Right And Wrong Thinking And Their Results E-Book

Aaron Martin Crane

• Herausgeber: Andura Publishing
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

Experience the life-changing power of Aaron Martin Crane with this unforgettable book.

Leseprobe

Right And Wrong Thinking And Their Results

Aaron Martin Crane

CONTENTS

Preface

Some years ago this book was born into thought by the perception of its fundamental principle, and it has been growing ever since. During the intervening years this principle and its allied ideas have been presented more or less fully in the form of independent class lectures to many groups of persons. It is with hesitation that it is now offered to the public in its present form, because it is still growing; but having seen the great advantages which have come to many from the practice of its principles, there arose the earnest desire to extend the opportunity for similar help to greater numbers.

The first lesson to be learned in the school of life is to understand one’s own personality or individuality, so as to estimate it at its true value, and to be able to use it for good and to avoid using it for evil. A man should know all that can be known of the power which he is every day wielding simply by being what he is and by thinking, looking, speaking, and acting as he does. It is one’s duty to make the most and the best of what is in him; and he is best equipped for this who knows himself most thoroughly. The object of this book is to aid toward the accomplishment of this end.

There appear to be two influences in this world of ours, the good and the bad or the harmonious and the discordant, which permeate all mankind and shape and control all human actions. Wherever there are two, if one is removed, the other remains; if the discordant is removed, the harmonious will be left. Good, the absolutely harmonious, must be the enduring and essential because it is from God. Then an important part of the work of every one is to remove the evil or discordant and thus uncover the good. This includes the whole scheme of reformation, improvement, and progress.

Much of this book is devoted to external matters which man can detach from himself and throw away. By shaking out of his mind every cumbering thought of discord and error he may disclose to view the real man in all the perfection which his Creator bestowed upon him, and thus rise to that divine height of purity and perfection which has heretofore been deemed inaccessible.

There is another topic, higher and even more attractive than this, which deals with the divine perfection inherent in man and in all creation; this is to be the subject of another book which is planned to follow this one.

AARON MARTIN CRANE

Chapter 1 – Introduction

Notwithstanding the immense amount of attention which has been directed in a broad general way to mind and its action, and although the constructive and creative ability of mind through thinking has been so long and so universally acknowledged, yet we are just now beginning to recognize the close and direct personal relation which thinking bears to man. The limits of the power of mind have never been clearly perceived, but recognition of their extent continually enlarges as knowledge and understanding increase.

The differences between ignorant and enlightened, between savage and civilized, between brute and man, are all due to mind and its action. All the multifarious customs and habits of mankind, whether simple or complex, though often attributed to other causes, are, from first to last, the direct results of thinking. The unwritten history of the evolution of clothing, from its rude beginnings in the far-distant and forgotten past through all the ages since man first inhabited the earth, though at first glance seemingly simple, yet, as a whole, is wonderfully complex and astonishing in its particulars. Its story is only the story of the application of mind to the solution of a single one of the vast multitude of problems connected with human requirements.

It is true that our factories and palaces, our temples and our homes, are built of earthly material, but mind directed their fashioning into the vast multitude of forms, more or less beautiful, so lavishly displayed by architecture in city and country. The multitudinous products of constructive art which are scattered in lavish profusion over the whole earth are marvelous exhibitions of what mind has done; and these are being multiplied daily,

All the mechanical triumphs of every age are products of mental effort. Without these men would be in the condition of the animals. It has been said that he owes his supremacy over the lower creatures to his ability to construct and use tools, but this also depends entirely on his superior ability to think. The steam engine is one of these tools; and the story of its creation and of the vast amount of mental effort which has contributed to its evolution can be written only in its larger parts because of the amount of time that has been expended upon it, the magnitude of the work, and the minuteness and complexity of its details.

