action tends to widen the area of resolution. Thus, so far as our daily actions become ordered according to a plan, they all have a stage of resolution as their antecedent. We habitually look forward to the succession of actions making up the business, etc., of the day, and resolve to perform them in due order as circumstances occur. And the subordination of action to ruling ends implies, as hinted above, a habitual state of resolution, that is preparedness to act in certain ways in certain circumstances." Exercise No. II. Make it a rule of life to learn some new and useful thing every day. Especially go outside of your business for such information. This will test the Will and store the memory. Exercise No. 12. Frequently commit to memory lists of dates, and review often enough to hold in memory. Make groupings of historic dates and commit to memory. Link each group as a group with other groups from time to time. Frequently review. Exercise No. 13. Make lists of objects of public interest in your community, with skeletons of information. concerning them. Commit, and frequently review. Exercise No. 14. Commit and frequently review lists of names, as United States Presidents, English Monarchs, United States Navy Vessels, etc. Exercise No. 15. Determine thoroughly to study some subject which lies outside your business. Keep at it. Remember, growth of mind and Will! Exercise No. 16. Make the following a perpetual régime : 1. Never be content with any partial acquaintance with things. 2. Learn to refer items of knowledge to general principals. 3. Employ all aids suggested by any particular study. 4. Follow some natural or logical order in fixing facts, propositions, etc., in memory. 5. Cultivate attentive observation wherever you are placed. 6. Stand squarely and conscientiously on the side of truth. MEMORY CHARACTERISTICS. "In a very general way," as remarked in "Business Power," a volume in the Power-Book Library, "the mental characteristics in the matter of memory may be indicated by the following analysis: "Mind and memory especially occupied with objectively induced sensations. "Mind and memory especially given to emotions of pleasures and pains. "Mind and memory especially running to mental pictures. "Mind and memory especially good in the matter of dates and figures. ideas. "Mind and memory especially attentive to abstract "Mind and memory especially interested in principles. "Mind and memory especially elaborative of laws. "Mind and memory especially given to details. "Mind and memory especially given to construction of wholes. "Now, all minds and memories of average intelligence possess all the characteristics thus indicated in some degree, but none of us possesses them in any all-round equal degree. The type of mind is determined by the pre - Attention vailing characteristic. Thus also with memories. If your type of memory is shown above, and if you require improvement in some one or more of the particular types portrayed, the method consists in persistent attention and the formation of habits in the desired direction by constant practice and the constant use of associations. You are urged especially to observe that the words: Resolution Persistence Repetition Association Habit, represent the amount and kind of effort demanded. "Take, for example, the memory of details. Are you lacking in ability to recall in that respect? You are urged to resolve on improvement, to attend to all details with all your mind, to persist in such labor, to repeat the attention, to associate the details with recollective 'signs' of any sort that you may invent, to form the habit of doing all this in regard to details. "The trouble with people who forget is in part the fact that they fail to fore-get. In some cases the foregetting is actual, but it is too easy and quick, for one thing, so that a good rule will be found in this remark: 'My work really begins when I think it is finished.' With most of us it is there that we close the work. In other words, when you are sure that you have a thing, proceed to hammer it into mind, so to speak, for safe-keeping. But always should the fore-getting be assimilated by association with something already possessed in the mind. In the process of fore-getting, repetition is also required because this habituates the mind or the brain-cells in certain ways so that accompanying mental actions or associations are developed which assist in memory." Always, in striving to cultivate the memory, call up and sustain the Mood of strong and confident personality. Resolve: "I shall acquire a great memory for the purpose of increasing the power of my Will." HOW CAME IMAGINATION? QUESTION. How came imagination to the brain, And all the marvelous things of joy or pain ANSWER. Came it that love might fear and fearless die. With the great sun, and sing as night expires. Came it that soul might know and win immortal youth. -THE AUTHOR. CHAPTER XXII. EXERCISES IN IMAGINATION. HENEVER a person wills, or, rather, professes to will, to imagine, he has in fact already imagined; and, consequently, there can be no such thing as imaginations which are exclusively the result of a direct act of the Will."- Professor Upham. "I am inclined to think it was his practice, when engaged in the composition of any work, to excite his vein by the perusal of others on the same subject or plan, from which the slightest hint caught by his imagination, as he read, was sufficient to kindle there such a train of thought as, but for that spark (and that direction of the Will) had never been awakened." Sir Thomas Moore, "Life of Lord Byron." THEORY OF CHAPTER. The highest imagination involves all the powers of the mind; Willed culture of imagination secures its greatest efficiency; The steadfast application of imagination highly cul tured to the concerns of life requires the strongest and bestregulated exercise of Will-power; That means the mighty Will developed all round. "All the leaders in the world's life have been men of imagination." |