William James, a scientist of real authority, has a wonderful essay,
"The Powers of Men," in which he sets forth the fact that human beings
as a general rule make use of only a small portion of the energies which
dwell in their beings, and that one of our problems is to find the ways
by which we can draw upon stores of hidden energy which we have within
us. Also, in a fascinating book, "Varieties of the Religious
Experience," James has endeavored to study and analyze the phenomena
which hitherto the physician and the biologist have been disposed to
ridicule and neglect. But unless I am mistaken, every scientist in the
end will be forced to come back to the central fact, that life is a
unity, and that the heart of it is the spirit; that what we call the
will is not an accident, not a delusion, not some by-product of nature,
but is the very secret of life; and that behind it is a vast ocean of
power, which now and then sweeps away all dykes, and floods into the
human consciousness.
The writer of this book is now a patient and plodding teacher of a
certain economic doctrine, a preacher of what he might call
anti-parasitism. He has come to the conclusion that the habit of men to
enslave their fellows and exploit them and draw their substance from
them without return--that this habit is destructive to all civilization,
and is incompatible with any of the higher forms of life, intellectual,
moral or artistic. He has come to the conclusion that there is no use
attempting to build a structure of social life until there is a sound
foundation; in other words, until the capitalist system has been
replaced by cooperation. But in his youth he was, or thought he was, a
poet, and touched upon that strange and wonderful thing which we call
genius. He saw his own consciousness, as it were a leaf driven before a
mighty tempest of spiritual energy. And he believes that this experience
was no delusion, but was a revelation of the hidden mysteries of being.
He still has memories of this startling experience, still hints of it in
his consciousness; something still leaps in his memory, like a
race-horse, or like the war-horse of Revelations, which "scenteth the
battle afar off, the thunder of the captains and the shouting." Because
of these things he can never accept any philosophy which shackles the
human spirit, he will never in his thought attempt to set bounds to the
possibilities of human life. The very heart of life beats in us, the
wonder of it and the glory of it swells like a tide behind us. New
universes are born in us, or, if you prefer, they are made by us; and
the process is one of endless joy, of rapture beyond anything that the
average man can at present imagine, or that any instruments invented by
science can weigh or measure.
CHAPTER XII
THE MIND OF THE BODY
(Discusses the subconscious mind, what it is, what it does to the
body, and how it can be controlled and made use of by the
intelligence.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account