Amidst all this competition for my attention what is it that causes me to pick up this or that? Briefly, it is the mood of the mind. We know that the will can step into the current of thoughts, watch them drifting along, and interrupt and direct them. We have seen that it can also impose an overall command or give standing orders covering a period of time.

This is true not only regarding the mood of concentration, but for other moods also. You can have a general hook-up on a particular subject, so that, if it is architecture, for example, your thought of an elephant will pass on to its structure, mechanical balance and the harmonious appearance of its parts, or your thought of groceries will lead direct to market buildings. But if you were a woodsman in Burma, “elephant” would lead to a picture of the carrying and loading of timber in the forests, or if you were a house-wife “groceries” would lead on to thoughts of feeding the family.

There are habitual moods produced by our occupations, hobbies, health, social conditions, strong desires and aversions, hopes and fears. Some advertisers of merchandise know something of this, and seek to produce in the public mind moods towards their special products, which they cunningly associate with objects we already like. Thus a pretty picture of father, mother and child, young and well dressed and pleasantly smiling, and sitting in affectionate attitudes in a beautiful, spacious, well-furnished room will connect your home-building mood with somebody’s brand of carpets. Mr. Stargazer, the astronomer, however, will be no fish for this net.

Consider how different are the experiences of an architect, a humorist and a doctor, walking arm-in-arm along a city street. The first notices the form and structure of the buildings, the second sees the idiosyncrasies of the passers-by, the third cannot miss the jaundiced eye, the sagging cheek in this one, the strong shoulders and well-sprung gait in that. Each sees, and afterwards uses, what the others do not see. Each unconsciously selects. And further, each is brought to the event that concerns him most. Concentration will make you see and use what concerns you, and further your end.

Words can often give us a clue to moods. Long ago people made a game of this. I call out a word and ask the members of the party to write down the first thought coming into their minds. My word is “links”, and I receive “chain” from Alf, who is a surveyor, “cuff-links” from. Bert, who is a bit of a dandy, “golf” from Charlie, who is seriously devoted to the game, “torch” from Dick, who is fond of reading about life in the Middle Ages of Europe, and “puma” from Ed, the naturalist, who thought I had said “lynx”. Not to leave the girls out of it, I now pronounce the word “foundation” and Ada comes out with “concrete”, which is quite explicable when we know she is in the architecture class at College. As most people know, something similar to this is often used as a probe in mental pathology.

hopes and fears, mechanical balance, moods, mother and child, social conditions