THE POWER OF THOUGHT

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WHAT IT IS AND WHAT IT DOES

BY

JOHN DOUGLAS STEEKETT

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
J. MARK BALDWIN
PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY IN PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS
1896
COPYRIGHT, 1896, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS

J. S. Cushing & Co. Berwick & Smith

Norwood Mass. U.S.A.
MY FATHER AND MOTHER
INTRODUCTION
BY J. MARK BALDWIN

I AM
glad to be able to write a few words in
appreciation of the book of Mr. Sterrett; for I find
it in many respects a timely and valuable work.
And my opinion is entirely professional,
since
based on psychological reasons for I have never
known Mr. Sterrett personally it may serve to

bring the book more quickly to the notice of those

who are likely to value it.
Mr. Sterrett seems to have done what many pro
fessed psychologists would like to be able to do,

i.e., book which interests people gener

to write a

ally, without repelling them by scientific terms

and phrases unfamiliar to the lay mind; and at the
same time not to fall into that other pit of popu
lar scientific writers, the condemnation of having
cheapened science by watering it. And this gen

eral expression may serve to indicate the two mer

its which, to my mind, commend the present book.
In the first place, Mr. Sterrett s style is suffi

ciently noteworthy to draw favorable notice to his

VI INTRODUCTION

work. It is refreshingly spontaneous, unaffected,

and telling; and the diction is individual and

striking while not strained. For my own part,

I am free to say even though involve a per
it

sonal confession that many of the current works

on psychology seem to me in style hard, unliv
ing, and rein luissenschaftlich, after reading the
vivid English in which Mr. Sterrett puts his

thought.
And in the second place, I find Mr. Sterrett s

pages with points of view which are those of

filled

the latest scientific investigators. This is to me a

matter of great interest; for Mr. Sterrett has writ
ten partially apart from the current of discussion.
His personal semi-isolation has not impaired his
results ;
but the rather has it heightened the effect
of his personal talent, and at the same time served
to give a very unusual naturalness and convincing
quality to the truths which the new scientific terms
and formulas make, in a measure, rigid and for
bidding. I might point out such points of view
in larger number; but it may suffice to signalize

certain of the greater doctrineswhich give main

purpose and character to the work.
One such point of view is that which Mr. Ster
rett has embodied in his title, "The Power of

Thought," and which furnishes the real motive

of the whole. The doctrine that all action is the

outcome of thinking, in some shape; that conduct

INTRODUCTION Vll

only reveals, and cannot help revealing, the prog

ress of knowledge this is now just getting to be

a doctrine of common acceptance under such terms

as
"

Suggestion,"
"

Motor Elements,"
"

Dynamogen-
esis,"
etc. Mr. Sterrett carries out this view in
many of its interesting bearings; among which I

find his position on the "free will"

controversy
the only rational and true one. As
part of this
general position, his way of stratifying conscious

ness, were, in periods, beginning with the

as it

earliest infancy, leads him to a thoroughgoing,

genetic method which he is the first, as far as I

know, to embody in a text-book. Here again, I

think, his intuitions are, in the main, true to the
progress which genetic psychology is making.
Finally, the other thing which I would mention
about Mr. Sterrett s book is the philosophy which
he brings to it. It is dualism the point of view
of Hamilton, and our own McCosh and Porter.
But dualism in philosophy has, heretofore, suf
fered from an inadequate and superficial psy
chology. Neither the doctrine of Power of "The

Thought," nor that on which the genetic method

is founded, has been developed by the advocates
of the so-called "soul theory"; and, as a promi
nent psychologist has recently said, the soul the "

ory
"

needed restatement in view of the advances

of psychology in these and other lines. Quite
noteworthy is his repudiation of those traditional
Vlll INTRODUCTION

burdens of dualism, the "

substratum "

theory and
the "

faculty theory.
"

I feel the freer in pointing

out the success of Mr. Sterrett in this direction in
asmuch as my own philosophical point of view is

somewhat different from his. Even those who do

not agree with the author, as of course I do not

sometimes, will nevertheless recognize the high

quality of his work.
Both in matter and form, therefore, I think Mr.
Sterretts book will be found trustworthy by the

general reader, and also available by teachers in

search of a text-book in the elements of psychology.

PRINCETON, July, 1896.

PREFACE
FROM of old, men have been much given to phi
losophizing. This spirit of restless inquiry is to
be accounted for by the interest we all take in com
prehending phenomena. The present effort is only
another attempt in the same direction, differing
from others, it may be, in some of its details, if
not in conception. The questions treated are such
as a young man may turn over in his mind, when

engaged in the serious study of mental and moral

problems.
The plan adopted was to write down my thoughts
on any paper found in my pockets, as I was
slip of
walking, or riding, about the farm, or the neigh
borhood, and then wait, often for many days and
weeks, or even months, until, after some desultory
reading, or else conversation of the ordinary kind,
I felt I was in a better mood to deal with some

leading problem that was engaging my attention.

After some little time, I found I had a large
bundle of these little slips, the which I subse
quently sorted out and pinned together, as best I
could. But when I undertook to compose the
present monograph, I soon found that I was com
mitted to the task of throwing away the greater
ix
X PREFACE

number of my slips ;
a discovery that surprised,
and discouraged, me
exceedingly.
Such, in brief, is a history of the troubles I en
countered when composing these pages; my first,
and certainly final, attempt to address the general
public. Many of the conclusions reached were by
110means anticipated. Indeed, many of my former
views had to be reformed, in part or whole, or else
abandoned entirely, as I wrote. And the hesi
tation with which some friendly psychologists, to
whom I handed the manuscript for an opinion,
received some of my speculations, admonishes me
that they will be seriously challenged. But facts
and their significance must control our theories.
The cold gaze of hostile criticism will reveal the
truth.
In the treatment of sensations, perceptions, and
conceptions, much of what I have to say is mainly
expository, and in keeping with received teachings.
Still, I have not felt bound to follow any authority,
however eminent, reserving room for independent
judgment, without encumbering the argument with
any formal statement of diverging views which I
could not stop to refute, in detail. The attentive
reader will remark, if I mistake not, that the argu
ment is not without an individuality of its own.
Ref erring now to what is said on the subjects of
Environment, The Power of Thought, Emotions
and Desires, Alternative Choice, The Will, etc.,
etc., I have to say that I am not aware of any one

prosecuting these studies after the manner in

which I have treated them.
PREFACE XI

And here, Iwould be allowed the privilege of

explaining the plan I adopted for conveying my
views to the reader. It will be observed that I do

not offer to explain everything, at once

and ex
but gradually, as the reader can follow
haustively,
the explication. For instance, when I am consider
the power
ing some old problem of psychology, say
of our thoughts, emotions, and desires, etc., I am
not to be understood as bound to say, then and
there,all I have to say of conation, or the will,
as will be
though, as a matter of fact, that power,
seen in the sequel, is really as much, if not more,

pronounced in these latter as

in any thought con
sidered as an intellectual energy.Each subject in
hand is explained, as fully as the stage of dis
cussion will allow of a careful approach to the
more involved an immediate expli
difficult points ;

cation preparing us for the heavier tasks reserved

for a future page. For instance, when I am writing
a sentence, I aim to put in all the qualifications
needed to convey mymeaning, at that time and
place. I then follow up with other sentences, each
of which qualifies its predecessors. And similarly,
as to paragraphs, sections, chapters, and parts, as

they succeed and relieve each other in orderly

intended to
sequence, each and all of which are
qualify, and so bring out my meaning
more ade
quately.
I acknowledge my obligations to Eev. Dr. James
A. Quarles, of Washington and Lee University,
Virginia, Prof. J. Mark Baldwin, of Princeton
University, Prof. J, McKeen Cattell, of Columbia
xii PREFACE

College, New York, and Prof. J. E. S. Sterrett, of

Amherst College, Massachusetts, for the kind inter
est and encouragement extended to me, under cir
cumstances of grave anxiety and depression. For,
without the assistance of these friends, this book
had never seen its way to publication. In saying
this, however, it is to be understood that they are
not to be held responsible for anything I have
written.

JOHN DOUGLAS STERRETT.

BELL S VALLEY, VIRGINIA,

May 1, 1896.
CONTENTS
PART I

ENTERING UPON THE PROBLEM

CHAPTER PAGE

I. PRELIMINARY STATEMENTS ... 3

II. THE INFANT 7

III. THE ADULT 17

IV. MIND AND BRAIN 21

V. ENVIRONMENT 36

VI. THOUGHT A FREE SINGLE .... 47

PART II

THE ACQUISITION OF KNOWLEDGE

VII. THE CRADLE OF THOUGHT ... 61

VIII. PERCEPTIVE PRESENTATIONS ... 74

IX. SUPPLEMENTARY STATEMENTS ... 79

X. CONCEPTIVE PRESENTATIONS . . .85

XI. MORAL CONCEPTIONS 112

XII. RESTATEMENTS 127

xiv CONTENTS

PART III

THE POWER OF INFORMATIONS

CHAPTER PAGE

XIII. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS . . . 133

XIV. PREPARATORY INFORMATIONS . . 140

XV. ACTILE OR ULTIMATING INFORMATIONS 149

XVI. POWERS IN AID OF FREE DETERMINA

TIONS 156

XVII. THOUGHT AND EXTERIOR POWERS CON

TRASTED ...... 184

PART IV
PERSONAL AND VOLUNTARY POWER OF
INFORMA TIONS
XVIII. DESIRES AND EMOTIONS .... 195

XIX. CHOICE AND MORAL SANCTIONS . . 209

XX. ALTERNATIVE CHOICE .... 231

XXI. OURSELF OR SOUL 268

XXII. REVIEW OF THE ARGUMENT . . . 277

XXIII. A SELF-ACTING WILL . . . .292

XXIV. THE WILL 301
PART I

ENTERING UPON THE PROBLEM

CHAPTER I

PRELIMINARY STATEMENTS

To be a free agent, man must have the ability

to achieve his freedom. Then no one but himself
can be implicated in his guilt or innocence.
And therefore I shall aim in what follows to

present the facts of his freedom and urge

the evi
dence for it. If these are not to be found in his
soul, then, beyond doubt, the thesis
for freedom
has no credible support, and we are the slaves of an
unbending necessity. Man goes upon his freedom,
as a valid fact consciously affirmed and never
disallowed. Still there is a wide divergence of

opinionswhen attempt is made to interpret the

phenomena which either antecede or synchronize
with every act of free determination.

II

Who, is
then, a moral agent? How does he
become such, and why responsible?
The answer to these questions may be gathered
as we proceed. For the present, I take a moral
agent to be a rational person placed within the
play of inducements, some good, some bad, and who
can prefer the one or the other, on condition, how-
4 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

ever, of personal responsibility for his choice. An

animal has a lower and less gifted free agency.
But this is a question of comparative intellectual
vision. Certainly man is free as to all that his
distinctive intelligence can achieve. It remains
true, nevertheless, that man, as the unit of all his
powers, intellectual, animal, and moral, is free and

responsible only when he founds what he does on

conceptions of right and wrong.
The power to do right or wrong, at our option,
but with a knowledge of the inevitable consequence
that follows choice, is, therefore,what constitutes
the soul a moral factor. For the present, however,
I can only indicate the cardinal points, in
passing
until, after some further outlining, the subject
may be studied more deliberately.

Ill

Here the question obtrudes itself again, How

does man become a moral agent? I premise that
there are many things connected with what he
does for which he is not at all responsible, in the
forum of conscience. For instance, what is purely
native and, therefore, prior to any act of his, is

not for him any way. He comes

to account for in
from a germ, and, at birth, is in no condition to
exercise the functions of a rational and moral creat
ure, and, for long, he cannot have command of his
distinctive powers. But we may say that he has
them in germ, or else in various stages of growth.
For the birth of adult morality is held in long
abeyance, until our rational conquests have wrought
PRELIMINARY STATEMENTS 5

out its deliverance fully. And the real point before

us is to determine how and when man begins to act
for himself.
Here are some facts which cannot be ignored:
We have a vital, rational, and moral capacity,
giving us, after a time, our proper personal powers.
In early infancy, these do not act with the ac
quired efficiency reserved for riper years.
But they take root then, and grow with the
growth of life and thought, undergoing a discursive
training which will inform us what to do, and hoiv,
on experience and judgment.
But now when we can securely lay hands on our
ripened powers, man is set apart to enter upon a
new order of acts ; namely, those which express the
force of moral convictions. He has labored up to
the position of a moral creature, and governs him
self by the power of his moral conceptions. He
has entered upon a moral career his moral freedom
;

is known in thought because, on his dis

and act,

covery of moral conceptions, he has discovered a

power which he can make use of in shaping the
affairs of conscience and conduct.

IV
But whose disposition actuates him? Mani
festly his own, if, indeed, man acquires a moral
power in acquiring moral distinctions. And yet
what called our dispositions is vexed with an
is

overplus of the knottiest difficulties, most of

which, however, have their source in an order of
things coming in before our birth, and therefore
6 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

out of sympathy with the personal power acquired

in amassing knowledge. The truth is, as before
stated, that when one essays moral conduct, it is
because he has discovered a law for right and
wrong, and so himself evokes the awful stringency
found in morals.
But, as I said, our native dispositions even
our nature and much of our environment come
in before we are born, giving each of us a peculiar
individuality, even when in germ. Still, what is
all this but the prelude to what is responsibly done

when one is competent to command his conduct in

accordance with conceptions distinctly his own?
The Creator provides all this needed outfitting and
antecedent furnishing, simply to have us equipped
with a discursive competency to act for ourselves.
CHAPTER II

THE INFANT

THE first step in the argument for moral freedom

should be an earnest and careful study of the
child s mind and native forces. I am referring to

its native endowments or dispositions more partic

ularly. We are certainly governed by our disposi

tions, and, when acting for ourselves, must come

to know them as factors which enter into our every
act. However, for present purposes, let us take
them to be that combination of psychical capaci

ties, rational, animal, and moral, which opens the

way to that accepted responsibility for our acts
which comes of our conscious achievements.
So much, to have done with this ambiguity, for
the present.

II

It possibly aid our study to offer some

may
explanation of how the child succeeds in acquiring
the powers of a moral agent. Minute details apart,
some few controlling facts may suffice for our pres
ent purposes. The child is just born. Its own
life sensations, cognitions, etc., with the con
comitant emotions comes to its apprehension on
7
8 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

first acquaintance, and as a first knowledge it knows

not how or whence. It is a surprise party, with
out the support of even a minimum
of experience
to steady its unfolding powers, or to assure it of a
foothold beyond its incipient struggles. It finds
itself suddenly caught up into vivid conscious
ness from the ends of the earth, and, as yet, with
no balance of judgment for confronting the un
wonted powers of flesh, spirit, and nature. It
wails helplessly as it makes its way into the over
shadowing mystery that bangs about its ears and
rings through its soul. However, thought is eager-
eyed, combative, curious, and anxious for the work
of interrogation and discovery, and the child be
comes gradually reassured, if not aggressively
active and sapient.

Ill

I have adverted to a few of the more obvious

foundation facts found in the infant soul. And
here, it is important to remember that these are
vitally articulated with the supreme factors of
mind and morals. And I have made mention of
its struggles. At first it knows nothing, not even
itself, nor thought, nor consciousness, for it has
no conscious antecedents, realizing conscious
thought without previous acquaintance. But in
an instant, this, our child, then so inexperienced,
awakens to the touch of consciousness, the hidden
powers of flesh and spirit pulsing through its soul
in a strange jargon. But all these beginnings of
life, and thought, and action, in one so artless and
THE INFANT 9

inexperienced, pregnant, supernatural facts

are

coming direct from the Creator s mind, and there

is more of the superhuman seen in them than in

the more stupendous monuments of nature.

IV
I offer now
a short study of the growth of the
infant soul, noting some of the earlier manifesta
tions of its powers. Prominent among these are
impulses native and therefore not to be
its native ;

confounded with the voluntary impulsions which

are born of thought. The child has the feeling
of hunger, thirst, curiosity, etc., shut up, as it

is, to some vague

form of unrest, or else to all
the unhelpfulness and unwisdom of mere brute
force. But even at that early period it can begin
to energize discursively, albeit dominated by im

pulses, well nigh, if not altogether, animal and

brutish. And therefore would I remark the more
particularly how distinctively human powers
its

gather strength and expand in an ascending scale,

as it discovers and explores the broad fields of
research which invite investigation. For even
such a beginner will strive to realize some of its
possibilities, and act intelligently, and even re
sponsibly, as may be presumed from the fact that,
after all, the child is not an imbecile. So, at the
appointed time, it will affirm knowledge and its
power, and wield that power as it thinks. But
when just born, it is not taught of its slumbering
gifts,though their active mission will not be long
delayed. Meantime, its infant wants are cared
10 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

for by the mother. And as she is providing for

all these, she is, at the same time, fostering the
growth of its kindling intelligence.
Here a great change takes place. She informs
itsblind strivings, leading it afield by the light of
informations addressed to its opening appercep

tion. For though it be but a mere babe, it will

soon give some first thought to what is brought to
its notice. The mother is fond, and, as I said,
informs her child in many tender ways. She kisses
its little hurts, and it subsides into blissful, trust

ful, healthful, peaceful slumber. And the work

of love and duty knows no intermission. The
child is hers by right, divine and human, and her
heart softens with blissful tenderness in its

presence.
Meanwhile, it is regarding all these tactful,
loving attentions with acutest, shrewdest interest.
And by and by it is no longer a thing of ignorance,
like a mere animal controlled by animal impulses.

For, indeed, as soon as these latter are led forth

in paths of human thought and achievement, they
know the voice of their leader and follow him.
And ever afterward,no exclusively animal, not
to say brutish, impulse can determine conduct,
except through some discovery of thought coming
in to sanction or reject it on condition, never
theless, of a personal responsibility fixed upon the
actor.
THE INFANT 11

But let us define more articulately the attitude

of the infant mind when touched with all these
maternal ministrations.
We have seen that it is alert, attentive, and
curious almost from the outset. All intelligence
is and watchful, and the child
active, discursive,
is emotioned accordingly. For what it sees, in
that first contact of its infant thought with the
world of things about it, is as fascinating as a dream
of perpetual spring to its heaving breast. And
therefore is it the more eagerly prompted to seek
knowledge and so frame some first opinions of its

mother, and the form and pressure of her atten

tions. Effort succeeds effort, as thought succeeds

thought. And so, after some brief interval, sundry

modest notions will begin to crystallize in some
well-grounded convictions on which to act. Still,
its native animalism is not to be too hastily sup

planted by the conscience and conception of its later

humanity. However, we shall not wait long.
The crude native appetencies, at first so untaught,
are so often directed to objects specially fitted to
appease them, the child has so often traced its
sensations of touch, taste, sight, etc., to what pro
duces them, that a time comes when it can form a
valid judgment upon the problem of these so urgent
physical promptings and their offices; and there
upon, by reason of its now more urgent humanity,
it assumes foritself the task of personally ap

praising, not alone sensations and their gratifica-

12 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

tion, but each kind of appetency, whether native

or cultivated, by its conformity or non-conformity
to its judgment of what is best or preferable in view
of its cultivated wants. For, indeed, all thought
is a discovery, or else a clarification in order to a

discovery, of something which appeals to our edu

cated wants. And if this be so, then the child
must eventually see that its every thought tends
to compass the intelligent needs and broader
aspirations of its now instructed humanity.

VI
Aspreviously intimated, the first intellections
of the child are not slow to present themselves.
In fact, they are seen in the faintest initial glows
of the dawn of consciousness, while, as yet, it

cannot discern them as maturely distinct from

other elements with which they are associated.
Details will be cared for, as the argument proceeds,
in this and future chapters. But the point I would
here make is, that the child does, finally, relieve
itselffrom a condition of bondage to native impul
sions which, as purely vital and animal, cannot be

mentally defined or known at the first, as they will

be through the light of discoveries that set us free
from the slavery of ignorance, or feeble thinking.
For, as thought takes up its resources, the child
becomes more and more under the sway of reason,
though it may never, and should never, part com
pany with what is distinctly animal and vital, lest
peradventure it part company with, or at least

mutilate, its characteristic humanities.