In the domain of the fine arts more than elsewhere the creations are intimately connected with mental action and are distinctly marked as products of mind. Music, vocal and instrumental, the single singer or the multitude in the chorus, the one instrument or the great orchestra, the country boy whistling among the woods and hills or the grand opera in magnificent halls — music everywhere, in all its varieties and types, is a product of mental activity and is a most subtle as well as most powerful expression of the mind of the composer. The dreams of the sculptor which have been revealed in marble, those of the painter in the figures on his canvas, the beautiful in all artistic creations or expressions, are the direct result of the finest thinking of the finest minds. What a world of them there is in existence! Yet the crumbling ruins of the past point to greater worlds of them which have been destroyed by man and time.

Even a yet more important product of mind is the literature of the world; in quantity, overwhelming; in variety, bewildering; in quality, whether ancient or modern, such as to excite the interest wonder and admiration. There is no greater monument to the mind of man than the things which that mind has produced in science, philosophy, religion, and letters. This has grown like those ancient monuments to which every passer-by added a stone, and it will continue to grow so long as the human race exists.

Civilization with all that the word implies in every one of its unnumbered phases, its origin, continuance, progress, and present condition, is directly and exclusively a product of mind; and man owes to mind and its action all there is in the external world except the earth and its natural products. All religious, political, and social organisms have their root in mind, and they have assumed their present forms in consequence of the profoundest thinking of untold generations of men. To the same source man owes his own position, which is superior to all else on the earth and “only a little lower than the angels.”

Notwithstanding the recognition of all these facts, it has remained for the scientific men of the present day, through their own intellectual attainments and discoveries, to enlarge immensely upon this recognition and to show the complete supremacy and universality of mind in another domain. The horizon is rapidly widening in the direction of the mind’s relation to man himself; and, as a result of the more recent discovery of facts, man is beholding undreamed of possibilities which he may achieve through his own mental control. From the vantage ground already gained, mental and moral possibilities are rising to view in the near distance beside which the attainments of this and all past ages shrink into insignificance.

Only in these more recent years has it been clearly perceived that mind action is first in the order of occurrence, and that it is the absolute ruler of man himself as well as of all these wonderful works which mind has created. Mind is the motor power and governs everything, everywhere; but man can control mind, and therefore, by that control, he may be the imperious dictator of his mind’s entire course, and, rising thence to the highest pinnacle of possibility, he may become the arbiter of destiny itself.

Chapter 2 – Relation Of Thinking To Bodily Action

Mind is that which thinks. Thinking is mind action. Thought is the result of mind action. This is a statement of what mind does, but it is neither a description nor a definition of mind. We know about mind only through our consciousness of its action, but because of this consciousness we know what we mean when we speak of mind and say it is that which thinks.

In seeking for the sources of activity we find that in all human actions thinking is first in the order of occurrence; that is, man does not act unless he has first thought.

A word, even the most idle or habitual, noticed or unnoticed, must exist in the mind in the form of a thought before the vocal organs can utter it. Thinking may precede utterance only by a space of time

It may be well to note definitely that thinking is not itself a thing, but is only an action. Mind is the thing, just as the hand is the thing, and its motion is only its action. Too short to be measured, nevertheless the thought of the word was in existence in the mind before the word could be spoken; and the same is true of every other action. This statement is necessarily correct because an expression, whatever its form, is always the utterance, or outward indication or manifestation, of some intention, emotion, thought, or feeling, and can never precede what it expresses; hence an act never precedes nor outruns thinking, but must always follow it.

The mechanic first plans, and then he constructs in accordance with his thinking. The architect may find defects in what he has built and pull it down to build in accordance with another plan, but such incidents only afford added illustrations of the truth of the proposition. He had to think before he built; the destruction was the result of thinking that followed the building; it preceded the pulling down, and ether thinking preceded the rebuilding. “If there is one thing more than another which seems to the plain man self-evident, it is that his will counts for something in determining the course of events.”

But willing is the result of choosing, and both choosing and willing are modes of thinking.

