THE PSYCHOLOGY OF POWER THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
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THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 
TORONTO THE PSYCHOLOGY 
OF POWER 
BY 
Capt. J. A. HADFIELD, M.A. (Oxon.), M.B. (Edin.) 
ASHHURST NEUROLOGICAL WAR HOSPITAL, OXFORD 
Nrw fork 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1924 
All rights reserved Copyright, 1919, 
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. ANALYSIS 
The Psychology of Power. 
The urgency of the problem of energy and fatigue. 
The view of the physicist, and of the religious. 
The psychological view. 
Evidence of Extraordinary Powers. 
Illustrated from various fields. 
Conclusions from these illustrations: 
(1) Existence of an ample re-supply of strength. 
(2) Not attained by power of will. 
(3) Originate in the instinctive emotions. 
The Mental Factor in Fatigue. 
I. Mental origin of fatigue demonstrated by- 
(a) Eperiments in hypnotic suggestion. 
(b) Experiments in physiology. 
These prove the importance and priority of mental fatigue. 
Biological reasons why mind is fatigued before the body. 
II. Forms of fatigue: 
(1) Physical fatigue. 
(2) Over-sensitiveness of mind to physical fatigue. 
Application of this to everyday life. 
(3) False interpretation of mental fatigue as physical. 
(4) Purely mental fatigue, due to mental conflict. 
The Infirmity of the Will. 
Power does not originate in the will. 
Illustrations to prove impotence of will against conviction and 
suggestion. 
Evil habits unconquered. 
Will requires power of the emotions. 
The Instincts. 
J The force of ideas: will: emotions. 
j Instinctive emotions the real driving force of our lives. 
° The importance of instincts in modem life. 
m Policy of suppression a false one. Passion necessary in morality 
and religion. 
the Instincts and Morality. 
Is power derived from the instincts moral? 
(1) Many instincts in themselves beneficent, e.g. maternal. 
(2) Instincts apparently anti-social may be directed to useful 
ends. IV 
The Psychology of Power 
(3) In the long run the maximum power is gained when in- 
stincts are harmonised and directed by the reason 
toward worthy ends. 
The Conflict of Instincts. 
Of will and emotion: of emotion with emotion. 
Illustration. 
Minor conflicts exemplified in worry and anxiety. 
The Conversion of the Instincts. 
Living beings raise the potential of energy. 
Illustration of the conversion of the instincts and instinctive 
emotions. 
Hunting: curiosity: pugnacity. 
Fear: necessary fear; morbid fear; fear that stimulates. 
Sex: its overflow into the parental instinct. 
Self-assertion: aggression; submission; confidence. 
Confidence and Faith. 
Derived from instinct of self-assertion. 
Essential to success and power. 
Illustrations. 
The Expenditure of Power. 
Damming up the flow of energy leads to stagnation and fatigue 
The inspiration of a purpose. 
Strength comes to those who expend it. 
Energy and Rest. 
The cause of fatigue in mental conflict. 
The remedy is mental quietude. 
The characteristic neurasthenic. 
Physiological law of alternation of activity and rest. 
The art of resting. 
The Source of Energy. 
Physiological, psychological, and philosophical theories 
Summary. 
The Dynamic of Religion. 
The power of the Christian religion in abolishing conflict and 
directing the instinctive energies to high purposes. 
Power characteristic of primitive Christianity. 
Restfulness and peace also characteristic. 
Christianity as a moral healing force. 
Conclusion. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF POWER THE PSYCHOLOGY 
OF POWER 
The increasing pressure of modern life, with its anxi- 
eties and cares, constitutes an ever-augmenting tax 
upon our strength. It is hardly surprising that nervous 
breakdowns are common, and that neurasthenia, or 
nerve fatigue, is the most significant disease of the age. 
Yet while, on the one hand, we see men and women so 
ill-adapted to fact the demands of life that the slight- 
est exertion produces fatigue; on the other, we are 
called upon to witness exhibitions of power which fill 
us with wonder. The increasing demand for the power 
and energy requisite to face the strain compels us to 
investigate the sources of their supply. The purpose 
of my study is to direct attention to the problem of the 
sources of human energy and power. 
It is commonly supposed that in each of us there is 
a reservoir, as it were, containing a certain supply of 
energy. This energy is said to be derived from the 
food we eat and the air we breathe, and to be, there- 
fore, strictly limited in amount. When our expendi- 
ture is excessive our supply of energy runs very low, 
and we consequently suffer from a feeling of fatigue. 
Such is the theory of the physicist. The natural con- 
sequence of this belief in the physical character and 
the limited supply of our energy is that we are careful 
to economise our little store of strength, to husband 4 
The Psychology of Power 
our resources, lest by excess of expenditure we find the 
springs of our life run dry. 
In contrast with this view, there have been men, and 
chiefly among them religious men, who have held that 
if our powers seem to fail, it is not because all the en- 
ergy available is used up. but because its flow is 
checked, either by the channel being blocked up or by 
our inability to use it aright. The chief cause of 
fatigue is not exhaustion but stagnation. The way to 
power, therefore, is not to harbour our resources and 
store up our strength by inactivity, but to find the wav 
to tap the resources of power at our disposal, so that 
they may flood our life and fill us with energy. 
Of the two theories above stated modem psychology 
tends, on the whole, to support the second. At least 
the fact that (whatever their ultimate origin) there 
are resources of power, whose existence we do not 
ordinarily recognise but which can be made available 
for the purposes of our daily life, is one which has 
been firmly established by the scientific researches of 
recent years. In this Essay I propose, in the first 
place, to produce evidence of the existence of resources 
of power normally untapped; secondly, I shall show 
that these are psychic rather than physical in character; 
and, after discussing their relation to the instinctive 
emotions and to the will, shall consider the means by 
which they can be made available. 
Evidence of Extraordinary Powers 
I cannot do better than introduce the subject to the 
reader by one or two illustrations. A patient of mine, 
a tailor by trade, was buried by a high explosive shell 
in France. One of the striking features of his case 
was extreme weakness, the slightest exertion or a short The Psychology of Power 
5 
walk producing fatigue. In the course of the treat- 
ment I induced him under hypnosis to remember the 
details of the incident, and made him live through it 
all again-the terrifying explosion, the debris burying 
him up to his neck, and a great baulk of timber totter- 
ing above his head in act to fall. By the recollection 
of these things he was thrown into a condition of 
extreme terror, and began to fight like a madman, 
flinging himself on the floor and dragging the bed 
down over him, seizing a heavy armchair and flinging 
it across the room, and generally putting forth such 
extraordinary strength that it required four men to 
hold him down. The strength he exhibited appeared 
almost superhuman, and it was quite beyond his volun- 
tary power, for when he was awake his greatest exer- 
tion of will served only to emphasise his weakness and 
impotence. Furthermore, when he was wakened from 
the attack, far from being fatigued, he was relieved 
and refreshed, and spontaneously told me how much 
better he felt. 
Similar exhibitions of strength are quite common in 
men swayed and mastered by a great emotion. Such 
strength is typical also of madness, in which strong 
bonds are broken, iron bars are wrenched loose, and 
extraordinary feats of endurance are performed. 
What is the secret of such power? In all these cases 
men seem to be tapping resources of strength, whether 
from within or from without, which, if we could dis- 
cover and use, would rescue us from feeble ineffective- 
ness to a life of untold possibilities. We look upon 
such an exhibition of strength with much the same 
feelings as when we behold the lightning rend the 
heavens and tear up oaks by the roots-if only we 
could seize and store up such energy and devote it to 
the uses of our daily life! 6 
The Psychology of Power 
The endurance and strength of men fighting against 
fearful odds when they are "up against it" is notor- 
ious, and many instances could be given from the war. 
Another of my patients had suddenly found himself in 
a trench containing six Germans. Realising that he 
was cornered he fought with fury, and succeeded in 
killing three of them before he was stunned by one of 
the survivors. A corporal, whose courage won the 
V. C., was for several days cut off from our troops, 
was exposed the whole time to bombardment (sub- 
sisting meanwhile on the barest rations), and yet, in 
spite of the awful strain, he came out feeling cheerful, 
elated, and without fatigue. Several men with him 
had the endurance to pass through the same experience, 
but at the end were exhausted and broke down. The 
corporal had evidently discovered sources of power 
which were not exhausted by the terrible strain he 
underwent, but provided an ample re-supply. 
One of my patients, suffering from an obstinate 
neurasthenia, asked for leave one day because his wife, 
the mother of six little children, had fallen ill with 
pneumonia consequent on influenza, and, owing to the 
epidemic, could secure no doctor except for the one 
visit in which her condition had been diagnosed. He 
had been a most despondent and depressed individual, 
scarcely ever speaking to any one else in the ward, still 
suffering from the tiredness and exhaustion typical of 
neurasthenia. He returned some days after, looking 
bright and cheerful, and almost his first words to me 
were, "I shall never doubt the power of prayer again, 
sir." In addition to the worry with the children, he 
had had the great anxiety of nursing his wife through 
a very serious illness without the aid of a doctor, and 
had been up day and night in his devoted labours. It 
is only those who have passed through a strain of The Psychology of Power 
7 
that kind who know what it means; but it is equally 
true that they alone know the mighty resources that 
come to our aid in the time of extremity. In this 
case, his keenness to bring about the recovery of his 
wife, and the conviction of divine assistance, buoyed 
him up during the time of anxiety; and after the strain 
was over, the exhilaration of triumph saved him from 
the relapse that people too often bring on themselves 
by their lack of confidence. 
Four years ago, at midnight, I witnessed an explo- 
sion at a great munition factory, and afterwards heard 
that a woman, after her day's work, had risen from bed 
and, in anxiety for the safety of her husband and son, 
had run practically the whole distance of seven miles to 
the scene of the exploison in an incredibly short time. 
William McDougall quotes the case of a boy who. 
being chased by a furious animal, leaped a fence which 
he could never afterwards scale even as a grown man, 
and after continuous athletic training. The emotion 
of fear liberated powers which his strength of will 
could never equal. 
The reader will be able to add many, and perhaps 
more striking, cases than those I have mentioned. 
Most men, indeed, have experienced the invigorating 
effect of an overmastering emotion whose power is 
expressed not only in mental vigor, but in physical 
manifestations-the hot rush of blood in the veins, the 
quickening pulse, the deep strong breathing, the quiver- 
ing nerve, the tense muscle, and the inrush of power 
which fortifies the soul and renders it quick to act and 
brave to endure. 