THE INFANT 13

VII

I am now regarding the child as at an age when

it can project a rational impulse, called emotion
or desire.For thought without its power is
an empty, impossible, and irrational acquisition.
But there is none so feeble that it does not have
at least a minimum of the power of a moral agent.
Now, it isthis thought, or knowledge, or concep

tion, which furnishes the child with a rational

known as desire or emotion. But this is
impulse
an anticipation.
Moreover, the child is no longer now compelled
to act without thought, at the dictation of any na

tive, or animal, impulse.

The grip of thought sanc
tions and finalizes its acts. And what it does is done
on a view of what is best for itself, judiciously,

and, it may be, with many imperfections, but still

with final, hearty approval. For it has now dis
covered within its soul the might and mystery of a

dominant humanity which cannot allow the unques

tioned sway of animal propensities.
It conceives a good and a bad for itself, rational

convictions fairly and honestly labored up to. It

reasons, and acts with its reasons. And ever after

wards it is a rational power, governed by its own
opinion of what it shall do with itself.

VIII

In due time, this infant soul makes acquaintance

of still another power. Surely, but slowly, there
come to it tidings of the quality of its own and
14 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

others actions, the good and bad, the right and

wrong, of thoughts, and deeds, and actors. In that
very moment, moral power is born. The child has
conceived its first ideas of moral rectitude and
depravity. It is now a regenerated
soul with power
to conceive an order of actsfounded on these later
informations, but without the power to resume an
order exclusively animal, or even simply intelli
gent. It has reached the last stage of spiritual

pilgrimage, and is now a moral power, versed in

the law of right and wrong.

IX
I offer here a final statement of conclusions
reached in this chapter.
1. At birth, the child has a body and spirit fur

nished of God. These antecede its every act, being

in no sense its acts, nor voluntary to it.
There is an ordinance of God which endows
2.

it with involuntary impulsions, or native appeten

cies. These challenge recognition, and that too
without dispute, until it can lay hold on its
responsible powers, and so make good its ability
to attemper the former by opinion and judgment.
And yet, withal, though true impulses, they are
not true desires, because, acting as blind instiga
tions, they cannot be voluntary.
3. Eor such original factors, going, as they
all

do, only to an original equipment for a competent

thinker, can never be lifted out of their constitutive
limitations, and put to playing the part of neces
sity within the precincts of discursion and choice.
THE INFANT 15

This would be to transmute the limitation by God s

laws, and thus confound
the action of heterogeneous

powers which is absurd.

4. It so happens that, just as the native impulses

begin to act in the child,

its thought, and subse
its rise into being, as
moral appreciations,
quently
incipient forces confronting
the former. Now I
am not mooting the whether the child
question
ever has even a single native impulse which emerges
mental supervi
unchallenged by some qualifying
sion. But if so, the mind itself must have been
for repairs. I am regarding
off duty somewhere
the child once for all, equipped with rational
as,

competency, and beginning to act for itself. For,

power unto itself, fortified with
it is a the
indeed,
several resources of a far-seeing intelligence and,
whenever and however acting, it is free to find its
of life of thinking.
to its way As
way by adhering
a genetic cause, belonging to the being and even
its office
anatomy of the child, necessity discharges
once for all, but the sweep of its presence is defi
nitely cut off by the approach of a new comer fenced
in with the resources of mind, never at all acting

for itself without thinking for itself.

5. Child, or, for that matter, man, has still

involuntary potencies, everything to fit it

still

for acting for itself. The blind impulses may still

come in before its voluntary determinations, giving

thus a notification of some want of the animal

attention
economy which, the child sees, requires
in view of its own personal economy of rational
wants and responsibilities.
16 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

6. The child has antecedents innumerable. It

is finite.Nothing absolute about it. The repro
ductive agencies that made it a germ were not of
its procuring. So of its nature, native endow
ments, involuntary impulses, etc. So, too, of the
general tendency of everything around it to uphold
its being and powers, of course, within the law of

God which provides for its activities. So also, of

heredity, idiosyncrasies, etc. All these are fur
nished of a creative original, in aid of the needed
competency and stamp of an individual intelligence,
personal and responsible. But when they have,
once for all, discharged their office of ushering in,
and contributing to, the being and life of the new

power, they are debarred from doing anything, the

doing of which is the special prerogative of that
new power.
CHAPTER III

THE ADULT

that stage of our discursive pilgrimage when

AT
a mature coales
thought and desire have effected
the child has reached manhood. Years
cence,
it has achieved its first ideas, and mental
agone,
power is now a several cause, voluntary, personal,
and decisive. A cursory view of such a power
must suffice for the present.
It is the human mind conceiving, and doing,
a

work of its own. And such a power bids fair to

discover a to consummate its rational views.
way
Indeed, one were but half-witted, he could not
if

consent to give way to any kind of act, regardless

of considerations evoked on a knowledge of what
for himself.
is good or bad, right or wrong,
suggest a reason why we
And here I have
may
choice in things pertaining to our conduct. It is

to save the Self consciously responsible, at all

For, without choice, we

hazards. could never
affirm ourself responsible for our acts. At all
events, it is not to have the headlong push of
involuntary impulses.
But we may say, to have charge of the power
it is

of our own thoughts, and so be responsible for our

c 17
18 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

acts. And though, we may do badly, by making

a bad choice, yet if we are to be our own keeper,
and not a crippled, irresponsible force, we must be
free to choose, and do, our own acts, and so affirm
a conscious, personal responsibility for both choice
and acts.

II

For, if one found conduct on reasons, he cannot

take a neutral position. Unbridled desires, desires
misplaced, unwise, even beastly, etc., these and
others, all have to be subdued to the tone and
temper of the now responsible self, which will
maintain the right of choice, whether it fits in with
downright depravity or the clearest preceptions of
duty.
Take, for example, a desire known to be immoral.
Now, what shall we do? We say, we will have
none of it. The desire, then, will have to take
the back seat. Why? Simply because the re
sponsible soul will have it that way.

But again, we may choose to indulge an

impurity with intense preference. What say we
now? I appeal to facts for answer. The same
self can frame a judgment of good or bad, and

choose, or side with, the bad, and do it. Here,

too, the responsible soul has its own way.
Yes, I mean it! We might have acted other
wise, but we did not, and one must have his own
way, if the act is to be his and he is to be held

responsible for it. The case is simply this. Man

conceives his moral informations, and so affirms
THE ADULT 19

their obligatory character, and becomes a moral

force. such, he cannot act without choosing
As
between good and bad, and choice fixes the responsi
bility upon him for his acts. He has made himself
for them.
personally responsible

Ill

It seems, then, that man is free to think, and

also free to side with his thoughts, be they good
or bad, but on condition of personal responsibility
for choice. He acts with the efficiency of his
decisive thought, and cannot refuse thus to act.
He cannot abide in purely animal impulses, for he
cannot withhold his rational powers in their pres
ence. He is not a dust hole, to be filled in with
the rubbish of things not his own, as a responsible
creature. He is a power 011 earth for good or bad,
or preferably for both.
He conceives a moral work, and is moved to do
it, for
reasons of choice and though finite, he has,
;

at least,more than a mere semblance of creative

power, executing many
works that attest the force
and bent of his thoughts. He is not to be pent up
in the citadel of mental and moral subjectivity.
For he is both discursive and aggressive, and so
what is subjectively only a thought goes out and
work, and labors up to a new something,
off to its
as a mere conception,
quite beyond the thought
and gives himself a veritable creation, known as
something he has done, and has done for reasons
of choice. And therefore are we, in this regard,
God s modifying and innovating agents at work
20 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

upon things we do, an unwonted

finite, effecting, as
series of changes and consecutions among them,
at the command, and by the power, of thought.

IV

Reverting, now, to an imperial access of power

discerning the ideas of right and wrong and the
judgment of personal responsibility which follows
its exercise, we see man rating and
ranking the
deeds of himself and his familiars, by the moral
standard which he has discovered, even balancing
his conduct by conceptions of right and wrong,
as, in truth, himself alone responsible for choice
of either.
But then, he is now a moral personage begotten
of the moral conceptions he has wrought out, and
to which he must hereafter defer, just as aforetime
he deferred, more and more, to lighter and lower
considerations, as we follow him back to the less
thoughtful days of childhood. But now that he
is in the power of not to be
thought, its grip is

relaxed, not even if he would.

So much in the way of general considerations.
My detailed theory will be systematically unfolded
in subsequent pages,
especially when confronted
by opposing theories.
CHAPTER IV

MIND AND BRAIN

IN this chapter, 1 propose to take in hand an

to the possibility of the mind s
objection which goes
all discussion. I
freedom, and, if valid, closes
refer to the which would trace all our acts
theory
to the "molecular changes in the This is
brain."

and functions of
rather a question as to the origin
would the power
sensations, inasmuch as it ignore
of mind, whilst laying stress upon that of sensa

tion. Indeed, the argument is

meant to be a
as an efficient, construc
sweeping denial to mind,
discursive cause of anything. I remark,
tive,
therefore, upon the origin of sensations.
first,

may remark that they are a mode

of
And here I
and determined, for the most part,
body brain,
the perceiving mind.
by something exterior to
Whereas the latter, for its part, determines ideas,
informations, voluntary acts, etc.
Here we see two activities in severe contrast,
one of mind and one of brain, confronting each
other, and interacting, at the moment of contact.

The sensation is an exterior visitor to mind, and

mind is not slow to give it fit welcome.
Now Ihad thought that we had here two activi-
21
22 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

ties interacting in severe contrast, one a mode of

mind, and the other a mode of body ! It seemed,

therefore, bluntly plain that as each acted from its

own centre, so each had a power distinctly its own.
But now that I find scientists affirming that as
every act of mind has a material antecedent in the
brain, such act is, for that reason, a material result,
I must confess to a mild surprise.
We meet with the following from Du Bois-
Beymond: "We are accumulating the proof that
consciousness is bound to material antecedents.
The condition of a whole world, even of a human
brain, at each instant, is the absolute mechanical
RESULT of the condition in the previous instant,
and the absolute mechanical CAUSE of the condition
in the following instant."

Here, we have both cause and result affirmed to

be mechanical, and consciousness bound to both
material factors. For it is explicitly stated that
a condition of brain at each instant is a mechanical
result, and that this result is the absolute mechan
ical cause of its subsequent condition, and that
consciousness is bound to these mechanical con
ditions.
I am a novice in all this grand, rhetorical dis

putation, but I must confess to some little knowledge

of consciousness, and what it affirms. And I am
at a loss to divine a plausible excuse for such a

palpable perversion of the facts of psychology.

Its absurdity will be apparent when we begin to
realize the controlling fact that the mechanism of
the material universe, as well as that of the brain,
MIND AND BRAIN 23

"

is a law of God which prescribes and

bound to
"

circumscribes, and so allows for the action of both

mind and brain, a condition for both, such that
brain is as much bound to an immaterial cause,
" "

as the latter is bound to the mechanics of brain.

Now, because one set of actions is mechanical is

no reason why another set should also be mechani
cal. Because a kite sails by mechanical forces is
no reason why it should not be held in check by
a voluntary effort on the part of the kite-holder.
Each should have the benefit of its diversely
attempered powers.
I do not object to brain having all its thronging,
mechanical transformations, and, for that matter,
many more. Let us have them all. For mind
could never, at all, be a power unto itself without
some way of coming to a knowledge of exterior
powers, and acting upon that knowledge. On the
other hand, it is just as certain that brain could

never have, at any "instant," a single one of its

vital or physical, otherwise mechanical, causes and

results, if mind were off duty, or, in some other

way, out of place.
The two must stand or fall together. No mind,
no plrysical sensatione! No physical sensations,
no mind, because no object for its discursive activi
ties But more of this in succeeding paragraphs
! !

Before proceeding further, I may explain that,

if the author could be understood to mean that
mind and brain are united in one organism whose
phenomena are conjunct, dependent, and concur
rent, I should not controvert that view, allowance
24 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

being made for the plain limitations to the action

of both.
For I admit that the two are mated at birth,
and grow up together, one maturing mental, as
the other matures nervous, or physical, potencies.
But I protest against the intimation that this
union secures only material causes and results.
The truth is that both mind and brain are finite,
and, therefore, restricted and controlled, each by
its conditions and role of action; each existing, and

acting its part, by, and because of, the enabling

laws which, whilst prescribing what is peculiar to
each, confine each to its prescribed mode of being
and activities. The function of each is held to the
most inviolable restrictions, and if so held, it is
needless to say that neither can transcend the sweep
of its powers.
But retiring Du Bois-Eeymond for a season, let
us reinforce him by another great scientist. Says
Tyndall: "We believe that every thought, and
every feeling, has mechanical equiva
its definite

lent; that it is accompanied by a certain breaking

up and remodelling of the atoms of the brain," etc.
This is much like Du Bois-lieymond s argument.
Both seem to argue from the mechanics of brain to
mechanics of mind.
Still one should be thankful that Tyndall seem

ingly permits thought to accompany, and perhaps

linger, the all-embracing mechanics somewhat
vaguely, being "accompanied by a certain break
ing up, and remodelling of the atoms of the brain,"
though, it may be, only as a spectator. And for
MIND AND BRAIN 25

my part, I am far from denying that mind and

brain may work together in prescribed and restricted

relations, bat I am as far from admitting that this

working together of mind and brain, as far as it

goes, turns up only mechanical causes and results

for what mind does.

May I inquire, does this admitted coordination

of the two powers contravene the functional pre
rogativesof either, in the slightest particular?
What the whole effect of such a close union of
if

the two is to conserve, and uphold, the several

dissimilarities allotted to each, in its appointed
One cannot act without the other,
sphere of action !

or for that matter, be what it is, simply

because of

a pre-arrangement for a restricted dual action, and

appointed results. And so, if there be a union of
two activities, such as that of mind and brain, in
order to conjoint results, no one need be surprised
that the functions of each will disclose points of
let
dependence on that union, disclosing features,
us imagine, widely different from what they would
More
be, if each could act in disunited severalty.
find them,
over, I shall treat them, as I compacted
together, "one and inseparable" -through life.

But will an arrangement that secures the con

actions
nected, finite, and, therefore, restricted,
of mind and brain, obliterate the characteristic
functions of either? Will the action of brain
make that of mind all material, or that of mind
make that of brain all immaterial? Still, one sup
as the other, and
position is quite as reasonable
both are lamentably incredible. And if so, what
26 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

becomes of all this twaddle of scientists about the

absolutely mechanical causes and results of brain
upon mind?
II

Suppose, now, that we wish to have a discursive

but free activity hold communion with things
material and physical, and set up a power dis
tinctly its own, even the power of knowledge, in
their midst, and with that view put mind and

body together in one organism, and thus succeed

in securing our object !

Here, we are in need of some explanations, more

philosophical than psychological.
It is evident that mind cannot be mind, unless
it gets knowledges, and it cannot get these except

the object of knowledge be placed within its reach.

Hence the need for that intimate union of mind
and brain which brings them into immediate con
tact, and by which the former can take instant

cognition of the latter, and in this way, have some

proximate object within its reach, on which it can
act discursively. Now, it is by this very device,
that mind, in respect of the physical sensations
presented in the sensorium, has its sole possible
opportunity, under the fundamental laws which
prevail herein, to perceive, or reason, and ultimately
know and do many things. Think of an act of
cognition! A sensation, being a mode of brain,
swims into the mind s presence, giving the latter
an opportunity instantly to lay hold of an object
lodged in the sensorium an object which it would
MIND AND BRAIN 27

by no means know, if mind and brain could not

come into the immediate presence of each other.
And herein lies the ultimate justification for the
intimate compacting of the two factors concerned,
the direct contact of the perceiving mind with outer
objects giving it a firmer grasp upon powers not its
own, even those of matter, and its inner and outer
correlations.
And here I could wish to give my views more
clearly.
I maintain that, when matter and spirit are bound
together in an organism, at once vital, animal, and
thoughtful, there will emerge a series of interac
tions so dependent on that union, that a given

change will disclose a voluntary result, let the

cooperating mechanics of the brain be what it may.
And, therefore, I insist that, if the social com
pacting of two such factors as mind and brain,
allows of certain limited interactions between the
two, I am unable to divine why such compacting
of the two should result in either one swallowing
up the peculiar causal efficiency of the other. Is
the centre for discursive causation so infringed
upon that it cannot contribute its own efficiency?
Does organization of two powers mean the conser
vation of one, and the annihilation of the other?
Can any good reason be assigned for this mutila
tion of the dualism of mind and brain? If not,
how can we hold that the antecedent condition of
brain furnishes "the absolute mechanical cause" of

any condition of mind, in any instant? What

becomes of mind and its cognitive powers working
28 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

along with, and upon, every mechanical antecedent

that can pretend to be a cause in contact, and in
contrast, with the former?
Iwas assuming that the two were mated together
for a conjoint work which required the active inter
vention of their diverse efficiencies. But here, we
are startled with the scientific discovery (?) that
brain engineers its work so successfully, that it

utterly displaces the causal efficiency of its co-

worker! The thing is abundantly unthinkable.
Brain can be a material cause, though bound to " "

mind, but mind cannot be an immaterial cause,

because "

bound to
"

brain !

And yet, this is what science teaches. However,

one could take it better, if these advanced thinkers
would only condescend to explain why mind should
not have the credit of its powers as distinctly and
cheerfully affirmed, as they affirm those of brain.

Ill

A few plain statements will vindicate a truer

science without belittling either mind or brain.
Mind is the ideating centre, and whatever else
brain may do, it cannot deliver one single idea. Its
data are mtra-cerebral excitations, called sensa
tions, and it delivers these, and these only. Per
contra, mind, for its part, begins a work of thought
on these physical deliverances of the co-working
brain. It acts promptly, in order to the power of
knowledge.
It perceives these physical or cranial excitations

and, therefore, undertakes to remark upon their

MIND AND BRAIN 29

and outlying affiliations, what they

peculiarities
are, and what they do, why they impinge conscious
ness, the hence and
wherefore of their mission,
what their significant traits or qualities, and so
and frames
acquires some important informations,
some opinions, of these exterior potencies, and
connects all this knowledge with its conscious
intelligent, or vital wants.
Apparently, Tyndall allows
somewhat for this
power of mind, though I am
not too sure of this.
With him, as it appears to me, thought has some
semblance of power to remodel the atoms of the
brain. But if that is all it can do, it might as well
be cast out entirely. For it is preeminently a con
causative potency,
scious, aggressive, constructive,
discovering and utilizing power with every dis
a rational
covery of knowledge, and building up
and moral government of its own, in conscious
contrast with material or physical causes.
As intimated, I may not do exact justice to
Tyndall. Perhaps, perhaps! But the candid
admission that thought has some power to remodel
the atoms of the brain would be a very damaging
argument against the position of
Du Bois-Key-
mond, who compromises both the spirituality and
freedom of the mind.

IV

But to continue our analysis.

In a spirit of conciliation, we may, for the nonce,
defer to the contention of scientists, by supposing
that the spiritualityand immateriality, if not free-
30 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

dom, of the mind may be imperilled by its connec

tion with the brain. If that is the difficulty, let us

agree to have the connection absolutely severed.

Here we light upon the animus of all this scientific
splutter about the material antecedents of mind.
Our Creator would have our freedom but finite,
connecting it with a physical body, and unnum
bered other conditions, and straightway a cry is
made about the power of sensations, nerves, brain,
atoms, etc.

Now, is there any warrant in reason for this

scientific ululation? Will scientists have finite

thought, or, for that matter, anything finite, with

out finite limitations? Is their idea of freedom
such as to require absolute and unconditioned
powers? The whole material creation is finite,
bound, hand and foot, by fixed limitations, and
never the feeblest wail from any scientist! And
is it so astonishing to find that our
thinking
faculty, also, has to walk by a law of discursion
which limits its action?
It is even Our thinking substance has to
so.

walk by a law which confines, and conditions, its

activities. Nevertheless, have we any right to
complain of restrictive conditions which do but
provide a way for the play of our rational activi
ties? Let us rather be thankful that all our possi
bilities are surrounded by such safeguards.
That men of science should resort to such
arguments from what brain does, as a proof of the
mechanics of mind, is a sign of the times. What
can be the motive? If you could annihilate matter,
MIND AND BRAIN 31

another batch of affectations.

they would stumble on
would see to it that thought should be com
They
promised in some way. They would cry out:
"The condition of a human intellect, at each
instant, is the absolute intellectual result of its
7

condition in the previous instant, complaining,

are determined
thus, that all our mental procedures
by the state of mind in the previous instant, and
not by the proper freedom of the present and so
are determined necessarily.
reason for
But, in all seriousness, is there any
at a creative act which provides
staggering thought
for the interdependence and co-action of brain and
free discursion? We
depend on God for every

structural or constitutive factor which enables us

to act, and which, so far from upsetting the power
of to determine acts for which we are
thought
responsible, His method for establishing that
is

power. And if so be we can think and act under

this dual arrangement, this is a sufficient vindica
tion of our rational, and voluntary, procedures.
Then, why should not the work of thought go
on, under the conditions and stipulations of the
original ordinance? We
never hear of scientists
looking out for some original crookedness, in that
brain is bound to an immaterial cause and result.