This order of occurrence is fully illustrated in the simple act of lifting the hand. Contraction of the muscle causes the motion of the hand; an impulse from the nerve causes the contraction of the muscle; some action in the brain sends the impulse along the nerve; thinking is the motive power, and without it there would not be any action of brain, nerve, or muscle. These are only parts of a machine; over them all is the power of mind without which the machine could not move; just as without the fire there could not be any steam in the boiler, and with- out the steam there could not be any motion of the piston, and without the motion of the piston the machinery of the factory could not move.

Frequently something outside of the mind causes the mind to act; but had the mind not acted, there would have been no bodily action, or had the mind acted differently, the bodily action would have been different also. It was the mental act which caused the bodily action and gave to it its peculiar character. But the mind may act independently without any provocation or stimulation exterior to itself, and the motion of the body will occur just the same, showing that mind action alone is the essential in the process.

If we grant all that may be claimed for the influence of external things upon the mind, it still remains that the mind is the power behind all else in moving the body and that without it there would not be any motion. Additional and final proof of the truth of this proposition is found in the fact that if we remove the mind, as in death, the body cannot move. The nerves, muscles, tendons, and bones are parts of the machine — wonderful though inert — which the mind uses. In itself alone no portion of this machine has any more power than a crowbar when it is not grasped by the hand of the laborer. “All acts are due to motive, and are the expression design on the part of the actor. This is as true of the simplest as of the most complex actions of animals, whether consciously or unconsciously.

The action of the Amoeba in engulfing in its jelly, is as much designed as the diplomacy of the statesman, or the investigation of the scientist.” But motive is a kind of thinking or a state of mind, and thus this statement by Cope, while it includes all the actions of the entire animal kingdom under one general proposition, declares that they are ail due to mind and its action. The investigations of physiologists show how surpassingly wonderful is the force of mind when acting in connection with motion of the hand, even when looked at from a material point of view. The forearm, considered mechanically, is a lever.

The distance to the fulcrum from the point where the power is applied is, we may say, an inch. The distance from the fulcrum to the point where the weight lies in the hand is, say, fifteen inches. Then, in accordance with mechanical laws, the power put forth by the muscle to raise the weight must be fifteen times as much as the weight itself. An ordinarily strong man can raise a weight of fifty pounds. This means that the mind, acting through the muscle, in this instance exerts a force equal to fifteen times fifty, or seven hundred and fifty pounds. This is the force, represented in pounds, which the mind exerts in such a case.

But this is not all. If this same muscle which has operated under the force of seven hundred and fifty pounds should be removed from the arm and one end of it should be supported from a beam, a weight of fifty pounds attached to the other end would tear it asunder. This shows that the mind not only exerts a force of seven hundred and fifty pounds in lifting the weight, but at the same time a nearly equal force in holding the muscle together. A similar condition exists in connection with every muscular movement of the body.

There is an intimate and most wonderful relation between mind action and the action of the brain and nerve tissues, and between the nerve tissues and the various bodily organs. This relationship is such that certain actions of the mind set the nerves and muscles into activity. No one knows how the mind affects the brain to control it, nor how the nerve affects the muscle either to contract or to relax it. No one knows what the medium is between the mental and physical systems, nor even whether there is a medium. We only know that after the mind acts in its appropriate way these other actions follow in a certain order.

There is an extensive literature on this subject which sets forth many different theories and explanations. Some insist that no connection whatever exists between mind and matter, and therefore they claim that it is too much to say that these actions stand in the relationship toward each other of cause and effect; yet, practically, all admit that there will be no muscular or other bodily action if the mind does not act. This admission is sufficient because it sets forth exactly the condition which exists in connection with other cases of acknowledged cause and consequence. Thus, astronomers say that the sun causes the revolution of the planetary bodies, but they have never been able really to show that any connection exists between the sun and those bodies, nor to give any satisfactory explanation of the phenomenon.

