THE MEANING AND GROWTH OF PERSONALITY
Dr. Peterson Lectures on Personality
from the Psychologist's Standpoint
—Large Congregation of
Students
A large congregation listened to the lecture by Dr. Jos. Peterson in College hall, Sunday evening, the fifth. The speaker's discussion of Personality from the psychologist's point of view was of intense interest. He said in part:
"The naive view that some entity sits behind the eyes somehow and looks out upon the objective world has given way to a more functional conception of personality. Perception will furnish ample illustration. When you hear the whistle of the train the fullness of your perception depends on what this stimulus has come by past experience to mean to you. If your experiences with trains has been ample, you may have a visual picture of a passenger train of so many cars, a local train, due from Salt Lake at some definite time, etc., etc. All this is evidently your reaction to the present stimulus. Vision is likewise fundamentally a matter of interpretation, as experiments with various optical instruments show. We perceive things as past experience has taught us they must be. We perceive, therefore, with our whole organism and our past experience.
Now, by personality we mean our total unified experience. Whatever you have done is part of your self. If you have acted the coward, cowardice is part of your personality. It is possible in certain cases of anaesthsis or amnesia such as frequently accompanies epilepsy that cleavages develop in one's experience, thus dissociating the personality. This result is frequently found after severe cases of fright or mental shock. In such cases two or more personalities may develop in the same individual. The classical case of Miss Beauschamp, studied by Dr. Morton Prince, is a very instructive and interesting illustration. In cases of this kind one self may be entirely outside the personal consciousness and memory of the other or others. One may even, from its own past experience, be familiar with a language to which the others are strangers. Yet they all have the same organization. Similar phenomena, yet less marked, may be produced in hypnotism or in the dreams of normal sleep.
All these illustrations show that the self is not some enitity behind our experiences; our experiences themselves, when properly co-ordinated, constitute the self. One's ideals and bodily feelings are probably the main factors in thus unifying our experiences. A unified, whole-souled existence is one of the greatest blessings of life. It is a great mistake, and the source of great weakness, mentally, to worry over what might have been, or to spend too much time in useless speculation. Action should always follow closely upon theory, giving it direction and motivation and guarding it by appropriate tests from extreme error.
On the whole, from considerations far too numerous and complex to enter into here, we conclude that personality is one of the most fundamental and ultimate aspects of the only reality with which we are acquainted. Each of us is the architect, more than we know, of his own world and his own experience. Every new personality that is built up is a real contribution to the universe, and yet it is certainly in a real sense a product of inter-action. Whatever the central energy of the universe may be, persons as we know them, appear to be its most finished product.
The speaker concluded with the hope that we each would build well the part of the universe of which God in his mercy had made us individually the architects.
Appreciation of Art at Low Ebb
Richard Le Gallienne, the poet, was entertaining a group of managing editors at luncheon in New York.
To a compliment upon his fame Mr. La Gallienne said lightly:
"But what is poetical fame in this age of prose. Only yesterday a school-boy came and asked me for my autograph. I assented willingly. And today, at breakfast time, the boy again presented himself.
"'Will you give me your autograph, sir,' he said.
"'But,' said I, 'I gave you my autograph yesterday!"
"I swapped that and a dollar,' he answered, 'for the autograph of Jim Jeffries.'"—Washington Star.
The old saw says, "Let a sleeping dog lie." Right. Still, when there is much at stake, it is better to get a newspaper to do it. —Ex.
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