And yet, brain

much conditioned by thought,
is as
as thought by brain. Where is the difficulty in
God s creating, and upholding, a being who can
think, and act, discursively under conditions
which
enable him to assert his unique powers, in contrast
and correlation with other powers not mental?
32 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

All this to repel the intimation that the

mechanics and molecules of the brain determine
our acts, or else, that mind is so under duress to
brain that it may be either quietly ignored, and
belittled, or else, contemptuously dismissed, as an
irrelevant quantity.

On supposition of the absolute severance of mind

and brain, how could the former affirm anything
exterior? On the other hand, how could brain
deliver sensations within reach of a mental power
out of all connection with it? But their union in
one organism, such as we have it in man, provides
a for the accepted interactions of both.
way It
is through their organic union that mind enters

upon its appointed mission of discovering that

which is denied to brain, voluntary impulsions,
rational satisfactions, and the joy and triumph of
free determinations. And in discovering all these,
it discovering powers consciously its own, and
is

re-affirmed in their continual employment.

But again, in case of an absolute severance of
the two, knowledge would depend so entirely on
an original ability to receive it, that the mind could
scarcely be regarded as an active party to its
acquisition. Query! Would this almost alto
gether receptive condition of mind leave man
responsible? Knowing truth through a capacity
for receptive appropriation, it could never be ours

by the accepted processes of active exploration and

discovery. We could not, then, be held responsible
MIND AND BRAIN 33

for thoughts, or opinions, which were not acquired

by a searching study of observed phenomena. An

arrangement for formulating all knowledge with
out effort on our part would contract our personal
responsibility immeasurably.

VI

Eecalling now Tyndall s words that "the brain

molecules can move only in a determined way," I
venture some further remarks.
We may allow all this, when truthfully expli
cated. His proposition has been so stated, how
ever, as to provoke the inference that rational acts
can have no rational antecedents, because the
"

molecules of the brain can move only in a deter

mined way." This I demur to for the following
reasons, among others reserved for a future page:
That brain should have its appointed way of action
is no reason why mind should not have its
appointed
way of action, or, for that matter, co-action. If
the one is privileged to move mechanically, why
not the other, to move rationally? Neither can at
all move save as it conforms to the law for their

interaction. fundamental error

It is here that the
of scientists emerges from Darwin downwards.
They make natural selection, environment, etc.,
preach the gospel of mechanics everywhere in the
universe, allowing nothing for inborn, original, and
ineradicable distinctions, which can never be mis
taken for, or confounded with, the preachments of
natural selection, environment, etc. In any serious
discussion of the interactions of mind and brain,
34 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

whilst claiming those of brain to be mechanical,

we should with equal candor, and better science,
concede those of mind to be discursive and volun
tary even rational and selective.
For my part, I concede a thorough-going coordi
nation and dependence of mind and brain, thought
and sensor organs, both in order to any power of
brain and in order to any power of mind, in respect
of the perception and elaboration of phenomena of
the former. For what brain does can never be
recognized as a presence, can never be studied
and
known, except by some intelligence.

VII

Coming now to a final view of the interaction

of mind and brain, I propose to inquire if the com
bination of the two in man makes him an autom
aton? If so, his acts should disclose that fact.

Now, the one true and decisive way of testing this

is to ascertain the nature and character of his
mental powers and acts, gathering up what is dis
tinctive and setting it over against the physical or
mechanical transformations of brain.
If when subjected to this test, it is seen that

thought and its efficiencies have nothing material

in them; if the soul acts as it reasons, and can
never in any way act without some sufficient reason
for so acting; if when mated with brain, and be
cause so mated, it comes in contact with phe
nomena which it rates as physical and material,
knowing that they are not its own conscious

powers and activities, then in possessing these

MIND AND BRAIN 35

peculiar traits, and in affirming this conscious

knowledge of phenomena not its own, it swings off
from matter as a wholly distinct energy, certifying
the attributes of an immaterial essence. And
whilst this view conserves both sensation and
thought, it proclaims also the fact of the intercom
munion of diverse powers departing from diverse
centres.

Finally, I insist that mind and brain were put

together for a conjoint work, each contributing its
appointed portion, according to its several ability.
Still, all depends 011 the character of the union.
The law for its destined work with the original
is

ordinance, even as what impossible to it is, with

is

some disabling inhibition, found in the same ordi

nance; yea, more, ere it can act at all, its possi
bilities are irreversibly determined.
I repeat! Brain can deliver a sensation, with
prompt, unerring certitude, but never an idea. It
is an exciting cause to discursion, but never the

causal efficiency released by a thought or idea ; and

what it does is in order to what the latter does. It
conditions thought, opening the way to an asser
tion of a constructive or final power born with the

thought, just as the latter conditions the delivery

of sensations, giving them that discursive apprecia

tion, without which they can have neither mission,

nor existence even. But much of this is an an
ticipation of what will be further brought out in
succeeding connections.
CHAPTER V
ENVIRONMENT

CLOSELY connected with the discussions of the

previous chapter is the more general one of Envi
ronment, or the power of our surroundings.

Our first problem is to determine what Environ

ment is. Speaking in general terms, it is every

thing that conditions, or limits, our personal powers.

For example, whatever is exterior to a present
thought has a power exterior to that thought, and
so may condition it. This embraces, in particular,
all the bodily organs and mental capacities born

with us ;
as also, native propensities, sensations of
the external all our former thoughts, heredity, the
;

abounding world without, and the progressive de

velopment of every power that gives us an enlight
ened hold on our distinctively human resources,
enabling us to set up a new order of environment
due to some dominant power of our thought. What
comes through heredity, what through an original
endowment of organs, etc., what through previous
thoughts, and their order of progressive achieve
ment, so far as these impress a present attitude
of thought, is a very proximate, and ever-present,
36
ENVIRONMENT 37

environment, or qualifying limitation. What comes

from the outer world is an ultra, or remote, environ
ment. But they all conspire to clear the way for
the innovating powers of mind. Such in conception
is environment.

II

I have already indicated briefly how these out

side forces transmit impressions within reach of
the mind s not omitting mention of
apperception,
some of the paths along which they travel. My
hasty, preliminary exposition
makes it plain that
matter delivers up to cognition the whole body of
sensations through the sensor organs, and, also, that
this delivery would be void of its particular kind
of result, if mind did not perceive and appraise its
contents. Forif mind were not actively present

and studiously appreciative, there could be neither

percept, nor concept, without
whose intervention an
exterior potency were utterly unable to place a sen-
sorial perturbation within the pale of its jurisdic
tion. A
sensation is but a physical impression in
the sensorium, not an idea, not knowledge, not con
sciousness. It acts in virtue of a law which cries
halt to itspresenting anything at all like the latter.
And, vice versa, the same despot cries halt to the
latter s presenting a sensation, save when it medi
ates a share in producing a sensorial impression, as
in vision, deglutition, etc., when we voluntarily em

ploy our members in ministering to the wants

of

nature, or life, etc.

The old problem of the interaction of sensations
38 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

and thought, is here, as ever, only a question of

the power of environment, as seen in its sensorial
manifestations and the discursive power which
undertakes to know of their mission.

Ill

You remark that we have allowed for the fact

that external impressions reach the sensorium, for
the most part, without our direct intervention. And
now, I am referring to them, in order to bring out
the point, as often urged, that the normal pressure
of an exterior power either antagonizes, or else dis
places, the power of discursion and choice. Now,
I am not denying that ordinarily such a power does
act on us without our procurement, exercising, as it

does, a pressure just sufficient to awaken the slum

bering activities of mind. This is, however, but a
helpful service of a Deighboring, and co-active, po
tency, coming in to put us to our own resources,
affording thus an opportunity for a display of the
facts, and feats, of mind.
Free powers, though finite and limited, are, never
theless, free within their limits, just as other powers
are limited by a law for their diverse reactions.
And no power can displace a power not its own in
kind. But free or not free, it is what it is by the
fundamental law which prescribes the co-acting and
co-terminous limitations to the two. And, there
fore, if the point and pinch of an exterior press
ure leave us still self-centred, active, and rational,
itmay have discharged an office of
great importance
for us, without ever violating any prerogative of
ENVIRONMENT 39

thought found within its prescribed limitations.

For our claim to discursive freedom founds upon,
and within, the scope of our powers, as thus cir
cumscribed, and not beyond that scope. It stands
upon what is consciously a work of conscious power,
that is to say, an achievement of our thought, opin
ion, information, judgment, or knowledge, and the
power that is bom with these. Observe, further,
that all this trumped-up constraint of environment,
at least as far as it be looked upon as an in
may
truder and outsider, comes in before the free power
takes up its counter-weapons, and thinks and acts
for itself. How, then, can the former contravene the
action of a correlative power that does not propose
to act for itself until it is in the presence of some

thing upon which it can act ? Let the former impact

the latter ever so forcibly, this latter will still be free
to take action, within normal limits, unless wholly
The plain truth is that, so far as things ex
upset.
terior can act on us, they do but furnish conditions,
or limitations, such as subserve our mental and moral

economy. Being themselves finite, and, therefore,

restricted to special transformations of their own
which they deliver within reach of the mind s power,
law
they can never nullify that all-comprehending
for the interaction of diverse entities which compels
a deference to all other entities with which they are
associated. Andthe reciprocity applies equally to
the one and the other, exterior things furnishing
what we cannot, because we are shut up to what
actions are our own, whereas we furnish what is
not theirs, because they are shut up to their own.
40 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

This is, however, but an averment that, by an

ordinance of Heaven, we are estopped by barriers
which confine us, as all else, to our, and their,
delegated powers. We are not free, save as
we are restricted by the safeguards placed within
our nature, or else defined by our external con
ditions.
I insist, therefore, that, so far as a material entity

performs the office of presenting objects within the

reach of mind, simply remits us to acts of con
it

scious intelligence. For, when such an exterior

cause is freely interviewed by the intelligence, the
latter begins its proper work of acquiring knowl
edge, discovering ideas, such as those of an exterior
thing and its attributes, existential, or else dynamic ;

actors and actions, and what they import to us, rela

tions and finite limitations, subjective and objective

powers and what to do with them as neighboring

;

factors co-acting with itself, etc.

For I maintain that, when an outer force does
but afford an opportunity for the conceptive and
reconstructive efforts of mind, it cannot touch the
latter with any, the faintest, trace of
constraint;
such an impossible constraint being nothing, in this
regard, but a co-acting and subsidiary force pre
senting its meaning and mission, in its appointed
way, and with proper sensorial emphasis, to the
court of reason.
I conclude, then, that thought has its initiative
and role of action through its conditions, inner and

outer, ever coming to a knowledge of both, and so

developing powers of its own in the careful study
ENVIRONMENT 41

of what the one and the other is and does, in order

to what it can do with them, in view of its own
possibilities.
And yet in order to any knowledge
of powers within its reach it has to defer to the
fundamental laws for affirming the facts, and so
enlisting the powers of environment. It must go
over the objects of knowledge, and make out the
distinctions of an egoistical subject and an exterior

object, remarking the powers, qualities, etc., of each.

IV
So far, I have been considering the power of
environment, inner and outer. I turn, now, to that
of mind. Its attitude toward sensations, and ani
mal appetites, how it made the acquaintance of
itssubjective environment, and laid
hold upon its

personal wants, and what would satisfy them,

all this has been briefly adverted to, as the argu
ment progressed. This great problem it succeeded
in solving, and then set out along the path to re
moter and wider discoveries. It remains, now, to
follow this inquisitive, restless person, as he makes
his way out of himself into the regions beyond,
and becomes, more and more, individual, personal,
and human.
He is a master spirit on the floor of the finite.
As he makes progress by conscious and designed
efforts, he is but keeping pace with
the sequences
of his thoughts. He does not part company with
his environment, of whatever kind it may be, but

keeps within the law for the interaction of thought

and the powers which condition its exercise. He
42 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

can react on his environment, and constrain it to

serve Ms purposes to an extent limited only by the
grasp of his conceptions. And, so far as
he can
relieve himself from the despotism of its blind
forces (for it would be a remorseless despotism, if
he could not affirm some power of thought to com
bat and act upon his knowledge, he is a law
it),

giver unto himself, putting the force of his thought

into his laws.
And what we say of man applies to all animals,
as far as thought is a power in them, each
down
and all modifying his environment, as each has

power of mind to do it. And, therefore, would I

affirm the irresistible conclusion that we are free,

only as we can lay hold of power to lead out the

forces of nature, and give them unwonted extension,
even an unwonted environment, modifying her
to the extent of the rational valuations made in
aid of our cultivated wants.
For it is in this way that mind, as conditioned,
or even constrained, by what is not itself (and what
is not thus constrained by the fundamental laws of

being?), acquires power to elicit facts, and resolving

them into their logical and dynamical applications,
connects this latter knowledge with our welfare,
and so conditions the very things by which it is
itself conditioned.
But all this is in virtue of a law which, whilst it
constrains thought to prescribed limits and func
tions, enables it to enter upon the latter, as a dis
cursive energy freely modifying, or else educing,
the powers of things exterior.
ENVIRONMENT 43

With, such a system of laws prevailing in the

universe of matter and mind, and obvious to our
contemplation, we may avail
ourselves of their

sanction, study their import, and extend their ap

plication to human interests. And we may do

this, not simply from
what we see of external
nature, but because we have a penetrating insight
into our own powers, and can act up to our insight.

V
We have just seen that matter and spirit are held
fast to their limited spheres of action, each con

forming to a law which limits it to special functions.

I mention furthersome other controlling facts.
Every entity must act within the measure of its

competency. And none can hold itself aloof from

powers with which it must associate. An inviola

ble law for their interaction governs both the one

and the other, exacting the most undeviating reci
procity of intercourse. In other words, each has
itsappointed way of acting, in deference to the ap
pointed ways of the communicating
brotherhood of
entities.
For indeed, the way provided for a finite thing
to act had to be conceived from the beginning by

appointing a mode of interaction for a universe

of things socially coordinated. And here, we are
evoking that fundamental law of universal creation
to which all things finite must conform. For every
matter or spirit, is subordinated
to the
thing, be it

enabling laws which condition its existence and

determine the sweep of its powers, compelling it,
44 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

willy-nilly, to slip into the traces of the finite, un

der pain of a merciless extinction. If, then, thought
is thus tensely conditioned, and therefore finite,
both by the law for its special work, and that for
the action of exterior entities, so, also, is matter,
both by the law for its special work, and that for
itscommerce with discursive entities.
It follows, therefore, that when things are put
together, under a law for reciprocal co-action, they
cannot act cow^ro-socially. Hence, also, certain
forces are called forth which express this feature
of social Moreover, what is finite
intercourse.
cannot act as an outlaw, and so put at naught an
all-embracing law of creation. For, as just now
intimated, it can have command of its own special
law of action, only by keeping within the scope of
that wider law for interaction by virtue of which
its own powers are unalterably apportioned and
conditioned. And, may we say of our
therefore,
thought that it cannot break up any natural power,
in order to its discursive work.
Whenever it would
essay any preconcerted work,
it never runs counter to any law of nature. And
the latter provides conditions, limitations,
oppor
tunities, co-acting forces; furnishes, in fact, if not
another, but non-conscious, intelligence, at least, a
monumental record of creative thought, for com
munion with ours. For a law of nature is a
thought of nature s God fixed in His work, an
evidence of a superhuman mind, imperishable, and
indisputable.
ENVIRONMENT 45

VI

I may now append some general observations.

It seems, then, that mind is a distinct immaterial
dis
essence, fledged with discursive competencies
mated with body, and in
tinctly individual, though
innumerable which act upon
spite of powers it,

from within and from without, and on which it

must depend for a hold on its own resources.
a
Yea, more, I contend that, if you take away
one of these co-acting familiars, you may so
single
of
disrupt itsoriginal constitution that, in default
to its initial apprehension, and
objects presented
their ready and powerful cooperation, you would
have little to apprehend primarily, and conse

few, if any, objects for thought,

and no
quently,
power to conceive any. And
you could neither
so
reason nor act, having nothing before you for
efficient for
thought or action, not one working
or immaterial, or
proclaiming the soul immortal,
indeed making proclamation of anything, unless
should seek us out, and get
perchance knowledge
itself pasted in our pate by some unimaginable
process.
I confess, though, that some of us are made pain
limitations and the power of
fully aware of our
our environment. We compare ourselves with our
acquaintances, and take sorrow for our not having
a better showing of mental power for our work
upon the things that environ us. Yet, even
we are
well satisfied to have the soul furnished of God
with His number of preexisting and coetaneous
46 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

conditions and finite limitations

yes, satisfied to
;

have mind and brain so put together that there will

be a well-established concomitance between a
phys
ical object actingwithin the brain and the counter
action of conception and judgment within the
mind,
the brain mediating molecular and mechanical
excitations the mind, ideas, volitions,
;
deeds, etc.,
etc.

Distinctions reserved for the next

chapter will
give all needed qualification of previous statements.
CHAPTER VI
THOUGHT A FREE SINGLE

THIS chapter is an anticipation of the main facts

that enter into the succeeding ones. I propose,
however, to offer some thoughts which, lying within
the scope of the general subject, may be advanced
in connection with the preceding discussions.
But now I wish to inquire briefly, how thought
is, or becomes, a free single.
I remark, first, that things are single, by reason
of distinctive characters of their own. Indeed,
what is void of such characters is emptied of every
feature of existence. must have either material
It
or immaterial constituents to avouch a nature pecul
iar to itself, as well as divergent from other en
tities. The tiniest molecule of the most impalpable
complement of characteristic ele
gas has its full

ments, features, attributes, etc., to give it distin

guishing individuality. Lacking these, it is nil.

in this regard, and for the same reasons,
Now,
thought is set apart from all other things by an
appointed variety of uniquely significant attributes.
It is hencea,
free single, by virtue of specific traits,
which forbid its confounding with other things.
For what is conception and responsible choice can
47
48 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

never be commuted into material consecutions and

transformations. The inhibition is absolute and
thoroughgoing. Thought is a free single.

II

I pass, now, to a point which concerns the first

contact of thought with sensations.
As already adverted to, we have a nervous system
which subserves mental functions through the sensa
tionswhich it presents to mind, primarily as with
out significance, until mind has mediated their
import.
As such, they are the first exterior objects held
up before mind for its apprehension.
I am careful to note that these sensations
(though
at the first, they may not be full clearly differen
tiated by their characteristic marks) are but the
means to the peculiar procedures of
thought, their
special office being that of bringing up the latter
to its birth, and the assumption of its intellectual

prerogatives.
But, now that we have thought thus aroused
into a state of conscious intelligence and wakeful-

ness, we should bear in mind that it is not a being

of sensations only, and conscious only of these. It
is more. For it has a being and activities of its

own, as individual as any set of distinctive char

acters can insulate one thing from another.
Weare now considering sensations in order to
their contrast with the conscious
intelligence that
perceives them.
As modes of body, they are as truly outer to the
THOUGHT A FREE SINGLE 49

mind as the flow of the blood, or the growth of the

hair, the only difference being that one is conceived

sooner than the other exteriority. As such modes,
they all come within reach of some power of mind,

and so when the latter takes them in hand, we have

to witness another power at work, an energy that

gives us a different result. For, in order to our hav

ing any physical phenomena reported by and held
in mind, we must needs transform them into cogni
tions or psychical achievements. And, therefore,
may we say that what makes a sensation a mode of
body is a physical organism, and what cuts it away
from the physics of brain or body is a mental
organism with cognitive powers of its own. But
when once a fact of mind, it is no longer a cerebral
sensation. It is a spent sensorial excitation, and
cannot be reconstructed unless, indeed, we in
duce its repetition experimentally.
Now, if I am right in these speculations, the
child, shortly after birth, has many sensations,

intellections, and emotions confronting each other,

and interacting as diverse factors. The result is
the pronounced first stoppings of thought. It per
ceives the sensation, and, so, acquires an idea of it,
in response to the sensorial impression. But this
response is only an affirmation of the existence of
an exterior disturbance for mere perception affirms
;

only the existence of an object, as hereinafter to be

explained.
But this is an act of mind setting out with the
firstappearance of sensation, giving it some cogni
tive attention. Here, an illustration of this diver-
50 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

sity,and several ty, of mind and sensation, may be

profitably pondered. The latter is to the former
what the earth is to our power of locomotion. We
can by no means take a step without a support to
our feet. Still, the ground, as a pedestrian plat
form, is altogether dissimilar to locomotion on its
surface.

