Happiness as Found in Forethought Minus FearthoughtFletcher, Horace
Philosophy
Happiness as Found in Forethought Minus Fearthought
Fletcher, Horace
Fear; Happiness
In _Menticulture_ I suggested the elimination of _anger_ and _worry_
as the roots of all the evil passions. On page 17, however, I gave
"fear" as the tap-root of the evil emotions, including anger and worry,
and stated my reason for attacking the surface roots best known and
associated together, rather than the tap-root itself. It was because
I believed at the time _Menticulture_ was written, with people in
general, that fear was a constituent weakness of all consciousness, and
only expressions of it were eliminable.
I find in my later experience in practice, however, and in conveying
the suggestion to others, that fear itself is possible to be rooted out
by the force of counter-suggestion of one sort or another, and that
there is no mental habit or impression that cannot be counteracted by
some other more powerful habit or impression, and that it is best to
attack the bottom cause of all weaknesses at once, and thereby wage
warfare upon their innermost citadel.
As fearthought is the parent of all the evil emotions, so is fear of
death the first of all the causes of fearthought.
It is not a difficult matter to eliminate the fear of death. It is
first necessary to do away with any dread of a lifeless human body.
There are few who feel dread of the flesh of animals as they see it
hanging in the stalls of the butchers. There is no more reason to have
a feeling of fear in connection with the sight of dead human flesh
than there is to feel uncomfortable in the presence of the flesh of a
lifeless lamb or a lifeless chicken.
There have lived people who were as accustomed to seeing human flesh
exposed in butchers' shops as we are accustomed to see the flesh of
animals so exposed, and there is an engraving of a cannibal meat-stall
in Huxley's "Man's Place in Nature," copied from an old book of travel
to the coast of Africa, which Mr. Huxley offers authoritatively.
The subject may seem to be a grewsome one to many readers, and
reference to the customs of cannibals may shock their supersensitive
habits of thought, but the object is sufficient justification. Such
may, however, soothe their injured feelings by remembering that our
meat-selling and meat-eating customs seem as inhuman to many Buddhists
as do the customs of cannibals to us.
If we value essentials impartially, soul and mind count above
everything, and tissue which they once animated counts for nothing
when they have left it, no matter what have been the associations,
especially if dread of the dead tissue inspires emotions that are
detrimental to the welfare of soul or mind.
My object in suggesting a systematic reversal of our feeling towards
lifeless human flesh is because it is a basic cause of fear. Remove
this dread, and half of the terror of death is removed with it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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