Self-development

“ But it gives no guidance. Observation can teach us, slowly, what conduct makes for happiness; but what conduct makes for "self-development"? The fact is, the cultivation of any impulse will develop us in its direction and preclude our development in other directions; along which path shall we let ourselves develop? Every choice involves rejection; infinite possibilities diverge before us; which among the myriad impulses that call upon us shall we follow? While still young and plastic, we may develop ourselves into poets or philosophers or lawyers or businessmen. ”

“ Here it is sufficient to call attention to the law of growth, through which the living receive the power of self-development,—of bringing their endowments into act, of building up the being which they are. Whatever living thing is strong or beautiful has been made so by growth, since life begins in darkness and impotence. To grow is to be fresh and joyous. ”

“ On the contrary, we detect it afar as a possibility, are thus put in charge of it, and so become in large degree our own upbuilders. Development is movement toward a mark. In self-development the mark to be reached is in the conscious keeping of him who is to reach it. ”

“ Colleges and universities afford the opportunity for the attainment of a measure of self-knowledge, self-reliance and self-development, which in the home is often apt to come too slowly, and, learned at first hand with the world, is bought frequently at the price of an experience which dwarfs, if it does not altogether destroy, some of the finer fruits of those essential qualities of manhood. ”

“ It is evident that we need some deeper ground of choice. May it not even be better drastically to choke our natures, better to get a new nature than to realize the old? Surely there are perverted natures, which ought not to be developed. In the name of happiness we can decide on development or non-development, as the need may be. But the ideal of "self development" gives us no criterion. ”

“ A second corollary from the foregoing general principle, and one which cannot be too strenuously insisted on, is, that in education the process of self-development should be encouraged to the uttermost. Children should be led to make their own investigations, and to draw their own inferences. They should be told as little as possible, and induced to discover as much as possible. Humanity has progressed solely by self-instruction; and that to achieve the best results, each mind must progress somewhat after the same fashion, is continually proved by the marked success of self-made men. ”

“ But those people who are completely described, you can reach unto, if you want to work over your self-development. Whoever is lower than they are is low. Lift yourselves up, my friends; lift yourselves up! ”

“ This freedom for individual self-development clearly includes a perfect right to form one’s own view of one’s world, and to derive as much amusement as one can from a humorous contemplation of it. It could only be something akin to an awe-struck flunkeyism which would make a {406} person hesitate here. ”

“ He wants it, not for himself, but for other people."
"And so we come back to the eternal question, whether a man benefits humanity more by self-development or self-sacrifice? Does knowledge that is fastened on as an appendage ever do any good? ”

“ In Part One of this book we have attempted to show the benefits which follow upon self-knowledge as to vocation. But this is only one phase, after all, of your life and activity. Obedience to the injunction, "know thyself," will help, also, to solve many of the hard problems you meet in education, social life, religion, morality, and family relations. The man who, through character analysis, has a scientific knowledge of himself, has therein a valuable guide to self-development and self-improvement. He knows which qualities to cultivate and which to restrain. ”

“ Self-development involves a kind of contradiction in terms. How can I build if at present there is no I? Why should I build if at present there is an I? Whichever alternative we take, we fall into what looks like absurdity. ”

“ But if you have a bit of intelligence, just enough to realize that you are a workingman and that, as a workingman, you are a human being; if you are capable of understanding that you have the inherent power of self-development, that the brain you have can be developed so that you can-think clearly for yourself ”

“ It is a thing which you, the self, use and a clear conception of this fact—a feeling that this is the fact—is the first step toward that absolute control of the physical body that lays the foundation for success in conscious evolution. When we feel that in managing the physical body we are controlling something that is not ourself we are fairly started on the right road.
Now, there are three things that a person must possess to be successful in self-development. If he has not these three qualifications he will make but little progress ”

“ Other things come later but these simpler things, to realize the necessity for conscious evolution, to comprehend the method of soul development, to take full control of the mind and the physical body, to resolutely curb the grosser desires and to give free rein to the higher aspirations are the first infant steps in the self-development that leads to illumination. Then we begin to discover that this very desire for greater spiritual power is generating a force that carries us forward and upward. ”

“ Another passage runs:
“The present effort of mankind is an endeavour after freer self-development.... Therefore the more or less clear aim of the individual is to attain to clearness about himself and about life, to comprehension and right use of life, to both insight and accomplishment.... Therefore the educator must understand the earliest activity and encourage the impulse to self-culture, through independent doing, observing and experimenting.”—P., p. ”

“ There exists an immediate impulse however towards self-development, an impulse which may assume the character of devotion, of altruism, without the assistance of any association of ideas and evolution!—In his own theories he endeavors to avoid the difficulties which he charges against the English school (Esquisse d' une morale sans obligation ni sanction, 1885) . The development of life is the goal which nature has set for itself, and ethics in the theory of the ways and means by which the highest and fullest development of life may be realized. ”

“ If we like to make use of the terms self-preservation and self-development, then these may refer either to the subjective impulse which urges man to preserve or develop his life, or to some objective [242] standard for estimating actions according as they actually tend to prolong life or enrich it. Both these possibilities are open to the theory of evolution. Although the subjective impulse is, of course, a property of the individual, it may be the result of the whole course of social development, and thus take in others as well as self in the range of its application. ”