Ill

The requirements of the problem impel us to

notice a much wider diversity between a sensation,
and, say, an induction, as a distinctive achievement
of a free, and several, energy.
A sensation, if only perceived, is but an observed
fact discovered in the animal sensorium. Whereas,
a conception is the tension of the teleological reason
upon a sensorial perturbation, in order to that
broader knowledge of what can be affirmed of its
bearing on our personal welfare.
Let me illustrate this, also.
If a grain of wheat die, it is replaced by a
similar grain. But, if a sensation die, it is not re
placed by another sensation. Something wholly
different is turned up, namely, either a simple idea,
as in perception, or else, some conviction or concep
tion that is constructive of the strictly human
wants caught up from wider rational processes.
And, herein again, thought is seen to be a free
single. As an excitation in the sensorium, a sensa
tion is, I repeat, an object upon which thought can

rest, but when simply perceived it arrests atten

tion, only to its presence, in loco; and, thereupon,
THOUGHT A FREE SINGLE 51

thought initiates, after its own way, that metamor-

phic scrutiny which certifies the

marks and rational
make-up of the things interviewed, and how they
can be availed of, as discoveries interwoven with
the discovery of our responsible interests.
Whereupon, as soon as a sensation discharges
its office, it is displaced by a different factor.

And forasmuch as this latter is a consciously in

energy, it will proceed to acts of con

telligent
ception and volition had in conscious contrast
with acts not its own, whether sensational or
not.
I am explaining mind by the marks that give
it an individuality of its own, as seen when bat

tling with, or else making use of, forces

found in
the field of environment, inner and outer.
If we were only conscious, all we could know
would be that modification of the brain, called a
sensation, and consequently, all we could do
would be to observe, without discrimination, such
phenomena as find their way into the sensorium.

Moreover, if we could not acquire those afore

mentioned constructive informations which go to
build up and conserve our educated requirements,
such meagre knowledge as that of a mere sen
sation, consciously, but witlessly, affirmed,
would
stand, it may be at the threshold of, but certainly,
exterior to, the precincts of the logical understand

ing. It is to be remarked that I am stating

nothing but the child s, or, forthat matter, man s
honest outlook in the presence of sensations,
whose more simple elements, such an one may
52 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

not, at any time and for any reason, be able to

discover.

Indeed, to be conscious only of what transpires

in the sensorimn is to be like one who, having
had no previous experience of sonorous vibrations,
becomes suddenly aware of some fine music
played for his benefit. The sonorous visitation
is certainly very uncanny. Something so unde
fined is poking at him such a storm of bewilder

ing fuss His apperceptions are set ajar by the

!

crankiest emotions of surprise, fear, and wonder

at the anomalous intrusion! What is that music
to him in such a state of perplexity and pale
affright ? Isit some rude decussation of the audi

tory nerves ? Or, is it an irruption of ill-boding

monsters from the regions beyond? Or, again,
will he take it as an undifferentiated sound, a mere

noise, or The situation is enigmatical.

thud?
However, the rational centre will in due time
succeed in resolving all these enigmas of sensa
tion into conceptions vitally connected with our
maturing wants and educed susceptibilities.
Wherefore, in reliance upon the foregoing state
ments, I submit that we have some facts placed
beyond controversy. We have an exterior power
working upon the sensorial centre and landing
there an impression called a sensation, but, never
theless, on condition of another power with un-
confounding functions of its own going forward
to meet this exterior power, giving it vogue, as
a sensorial individuality contrasting with the cog
nitive power. But this latter power, because of
THOUGHT A FREE SINGLE 53

its conscious intelligence, undertakes to inter

pret and publish what the exterior

one is, and
does acquiring,
;
in time, the power to trans
form a purely physical excitation in the senso-
riiun into the transcendent facts and acts of a

voluntary and responsible actor.

Now, herein, again, we have the stamp and mark
of a free single with voluntary resources of its own,
in contrast with one which it affirms to be exterior
and involuntary.

IV

But, ifthought be a single entity, is it voluntary ?

Can it surmount the mechanics of the brain and
act on achievements of its own ? And how ?
These questions will receive a hurried passing
notice, in order to prevent our misconceiving
its

nature or functions.
For, if mind is but a big pocket for storing away
the raw materials of sensation; if to know blue,
we have to take the pigment of the sky and stuff
it bodily within the centre of cognition if we have ;

to clutch sound and tumble it about in the audito

rium ;
if the rose, itself, has to be felt within the
soul, instead of being aesthetically affirmed and
appreciated if it takes this to give us a knowledge
;

of personal (emotional and voluntary) power to de

termine our acts, then we can never, at all, get it.
But, if, divine appointment, we can act cog-
by
nitively on exterior things, when they are acting
to know
dynamically on our sensor organs ;
if

them is to make their acquaintance and make up

54 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

our mind what to do with them, and what to do

with ourselves ;
that is to say, if knowledge is the
appropriation and appreciation of some facts, plus
a judgment of what we shall do with
them, then,
we can know, and do even as we know. For indeed,
we can know nothing of anything, save as thought
gains power to discover the rational evidences that
betray what and to certify them as finds seen
it is,

to bepromotive of our responsible ends.

Now, I claim for thought that, from the very be
ginning, has to discover and appropriate all the
it

informations on which it acts, and that it acts on

the force of the reasons acquired in the exercise of
its cognitive, and logical, resources, and that, if it
has to acquire these informations in order to
power
over its own acts, it is a free and several unit, with
power to propound a work exact to the thoughts
that determine it the result being that, when brain
;

brings a physical irritation (here sensation) within

reach of the mind s explorative purview, the latter
can, in turn, set to work upon that object, and
achieve what is denied to the former;
namely,
thoughts, revelations of discursive power, etc.
And here, again, I repeat, we have the same old
entities confronting each other, with powers
pecul
iar to each, one material, the other immaterial and
free by a divine right to its own discoveries.

V
I continue our analysis in order to
bring up some
other aspects of the problem. I have remarked
upon the success of thought in capturing inforuia-
THOUGHT A FREE SINGLE 55

tions. But after all,what will it do with them,

and wherefore do ? The explanation is evident. If
it has been at pains to acquire knowledges, it will be

at pains to discover what to do with them. It will

see a reason for taking advantage of all it knows.

Here, then, we have a discursive entity which,
when about to enter upon a given work, must study
the conditions of the problem : what is a furtherance,
and what a hindrance what ;
is to be the effect on it

self and other things when the actdone, and what is

deliberate conclusion will finally determine choice

and personal responsibility for an act that may, or
may not, be done. For its acts are determined by
reasons, and, if so, it is a free cause, and as distinctly
individual as significant traits can make it.
And here, we may not
overlook, in passing, the
marked feature of interest thought takes in its own
ways and work, not seldom contrasting itself, as an
aggressive and responsible energy, with things not
itself. We
have many facts like the following:
What are our powers in the presence of all these
sensational exteriorities, or, else, how shall we lead
out, or otherwise evade, the forces of nature, when
hostile? But these are questions for an immate
rial, constructive, individual, and personal energy.
And, can propound such questions, or for that
if it

matter, any question, it is not only free, but, in

affirming such powers and prerogatives, in contrast
with others which it would control, or combat, it is,
in fact, affirming itself a free single. For, such a
propounder must know that he has powers of his
own, and that he can develop, out of his own re-
56 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

sources, a plan, or concept, of work which he can

accomplish.
And, here again, we have plan, deliberation,
nerve, personal interest, self-command, and execu
tive ability, the very essentials of a voluntary
and several power.

VI
I conclude with a brief study of the objection
that matter, or physics, in some of its forms, has
power to coerce a free, or voluntary, activity. That
our bodily organs deliver up to mind external im
pressions, I have
cheerfully conceded, from the
beginning. I now affirm that these impressions, be

they ever so vehement when acting normally, are

but a preliminary and, so, only an exciting cause
ministering to mind, never an efficient cause born
with discursion and volition that matter and phys
;

ics can do things for me, in order to what I

many
can do myself, and that having done all they can
for me, I am
left free to fall back upon my own

resources,and act with cognitive efficiency.

There is, and can be, no clashing of principles of
action between the two.
Besides having a nature of its own, the child is
fenced in with external forces and constitutive re
sources, from It is, as before explained, an or
birth.

ganism of mind and

external organs acting together,
and interacting with a world of outside entities
when brought into communication, in pursuance of
a fundamental ordinance which confines both within
impassable barriers.
THOUGHT A FREE SINGLE 57

The acceptance of these facts silences all cavil.

Indeed, the best certified, fundamental fact of the
universe is, that mind (our sole witness for any
fact) is so declarative
of its severalty and discursive
freedom, that matter is an affirmed and accredited
exterior potency solely on the former s reportorial

authority.
But now, if it report matter and physics as an
outer something with an equipment of powers not
at all cognitive, it must, for a stronger reason, re

port itself as another something with cognitive and

reporting competencies.
Hence, the conclusion is irresistible that a sensa
tion as a physical cause having its departure out
side of mind, is never in any condition to act as a
discursive cause issuing from the mind alone. But
even though it be an outsider, it can act on the for
mer, and at times very violently, as an exterior
cause, but never as a conscious energy formulated
by the thinker. It may co-act with mind, but it
cannot displace the co-acting agent.
In have heretofore said, it is to be under
all I

stood that I have been regarding thought and its

exteriorities as co-acting factors engaged in a com
mon work. I am
not debating problems growing
out of certain pathological conditions which over
power the volitional efficiencies of thought. For,
if you put a club into the hands of sensation, the

valor of the bravest thought will have to succumb

to the assault. Sensation must be full-witted and
normal, lest thought be driven from the field.
PART II

THE ACQUISITION OF KNOWLEDGE

CHAPTER VII

THE CRADLE OF THOUGHT

IN former chapters I have aimed to give thought

a conscious freedom in the presence of sensations,
environment, etc. I am now to regard it as a prov

ident, watchful, and active energy, gathering power

as it gathers ideas. Of course, what it does cannot
be a work of own, unless freely gone upon. And
its

freely gone upon, its achievements must

if found
on antecedents running back to childhood. And,
therefore, should we make a study of the child as
it isbeing trained in the universe of thought, if
we are ever to have anything approaching a true
account of free determinations.
The child acts as it thinks.
"

When I was
a child, I spake as a child, I thought
as a child, but when I became a man, I put away
childish things."
Childish things are indeed put away, but in all
essentials of mind and mind-power, the child and
man are one ;
the same person who thinks and acts
as a child, thinks and acts as a man. The continu
ity of free discursion isunbroken from infancy to
old age. The mature man
is but a renewal of and

advance upon, his immature self. And, therefore,

if it be but this founding of effort on previous ef-
61
62 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

forts; this growth upon previous growth; a con

scious advance upon, and because of, previous ones,
we are driven to regard the conscious antecedents
of the child as of prime importance, demanding
careful scrutiny. And this I propose to give in
what follows.

It were desirable to have our former self present

before us. The pen may fail of
doing justice to
such a personage. And, therefore, would I invoke
collaborators to institute a searching re-discussion
of this much neglected branch of psychology. I

begin with a common formula which Avill express

my views, when taken in reference to the growth
and birth of thought The child is father to the
:
"

man."

HOAV true The mature man has no other father.

!

But the paternity is unlike ordinary generation ;

the ancestor is ever along, and one with, the issue.

Inasmuch, then, as the child is thus our father,
and ever one with us, are we not, therefore, hedged
in with a very proximate and tight-fitting heredity ?
And should we not feel like renewing his acquaint
ance and recalling his acts; remembering that, in
recalling them, we are depicting the lineaments of
our former selves ?
The was our earliest teacher, an active
child

explorer of rarest originality, but what he taught

was what we ourselves discovered. He sought out
things within and without, and, as his wit sharp
ened, he ventured boldly on a boundless field of
THE CRADLE OF THOUGHT 63

exploration. He
would make inquisition of every
thing; peering anxiously into the
unknown. In
the very beginning he manifested strong rational
proclivities, and soon
thereafter thought began its
active mission. In a moment he awoke to con
scious life and its struggles. Thenceforward he
was committed to a career of thought and personal
effort wherein he wrought out knowledge and

gained power from every quarter. And when he

came to think, he clearly perceived that he was a
power unto himself, in virtue of his own discover
ies. Modest, artless, confiding, but open-eyed and
expectant, at the start, he becomes,
in time, a pro

nounced, self-reliant energy, dotting the centuries

with a galaxy of deeds.
We cannot interrogate too faithfully these initial
acts of our child-father. For if he is the parent of
our present intelligence, we are now standing on
what we did as a child. And we now partakers
are
of these first things of his mind through the
rational discoveries that made them ours in the
past.

II

Here I give place to a few remarks on what is

now made rudimentary to our hands in the teach
ings of psychologists.
What are the child s distinctive qualifications ?

(1) As to its nature. It is furnished with

mental capacities and physical organs, the latter
presenting impressions in the brain, many, if not
most, of which come from the outer world. The eye,
64 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

ear, etc., are physical functionaries having widely

disparate peculiarities and objectives. Each is con
cerned with a work rigorously its own, but together
presenting all our diverse sensations within reach
of mind.

(2) Now, a word two in respect of the inter

or
action of the two. Our native mental faculties ex
ist, at first, as mere germs. But soon, some facts
are won which arrest attention, and so promote
the growth of thought. In this way begins that
life-long intercourse between mind and those physi
cal perturbations called sensations, an intercourse
which trains the former to such a knowledge of
rational marks or evidences as will produce convic
tion, and power of choice, and action.

(3) Remark the mode and manner of intercourse

between these two friendly parties.
Matter has to be in a position to be interviewed.
Mind prepares to make its acquaintance. They
begin to exchange civilities. When the former im
pacts mind, the latter takes conscious interest in
its visitor, and what manner of creature it may be.

One is a conscious force, the other, unconscious.

The task of the latter is to present phenomena for
the former scrutiny, and, thereupon, the former
s

begins the work of prying into their contents.

For mind is a conscious, curious, impulsive
energy, ready for a venture of some kind, and
much given to active exploration. It is neither a
phase, nor a mode, nor an activity of matter. It
is simply a discoverer of facts, or informations,

which it would employ in constructing for itself a

THE CRADLE OF THOUGHT 65

life of educated wants and satisfactions. It has no

extra-cognitive way of doing anything. It is not

inspired. Its office is to examine God s works, and

trace their rational coordinations communing with
;

His mind, and thus affirming ideas, judgments, con

victions, etc., on evidence for them. I am restrict

ing mind to its capabilities. It knows nothing

outside of acts of seeing, judging, affirming, and
doing. It is never helped by an intuition, or any
such lawless divinity, outside of a rational apper
ception of phenomena on sufficient evidence (if in
deed any intuition can be in anywise distinct from
perception). Truth is never so ready made that it
can be grasped as furnished knowledge. What is
apprehended, or conceived, or known, comes of the
mind s power to discover and judge for itself.
And in this connection I invite attention to a
fundamental law of thought. We can never do
justice to freedom, or morality, unless we concede
that Ave have both through our power to evoke all
knowledge by rational processes from the begin
ning, discovering and acting on, and with, what we
discover.

Yes, it does look unpromising to initiate thought,

on occasion of first locking it out of all informa
tion. Still, it has no other way open for a dis
covery of its unique powers. It begins, face to
face, with a boundless realm of things unknown,
and, for an instant, may stare blindly at the be
wildering enigma. But, as will appear hereafter,
this inexorable fact solves the whole problem of
free determinations.
66 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

III

The methods employed by the child in seeking

knowledge seem .to demand a somewhat careful
exposition.
It is conscious and logical from its first start in

the field of discovery. We

have seen that it plants
itself on the power to judge, on evidence. Its life
is not one of sheer physical, and vital, awareness.

There lies, back of this, quite another endowment,

which comes into action as soon as sensations
appear in the sensorium, and is brought fully to
birth in the first acts of judgment.
The child has rational powers, and acts ration
ally. It is not shut up to an incipient rationality
wherein it is simply receptive of sensations. It is
an egoistical personage, walking in the light of
what it can see and do for itself. It ponders the
informations gathered from all corners of the uni
verse, and then adopts a line of conduct begotten
of some reason or choice which fixes the responsi
bilityupon itself for choice carries the responsible
;

soul along with the thought which decides his acts.

Thus far, our child-father is seen to make fair
progress. But further. If knowledge is power,
he has that power, and must impress himself on
things about him.
And so far as he does this, he is a creative energy,
made so by projecting the force of his thought into
what he does.
But I may not anticipate discussions reserved for
particular treatment.
THE CRADLE OF THOUGHT 67

IV

It is not my purpose to give a detailed account

of what the child does at this early period. But
its mind is not slow to act; and I may mention,
therefore, some few of
its first acts. Here, then, is
something that touches its soul with a sensation, or
a feeling. This physical excitation, named sensa
tion, has been presented in the sensorium, and
thought begins its investigation. The result, so

far, is that we have both sensation and its instant

apprehension, and, let me add, some wilderiiig emo

tion not as yet securely defined.
We are to bear in mind that the child is just set
ting out on voyage of discovery, and there
its first

fore, such purely perceptive finds as it then makes,

are a surprise to its infantile intelligence, and so
cannot more thoughtful resources. A
call forth its
brute has sensation, perception, and the concomi
tant emotions, and sits easy in its duller ways.
On the contrary, the child has a soul a little too
human to be content with a mere perception, and
that densest personal response which we call an
undefined emotion. His human judgment begins
to act, as it affirms and gathers ideas, and by a

slow, but steady growth, secures an unfailing flow

of rational and moral convictions and emotions.
Of course, on attaining to manhood, his mental
powers are more widely constructive and service
able.
Here I venture another remark relevant to the
emergence of these initial phenomena when first
68 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

presented to the child. If any one can get back

of sensations, perceptions, and the emotions thereto

belonging, and show me that we come to this knowl

edge without resorting to some act of judgment, be
itever so infantile, then, I shall have to confess to
a brief interval in the earliest efforts of mind, in
which its powers go forth in the tumult of disorder.
But this would adjourn the birth of thought only
a moment. Indeed, I am inclined to the belief that,
at the moment of birth, and in the freshness and
ferment among the mob of sensations, perceptions,
and emotions, simultaneously on hand, the child
might not have time to frame a judgment squarely
rational but, for that matter, it could not then
;

have had time accurately to square such factors

according to any rule. We therefore give the child
a childish mental start, and argue from that, and not
from a previous, nebulous period, if there be any.
As a matter of course, among the very first
rational apprehensions, are those by which the child

perceives its own acts. And though these may not

be very conspicuously marked by the feature of
alternative choice, yet, so far as they involve the
slightest attention and judgment, the act is both
rationaland voluntary. No one will question this.
But indeed, if I am not mistaken in affirming the
simultaneous irruption of
sensation, perception,
and some emotion, there must be some faint
little

glimmerings of choice involved in comparing phe

nomena so disparate that the feature of diversity
could not be eliminated without an act of judg
ment discriminating and comparing the diverse
THE CRADLE OF THOUGHT 69

traits affirmed. And

hence the conclusion that
neither sensations, nor perceptions, nor emotions,
can ever become the child s own rational achieve
constituents of
ments, until they are made rational
his soul by the power to know and judge them.
I
In this connection pause to consider those un
defined emotions which arise on occasion of our

first knowledge of sensations, and move the child

to act before it can take firm hold upon its rational
resources.
With idiots, the power of reason is either smoth
ered, or else a total blank.
And when this is the
the sole antecedents to action are, as a rule, sen
case,
emotions. Such an
sations, and the equally agnostic
tecedents are, therefore, necessitating causes. The
same considerations may apply to the child when
all its rational powers are in a state of nascent incu

bation. But when the clarifying power of thought

sets in, one would think that the child could remark
the blind strivings of its vagrant emotions. And
this it does, to a degree, at the earliest moment after
it has, once for all, begun For, whenever
to reason.
it can take up distinct informations, it will act

rationally, and be emotioned accordingly, never

more relapsing into a plane of action where, seeing
and feeling darkly, it must act as it is seeing and
feeling. Remark, now, the drift of my exposition.
I have granted that, at birth, sensations, emotions,
etc.,are so utterly new that the child may not know
their import, and so not see what to do. And if it
could not see clearly what to do, it could not have
any well-defined, rational emotion, however
much
70 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

it might be impressed by the sudden entrance of

perturbations, then almost wholly vital and ani
mal.
Now, the truth is that such raw sensations and
emotions are in a marginal zone of indefinite and
indeterminate cognition, and are there, because
needed to stimulate effort during the formative
period.
Perception of such phenomena, at that time, is
necessarily only an inchoate cognition. But, as
before explained, thought begins to make their
acquaintance, and thinking gives definite informa
tions,and accordant, definite emotions, voluntary
propulsion and responsible conduct, a type of
transformations quite foreign to merely physical
and vital causes and effects. For, just as soon as
the soul becomes rational, it becomes personal, and
soon thereafter moral, having knowledge and the
corresponding emotions as guiding and impelling
factors in act or deed.