Even if it be granted that the relationship is not that of cause and consequence, but merely uniform sequence, the sequence follows substantially the same form and order as cause and consequence. It makes small practical difference whether we call it a chain of sequences or a chain of causes and consequences. Therefore it is sufficient for the purpose of this discussion to say that mental action is the cause of bodily actions for the reason that bodily actions always follow appropriate mental actions, and never occur without their initiative.

It is universally admitted that the facts of sensation prove the action of the body on the mind, and in like manner the facts of volition just as conclusively prove the action of the mind on the body. For instance, pain may be claimed to cause a movement of the body; but between the pain and the movement was the mind action perceiving the pain and directing those bodily actions. With this direction and adaptation pain has nothing whatever to do. It may be said that man eats because he is hungry, and that in this he is governed by physical sensation; yet the consciousness of that sensation is a mental act of perception without which he would not eat, nor would there follow any of those complicated actions connected with digestion and assimilation. Thus analyzed it appears that it is mind action which sets the whole train in motion.

In the normal person the mental control of muscular action is wonderfully developed. The muscle moves in exact obedience to the mental command, as seen in the delicacy and accuracy as well as the strength and force of the movements. Note the forming of a letter with a pen on the written page, the strokes of the artist’s brush upon his canvas, the exactness of touch of the musician’s fingers upon the keys when he produces the precise tone that is required for the expression of his music — everywhere that delicacy and exactness are desired in the muscle they are produced by the mental action. It is called the result of training the muscle; in fact, it is training the muscle to obey the mind. If the mind has such control over muscular action, why may not its control over the other functions of the body be equally influential?

It may also be well to note right here a distinction that has often been overlooked. The movement of the arm is not the result of will power. A man may will his arm to move as much as he pleases, but unless the mind itself acts in a manner different from simply willing the arm to move — unless the mind thinks something entirely distinct in character from the thought of willing — the arm remains stationary. Even if it should be contended that the motion of the arm is caused by will power, the fact still remains that will power is mind power because willing is a form of mental action and the result of choice, and choice is itself a mental action; therefore the general proposition that bodily action is the result of mental action is still correct.

These facts, clearly recognizable by every one, prove that the mind is not simply a group of physical conditions and combinations in action, nor is it a product of them, but that it is something entirely distinct from the physical system though acting on it, controlling it, and conferring on it powers which, in itself, it does not have; and since every bodily action may be resolved into elements closely similar to these here considered, if not identical with them in character and relationship, the proof becomes complete.

That which thinks is the master power which moves, directs, controls. The combination of brain, nerves, muscles, ligaments, bones — these constitute a most wonderful machine that the mind builds and uses.

Chapter 3 – Intended Actions

All bodily actions may be separated into two classes, those intended and those not intended.

Thinking is the cause of all intended actions. The accuracy of this proposition is self-evident be cause intending, purposing, proposing, or designing is in itself thinking, and this kind of thinking is always the cause of this class of actions. One intends to call on a friend. If he did not think about it, he could not go. Having thought about it, if that thinking ceases, as, for instance, when he forgets, then going becomes impossible. This illustration, though simple, is conclusive of the truth of the proposition.

That a man has forgotten some mental action or was not aware of it when it occurred is no proof that it did not take place. A vast number of actions are preceded by unrecognized thoughts, but this does not furnish any exception to the universal truth of the proposition. On the contrary, it serves to sustain its accuracy; whether recognized or not, the thought was there in the mind doing its work. A person is often able to recall unnoticed thinking of which he would never have become conscious had not some subsequent incident directed his attention to it. Who has not been so absorbed in a book that at the time he was not aware of a conversation going on in the room, or even of remarks addressed to himself, yet afterward has distinctly remembered hearing them? Simple incidents like this show that thinking often occurs without conscious recognition of it by the thinker. Psychologists say that the amount of unrecognized thinking is vastly in excess of that which is recognized.

