CHAPTER IV

SIMPLE IDEAS FOR MENTAL TRAINING

"Thoughts shut up want air,

And spoil, like bales unopened to the sun."

YOUNG.

EW people trouble to think properly. This is a

sweeping statement, but it is true. One of the first things to occur to a man who is a real thinker is, how he can train his mind to enable him to reason to the best advantage. Every other day almost we hear of some new fad designed to increase our mental and physical efficiency. We take early walks before breakfast; we give up alcoholic drinks and cut down our smoking; we indulge in fast and rest cures, and from one extreme of living we go to another. All the practices mentioned may be good enough in themselves, but where do they lead the people who put them into force? They generally lead nowhere, for the reason that, if any betterment of health is obtained, the individual does not know how to turn it to account by taking advantage of the increased mental activity which results from his bodily well-being.

The mistake people make is to take account only of their physical fitness, thinking that mental fitness will follow as a matter of course. A healthy mind is even more desirable than a healthy body. People can work under the severest physical disabilities; they can even enjoy life though subjected to constant suffering. It does not matter how healthy you are if your mind is weak in the sense that it is not trained. As soon as a man gets the habit of thinking properly he begins to search for the means to bring his mental capacity to its full development. Having done this, he wants to keep his mind fit, so that it will work smoothly, quickly and accurately, enabling him to sustain prolonged mental effort without fatigue.

The mind requires exercise as much as the body does. You may think you are exercising your mental faculties continually because you have to think all day long. You might as well argue that the continual movements of the body are sufficient in themselves to keep it in perfect condition. What is desirable in both mind and body is an all-round excellence, whereby all the faculties and muscles and so forth are developed to perfection, and no one of them developed at the expense of another. The thinking man will diet and exercise himself not merely for the purpose of attaining perfect physical health, but also because perfect health enables him to work better with his mind. According to the

Greeks, "Health and intellect are the two blessings of life,” and a healthy mind in a healthy body is what the thoughtful man desires, because it is the ideal combination which enables him to secure all that he really needs in the world to make him prosperous and happy.

If bodily health and activity are important to enable a man to perform his work and follow his pursuits, how important must be a state of mental fitness in view of the fact that the mind governs the body in the smallest and greatest things that affect our progress in life! The more mental power we possess, the greater will be the results of our work. However clever you may be, you need to keep your mind right up to "concert pitch," in order that your work may be thoroughly efficient, and that you may more easily absorb knowledge and create ideas out of your store of thoughts. Some men have a faculty for absorbing knowledge; they are veritable walking encyclopædias, yet very often they are comparative failures in life. Other men, possessing not a tithe of their intellectual capacity, easily outstrip them in the race for success. The reason is, that no matter how much knowledge a man may possess, it is valueless to him unless he knows how to use it. To make your mind a storehouse of knowledge is to turn it into a lumber room unless you actively employ that knowledge from day to day.

So long as you keep your mind active by judicious mental exercises, you need not worry about ways of using the knowledge you acquire. The mind works automatically when once it is started. Remember that it needs food just as the body does, and the more food you give it the more mental strength you will have to draw upon. Remember also that the more food you give it in the shape of facts and general knowledge, the more exercise it will need to prevent mental indigestion, which manifests itself in an inability to know how to use the information that is collected.

When you come across a dull person you have a splendid opportunity for exercising your mind. Do not confuse dullness with stupidity. The chances are that the dullness is mental indigestion. Your exercise is to dissipate that dullness by finding the subject in which the person is most interested. It may be theatres, it may be gardening, it may be chemistry, or reading, or sport of some kind. Draw upon your knowledge of these subjects, and try them judiciously one after the other. We are all interested in some things more than in others. Seneca says, When things have taken possession of the mind, words are plentiful." There can be no better exercise for the mind than to "draw out a dull or shy person by suggesting new points of view to rouse his enthusiasm in his favourite subject,

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and to keep his interest sustained so that he will forget his shyness in enthusiastic speech.

If the private discussion of politics has any value at all, it is not so much because two people can exchange views until one convinces the other, as because it exercises the mind and at the same time feeds it with new facts. It is, perhaps, a dangerous exercise for people who do not understand each other very well, but there is a variation of it which is almost as efficacious, and has the advantage that you argue with yourself alone. It is simply to make up your mind on political subjects, not by listening to other people's arguments, but by getting your facts from books, and, so far as you can, at first-hand from the people best able to supply you. Take the case of Free Trade v. Tariff Reform as an example. Doubtless you are prepared to say all sorts of things about the respective attitudes of the Free Traders or Tariff Reformers, according as you agree with or differ from them; but could you put up a case for your own belief and support it with facts and arguments for five minutes against someone who had studied the question carefully? Get a penny handbook stating the case for Free Trade, and another one on Tariff Reform, and analyse the arguments for yourself just as if the authors had each prepared a case to submit to your arbitration. When you have analysed the arguments, give