Warren Hilton

“ If ideas of health and triumphant achievement are brought into consciousness, we at the same time experience a state of energy, a feeling of courage and capability and joy and a stimulation of all the bodily processes. ”

“ The use of the experimental method is new to every department of science. Crude and occasional experiments have marked the advance of physics, physiology and chemistry, but it is only with the recent innovation of the scientific laboratory that these sciences have made their greatest strides.
The employment of this method in dealing with problems of the mind is particularly new. So far as we are aware there is no school in all the world that employs definite and scientific exercises in the discipline and training of its pupils in power of observation, imagination and memory. ”

“ But the mere perception of sense-impressions, though a fundamental part [Pg 6] of our mental life, is by no means the whole of it. The mind is also able to look at these perceptions, to assign them a meaning and to reflect upon them. These operations constitute what are called the Judicial Processes of the Mind.
The Judicial Processes of the Mind are of two kinds, so that, in the last analysis, there are, in addition to sense-perceptions, two, and only two, types of thought.
One of these types of thought is called a Causal Judgment and the other a Classifying Judgment. ”

“ Train your mind deliberately, and day by day, to such constant incorporation of feelings of courage and confidence and assurance into all your thoughts that the associated impulses to bodily activity will inevitably influence your whole life. ”

“ Vitalizing Influence of Certain Ideas One of the greatest discoveries of modern times is the impellent energy of thought.
That every idea in consciousness is energizing and carries with it an impulse to some kind of muscular activity is a comparatively new but well-settled principle of psychology. ”

“ Emotional energy generated on proper lines, and based on the support of a fixed intent, is a force that nothing can withstand, and we tell you that every idea that comes into your mind has its emotional quality, and that by the intelligent direction of your conscious "thinking" you can call into your life or drive out of it these powerful emotional influences for good or evil. ”

“ If there were no mental processes other than sense-perceptions and causal judgments, every man's mind would be [Pg 13] the useless repository of a vast collection of facts, each literally true, but all without arrangement, association or utility. Our notion of what the outside world is like would be very different from what it is. ”

“ An absolute vocabulary of twenty thousand words or over may be graded as excellent; 17,500 to 20,000 words, good; 15,000 to 17,500, fair; and below 15,000, poor.
You should not employ as train-dispatcher a person whose time-reactions indicate a tendency to confuse associated ideas. The associated ideas may be related in time, place or a variety of ways, and the memory of one who has an inherent tendency to substitute an associate for the thing itself is a treacherous instrument. The tendency to confuse associated ideas can be measured by psychological tests. ”

“ By appropriate tests, the quickness of response to sense-impressions, the character of the associations of ideas, the workings of the individual imagination, the nature of the emotional tendencies, the character and scope of the powers of attention and discrimination, the degree of persistence of the individual and his susceptibility to fatigue in certain forms of effort, the visual, auditory and manual skill, and even the moral character of the subject, can be more or less clearly and definitely determined. ”

“ Another method of testing speed of thought is to pronounce a series of words and after each word have the subject speak the first word that comes to him. The answers are taken down and are timed with a stop-watch. About the quickest answers by an alert person will be made in one second, or one and one-fifth seconds, while most persons take from one and three-fifths to two and three-fifths seconds to answer, under the most favorable circumstances. ”

“ And the man or woman that you need in any department of your business is that one whose mind works swiftly in the particular way required for your business.
How rapidly does your mind work? How fast do your thoughts come, compared to the average man in your field of activity? ”

“ Ideas are as essential to progress as a hub to a wheel, for they form the center around which all things revolve. Ideas begin great enterprises, and the workers of all lands do their bidding. Ideas govern the governors, rule the rulers, and manage the managers of all nations and industries. Ideas are the motive power which turns the tireless wheels of toil. ”

“ The quickness of auditory response may be determined either by speech tests or by instrumental tests. In either case the acuteness of hearing of the applicant is measured by the ability to promptly and correctly report sounds at various known ranges, the acuity of the normal ear under precisely similar conditions having been previously determined. Speech involves a great variety of combinations—of pitch, accent, inflection and emphasis. Consequently a scientific speech test involves the preparation of lists of words based upon an analysis of the elements of whispered and spoken utterance. ”

“ Yet nothing could be farther from the truth. Emotion, earnestness, fire, enthusiasm—these [Pg 42] are the very life of effort. They are steam to the engine; they are what the lighted fuse is to the charge of dynamite. They are the elements that give flash to the eye, spring to the step, resoluteness to the languid and certainty to effort. ”

“ It is this emotional energy that makes business passion, that makes men love their business, that brings their hearts into harmony with their undertakings, and that gives them splendid visions of commercial greatness. ”

“ The conclusion as to what did produce any particular sensation is plainly enough a judgment, and since it is a judgment determining the cause of the sensation, it may well be termed a causal judgment.
Causal judgments, taken by themselves, [Pg 11] are necessarily very indefinite. They do not go much beyond deciding that each individual sensation has a cause, and is not the result of chance on the one hand nor of spontaneous brain excitement on the other. Taken by themselves, causal judgments are disconnected and all but meaningless. ”

“ You have before you "sense-perceptions," "causal judgments," "classifying judgments," and "associated emotional qualities" or "feeling tones." Every suggested idea, every act of reasoning is in the last analysis the product of one or more of these elementary forms of mental activity.
We shall now go on to consider the operations of these mental processes in connection with certain mental phenomena.
Principles that Bear on Practical Affairs
Our purpose in all this is not to teach you the elements of psychology as it is ordinarily conceived or taught. ”

