How to Understand Human Nature
It is a pioneering work by the illustrious author. This celebrated work has been translated
in to five languages. It gives fourteen axioms of Human Nature and is a practical book
on Psychology. Human Nature is not a satisfactory name to describe the sort of thing
that a human being is. But it is the best name we have. It is better than Mind or Soul or
Personality or Ego or Will. It means the whole person - brain and body & feelings and
will. It includes every thing - good, bad and indifferent. Hither to we have studied
Human Nature is sections. The merchant studies man as a buyer and seller. The
doctor studies him as a mechanism or a process. The clergyman studies him as a
believer. The manufacturer studies him as a produce and so forth. But no one studies
him as a whole. No one takes a bird's eye view of him and puts down carefully, the
exact sort of thing he is. We have studied horse nature and dog’s nature, rose’s
nature and Iron nature. We have counted and weighed stars. We have charted
continents and oceans, but we have not yet studied ourselves and all in all the supreme
phenomenon of this earth. Today we don't have any scientific instruments for the study
of human thoughts and feelings but someday we may map the mind and heart of man, so
that the mysteries of personality may be made clear. But all that we can do at present is
to outline what the problem is to clear away the rubbish of traditional opinion and to
sketch as truly as we can the basic facts that cannot be denied. The Human Nature is
examined in 14 axioms as under:-
i) It is human nature to want. Every person is a bundle of wants. No one is complete
and has enough. Everybody wants. Each one feel hunger several times a day, every
infant begins life with a cry for food, it wants and this is the
beginning of the human life and the first want of the human being and as he meets his
first want, the other wants e.g cloth, shelter comes to surface. Our whole existence is
mainly a matter of wants satiated or thwarted. The savage
on the banks of the Congo wants a necklace of beads. The maiden wants a
husband. Everybody wants Practically all business is based on the supply of wants. All
advertisement is the creation of new wants. All factories and shape are run to supply
the wants of mankind. Human Nature is a conscious substance that is filled with desire.
Its eternal cry is------------------"I wish I had some thing else”. So every body wants ! and it
is one one of those obvious truths which most people have ignored. It is the first Great
fact which confronts us when we begin to study the elements of Human Nature.
2) Our so-called brains are not ruled by the logic and reason and mathematics. We
don't naturally seek for facts rather average human brain dislikes, despises and rejects,
it is a fact-Hundreds-thousands of times, when some rash discoverer has found a new
fact, and held it up with impulsive joy to show the people, the people rushed upon
him and trampled him and his fact to death. Human Nature is seething fiery mass of
Feelings, covered by a thin crust of Custom and Law. If you with to erect a structure that
will be high and strong, you must lay the foundations deep in the ancient feelings of the
human heart. You cannot defy sentiments, you cannot fights feeling with chemistry.
Many a times we have seen the output increased and the costs reduced by a single
mass meeting at which workers and Directors mingled in a friendly way. As we have
learned there is nothing that counts for more in war than morale of the army - the spirit
the feeling. So it is in Industry. No matter whether it is a house or factory, a college or a
trade union, it is largely ruled by its feelings. No man can understand the place he is
living in, nor the people he is living with, nor his own nature, until he appreciates the
terrific power of this mysterious
planetary force called feeling.
3) Fear is perhaps the most powerful of motives. It is as old as life itself. It is always
and everywhere one of the main causes of human action. The first law of nature, we
know is self preservation but some strange instinct makes us afraid of. The tiny lamb is
afraid of the cow. The young bird is afraid of the boy. The Fear is every-where and
eternal. Fear drives its victims in London just as commonly as it does in the mud
villages of Congo. There are man varieties of Fear. A person in remote forest is afraid of
tigers, lions & snakes. The Londoner is afraid of bank-ruptcy and scandal and cancer
and burglars. The parliamentarians are fearful of public opinion. This too is a fact that no
man is a complete coward. If he were his life would be unbearable. And neither is any
man completely free from fears. Everyman has his own assortment of fears. But there
is in every child and in every grown person a latent courage that can be developed.