The action of the skilled performer on the piano is an illustration of the way in which things that were at first the result of intended and clearly recognized thinking at last are done without any consciousness of that thinking. With the beginner every action is preceded by a fully recognized thought. The position at the piano, the poise of the shoulders and head, the control of the arms and hands, the action of the fingers, and just how they must be moved in each particular case for striking each key, and the force of each stroke — all these are the subjects of conscious thinking on the part of the student. Not a motion is made without previous thought, which includes not only the thought to move but also how that motion is to be accomplished. After long-continued repetition of the motions included in the first and simpler lesson, when each thought has, so to speak, worn its own peculiar channel into the brain and has become so familiar that consciousness of it has some- what waned, then a more difficult lesson is undertaken. The thinking which preceded the simpler actions gradually disappears, being displaced or submerged by the attention given to more difficult ones, until finally all conscious recognition of it ceases. With each step the thinking connected with the preceding practice drops gradually out of sight until at last the performer’s conscious thought is all directed to expression. This requires careful attention to each of the many difficult and more delicate peculiarities of every single motion which, in proper combination, express the soul of music. These motions are necessarily preceded by an immense host of unnoticed thoughts, because without them the performer would be motionless and the instrument dumb. Each step suggests to the mind the next one to be taken, and thus the series moves in its accustomed order. Each motion is the result of unnoticed thinking which is as intentional in its character as it was when the beginner consciously and purposely initiated it.

Baldwin records a remarkable instance of this kind of action: “The case is cited of a musician who was seized with an epileptic attack in the midst of an orchestral performance, and continued to play the measure quite correctly while in a state of apparently complete unconsciousness. This is only an exaggerated case of our conscious experience in walking, writing, etc. Just as a number of single experiences of movement become merged in a single idea of the whole, and the impulse to begin the combination is sufficient to secure the performance of all the details, so single nervous reactions become integrated in a compound reflex.” But the “impulse to begin” is itself mental action, and without it no step of the performance could be undertaken.

This “impulse to begin “a certain piece of music which has been performed many times is followed by the thinking which produces the first motion, and that by the thinking and consequent action of the second, and so on to the end. The habit of thinking a certain series of thoughts, each thought succeeding another in an invariable order, becomes so fully established by constant repetition that, once begun, they follow each other in their regular order without the conscious volition of the thinker. But if this habit has not been fully established, or if it has fallen into disuse from lack of practice, then difficulties arise and conscious thinking has to be called into action.

This tendency to do again what has often been done is clearly stated by Baldwin: “The thought of a movement has preceded and led to the movement so often, that there is a positive tendency, at the nerve centers, to the discharge of the energy necessary to the accomplishment of the act along the proper courses.”

The Italian psychologist, Mosso, has stated the case excellently. He says: ” Every movement [in walking] is performed with difficulty; it is at first a ask painfully learned; gradually it becomes less a matter of reflection; until at last one can scarcely call it voluntary. We may not call it automatic, because when the will 10 walk is wanting we do not move, but when we have once set out to walk or to make a journey, we may go on for a long time without reflecting in the least that we are walking. . . .Many have experienced such extreme fatigue that they have slept while walking. There are endless phenomena proving that movements that at first cost a great effort of the will, become at length so habitual that we perform them without being aware of it.” The ” will to walk,” which is thinking, sets in motion that series of mind actions which results in walking, and the mind goes on controlling and directing the machinery of the body without the thinker’s active consciousness.

Mosso’s words here quoted would apply with equal exactness to any series of complicated actions. The writer does not consciously think how he shall form his letters and words as he traces them; his conscious thought is engaged with the idea he wishes to express; but thoughts he is not aware of are continuously directing the motions of the many muscles which move the pen aright.

Lack of continuity of sense excitation has been recognized by most people. When the hand is placed in contact with any object, there is, through the sense of touch, an immediate and definite consciousness of certain conditions. If the hand remains in the same position, simply resting there without effort, the consciousness of these conditions gradually disappears. Though the course of activity flows in the opposite direction, yet it is clearly recognized that the mind itself affects the physical activities very much in the same way that the sense excitations affect the mind.

