on you may have. Your every action is
the net result of selection among a number of impulses and inhibitory
forces or tendencies.

[Sidenote: _The Threshold of Inhibition_]

As a general thing, consciousness is made up of a number of
conflicting ideas, each with its associated feeling and its impulse to
action. Just what you do in any particular case depends upon what
mental picture is strongest, is most vivid in consciousness, and thus
able to overcome all contrary tendencies.

As life becomes more and more complex, the number and variety of our
sensory experiences increase correspondingly. And so it comes about,
that _we have untold millions of sensory experiences, carrying with
them the impulses to muscular response, none of which, on account of
the multiplicity of conflicting ideas, is ever allowed to find release
and actually take form in muscular activity_.

[Sidenote: _Hidden Strength_]

The consequence is that only an exceedingly small proportion of the
mental energy that is developed within us is ever actually displayed.
_The rest is somehow and somewhere locked up behind the inhibitory
threshold._ It is stored away in _subconsciousness_ with the sensory
experiences of the past with which it is associated.

[Sidenote: _Giving a Man Scope_]

Quoting Mr. Waldo P. Warren: "Much of the strength within men is
hidden, awaiting an occasion to reveal it. The head of a department in
a great manufacturing concern severed his connection with the firm,
his work falling upon a young man of twenty-five years. The young man
rose to the occasion, and in a very short time was conceded to be the
stronger executive of the two. He had been with the concern for
several years, and was regarded as a bright fellow, but his marked
success was a surprise to all who knew him--even to himself.

"The fact is, the young man had that ability all the time and didn't
know it; and his employers didn't know it. He might have been doing
greater things all along if there had been the occasion to reveal his
strength.

"Do you employers and superior officers in business realize how much
of this hidden strength there is in your men? Perhaps a word from you,
giving certain men more scope, would liberate that ability for the
development of both your business and your men.

"Do you workers know your own strength? Are you working up to your
capacity? Or are you accepting the limits which the circumstances
place about you?"

CHAPTER I