There is a lion and a mouse in every individual and it is best to put the lion in control. It is
one of the secrets of success - one of the secrets of Leadership, to master your own
fears. If a man is at heart a coward - if he has not made himself "The captain of his
soul", he is sure at some critical moment in his career to surrender or run away.
4) The baby mimics the mother. Everyone knows that and that is one of the first
intelligent things that every baby does, but it is also true that mother mimics the baby.
So does the father. So to the brothers and sisters and grand parents, It is the human
nature to mimic - to imitate - to do what others do. If other people yawn, so do you. If
they laugh so do you. If they are excited or sad or angry, so
are you. So make peace with this power of limitation. Do not ignore it. Use it. No man
is as original as he thinks he is and it would be disastrous for him if he were. He is the
creature of his generation and can never shake himself free from it.
5) Everybody is different in this universe. Physically, everyman carried his identification
Disc on his thumb. No two thumb-prints are alike. Mentally also there are many
difference and these are more difficult to discover. Men differ a little in their bodies, more
in their minds and most of all in their feelings. In a factory, there are twenty machines all
alike. They are being operated by twenty men, all different. The supervisor must
know these human differences. He must not treat his workers as though they were
machines and the success of every supervisor would depend in knowing this aspect of
human nature.
6) Man has some `beliefs'. Why it is so? Because it is so much easier to believe than
to find out. Until very recently, the world was packed with ghost and demons and
witches and fairies. But in today’s world our powerful beliefs are not religious nor
mustical nor metaphysical. They are social and industrial and political. The beliefs that
rule us that shape our lives - are the beliefs of the home, the shop, the factory and the
market-place. Superstition has not been destroyed, rather it has taken new forms.
Human nature is being redefined, but it is not so vastly different from the Human
Nature of the fourteen century. The outworn belief of the past are called.
Superstition and the active Beliefs of today are called public opinion and at that
dread name we all bow the knee. So, if we wish to be successful in this world of
difficulties and delusions, we must doubt all Beliefs. We must gather the facts. We
must keep opinion in its place. We must trust the truth.
7) Everybody thinks ! This is a centrifugal function - thinking. It is the exact opposite
of limitation. It is the development of the self. The more you think the less you
imitate. The more you think, the more different you become to other people. Imitation
is a social quality. Thought is not. Thought is for the Thinker. Thought isolates a man
from his fellows. And thought is the greatest of all Prime Movers. it governs
Governments. It rules rulers. It is the king of kings and Lord of Lords. it pulls down
and build up. It is power and more than power. It is ultimately Goodness and Truth and
ripeness of the human race.
8) The law of habit is a centripetal quality of Human Nature. It is akin to the quality of
imitation. Habit means that we imitate ourselves. We do a thing is the same way we did
it before. We do a thing in the same way we did it before we do it more and more
mechanically, until it becomes automatic and ultimately unconscious. Habit and
change are the two opposite qualities of Human Nature. The one leads to fixation and
the other leads to exploration. The great leaders of this generation will be those men
who can help us to change our Habits wherever they are restricting our development.
9) Change is centrifugal quality of Human Nature. It is a kin to the quality of
thinking. It is different from thinking for this reason - that it means action. Change is
neither optional nor occasional. It is inevitable and universal. Every human being can
improve. No human being has ever been found who was not improvable. No one
has reached his limit. No one is petrified into changelessness.
10) Praise is a necessity to all human beings. It is non-existent in plants and
minerals. It is a mental necessity of the higher living creatures, where there is no
praise there is morbidity, sullenness, dejection, shamelessness. laziness, inertia
and crime. No man is all good or all bad. If you praise him, be specific. If you
blame him be specific. A man will take the severest Blame without bitterness if
you point out his merits as well as his defects. Both are indispensable to
human development - Praise and Blame.
11) Most animals and all human beings respect Leadership. The oretical democrat in
which all are equal has never existed and never can. it is one of the silliest
delusion in the world. Every mob even develops its leaders. Wherever there
are two men in any sort of cooperation, one of them is a Leader. No one can
avail leadership. Wherever there is group of men they crystallize around the one
who is most masterful, resourceful and courageous. So Leadership! you must have
it in every nation - every shop - every mill - every factory. No system will take its
place, Man want to be loyal to a man. They will never do their best for a Board or a
committee. Everyman must lead his inferiors and follow his betters.