In the sense excitations, continuous action results in their disappearance from the mental horizon. May not the elements of consciousness which are aroused by mental action fade out of sight in a similar way though the mental activity be as constantly present as the physical conditions under the hand? If so, this presents sufficient explanation of the disappearance from consciousness of those thoughts which have been made habitual by frequent repetition, and it also explains many, if not all, of those actions which are called reflex or automatic.

All this shows that “one thought of a movement,” or “the impulse to begin,” which is the mental intention to perform certain actions, is that which sets in motion the complicated machinery of the body, and its action could not occur without it. Therefore in every minute particular the proposition holds true that thinking, either noticed or unnoticed, is the cause of all intended action.

Chapter 4 – Actions Not Intended

Not only does thinking precede all intended human actions, but it also precedes all those which were not intended.

A person does not often shed tears because he proposes to do so. Usually tears come unbidden; frequently after every possible effort has been made to suppress them; yet they flow because of thinking which preceded them. The explanation is simple. It is the office of the tear gland to furnish a fluid to moisten the eye. The same delicate and intimate relation exists between the mental condition of grief and the action cf the tear gland that exists between other varieties of thinking and muscular action. When the mind is filled with thoughts of grief, increased activity in the tear gland follows, its fluid is produced in an unusual and excessive quantity, and the eyes overflow.

Thoughts of grief acting upon the tear gland stimulate it to excessive action in just the same way that those thoughts which constitute intention move the hand. The important fact in this connection is that although the weeping is not intended, it is caused by a particular mental action which precedes it. When the grief ceases, the excessive action of the tear gland subsides, the tears no longer flow, and the facial muscles return to their usual condition.

Entirely different actions follow if the thinking is of a humorous, witty, or ludicrous character. A great many muscles all over the body, but particularly in the chest, throat, and face, are thrown into violent spasmodic activity which is uncontrollable if the thinking is intense. This is clearly the unintended effect of thinking, because it often occurs when the desire not to laugh is very strong, showing that in such cases intention plays only a subordinate part. The laughter does not cease until the thinking that produced it ceases, and it is renewed with the renewal of that thinking. It is clear that these muscles move in response to the action of the person’s mind, though without his intention to move them.

Every one is aware of many physical changes which are caused by changes in the mental conditions. The mental state of anger will make the heart beat more rapidly, send the blood rushing through the body with increased velocity, and flush or pale the face. Any sudden emotion of grief or pleasure, unexpected news, either good or bad, suspense or anticipation, waiting for news of some- thing impending, — these and many other disturbing thoughts make the heart beat faster or slower, or even stop it entirely, according to the character of the mental action. Thoughts of fear may cause a cold perspiration to break out over the whole body, send the blood away from its surface, or even cause such muscular tension or paralysis that severe illness follows, and sometimes death.

The unnoticed glandular changes are very numerous. Propose some particularly appetizing food to a hungry person, and instantly, without the slightest intention, the thinking sets the salivary glands into action. All the acts of digestion, assimilation, and general nutrition are of this kind. It has been shown conclusively that they are results of thinking, that they vary with the variations of the thinking, and that without it they do not occur; yet they are not intended, and we are not even aware of the existence of the larger part of them, nor of much of the thinking which produces them.

Recent physiological experiments show distinctly just what might have been expected from the common experiences of every one who has noticed the flow of saliva in response to his own thoughts. When food that he liked was offered to an animal, it caused not only an abundant flow of saliva, but of gastric juice as well, even though no food had entered the stomach. More than that, when the kind of food was recognized by the animal, the character of the secretion was adapted to it, so that each variety provoked the secretion of a special kind of digestive fluid. The better the anima liked the food, the more copious was the quantity of those fluids which are necessary to digestion. It was not necessary that the animal should even see or smell the food.

