HUNTSMAN. HORSE AND HUNTING DOG OF LONG AGO
From an ancient Cretan fresco
Next, your stomach, awakened to its wants and needs by the restored circulation resulting from your lively exercises, reminds you of what will be at the same time a pleasure and a means of sustained strength for body and mind, your breakfast. Breakfast properly comes under the supervision of the science of physiology. It is also suggestive of mechanics and physics, since it has to do with the stoking of the furnace that keeps the bodily engine up to its work. Here you are face to face with a branch of science which you could no more safely neglect than an engineer or a fireman could neglect to learn the elements and principles underlying his critically important occupation. One of the first sciences to be systematically developed was that of man's body, including its structure, or anatomy, and its functioning, or internal action, physiology. You will find that correct ideas on these subjects were slow in being developed, yet even in the most ancient times men were shrewd and wise enough to understand the importance of knowing something about their own bodies, in order to be able to take proper care of them, and to deal with wounds and sickness.
It was an old saying that "the proper study of mankind is man." But that is a study which has two main branches. The first covers the subjects of physiology, anatomy, medicine, etc., while the second relates to that even more intimate part of ourselves which has ever been a fascinating mystery, and which we call the mind, or sometimes the soul. This is the theme of the science of psychology, whose name comes from that delicate, inscrutable spirit, Psyche, the Soul, which plays like a flitting sunbeam through the magical atmosphere of Greek mythology. Now, this subtle and exquisite science, often more poetic and mystic than scientific in its original character, presents itself in its more sober and practical dress to you as soon as, having finished your breakfast and prepared your bodily energies for the day's work, you begin to meditate on the problems of the day opening before you.
When you went to bed, perhaps your mind was agitated by some important matter of business through whose intricacies you could not clearly see your way. You turned and tossed on your pillow, and stated and restated the facts and arguments and lines of reasoning, but all the while they became more obscure and entangled until at last, in sheer exhaustion, you fell into a troubled sleep. But this morning, to your immense surprise and gratification, without any effort on your part, and while you are occupied with other things—putting on your clothes, hitting the ball, playing with the dog, eating your bacon and eggs, or what not—suddenly the elusive clue or solution, so vainly sought the night before, presents itself plain before you. In an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, the troublesome problem is solved, as easily and naturally as water runs down hill, and you are provoked at yourself for having been so dull and stupid as not to see it all before. But not so fast! You were stupid, to be sure, but it was not your mind's fault as you are now disposed to think, but the trouble lay in your physical fatigue. You were driving your brain too long without refreshment, and it became like an engine whose oil cups are empty. It could not receive and report the impressions of thought.
Now this kind of experience comes many times to many men and women, and it is the purpose of the book on psychology in this series to make everybody acquainted with the laws of the working of our minds through our brains. Yet, how many of those who are frequently puzzled by such things are aware that there is a branch of science, one of the most captivatingly interesting of all, devoted especially to this subject? By studying the volume on psychology you will get light on just such things as so greatly puzzled you, and haunted you, before the solution of your problem unexpectedly rose up, as it were, and stood plain before you on the breakfast table, after having for twenty-four hours resisted your utmost efforts to master it, or even to get an effective hold upon it. It is unnecessary to speak of the immense importance to all human beings of a knowledge of the laws governing the manifestations of the mind, by taking advantage of which they may get the most out of themselves with the least loss of time and expenditure of effort.
Let us keep on further along the wonderful road of science on which your feet begin almost unknowingly to tread from the moment of your awakening, and which they follow, often just as unconsciously, until you fall asleep at the close of another day; while, as we have just seen, even when we are asleep our minds are not altogether inactive, and may even secretly disentangle the puzzles of the day while our tired brains are restoring themselves with slumber. Perhaps you live in the suburbs of a city, or far from the business center, and have to take a considerable journey from your house to your place of work or business. Maybe you go by automobile, or by street car, or by a trolley route, or take a commuters' train. In any event, whether you drive your own car, or ride in one drawn by a motor or a locomotive engine, you are brought face to face with the science of physics, including, of course, not only mechanics, but also, in our own day, electricity and magnetism. If you glance at a steam locomotive, puffing and blowing, and then at a smooth, silent electric motor drawing a long train, and then at a swift automobile winding and turning with serpentine agility through crowds of slow horse-drawn vehicles—in all cases your memory must recall the long, hard road by which these things were brought about, and you must be lacking in intelligent curiosity if you do not resolve to know for yourself, not only the history of these triumphs of human invention, but the principles of action upon which they depend. If you have a car, it would be a good thing to drive it yourself and learn to take care of its machinery yourself, for thus you would go far toward mastering the elementary principles of the science of mechanics, which has done more than all other things combined to transform the face of the world we live in. You cannot, of course, acquire all this knowledge by practical experience, but by putting together what you observe with what you read in the volumes devoted to mechanics, physics, chemistry, electricity, etc., you will find that every day is a school day for you in which you have learned something new, useful, and interesting, and something, moreover, which every wide-awake person in this wide-awake age ought necessarily to know, and can know by pursuing such a course as that just suggested. Your morning's ride to work will be transformed into a delightful intellectual experience if you prepare yourself by a little daily reading to understand the construction and manner of working of all the machines, engines, and mechanisms presented on every side to your inspection.
But machinery is not everything in life. Suppose that as you ride along your eye is caught by the great beauty of the flower gardens by the roadside, their blossoms bright in the morning sunshine and sparkling with the yet undried dew, as if sprinkled with diamonds. Perhaps your attention may never before have happened to be called so strongly to these objects, and possibly you have hitherto remained almost unacquainted with the names and peculiarities of some of the most common plants and flowers. But this morning, for some accidental reason, which may have a psychological origin, you are particularly charmed with the brilliant sight, and you resolve that you will be no longer ignorant of what could, manifestly, give you so much pleasure, besides being of unquestionable usefulness. When you return home you will take up the volume on botany, and it may lead you into a realm of mental delight previously unknown to you.
If it is the springtime, you may be interested by the sight of a tall, graceful tree, as lofty as a pine, and as straight in trunk, with many exquisite blossoms hanging from the pendulous stems on its great limbs, fifty or more feet above the ground, as if it were a flower garden in the air for the special delectation of the birds. Having never heard of a flowering tree outside the tropics, you feel a keen desire to know what this one is, and thus a way of introduction, founded on keen, personal interest, is opened for you to the science of botany. And few persons can take a ride, or a walk, anywhere in city or country or park, without having attention attracted by some unknown flower or plant, or tree, and without becoming aware how much pleasure is lost, and how much useful knowledge missed, by lack of the easily acquired knowledge of these things, which anybody can have by giving to it only that amount of time which would otherwise be wasted almost as completely as if the eyes were kept closed and the mind dismissed from its home in the brain. More mysterious, and not less fascinating than flowers and trees, are the birds and insects that flit by on their own errands. To explain them you have the volume on zoölogy, the science of animal life. Botany and zoölogy together go far to revolutionize the ordinary man's ideas about the attractiveness of outdoor life.