The very sensitive man, if he bas a lively imagina tion and is pleasure-loving, runs the risk of excessive introspection. He will think too much about his own feelings and emotions, and at times these will seem the most important things in the world to him. Those are the times when his employer will be disappointed. In poets, painters and other artists we call a disposi tion of this sort "temperamental." In art "tempera ment" may be an asset, in business it is certainly a lia bility.
LTsing the word "liver" in the old-fashioned way, as a generic term to embrace all the digestive machin ery, we may justly say that the liver is responsible for much instability of character. Unless a man has a most determined will and is owner of the do-or-die spirit, he will be an unreliable worker if his brain is now and then clouded by poisons from the intestines. Such a man, constitutionally good-natured, every now and then. develops a grouch much to the amazement of his acquaintances. Drugged by the secretions of bacilli feeding off his own tissues, he becomes gloomy, despondent, irritable, dissatisfied with his job. His one thought is to get home, have a good supper and then have a long night's sleep ; and his last wish be fore he falls into the land of nightmare is that some thing may happen that will make it unnecessary for him to rise early and go to his job.
This type of unstable man, of course, can be cured, for his auto-intoxication is the result of improper liv ing. If he is in your employ and you wish to save him, make him go to a wise physician -and let him know that he will be fired if lie is not a new man within six months. He will think you cruel and unreason able, but if he believes you mean it he will follow your advice and thru exercise and right living, will be come the man God meant him to be. In the chapter on "Health" there are a few paragraphs which a man of this type might read with profit.
A third cause of instability is found in dissipation. A man who easily surrenders himself to the pleasures of the senses cannot be depended upon for steady work. He may be very intelligent, strong-willed and ambitious and at his best may be a most valuable em ploye, but if in a bad environment lie has formed the habit of excessive indulgence in any pleasures of the senses, Ile is unreliable in business and his un reliability will be most in evidence and most harmful in those critical moments when you want from him the very best that is in him.
It is not easy to discover this man in one interview or after one examination. Continuous dissipation of any sort leaves marks on the face which an experi enced man can read, but the signs of periodical dis sipation disappear in a few days. Dissipation may take the form not merely of beer and whiskey drink ing but also of joy riding in automobiles, of gorging at dinners, of late hours at places of amusements, or of incontinent indulgence in any kind of sense satisfac tion. As a rule, the men who are given to these ex cessive indulgences of the senses are not men of will and purpose, but they are men. hard to read at first sight. The man who goes .on periodical sprees is a good deal of a mystery. In his sober moments he may be as temperate and self-controlled as a stoic.
9. Energy, or love of work.—Energy is from a Greek word meaning force or power. It is respon sible for all that takes place in the universe. Man gets his energy from the food he eats and digests and from the air he breathes. In the same way an auto mobile gets its energy from a mixture of gasoline and air in the carbtoeter. A man's body is his engine, and the power he can get from it depends upon the use be makes of his lungs and stomach. If he does not give his engine the right kind of food and air, he will have little power or energy. He will not be worth much as an employe in any business.
A business man likes employes who love their work. The normal animal loves activity. Activity has made us survive in the struggle for existence. Inactivity has meant sluggishness, disease, death. Hence it is natural that an employer should expect his men to go at their tasks without. a sigh. He knows that men who groan over their work, whether thru weariness or distaste, can never do it well. Hence he does not like a weakling; he wants about him men who are full of power, who are so charged with energy that their work, however routine, seems a joy rather than an exhausting task.