The machinery of the mindFirth, Violet M. (Violet Mary)
Science
The machinery of the mind
Firth, Violet M. (Violet Mary)
Psychology
The first great division we studied was concerned with the levels
into which the mind was divided and the types of thinking which were
carried on in each of them. The problems of memory and concentration
are closely concerned with these levels and the interrelations between
them. If an idea, after entering the mind, disappears into the
subconscious, we say it is forgotten and regard it as lost. This, we
have seen, is not the case, however. It is stored in the subconscious,
and we can make use of it even if we cannot gain direct access to it.
There is an old story concerning the advice that was given to a judge
newly raised to the bench, “Give your decision, it is probably right;
but do not give your reasons, they are very likely to be wrong.” Which
is merely a pithy way of saying: “Let your subconscious work out your
decision in the light of the enormous masses of data it possesses,
including the exact reproduction of every law-book you have ever read,
every remark, however casual, you have ever heard, together with the
accumulated experience of your race, all of which you are heir to, and
it will probably be right; but if you try to rationalise this decision,
to explain it in terms of your conscious knowledge, you may make
mistakes, because your conscious mind does not know nearly as much as
your subconscious.”
If we would learn to trust our subconscious methods of thinking, we
should be astonished to find what they are capable of. Genius might
be defined as the power of utilising the subconscious mind, and
inspiration as a subliminal uprush.
Memory also can be greatly improved by taking advantage of the
faculty of association of ideas, a faculty upon which the different
memory systems are founded. If we take any idea we wish to remember
and clearly image it in association with some idea of the same class
that is so familiar to us that it is a permanent part of our mental
furniture, then the two concepts will get stuck together, and we can
always use the second to summon the first.
The instincts and their development and method of functioning form a
second great division of our subject. It will be seen that we must view
our life in relation to the instincts and not to the reason, but it
must not be forgotten that the instincts themselves are evolving or
rather perhaps becoming modified in their expressions by the pressure
of new conditions, and in the course of their evolution are being
steadily socialised and civilised, so although we must realise that, in
their primitive form, they lie at the base of our being, yet in their
evolved form they also function at its apex, and that if we are to live
well, we must harmonise their manifestation upon every level of our
being.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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