Glancing over these illustrations of extraordinary 
powers, we are struck with three outstanding facts. 
(i) Under certain conditions extraordinary expen- 
diture of energy can take place without equivalent fa- 8 
The Psychology of Power 
tigue. It is generally assumed that such outbursts of 
power must end in a relapse leaving the exhausted man 
or woman broken in health. This undoubtedly often 
occurs, but is by no means necessary, and did not in 
fact occur in the cases that I have quoted from my 
own experience. The fatigue consequent on great 
exertion seems to bear no necessary relation to the 
amount of energy expended. One can become fa- 
tigued, like the neurasthenic, on very slight exertion: 
but, on the other hand, as in these cases, men. essenti- 
ally no different from ourselves, are seen to exhibit 
extraordinary powers without any apparent fatigue- 
The successful issue of a great endeavour causes the 
gladness of victory to refresh the soul. This fact 
suggests to us the hypothesis that, while our energy 
is being used up, there is an ample store of energy to 
take its place if we could but discover and conform to 
the law of its supply: "the barrel of meal wastes not, 
neither does the cruse of oil fail." The power which 
can sustain us during the trial can renew our strength 
when victory is won. 
(2) We observe that these powers arc greater than 
any at the disposal of the conscious will. The most 
strenuous efforts to walk made by the soldier who had 
been buried ended only in weakness; the athlete could 
never leap the fence again; the patient who has passed 
through the time of anxiety and strain with his wife's 
illness felt that, though his will was feeble, some other 
power laid hold of his life and gave it strength. 
(3) As to the origin of these pozvers those who ex- 
perience them can give no more account than the on- 
looker. In olden times such outbursts of strength were 
looked upon sometimes as being due to possession by 
evil spirits: at other times, as in the story of Samson, 
the amazed beholders exclaimed. "The spirit of the The Psychology of Power 
9 
Lord came mightily upon him." To the scientific 
observer, however, there is one very significant phe- 
nomenon. In every case these powers are associated 
with one of the fundamental instinctive emotions- 
whether of fear in the buried soldier and the athlete, 
tenderness in the husband and the wife, or in the other 
cases, the instincts of self-preservation and pugnacity. 
It would look as if it were only when instinctive 
emotions like these are aroused that energies are liber- 
ated adequate to sweep away all obstacles and take 
complete mastery of our lives. 
These points we shall discuss in order, taking up 
first the question of fatigue, then illustrating the 
infirmity of the will, and, lastly, the power of the 
instinctive emotions. 
The Mental Factor in Fatigue 
If we are to discover the sources of strength we 
must first investigate the causes of fatigue. There 
is a fatigue that comes from the body, and a fatigue 
that is of the mind; and these two forms of fatigue are 
very closely associated in experience, although they 
are separable in origin. Disappointment will leave 
us tired out. The desert traveller is about to fall ex- 
hausted, when the sight of an oasis will revive his 
spirits and give him energy to plod on for miles. A 
mile walk with a bore is more fatiguing than twenty 
miles with the lady of your choice. 
We have already observed in the illustrations of 
extraordinary powers-the endurance of men fighting 
with their backs to the wall, or buoyed up by a great 
hope-that great emotions can endow men and women 
with almost superhuman strength. On the other hand. 10 
The Psychology of Power 
the neurasthenic, tired with the slightest exertion, is 
suffering from a fatigue due sometimes to discourage- 
ment, sometimes to stagnation of the mind, rendering 
the body lifeless and inert, sometimes to discourage- 
ment resulting from a conviction of bodily debility. 
This is the type of fatigue from which most of us 
normally suffer. It may take the form of a feeling of 
boredom, of ennui, of the want of ideals and ambitions, 
which makes the soul limp and exhausts the body; or 
it may express itself in a helpless inability to cope with 
work in which we are really interested. In all these 
instances it can be shown that it is the mind that has 
flagged and become fatigued; when the mind is revived 
it finds the body ready and prepared to answer to its 
call. 
The mental origin of fatigue may be illustrated by 
two experiments-the one psychological, the other 
physiological, (a) In the first, an experiment in hyp- 
notic suggestion, we shall see how either fatigue or 
strength of body can be brought about purely by a 
mental attitude, (b) In the second, an experiment 
first devised by Mosso, we shall see that of all the 
functions that come into play in the performance of 
any action, the mind is the first to be fatigued; and it 
is therefore with fatigue of the mind that we have to 
concern ourselves most. 
(a) Before describing the experiment in hypnotic 
suggestion it is, perhaps, well to say that the old view 
that in hypnosis some virtue, fluid, or power goes out 
from the hypnotiser to the subject, is now completely 
discredited. The essential feature >f hypnotic sug- 
gestion is the communication of an idea to the mind of 
the patient; by hypnotic suggestion we inhibit for the 
moment the critical powers of the mind, and get the 
mind into such a condition of receptivity that any idea The Psychology of Pozver 
11 
introduced into it is accepted without question and, for 
the time being, holds complete sway. The hypnotist 
does not, as is sometimes supposed, impose his will 
upon a reluctant subject; he merely suggests an idea to 
the mind of the patient under conditions which predis- 
pose the patient to accept and appropriate it as his 
own. 
To illustrate this point I may be pardoned for quot- 
ing the words of a patient. "When I came," he 
writes, "I thought I was going to be doped; that you 
were going to put something in me, perhaps something 
I did not like. Now I know that I have lived for years 
in a cellar; you have lifted me out and liberated what 
was in me." 
To return to my experiment. I asked three men 
to submit themselves to test the effect of mental sug- 
gestion on their strength, which was measured by grip- 
ping a dynamometer. I tested them (i) in their 
normal waking condition; (2) after suggesting to 
them under hypnosis that they were "weak" 5(3) after 
suggesting under hypnosis that they were "very 
strong." In each case the men were told to grip the 
dynamometer as tightly as they could-that is to say, 
to exert the will to the utmost. Under hypnosis the 
mind is very suggestible, and the response to the sug- 
gestions of weakness and strength gave very remark- 
able results. In the normal waking condition the men 
gave an average grip of 101 lbs. When, under hypno- 
sis, I had given the men the idea that they were very 
weak, the average grip was only 29 lbs., one of them, a 
prizefighter, remarking that his arm felt "tiny, just 
like a baby's." My suggestions of strength produced 
an average grip of 142 lbs. as against the 101 lbs. 
which was the best they could do in their normal wak- 
ing conditions. A second test, measured by the time 12 
The Psychology of Power 
occupied in holding out a weight, gave similar results. 
In brief, when I suggested "weakness," the full flood 
of energy was checked and the men were capable of 
only one-third of their normal strength, whereas by 
suggestion of "strength" latent powers were liberated 
and their normal strength increased by half as much 
again. 
Such an experiment shows us that, when our minds 
are depressed with the idea of weakness, our strength 
may be diminished by two-thirds; whereas if we have 
the stimulus of a great inspiration our strength may 
thereby be increased by one-half. It is a conclusion of 
the utmost importance for practical life. The weak- 
ness that overtook the men when they felt they were 
weak is exactly what we observe in those suffering 
from neurasthenia. In these men there was produced 
an artificial neurasthenia. The neurasthenic, whose 
tiredness makes him a burden to himself and to every 
one else, is in the same case as these three men when 
their minds were obsessed by the idea of weakness so 
that they could grip only 29 lbs. He, like them, is 
physically strong, but he is overmastered by the feeling 
that he has no strength, antd therefore is easily fa- 
tigued. The radical defect, both in the neurasthenic 
and in these three men when weakness was suggested, 
is in the mind. They believed they were weak and 
fatigued, and this belief produced the reality. Accord- 
ing to their faith was it done to them. Once let the 
mind lose confidence in its strength, and its energy 
flows away like water. 
On the other hand, the condition of the three men 
when, being obsessed with the idea of strength, they 
could grip 142 lbs. illustrates the cases of men of whom 
we have given examples, who were possesed of an 
abnormal energy for which they themselves could not The Psychology of Power 
13 
account, but which made them capable of almost 
incredible feats of strength and endurance. 
It would seem, then, that the limits of strength in 
our daily lives are defined less by the body than by the 
mind, and that the resources of power are psychic 
rather than physical in character. 
(b) Mosso's famous experiment proves that, of all 
the factors involved in the performance of any action, 
the mind is the first to be fatigued. In an ordinary 
voluntary action, say, the moving of an arm, the im- 
pulse passes from the mind and will by means of the 
cells of the brain, down the nerves, passing through 
the nerve-endings to the muscle. By stimulating the 
nerve with electric shocks, one can produce contrac- 
tions of the muscle, but after a time these contractions 
cease, owing to fatigue; but if the muscle alone is then 
stimulated, the muscle continues to contract That is 
to say, it is not the muscle that has been fatigued. By 
similar experiments it is proved that neither is it the 
nerve nor the nerve-cell that first is fatigued, but the 
nerve-ending; indeed, the nerve-cell and the nerve 
are found to be almost unfatiguable. But press the 
experiment a stage further and the more important 
question then arises, whether the fatigue may not be 
psychic rather than physical in origin. Is it the mind 
or the nervous system that is first fatigued? Mosso's 
experiment helps to decide this question. A man's 
fatiguability is tested by tying a weight to his finger 
and making him flex and extend the finger until the 
onset of fatigue prevents him moving his finger any 
more. If the nerve to the finger is then immediately 
stimulated by a weak electric current, without giving 
time for the fatigue to pass off, the finger continues to 
flex and extend. In other words, the fatigue does not 
originate in nerve, nerve-ending, or muscle, which are 14 
The Psychology of Power 
all still quite active, but in the will? The mind is 
fatigued, whereas the body is prepared to go on: the 
flesh is willing, but the spirit is weak. 
The deduction that we draw from this experiment is 
that the mind is exhausted before the body. And this 
fact, strange as it may seem at first sight, is explicable 
on biological grounds, and that for two reasons. 
The first reason is obvious. The mind is the latest 
part of the human organism to have developed in evo- 
lution, and is therefore the least completely adapted to 
its environment. In the face of the chances and re- 
buffs of life it frequently finds itself nonplussed: it 
cannot live as it would because of the limitations sur- 
rounding it; it turns away sick at the problems it has 
to face. From time to time we actually get cases from 
the seat of war of men who have "regressed" to child- 
hood, behaving almost exactly as children of two or 
three years old. In these cases the mind, unable any 
longer to endure the strain of living under such con- 
ditions, becomes tired out and reverts once again to 
the golden age of a protected infancy. 