12) There are two distinct varieties of Human Nature - masculine and faminine.
There are no neuters, Men and women are different . They are different mentally as
well as physically. Man is not superior. Neither is woman. Man takes life as an
adventure and a sport why ? because he
creates life by his greatest pleasure. And woman takes life as a task because she
creates life by her greatest pain. So practically in all trades and professions it is
necessary to remember that there are two very different sorts of people -
Male & Female. A good sale person design his strategy only that way because he
understand the basic that every body is sexed.
13) It is an undeniable fact that every human mind is two fold. A small part at it is
conscious; a large part of it is unconscious. The two are like a combined work shop and
warehouse. The work shop is well lighted but the warehouse
is in darkness and all manner of things are stored in the warehouse which the
workman has quite forgotten. And the vital fact to bear in mind, on this subject, is
that consciousness is delusive. It is never complete. You are never wholly conscious of
all your contents.
14) Everybody has ideals, this is the quality of human nature which can't be
ignored. It pushes the race forward and pulls it back. Our ideals are, in a way,
the opiates of the mind. They are mental intoxicants. The stimulate and
depress. The saves from the harshness and crudity of the actual world and
makes life far more endurable for us than it would be otherwise. Find the ideals
that suit you. That is one of the secret of fame and happiness And in general
we should beware of the ideals that are either too new of too old. Every new
truth begins as a heresy and ends as a superstition. It is practical only when it
is in its prime.
15) These fourteen Axioms divides themselves equally as centralist and
centripetal. The centralist qualities make a person social but the centrifugal
qualities are those which individualize us. Each set at qualities need to be
balanced. If a man has central qualities only, he is more raw material, himself
undeveloped without any personality. And if he is centrifugal only, he is a
crank, an outlaw, a genius or a lunatic. And a normal human being is one who
strikes a balances, equilibrium.
******************
It is a pioneering work by the illustrious author. This celebrated work has been translated
in to five languages. It gives fourteen axioms of Human Nature and is a practical book
on Psychology. Human Nature is not a satisfactory name to describe the sort of thing
that a human being is. But it is the best name we have. It is better than Mind or Soul or
Personality or Ego or Will. It means the whole person - brain and body & feelings and
will. It includes every thing - good, bad and indifferent. Hither to we have studied
Human Nature is sections. The merchant studies man as a buyer and seller. The
doctor studies him as a mechanism or a process. The clergyman studies him as a
believer. The manufacturer studies him as a produce and so forth. But no one studies
him as a whole. No one takes a bird's eye view of him and puts down carefully, the
exact sort of thing he is. We have studied horse nature and dog’s nature, rose’s
nature and Iron nature. We have counted and weighed stars. We have charted
continents and oceans, but we have not yet studied ourselves and all in all the supreme
phenomenon of this earth. Today we don't have any scientific instruments for the study
of human thoughts and feelings but someday we may map the mind and heart of man, so
that the mysteries of personality may be made clear. But all that we can do at present is
to outline what the problem is to clear away the rubbish of traditional opinion and to
sketch as truly as we can the basic facts that cannot be denied. The Human Nature is
examined in 14 axioms as under:-
i) It is human nature to want. Every person is a bundle of wants. No one is complete
and has enough. Everybody wants. Each one feel hunger several times a day, every
infant begins life with a cry for food, it wants and this is the
beginning of the human life and the first want of the human being and as he meets his
first want, the other wants e.g cloth, shelter comes to surface. Our whole existence is
mainly a matter of wants satiated or thwarted. The savage
on the banks of the Congo wants a necklace of beads. The maiden wants a
husband. Everybody wants Practically all business is based on the supply of wants. All
advertisement is the creation of new wants. All factories and shape are run to supply
the wants of mankind. Human Nature is a conscious substance that is filled with desire.
