The enlargement of personality : behavior patterns and their formation

Front matter

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Introduction

During the war there was a hospital at Chalons for men wounded in the face. A girl came there to visit her fiancé, whose whole face had been shot away, so that no feature remained. She was filled with horror and could not believe that this featureless being was her fiancé. Every familiar expression was lost. The face she had learned to love was gone. For her, the man’s face was he. Without it she could not recognize him. This naturally suggests a query. If your body were stripped off would your friends still be able to recognize you? You doubtless feel that there is something there independent of your features,—that you would still have an individuality if your face were gone. You have certain ways of thinking, certain strong feelings and peculiar prejudices, certain standards of conduct. If they were made manifest, even if your body were invisible, you feel sure that your friend would say: “Why that is old Jim! I’d know him anyhere.”

Now each of us has some sort of a picture of this self of ours that is hidden behind the face. Some of us, perhaps, are quite satisfied with the portrait we see, and feel that it cannot be improved upon. Others who have

Vv vi THE ENLARGEMENT OF PERSONALITY been forced by circumstances to compare themselves with certain heroic souls, or who have fallen down under some of the severe tests of life, or who have met with ridicule and contumely whenever they have granted the world a glimpse of the self within,—others, I say, would be pleased to have a few alterations and emendations in the portrait, and there are some sufficiently dissatisfied to desire an entire and absolute change.

Man has acquired of late years the most amazing power to manipulate and alter the material world about him, through the discoveries and inventions of science. However much he is interested in the material world, and however much he may pretend to be interested in others, by courteously directing the conversation to their virtues, it is probable that to every man the most vital object of interest is himself. If Science should give him power to alter the whole outside universe and fail to assist him in doing what he wants with himself, he would be likely to consider it a failure. Science has taken the most marvellous strides in providing means to alter the outer self and thousands are toiling and suffering to avail themselves of its aid. Sagging cheeks are lifted, noses are straightened, jaws rebuilt, hair recolored, and permanently waved, the waist-line is altered and the muscles are built up. But all this does not add those touches we desire to the portrait of the inner man; strength of character, personal charm, power over men, serenity, happiness,—there seems to be no recognized formula that will produce these things. One would think that by this time a man should be able to order any kind of self

INTRODUCTION Vii he prefers and have the chemical ingredients sent him in a neat little package. Unfortunately, when it approaches the self, science seems in a hopeless snarl. In fact some dodge the question by telling us that the Self is an illusion, a mere complex of reactions caused by external stimuli. But that does not trouble us seriously for we are beginning to think that illusions are much more vital and important than realities. Our body at least appears to be solid, but here come the scientists and tell us that if all the electrons of which it is composed were collected in a solid lump it would be barely visible with a magnifying glass! So it is really empty space with not enough solid to be seen with the naked eye! And now they tell us that even the electrons are not solid, but only intersecting wavelets in the sub ether. Then, as no one knows what the sub ether is, if my body isn’t illusion I don’t know what is. In pursuing reality we have got far beyond the powers of the human senses and even of mortal thought. We view stars like Betelguese and Antares that are nearly twice as big as the orbit of the earth, so that at our rate of nineteen miles a second we would certainly take more than a year to go around them. When we have grasped the fact that light, which would take about ten minutes from the sun to us, would take one hundred thousand years to cross our universe, or the Galactic system, as they call it, we are then stunned by the information that the spiral nebulz are other universes, the nearest of which is almost a million light years away!

In contrast with all this unthinkable bigness, we are brought face to face with the electron as ultimate reality,

Vili THE ENLARGEMENT OF PERSONALITY and are told that if the smallest speck visible to a microscope were divided a thousand times we would have the _ size of an atom. Then if we magnify the atom to the size of a church the electrons might be represented by a few house flies flying about. Each electron at times radiates energy, not in a stream, but in tiny chunks or quanta, and each chunk has actually been measured and found to be equal to 3°4.10°” ergs in 1'9.10°° seconds. Even the scientists do not seem to understand that mysterious formula q p—p q=1i1 h/2n (where h= the quantum rule and i is the mystic./- 1) which is supposed to regulate the energy of the universe. All the material world is reduced to a schedule of pointer markings. Because of a slight discrepancy we have been forced to abandon the old Newtonian physics and Euclidian geometry and launch forth into a space with ten coefficients of curvature and several extra dimensions. The whole universe seems to be slightly askew, but nothing can be satisfactorily measured because the measuring-rod changes its length and the clock its time according to the speed at which it travels and all things travel at different speeds. It is as if, in doing a sum, a man subtracted 9g from 10 and got 1 and one-millionth as an answer, instead of 1, and then tried to reconstruct the whole of mathematics to agree with his finding.