“ Poor health, for instance, may hinder even the most fit individual from doing satisfactory work, and extreme industry and energetic will may for a while lead even the unfit to fair achievement, which, to be sure, is likely to be coupled with a dangerous exhaustion. ”

“ When you think of a home, what is the mental picture that rises before you, and why?
Whatever the article, whether it be one of food or luxury or investment, or even of sentiment, you will find that it is tagged with a definite associate—a name, a brand, or a personality characterized by frequency, recency, closeness [Pg 33] or vividness of presentation to your consciousness.
The grouping together of sensations into integral ideas is one step in the complicated mental processes by which useful knowledge is acquired. But the associative processes go much beyond this. ”

“ If you were about to purchase a new tire for your automobile or a few pairs of stockings, what brand would you buy, and why? When you think of a camera or a cake of soap, what particular make comes first to your mind? ”

“ This we do by the processes of memory, of association and of discrimination, previously referred to.
How Language Is Simplified
Through these processes our knowledge of the world, derived from the whole vast field of experience, is unified [Pg 34] and systematized. Through these processes is order realized from chaos. Through these processes it comes about that not only individual thought, but the communication of thought from one person to another, is vastly simplified. Language is enabled to deal with ideas instead of with isolated sense-perceptions. ”

“ Tests for Hiring Telephone Girls
One company alone employs twenty-three thousand operators, and more than one-third of those employed and trained at the company's expense prove unfitted and leave within six months, with a heavy resulting financial loss to the company. The tests are numerous and somewhat complicated and require more time to conduct them than tests in other lines of work, but for these very reasons will be particularly illuminating. ”

“ It perceives some and ignores others. For each perception it selects such associates as you have trained it to select. Have you trained it wisely? Does it associate the new facts of observation with those memory-pictures that will make the new ideas useful and productive of fruitful bodily activities? [Pg 48]
Conscious and Unconscious Training
If not, it is time for you to turn over a new leaf and habitually and persistently direct your attention to those associative elements in each new-learned fact that will make for health and happiness and success. ”

“ Ideas determine the bounds, break the limits, move on the goal, and waken latent capacity to successive sunrises of better days."
Even without our telling you, you know that whenever a man makes up his mind that he is beaten in some fight his very thinking so helps on the fatal outcome. ”

“ If there seems to you to be anything impracticable in the employment of tests in the manner we have indicated, please remember that for many years those seeking employment as railroad [Pg 109] engineers have been required to pass tests for color-blindness, tests just as truly psychological as any that we have here referred to and differing from them only in respect to the character and complexity of the qualities tested. ”

“ The distinction between wise use and misuse lies in whether disintegrating or creative thoughts, with their correspondingly energizing or depressing [Pg 41] emotions or feelings, are allowed to hold sway in consciousness.
Energizing Emotions
When we speak of energizing emotions or feelings we mean love, courage, brightness, earnestness, cheer, enthusiasm. When we speak of depressing emotions or feelings we mean doubt, fear, worry, gloom.
No elements are more essential to a successful business or a successful life than the right kind of emotional elements. ”

“ Employees of railroads, and in some cases those of street railroads, also, are subjected to tests for vision, hearing and color-discrimination. In the case of trainmen the color-discrimination tests result in the rejection of about four per cent of the applicants. The tests are repeated every two years for all the men and at intervals of six months for those suspected of defects in color discrimination. ”

“ They are the elements that distinguish the living, acting forces of achievement from the spiritless forces of failure.
Cross-Roads of Success or Failure
No man ever rose very high who did not possess strong reserves of emotional energy. Napoleon said, "I would rather have the ardor of my soldiers, and they half-trained, than have the best fighting machines in Europe without this element."
Emotional energy of the right kind makes one fearless and undaunted in [Pg 43] the face of any discouragement. It is never at rest. It feeds on its own achievements. ”

“ Reaction-time can be made to furnish a clue to the adaptability of the individual for any business, profession or vocation.
To determine the character, accuracy [Pg 58] and rapidity of the mental reactions of different individuals under different conditions, various scientific methods have been evolved and cunning devices invented.
Mapping the Mentality
There are decisive reaction-time tests by which you may readily map out your own mentality or that of any other person, including, for instance, those who may seek employment under you. ”

“ The moment, then, that we get beyond the first crude sense-perception consciousness consists not of detached sensory images but of "ideas," the complex [Pg 19] product of present sense-perceptions, past sense-perceptions and the mental processes known to psychology as association and discrimination.
How Ideas are Created
Every concrete conception or idea, such as "horse," "rose," "mountain," is made up of a number of associated properties. It has mass, form and various degrees of color, light and shade. ”

“ Moreover, it was found that some at first do poor work, but soon reach a point at which their attention remains on a high level; others begin with a relatively high achievement, but after a short time their attention flags, and the number of crossed-out letters becomes smaller or the number of unnoticed, overlooked letters increases. ”

“ After each list has been pronounced, have the subject write the list from memory. The lists thus made up by the subject from memory are then to be inspected with reference to the following points:
1. Memory errors (omissions and displacements) , concrete lists. [Pg 99]
2. Memory errors (omissions and displacements) , abstract lists.
Every omission counts two errors; every displacement counts two-thirds when the displacement is by one remove only, one and one-third when by more than one move.
3. Insertions. These are words added by the subject. ”