Its eternal cry is------------------"I wish I had some thing else”. So every body wants ! and it
is one one of those obvious truths which most people have ignored. It is the first Great
fact which confronts us when we begin to study the elements of Human Nature.
2) Our so-called brains are not ruled by the logic and reason and mathematics. We
don't naturally seek for facts rather average human brain dislikes, despises and rejects,
it is a fact-Hundreds-thousands of times, when some rash discoverer has found a new
fact, and held it up with impulsive joy to show the people, the people rushed upon
him and trampled him and his fact to death. Human Nature is seething fiery mass of
Feelings, covered by a thin crust of Custom and Law. If you with to erect a structure that
will be high and strong, you must lay the foundations deep in the ancient feelings of the
human heart. You cannot defy sentiments, you cannot fights feeling with chemistry.
Many a times we have seen the output increased and the costs reduced by a single
mass meeting at which workers and Directors mingled in a friendly way. As we have
learned there is nothing that counts for more in war than morale of the army - the spirit
the feeling. So it is in Industry. No matter whether it is a house or factory, a college or a
trade union, it is largely ruled by its feelings. No man can understand the place he is
living in, nor the people he is living with, nor his own nature, until he appreciates the
terrific power of this mysterious
planetary force called feeling.
3) Fear is perhaps the most powerful of motives. It is as old as life itself. It is always
and everywhere one of the main causes of human action. The first law of nature, we
know is self preservation but some strange instinct makes us afraid of. The tiny lamb is
afraid of the cow. The young bird is afraid of the boy. The Fear is every-where and
eternal. Fear drives its victims in London just as commonly as it does in the mud
villages of Congo. There are man varieties of Fear. A person in remote forest is afraid of
tigers, lions & snakes. The Londoner is afraid of bank-ruptcy and scandal and cancer
and burglars. The parliamentarians are fearful of public opinion. This too is a fact that no
man is a complete coward. If he were his life would be unbearable. And neither is any
man completely free from fears. Everyman has his own assortment of fears. But there
is in every child and in every grown person a latent courage that can be developed.
There is a lion and a mouse in every individual and it is best to put the lion in control. It is
one of the secrets of success - one of the secrets of Leadership, to master your own
fears. If a man is at heart a coward - if he has not made himself "The captain of his
soul", he is sure at some critical moment in his career to surrender or run away.
4) The baby mimics the mother. Everyone knows that and that is one of the first
intelligent things that every baby does, but it is also true that mother mimics the baby.
So does the father. So to the brothers and sisters and grand parents, It is the human
nature to mimic - to imitate - to do what others do. If other people yawn, so do you. If
they laugh so do you. If they are excited or sad or angry, so
are you. So make peace with this power of limitation. Do not ignore it. Use it. No man
is as original as he thinks he is and it would be disastrous for him if he were. He is the
creature of his generation and can never shake himself free from it.
5) Everybody is different in this universe. Physically, everyman carried his identification
Disc on his thumb. No two thumb-prints are alike. Mentally also there are many
difference and these are more difficult to discover. Men differ a little in their bodies, more
in their minds and most of all in their feelings. In a factory, there are twenty machines all
alike. They are being operated by twenty men, all different. The supervisor must
know these human differences. He must not treat his workers as though they were
machines and the success of every supervisor would depend in knowing this aspect of
human nature.
6) Man has some `beliefs'. Why it is so? Because it is so much easier to believe than
to find out. Until very recently, the world was packed with ghost and demons and
witches and fairies. But in today’s world our powerful beliefs are not religious nor
mustical nor metaphysical. They are social and industrial and political. The beliefs that
rule us that shape our lives - are the beliefs of the home, the shop, the factory and the
market-place. Superstition has not been destroyed, rather it has taken new forms.
Human nature is being redefined, but it is not so vastly different from the Human
Nature of the fourteen century. The outworn belief of the past are called.
Superstition and the active Beliefs of today are called public opinion and at that
dread name we all bow the knee. So, if we wish to be successful in this world of
difficulties and delusions, we must doubt all Beliefs. We must gather the facts. We
must keep opinion in its place. We must trust the truth.
