THE New Psychology Series _By_ WILLIAM WALKER ATKINSON In the past few years a widespread mental and spiritual awakening has taken place among the people of this country. And this new awakening has been very aptly called THE NEW PSYCHOLOGY MOVEMENT, because it has to do with the development and expression of the mind, or soul, of both the individual and the nation. The New Psychology The Will Memory Suggestion and Auto-Suggestion The Subconscious and Superconscious Planes of Mind The Psychology of Success The Art of Logical Thinking Thought-Culture The Psychology of Salesmanship The Art of Expression Mind and Body Human Nature Although each book stands alone as an authority on the subject treated, yet one theme runs through the series, binding them together to make a complete whole. The uniform postpaid price of each volume is $1.00 We are making a special price of $10.00 for the entire set THE PROGRESS COMPANY :: CHICAGO THOUGHT-CULTURE OR PRACTICAL MENTAL TRAINING By WILLIAM WALKER ATKINSON L.N. FOWLER & COMPANY 7, Imperial Arcade, Ludgate Circus London, E.C., England 1909 THE PROGRESS COMPANY CHICAGO, ILL. COPYRIGHT, 1910 BY THE PROGRESS COMPANY P.F. PETTIBONE & CO Printers and Binders Chicago CONTENTS I. The Power of Thought 9 II. The Nature of Thought 19 III. Phases of Thought 27 IV. Thought Culture 37 V. Attention 47 VI. Perception 57 VII. Representation 76 VIII. Abstraction 85 IX. Association of Ideas 95 X. Generalization 106 XI. Judgment 130 XII. Derived Judgments 138 XIII. Reasoning 152 XIV. Constructive Imagination 175 CHAPTER I. THE POWER OF THOUGHT In other volumes of this series we have considered the operations of the human mind known as Will, Memory, etc. We now approach the consideration of those mental activities which are concerned with the phenomena of _thought_--those activities which we generally speak of as the operation of the intellect or reason. What is thought? The answer is not an easy one, although we use the term familiarly almost every hour of our waking existence. The dictionaries define the term "Thought" as follows: "The act of thinking; the exercise of the mind in any way except sense and perception; serious consideration; deliberation; reflection; the power or faculty of thinking; the mental faculty of the mind; etc." This drives us back upon the term, "to think" which is defined as follows: "To occupy the mind on some subject; to have ideas; to revolve ideas in the mind; to cogitate; to reason; to exercise the power of thought; to have a succession of ideas or mental states; to perform any mental operation, whether of apprehension, judgment, or illation; to judge; to form a conclusion, to determine; etc."