The second biological reason would appear to be 
that the body may be protected from exhaustion. The 
susceptibility of the mind to fatigue is valuable in 
warning the body of its approach to the danger zone, 
and so preventing the body from going too far. If it 
were not for this warning we might sometimes be 
carried away by our enthusiasm. The man of genius 
has, indeed, an extraordinary capacity for work, 
because his mind is inspired by a great enthusiasm; 
1 It is possible, of course, to hold that toxins formed in the body 
poison the brain (see below, on Physical Fatigue) and thus pro- 
duce the fatigue, but it is inconceivable that the amount of waste 
products from the exercise of one finger could have such wide- 
reaching effects. The Psychology of Power 
15 
but his inspiration might urge him to deeds too strenu- 
ous for his outworn body, and the world would perhaps 
be poorer for his loss. Thus nature determines that 
the mind shall normally be fatigued first, so that he will 
not put too great a strain on the body. But in the 
majority of men (if we may assume that the majority 
are not men of genius) such mental fatigue occurs 
long before we get anywhere near the danger zone of 
bodily fatigue, and the body is rarely given the oppor- 
tunity of showing the extent of its endurance. 
The discussion so far has put us in the position of 
being able to affirm the dominant influence of the mind 
in the production of fatigue, and to sum up the four 
main forms of fatigue: (i) Purely physical fatigue; 
(2) Over-sensitiveness of the mind to physical fatigue; 
(3) False interpretation of mental fatigue as physical; 
(4) Purely mental fatigue, chiefly due to the conflict 
in the mind itself between will and emotion, or between 
the different emotions themselves. 
(1) Physical fatigue.-Fatigue and neurasthenia 
are very frequently caused by poisons such as those 
from tuberculosis, cancer, or intestinal sepsis. Further, 
during the exercise of the muscles there are formed 
certain waste products which are supposed gradually to 
poison the nervous system; and after a great physical 
effort changes are seen to take place in the nerve-cells. 
There are, again, cases in which the mind's activity 
outstrips the body in strength. This has been observed 
in birds flying across the continent, in whom the 
instinct of migration is so strong that it outdoes the 
body and the birds fall dead with exhaustion. This 
also occurs occasionally in men whom some great 
enthusiasm or passion for reform drives on to reckless 
neglect of their strength, till they are compelled to rest 
their bodies in eternal sleep. But the psychological 16 
The Psychology of Power 
experiment in hypnotic suggestion, as well as the 
physiological experiments quoted above, show that at 
any rate the greater part of the fatigue from which we 
suffer is of mental origin; in fact, exhaustion of purely 
physical origin is rare. 
(2) The over-sensitiveness of the mind to physical 
fatigue.-In the course of our daily life we more often 
feel fatigued because we are too sensitive to this phys- 
ical tiredness; we take notice of its symptoms when we 
ought to neglect them. Normally there are thousands 
of impressions and sensations in our body which ought 
never to reach consciousness but should be dealt with 
by the lower brain centres, such as the beating of the 
heart, the movements of the stomach, the sense of 
position of our limbs, and the sensation of normal 
fatigue in our body. But sometimes, owing to some 
exceptional experience-palpitation through fear, indi- 
gestion, or extreme physical exhaustion-these sensa- 
tions force their way into consciousness, and, having 
once gained a footing, continue to claim the conscious 
attention of the mind. The mind begins to pay undue 
heed to these sensations, and pseudo-angina pectoris, 
nervous dyspepsia, and neurasthenia with its over- 
sensitiveness to fatigue result. Even with reasonably 
healthy people the mind may at certain times be 
responsible for the fatigue felt in that it may be over- 
sensitive to the tiredness of the body and, by forcing it 
into consciousness, may exaggerate what should be a 
trifling and transient sensation into a feeling of com- 
plete exhaustion. Normal fatigue of body, like all the 
other thousand routine sensations of the body, should 
never reach consciousness except under very excep- 
tional circumstances. The healthy individual comes in 
from a long, pleasant walk, and, though his body may 
be tired, he takes no notice of it and is quite happy. The Psychology of Power 
17 
The neurasthenic, perhaps owing to some exceptional 
experience of over-fatigue in the past, but more often 
through introspection, becomes over-sensitive to these 
sensations. The same amount of waste products are 
probably formed in each of the men after the same 
length of walk, but, while the healthy man neglects, 
the neurasthenic notices his tiredness, and therefore 
suffers from exhaustion. Under hypnotic suggestion 
a pin-prick can be made to feel like the stab of a dagger, 
and the lifting of a book can cause complete exhaus- 
tion, because the mind is rendered over-sensitive by 
suggestion. Similarly the man who is always expect- 
ing fatigue will find what he looks for. The slightest 
thing tires him, but only because he is sensitive to the 
slightest thing. He turns the molehill into a moun- 
tain, and this mountain goes into labour and brings 
forth neurasthenia. 
(3) Meanwhile we need to point out that fatigue 
of purely mental origin is often misinterpreted and is 
attributed to a physical origin. Man has not yet 
learnt to discriminate clearly between mental and 
physical sensations. Hence mental pain tends to 
express itself in terms of physical injury. Thus when 
we receive bad news the shock is primarily mental, 
but our mind subconsciously finds a physical expression 
for the pain and localises it in the head, with the result 
that we get a nervous headache; but this is because our 
mind has no other way of finding for a "mental pain" 
a local habitation and a name. This is the explanation 
of not a few apparently physical, but really functional, 
diseases. For this reason, when the mind is itself 
fatigued by worry, anxiety, depression, or fear, this 
fatigue, though purely mental, is often felt to be 
physical, and we have the same sensations as if it 
were the body that was tired out. 18 
The Psychology of Power 
(4) Purely mental fatigue is chiefly due to the 
conflict in the mind between the instincts and the will, 
or between the instincts themselves, and is of the 
greatest importance not only in the study of the causes 
of fatigue but for the acquisition of power. The 
powerful instincts crave for free expression; the will 
attempts to hold them down; the house is divided 
against itself and cannot stand. The instinctive 
emotions conflict with one another, and the struggle 
for mastery robs our lives of strength and leaves us 
prostrate. This inner conflict, the chief cause of 
fatigue, and its cure, we shall study in a later section.1 
To call fatigue mental rather than physical is not to 
suggest that it is "unreal." Mental fatigue is the 
most real and the most important for our lives. It 
follows that those who would live lives of energy 
must look to the resources of the mind rather than 
to those of the body, and must study the laws which 
condition mental energy and mental fatigue. 
The Infirmity of the Will 
It is generally considered that it is only by force 
of will that we exercise power; and in recent years 
the glorification of will power has been characteristic 
of certain philosophers, mainly of Teutonic origin, 
and has been exploited by advertisers in pictures of 
square-jawed, clenched-fisted supermen. But is the 
will in point of fact as potent as popular theory would 
have us believe? My own hospital ward, as well as 
those of every physician of the mind, is full of ex- 
amples of will that fails to accomplish wtiat it wills. 
We are constantly dealing with cases where a man 
tries his utmost to perform certain actions and fails 
* P. 30. The Psychology of Power 
19 
to do them; and yet they are perfectly possible to him. 
I had a patient, a healthy lad of twenty, who had 
been engulfed in the marshes of the Piave and was 
invalided home paralysed in both legs. When put 
on his feet he was absolutely terror-stricken, and was 
with the greatest difficulty supported by two men. He 
frequently attempted to walk, exerting his will and 
determination to the utmost, but his attempts all ended 
in failure and distress. As there was no actual disease 
of the nervous system I treated him under hypnosis 
by hypnotic suggestion, and a few weeks later he was 
playing football. The desire to walk was there; the 
effort of will to walk was there; but these could not 
cure him-the will was impotent to save.1 
Another lad, whom I treated only a few days ago, 
suffered from a bullet wound through the shoulder, 
which, however, did not injure any important nerve, 
but paralysed his whole arm. I hypnotised him, and 
in less than two minutes had restored the power which 
had been lacking for months. His greatest effort to 
move it had resulted in failure; yet movement proved 
to be possible. Again, where the will was impotent, 
some other power succeeded.2 
To revert back to my illustrations : the man who in 
fright leaped the fence, the patient who struggled so 
violently that four men were needed to keep him down, 
the man fighting with his back to the wall, were all 
1 This has been stated as follows by Coue "Where will and 
imagination conflict, it is always imagination that wins." This I 
believe is a fallacious statement and have criticised it in "Nature 
1923." 
2 It is only right that I should mention that "shell-shock" cases 
are more dramatic in their symptoms and in their cure than we can 
hope for in civilian patients, where the disease is often of long 
standing, its cause difficult to expose, and its cure proportionately 
more difficult. 20 
The Psychology of Power 
able to do things which by the greatest effort of will 
they could never have accomplished. On the other 
hand, I have been in my ward speaking casually with 
the men when suddenly I have told one man that he 
could not rise from his chair but was stuck to it; 
another that he could not move his arm; another that 
he felt compelled to stand on one leg; and it was 
ludicrous to observe the strenuous efforts they made 
to act contrary to my suggestions. They exercised 
their wills, but to no effect The performances of 
public hypnotists abound with such experiments; my 
only excuse for doing them is that I may convince men 
whom I want to heal of the power of suggestion, 
even in the absence of hypnosis. 
Let me refer again to my hypnotic experiment in 
fatigue. As each man gripped the dynamometer I 
told him to do so "as hard as ever he could." Yet a 
man would one minute be able to do only 29 lbs., and 
a few minutes after he could manage 142 lbs. It is 
quite obvious that the difference in power was due, 
not to the exercise of the will, which was strained to 
the utmost in each case, but to some force that the will 
was impotent to affect. We shall observe, later, that 
this obstacle to the full exercise of the will was the 
belief that the thing attempted was impossible.1 This 
breakdown of the will accounts for a large number 
of the nervous ills and morbid habits with which the 
physician has to deal. Sometimes it takes the form 
of perversion. I have a patient who, when trying to 
move his right leg, invariably moves his left leg. He 
observes his mistake but cannot correct it. There 
is a want of co-ordination somewhere: the couplings 
have gone wrong. 
