Happiness as Found in Forethought Minus FearthoughtFletcher, Horace
Philosophy
Happiness as Found in Forethought Minus Fearthought
Fletcher, Horace
Fear; Happiness
Imagination, intellect, will, emotion, faith, hope, expectation,
etc., are only states or modes of the soul's own life, and they are
in perpetual activity, whether we are conscious of it or not. The
operations of the soul of which we are not conscious, are almost
infinite in comparison with the very small portion of them which comes
at any moment within the range of our external consciousness. The soul
organizes its own body in the womb of the mother, holds all its parts
together in due order and functional activity during life, and when he
quits it at death, its material tenement falls into dissolution.
The mind of man is constantly at work, silently pervading every tissue
of his body by its vital influence, repeating itself in every function,
throbbing in the heart, breathing in the lungs, reflecting itself in
the blood, weaving its own form into every act of nutrition, realizing
its own life in every sensation, and working its own will in every
motion. The power of the mind over the body indeed! There is no power
in the body, but in the mind, for the body is the mind, translated into
flesh and blood.
When a limb is broken--the bones shattered, the flesh torn, the
blood-vessels severed, the nerves lacerated, what can the surgeon or
doctor do to repair the injury? A little outside mechanical work. He
ligates, he stitches, he plasters, he fixes the parts in apparatus so
they will remain motionless in the natural position. He can do no more.
The soul which creates the body and keeps it in health, repairs it when
injured. By her own occult forces she regulates the movement of the
blood and development of nerve power, the chemical decomposition and
re-combination, going on in every tissue, according to ideas and models
implanted upon her by the Divine Mind, the Over-Soul of the universe.
The old writers call this wonderful power the _vis medicatrix naturi_,
the curative power of nature. Swedenborg, for whom nature has no powers
underived from spiritual sources, teaches that this vital power is
the soul itself. His view that the soul itself acts unconsciously to
our perceptions in the development and conservation of the body is
advocated by Morell in his "Elements of Psychology," and is highly
spoken of by Professor William B. Carpenter.
When we have constructed a true psychological pathology, we shall
understand clearly why and how it is that fear can turn the hair gray
in a single night; that a mother's milk can be poisoned by a moment of
terror; that the heart may be paralyzed by a sudden joy or sorrow; that
dyspepsia, paralysis, and many other diseases are produced by mental
worry and fret and the brain-fag of overwork and anxiety. Yea, we will
understand that away back of all physical causation, the roots of our
disease originate in the spiritual conditions of the race, in our false
religions, our false philosophies, our false way of thinking, our false
relations to God and each other.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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