If then the whole material world is so far beyond our reach and so different from what it appears, we may expect to find some illusions in the inner world. The same genius that has analyzed external reality into its constituent electrons has been at work on personality. Every

INTRODUCTION ix man knows that he is what he is because of the assortment of ancestral chromosomes which was made in the germ cell which produced him. He knows that there are forty-eight chromosomes which are supposed to produce all the qualities of body and soul. Half come from the father’s side and half from the mother’s, but which qualities from which, is undetermined, and it is by means of the various possible permutations that the varieties of character in children of the same parents are produced. In this way a man acquires the basis of his personality. Its development is due to the manner in which he builds up his nerve connections. The fibres of the brain have been dissected and personality has been shown to be a network of neurones connecting the various centres in the brain in accord with a certain pattern, so that a certain stimulus must awaken a certain definite response by following the pathway of the established connection. We are told how children start with certain instinctive reactions and then gradually ‘‘condition” them, which means that the reaction is artificially associated with other stimuli. Some think that new nerve connections are made in the brain and the habits of the child are thus determined.

The Behaviorist claims that heredity is comparatively unimportant, since, by conditioning the reflexes of a child, he can be made to behave in any fashion that is desired. Exhaustive investigation has been made into the reactions of all types of human beings. It is admitted that there are certain types that tend to react in a certain way. Kretschmer has demonstrated that there is a biological affinity between the psychic disposition of the cyclothymes and the pyknic body type, and also an af- _ finity between the psychic disposition of the schizophrenes and the bodily disposition of the asthenics and athletics, so that there is here a groundwork for different types of the self, were one to admit such an entity.

The Behaviorist has done wonders in measuring the stimulus and noting the response. He has followed it as far as it can be followed into the network of neurones and brain cells, but here inevitably he has run into mystery. The reaction is not always proportioned to the stimulus. A very slight whisper may produce a violent explosion. Moreover the mental product often does not resemble the stimulus in the least. There has been a process resembling the deciphering of a code and the construction of a world of images that did not exist before. The Gestalt psychology has filled in the gap to some extent with its suggestion that the mind grasps things as wholes or definite forms, and in showing the defects of Behaviorism, has led us to hope for a further solution of the mystery of the self.

We know that our structural and emotional development is dependent on certain subtle chemical reactions due largely to the secretions of the endocrine glands, The growth and shape of the bony structure depends on the pituitary gland, the rapidity of growth on the thyroid, which is a sort of accelerator. The thymus retards and in some mysterious way preserves the characteristics of childhood. The adrenal produces astonishing emotional effects. A dose of it given to a friend of the au-

INTRODUCTION xi thor produced all the symptoms of extreme terror which held the unfortunate subject in its grip in spite of all efforts, until the effects wore off.

Another portion of the adrenal is said to produce rage. Experiments have been made lately with school children, and the physician in charge told the author of one girl whom he treated who had all the symptoms of deficient endocrine,—spastic muscles, extreme timidity, and lack of self-confidence. Extract of superior adrenal was administered, and the physician stated that in two weeks she was fighting her brothers. It must be stated that other physicians have doubts of the efficacy of the adrenal to produce rage. So much has been written of the effect of the sex glands that it is hardly necessary to allude to their potency in transforming character.

Another group of scientists have been experimenting with hypnotism and its effects on personality, and have shown that in certain cases the personality can be disassociated so that there are apparently two or more separate consciousnesses, sometimes working at cross purposes, though dwelling in the same body. By hypnotism, in the case of so-called hysterics, certain portions of the body, as for instance, the right hand, can be freed from the control of the subject’s conscious mind. The hand can then write messages which do not come from the conscious mind of the subject, but either from some subconscious area, or else, possibly, as some hold, from some secondary personality.

We find then that Science is producing the most amazing changes not only in our attitude to the external world, xii THE ENLARGEMENT OF PERSONALITY but also in our conception of the inner world of personality.

Great and important as are the discoveries which enable us to control the vast forces of the material world, to every one of us the forces which create and modify our own personality are even more important. Every man realizes to-day that success and happiness depend upon personality, and nothing is so much desired as some means to acquire a personality that is greater and more potent. The papers and magazines are full of advertisements of various methods of attaining this end, and thousands are following various quackish prescriptions in the hope of acquiring greater personal power.

Here then are the two schools of scientists, those who teach us how the mind is formed by material agencies, by gametes and zygotes and neurones and chemicals and endocrine glands, and those who show us how the mind is affected by hypnotism and by contact with other personalities.

Both sides are right. It is certainly true that mind is affected by matter, and it is also true that matter is affected by mind. Character is produced by neurones and nerve connections, and emotions by endocrine glands. But it is also true that nerve connections are produced by thought and that endocrine glands are moved to secretion by emotion. In the parallel series of mental and material phenomena each set can affect the other, and produce very surprising changes in its sequence. In its dealing with personality Science has not yet acquired the accuracy that it has attained in chemistry and physics,

INTRODUCTION xiii and physicians do not yet guarantee to provide a man with the personality he requires by administering extracts from the endocrine glands. Hypnotism and psychical research, though they furnish many astounding facts, do not yet seem to have established an authoritative method of developing the mind. While we may learn much from the abnormal cases that are brought to the fore by hypnotists and psycho-analysts, it would seem that there is room for a study of the normal man, and of the manner in which his personality develops.