' See section on "Confidence and Faith." The Psychology of Power 
21 
But I have only to appeal to the reader to look into 
his own life to realise how futile is the will to help us 
in many of our difficulties. Our attempts to prevent 
blushing produce only a deeper crimson; the effort 
to be at our ease produces a strained attitude; and in 
moral actions how often does our greatest determina- 
tion to do right end in failure? It was long ago that 
one discovered "what I would, that do I not; but what 
I hate, that do I." One thing is willed, another is 
performed. The victim of a moody or irritable temper, 
or of some evil habit, spends days and nights in vain 
endeavour to master it. What more pathetic sight than 
that of a confirmed drug-taker affirming with a sickly 
smile that he can easily give it up when he wants to. 
A vulture was seen to be feeding on a carcass as it 
floated down the Niagara river above the Falls; when 
the danger-point came it doubtless expected to spread 
its wings and fly off; but when, in fact, it spread its 
wings, it found that it could not rise; its talons were 
frozen to the carcass on which it fed, and so it was 
carried over the Falls to its doom. So the victim of 
evil habit tells you, "I am all right, you don't need 
to bother about me; I can give it up when I want to"; 
but when he rises to shake himself and put on strength, 
he finds his will power has gone. The freedom of 
the will may be a doctrine which holds true of the 
healthy, and, indeed, the exercise of will and determin- 
ation is the normal way in which to summon the re- 
sources of power; but the doctrine that the will alone 
is the way to power is a most woe-begone theory 
for the relief of the morally sick-and who of us is 
whole? Freedom to choose? Yes! But what if, 
when we choose, we have no power to perform? We 
open the sluice-gates, but the channels are dry; we 
pull the lever, but nothing happens; we try by our The Psychology of Power 
22 
will to summon up our strength, but no strength 
comes. 
We cannot kindle when we would 
The fire that in the soul resides. 
Will and determination are, of course, essential to 
moral endeavour, and without them the instincts would 
run riot. When we say "I will," we feel an accession 
of power that enables us to conquer, and we attribute 
that power to the will. But the futility of looking 
to the will alone for our source of strength is obvious, 
and those who rely on it are running the risk of dis- 
aster : for practical action the will is dependent on some 
other power. As long as it acts in conformity with 
this power all is well. Under these circumstances the 
more strenuous the will, and the greater our resolution 
and determination, the greater will be our strength. 
But if it conflicts with this power, as in our illustra- 
tions, the will is impotent. The energies which give 
the driving force to our lives are not derived from the 
will, but from another source; they will be found to 
have their origin in the instinctive emotions. As we 
shall observe later, the function of the will is to direct 
and work in conformity with the potent forces, derived 
from the instinctive emotions, and to regulate the 
release of these forces waiting ready for action. 
This view of the will suggests two conclusions of 
great importance for religion, (i) An evil deed is 
not always due to an "evil will" for which one is to 
be held responsible, but may be due to impulses over 
which the will has no control, or to distortions of 
character which the will is unable to set right, and it 
is only just that the offender should be treated as sick 
rather than sinful.1 (2) We cannot relv upon the 
1 I would suggest that the "cure of souls" is a practice too seri- 
ously neglected by the modern church. The Psychology of Power 
23 
will alone to deliver us from evil habits. Modern 
psychotherapy confirms the old religious belief that to 
give power to the will, confidence and faith in the 
possibility of victory are essential.1 
The Instincts 
The great driving forces of life are the Instinctive 
Emotions.2 The Will may open the sluice-gates, but 
the Instinctive Emotions constitute the flood which 
sweeps through the channel. Great Ideas may sway 
masses of men as when the cry of "Liberty, Equality, 
and Fraternity" called thousands to rise in revolu- 
tion; yet it is only when associated with an emotion, 
and particularly an instinctive emotion, that the idea 
is charged with compelling power. 
The instinctive emotions give driving force to the 
will and put life into great ideas, and, being liberated 
like the winds from the cave of Aeolus, burst forth, 
either to do their work of destruction or, if rightly 
controlled, to speed us, with full-bellied sail, on the 
voyage to the harbour of our destiny. 
When we look back on our previous illustrations 
of extraordinary powers we see that the main forces 
acting in and through these men were the instinctive 
1 I have dealt more fully with this idea of the will in relation to the 
impulses in "Psychology and Morals: An Analysis of Character." 
Methuen. 
2 On the subject of the instincts and their practical bearing on 
human life, I would urge the reader, if he has not yet done so, to study 
W. McDougall's Social Psychology, for it is to Dr. McDougall that we 
owe the recognition of the paramount importance of the instincts in 
social life. That book shows how intimately connected are the instincts 
and certain great emotions, and I use the term Instinctive Emotion to 
indicate such emotions as Fear, Tenderness, Wonder, which are racially 
inherited and primitive, and therefore can dominate our whole human 
life and conduct. 24 
The Psychology of Power 
emotions. Fear, the expression of the instinct of sei f- 
preservation, gave the soldier, buried in the debris and 
fighting for his life, almost superhuman power. The 
instinct of pugnacity gave one desperate man sur- 
rounded by the enemy the strength of five. The in- 
stinctive emotion of fear enabled the athlete to make 
a spring which he could never afterwards accomplish 
by power of will alone. In these cases the driving 
force obviously comes from the instinctive emotions; 
and they are none the less at work in great reformers, 
statesmen, and industrial monarchs. Wilberforce 
could never have induced Britain to make so great 
a sacrifice in hard cash for the liberation of the slaves 
had he not appealed to an instinctive emotion which 
could sweep away thoughts of prudent economy. The 
emotion aroused in his own soul, and which he quick- 
ened in the soul of others, was the feeling of pity, 
an emotion characteristic of the parental instinct.1 
The instinct of constructiveness combined with the in- 
stinct of self-assertion and the ambitious desire for 
power drives one man from the seculsion of a village 
to control the affairs of an empire, and another to 
organise a trust. It is when our feelings are aroused, 
when passion is awakened in the breast, when the 
approach of danger makes us alert to strike, when the 
sight of brutality to a child kindles our indignation, 
or when we are possessed by some soul-satisfying 
ambition,-it is then that we feel most deeply the 
sense of power. Not in the cold, deliberate choice 
of the will, but in the passion of the soul is to be 
found that flood of energy which can open to us the 
resources of power. Mastered by such a passion the 
soul will admit no defeat. 
1 "Like as a father pitieth his own children." The Psychology of Power 
25 
The strength of the instincts has not yet been fully 
appreciated, nor is it fully realised how great a part 
they play in common life. They have been boycotted 
by the cultured as brutish survivals, and even now some 
regard them as little more than a power that makes 
the birds migrate and the bees furnish the hive. 
Hardly do these people realise that society itself exists 
in response to an instinct of the herd, that their desire 
to travel is a response to the instinct of migration, and 
the impulse to build great cities and empires is the 
same impulse as compels the beaver to build the dam. 
The sociologist is most concerned with the gregarious 
instinct, so lucidly demonstrated by Trotter in The 
Instinct of the Herd. Yet it is only recently that ade- 
quate recognition has been given by sociologists to 
the instincts. Fortunately we have now ceased to 
ignore them, and we realise that the instincts are the 
raw material upon the direction of which depends 
most of our individual and social life, and we now 
regard them for the most part as healthy. But even 
to this day many moralists adopt the prevailing at- 
titude towards the instincts in advocating a stern sup- 
pression of them. Such an attempt is doomed to 
failure, for two reasons. Because, in the first place, it 
is practically impossible to suppress such deep-rooted 
hereditary predispositions; and, secondly, because the 
suppression of them would only dam up the channels 
of power which nature has provided. If we attempt 
to suppress our instincts, there is a conflict between 
will and impulse which ultimately destroys our har- 
mony of soul. 
Religious teaching has sometimes been guilty of 
this mistaken suppression. In their dread of emotion- 
alism-the unruly debauch of unrestrained feeling- 
and its consequences in conduct, they have attempted 26 
The Psychology of Power 
to abolish all emotion as a thing either dangerous or 
vulgar. In so doing they have failed to appreciate 
that the Christian religion is founded on an emotion- 
the all-embracing emotion of love. To rob the soul of 
emotion is to deprive it of its driving force and leave 
it lifeless. Matthew Arnold's description of religion 
as being morality tinged with emotion is a delightful 
though unconscious satire on what religion actually 
is at the present day, but certainly not what it should 
be. A "tinge" of emotion is not the kind of thing to 
turn the world upside-down. "No heart is pure that 
is not passionate; no virtue is safe that is not en- 
thusiastic." If religion means anything at all, it ought 
to mean the full and harmonious display and exercise 
of all our powers, emotional and intellectual, so that 
we present our whole selves a living sacrifice to God. 
The Instincts and Morality 
But if we accept the thesis that the instinctive emo- 
tions are, humanly speaking, the sources of our human 
energies, the question arises-Are these forces moral ? 
Revenge and lust, as well as heroism, bring an en- 
hancement of strength. If the instinctive emotions 
are the springs of power, can the sexual libertine lay 
claim to it as justifiably as the devoted mother? The 
blind rage of instinctive passion can scarcely be called 
moral, and yet it fills beast and man with extraordinary 
power. 
The following observations are therefore necessary 
to a true estimate of the moral value of the instinctive 
emotions. 
(i) In the first place, it must be recognised how 
many of the instincts have, in their very nature, a 
moral and altruistic tendencv. The tenderness of a The Psychology of Pozver 
27 
mother for her child, perhaps the most perfect example 
of an instinct in the whole of human life, is at the 
same time the most perfect example of a beneficent 
instinct. It is found not only in the human mother 
but in the lioness, the tigress, and the bird. Again, in 
the herd instinct, which makes the individual surrender 
all his personal claims to the demands of the pack, 
lie the germ and source of most of the social virtues. 
The instincts are not brutal because they are shared 
by brutes, and, indeed, it might be urged that the 
noblest deeds of man have sprung from the altruistic 
instincts which originate in mother-love and loyalty 
to one's fellows and can be traced far back into the 
animal kingdom. But even such beneficent instincts 
need to be wisely directed. In the case of the maternal 
instinct, for instance, there comes the time when the 
child must no longer rely upon the mother but win 
independence. The lingering care of the mother for 
the grown-up daughter is certain at some time to clash 
with the impulse to independence in the daughter, and 
is the cause of that misunderstanding and consequent 
friction which so often brings unhappiness to both 
mother and daughter. They are both guided by in- 
stinctive impulses that are right and necessary-the 
one of maternal care, the other of independence. The 
friction which so often results would frequently be 
avoided were both mother and daughter to realise the 
causes of their misunderstandings. A wider knowl- 
edge of the influence of the instincts would materially 
assist in bringing about peace and harmony in every- 
day life. As soon as both mother and daughter realise 
that the opinions and desires of the other are not due 
to "sheer cussedness." but understand that such desires 28 
The Psychology of Power 
are instinctive and natural, so soon will this under- 
standing bring about peace and forgiveness.1 
(2) On the broadest definition, morality is that 
which is found to be valuable for social life. In the 
animal world all the instincts are, in this sense, moral. 
