Psychology and Achievement: Being the First of a Series of Twelve Volumes on the Applications of Psychology to the Problems of Personal and Business Efficiency — John Shaqi
Psychology and Achievement: Being the First of a Series of Twelve Volumes on the Applications of Psychology to the Problems of Personal and Business EfficiencyHilton, Warren
Science
Psychology and Achievement: Being the First of a Series of Twelve Volumes on the Applications of Psychology to the Problems of Personal and Business Efficiency
Hilton, Warren
Achievement motivation; Psychology, Applied
_c._ A further examination of the body reveals a central mental
organism, the brain, composed of highly differentiated cells whose
intelligence, as in the case of other cells, is commensurate with their
functions.
_d._ It reveals also a physical mechanism, the nervous system,
peculiarly adapted to the communication of intelligence between the
central governing intelligence and the subordinate cells.
[Sidenote: An Instrument for Mental Dominance]
_e._ The existence of this mind organism and this mechanism of
intercommunication is additional evidence of the control and direction
of bodily activities by _mental energy_.
The facts to follow will not only demonstrate the truth of these
propositions, but will disclose the existence within every one of us of
a store of mental energies and activities of which we are entirely
unconscious.
The brain constitutes the organ of central governing intelligence, and
the nerves are the physical means employed in bodily intercommunication.
Brain and nerves are in other words the physical mechanism employed by
the mind to dominate the body.
[Sidenote: Gateways of Experience]
Single nerve fibers are fine, thread-like cells. They are so small as to
be invisible to the naked eye. Some of them are so minute that it would
take twenty thousand of them laid side by side to measure an inch. Every
nerve fiber in the human body forms one of a series of connecting links
between some central nerve cell in the brain or spinal cord on the one
hand and some bodily tissue on the other.
All nerves originating in the brain may be divided into two classes
according as they carry currents to the brain or from it. Those carrying
currents to the brain are called _sensory_ nerves, or nerves of
sensation; those carrying currents from the brain are called _motor_
nerves, or nerves of motion.
[Sidenote: Couriers of Action]
Among the sensory nerves are the nerves of consciousness; that is, the
nerves whereby we receive sense impressions from the external world.
These include the nerves of touch, sight, pain, hearing, temperature,
taste and smell. Motor nerves are those that carry messages from the
brain and spinal cord on the one hand to the muscles on the other. They
are the lines along which flash all orders resulting in bodily
movements.
[Sidenote: Nerve Systems]
Another broad division of nerves is into two great nerve systems. There
are the _cerebro-spinal_ system and the _sympathetic_ system. The first,
the cerebro-spinal system, includes all the nerves of _consciousness_
and of _voluntary action_; it includes all nerves running between the
brain and spinal cord on the one hand and the voluntary muscles on the
other. The second, the sympathetic nerve system, consists of all the
nerves of the unconscious or functional life; it therefore includes all
nerves running between the brain and sympathetic or involuntary nerve
centers on the one hand and the involuntary muscles on the other.
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