How to Read Human Nature. William Walker Atkinson

an emphasis upon undesirable traits of character. Such people lose sight of the fact that at the best heredity merely supplies us with the raw material of character rather than the finished product, and that there is much good in this raw material. We receive our inheritance of good as well as bad. Deprive a man of the advantage of his heredity, and we place him back to the plane of the savage, or perhaps still lower in the scale. Heredity is simply the shoulders of the race affording us a place for our feet, in order that we may rise higher than those who lived before. For heredity, substitute evolution, and we may get a clearer idea of this element of character.

      As for environment, it is folly to deny its influence. Take two young persons of equal ability, similar tastes, and the same heredity, and place them one in a small village, and the other in a great metropolis, and keep them there until middle-age, and we will see the influence of environment. The two may be equally happy and contented, and may possess the same degree of book-education, but, nevertheless, their experiences will have been so different that the character of the two individuals must be different. In the same way, place the two young persons, one in the Whitechapel district, and the other amidst the best surroundings and example, and see the result. Remember, that in environment is included the influence of other persons. The effect of environment arises from Suggestion, that great moulding and creative principle of the mind. It is true that, “As a man thinketh, so is he,” but a man’s thoughts depend materially upon the associations of environment, experience, and suggestion. As Ziehen says: “We cannot think as we will, but we must think as just those associations which happen to be present prescribe.”

      But, without going further into the question of the elements which go toward forming character, let us take our position firmly upon the fact that each individual is stamped with the impression of a special character—a character all his own. Each has his own character or part to play in the great drama of life. The character of some seems fixed and unchangeable, while that of others is seen to be in the process of change. But in either case each and every man has his own character or manifestation of Human Nature, in its inner and outer aspects. And each individual, while in a sense forming a special class by himself, nevertheless belongs to a larger class, which in turn is a part of a still larger, and so on.

      Instead of studying the philosophy or metaphysics of character, or even its general psychology, let us in this particular volume devote our attention to the elements which go to form the character of each and every person, so that we may understand them when we meet them in manifested form. And let us learn the Outer Form which accompany these Inner States.

      Upon the stage of Life move backward and forward many characters, each having his or her own form, manner and appearance, which like those of the characters upon the mimic stage, may be recognized if we will but bestow a little care upon the subject. The Othellos, Hamlets, Shylocks, Iagos, Richards, Lears, and the rest are to be found in everyday life. The Micawbers, Chuzzlewits, Twists, and the rest are in as full evidence on the streets and in the offices, as in the books. The person who is able to read and interpret Human Nature is possessed of a knowledge far more useful to him than that contained within the covers of musty books upon impractical subjects.