It remains now to explain, more

particularly,
what the child is doing, when busied with the task
of affirming and discriminating the things about it.
The materials for this discussion are ready to hand.
The mother is one of the first objects to arrest its
attention. It touches her, and sees where it touches.
It clings to her, muscularly, whilst taking in her

superficies and the indications of life and love

.detected in her movements, voice, etc. It would
know the significance of all these sensational phe-
THE CRADLE OF THOUGHT 71

nomena. But and the same time, it is re

at one

garding, contrasting, coordinating, and appreciating

muscular, auditory, tactile, visual, gustatory, and
lactile sensations, besides those of deglutition, etc.

For, as it is nourished on her breast, it is beholding

her person and countenance, hearing her voice and

receiving her caresses, etc., etc., with the eager
interest of a neophyte.
And these, and similar, experiences are repeated,
again and again, with variations innumerable. It
has never one sensation by itself. The tribunal
of cognition and judgment never adjourns. The
onward flow of informations never subsides, and
each item a discovery that lends power to discover
is

more. The nurse father, mother, brothers, and

;

sisters the cat, the dog, the chair the light from
; ;

the window, the slam of the door, the fall of foot

steps, the rose, the cherry, the peach, each and
all enchain its attention. Its feet are cold; the
nurse warm; the chair is hard; the peach soft.
It smells a bright rose, and tastes a red cherry. It
sees the quiet blue, or else the stimulating tints of
the bird whose song thrills its soul with unutterable
raptures. If the bird perch on its hand it is wooed
with regardful eyes and gentle attentions. Its

body, build, weight, shape, etc., are distinctly

affirmed. It is seen to be alive, and tremulous with
vital and muscular movements. The intermittent
pulsations proceeding from a thing of life are set
off against the less sympathetic visitations of dead

matter. The bird sings, and it discriminates the

song from mechanical sound.
72 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

And the child ponders all these things with deep

ening interest, for they bedew its soul with the light

of reason. It remarks any dissimilarities, and ad

judges different traits to be traits of different things,
as distinctly different as sensations from thought, or
its power. It separates one thing from another, and,
as I have frames a judgment founded on their
said,
discrepant characters. And, herein, it has excogi
tated the idea of an individual thing, by its pecul
iar marks, distinguishing things different by marks
which they do not hold in common.
From
hence, we may see how our child-father
came to have the idea of things different of self ;

and not self of matter, mind, and their characteris

;

ticand contrasting attributes, etc., and how he cor

related ideas with things different by
remarking
and identifying the diverse features found in each.
And having acquired all these and manifold other
informations, he must have also acquired the idea
of a self-conscious, intelligent, personal
power and
agency which is his, and not of the things about
him.
And so we all have been going to school in that
world-wide university built of God, where all His
children prepare for the plunge into business, and
a life of choice and fearful responsibility. And we
all took the same thought-forming and judgment-
training courses in original research.
Ah, those inspiring school-days of twenty or
twenty-five years we once had in our Father s
house, preparing for the battle of life and thought !

We set out to discover a universe of things about

THE CRADLE OF THOUGHT 73

us, and we brought back a correct report of all we

had mind to discover And we were helped with
!

many a corrective hint, being born again unto the

power of knowledge !

And the child is father to the man.

CHAPTER VIII

PERCEPTIVE PRESENTATIONS

PERCEPTIONS are the first discursive acts of the

child.
It has been explained that, soon after it is born
it has quite a large assemblage of objects in hand
to arrest its attention, some within itself and some
without. Moved by a God-given curiosity, it begins
their study, immediately. But it imports thence
only an account of what it discovers. As rational,
it goes out to investigate phenomena, and, coming
into contact with some sensorial perturbations, it
affirms and certifies these perturbations, and so
returns with nothing but an affirmation of what it
has seen, achieving thus an idea or cognition of,
say, taste, sound, touch, smell, etc., and it names
this perturbation, so perceived, a sensation.
This and its like, is the sum total of what it

achieves in an act of perception, external or inter

nal. It perceives, or fetches, the notion of a some

thing it has interviewed. Or, in other words, we

may say: Some kind of an energy, which is not
that of our thought, is at work in one of our sensor
organs, producing an impression there. We remark
this impression, and name it a sensation. But the
74
PERCEPTIVE PPvESENTATIONS 75

act of affirming a sensation wo call perception.

Or, to change our perspective slightly, we may say :

A change is going on in one of our sensor organs,

and we certify this change, by passing a judg
ment on some of its more obvious traits (for what
has none is imperceptible). And so we say, off
hand Well, here is a something whose acts we are
:

witnessing and affirming. And we dub the phe

nomena, thus witnessed and affirmed, a sensation;
and this report of what we saw is perception, or our
readiest cognition, affirming and avouching what we
have discovered through one or more of our senses.
Similar remarks, mutatis mutandis, apply to acts
of the observing intelligence. Here, we are cogniz
ing our own thoughts, perceiving or affirming ideas,
discursions, or operations, of the mind itself.
You observe that all the mind has gained is an
idea, or affirmation of the thing interviewed. Per
ception, then, is a certification and presentation of
the ideas uncovered in the simplest inspection of
objects.
At a later stage, and on deeper study, mind may
succeed in extending its report; perceiving, and

presenting additional ideas sought out of a universe

of things to be known by their identifying traits.
You see, I am only giving thought its first outing
in quest of informations, and speaking, solely, of
the first ideas gained by the readiest cognition of
things, that is to say, by perception. It is under

stood, too, that I am not attempting to separate

perfectly what is due to perception, and what to
conception ;
a feat more obstructive than profitable.
76 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

II

I now bespeak an attentive consideration of what

thought does when achieving its first cognitions.

I repeat, for perception, that it simply affirms an

object, or else some attribute of the object, be it a

sensation, emotion, or any mental operation. For,
when we are perceiving, we are framing our first
mental outline or report of the object.
And this is our briefest tale, or announcement,
of what we have discovered, and it is but a frag
ment of the abundant informations reached by the
more thorough explorations of the logical under
standing.
I have also explained that every act of percep
tion founds on an act of judgment which identifies
the object by its complement of distinctive marks.
It therefore, a rational discovery, and because
is,

rational, it is reported as such, and kept in store for

further scrutiny, and in order to a comparison with
other ideas with which it is seen to affiliate.
Among the first ideas acquired are perceptions
of self, as actively thoughtful, affected and emo
tioned; ideas of both body and spirit, and the
source whence they come ; some, pointing to an
exterior object, others, to the conscious energy,
and its activities.

We have seen that the child s own soul, and all

its surroundings, engage its attention with the

prompt impressiveness of things, new and wonder
ful. Andbeing consciously curious,
so, if not
touchingly verdant, from the outset, it cannot
PERCEPTIVE PRESENTATIONS 77

escape attempting some idea of itself, as active and

affected. And I feel that I can venture to say that
ib has also a special train of ideas connected with
itself, such as those of bewilderment, uncertainty,

fear, and fearful suspense, and many such like all ;

which is this same idea of self in a state of emo

tion which springs from the almost agnostic begin

nings of its cognitive explorations.

I am not now descanting upon the difficulty it

must have had in achieving the distinct affirmation

of sensations. It remains to point out that if it
had the emotions referred to above (and if alive at
all, it must have had them), then, it must also have
had the ideas (be they ever so nebulously formu
lated) on which to found them, but both ideas and
emotions caught up in an instant of startling initia
tion well-nigh confounding.

Only a moment ago, I mentioned the fact that

the mind itself is variously affected by the diver
gent ideas caught up from the spectacle of outward
and inward phenomena, and that these variant ideas
beget corresponding emotions.
Now, in contemplating the phenomena of various
emotions the mind will not confound one with
another, but will distinguish each by its several
characters, and thus discretely separate what idea
it may have of each emotion from others of the
brotherhood, eliminating, finally, a faint first
thought of their implication in our personal econ
omy, and so on, distinguishing ideas and emotions
from themselves, and from each other, as different
by marks of contrariety.
objects isolated
78 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

Mindalone perceives, and, therefore, delivers, or

presents, ideas of sensations, etc., and, because it
is it grasps a new type
emotioned at those ideas,
of ideas
namely,
;
those of the emotions which
answer to the call of the ideas previously pre
sented. Now, as otherwise stated, all this is
perception, 011 the apprehension of the mental
contraposition of idea as an affirmed cognition, and
idea as an affirmed impulse, or emotion, transpiring
in the soul.
And in this, mind is a discoverer, identifying,
and affirming its finds by the swiftest inspection of
their contents.

Moreover, it is to be observed that perception,

here as everywhere, concerns a concrete object
whose elements await separation by the elaborating
processes of analysis and methodical abstraction.
Yefc, because they come together as idea and emo

tion,thought and its personal force, you cannot

perceive the one without perceiving the other.
Thought affirms the things of itself, and external
nature, and reports what it saw and felt. And this
is about all it does in an act of perception. And
so we may conclude that every idea of self, or not
self, is born of some judgment founded on evi
dence. And if so, then this briskest resource of

mind must play an important part, to say the least,

in avouching the ideas to be availed of by its more
deliberate processes.
CHAPTER IX
SUPPLEMENTABT STATEMENTS

LOOKING now toward a final view of the office of

sensations in respect of perception, and regarding

them at the time when they swim into the mind s
horizon, we may ask : What are they, then, to the
mind? I repeat, they are wholly a surprise and
confusion the mind at that earliest period of juve-
;

iiescence affirming only this.

An illustration may serve to make this plain:
We are in the presence of some seemingly unbal
anced providence, disclosing, say, whimsical, erratic,
and stunning accompaniments. What are we to do
with it? We cannot divine the rationale of the
thing. We are dazed. Such an astonishment is
quite beyond our thinking. And the hideous por
tent remains relentless, until we get a firm hold on
itsmeaning or mission ; get some firm grip on the
ideas of the portent-maker.
Now, it is just so with the first coming sensations
of a child. They are portents, until relieved by
a discovery of some idea which will dispel the
mystery.
And never until we can frame some first conject
ure, and so have some theory of their meaning,
79
80 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

and, it be, remove some of their darker con

may
notations, can they be aught to us but the direst
confusion resulting from our ignorance. Thought
dispels the mystery.
Again, sensation is a manifestation of physical
power cooperating with that of mind. It may be
a monster of dynamics in its way. It can deliver
a physical irritation in the sensorinm with faultless
precision, bnt never an idea. It cannot overstep
the despotism of its limitations, any more than
inind can usurp its functions and discharge its
offices. While, for its part, the latter can see a
sensation, remark its character, and report accord
ingly, the former, in turn, has no power to report
anything in terms of the co-active, discursive fac
tor. one
Its office is to present a perturbation in
of our sense centres. remain an impal
It has to

pable factor, unknowing and unknown, an unbal

anced visitation, a portent, until mind evolves the
story-telling ideas that solve the riddle.

II

The preceding discussions have led me to remark

upon the simultaneous emergence of sensation and
its perception: brain presenting physical impres
sions, and mind perceiving them; perception and
sensorial perturbations taking place co-actively and

coetaneously.
But we may further consider this problem of per
ception, and its exteriorities, from another point
of view: All these sensor impressions are invol
untary.
SUPPLEMENTARY STATEMENTS 81

Consider the sense of hearing, for a moment.

The ear is so constructed that it conveys an exter
nal vibration to the inner sensorium, causing there
a physical irritation, or perturbation. Here, the
immediate object perceived is this irritation, an
object presented by the auditory organ, not by the
mind. This physical object, so presented, is there
fore involuntary.
Similar remarks apply to other physical organs.
They all present, or deliver their several impres
sions, often violently, but, when acting normally,
with a degree of conservative vigor just sufficient
to give thought a lit object for the display of its

rational, volitional, and personal powers.

You may have observed that I am distinctly ad
mitting that an exterior impression is delivered to
me with a vigor adequate to attract my attention,
affording me an opportunity thus to react on it, as
best I may, with the powers of my voluntary and
constructive knowledges. And, confessedly, this
does give me a physical object for my study, and
which my thought could never give. Moreover, if
an exterior potency is ever to be at all known, it
must in some way be presented as an object for
thought, lest otherwise, if I had to present it, I
must needs be exterior to myself to make the exte
rior presentation.
I am not, however, to be driven to the conclusion
(conventional usage to the contrary) that the sensor
organ is sensitive. Its sole office is to deliver sen
sations.
The cognitive activity alone is sensitive. The
82 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

outward organ mediates a physical impression after

itsown way, and thereupon the former, ever open
to the call of external visitations, consciously and

sensitively apprehends it. The exterior visitation

neither imports sensitiveness, nor a susceptibility
to sensation, but the mind gets iifrom within, ere it
can be properly equipped for going out to affirm the
sensorial visitation.
But this apart, we have now some sensorial ob

jects before the bar of thought, and having these,

we are prepared to enter upon all our rational pos
sibilities, affirming ideas or knowledges by affirming
the attributes which identify the objects presented.
For, if objects for thought, we may dis
we have
cursively re-integrate their rational constituents
and affiliations.

Ill

Here I am led to inquire How can we know sen

:

sations ? Allow me to offer a brief explanation.

As phenomena, they would forever remain an un
known quantity, if AVC could not see some tracings
of meaning; some touches of thought and method;
something significant in their behavior stamped in
their constitution. And it is a matter for mind to
note these tracings and make report of their value.
If it can decipher the underlying meanings, and so

get out the significance of the tracings, it will have

something for its pains, an idea, opinion, or informa
tion which it can affirm and act on.
For the acquisition of any knowledge is just so
much power achieved for shaping an order of con-
SUPPLEMENTARY STATEMENTS 83

secutions well known to constructive thought. And

the principle on, or by, which anything was con
structed, is open to exploration,
and will reveal in
what it is, and does, some intimations of the mind
that constructedit and so, if we would interpret
;

his work,we must proceed from it to the thought

of him Avho planned it, just as we do when we pro
ceed from human works to human thoughts, for an
explanation more or less satisfactory.
But can this explain how we know sensations ?
Yes ! The fetch of ideas from any of our sensorial
works of
impressions, as from the more stupendous
creative thought Avhat is
;
it at bottom, but to dis

cover God s constructive and creative ideas hid

away in sensations, phenomena, portents, or any

thing else that can lay claim to distinctive attri

butes ?
And if, peradventure, we should ever come to
know them they would have to be laboriously sought
out and dug up, after the manner of one excavating
antique finds.
And what if, in this regard, mind should be the
expert archaeologist who studies
the finds, deciphers
the inscriptions, and certifies and publishes their
import! For what we all hud is "hid treasure"
awaiting discovery and interpretation,
and many a
link in the concatenation may never be found.
But then, our epigra.phist curious, enthusiastic,
is

enterprising, and much emotioned in view of re

sults, and never halts
until he has laid bare the
last secret meet for his day and generation.
For these, and similar reasons, therefore, we feel
84 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

justified in concluding that our thought, as seen in

the perception of sensations, or other objects, is but
the perception of some thought, or the evidence for
it, stowed away in phenomena, sensorial, or other.
It is human thought discovering the thought of
some other thinker.
An abundant practical experience engenders a
safe, common-sense capacity for recognizing and
making use of evidences of mind and meaning seen
in things exterior.
And we soon find that the more successfully we
do this, the truer we are to the mother nature of
our own constructive thought and to that of uni
versal creation as well.
CHAPTER X
CONCEPTIVE PRESENTATIONS

THEdiscovery of bare (concrete) ideas, or tlieir

presentation, may be fraught with vivid satisfac
tions, and still the soul may not be the efficient,

provident, personal energy it becomes when it can

take full charge of conduct. At this latter period,
it is moved by the power of more comprehensive,
and, therefore, more productive, informations. It
is hence incumbent on us to remark upon some par
ticulars of its progressive work, if we would know
how it wins its way to freedom.
We have just seen it acquiring a large store of
perceptive informations. It is, therefore, now in
a position to bethink itself of further conquests.
And our purpose is to keep along with it as it
extends its And, though we have been
inquiries.
consciously affirming from infancy onward,
its feats,

its way to advanced achievement well-nigh forbids

any satisfactory statement.

II

Mind alone is sensitive, the sensor organ, not.

The latter, however, delivers itself dynamically,
and lodges an impression within reach of the power
85
86 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

which, in turn, first feels, and then perceives, the

impression.
Now, at the very moment of perception, some
dim pencillings of discursive thought must begin
to emerge, heralding the advent of wider vistas

beyond mere perception, but, as yet, too shadowy

for the bold outlines of conception. Let us call
this vague blushful premonition of conception, the

notion, because, though a real knowledge, it has

not been distinctly clarified and affirmed by the
searching scrutiny of analysis and judgment. For
we must take it that our larger, rational compe

tencies have been bestowing, at least, a curious

interest in those earliest discoveries of perception,
and so have turned up some discursive intimations,
darkly, yet joyfully, at their worth, and are now at
the door of conception, peering beyond.
I would not be misunderstood. Every achievement
of mind is, in fact, more or less discursive. Even
perception, being, as before explained, a presentation
by the judgment, is, for that reason, a first, or pri
mary, inference, or discursion. This remark covers
every information mediated by the test methods of
judgment and inference, on inspection of evidence.
It will therefore be my aim to follow up the
psychological development of knowledges so delib
erately entered upon in preceding pages, dwelling
on that particular stage reached by the mind when
seeking those of wider significance than mere
it is

perceptions, but restricting our inquiry more to a

view of them as discoveries, than as potencies.
(The latter will be dealt with later on.)
CONCEPTIVE PRESENTATIONS 87

For indeed, the soul is so indivisibly a unit that,

when it is discursive, it is potent, and when potent,
discursive. always alive to the power of its
It is

thoughts both conception and its power superven

;

ing on occasion of a view of its growing

wants and
so emi
interests, a class of personal requirements
themselves
nently human, that they never manifest
save as they respond to the call of the strictly
human thoughts that inspire them.