And, as we have seen, some of them, such as the 
tenderness of the mother for her young, or the loyalty 
of the individual to the pack, can, with but a little sub- 
limation, become the basis of all that is best and highest 
in human life. Others, however, like the instinct of 
pugnacity, may seem in human society to have out- 
lived their day. At an early stage of human evolution 
such an instinct was valuable in the struggle for ex- 
istence. But this struggle, at least in its cruder form, 
is, or ought to be, a thing of the past; with the result 
that the instinct of pugnacity may easily lead to anti- 
social conduct Nevertheless, every instinct, however 
ill-adapted to the requirements of present-day civilised 
life, has had value in its day in that it worked for 
the good of the species as a whole, and should be re- 
garded, so far, as moral, or capable or being moralised. 
I shall deal with the question of the transformation 
and moralisation of the instincts in a later section. 
(3) The moral potentialities of the force mani- 
fested in the instincts may be judged also from another 
point of view. The source of power lies not in in- 
stinctive emotion alone, but in instinctive emotion ex- 
pressed in a way with which the whole man can, for 
1 The need for such understanding is most felt in regard to the in- 
stincts in growing children, whose impulses toward the expression 
of the instincts are so often treated as "naughtiness." The child 
naturally feels unjustly treated, for the impulse to obey the instincts, 
a perfectly beneficent impulse if wisely guided, is stronger than the 
impulse to obey the injunctions of the parent, whose business it 
ought to be to guide and not to repress the instincts and to make them 
amenable to the control of reason. The Psychology of Power 
29 
the time being at least, identify himself. Ultimately, 
this is impossible without the achievement of a har- 
mony of all the instincts and the approval of the 
reason. An evil man has access to the same instinc- 
tive emotions as the good man, and may use them for 
wrong ends-as a Napoleon for his ambition, or a 
murderer for his hate. The man who gives vent to 
blind rage may feel the same satisfaction and relief 
as does the man who shows his indignation at some 
moral wrong. Yet in the long run those who misuse 
their powers destroy themselves by their very passions. 
It may be true that the man who takes personal 
vengeance on another may satisfy his instinct of re- 
venge and feel elated, but he is apt to be so ostracised 
by his fellows that, quite independently of any prac- 
tical inconvenience their consequent action toward 
him may entail, the herd instinct in him rises up in 
opposition to the instinct of revenge and sets up an 
internal conflict which soon robs him of that harmony 
of the instincts which I shall show later on to be 
essential to power.1 Thus the greatest and permanent 
power comes to him who uses it not for his own per- 
sonal ends, but for the good of his fellows; for only 
by such a use of it does he achieve the maximum 
inner harmony. We may therefore assert that, while 
it is open to the evil man to give vent to a particular 
instinctive emotion, and thereby to lay claim for a 
moment to the power that nature lavishes upon those 
who use her gifts, it is only to those who use them 
aright that the greatest powers are given. Thus the 
powers at our disposal are not so neutral and non- 
moral as they seem, but tend to favour those who will 
use them for the noblest purposes. Revenge, pride, 
1 See section on "The Conflict of Instincts." 30 
The Psychology of Power 
and passion destroy the permanent inner harmony 
of the soul, even though they may temporarily ener- 
gise it into activity. Chivalry, honour, and love, de- 
voted to the service of others, tend to produce a 
transformation of instincts and a living harmony of 
the soul which can permanently keep open the sluice- 
gates of power. 
We shall proceed, then, to deal with the questions 
which have just arisen, and show how the crude forces 
which reside in the instinctive emotions can best be 
utilised for human endeavours and ideals. We shall 
first show how the instincts of the baser sort, if 
focussed on some dominating purpose or idea, may 
be transformed; after which we shall demonstrate 
the necessity of expending our powers as a pre-re- 
quisite of receiving more power, and finally we shall 
deal with the question of the conflict of instincts, the 
abolition of which conflict is necessary to unity and 
to power. 
The Conflict of Instincts 
The presence of conflict in the soul drains it of 
strength, and is one of the main causes of weakness. 
"I see another law in my members warring against 
the law of my mind." The conflict may be of in- 
stinctive emotions with ideas, as when a man is feeble 
because he is obsessed with intellectual doubt. At 
other times the weakness is due to the conflict of in- 
stinctive emotions and will, one of the most common 
forms of which is the attempt to suppress the in- 
stincts by the will, already referred to. But chieflv 
our powers are sapped because the instincts are divided 
against themselves. Let one instinct sway the mind 
and there is the sense of power. But the instincts are 
often opposed, and turn many of our best endeavours The Psychology of Power 
31 
into failures. We are ambitious to succeed, but we 
are checked by the fear of making fools of ourselves. 
We never learn to skate, because we think of the 
ridiculous figure we should cut if we fell. Thus the 
desire to excel in any accomplishment (the instinct 
of self-assertion) conflicts with the possible feeling of 
shame and self-abasement. 
The following case illustrates my point so well that 
I shall give it in some detail. I have recently been 
treating a lady who, when she came to me, was so 
neurasthenic and easily fatigued that she habitually 
slept for sixteen hours out of the twenty-four. After 
a good night's sleep from 9 p. m. till 7 a. m. she would 
rise and have breakfast, but the effort caused her so 
much fatigue that she would retire to bed again at 9 
a. m. to sleep till 12. Now this was not laziness in 
the ordinary sense; she was an affectionate mother, 
and was anxious above all things to be able to work 
and play with her children, but she had not the 
strength. It was purely a case of mental fatigue, pro- 
duced by a conflict of instinctive emotions. 
Her cure could only be affected by discovering the 
cause and eradicating it from the mind. This process 
of discovery was conducted largely under hypnosis, 
since the patient could give little assistance in her wak- 
ing state. It was discovered that the cause was the 
long-continued strain of nursing a very delicate child, 
when on more than one occasion it seemed that it 
must be a question of whether mother or child should 
be sacrificed. In her, then, two most powerful instinc- 
tive emotions had been at war, namely, the instinct of 
self-preservation and the maternal instinct. The 
result was a complete breakdown, several phobias, and 
a fatigue lasting some years, even though the original 
cause of anxiety was happily at an end. These were 32 
The Psychology of Power 
in turn removed, the instincts readjusted, the phobias 
explained, and the last account I have received from 
her husband, some months later, is to the effect that 
she is perfectly well.1 
Fortunately most of us are not called on to suffer 
from such conflicts, but conflict is nevertheless repre- 
sented in everyday life by anxiety and worry. Anxiety 
is essentially a conflict of emotions. Anxiety about 
the future, about one's children, about the dinner one 
is giving, about the destiny of one's soul, about a 
railway journey or one's health, are all conflicts of 
opposing emotions. By such worries and restlessness 
of spirit we waste our strength and sap our vitality. 
By facing our conflicts and deliberately making our 
choice, by directing all our endeavours to one great 
purpose, confidently and fearlessly, the soul is restored 
again to harmony and strength. 
The Conversion of the Instincts2 
Perhaps the most characteristic feature of a living 
being is, that it is able to raise energy from a lower 
potential to a higher potential, i.e. its efficiency for a 
given purpose is increased. In all inanimate things 
1 Other cases of conflict leading to nervous breakdown which have 
lately come under my notice may be briefly indicated. The sense of 
duty to her mother clashed with the instinctive desire for independ- 
ence in a grown-up daughter, and a feeling of restless discontent 
resulted. Fear and the impulse to run away conflicted in the mind 
of the soldier with his sense of duty, and ended in a condition of 
paralysis of the legs, unconsciously produced, which solved the im- 
mediate problem but brought about a breakdown in health. The 
eagerness to please a master, with whom a patient of mine was in 
love, together with the constant sense of failure in this attempt, brought 
about a conflict between sexual instinct and self-pride, and pro- 
duced a neurasthenia of many years' standing. A man's desire to 
live a clean and pure life was hampered by the shame of a past sin. 
2 This subject I have more fully dealt with in "Psychology and 
Morals." The Psychology of Power 
33 
energy, such as heat or motion, tends to be dissipated 
instead of being raised to a high potential. The human 
being can raise the energy contained in food and trans- 
form it into nerve energy, and by so doing he raises 
the potential of this form of energy. William James 
probably had in mind this difference of potential when 
he says: "Writing is higher than walking, thinking 
is higher than writing, deciding higher than thinking, 
deciding 'no' higher than deciding 'yes.' " It is the 
intellectual and moral privilege of the human being 
that he can similarly raise the energy contained in the 
instincts, the radical fault in most of which is Their 
selfish and ego'centric character, to higher potentials: 
that is to say, by transforming the quality of this 
energy he raises its power to accomplish his ends, as 
sexual passion has been transformed into love; and by 
changing the direction of the energy he endows it with 
a greater effectiveness of purpose. By doing so he re- 
tains the power or force of the instincts, but directs 
that force to greater purpose. Furthermore, directed 
to altruistic ends, these individual instincts will no 
longer clash with the social instincts and thereby be 
deprived of strength, but co-operating and working in 
harmony with the social instincts they will be mag- 
nificently reinforced and their power multiplied. 
The hunting instinct affords an obvious illustration 
of this principle. We see its evolution in the trans- 
formation from the child's game of "hide and seek." 
to the keenness of the boy scout, until finally it 
assumes the form of exploration and discovery, its 
original object having been almost entirely forgotten. 
Again, the instinct of curiosity is one the poten- 
tialities of which are not sufficiently realised. We 
often use this term in a derogatory sense, as when one 
is said to be "inquisitive out of mere curiosity.*' 34 
The Psychology of Power 
Curiosity often takes the form of prying into other 
people's affairs; it has driven more than one medical 
student I have known into morphinomania, and it leads 
many a young man and woman to sample those 
"thrills" which constitute "seeing life." "It is in 
their blood," we say, by which we imply that this im- 
pulse is instinctive. But this instinct of curiosity also 
gives the impulse to all true scientific pursuit- The 
instinct of curiosity directed towards human nature 
makes of one person a prying gossip, but leads another 
to search, like the psychologist, into the hidden depths 
of the human mind with sympathetic insight i.c. to 
increase its efficiency. Nothing short of a funda- 
mental instinct could urge on the scientist to the re- 
searches which he pursues year after year, regardless 
of result or reward, to the great good of mankind. 
