The Part Played By Past Experience
PRESENT THINKING DEPENDS ON PAST EXPERIENCE.--Images or ideas of things
you have seen or heard or felt; of things you have thought of before and
which now recur to you; of things you remember, such as names, dates,
places, events; of things that you do not remember as a part of your
past at all, but that belong to it nevertheless--these are the things
which form a large part of your mental stream, and which give content to
that is to occur in the future; but, after all, you are dependent on
your past experience for the material which you put into your thinking
of the present moment.
Indeed, nothing can enter your present thinking which does not link
itself to something in your past experience. The savage Indian in the
primeval forest never thought about killing a deer with a rifle merely
by pulling a trigger, or of turning a battery of machine guns on his
enemies to annihilate them--none of these things were related to his
past experience; hence he could not think in such terms.
THE PRESENT INTERPRETED BY THE PAST.--Not only can we not think at all
except in terms of our past experience, but even if we could, the
present would be meaningless to us; for the present is interpreted in
the light of the past. The sedate man of affairs who decries athletic
sports, and has never taken part in them, cannot understand the wild
enthusiasm which prevails between rival teams in a hotly contested
event. The fine work of art is to the one who has never experienced the
appeal which comes through beauty, only so much of canvas and variegated
patches of color. Paul says that Jesus was unto the Greeks,
foolishness. He was foolishness to them because nothing in their
experience with their own gods had been enough like the character of
Jesus to enable them to interpret Him.
THE FUTURE ALSO DEPENDS ON THE PAST.--To the mind incapable of using
past experience, the future also would be impossible; for we can look
forward into the future only by placing in its experiences the elements
of which we have already known. The savage who has never seen the
shining yellow metal does not dream of a heaven whose streets are paved
with gold, but rather of a happy hunting ground. If you will analyze
your own dreams of the future you will see in them familiar pictures
perhaps grouped together in new forms, but coming, in their elements,
from your past experience nevertheless. All that would remain to a mind
devoid of a past would be the little bridge of time which we call the
present moment, a series of unconnected nows. Thought would be
impossible, for the mind would have nothing to compare and relate.
Personality would not exist; for personality requires continuity of
experience, else we should be a new person each succeeding moment,
without memory and without plans. Such a mind would be no mind at all.
RANK DETERMINED BY ABILITY TO UTILIZE PAST EXPERIENCE.--So important is
past experience in determining our present thinking and guiding our
future actions, that the place of an individual in the scale of creation
is determined largely by the ability to profit by past experience. The
scientist tells us of many species of animals now extinct, which lost
their lives and suffered their race to die out because when, long ago,
the climate began to change and grow much colder, they were unable to
use the experience of suffering in the last cold season as an incentive
to provide shelter, or move to a warmer climate against the coming of
the next and more rigorous one. Man was able to make the adjustment;
and, providing himself with clothing and shelter and food, he survived,
while myriads of the lower forms perished.
The singed moth again and again dares the flame which tortures it, and
at last gives its life, a sacrifice to its folly; the burned child fears
the fire, and does not the second time seek the experience. So also can
the efficiency of an individual or a nation, as compared with other
individuals or nations, be determined. The inefficient are those who
repeat the same error or useless act over and over, or else fail to
repeat a chance useful act whose repetition might lead to success. They
are unable to learn their lesson and be guided by experience. Their past
does not sufficiently minister to their present, and through it direct
their future.
