though it be inherited from one’s progenitors. A passionate desire to achieve something that is worth while soon diverts the attention from the self to the not-self; and instead of a man standing outside a Board Room with a beating heart and trembling knees, we have a man who is rather looking forward to the occasion as a chance of furthering his life’s work and bringing the goal a little nearer.

      In addressing a public meeting, the self-conscious person is at his very worst; sometimes, indeed, he finds it impossible to utter a single word. With all eyes on him, his realisation of self becomes a positive torture. And yet we have known self-conscious people who have delivered thrilling speeches, the reason being that they were supremely anxious to advocate the claims of a particular mission that was very close to their hearts; and this desire completely overcame the habit of thinking of self; they forgot everything in the passion of the moment, and self was lost in the glow and fervour of speaking for a great cause.

      It is the same principle as that we have been referring to all along. Mental gifts come to the fore, and mental hindrances are thrust into the rear, directly we have discovered the secret of human energy, and that secret is to have definite aims, purposes, objects, ideals, ambitions—call them what you will.

IX. CAUSES OF LACK OF ENERGY.

      14. Why do some men lack energy? Mainly because they live aimless lives. They do what they must, and possibly most of them do it satisfactorily; but all the while they drift; they seldom pull themselves up to ask, “What am I aiming at?” As a consequence, two-thirds of their mental powers are going to waste. Take an illustration. We received a letter recently from a correspondent who said:

      “I want your advice. The head of my department is rather doubtful sometimes about his English, and he asks me what is right or wrong. He also asks me about points in the business, and I tell him. Now my contention is that if he is not equal to his job, and I am, I ought to be in it. What do you say?”

      We had to point out that not knowing all the circumstances of the case, we could not pronounce an authoritative opinion; but on the face of it, the head of the Department was an astute person who was picking the brains of a subordinate to his own advantage. Our correspondent was probably more competent in details than the other man was; but the other man had force, and our correspondent had little or none. He seemed to think the management would make him head of a department without any thinking, feeling or striving on his part. That is not the way things happen.

X. THE RELATION OF KNOWLEDGE TO ENERGY.

      15. We have met scores of men with adequate knowledge, but lacking in energy, and it is very remarkable to find how little some men know—men, too, in most commanding positions. Take the case of Charles Stuart Parnell. He was regarded by his followers as a sort of human deity; they looked upon his words as law from which there could be no appeal. And how did he view his followers? “In politics as in war,” he averred, “there are no men, only weapons . . . . while I am leader, they are my tools, or they go.” Here, then, is a man of striking and commanding personality; and yet he was so ignorant of literature that he thought he had made a mistake when he called Shakespeare a poet! There are hundreds of men in the country with greater knowledge, more accurate scholarship, keener conscience and higher ideals than those who conduct the affairs of the State, but it is action that counts. And behind action is energy, force, motive power—give it what name you please, so long as you see its importance as a factor in personal development. We do not, of course, undervalue the need of knowledge; we are simply stating the fact that it is not so important as we have been led to assume. Knowledge of the details of one’s own business is naturally a primary matter: ignorance of other things is apparently no drawback at all, except as it detracts from self-culture. Even so, we should be inclined to bracket energy and knowledge thus:—

      giving energy the first place. We can remember one instance at least where a man knew more about the science and art of provision dealing than any other man of his age, but he did not make a success of his knowledge—the power of initiative was lacking—also the ability to act in a crisis.

XI. THE TESTIMONY OF PSYCHOLOGISTS TO PELMAN PRINCIPLES.

      16. It may be interesting to produce some endorsements of the claims made by the Pelman Institute in this lesson by professors and teachers of psychology.

      EMOTION GOVERNS THE WORLD.

      “Whatever feeling is, it is of vast importance in our mental life. Thoughtful people get too much in the habit of thinking that intellect is everything. Yet the world is governed not by thought, but by emotion.”

       F. Ryland, M.A., in

      The Story of Thought and Feeling, p. 147.

      FEELING BEFORE INTELLECT.

      “Daily experience shows that the affections, the propensities, the passions are the great springs of human life; and that, so far from resulting from intelligence, their spontaneous and independent impulse is indispensable to the first awakening and continuous development of the various faculties.”Auguste Comte, in

      Positive Philosophy, Vol. I., p. 463.

      THE NEED OF EMULATION.

      “The Emulative impulse tends to assert itself in an ever widening sphere of social life, encroaching more and more upon the sphere of combative impulse and supplanting it more and more as a prime mover of both individuals and societies.”Prof. McDougall, in

      Social Psychology, p. 294.

      DESIRE—WITH EXCLUSIVENESS.

      “In almost any subject your passion for the subject will save you. If you only care enough for a result, you will almost certainly attain it. If you wish to be rich, you will be rich; if you wish to be learned, you will be learned; if you wish to be good, you will be good. Only, you must, then, really wish these things, and wish them with exclusiveness, and not wish at the same time a hundred other incompatible things just as strongly.”Prof. Wm. James, in

      Talks on Psychology, p. 137.

      IMPULSE AS A BASIC POWER.

      “All intellectual and voluntary processes are elicited by the system of some impulse, emotion, or sentiment, and sub-ordinated to its end.”A. F. Shand, M.A., in

      The Foundations of Character, p. 67.

      THE FEELINGS ARE PRIMARY.

      “Mind is not wholly, or even mainly, Intelligence . . . it consists largely, and in one sense entirely, of Feelings.” Herbert Spencer, in

      Principles