Ill

But to proceed with my analysis of the bolder

flights of conception ! The problem before us is to
determine how thought ever comes to know enough
of itself,and the things about it, to enable it to
I instance
conceive, and realize, its higher wants.
some familiar examples. Here is an old illustra
tion, that of a rose. An exact analysis forbids our

saying, we
perceive it. When first confronted, we
perceive only the excitations made
in the sensorium,

namely, those of sight, taste, smell, etc.,

and as we
begin to take discursive transformation,
said, these
tremulously and vaguely, in the notion.
But thought hies onward. In the act of percep
tion, it feels the awakening stimulus
of concrete

ideas, and, in the same instant, takes the road to con

of the
ception in the light of the faint glimmerings
notion. And now, if we would know more of it,
we must needs keep abreast with its bolder visions

beyond.
The rose emits an effluvium which travels along
the olfactory nerves to the inner sensorium, there
88 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

to meet the power that perceives it as an object to

be known and object for study. Here the resources
,

of comparison, judgment, and inference are brought

into requisition, and begin an eager, and tireless,

inquiry.
See the result ! The sensation is touched with
some differentiating features (itcould not be any
thing without these). They are identified as con
stituent elements, or, else, qualifying adjuncts,
of the rose, and if so, they are the attributes, or

accompaniments, which mark it as an individual

thing distinct from other things. Here we have
uncovered many informations, correlated, distin
guished, contrasted, called forth at the bidding of
thought.
Here, too, in the grouping of such contrasting
and divergent phenomena, we have some of our
first conceptions of the related and dependent
:
;

of a whole and its parts of an exterior force and

;

what it does, and of that peculiar relation of mind

as a discoverer of facts to the object which it inter
views.
Such are some of the conceptions of thought;
brave achievements with suggestive, constructive,
Whence come they ? Why
far-reaching affiliations.
here, why and what their import ? Can
studied,
we connect them with human wants ? Can they
be employed in life and conduct, as our exertive,
and personal, motors ? The answer to these ques
tions may be gathered from what follows.
For the present, we are but spectators, beholding
thought acquiring the knowledge on which it may
CONCEFTIVE PRESENTATIONS 89

found character and conduct its efficiency, as a

;

free cause, being measured by the scope and bear

ing of its informations. For in affirming

certain
attributes as part and parcel of the things of, or
about, us, we are employing our own distinctively
rational method for ascertaining what they are and
what they do; affirming thus a brotherhood of
members and traits which may be resolved into
their identifying marks, and put to such a discur
sive use as will minister to our higher wants. For
thought is ever making discoveries in the interest
of its loftier appreciations.
The rose impacted the sensorium with a physical
impression, and thought discovered its significance.
It fetched forth ideas of cause and effect, self and
not self, external power with its train of variously
significant impressions. It was given a concrete

perturbation in a sensor organ or organs. It decom

posed this into the parts of the concrete thing that

contained them. It has contrasted an exterior po
tency with its own inner potencies. It has conferred
with the rose, and ascertained that it is fragrant,
beautiful to the eye, ministering to our aesthetic
satisfactions. And so, again, it has compared notes
with its colors, and configuration, and garnered up
ideas of touch and sight combined. And it will bring
in the soft, the hard, the smooth, the rough, etc., and
connecting all these knowledges together by a con
ception of their aesthetic, utilitarian, or other pecul
iarities, pass onward to considerations which
will
arouse our higher emotional and voluntary suscep
tibilities.
90 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

It would be more than tedious to make mention

of every idea, sought out from a study of the rose,
and its relation to ourselves, and other entities.
But there are some associated with the universe of
notice in
things around us, which claim a passing
this connection. It is but one of numberless
things, all of which are naturally so interdepen
dent that, whilst proclaiming this mutual depen
dence, they proclaim, as well, the creative thought
ofHim who conceived and constructed their being,
and apportioned, and correlated their diverse func
tions.
And here, it is needless to say that in all this
effort to command the meaning of the things we
are interviewing, we are evoking conceptions of
laws of being and action resting on the thought
of the first Lawgiver.

IV
But again, we have seen perceptions diverge and
to
differ,parting off into distinct classes, answering
the external organs which mediate diverse impres
sions. And we may have noticed that even those
which belong to the same class have many striking-

Now, all these divaricat

points of dissimilarity.
ing traits enounce the salient marks which
attract

attention.

What, then, the attitude of a young mind in

is

such a presence ? It is in a land of wonders, ex

pectant and deeply emotioned. It will, therefore,
feel that it has a marvel of strange things to un
ravel. It will not long remain in suspense. It will
CONCEPTIVE PRESENTATIONS 91

at once begin their investigation, by sorting out the

component elements of the different impressions,

some of which are statical, and some dynamical,
some settled convictions on which
arriving finally at
it may act.

Yet, this is but one of the numberless similar

problems to which it gives due attention all through
life, and in order to a further conception of what

they are, and what to do with them.

Another point may here be dwelt upon.
Not infrequently, exterior forces present them
selves intrusively, sometimes violently. Now,
it will behoove thought to see, not simply what
they are in barest presentation, but, as I have said,
to come to some conclusions in respect of their be
havior and meaning, and give them place as so much
mental power that may be put to use for our per
sonal betterment.
It is readily seen that we are here alighting on
some informations bearing on the conservation of

life,health, morals, business, etc. And it is for

this reason that the very lineaments of our various
sensations have to be understood and placed in their
logical connections. The coordination of sensations
with their causes, the sedulous study of every po
tency, our own and other s, with a view to the
growth of our own conscious powers, all these have
to be caught up, and matured, and fixed in the soul.

V
The sheet of paper on which I am writing may
serve to exemplify the general subject of concep-
92 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

tion. If one sees but the awkward, shambling

chirography, he gets but scant information. But
let us give it, and its tortuous tracings in ink, a
little careful thought. Is that all we see ? All
indeed, if we have only perceptive informations.

But our thought is a restless energy, given to more

rational ventures. It has a wide range of inquisi
tive powers by which it acquires discursive in
formations. It is by means a weak-minded
110

neophyte taking the veriest outside view of the

fixtures and features of things about him.
It discovers that these letters form syllables,

words, sentences, paragraphs, etc. that their allo

;

cation on the paper gives them a grammatical

structure,and that, together, they are signs of the
thought of the writer, which any reader may recast.
Eemember, that all we started with was paper,
ink, and cursive characters. But what have we
now beyond these ? Many things :
thought, pen
manship, rhetoric, grammar, opinion, judg
logic,
ment, and many other debilitating effusions. But
we follow the coiiceptive affiliations of the argu
ment so faithfully that we have rethought the
thoughts of the thinker.
We have sifted the scrawl and released its ra
tional constituents. The
writer gives us a sample
of his work, and we put our mind to work upon it,
and affirm and follow his thoughts. And this, his
work, was withal a new creation, not made over to
him by a neighbor, but a work of his own, formu
lated and finished by force of the inborn power of
liis conceptions.
CONCEPTIVE PRESENTATIONS 93

And you, his readers, what in turn are you doing ?

Your eyes see only the paper, ink, and cursives.
But you give them discursive appreciation. You
separate them off by their literary, logical, and
other rational consanguinities. And in this you
are remarking the writer s thought, on evidence for
it. You found it wrapped up in the unconscious
cerements of ink and paper, and now, behold, it is
alive and speaks !

And in this regard, you too have been doing

what I call a creative work, brought home to your
hand by the power of discursion. For though you
may not create anything, de novo, yet your power
of thought has brought to you a new thing, that in
all cases exists for you, only through your power to
conceive it.

VI
I come now to a study of, say, an apple. We
touch, taste, see, smell, and feel it, mediating thus
diverse impressions, and framing variant ideas of
its peculiar attributes. Here is progress, but so
far, only bare perceptions, or else, inarticulate con
ceptions, in aid of these. But now, if we undertake
to compare and contrast these impressions, we are

invoking the giftlier resources of mind. We are

bringing up the reserves and body-guards of the
soul.
We
remark that the apple is connected with the
parent stem the bud with the bloom
;
bud and ;

bloom with the fruit the fruit with its power to

;

please the taste, or to sate hunger ;

the bud, bloom,
94 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

branches, etc., with the main trunk, etc. The sap,

the seasons, the fertile soil, the abounding world
around us, all are thoughtfully pondered, and the
purport of their interrelations sought out
and af
firmed. For we are in search of the finger prints
of constructive thought stamped on nature, and we
have only to recognize them, in order to the assump
tion of constructive powers of our own.
And, therefore, do we make requisition of all our
rational resources, and so reach conclusions, con
victions, dianoetical informations, etc., and act as
these inform us. And I repeat, we reach the afore
said power of knowledge by a rational elaboration
of the things we study, that is to say, by a concep
tion of their statical and dynamical affiliations with
our personal good (or bad).

VII

We now work our way to the horse, another cap

ital find. But how did we ever come to discover
our way out to him? He is not without some
points of attraction within easy call of mind. Our
optic nerves receive his visual outlines, and deliver
them to the inner scnsorium, where they are per
ceived. But can thought release their meaning ?
Its mission is to pry into the why and the where
fore of things, in order to personal power. It will
therefore try to know the horse, and its capabili
ties. It sees that its configuration cuts it away
from other objects in the landscape. It follows
the peculiar profile from which we frame the men
tal map of an animal, in contradistinction to what
CONCEPTIVE PRESENTATIONS 95

is not one, and so on, discriminating, finally, one

horse from another, and from other things. Here
many conceptions are summoned forth, in under
stood connections.
But thought halts not. It sets foot forward on
new and ever newer ground, advancing from con
quest to conquest. It affirms the color of the
horse, grade, and shading; and compares these
its

with other colors of the brood and of the land

scape. Then, there is its physique, bristling with
the signs of life in all its members. These are like
wise distinctly pondered and formulated. But it
is put to repeated acts of
judgment, in making out
the parts which identify the horse, and, at the same
time, distinguish it from other horses, or things.
And here it is, at the same moment, acquiring many
other ideas, such as those of proof and inference
from the evidences, verification of facts, and con
viction, etc. it comes to know the posi
Here, too,
tion, posture, ubi, and habits of the animal in.
rest or motion, each and all of which have to be

distinctly affirmed before they can be rated as

conceptions.
Should we inquire now Whence all these fruit
:

ful discoveries ? The answer is They arc the

:

faithful products of discursive reason. The two

diverse factors concerned are mind, and the enti
ties that confront it. Each is a power unto itself,
but neither can derogate from what is competent
to the other. What is of the horse, and its sur
roundings, conveys impressions to the inner senso-
rium, just as what is of the mind affirms all it can
96 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

see and interpret of the outness,

locality, life, ways,
marks, etc., of the horse.
utilities,
The horse has life and power, power of muscle
and thought, and what he does, and is, are indicia
of his capabilities. He is hence a find which we
can train to serve us in many industrial, and even
aesthetic ways, and to an almost unlimited extent.
He is docile, tractable, strong, durable, serviceable,
and when we come to know all these things, we
can make use of him as a domestic animal.

VIII

The great problem of how we come to conceive

the idea of cause comes next in order.
It is plain that we cannot act our part in life s

stirring drama without knowing that we have

power to act it. It is equally plain that we cannot

perform without a knowledge of the power of

it

neighboring entities. Action expresses cause, or

productive energy, and implies a subject acting,
and an object acted upon.
Now, the peculiarity of thought is that, when
acted upon by an exterior cause, it cannot receive the
action of its correlate with absolute passivity. For,
when once in cognitive commerce with such an object,
it goes out to meet it with a cognitive vehemence
peculiar to itself, and adapted to the emergency.
It acts on what it knows, and according to what it
knows, of the power and mission of its visitor.
But the very first act it bestows on its visitor is
an act of attention which is an act of the will, and,
therefore, a personal cause.
CONCEPTIVE PRESENTATIONS 97

But I am presently to inquire : How get we the

idea of an external cause ?
I have just pointed out the fact, that, when an
external object produces an impression on some one
of our inner sense centres, thought actively, and

instantly, perceives that impression as a power ex

ternal to the power that affirms it for an external
;

object has been presented for its study. And when

it resolves this impression into a subject and its

attributes, abstracting, for closer inspection, the

several potencies and adjuncts that constitute it,
itcould not long stand firm against the partition of
such constantly recurring phenomena as antece
dence and subsequence into power and result, which
is the idea of cause and effect.

For, indeed, to speak of a thing as lacking the

attribute of power or cause, is to speak of what
we are unable to conceive and this, because noth
;

ing in the universe can come into conception, save

through some manifestation of its power. Some ex
terior impressions are indeed very mild, some vio
lent, but even the mildest must present some trace
of power, adequate to make the impression in the

sensorium, 011 perceiving which, thought perceives

an external potency.
The fact is patent, therefore, that we have our
idea of an external cause from a series of external
impressions, made in the sensorium, and whether
mild or violent.
If they are sufficiently forceful to arrest atten
tion to their frequent occurrence, the mind will
observe that fact, and, for a while, it may be, ob-
98 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

serve nothing more. But it may afterward remark

upon the constant, and invariable sequence be
tween a given antecedent and subsequent. This
will foster a desire to make a more thorough
examination. And, so, the mind pauses to account
for a priority and posteriority, perpetually recur

ring, between phenomena, and makes the discovery

that there is something more than mere priority
in the antecedent ;
that it cannot act at all, unless

potent, and that if potent, its power will be mani

fested, and even measured, by what it does, i.e., by
its result.

Now, I have just explained that we have already

had the idea of a conscious cause through attention,
and acts of judgment and reason. For every act
of thought is an act of personal power, going for
ward as cause, into its peculiar results. It is per
sonal efficiency, or voluntary power. And allow
me to say that, when we get this idea of personal
power, or cause, we are disporting ourselves within
the domain of reason and judgment on evidence,
and, if we should employ the same idea and the
same processes to help us to infer an
rational
external cause or power sufficient to determine
both priority and result, it will be but another
exercise of reason and judgment, and entirely at
our discretion.
Now, inasmuch as a conscious act of reason
affirmsthat this thing named cause, or power,
and which is affirmed in affirming any and every
thing, is an exterior something, and not of our
selves, and, yet, we are certain of having traced
CONCEPTIVE PRESENTATIONS 99

the attribute of efficiency to the antecedent which

produced the consequent, it follows that we have
conceived a cause, or power, in the antecedent
sufficient to produce the result. In other words,
we have found power in the antecedent which sets
forth a new something called a result or conse
quence, which in turn sets forth, and makes good,
its claim to the antecedent as the parent energy
that went forth to establish it. But, in all this,
we are governed by the test methods of observa
tion, comparison, judgment, and inference. Indeed,
we have to make conquest of all this cognoscible
universe, precisely as we have done with the rose,
the horse, etc.For what is presented to our con
fronting intelligence what is furnished by any
j

sensorial contributor, all this is, as I have

said,
buried treasure whose significance has first to be
winnowed out, and then carefully worked up into
inferences, convictions, and reconstructive informa
tions, and then finally fixed in character and vented
in conduct, and in the moral rectifications and

repressions of conscience.

IX
Another step forward in the line of our re
searches brings up the principle of universal cau
sation expressed in the formula:
Every change
which begins to exist, appear, has a cause.
or
And the question presents itself: How does the
mind come to know this truth ? Well, just as it
affirms everything else, on evidence deemed valid.
We are advancing simply from particular causes
100 THE POWER OP THOUGHT

to asupreme cause dominating all particular causes.

But power that spake the
this is a search, for the
worlds into being and placed them under orders to
an irrepealable laio of cause and effect.
We had some reasons for determining the law
for individual instances of cause and effect, and
we discovered a power in the antecedent which
accounted for the changes observed, and now, we
would contemplate one that dominates all changes,
and we say with Shakespeare
"
I ll see these things !

They are rare, and wondrous curious. 1

Yes, let us see them. But how shall this be done ?

We look within and without and see a vast assem
blage of finite powers, and we remark the
fact of

our inability to frame a system of laws for changes

embracing the universe. And yet we see that the
whole world is under bonds to some potency which
will account for all its transformations, and though
finite, we are held to some convictions, honestly
acquired. We know that the finite is incompetent
to universal power, and we search for something
that is. We
are inquisitive, and pursue the inquiry.
We work is superhuman and super-
see that the
and we conceive an adequate power from
finite,
what such work teaches us. We are in quest of
a law of order for a universe of changes, the con
to
ception of a vast multitude of things grouped
gether and co-acting under a law of cause and
effect such as we affirm for the particular changes
we have observed.
CONCEPTIVE PRESENTATIONS 101

We have long since learned that the idea of ex

ternality is founded on the potency of the impres
sion, or sensation, made in the inner sensorium.
And we argue that a universal cause calls for an
all-embracing energy, competent to dominate a
universe of changes. And in the strictest analy
sis, the principle of universal causality is, there

fore, but the force of some omniscient thought

expressed in all His works, and this supreme,
causative efficiency, thus gone over into all manner
of changes, is the antecedent cause which con

ceived, and constructed, and continually enforces,

a universal law of causation for all things finite.
It is to be understood that we do not pretend to
follow every thought and every turn of thought
that goes into any work, finite or infinite. And yet,
it is
simply impossible to behold the transforma
tions going 011 inphenomena, and not affirm one
thing power of
: some kind, in any, or all, antece
dents, competent to produce the result, or results.
We are utterly unable to ignore such an insuper
able presence. We
can conceive of no change but
what is under bonds to a power adequate to pro
duce it.

X
But now, that the regular coordination of enti
tieshas had incidental mention, I may inquire,
further, in respect of how we conceive a rational
basis for the interplay of their activities.

If, in the display of their activities, they pursue

an accepted order of transformations, there must
102 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

be some reasons why they evince such an order.

As neighboring entities coming within reach of
the mind s power to apprehend them, they must
have some way of making themselves knowable to
the power that undertakes to know them; some
way of mutely intimating their presence and
attributes to our thinking possibilities.

Inquiring, then, why mind can discourse with

matter, we have but one possible answer Matter :

has a sign-language of her own, implanted

tell-tale

in her constitution and manifested in her attributes.

She is, indeed, not given to talk, but she can pre
sent phenomena so charged with meaning and
rational coordination that our thought can lay
hold on these and make use of their rational
intimations. For this earlier, and non-verbal,
speech of matter has its parallel in man s acts,
or deeds, and is known as we know them.
But, being what it is through the thought of an
omniscient thinker, our finite thought can remark
the evidences of his shaping intelligence behind
and beyond the phenomenal manifestations.
The truth is that all knowledge, and all science,
founds on a concerted arrangement for the com
merce of mind, as a discoverer of truth, and matter,
as the work of some other mind. And, therefore,
is it that no phenomena can ever be certified and

explained except on condition of our finding some

other mind, speaking to us through the rational
economy of order displayed in the things inter
viewed.
Talk as we may, there is some pre-adaption in
CONCEPTIVE PRESENTATIONS 103

the things about us by which they speak to us and

vindicate a rational explanation. And it is ever in
this way that our thought discovers in matter (or
in mind in all its moods) some thought or power of
thought of some other thinker, and does really com
mune with Him as with an elder brother; for it
cannot commune with anything, if its speech is

estranged from the rational principles on which

itself founds.
And therefore comes it to pass that, albeit every

thing not ourselves is an outsider, it can be en

treated as a familiar whom we mayinterrogate and
deliver of his ideas, after the manner of the redoubt
able Socrates. For what is orderly, is so, because
of reasons for it, and its speech is rational, because
allwork tells some tale of its constructor to any
mind that can afford to frame a thought, or devise
a work of its own.
It is for reasons like these we claim that, when

by an act of conception, we affirm certain attributes

as part and parcel of a given object, we are in fact
affirming that they are held together by the unre-
laxing grip of law and order.
Allow an illustration to the point. We are look
ing at a photograph. What do we see ? Nothing
but the superficies of paper and carpentry work,
every whit matter. At the same moment, however,
our intelligence will be searching for the evidences
of design, meaning, or motive for its construction.

Now, exactly the same method is pursued when

we wish to interpret nature. At first, as before
explained, she is nothing to us but a physical exci-
104 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

tation in the sensorium; a something exterior to

our perceptive intelligence. But being under charge
of a pervading law of order, she speaks for, and
as
vicariously proclaims, an omniscient Lawmaker,
the true cause of everything subject to that law.
And now, if we avail ourselves of these explana
tions,we may approach the problem of universal
causation under guide of evidences which compel
us to infer the power of creative thought, in order
to account for a law of cause and effect impressed

upon everything we know of His work.

Yes, there must be power in the antecedent
suffi

cient to produce the result ;

else otherwise, there

could be no change, no result, no universe even.

XI
And right here we are face to face with an objec
tion that impeaches the logic of our contention.
The point is made that, when we infer universal
causation from particular instances of it, there is
more in the conclusion than in the premises. It
will take but a moment, I am persuaded, to expose
the fallacy of this famous argument. The logic of
for any conclusion we
particular facts is sufficient
make, and for our part, we would not have
it

disturbed. We may at least see that there is no

more invalidity in the inference to a universal cause
pervading all things and all changes, than in infer
but the
ring many things on which everybody acts,
truth of which is beyond any possibility of verifica
tion by an actual observation of the fact inferred.
For instance, we infer that the sun will rise to-
CONCEPTIVE PRESENTATIONS 105

morrow, though we may never step out of the pres

ent into the future to get the fact from actual
observation before sunrise to-morrow. And you
can no more verify this than the fact of universal
causation. It is an inference from the fact that
the sun has risen every morning up to the present
time. But it would be well for the objector to re
mark that this inference is validated only by con
ceiving the law for cause and effect to be founded
on a power sufficient for any time, if not repealed ;

the implication being that, if God were

to withdraw

the law for this order of consecutions, our inference

would then be that the sun would not rise to-morrow.
Here we see that the mind is so conservative in
its deductions, that it have the inference to
will not
be irresistible, except on condition of the law for
the return of day and night continuing as in the
ages past. The limits of the premises and con
clusion are throughout co-terminous. The conclu
sion is legitimate. A
part of what is known to be
an order of consecutions implies the whole, as long
as that order is unrepealed. Our logic is consistent.