The combative instinct.-We often hear it main- 
tained that the instinct of pugnacity which in the past 
has led to war must necessarily do so in the future, 
and that those who look for a permanent peace are 
therefore doomed to disappointment. This is a most 
unjustifiable assumption. Granting that the emotional 
element of every instinct must always remain, it is 
not necessary either that the same stimuli should 
awaken that emotion, or that the emotion should ex- 
press itself in the same action-in this case, in 
slaughter. The instinct for combat finds expression 
in games such as football and in the rivalry of sport; 
and it is probably for this reason that the English 
people are less aggressive than other nations we know, 
though when the instinct is directed to war the English- 
man throws himself into it with no less energy and 
zest. Long ago, William James pointed out the pos- 
sibility of finding a moral equivalent of war in social 
service, from an egocentric to an altruistic and chiv- The Psychology of Power 
35 
alrous end.1 We can take up arms for others even 
though we refuse to do so for ourselves. Then our 
instinct ceases to be aggressive, and becomes protective. 
So ultimately we shall learn that we can fight with 
other weapons for truth and purity, we shall join 
a crusade against oppression and vice-and this kind 
of combat will employ for social ends those emotions 
and instincts which at present we use for war and 
destruction. So we may confidently hope that the 
pugnacious instinct will find scope in fields of social 
service in the fight for justice, purity, and right. 
It is often said that instincts are blind. It is rather 
we who are blind to their potency and to the purposes 
for which they exist. The abandonment of that false 
doctrine which would have us suppress them, and the 
substitution for it of an understanding of their proper 
uses, would open up to us resources of power which 
would give us in abundance energy and life. 
Fear: Sex: Self-assertion.-The instinctive emo- 
tion of fear and the instincts of sex and self-assertion 
deserve more detailed description on account of their 
great power-a power derived from their primitive 
character, their origin dating back to the earliest forms 
of animal life, but one far greater than the circum- 
stances of modern life necessitate. Abolish these in- 
stincts and their effects in individual and social life, 
and the problems of mankind would be well-nigh 
solved. But abolish them we cannot; to suppress 
them is to deprive ourselves of their forces. To con- 
vert them and to redirect their forces to higher pur- 
1 In the Great War men in this country were largely divided into 
those who fought because they hated the Hun and those who fought 
in chivalrous defence of the Belgian nation. The resultant action was 
the same, yet the motive for the impulse was very different, being 
the expression of a selfish instinct in one case and of an altruistic 
one in the other. 36 
The Psychology of Pozver 
poses is the work of beings possessed of intelligence, 
of will, and of an ideal. 
The instinctive emotion of fear, so intimately asso- 
ciated with self-preservation, is one very necessary to 
our existence; without it we should soon be run down 
in the street. But the strength of this instinct is far 
greater than the uses of our civilised life require, for 
modern life is comparatively safe. There is a great 
deal of the primitive fear that is left over, as it were, 
which we cannot use. The consequence is that the ex- 
cess of fear tends to flow into wrong channels, or we 
fear excessively things which should rightly be objects 
of fear. Our surplus fear produces fear of poverty, 
fear of sickness and pain, fear of the future, fear of 
what might have been, fear of ourselves, fear of death, 
fear of life, fear of failure, and, perhaps most 
paralysing of all, fear of fear. If fear were abolished 
from modern life, the work of the psychotherapist 
would be nearly gone. It was not without cause that 
the Master of the soul so often reiterated "Fear not." 
"Be not afraid," "Be not anxious." 
Is this, then, an instinct we should suppress? That 
is both impossible and undesirable. The effects of 
fear are of two kinds: there is the fear that paralyses 
and the fear that inspires. Nothing paralyses our lives 
so much as fear, depriving them as it does of that 
abundance of power which is our birthright. But 
there is also the fear that nerves and inspires and ex- 
presses itself in the effective avoidance of imminent 
disaster. Now, we ask what constitutes the difference 
between the fear in these two cases? The answer is 
that fear paralyses when it offers no way of escape: 
it inspires when it is associated with hope. A hare, 
suddenly surprised, is either temporarily paralysed by 
fear, or stimulated to its topmost speed. It has been The Psychology of Pozver 
37 
conjectured that the paralysis is probably a protective 
mechanism to enable the animal to hide when it can- 
not escape. If escape is possible the fear no longer 
paralyses, but is expressed in that tension of muscle, 
that alertness of mind, which make swift and effective 
action possible. Fear which includes a large element 
of hope passes into confidence, and this, as we have 
seen, is the first essential of power. If we apply our 
principle to what we have said concerning morbid 
fear, we can see that our problem is to turn the fear 
that paralyses into the fear that inspires. The fear 
of poverty inspires us to greater efforts, the fear of 
the future saves us from indolence, the fear of accident 
makes us alert; but this transformation takes place 
only when we have confidence that we can come 
through, and that the struggle will issue in victory. 
Those who have raised discussion as to whether we 
should "fear God" have, I think, failed to appreciate 
this difference between the fear that paralyses and the 
fear akin to hope that urges us to active service. To 
fear God may mean that we are afraid of God because 
He may punish us, and in this case the fear is paralys- 
ing and brings forth no good result-"I knew thee, that 
thou wert an austere man . . . and hid thy talent in the 
ground." But the fear of God may mean that, in- 
different to ourselves, we are filled with reverent awe 
(in which emotion there is an element of fear), com- 
bined with a conviction of His willingness and power 
to help. This shifts the fear from ourselves, turns it 
into hope, and fills us with a confidence which stimu- 
lates us to great endeavours, and gives us that inspira- 
tion which only comes to those who humbly devote 
themselves to a noble cause. 
The sexual instinct at first sight appears to be in- 
capable of being raised to higher uses. It is an in- 38 
The Psychology of Power 
stinct which is necessary to the race for the purpose of 
reproduction. But, like fear, it has a far greater 
"affect" or emotional tone than we need for this pur- 
pose, and therefore its lavish expression apparently 
needs to be suppressed. On the other hand, the sup- 
pression of this instinct causes a very large number 
of the nervous ills to which men, and still more women, 
fall victims. But the sexual instinct, which naturally 
expresses itself as admiration for personal beauty, is 
probably at the basis of all the higher forms of art 
and may wrell be sublimated to this end. Further, 
this instinct is very closely associated with the maternal 
and paternal instincts, and seems almost to form an 
harmonious complex with them. The true lover is 
not only moved by the sexual instinct, but almost 
always associates with it the maternal or paternal in- 
stinct, and desires to "have some one to care for."1 
Many a woman has married an invalid man simply in 
order to gratify this maternal instinct in caring for 
him. Unmarried women, in whom the sexual instincts 
are strong (and let them never be ashamed that these 
instincts are strong), may transform them into the 
maternal instinct in caring for children, "mothering" 
the lonely, or nursing the sick. The sexual instincts, 
debased to the uses of fleshly lust, kill the soul and 
stifle all noble thought and feeling; but from the same 
soil there may spring the stainless flower of love, 
whence comes all that is pure and holy in human life. 
The instinct of self-assertion, when directed to 
purely individual ends, produces that aggressive 
character which is as offensive as it is anti-social. 
1 The intimate connection between the sexual instinct and the 
maternal instinct is demonstrated by the physiological co-operation 
between the physical organs corresponding respectively to these 
instincts. The Psychology of Power 
39 
Nevertheless the opposite emotion of submission, if 
over-emphasised, results in a lack of practical initiative 
and independence. The virtue which corresponds to 
these excesses is not to be found in the "mean" be- 
tween them, as Aristotle would say, but is the right 
direction of them both to altruistic ends. There is 
room for a new ethic on these lines. A self-assertion 
which forgets itself in the pursuit of a noble end is 
the truest humility. Submission that is self-conscious 
may be egoism disguised. True humility consists not 
in thinking little of oneself, but in not thinking of 
oneself at all. Thus both self-assertion and submis- 
siveness are harmonised, and so lend the force of two 
combined instinctive emotions to the accomplishment 
of a noble end. 
But more than that, the instinct of self-assertion 
is at the basis of the sense of confidence which I shall 
proceed to show is so essential to a life of power. Be- 
sides the intellectual acceptance of the idea "this is 
possible," confidence consists in the emotional reaction 
arising out of the instinct of self-assertion, "what is 
possible I can do," whether the confidence is based 
on the belief in my own power or in some other power 
on which I can rely. 
Confidence and Faith 
Confidence, deriving its power from the instinct of 
self-assertion, turns weakness into strength and failure 
into success. 
"Somehow, when I started, I knew I was going to 
succeed." This is a phrase we often hear on the lips 
of a man flushed with success. He hardly realises 
that it was his confidence in success, his belief that he 
would succeed, that gave him the power to surmount 40 
The Psychology of Power 
his difficulties and win his way to victory. All round 
us we see men failing simply because they lack the 
confidence that they will succeed, while men with far 
less ability and talent, but with greater daring, carry 
off the prizes that life has to offer. It is not that 
the others do not try, but that they do not expect to 
succeed. 
In the section on the will I quoted cases of men 
paralysed in arms and legs whom the will was quite 
impotent to restore to health: yet there was nothing 
organically wrong with such patients. Why, then, 
were they paralysed? Why did not their strenuous 
efforts enable them to walk? Because they believed 
they could not move their limbs. They could say "I 
will," but they had not learnt to say "I can." The 
man paralysed in both legs would cling to me with such 
vigour that he nearly pulled me down with him- 
simply because he had not the confidence to trust him- 
self to walk. In the hypnotic experiment on fatigue 
the subject could only grip 29 lbs. because he said "I 
am weak, I cannot grip it any harder." When he said, 
and believed, "I am strong and powerful," his 
strength was multiplied fivefold. I suddenly told 
another man that he could not talk; he tried, but found 
that he was dumb-simply because, being suggestible 
to my words, he lost confidence in his power to speak, 
and believed what I suggested to be in fact true. In 
all such cases we have seen that the will alone does not 
ensure success. "To will is present with me, but how 
to perform I know not." That which is lacking is 
"confidence." 
I have spoken of the paralysing effects of fear. 