A purely mental condition caused by suggestion or the association of acts was enough, and it was shown that pleasure itself set the physical actions into motion. On the contrary, when food which was objectionable to the animal entered the stomach, secretion of digestive fluid did not follow. When communication between the brain and the stomach had been cut off, so that the mind could not send messages to the stomach and its glands, not a drop of gastric juice was produced even though the food which he liked had been shown to him or had been introduced into the stomach, thus showing that the presence of the food without any mental stimulus does not induce the actions attendant upon digestion and necessary to it. Something more than mere mechanical contact was essential.

These experiments show beyond question that digestion depends entirely, upon some mental process. Similarly, all bodily actions depend upon thinking, whether that thinking is intended or not; and without thinking, or when the thinking does not reach the organs which should act, as when the thought effect could not be communicated to the glands of the stomach, there is no bodily action.

It must be remembered, however, that there may be, and often is, a longer or shorter series of unnoticed bodily or mental actions between the inciting thought and the result which has attracted attention. The observed condition may be at the end of the series and far removed from the thought that caused it. This intervention of unnoticed intermediary incidents renders it difficult, and sometimes impossible, to discover the direct connection between the final event and the thinking that produced it. Inability to trace the connection between the observed consequence and its real cause does not destroy the truth of the original proposition that the cause existed in mental action.

Every sensitive person knows how the mental state induced by hearing bad news will sometimes interfere seriously with the act of digestion. Perhaps the victim wakes the next morning with a violent headache. His physician tells him that it is due to a disordered stomach. The mental condition of the day before has been forgotten by one and is seldom heard of by the other, therefore both insist honestly enough that the headache was not caused by mental conditions. Yet he would not have had the headache if he had not indulged in that discordant thinking which disturbed the action of certain nerves; this disturbance interfered with the normal action of the stomach, which in its turn affected the head. This is unintended bodily action caused by thinking, and shows how easily some of the incidents are overlooked which connect the cause with the observed consequence.

The necessity for the presence and action of mind is also seen in reflex actions and those which seem to be automatic. When the exterior or surface end of a nerve is excited, as by the prick of a pin, psychologists say that this creates an activity which extends along the fibers of the ingoing nerve either to some central ganglion or to the brain; that certain actions take place there, and then mother impulse is sent thence along the outgoing nerve to the appropriate muscle, producing in it the requisite action. These actions at the nerve centre must be more or less complicated and of peculiar character.

Something must decide what physical action should follow the recognized external conditions, and then it must select from all the other outgoing nerves the special one which shall carry the message to the particular muscle which should act, and must thus direct and control the specific action which that muscle shall perform. This may be merely to remove the hand from the position it occupied when the finger was pricked, or it may be to double the fist and inflict a blow, or it may be to cause certain complicated actions which shall re- move the offending object to another place. This is more than mere mechanics. It is the action of the master directing subordinates in accordance with the recognized requirements of the situation.

Whether the person is aware of it or not, there must be mental consciousness or recognition of the conditions at the end of the disturbed ingoing nerve, because something decides what is the appropriate action, selects from many others the proper agents to accomplish it, and inspires the action in those agents. In every such case there is selection or choice, and choice is itself a mental action based on consciousness, which is also mental. Discrimination must govern choice, and intelligence must direct the proceedings. It is only mind that examines conditions, decides whether or not to act, selects from a number of possibilities, chooses the kind of action to be undertaken by some one or many muscles, and sends forth its behest through the appropriate nerve to the right destination.

In every case the muscular action is a manifestation of more or less consciousness of surroundings, discrimination, choice, and judgment. What occurs corresponds exactly to the mental recognition of the conditions. Because of repetition conscious thinking emerges less and less into view until it becomes habitual, and finally it passes entirely out of sight, and the action is called automatic or mechanical. A vast multitude of tendencies toward these actions are inherited from birth, but their origin was in the thinking of generations of ancestors.