Again, from seeing the front of the moon, we infer

it has a back, though no man can ever see it. Here
our inference is from a direct inspection to what
can never be verified by observation. But who
doubts, or can doubt, the legitimacy of our infer
ence ? The inference is valid. But why ? The
fact is that, when knowledge of a part, or parts,
is

we reason to the complementary part, or parts, as

well in order to be rational, and even logical, as in
order to the whole, and its parts for we cannot
;
106 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

conceive the one without the other. Now, the ar

gument when, from observing that the
is identical,

sequence of cause and effect obtains among all

things knowable, we infer that the law is uni
versal. And yet this is but to infer from a part
of God s works to the whole, though we can never
see the whole.
Here too, premise and conclusion are consist
ent. The part implies the whole.
But we may vary our argument, so as to state it

in the form of a syllogism.

(1.)
If there is an order of things seen to evince
the law of cause and effect, there is a rational
cause to account for this order. Now this argu
ment is nowise different from that which finds a

back to the moon. It proceeds from a part known

by observation that is to say, particular in
stances of cause and effect to a part that can
never be known by any amount of human obser
vation. For, if you are compelled to infer cause or

power to account for particular results, you are

compelled, as well, to infer cause or power suffi
cient to account for universal results. The logic
is irresistible.

(2.) We may state the major premise for uni

versal causation somewhat thus If the Creator
:

should put matter and mind, so far as we Jcnoiu

them, under control of a law of cause and effect,
the inference is irresistible that they will be simi
larly controlled so far as this creation extends;
supposing all the time that what He has created
discloses the consecutions of cause and effect,
CONCEPTIVE PRESENTATIONS 107

productive power and the

result produced, pat
terned after the manner of those of any mind,
of thought into
capable of projecting the power
what it can do. For all thought is bound by a
law of order discursive, logical, or other with
out which it could not affirm anything.
And here again, we are but bringing in the back
of the moon along with the front, a logical infer
ence from some particular fact, or facts, observed,
to others incapable of observation. For the argu
ment proceeds upon the fact that a rational power
cannot contradict reason, or in other words, the
logical sweep of the evidence
and that our infer
;

ence is valid, when we advance from a part to the

whole of an order of transformation co-extensive
with all we can affirm of God s works and intelli
gence, even though we may never know, by
order of
direct observation, any more about this
than we know about the centre of the earth,
things
or the centre of the solar system, or the back of
the moon all which is affirmed on evidence from
;

particular facts.
This argument supposes also that we are com
puting with the effective work
done in conformity
with a law of causation which evidences the force
of some constructive and creative thought, as seen
in all we have observed in the special consecutions
of cause and effect, even power in the antecedent
specially qualified to produce
the unique result.
Tons of coal burning in the open air at the city
of Baku will never send a car to Tashkend. But
constructive will. But wherefore! Be-
thought
108 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

cause it is taught of the lore of omniscience, caught

up from particular instances of cause and effect;
because we have remarked and affirmed the con
secutions of cause and effect in what we know of
ourselves and the external world; because we can
argue from any work we see to the measure and
quality of a mind, or man, we cannot, or do not see,
and we act as our logic impels us. We infer and
do, and do as we infer.

XII

I conclude this branch of our subject Avith some

general observations.
Mind can affirm evidences of mind. But this
mind must do more than simply observe phe
nomena. It must pass beyond the phenomenal
manifestations of truth, if it would be a construc
tive power. It must advance from the evidences
in hand, to truths beyond the reach of observa

tion, but supported by the evidence. The light

and smoke that flicker in a lime-kiln are certainly
a conspicuous small fact, readily seen. The unseen
core of fire within, withoutwhich there had been
110smoke and no nicker, is the real efficient of the
work done so, of all work, we must affirm power
;

of some kind in the antecedent specially qualified

to produce a given result.
The time for all this loud talk about science,
small facts, agnosticism, etc., giving us all truth,
has passed. I say candidly that these facts are

important, as evidences for facts placed beyond the

reach of any number of such scientific, but agnostic,
CONCEPTIVE PRESENTATIONS 109

discoveries. The purely phenomenal is not synony

mous with either entire being or thought. Nature
has a logic of her OAvn planted in her statics and
dynamics a law for the interaction of all entities
which inhibits our sundering the evidential from
the facts which they evidence, the part from the
whole, the outer from the inner, the phenomenal
from the real, the portent from the portent-maker.
The phenomenal, the outer, etc., must be chased to
itssource in some more pregnant fact.
And so we are brought again to our old conclu
sion that, when thought is affirming the signifi
cance of things lingering in all manner of work
and being it is, in one way or other, recasting the
thought of Him who informed all His works with
countless traces of constructive thought.
Here I would be allowed to make incidental men
tion of some conceptions resorted to in connection
with our personal well-being.
For we have to discover, not alone, how to make
use of our own faculties and of things not ourselves,
but how to meet wants all of which depend on cal
culation, judgment, and foresight wants which
;
can
have no being, until mediated and authorized by
some rational conception of our higher needs. And
it is so that, whenever any advanced conception is

reached, the mind becomes a mightier power, and,

by an exercise of its then mightier powers, wins for
itself an order of constructive informations, more
and more potent, to the end.
And, therefore, thought is not a mere inclosed
subjectivity, content with the literary aspects
of its
110 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

acquisitions, but a self-conserving energy, discover

ing informations whose salient function is a con
structive support for conduct.

Moreover, thought has some conceptive and con

structive intimations, vaguely outlined from the
very beginning of its acquaintance with external
nature, as I have heretofore explained in other con
nections. For whatever an external impression may

mean, that meaning has to be excogitated of mind,

and all the connotations underlying the sensorial
impression have to be remarked, and wrought out,
solely by a careful
sifting of the evidences for
them; that to say, we search for them, and if
is

peradventure we affirm them, they are avouched by

more rational conception of the facts which evi
dence them.
And, therefore, have I explained that they are
not seen by an external organ for perception, but
by a power of discursive vision which unfolds and
affirms attributes in objects, wherein we descry
some evidence of the mind of Him who constructed
them this being His way of bringing a product of
;

His thought into communion with ours. For there

is, in whatever confronts our intelligence, a con
structive make-up of significant attributes that
tellssome tale of its maker, and so evidences some
aspect of His thought.
And it makes no difference, whether we know an
object by perception or conception, if only we
have a valid conviction resting on evidence ;
and to
the knowing intelligence the only proof of a fact is
the evidence of thought seen in the constructive
CONCEPTIVE PRESENTATIONS 111

behavior of things, their special attributes and

correlations.

Certainly, nothing could

be more absurd than to
we could think, much less converse with, an
say
rational construction. It must
object void of any
have attributes and potencies so correlated as to
provoke rational scrutiny.
It seems evident, therefore, that the field of

exploration,in which we gather all our ideas, must

significant traits which
be built up with will

avouch some rational story of Him who built it up.

It is also evident that, if we did not have this
rational basis for discovery and interpretation, we
could never acquire those constructive and pro
spective informations
which enable us to block out
a line of conduct for a future day. For depending
from this power to interpret such characteristic
is the power to witness for aims and
phenomena
pass over into all we do, and
which so in
purposes
turn manifest our own thoughts.
But I now turn to another chapter, where my
contention may be further explicated.
CHAPTER XI
MORAL CONCEPTIONS

THE work of a responsible being is totally differ

ent from that found in the realm of matter. It is
likewise diversely separated from the subordinate
processes which develop the intelligence. It is to
be hoped that a correct account of that work can
now be given.
I

I am presently to contemplate mind in the atti

tude of conceiving moral informations. Having
these, we act in view of ends or purposes, and can
take pains to secure them. But if we lack these
informations, we part company with the last vestige
of our nobler humanities.
Man is a personal unit that combats all comers,
in order to maintain moral views and aims; that

cultivates, and allows for the action of, exterior

potencies, Avhilst commanding their services ;

that
values equally the moral qualities of thought and
conduct, devising thus what he shall do, in view of
the moral sanctions evoked, and a personal assump
tion of his obligations.
And here we have achievements quite beyond
the range of involuntary transformations, not to
mention such pupillary training as the mind resorts
112
MORAL CONCEPTIONS 113

to in preparation for moral work. For we are

taking man as now prepared to enter the province
of morals, where the power to choose enables him

literally to carry out his inclinations,

or else con
trol them by a differentconception of what he
ought to do. He has choice in selecting his way
of life, and cannot divest himself of it, even if he
would. And choice makes him free. Still he
must choose under stress of his moral obligations.
Observe, he is not under any constraint to emotions,
and desires, operating as forces independent of the
moral conceptions that inspire them. The whole
thing is determined by a pressure coming from his
moral appreciations ;by his ideas of right and
wrong. Nor does he ever do wrong through an
original impetus which supplants an intelligent
foresight of consequences for which he holds him
self responsible. The pressure is due to the force
of his moral conceptions alone conceptions whose
;

stringency he has himself mediated and sanctioned.

And here, it may be needful to remark that the
general explanation for all the acts of man lies in

his power of mind.

I give place to a pertinent illustration of this.
Sun and rain operate on a lump of clay, and it is
modified, say, to the extreme limit of necessitating
causes. These present a number of reactions pre
scribed by God s unchanging laws, giving us the
power and play of involuntary forces. But the
behavior of a voluntary or moral potency displays
a conscious contrast with that of the former. The "

potter hath power over the clay, of the same lump

i
114 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

to make a vessel unto honor, and another unto dis

honor"; commanding thus a result denied to a
material agency.

II

But the point I am now making does not rest

solely on man s power of successful reasoning. It
is an easy inference that animals can do the same

to the extent of their arrested capacities, and to

that extent they are quite as free as man. What
then makes the latter so preeminently human, and
therefore distinct from them ? Let us see He !

begins without any knowledge. In a moment

life

he is seeking it eagerly. For he has to discover

everything for himself, in order to a hold on his
own way of life, so that what he does is what his
discoveries lead him to do.

Indeed, if his informations had been delivered to

him by a direct infusion of divine illumination, and
without his power of deliberate scrutiny and sanc
tion, he would not have even the faintest hint of
the functions of a free agent. And furthermore, if

he had knowledge at birth, he could not be free

all

after the manner of our discursive humanity, unless

perchance he had some way of comparing different

moral traits, and exercising some elective, or else
repressive, vehemence, in choosing between them.
Moreover, if his singular faculty of thought did
not bring within his reach manifold informations
inaccessible to animals, he would be an animal, in
all essentials. But he is not an animal, and cannot
be brought into psychological parity with one.
MORAL CONCEPTIONS 115

limits to the free

Confessedly, there are many
dom of both. A
marked limitation to the animal
its more
is seen in the ordinance which prescribes

feeble intellectual powers. That for man does not

spring so much from an original abridgment of his
faculties (for their range is practically unlimited)
as from the conservative reaction of some of his
advanced informations, especially his moral judg
ments, upon the mind itself.
Man cannot and will
not do things, within easy reach of his
moral
many
powers, simply because
he is a law unto himself,
moral concep
through the force and dignity of his
tions, lie increase
may in knowledge to any ex
tent, and increase of knowledge is increase of
But power must
power. That much is granted.
conform to knowledge, and some knowledge is stur

in its teachings, and will determine

dily repressive
our acts accordingly.
Remark the consequences. We fix attention
to be done.
upon the right or wrong of something
We ought, or we ought not, to do some particular
thing. We hesitate.The wheels of life move on,
but there comes upon us a solemn sense of righteous
restraint, which we cannot away with,
in exchange

for the less restricted liberties of animals. For

sends us off
indeed, though our giftlier intelligence
to the school of morals, and we come away with a
new power over conduct, yet because we have risen
to a knowledge of the obligatory character of right,
our walk and conversation must henceforth con
form to the constraining pressure, and corrective
discipline, of our new master.
116 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

Nevertheless, man
is free, by right of informa

tions achieved by his unique intellectual efforts.

For these are in order to power. But now that,
in virtue of moral informations, he has become a
moral self, he is no longer free to act without them,
but must go into his every act of choice in defer
ence to such restrictive or repressive considerations
as inspire his soul with a conscious
responsibility
for his acts. Thenceforth, his of life deter
way is
mined by moral conceptions, not by license. In
exchange for unrestrained and unbridled impulses
he has now the disciplinary constraint of moral
truth, unfolding wide vistas of the supremacy and
sovereignty of right and righteous governance.
Yes, even thought itself cannot now lead him
forth into manypossible and practicable ventures.
It is estopped by some of the very truths it has dis
covered. It may still go forward
discursively, and
mayhap to perilous lengths, as aforetime, but every
such excursion tells in
the steady strengthening of
judgment. And
the judgment in turn will affirm
and validate, with ever-increasing emphasis, the
conceptions of right and wrong, duty, obligation,
etc.

But this last achievement remits man to the

inexorable primacy and rigorous reprisals of con
science, giving him that authoritative delimitation
for conduct which builds on moral convictions.

Ill

My next study is the part played by mind in

acquiring moral informations. I need not say that
MORAL CONCEPTIONS 117

this is done by the methods of logical scrutiny and

judgment.
We are now in the sphere of conscience. The
actor is a unit of moral powers. And the thing
done is therefore the work of a sole agency whose
sovereign prerogatives are put to an interchangeable
use between all the members, which, in turn, serve
it in accordance with the scheme of subordination

which prescribes their functions.

However, there can be no personal responsibility
until the actor has consciously informed himself of
the constraint, or urgency, which signalizes the
authority of moral convictions. He
must be in
formed of their awful significance. And he must
affirm, or opine, that he is bound by his conceptions
of right and wrong, even though he may outrage
conviction by bad conduct.
The question comes up here : Whence this obliga
tion in morals ;
on what does it found ? Our an
swer is that man, as a unit of power over conduct,
frames a judgment of the good or bad qualities in
his acts, and conceives, or affirms, himself to be

personally responsible for their commission.

And
this power to evalue acts as good or bad, places
him in a rank to himself among terrestrial creatures.
But to be more explicit: Because of his uniquely
human constrained (as a discoverer of
gifts, he is

moral sanctions and their stress) to act from a con

viction of personal responsibility for their
his

employment. For, once seeing their obligatory

character, the force of the obligation is felt to be a
personal motor in all that pertains to conduct.
118 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

IV

Why a conception of the moral qualities of our

acts turns up a further conception, that we are per
sonally under bonds to them, is a matter of curious
interest. In other language, why does a rational
witnessing of individual acts of right and wrong
come back to us, as persons open to their moral
pressure ?
An answer might be gathered from previous dis
cussions. We are referring to that astounding
transcendence of human reason by which we alone
of all God s creatures can grasp the idea of a

righteous power seated in every moral conception.

For he who discovers such knowledge, discovers its
power over conduct; judging himself, and others,
by what he and they do even appraising his very
;

thoughts by the potencies which distinguish, and

emphasize, their diverse characters.
I take it that you are now aware of the estimate
I put on the mind of animals. I spoke of their

perspicacity being as clear as that of man, allow

ance being made for their narrower horizon. They
reason quite knowingly, within their confined out
look. They have even ends and aims which they
pursue, but they stop short of the Heaven-born
distinctions, discovered and affirmed by the broader
and deeper intellectual vision of man, in virtue of
which distinctions, he comes to know of an austerity
in moral sanctions utterly unknown to feebler in
telligences. lack power of mind to frame an
They
articulate conception of the divine mission of right
MORAL CONCEPTIONS 119

to rule in the realm of morals. And it is for this

reason that moral power, as both constructive and

and
conceptive of the equities, beauties, humanities,
duties, and culture of a human soul, is unknown to

them.
But wherein liesthe diversely marked superi

ority of man seeing that he also is hedged in

with limitations, as inviolable as those of animals ?
For, neither can demit one iota of what is peculiar
to himself, or to itself. But man has committed
to him the strictly human
charge of doing right or
the
wrong, in deference to a giftlier conception of
steps and extent of the obligation.
He discovers
the meum and tuum of our humanities, and in

acquiring this knowledge he acquires its obligatory

sanctions.
remembered, however, that, on a first
It is to be

acquaintance with this human meum

and tuum,
the mine and thine, the right and wrong of morals,
etc., we see only the actions of the different actors.
This alone is our first seeing.

And let me add

that it is just here that the ideas
of right and wrong begin to emerge in and through
their concrete relations. And it occurs in this
way On one seeing himself, and others, doing acts
:

involving questions of mine and thine, right

and
wrong, he is in the attitude of conceiving the moral
character of those acts. For he remarks that they
are accredited by a certain tone which claims and
enforces precedence over all other actions and
among all men. But the thing seen is not wholly
an apprehension of right and wrong in the concrete,
120 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

nor even a judgment of the moral quality of the

act. It is more. A further judgment of approval
or censure of the act, as intrinsically good or bad
in the doer, conies in to affirm the latter s responsi

bility for its commission.

It is to be observed, too, that the one who sits in

judgment, and approves, or reprehends, is having

himself so informed of the qualities in such partic
ulars of conduct, that he can side with, or against,
them. But this is an act of choice, or the affirma
tion of personal preference, on evidence for it. We

conclude, therefore, that when one sees, or does, an

act which he conceives to be right or wrong, he is
in fact adjudging himself to be a right or wrong
doer; affirming choice, and, at the same time, vis
iting upon himself the moral reprisals of self-

approval, or rebuke. For the judgment is that,

inasmuch as he is the doer of the act, he is to
be personally commended, or else reprehended. In
either case, he is upheld by that fealty to him

self,and the accepted stress of his moral convic

tions by which he asserts a personal preference, or
sides with what he does, and so commends or
eschews his own acts, as good or bad, in the light
of his moral conceptions.
And ever thus, from the hour of responsibility,
when one reaches a judgment of right or wrong, he
is alsoaffirming one of praise or censure (which is
an affirmative or negative choice), and he is there
fore also affirming his personal responsibility for
choice and conduct.
For these reasons, therefore, I regard a judgment
MORAL CONCEPTIONS 121

that a given act is right or wrong for the person, as

in fact one of approbation or blame for praise or

;

blame is the personal pairing with, or separating

from, the act; choosing or eschewing it. It is

choice.

In this connection, I may remark that, when one

prefers, or sides with, or chooses, or wishes, or wills
(for I use these words interchangeably), his act is
indivisible and one, because he does so by all his
momentum of trained faculties and aptitudes by ;

emotions and desires, which voice the variant pow

ers and qualities of his thoughts by choice, which
;

is but the personal vehemence of the informations

to which he cleaves in completing his acts.
It is apparent, therefore, that, when one does as
he chooses, he goes forth as a sole potency, conceiv
ing, and selecting, his way of life by a judgment 011
some alternative requirement of his own thought.
But this is to work in the field of morals, and to
do a w ork of morals
r
is to invoke the stress of

personal responsibility, and this latter is a clear

departure from what obtains in simply apprehend
ing, analyzing, and combining ordinary phenomena.
For indeed, so long as w e have to debate, and doubt,
r

what to do, the specific, personal stress of final

choice is unattached.
I amadmitting that we may, and do, see much
of conduct prospectively, and often stand face to
face with the guilt or innocence which follows the
fulfilment of our thoughts; forecasting thus our
122 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

personal implication with the moral acts had in

view. Much of this is but an exercise of discur
sive power, pure and simple. But until we say :

I go upon my own opinion, right or wrong I as ;

sume the sole responsibility for my every effective

choice or act; until we can say this, we are not
evoking the moral stringency of a judgment of right
or wrong.
We see then that the soul has in it more than
intellectual conceptions, pure and simple. For, to
be aware only of our simply intelligent affirmations
is to be simply gnostic. But to be paused in a state
of moral tension, by questions which call for final

action, is to catch the idea of a power in moral

conceptions to bear rule in deciding all questions
of right and wrong, mine and thine, equity, justice,
etc. It is to be not only competently moral, but
competently human, as well.
It may take a longer or shorter time to make
the point of welcoming this last discovery of
reason, revealing, as it does, a new aspect of
choice in the constraints of a righteous law for
conduct. The essential thing is faithfully to

carry out its behests.