One might take the outside view and dissect his brain to discover the various nerve connections upon which his reactions depend, or one may trace one by one the means by which his various unlearned reactions were gradually conditioned to produce the complex pattern that we term his personality. But there is an inside view that may be taken of all these phenomena, and we may also examine the thoughts and feelings whose interaction has produced the complex consciousness or pattern of reactions, that in common parlance is termed the self.

When all these various reactions have produced a definite pattern of behavior in the individual, that pattern is reflected in his consciousness with varying degrees of accuracy. In other words every man has a certain picture of himself,—an idea of what sort of a man he is. It is not the object of these pages to enter the field of psychological controversy and to decide whether the Behaviorists or Introspectionists or Gestaltists are correct in describing the method by which the personality is built up. I wish merely to take the facts of consciousxiv: THE ENLARGEMENT OF PERSONALITY ness which are a matter of common experience and of historic record and. to suggest an interpretation of them.

Some hold that when the pattern of personality has been built up, it is impossible to alter it save by reconditioning all the various reactions one by one. I wish to suggest that there may be a short cut by which a large ‘number of these reactions may be reconditioned all at once. As has been said an idea or an emotion has a strong effect upon the reactions of the body. Many of our reactions are reconditioned by fear,—even by fear which comes, not from any mechanical stimulus like the barking of a dog, but from an idea which may have no basis in reality. Of all the ideas that are potent to recondition the reactions that make up the pattern of the personality, none seems to have such an effect as this idea which a man has of himself. It is true that ordinarily this idea or picture which a man has of himself is a product of complex reactions and that it changes very slowly. Some even assert that after a certain age it does not change at all. Personally I have witnessed such astonishing transformation of personality that I cannot accept this view, and I feel that there must be many who have seen similar instances, or read of them in history, so that they would agree that a transformation of personality is possible if one could find the right method.

I wish to suggest the fact that if a man is given a new and different idea of what he is, that idea in many instances, by the emotions and thoughts it produces, will so recondition his reactions that his behavior and character will be materially altered. You may say that a man

INTRODUCTION XV first behaves as a gentleman and then acquires the picture of himself as a gentleman. This is true in some cases, but the opposite is equally true. The boy is given the picture of himself as a gentleman and gradually conforms his behavior to the picture. In most cases behavior and concept grow simultaneously. When once the concept is definitely accepted it modifies the behavior and eliminates that which is incongruous. Even Behaviorists tacitly admit that when a man acquires an idea that he is a person of a certain sort, it affects his behavior. In Mr. Watson’s book on Behaviorism (p. 15) I find the following statement: “The behaviorist is primarily interested in the behavior of the whole man. . . . The response the behaviorist is interested in is the commonsense answer to the question, ‘What is he doing and why is he doing it?’ Surely . . . no one can distort the behaviorist’s platform to such an extent that it can be claimed that the behaviorist is merely a muscle psychologist.” This would seem to imply that when a man conceives of himself as a Behaviorist he reacts differently toward certain phenomena than do certain other psychologists. He might gain this concept of himself as the result of a long series of experiments or reactions, or it might be the result of arguments brought forth in conversation, or it might come from reading a book, or even as a result of personal devotion to such a person as Dr. Watson. The point is that the moment the concept is accepted so that a man says, “I am a Behaviorist”’ he reacts differently than he did before he held this view of himself.

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In such reading as I have been able to do I have not found any satisfactory explanation of this concept which a man holds of himself and of its operation. I have sought to record some of the effects which I have seen it produce on the consciousness of various individuals. I have also attempted to describe the more important behavior patterns that have shaped character in the world, and to show how they were created, the emotions that were used to condition them, and the extraordinary way in which they have been transferred, so that quite a different self has been created. If the self is an illusion, it is an illusion that works. They may tell me that the axe I hold is not solid but only a galaxy of tiny electrons in empty space, yet somehow, illusory as it is, the axe cuts down the tree. For us, our illusions are more real than reality. There are methods of manipulating them that produce results which, though they may also be illusions, produce success and happiness and personal force. Experience has shown me that it is possible to enlarge and even transform personality, and I hope these pages may suggest the means by which others may gain at least the illusion of greater happiness, wider interests, and increased personal power.

It is extremely difficult to find a term which will cover this idea or picture which a man has of himself which is our chief subject of discussion. With some men it is vaguely formulated, and they seem to have little idea of what they really are like. But the great majority of men, and even such savages as I have been able to interrogate, seem to have a fairly definite concept or picture

INTRODUCTION xvil of themselves. We might term this concept a pattern of behavior, but it is more than this. It is the result in their consciousness of the pattern of behavior which they have adopted. To them it appears as the picture of themselves, —of their own conduct and character. When this picture is changed it appears to them that they have acquired another self, and in the case of certain standardized patterns of behavior, the term “self” or “standardized self” might not be inappropriate. With this explantion I must beg the indulgence of the reader for any awkwardness in terminology. I have used the terms, “concept of the self,” “behavior pattern,” “consciousness pattern,” or “self,” to indicate different aspects of this same phenomenon, the picture which a man has formed of himself. Whether it is real or illusory, it has its effect on his reactions and character, and seems often to be a norm about which his consciousness and behavior crystallize.

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