Thinking which originates solely in the mind and has no connection with anything outside of it, may act upon the nerve tissues and originate brain, nerve, and muscle action, just the same as when there is some outside incident to suggest it. Baldwin says: “Suggestion by idea, or through consciousness, must be recognized to be as fundamental a kind of motor stimulus as the direct excitation of a nerve organ.” All the organs of the body are subject to stimulation by purely mental states; that is, a nerve stimulus may come from within in the form of a self-originating act of the mind. Not only this, but psychologists and physiologists say that these thought impulses may be made to change nerve tracks already formed and even to originate new ones and thus find outward expression in better forms of doing. Not only will the severed nerve reunite, but even when a piece of the nerve has been removed, each of the two ends will send out filaments toward the other until they are joined again, provided the distance is not too great.

It may be urged that the purely involuntary muscles, so-called, act without previous thinking; but as already shown, a vast majority if not all of the reflex actions are clearly the results of intended actions which have been very often repeated. The distance from reflex action to what is known as involuntary action may be very short, and the division between them is never clearly defined so that it is often difficult if not impossible to decide which is to be called reflex and which involuntary.

Some biologists, reasoning from the known to the un- known, hold the opinion that all such actions are consequences of conscious thinking. Their reasoning is all the more convincing when it is remembered that mind is always attendant upon life, never being found separate from it, and that life is the progenitor and creator of all life; for life has never been found without antecedent life. Then mind acting in conjunction with life must be the power which sets the involuntary muscles into activity.

The heart beats without our conscious attention, yet we know that its action is greatly influenced by mental conditions, such as anxiety, grief, fear, or joy. Though we may not be able to discover any special action of the mind upon the heart to keep it going, yet when the mind is removed, as by death, the heart ceases to act. This is true of all the so- called involuntary organs, and shows the mind action of some sort is necessary to keep them in motion. We do not think for the purpose of making the heart beat, just as we do not think for the purpose of making the tears flow; but our thinking makes them flow and our thinking causes the heart to beat. In one case we are aware of the thinking, in the other we are not, just as the piano player is at one time aware of the thinking that moves his fingers and at another time is not.

The physical body, separate from anything else, is an inert material mass, incapable of originating any action; therefore all its action must be produced by something other than itself. That which causes its action must be mind.

The conclusion is unavoidable that thinking precedes and causes all those actions which were not intended as well as those which were intended. Since these two classes include all human actions, it follows that thinking, or mind action, is always first in the order of occurrence and is related to the bodily actions as a cause is related to its consequence.

Chapter 5 – A General Proposition

Thinking is the cause of all that a man is and of all that he does. Then, since it is mind that thinks, it follows that mind is antecedent to thinking and to all that is caused by thinking; therefore mind is first. Mind stands as the cause behind all which thus far has been considered. This is not a new proposition; neither is there any mystery about it. It is within the comprehension of every one who has observed his own mental actions because it is a part of his own experience, and he finds within himself the proof of the proposition.

Up to this place the subject has been considered from an external point of view and the reasoning has been inductive in its character. There is an- other and larger method, the deductive, which results in the same conclusions, only it enlarges their scope and makes them universal in their applications.

God is the one infinite First Cause and, therefore, the cause of all. As the one cause, or Creator, He is the Creator of all. In one of the aspects in which He is recognized by man, God is Mind; therefore, in the largest and most inclusive possible application of the term, in the infinite whole as in each particular instance, mind and mind action is first in the order of occurrence because God is Mind and He is the first actor, and the originator of all that is. This is the statement of a universal proposition which includes all things that are.

Mind is an essential of man’s existence; and its action, which he perceives within himself and calls thinking, is the first of all his actions in the order of their occurrence, and the cause of all the others. In this there is somewhat of likeness to the Infinite; and, though man and his activities are only incidents in the midst of immensity, yet, in this respect at least, he is following one universal order in obedience to one central universal principle. Just as ail that exists is the result of the action of the infinite divine Mind, God, similarly all that man does is the result of the action of man’s own mind.