Confidence removes this paralysis and turns belief into 
a mighty impulse to act. It fills men with the strength 
which makes the soul master of its fate. It possesses The Psychology of Power 
41 
the timid who cling to the shores of life, who have 
toiled all night and caught nothing, and bids them 
launch out into the deep, where endeavour is crowned 
with overwhelming success. Want of belief in its 
possibility is always the main obstacle to the perform- 
ing of any mighty work. Faith in its possibility-a 
faith not necessarily founded on evidence but one that 
dares to take the risk-is the greatest asset to success 
in any task. "If thou canst?" "All things are pos- 
sible to them that believe." 
The Expenditure of Power 
Nature is economic in her gifts: she will not give 
strength to those who will not expend it. These re- 
main uninspiring and uninspired. She is lavish in 
her gifts to those who will use them, and especially 
to those who devote them to nature's altruistic ends, 
for such ends harmonise the soul. Life demands ex- 
pression. If the life-stream that flows through us 
finds the channel blocked by a life of inactivity, we 
inevitably suffer from staleness and boredom, or a 
sense of physical debility. A purposeless life is a life 
of fatigue. We all know from personal experience 
how tired we may become while doing nothing, but let 
us once find an outlet for our energies, some object 
upon which to expend them, and our instinctive powers 
awake us to life. Mental fatigue, as we have already 
said, is due not to exhaustion but to stagnation. The 
Sea of Galilee is fresh and blue, and gives life to 
living creatures within its sunlit waters-not because 
it receives waters, but because it gives of them freely. 
The Dead Sea is dead, not because there is no supply 
of fresh water, but because it permits no outlet. It is 
therefore stagnant and deadly: no fish lives in its 42 
The Psychology of Power 
waters, nor is any beast to be found upon its shores. 
It is a law of nature-a law of life-that only by 
giving shall we receive. None is so healthy and fresh 
as he who gives freely of his strength, and thereby 
liberates his impulses and instinctive powers into quick- 
ened activity. This is of immense practical impor- 
tance. In the treatment of neurasthenia, the chief 
symptom of which is fatigue, it is often found that the 
"Weir Mitchell" treatment of inactivity and isolation 
is the worst a physician can prescribe. Already is the 
patient suffering from too much self-consciousness 
and introspection. Some disappointment or sorrow 
may have taken all the life out of him: the zeal and 
keenness of his life has suddenly gone. In popular 
language, what he needs is "something to take him out 
of himself"; something to interest him, some object 
which will liberate the forces pent up in his soul. Give 
such a man "something to live for," that awakens his 
interest, and his ambition will arouse his instinctive 
emotions till the heart that was sluggish palpitates 
with the joy of life once more, the nerves tingle with 
eager expectation. Life's demand for expression will 
be satisfied. 
How wonderful is the way in which, with quite 
ordinary folk, power leaps to our aid in any time of 
emergency. We lead timid lives, shrinking from diffi- 
cult tasks till perhaps we are forced into them or our- 
selves determine on them, and immediately we seem 
to unlock the unseen forces. When we have to face 
danger, then courage comes; when trial puts a long- 
continued strain upon us, we find ourselves possessed 
by the power to endure; or when disaster ultimately 
brings the fall which we so long dreaded, we feel 
underneath us the strength as of the everlasting arms. 
Common experience teaches that, when great demands The Psychology of Poiver 
43 
are made upon us, if only we fearlessly accept the 
•challenge and confidently expend our strength, every 
danger or difficulty brings its own strength-"As thy 
days so shall thy strength be." 
Energy and Rest 
In considering the causes of fatigue we found that 
the mental factor played a very prominent part. The 
main causes of such fatigue were over-sensitiveness 
to ordinary physical fatigue, the conviction of weak- 
ness, and the conflict of will and emotions or of the 
emotions with themselves. A life of purposeful and 
altruistic activity will rid us of that habit of intro- 
spection which produces the first form of fatigue; the 
sense of confidence will drive away thoughts of weak- 
ness; and we have now to deal with the third form, 
conflict within the mind, the most characteristic form 
of which is worry and anxiety. This is to be met, 
firstly, by discovering and bringing into consciousness 
the latent cause of our worry, which normally tends to 
elude consciousness. Modern practice in psycho- 
therapy confirms the old belief that confession, more 
especially confession of fears and anxieties, is good 
for the soul. The "letting out" of the "repressed 
complex" is itself often sufficient to cure; secondly, by 
converting the instincts and directing their energies 
toward useful and harmonious ends; and, thirdly, by 
cultivating a restfulness of mind which is the counter- 
part of a life of energy. 
Weakness results from the wastage caused by rest- 
lessness of mind; Power comes from a condition of 
mental quietude. The secret of energy is to learn to 
keep the mind at rest, even in the multitude of life's 
activities. Look at this patient suffering from neur- 44 
The Psychology of Pozver 
asthenia. He complains that he is suffering from 
fatigue; but there is another symptom you notice about 
him-he is irritable, cannot stand noises, cannot bear 
to be crossed or disturbed. The fatigue and the irri- 
tability are part of the same trouble. It is a char- 
acteristic of nervous patients that they are always 
restless: they tell you that they must always be doing 
something, always be "on the go." They cannot con- 
centrate, they cannot remember. They are in a state 
of perpetual motion. They are worried and anxious, 
fret and are irritable, until, through sheer exhaustion 
of mind, they drift into the most characteristic condi- 
tion of the neurasthenic, that of fatigue. And it is 
not surprising that such men become fatigued. The 
average neurasthenic is ordered to take a rest in the 
afternoon, but he spends the time in reading the paper; 
he goes to bed early at night, but sits up reading a 
novel. He gives his body more rest than it needs, 
failing to realise that what the body needs is not re- 
laxation but re-invigoration. At the same time he 
never permits his mind that rest which alone can 
enable it to invigorate the body. It is characteristic 
of the neurasthenic that in the morning, possibly after 
a long night's sleep, he wakes up more fatigued than 
he went to bed; for though his body has had many 
hours' rest, his mind has been restless and perturbed 
even in sleep. 
This art of resting the mind and the power of dis- 
missing from it all care and worry is probably one of 
the secrets of energy in our great men. It is generally 
said that Edison, the inventor, finds four hours' sleep 
sufficient for his needs and that he works for eighteen 
hours. If that is the case, I can conceive him as a man 
whose mind, in spite of the nature of his work, has 
the power of banishing all the problems and difficulties The Psychology of Power 
45 
of the day. This, I understand, was also one of the 
secrets of the energy of Gladstone, and probably also 
of many other great men who have the power to free 
their minds entirely from the business of the day in 
dreamless sleep. Look into the face of Napoleon and, 
besides the cruelty there, you will see that perfect com- 
posure and calm which stamps him as a man of great 
reserve power.1 
The mental and moral strain that some men have to 
undergo seems incredible. In the course of a day 
the President, for instance, guides the counsels of 
state, directs wars, settles industrial disputes, and con- 
ducts diplomatic relations with other nations, all in 
addition to the ordinary cares of his private affairs. 
Compare his output of energy with that, say, of his 
barber, whose anxieties are confined to his little shop, 
whose disputes are concerned only with his two assist- 
ants, and whose diplomacy reaches its height in his 
attempt to persuade you to buy his hair lotion without 
suggesting that you are bald. Yet, if you observe 
these two men at the close of day, probably the Presi- 
dent is the less fatigued of the two. The thing 
that strikes us is that, however much energy such a 
man expends, there always seems to be an ample re- 
supply which keeps him vigorous and fresh. 
At the present time I am treating each morning 
about twenty neurasthenic patients at once by hypnotic 
suggestion. I always commence treatment by sugges- 
tions of quietness and calmness of mind, of freedom 
from anxiety and the passing away of all nervousness 
and fear. To attempt to stimulate a restless and 
worried mind with energetic suggestions is as futile 
1 It is interesting to note that, even physiologically, Napoleon was 
constructed with a power of rest shared by few men, for he had a 
pulse rate of only about 50 compared with the normal rate of 75. 46 
The Psychology of Power 
as whipping a dying horse. When the mind is quiet 
and rested, only then do I suggest thoughts of vigour 
of mind, strength of body, and determination of will. 
Inspiring, stimulating thoughts, falling on a mind calm 
and receptive, draw from its silent depths ample re- 
sources of strength which produce calmness and peace. 
The confidence and happiness with which these men 
rise from their half-hour's rest is a proof that this rest, 
unlike the neurasthenic's ordinary night's "rest," has 
brought them into touch with untold resources of 
power. 
The art of alternating rest and activity is an art 
well worth acquiring. Some people have the power 
of putting themselves to sleep for five or ten minutes 
at any time of the day. This carries with it the 
power of dismissing from the mind at any time all 
cares, which forthwith 
fold up their tents like the Arabs 
And silently steal away. 
Night time should be reserved for sleep, and no 
thoughts of the day should be permitted to break into 
the preserves of sleep. 
I once put into a short hypnotic sleep a patient, 
tremulous, anxious, sleepless. When he awakened 
he spontaneously remarked that that was the best 
sleep he had had for months, and on being questioned 
replied that he thought he had slept for several hours, 
whereas, in point of fact, he had slept only a few 
minutes. During those few moments he had had a 
perfect control over a mind worried with anxious 
thoughts. 
That the life of energy is dependent on the art of 
resting is one of the fundamental laws of physiology The Psychology of Power 
47 
as well as of psychology. The alternation of rest and 
work is necessary for the activity of life. Even the 
heart is not always active, as is sometimes supposed; 
it has its periods of repose at the end of each beat 
when there is a relaxation, which is sufficient though 
it lasts only the fraction of a second, to refresh it 
for the next beat. In the last section we mentioned 
the fact that a nerve was practically unfatiguable. 
That fact is not due to there being no wastage, for 
the nerve tissue is always being used up; as Waller 
says, the nerve "is inexhaustible, not because there is 
little or no expenditure, but because there is an ample 
re-supply." The nerve rests for only a very small 
fraction of a second between the electric shocks which 
pass along it, yet in that moment of rest it is able to 
draw upon that ample re-supply which reinvigorates 
it to renewed activity. These physiological principles 
point the way to find refreshment of the mind. There 
are ample resources of power at our disposal, but in 
the course of our life we need moments of mental 
rest when the soul can go apart and rest awhile. Life, 
like music, has its rhythm of silence as well as of 
sound; it has its crests of surging energy, and its 
quiet calm in the trough of the wave. Life has its 
moments of throbbing energy, but needs also its 
moments of relaxation. The restful life does not 
demand that we withdraw from the world in ascetic 
retreat; but it demands such a control of our thoughts 
and feelings that, even when active in body, we can 
have that quiescence of mind which is itself the most 
perfect rest. 