“ Thus thinking constantly of the widened life and added powers it would confer, the desire to move forward in self-development will be greatly stimulated. But the student should always keep it in mind that the real purpose of acquiring new powers is to increase his capacity for service to the race, and that he who falls short of that ideal walks upon dangerous ground. ”

“ It is the way of development. It is the price of progress.
The universe is a training school for evolving intelligence—a vast gymnasium for the development of moral fibre. We become mentally clever by playing at the game of life. We match our courage against its adversities and acquire fearlessness. We try our optimism against its disappointments and learn cheerfulness. We pit our patience against its failures and gain persistence. ”

“ We want robust helpers who have been trained through their personal fondness for the skill and the prowess that they can now show in helping us. So individual self-development belongs of necessity to the people whose faithfulness we are to prize in an emergency. And if people resolve to become effectively faithful in some practical service, their principle of action includes individual self-development.
In the second place, people of the type whom I here have in mind have strong social motives. ”

“ But such people are those who have given so much attention to self-development in past lives that they have now but little more to do in order to come into full possession of occult powers. Sometimes it requires little more than the turning of their attention to the matter. ”

“ To give free play to a child's natural faculties and so lead him into the path of self-development and self-education, demands a high degree of intelligence on the part of the teacher, combined with the constant exercise of thought and initiative within a wide range of free action. ”

“ Not all persons can reach the interior sight by such methods, because all are not possessed of the essential organic attributes, or constitutional bias and tendency. To all such there is a surer, better, safer, and grander road, and that is self-development, by means entirely within the reach of every one, and which are within their will and control ”

“ It is a process of inner growth. There are, it is quite true, cases in which people who have entered upon this method of self-development have, in a short time, attained spiritual illumination, becoming fully conscious of the invisible world and its inhabitants while awake in the physical body; extending the horizon of consciousness to include both worlds, and coming into possession of the higher clairvoyance that enables one to trace past causes and modify impending effects. ”

“ Development lies in the extension of the self-feeling and in the increase of its intensity. But the obstacle lies in the competitive feelings, in that dualism of man's nature that makes him yearn not only for fellowship, but also for superiority. These desires are in eternal opposition, but are not necessarily antagonistic, any more than are the thumb and the little finger as they meet in some task, any more than are excitation and inhibition. Every function in our lives has its check and balance, and fellowship, yearning and superiority urge one another. ”

“ It is only necessary that man should study the child more thoroughly, and learn how to change his interest centres from wrong to right, and how to surround him with an environment suitable to his progressive stages of development, in order to keep his own will in operation along productive lines of self-reformation and self-regulation by creative self-activity. ”

“ The irreducible and final factor in social evolution and in social science is personality; for personality is the determinative factor of a human being.
Progress in personal development consists of increasing extent and accuracy of knowledge, refinement and elevation of emotions, and nobility and reliability of volitions. Progress in personal development requires the individual to pass from objective heterocratic to subjective autocratic or self-regulative ethical life. He must pass from the traditional to the enlightened, from the communal to the individualistic stage in ethics and religion. ”

“ The essential character of our doing is the internal will, which does not, properly speaking, modify things, but does modify us, by bringing out in us a personality which otherwise would not have been. This is the substance of the will, 180 which we cannot deny to thought, if thought is, as I have shown, development, and therefore continuous self-creation of the personality. ”

“ Such need first to know themselves, to know their aptitudes and talents, whether developed or undeveloped. They need to study vocations—to know everything about the kinds of work they might do, from their requirements to their possibilities twenty, thirty, or forty years in the future. Finally, they need the courage, self-confidence, industry, progressiveness, and ambition to throw off the shackles of circumstance and, in the light of scientific truth, to press forward to the achievement, success, fulness of life, and happiness possible through development and use of all their powers. ”

“ All the business activities of the world are developing the will. Through them will and desire work together in evolving latent powers. Desire arouses will power. A man desires wealth and the desire plunges him into business activities and stimulates the will by which he overcomes all the difficulties that lie in his way. Ardent desire for an education arouses the will of the student and the awakened will triumphs over poverty and all other barriers between him and the coveted diploma. ”

“ While, then, we recognise the significance of habit, and the help it may give in the conduct of life, we must repeat that habits are morally valuable only in so far as they contribute to the maintenance of the distinctive individuality of the self.
§5. Some Educational Aspects of the Development of Personality. The great educational maxim is that the individuality of the child should be respected, and should be allowed full scope for development. We all know that the aim of education is not to turn out children all of the same brand, as the factory turns out sewing-machines or type-writers. ”

“ During his fourth or fifth year the child can begin to comprehend the values of these tasks, in self-dependence, service to others, coöperation in the advancement of human life, and that he has the part of a worker to play in the great game of life.
Learning, intellectual study, art, should by all means be forms of self-expression, a development of personality, a source of happiness in their acquirement,—play in a large sense. ”

“ For our present purpose it is useful to classify them as those that centre in the self, and those that centre in others beyond the self. The primitive desires to get food and drink, to mate, and to engage in muscular activity, all look toward the self-satisfaction which comes from their indulgence. There are various acquired interests that likewise centre in the self. The individual goes to college for the social pleasure that he anticipates, for intellectual satisfaction, or to equip himself with a training that will enable him to win success in the competition of business. ”