awareness); and it operates, in effect, as an electronic computer, performing super-rapid integrations of sensory and
ideational material. Thus, his past knowledge (provided it has been properly assimilated) can be instantly available
to man, while his conscious mind is left free to deal with the new.
This is the pattern of all human learning. Once, a man needed his full mental attention to learn to walk; then the
knowledge became automatized—and he was free to pursue new skills. Once, a man needed his full mental
attention to learn to speak; then the knowledge became automatized—and he was enabled to go forward to higher
levels of accomplishment. Man moves from knowledge to more advanced knowledge, automatizing his
identifications and discoveries as he proceeds—turning his brain into an ever more efficacious instrument, if and to
the extent that he continues the growth process.
Man is a self-programmer. Just as this principle operates in regard to his cognitive development, so it operates in
regard to his value development. As he acquires values and dis-values, these, too, become automatized; he is not
obliged, in every situation he encounters, to recall all of his values to his conscious mind in order to form an
estimate. In response to his perception of some aspect of reality, his subconscious is triggered into a lightning-like
process of integration and appraisal. For example, if an experienced motorist perceives an oncoming truck veering
toward a collision, he does not need a new act of conscious reasoning in order to grasp the fact of danger; faster
than any thought could take shape in words, he registers the significance of what he perceives, his foot flies to the
brake or his hands swiftly turn the wheel.
One of the forms in which these lightning-like appraisals present themselves to man's conscious mind is his
emotions.
His emotional capacity is man's automatic barometer of what is for him or against him (within the context of his
knowledge and values). The relationship of value-judgments to emotions is that of cause to effect. An emotion is a
value-response. It is the automatic psychological result (involving both mental and somatic features) of a super-
rapid, subconscious appraisal.
An emotion is the psychosomatic form in which man experiences his estimate of the beneficial or harmful
relationship of some aspect of reality to himself.