Your Mind and How to Use It: A Manual of Practical Psychology

by William Walker Atkinson

Fallacies of Prejudice.

But perhaps the most dangerous of all fallacies in the search for truth on the part of the most of us are those which arise from the following:—

(1) The tendency to reason from what we feel and wish to be true, rather than from the actual facts of the case, which causes us unconsciously to assume the mental attitude of "if the facts agree with our likes and pet theories, all is well; if they do not, so much the worse for the facts."

(2) The tendency in all of us to perceive only the facts that agree with our theories and to ignore the others. We find that for which we seek, and overlook that which does not interest us. Our discoveries follow our interest, and our interest follows our desires and beliefs.

The intelligent man or woman realizes these tendencies of human nature and endeavors to avoid them in his or her own reasoning, but is keenly conscious of them in the arguments and reasoning of others. A failure to observe and guard one's self against these tendencies results in bigotry, intolerance, narrowness, and intellectual astigmatism.

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CHAPTER XXIX.
The Will.

THE activities of the will comprise the third great class of mental processes. Psychologists always have differed greatly in their conception of just what constitutes these activities. Even to-day it is difficult to obtain a dictionary definition of the will that agrees with the best opinion on the subject. The dictionaries adhere to the old classification and conception which regarded the will as "that faculty of the mind or soul by which it chooses or decides." But with the growth of the idea that the will acts according to the strongest motive, and that the motive is supplied by the average struck between the desires of the moment, under the supervision of the intellect, the conception of will as the choosing and deciding faculty is passing from favor. In the place of the older conception has come the newer one which holds that the will is primarily concerned with action.

It is difficult to place the will in the category of mental processes. But it is generally agreed that it abides in the very center of the mental being, and is closely associated with what is called the ego, or self. The will seems to have at least three general phases, viz.: (1) The phase of desire, (2) the phase of deliberation or choice, and (3) the phase of expression in action. In order to understand the will, it is necessary to consider each of these three phases of its activities.