Psychology and Achievement | Page 3

field so long as we continue to deal with materials we do not
understand. Yet that is what all men are doing today. The elements of
truth are befogged in vague and amateurish mysticism, and the subject
of individual efficiency when we get beyond mere preaching and
moralizing is a chaos of isms.
The time is ripe for a real analysis of these important problems,--a
serious and scientific analysis with a clear and practical exposition of
facts and principles and rules for conduct.
Men and women must be fundamentally trained so that they can look
deep into their own minds and see where the screw is loose, where oil
is needed, and so readjust themselves and their living for a greater
efficiency.
[Sidenote: The Virus of Failure]
The embittered, the superstitious, the prejudiced, all those who
scorpion-like sting themselves with the virus of failure, must be given
an antidote of understanding that will repair their deranged mental
machinery.
The conscientious but foolish business man who is worrying himself
into failure and an early grave must be taught the physiological effects
of ideas and given a new standard of values.
The profligate must be lured from his emotional excesses and
debaucheries, not by moralizings, but by showing him just how these
things fritter his energies and retard his progress.
[Sidenote: Practical Formulas for Every Day]
It must be made plain to the successful promoter, to the rich banker,
how a man may be a financial success and yet a miserable failure so far
as true happiness is concerned, and how by scientific self-development

he can acquire greater riches within than all his vaults of steel will hold.
This Basic Course of Reading offers just such an analysis and
exposition of fundamental principles. It furnishes definite and scientific
answers to the problems of life. It will reveal to you unused or
unintelligently used mental forces vastly greater than those now at your
command.
[Sidenote: Your Undiscovered Resources]
We go even further, and say that this Basic Course of Reading provides
a practicable formula for the everyday use of these vast resources. It
will enable you to acquire the magical qualities and still more magical
effects that spell success and happiness, without straining your will to
the breaking point and making life a burden. It will give you a definite
prescription like the physician's, "Take one before meals," and as easily
compounded, which will enable you to be prosperous and happy.
In the development of one's innate resources, such as powers of
observation, imagination, correct judgment, alertness, resourcefulness,
application, concentration, and the faculty of taking prompt advantage
of opportunities, the study of the mental machine is bound to be the
first step. It must be the ultimate resource for self-training in efficiency
for the promoter with his appeal to the cupidity and imaginations of
men as surely as for the artist in his search for poetic inspiration.
[Sidenote: Man's Mind Machine]
No man can get the best results from any machine unless he
understands its mechanism. We shall draw aside the curtain and show
you the mind in operation.
The mastery of your own powers is worth more to you than all the
knowledge of outside facts you can crowd into your head. Read and
study and practice the teachings of this Basic Course, and they will
make you in a new sense the master of yourself and of your future.
In this Basic Course of Reading we shall begin by giving you a

thorough understanding of certain mental operations and processes.
[Sidenote: Abjuring Mysticisms]
We shall lead your interest away from "vague mysticisms" and
emphasize such phases of scientific psychological theory as bear
directly on practical achievement.
We shall give you a practical working knowledge of concentrative
mental methods and devices. We shall clear away the mysteries and
misapprehensions that now envelop this particular field.
In the present volume we shall begin with a discussion of certain
aspects of the relation between the mind and the body.
[Sidenote: Psychology, Physiology and Relationships]
However we look at it, it is impossible to understand the mind without
some knowledge of the bodily machine through which the mind works.
The investigation of the mind and its conditions and problems is
primarily the business of psychology, which seeks to describe and
explain them. It would seem to be entirely distinct from physiology,
which seeks to classify and explain the facts of bodily structure and
operation. But all sciences overlap more or less. And this is particularly
true of psychology, which deals with the mind, and physiology, which
deals with the body.
It is the mind that we are primarily interested in. But every individual
mind resides within, or at least expresses itself through, a body. Upon
the preservation of that body and upon the orderly performance of its