And out of that tranquillity shall rise 
The end and healing of our earthly pains, 
Since the mind governed is the mind at rest. 48 
The Psychology of Power 
The Source of Energy 
This Essay has raised the question as to whether 
our strength comes from within ourselves, in which 
case we may be conceived as a reservoir of energy, or 
whether it is derived from an outside source, using 
us as a channel for its activity. (i) It is true that we 
do store up a certain amount of energy derived, 
physiologically, from the nutriment of food and air, 
psychologically from the myraids of impressions of 
sight, sound, and touch, which are continually falling 
upon our senses and being recorded and stored, 
probably in the lower brain centres. (2) But what we 
have been especially considering are not these acquired 
energies, but the great hereditary instinctive powers 
which have borne down like a wave through humanity 
from generation to generation. (3) Several of the 
greatest psychologists, and, in particular, those clinical 
psychologists who have to deal with the actual dis- 
eases of men, have tended towards the view that the 
source of power is to be regarded as some impulse 
that works through us, and is not of our own making. 
What Janet calls "mental energy" is a force which 
ebbs in the neurasthenic and flows in the healthy man; 
Jung speaks of libido or urge as a force which surges 
through our lives, now as an impulse towards nutri- 
tion, now as the sexual instinct; there is also the 
elan vital of Bergson. These views suggest that we 
are not merely receptacles but channels of energy. 
Life and power is not so much contained in us. it 
courses through us. Man's might is not to be measured 
by the stagnant water in the well, but by the limitless 
supply from the clouds of heaven. These descriptive 
theories represent man as borne on the crest of an 
impulse which he can only partially control. Whether The Psychology of Power 
49 
we are to look upon this impulse as cosmic energy, as 
a life force, or what may be its relation to the Divine 
immanence in Nature, it is for other investigators to 
say. It is the business of the philosopher to speculate 
upon the ultimate nature of reality. The scientist 
has merely to study the laws of its manifestation in 
concrete expression. I merely wish to point out that 
the views expressed above as to the derivation of 
our human energies from the instinctive emotions 
does not exclude the foregoing or any other theories 
as to their ultimate source, which is yet a matter of 
speculation. 
The Dynamic of Religion 
While it has not been the purpose of this Essay to 
deal with questions of theology, I cannot help pointing 
out that our discussion of the psychology of power 
has a very direct bearing on the question of the 
dynamic of religion, and especially on the power pos- 
sessed by the Christian religion of liberating energies 
which can transform the living soul into a quickening 
spirit. In its fundamental doctrine of love to God 
and man, Christianity harmonises the emotions of the 
soul into one inspiring purpose, thereby abolishing all 
conflict, and liberating instead of suppressing the free 
energies of men. In its doctrine of the Spirit it em- 
phasises the element of power in religion. No reader 
of the New Testament can fail to be struck by the 
constant reiteration in different forms of the idea that 
the normal experience of a Christian at that epoch was 
enchancement of power-"I can do all things"-an 
enchancement attributed by them to the operation in 
and through them of a Divine energy to which the com - 
munity gave the name of the  The Psychology of Power 
50 
receive power." Pentecost, the healing miracles of 
the Apostolic Age, the triumphant progress of the 
religion through the Roman Empire, the heroic deeds 
of saints and martyrs,-all these point to the sense 
of a power newly discovered. In contrast, looking 
at the Church of to-day, one cannot but be struck 
with its powerlessness. It contains men of intellect; 
it produces a type of piety and devotion which one 
cannot but admire; it sacrifices itself in works of kind- 
ness and beneficence; but even its best friends would 
not claim that it inspires in the world the sense of 
power. What strikes one rather is its impotence 
and failure. This want of inspiration and power is 
associated with the fact that men no longer believe in 
the existence of the Spirit in any effective practical 
way. They believe in God the Father, and they are 
reverent; they believe in the Son, and the Church 
numbers amongst its members millions who humbly 
try to "follow in His steps"; but for all practical pur- 
poses they are like that little band at Ephesus who 
had "not so much as heard whether there be any Holy 
Ghost," and, lacking the inspiration of such a belief, 
they are weak and wonder why. 
In this place I need only indicate the close connec- 
tion between restfulness of mind, so essential to the 
cure of nervous ills, and that characteristic of religious 
devotion. "They that wait on the Lord shall renew 
their strength." There is the alternation of repose 
and work, and the insistence on the source of strength 
being of a psychical and not a physical character. 
Christianity also teaches that to learn to rest, not only 
in moments snatched from our work but by keeping 
a mind free from worry and anxiety, neither caring 
for the morrow nor fearful of the forgiven past, is The Psychology of Power 
51 
to give ourselves the opportunity of drawing on that 
"ample re-supply" which comes to those who do not 
fear to expend their energy for others. Life will throb 
within and through us, but our souls will be in repose. 
The religious writings of men of old constantly 
emphasised confidence and cheerfulness as the keynote 
to strength. "In quietness and confidence shall be 
your strength." "Let not your heart be troubled." 
"Be not anxious." "Be of good cheer, I have over- 
come the world." "Say unto them of a fearful heart. 
'Be strong, fear not.' " Such words as the following 
are literally fulfilled before our eyes in a shell-shock 
hospital of the present day. "The eyes of the blind 
shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf be unstopped. 
Then shall the lame man leap as an hart and the 
tongue of the dumb shall sing. They shall obtain 
gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee 
away." Accurately and wonderfully these words 
describe both the treatment by the suggestion of con- 
fidence and its effects, as well on the body as on the 
mind. 
This power which the Church has lost is being re- 
discovered, but along different lines. The psycho- 
therapist, who is a physician of the soul, has been com- 
pelled to acknowledge the validity of the practical 
principles of the Christian religion, though he may 
or may not accept the doctrines on which they are said 
to be based. 
Speaking as a student of psychotherapy, who, as 
such, has no concern with theology, I am convinced 
that the Christian religion is one of the most valuable 
and potent influences that we possess for producing 
that harmony and peace of mind and that confidence 
of soul which is needed to bring health and power to The Psychology of Pozo er 
52 
a large proportion of nervous patients. In some cases 
I have attempted to cure nervous patients with sug- 
gestions of quietness and confidence, but without suc- 
cess until I have linked these suggestions on to that 
faith in the power of God which is the substance of the 
Christian's confidence and hope. Then the patient 
has become strong.1 
I have tried to show that the experience of applied 
psychology, especially psychotherapy, points toward 
the conclusion that we are living far below the limits 
of our possible selves, and that there are open to us 
resources of power, available through the right use 
of our instincts, which, if directed to noble purposes, 
will free our minds from those worries, anxieties, and 
morbid fatigue which spoil our lives, and will free us 
for a life of enerew and strenedh. 
1 Lest this should be considered a prejudiced view I quote from 
Jung (Analytical Psychology)"I have come to the conclusion that 
these religious and philosophical motive forces-the so-called meta- 
physical needs of the human being-must receive positive considera- 
tion at the hands of the analyst (physician) ... he must make them 
serve biological ends as psychologically valuable factors. Thus these 
instincts assume once more those functions that have been theirs from 
time immemorial." Again in a volume entitled The Christian Re- 
ligion as a Healing Power (E. Worcester and others), I find quoted 
some weighty opinions. Mobius, the neurologist, says: "The con- 
sciousness of being within the hand of Providence, the confident 
hope of future righteousness and redemption, is a support to the 
believer in his work, his care and his need, for which unbelief has no 
compensation. If we consider the effect of irreligion as increasing 
our helplessness to resist the storms of life, its relation to nervousness 
cannot be doubted." "Religious faith," says Dubois of Berne, him- 
self an agnostic, "would be the best preventative against the maladies 
of the soul and the most powerful means of curing them, if it had 
sufficient life to create true Christian stoicism in its followers. Feel- 
ing himself upheld by his God, he fears neither sickness nor 
death ... he remains unshaken in the midst of his sufferings, and 
is inaccessible to the cowardly emotions of nervous people." Dr. 
Clouston of Edinburgh, the specialist in mental diseases, says, "to 
treat of the hygiene of the mind, without including a consideration 
of the religious instinct and its effects, would be to omit one of its 
most powerful factors." The Psychology of Power 
53 
In the course of my argument I have indicated di- 
rections in which this hne of investigation cannot but 
affect the theory and practice of religion: to have done 
more than indicate directions might have seemed pre- 
sumptuous in one who speaks as a student of science 
rather than as a philosopher or theologian. I hope 
however, that I have made it clear that few things 
would be of more value, whether for medical science, 
for everyday conduct, or for religion, than such a re- 
interpretation of some of the fundamental beliefs of 
Christianity as would make them intellectually possible 
of acceptance to the modern man. And Psychology 
has opened up lines along which one may look to see 
effected that reconciliation between science and re- 
ligion, the attempt to procure which led to an im- 
passe a generation ago because "science" was taken 
almost exclusively to mean physical science. But 
whilst Psychology has helped us to solve many prob- 
lems, it has raised others-for instance, the relation 
of suggestion to prayer or the view that all religion, 
including our idea of God, is subjective. So true is 
this that it appears as though the next great conflict in 
religion will be in the realm of psychology, as in the 
last generation it was in the realm of biology and the 
theory of evolution. To my mind the issue will be the 
same, that moral and religious thought will need to be 
greatly modified, but that it will at the same time be 
greatly enriched. The main object, however, of 
the Essay has been practical-to show that there 
are resources of power at the disposal of all. 
But the fact that so many seek for power and yet 
do not receive it suggests that piety is not the only 
requisite of power. To obtain it we must obey the 
higher laws of nature, and in particular make use of 54 
The Psychology of Power 
the forces we already find at our human disposal; 
and fearlessly expending them in a spirit of confidence 
for the fulfillment of our ideals, we shall harmonise 
mind, will, and emotion in one throbbing impulse of 
life and power. 
Taking, then, the instincts in their cruder form as 
handed down to us by our brutish ancestry, we should 
seek not to suppress them, but to use the powers which 
lie latent in them. We may transform where we can- 
not suppress, and, by aid of reason and the higher 
emotions, re-direct the lower instincts to nobler pur- 
poses. We need not obstruct, but press into our ser- 
vice, the passions of the soul; we can fill our sails 
with the very winds and gales which threaten the 
shipwreck of our lives; tap the resources of the light- 
ning which ruthlessly destroys, and turn its electric 
power into the driving-force of our enterprises.