7) Everybody thinks ! This is a centrifugal function - thinking. It is the exact opposite
of limitation. It is the development of the self. The more you think the less you
imitate. The more you think, the more different you become to other people. Imitation
is a social quality. Thought is not. Thought is for the Thinker. Thought isolates a man
from his fellows. And thought is the greatest of all Prime Movers. it governs
Governments. It rules rulers. It is the king of kings and Lord of Lords. it pulls down
and build up. It is power and more than power. It is ultimately Goodness and Truth and
ripeness of the human race.
8) The law of habit is a centripetal quality of Human Nature. It is akin to the quality of
imitation. Habit means that we imitate ourselves. We do a thing is the same way we did
it before. We do a thing in the same way we did it before we do it more and more
mechanically, until it becomes automatic and ultimately unconscious. Habit and
change are the two opposite qualities of Human Nature. The one leads to fixation and
the other leads to exploration. The great leaders of this generation will be those men
who can help us to change our Habits wherever they are restricting our development.
9) Change is centrifugal quality of Human Nature. It is a kin to the quality of
thinking. It is different from thinking for this reason - that it means action. Change is
neither optional nor occasional. It is inevitable and universal. Every human being can
improve. No human being has ever been found who was not improvable. No one
has reached his limit. No one is petrified into changelessness.
10) Praise is a necessity to all human beings. It is non-existent in plants and
minerals. It is a mental necessity of the higher living creatures, where there is no
praise there is morbidity, sullenness, dejection, shamelessness. laziness, inertia
and crime. No man is all good or all bad. If you praise him, be specific. If you
blame him be specific. A man will take the severest Blame without bitterness if
you point out his merits as well as his defects. Both are indispensable to
human development - Praise and Blame.
11) Most animals and all human beings respect Leadership. The oretical democrat in
which all are equal has never existed and never can. it is one of the silliest
delusion in the world. Every mob even develops its leaders. Wherever there
are two men in any sort of cooperation, one of them is a Leader. No one can
avail leadership. Wherever there is group of men they crystallize around the one
who is most masterful, resourceful and courageous. So Leadership! you must have
it in every nation - every shop - every mill - every factory. No system will take its
place, Man want to be loyal to a man. They will never do their best for a Board or a
committee. Everyman must lead his inferiors and follow his betters.
12) There are two distinct varieties of Human Nature - masculine and faminine.
There are no neuters, Men and women are different . They are different mentally as
well as physically. Man is not superior. Neither is woman. Man takes life as an
adventure and a sport why ? because he
creates life by his greatest pleasure. And woman takes life as a task because she
creates life by her greatest pain. So practically in all trades and professions it is
necessary to remember that there are two very different sorts of people -
Male & Female. A good sale person design his strategy only that way because he
understand the basic that every body is sexed.
13) It is an undeniable fact that every human mind is two fold. A small part at it is
conscious; a large part of it is unconscious. The two are like a combined work shop and
warehouse. The work shop is well lighted but the warehouse
is in darkness and all manner of things are stored in the warehouse which the
workman has quite forgotten. And the vital fact to bear in mind, on this subject, is
that consciousness is delusive. It is never complete. You are never wholly conscious of
all your contents.
14) Everybody has ideals, this is the quality of human nature which can't be
ignored. It pushes the race forward and pulls it back. Our ideals are, in a way,
the opiates of the mind. They are mental intoxicants. The stimulate and
depress. The saves from the harshness and crudity of the actual world and
makes life far more endurable for us than it would be otherwise. Find the ideals
that suit you. That is one of the secret of fame and happiness And in general
we should beware of the ideals that are either too new of too old. Every new
truth begins as a heresy and ends as a superstition. It is practical only when it
is in its prime.
15) These fourteen Axioms divides themselves equally as centralist and
centripetal. The centralist qualities make a person social but the centrifugal
qualities are those which individualize us. Each set at qualities need to be
balanced. If a man has central qualities only, he is more raw material, himself
undeveloped without any personality. And if he is centrifugal only, he is a
crank, an outlaw, a genius or a lunatic. And a normal human being is one who
strikes a balances, equilibrium.
******************
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