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Problems In Observation And Introspection
1. What instincts have you noticed developing in children? What ones have you observed to fade away? Can you fix the age in both cases? Apply these questions to your own development as you remember it or can get it by tradition from your elders. ... Problems In Observation And Introspection
1. Are you subject to the blues, or other forms of depressed feeling? Are your moods very changeable, or rather constant? What kind of a disposition do you think you have? How did you come by it; that is, in how far is it due to hereditary temperame... Problems In Observation And Introspection
1. What are the characteristic bodily expressions by which you can recognize a state of anger? Fear? Jealousy? Hatred? Love? Grief? Do you know persons who are inclined to be too expressive emotionally? Who show too little emotional expression? How ... Problems In Observation And Introspection
1. Try making a list of your most important interests in order of their strength. Suppose you had made such a list five years ago, where would it have differed from the present list? Are you ever obliged to perform any activities in which you have l... Problems In Observation And Introspection
1. Give illustrations from your own experience of the various types of action mentioned in this discussion. From your own experience of the last hour, what examples of impulsive action can you give? Would it have been better in some cases had you st... Reasoning
All the mental processes which we have so far described find their culmination and highest utility in reasoning. Not that reasoning comes last in the list of mental activities, and cannot take place until all the others have been completed, for reas... Rules For Habit-forming
JAMES'S THREE MAXIMS FOR HABIT-FORMING.--On the forming of new habits and the leaving off of old ones, I know of no better statement than that of James, based on Bain's chapter on Moral Habits. I quote this statement at some length: In the acquisiti... Rules For Using The Memory
Much careful and fruitful experimentation in the field of memory has taken place in recent years. The scientists are now able to give us certain simple rules which we can employ in using our memories, even if we lack the time or opportunity to follo... Selection Among Our Interests
I said early in the discussion that interest is selective among our activities, picking out those which appear to be of the most value to us. In the same manner there must be a selection among our interests themselves. THE MISTAKE OF FOLLOWING TO... Sensory Qualities And Their End-organs
All are familiar with the five senses of our elementary physiologies, sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. A more complete study of sensation reveals nearly three times this number, however. This is to say that the body is equipped with more tha... Strong And Weak Wills
Many persons will admit that their memory or imagination or power of perception is not good, but few will confess to a weak will. Strength of will is everywhere lauded as a mark of worth and character. How can we tell whether our will is strong or w... Structural Elements Of The Nervous System
It will help in understanding both the structure and the working of the nervous system to keep in mind that it contains but one fundamental unit of structure. This is the neurone. Just as the house is built up by adding brick upon brick, so brain, c... The Concept
Fortunately for our thinking, the great external world, with its millions upon millions of individual objects, is so ordered that these objects can be grouped into comparatively few great classes; and for many purposes we can deal with the class as ... The Control Of Emotions
DEPENDENCE ON EXPRESSION.--Since all emotions rest upon some form of physical or physiological expression primarily, and upon some thought back of this secondarily, it follows that the first step in controlling an emotion is to secure the removal of... The Cultivation Of Imagery
IMAGES DEPEND ON SENSORY STIMULI.--The power of imaging can be cultivated the same as any other ability. In the first place, we may put down as an absolute requisite such an environment of sensory stimuli as will tempt every sense to be awake and ... The Effects Of Attention
ATTENTION MAKES ITS OBJECT CLEAR AND DEFINITE.--Whatever attention centers upon stands out sharp and clear in consciousness. Whether it be a bit of memory, an air-castle, a sensation from an aching tooth, the reasoning on an algebraic formula, a cho... The Extent Of Voluntary Control Over Our Acts
A relatively small proportion of our acts, or responses, are controlled by volition. Nature, in her wise economy, has provided a simpler and easier method than to have all our actions performed or checked with conscious effort. CLASSES OF ACTS OR... The Four Factors Involved In Memory
Nothing is more obvious than that memory cannot return to us what has never been given into its keeping, what has not been retained, or what for any reason cannot be recalled. Further, if the facts given back by memory are not recognized as belongin... The Function Of Images
Binet says that the man who has not every type of imagery almost equally well developed is only the fraction of a man. While this no doubt puts the matter too strongly, yet images do play an important part in our thinking. IMAGES SUPPLY MATERIAL ... The Function Of Perception
NEED OF KNOWING THE MATERIAL WORLD.--It is the business of perception to give us knowledge of our world of material objects and their relations in space and time. The material world which we enter through the gateways of the senses is more marvelous... The Function Of Thinking
All true thinking is for the purpose of discovering relations between the things we think about. Imagine a world in which nothing is related to anything else; in which every object perceived, remembered, or imagined, stands absolutely by itself, ind... The Instinct Of Imitation
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Small use to be a child unless one can play. Says Karl Groos: Perhaps the very existence of youth is due in part to the necessity for play; the animal does not play because he is young, but he is young because he must play. Play is a constant factor... The Material Used By Imagination
What is the material, the mental content, out of which imagination builds its structures? IMAGES THE STUFF OF IMAGINATION.--Nothing can enter the imagination the elements of which have not been in our past experience and then been conserved in th... The Mechanism Of Thinking
It is evident from the foregoing discussion that we may include under the term thinking all sorts of mental processes by which relations are apprehended between different objects of thought. Thus young children think as soon as they begin to underst... The Mind's Dependence On The External World
But can we first see how in a general way the brain and nervous system are primarily related to our thinking? Let us go back to the beginning and consider the babe when it first opens its eyes on the scenes of its new existence. What is in its mind?... The Nature Of Association
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INNER NATURE OF THE MIND NOT REVEALED BY INTROSPECTION.--We are not to be too greatly discouraged if, even by introspection, we cannot discover exactly what the mind is. No one knows what electricity is, though nearly everyone uses it in one form or... The Nature Of Feeling
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Now that you come to think of it, you can recall perfectly well that Columbus discovered America in 1492; that your house is painted white; that it rained a week ago today. But where were these once-known facts, now remembered so easily, while they ... The Nature Of Perception
HOW A PERCEPT IS FORMED.--How, then, do we proceed to the discovery of this world of objects? Let us watch the child and learn the secret from him. Give the babe a ball, and he applies every sense to it to discover its qualities. He stares at it, he... The Nature Of Sensation
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There has been much discussion and not a little controversy as to the true nature of the will. Just what is the will, and what is the content of our mental stream when we are in the act of willing? Is there at such times a new and distinctly differe... The Part Played By Past Experience
PRESENT THINKING DEPENDS ON PAST EXPERIENCE.--Images or ideas of things you have seen or heard or felt; of things you have thought of before and which now recur to you; of things you remember, such as names, dates, places, events; of things that you... The Perception Of Space
Many have been the philosophical controversies over the nature of space and our perception of it. The psychologists have even quarreled concerning whether we possess an innate sense of space, or whether it is a product of experience and training. Fo... The Perception Of Time
The philosophers and psychologists agree little better about our sense of time than they do about our sense of space. Of this much, however, we may be certain, our perception of time is subject to development and training. NATURE OF THE TIME SENS... The Place Of Expression In Development
Nor are we to think that cultivation of expression results in better power of expression alone, or that lack of cultivation results only in decreased power of expression. INTELLECTUAL VALUE OF EXPRESSION.--There is a distinct mental value in expr... The Place Of Habit In The Economy Of Our Lives
Habit is one of nature's methods of economizing time and effort, while at the same time securing greater skill and efficiency. This is easily seen when it is remembered that habit tends towards automatic action; that is, towards action governed by t... The Place Of Imagination In Mental Economy
But such a measure for the imagination as that just stated is far too narrow. A good imagination, like a good memory, is the one which serves its owner best. If DeQuincey and Poe and Stevenson and Bulwer found the type which led them into such dizzy... The Producing And Expressing Of Emotion
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INTERACTION OF MIND AND BRAIN.--How, then, come these two widely different facts, mind and brain, to be so related in our speech? Why are the terms so commonly interchanged?--It is because mind and brain are so vitally related in their processes and... The Stuff Of Memory
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The will is to be trained as we train the other powers of the mind--through the exercise of its normal function. The function of the will is to direct or control in the actual affairs of life. Many well-meaning persons speak of training the will as ... Transitoriness Of Certain Interests
Since our interests are always connected with our activities it follows that many interests will have their birth, grow to full strength, and then fade away as the corresponding instincts which are responsible for the activities pass through these s... Types Of Attention
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I--the conscious self--dwell somewhere in this body, but where? When my finger tips touch the object I wish to examine, I seem to be in them. When the brain grows weary from overstudy, I seem to be in it. When the heart throbs, the breath comes quic...