VI

But is the authority of unaided human reason

our sole support for this universal sway of right ?
Certainly not, if indeed, as I have endeavored to

show, every exterior power is so far an aid to

thought that it leads it forth afield to its wider

supports.
MORAL CONCEPTIONS 123

But cannot we point to some thing superior to

finite thought for an obligation so intensely per

sonal that vehemently cries out: "Something
it

must be done, and something other must not ?

"

Allow me, however, first to test the strength of

a judgment of right and wrong. The subject calls
for a more careful treatment than I can pretend to

give it. It is not, as I have before stated, to take

a
careless view of an act that may be conceived to be
either right or wrong. It is rather to discover, and

put a value upon, the right and wrong of individual

acts, and so be in a position to award
and apportion
merit and demerit to the respective actors.
Now, a mere casuist may make what his little

pate pleases of the force of this judgment.

But
its one ineffaceable trait no man can disturb. As
a psychological constituent, imbedded in the con

ception itself, it so commands our homage

that
itcan never be divested of one iota of its peculiar
stress upon our conduct.
But to return to our inquiry As the affirmance
!

of our own moral powers, as seen in the oughtness

of our conceptions, is the subjective ground of our
as
obligation, so a conception of divine intelligence,
our moral governor and original furnisher of moral
susceptibilities, must reinforce the earlier subjec
tive discovery.

For, the idea of right and wrong is seen

when
to be a fundamental and beneficent conception of
One inexorably just, the obligation comes home to
us, fortified and justified by divine
sanctions. And
further! When, by the help of this wider and diviner
124 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

knowledge, we pause to estimate the practical hon

esties of conduct,we shall side with our judgment
emotionally, with a profounder regard for what is
involved in an act for which we deem ourselves
personally responsible.

VII

As a further qualification and development of

our contention, in respect of the march of thought
into the realm of morals, I submit a few remarks

upon the problem of a revelation of morals by God.

This I may not linger upon, because the Eevela-
tioii itself, like
everything else we witness for, can
be accredited only through the evidences of moral
transformations perpetually affirmed in affirming
what we and others are doing and thinking when
engaged in our ordinary avocations, and without
which it were utterly impossible to appreciate the
evidences for a Revelation.
And here, I would have the reader to pardon me
for making room for sundry statements, to prevent
misconception.
I am aware that all civilized and Christian peo
ples,nowadays, are sedulously taught of the ideas
of morals by pious parents, pastors,
Sunday schools,
Bible classes, the catechism, etc. But whilst ad
mitting all
this, what I am contending for is that
the Revelation would fail of effect, if man, or even
child, lacked the capacity to remark upon, and
evalue, the evidence for morals founded on what
we observe of our acts. For if these acts have no
moral significance to our intelligence, the Revelation
MORAL CONCEPTIONS 125

could never be accredited to us. The truth, is, no

man can believe anything, Eevelation or not, unless
from his human point of view he can see abundant
and overwhelming evidences of its truth. Belief
must have evidence of some kind to support it. If,
for instance, it were revealed to us of the nineteenth

century that the sun is borne aloft in the heavens

by a pair of enormous wings that propelled him
through the immensities, this would be a revelation
absolutely incredible, because absolutely void of any
tangible evidence.
But, now, note a distinction !
If, for instance, we
were told by scientists that the sun sailed through
the interminable spaces in quest of little pellets of
fire, upon which he fed and fattened,
this would be
a revelation that we might, in time, be taught to

accept, for reasons dimly plausible allowance be

;

ing made for any poetic or literary embellishments

employed in announcing such a sensational discov
ery, and remembering that science is,
even now, on
the lookout for the discovery of the way in which
the sun keeps up, or replenishes, his fires.
So of Eevelation. If a.ny one of average intelli
gence is given a show of evidence, he will believe

it, the more so, because he has a revelation of God

in the flesh, as seen in the moral conceptions which
he achieves. And, therefore, if it be accredited
at all, it will have to lean upon that God-given
reach of mental vision by which we conceive the
austere sanctions of morals. For human conduct
is determined by the tenor and tone of the concep

tions that enter into it.

126 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

But how fares the moral attitude of peoples who

have had no revealed religion? There are many
such even now. Have they no morals ? Take
China, for an example. Her sturdy civilization
and morals have braved the ravages of time from a
period anteceding the pyramids of Egypt. Who
taught them morals ? Who could teach them Chris
tian morals, atany time before the days of St. Paul ?
But, even he confessed that the heathen were a "

law unto themselves." But, if this their law was

not a revelation, whence came it, except through a
power of mind to conceive the On the
"law."

other hand, if you show me a people without

morals of some kind to steady its eccentric gyra
tions, I will show you a mob of unintellectual
wretches.
CHAPTER XII

EESTATEMENTS

SOME desultory remarks, growing out of previous

discussions, may find place here.
1. In default of objects within reach of mind,

the power of thought would fade into nothingness.

Without mind, the same objects would be zero.

Again, ifour informations are imperfect, the power

to shape conduct would be equally imperfect, if not

wholly rooted out of being. For, just as we lack

knowledge, we suffer a corresponding shortage in
all our possibilities. Wisdom is added power. And
therefore, if thought never came home to us with
a distinct accession of power for combating other
powers, we should be more than
conditioned by
those powers. We should be their slaves.

2. In these remarks, I am endeavoring to fix

attention upon one or two points :

of God, there are sensations

(a) By an ordinance
whose source of power is outside of man s initia
tive. And being outside, and therefore beyond our
power of initiation, they interfere with our free
dom no more than our bodily members interfere
with it; their office being determined by a pre-
arrangement of superior wisdom, for helping us
into a position where we can help ourselves.

(b) By
the same ordinance (of course, with the
127
128 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

help of body, sensation, environment, etc.) there is

projected upon the plane of being the faculty for
discursion and personal power, whose office it is to
discover a knowledge of ourselves and our exteri
orities, and thereby deal with ourselves, and things
not ourselves, in view of personal responsibility for
what we do.
3. When things are significant, it is their signifi
cance that appeals to mind. And for that reason,
the active, curious, seeing intelligence makes oppor
tunity of everything about it, even the most obscure
and unobtrusive traits, to turn them to some ad
vantage connected with our hopes and fears, manner
and plan of life, business, etc. For the future of
every one is born of the rational estimate he puts
upon the significance, or meaning, hid away in the
appearance and behavior of the things which con
front his intelligence. And, if we could not inter
pret these signs, we could not employ them in
mapping out, and working up to, our future.
4. It is to be noted that in all my contention, I
have given sensor irritations the power to act on
me dynamically, though not cogni lively; whereas
I have for my OAvn part, left myself free to act

cognitively and even dynamically. Now, if this

be a correct psychology, cannot my thought affirm
these exterior dynamics, and so get me, thus far,
on the road to a more familiar acquaintance with
my neighbors, and the mine and thine of our inter
course. You see, they cannot supplant my thought,
though they can, and do, act on me. But here the
reciprocity is thoroughgoing. I cannot act for, or
RESTATEMENTS 129

in the place of, my neighbors, nor they, for, or in

the place of, me
but each can act upon the other.
;

The law applies as well to one as to the other. What

is permitted, and what is inhibited, involves both.
Now then, if I can know these my neighbors,
and work up to all I know
of them, I may so

modify their action as to fortify my own powers,

and control, or modify, theirs, to my profit. In
other words, I can compel them to yield me service,
to the full extent of my rational discoveries.
5. We
have seen matter and mind acting on each
other, the former delivering a sensorial excitation,
as a preliminary to the co-action of the latter s con
trasting powers. And the conclusion to which I
perpetually recur is that any potency, which only
conditions a free cause, is but a preliminary to the
latter s hold on its diverse resources, and cannot,

therefore, derogate from its freedom, and for the

plain reason that what is thus exterior can, by
no
means, usurp the prerogatives of a power whose
function is ideation and discursion.
For, thought is equipped with unique and in
violable resources of its own, by virtue of which it
must proceed consciously ;
must be attentive, and,
to that extent, discursive and volitional; must be
perceptive, conceptive, considerate, judicial, and,
therefore, personal, self-reliant, and responsible,
ere
it can be said to be in a position to act for itself.
yet
And, if this be so, there can be no question of its

freedom, for it has had its own rational way of

dealing with itself, and things not itself.

But we now turn to other problems.

PART III

THE POWER OF INFORMATIONS

CHAPTER XIII

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

IN the preceding discussions, I offered some ex

planations of how we acquire knowledges holding ;

that they are conscious achievements, and, therefore,

faithful products, of mind. My object now is quite
different. Hereafter, I shallpresume that we have
been measurably stocked with knowledge, and are
now casting about to see what we can do with it.
Knowledge is (personal) POWER and, inasmuch
"
"

as, by supposition, we are now somewhat

conversant
with its pretensions, I feel like giving it the benefit
of an experimental display of its peculiar dynamics.
It is apparent that I shall still have to do with
ideas but not now, as mere acquisitions, for I am
;

regarding them as potencies dominating conduct.

They are, therefore, henceforth, to be viewed as
personal factors employed in consummating the
work of thought in hand. It will be my aim, ac
in conduct
cordingly, to show that the real efficient
is the power of knowledge, information, opinion,
conception, judgment, etc.

You are doubtless familiar with the theory of

Locke which likens mind to a sheet of blank paper
133
134 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

written upon by sensations and foisted upon our

attention. Such a crude theory effectually estops
the individuality of thought, for the paper is not
even sensitive. It is a blank, simply and sheerly
passive and receptive. It has no activity which is

distinctly its own. It can neither know

a sensation,
nor define its functions and connectives. It has no
way of acquiring knowledge.
But let the paper theory pass. Locke would
deny much of all this.But Locke is inconsequent,
vacillating, inconsistent, and could not accomplish
the impossible. His theory is a failure. We can
not delay upon it.

However, my immediate task is to show that it is

misleading, in that it dwells upon what is delivered

to thought, and not on what thought does. I shall

presently make this point.

Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that the office of

thought has been a mystery on which writers have

offered many a brave conjecture, without clearing

up the mystery. But, now that we begin to make

some steady progress in the remorseless capture of
facts, the mystery may subside as the facts ac
cumulate.

II

Availing myself of these recent advances, I may

venture to pronounce a theory more in keeping
with the power of thought, as a discursive energy
competent for its appointed work.
Locke summoned us to note the power of sensa
tions in furnishing thought with something for its
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS 135

study. In a spirit of liberality, I may presume

this to be Locke s view. And it is correct, when
relieved of its one-sidedness. On the contrary, and
in order to clear up the problem, I would, in con
trast, dwell upon what thought
does as a discursive

energy working upon things not itself, but ever

with the intention of promoting some interest per

sonal to itself.

My theory is exemplified by the spectacle of little

children playing in my front yard. Snow is falling
fast and furious, and they are sporting in its fleecy

folds, delightedly imbibing the joy of childish

elements.
power, spite of struggles with the warring
For the chubbiest cheek among them has the cour
age of his infantile convictions, and welcomes the
fray with the enthusiasm of a would-be
Eoman
gladiator.
The reader may contrast this picture with that
of Locke. And it might be helpful, in this con
nection, to bear in mind
that I began my lucubra
tions with a little nursling of the cradle. It will
be remembered that we saw it battling with environ
ment, conditions, etc., inner and outer, innumerable.
For we allowed these exteriorities the full benefit
of their offensive, but limited dynamics. And now,
it is only fair that we should be as liberal with our

child, giving it, likewise, an opportunity for a dis

play of its counter-activities. Every power acting
on the child was greeted with the kindest apprecia
tions. And we explained how the youngster gladly
caught up knowledge, and waxed stronger. For
getting knowledge is getting personal power. And
136 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

now, it behooves us frankly to acknowledge this

power, seen in children, and seen in men. And
yet children and men are so very, very finite that
they cannot act in disregard of the objects which
act on them. So of all things exterior for these ;

also are similarly conditioned by the objects that

act on them.
I have heretofore remarked upon all this. For
child or man, or animal or thing, or principalities "

or powers," or things present and to come, are

bound by the fundamental laws for their being
and interactions. They did not come of a sudden
without roots extending away back to some original
thought in God. I have likewise offered an expla
nation of how all these exteriorities contributed
to unfold the slumbering intelligence of our little

folk, giving it place as a power uniquely personal

by reason of its preeminent moral, discursive, and
progressive traits.

Children have all these distinctively human

traits, then !

Otherwise, to revert to my illustration, whence

comes sportive tilt of mind and muscle with
this
the pitiless forces of nature ? Is it not the veri
table stepping forth of a counter-activity with re
sources other than material and naturalistic ;
even
a conscious, eager, thoughtful energy that makes
conquest, as it cultivates the powers of thought ?
Mind can have no life and no activity except as it

knows. For, when it is once known that nature is

governed by laws so tempered that our finite intel

ligence can discover their meaning, and employ
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS 137

this knowledge in furthering our personal ends,

then, the joy of triumph may leap from our hearts,
as we go forth to battle in the might of our convic
tions.

Ill

The inquiry to which I devote the present

discussion may be subdivided into chapters, in
accordance with the general plan marked out for
resolving all knowledge into the questions of power
which it includes.
But I am not to be understood as attempting to
draw the line between the different provinces of
knowledge with entire accuracy. It is sufficient
for my purpose to take up in order such as will
measurably present the fact of power in knowledge.
I premise, therefore, with some needed distinctions.
Informations may be divided into two general
classes, as follows :

1. Those which give us facts in concrete or

individual presentations, after the manner of the
child s first visual apprehension of an object, when
we have the result of an off-hand, first acquaintance
with the object. These may be termed the strictly
perceptive informations. They will not, however,
be separately dwelt upon in what follows, chiefly
because they but hold up before the mind the dif
ferent objects so affirmed for closer study and elab
oration, in order to a better knowledge of their

significance for our discursive purposes.

2. The other class is born of that much more
reconstructive power of mind which discovers and
138 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

coordinates the parts or attributes which constitute

a concrete object, or objects, as we are enabled to
conceive and affirm them and their kindred affilia

tions, or the mutual dependence subsisting between

a group of different objects interacting under the
law for their social intercourse.
I need scarcely repeat that all such informations
are worked up from the things of self and its
exteriorities, and carefully compared, in order to
strengthen and extend our own powers, every item
of which tends to increase our personal or individ
ual powers for such conceptions enable us to act
;

for ourselves, and hence are prized according to

their efficiency in accomplishing our purposes.

They are our true conceptions, or informations,

being discursive, constructive, and efficient in con

duct. And here truth is valued, not so much as an
isolated idea, good for its spectacular significance,
but as a something we would carefully inquire into
and work up into its distinctive relations to our
selves and other things from which we would wrest
some secret of power, or advantage to ourselves..

Now, it is this last class I am proposing to con

sider ;
and it is divided into two subordinate ones :

(1) Preparatory Informations.

(2) Actile or Ultimating Informations.
I am not now concerned with describing the mere
facts of conception, proper to either class. My
main object is to call attention to, and to empha
size, the power of knowledge remarked in our acts,
giving us the operative and finalizing aspect of
knowledge.
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS 139

One more remark ! Mind is equally active, effi

cient, and constructive,

whether engaged in acquir
ing, or utilizing knowledge. For every conception
is born of the constructive exploitations that achieve
it. It is nevertheless true that the mind s acquisi
tions are one thing, and the ultimating stress of
such acquisitions in actualizing the purposes and
plans of life, is another thing.
CHAPTER XIV
PREPARATORY INFORMATIONS

HERETOFORE I have been engaged in the study of

informations, but not as yet concluding what to do

with them. What I propose now is to regard them
as discoveries or achievements, standing before con
duct as a ready, or else expectant, impulsion or
cause exercising a directive, controlling, or decisive
power over conduct.
I

I explain briefly. All knowledge is obtained

through the metamorphic scrutiny of attention and
affirmation, on evidence. We observe and distin
guish parts in an ensemble of contents, i.e., judge
on evidence. And this process is resorted to, it
may be, with a blushing and halting anticipation
of clearer results, even when we are demarking our
first ideas; a subsequent and more subtle elabora

tion bringing in discursive informations or proper

rational discoveries. For mind, even at the very
beginning of its career, must inspect the instream-

ing of exterior (or even interior) impressions in

order to construct ideas of them.

II

But what concerns us now are such informations

as are framed in view of some ulterior result, and,
140
PREPARATORY INFORMATIONS 141

for that reason, are both constructive and prospec

tive. Here, the soul is not only inquisitive and
acquisitive, but a pronounced power of innovation,
preparing for a work of thought. It will, there

fore, have to ascertain the practical limits of its

own, and other powers, and measure the participa
tion of each in a result still in the future, and so
be in a position to make use of such discoveries as
may open the way to complete a work that promises
some conceived advantage to itself. And here, too,
it must ascertain what it can do, and also what it

prefers doing; and it must, most literally, acquire

this knowledge, ere it can ever become intelligently
active and directive.
I am proceeding cautiously. For I have to con
struct my way as I advance, in tenebras, in ignotum.
We are,as I said, about to apply our knowledges ;

employing them as powers going into deeds for

which we are responsible. But this cannot be done
in disregard of what we conceive to be conducive
to our good. We shall, hence, be preparing to do
a contemplated work, for some reason intensely
human and personal. The logic of enlightened
and self-protection is to know and do.
self-interest

And, therefore, we keep a sharp lookout for our

interests,seeking such informations as we may
need when we come to act.
Observe that we have now reached a stage in
our psychological pilgrimage where we begin to
project desires, hopes, fears, joys, purposes, etc.,
bearing upon our happiness, and to ask ourselves
whether we are, or are not, so conversant with our
142 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

own and other powers that we can secure a limited

control of the latter, to our own betterment.
But all the aforementioned informations are an
accumulation of so much personal power in pros
pect of actual fruition. They pertain to the future,
and bring under review a multitude of things
thought to be promotive of our happiness and
which we may not ignore without palpable stultifi
cation. And if we do not propose to utilize them
in the present, it is because we are judiciously re
served until the day for final action. More tersely
put, I may say: We
have been prosecuting our
inquiries in prospect of appeasing our cultivated
wants and would act even as we know.
Our problem is, therefore, a question of the
power of knowledge, and how to employ it deci
sively in the acts of a soul alive to intelligent and
moral requirements. And we shall have to com
pare our powers with those of our surroundings,
and to decide what we shall do with ourselves, and
what with our surroundings.
The object of pursuit is not now in existence
and ripe to our contemplation; but we must open
a way for doing a work of the future that, on its
completion, will evidence the power of our thoughts.
And if we do that work, we give the world a

new something which had no existence until our

thought went forth to establish it, for our praise
or blame. It is in this way, and with this intent,
that we canvass and solve every problem of life.
And here again we see that knowledge is personal
power; the power of our ideas.
PREPARATORY INFORMATIONS 143

Proceeding further with our analysis, we note

another distinction.
As ouf intellectual powers expand, we become
more intelligently inquisitive. Our native pro
pensity for knowledge may be satisfied with the
mere acquisition of knowledge. But once having
it in hand, we have its power, and in turn become

more intelligently and definitely anxious to test

its practical possibilities, and so we begin to rate

things as useful, aesthetic, good, or bad, etc., in

respect of ourselves and others; and the ever-
springing sanguineness that comes from repeated
triumphs of thought prompts us to make prelimi
nary investigations bearing on the object had in
view.
But not we are in charge of our rational
until

guides can we venture to realize any just expecta

tion. Meantime, we have been weighing the facts,
in order to determine their relative value for get

ting within reach of our object.

Ill

In practice, the process resorted to is partly

remembrance and comparison, but, preeminently,
it is a preliminary wrangle for a working theory

involving the exercise of constructive powers,

whereby the potencies of things about us are
retouched with the elastic transformations of mind,
and so brought to display a range of power denied
to their unaided nature.
For instance, here issomething still in the future.
It will take years of thought and muscle to work it
144 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

up. For it cannot be realized, now and here. But,

as it is in the line of expectancy and hopefulness,
we make a vigorous effort to consummate our pur

poses. And it is so that, by the steady pains

taking of thought, it is brought, nearer and nearer,

to completion. By and by, it is a finished prod

uct of reason. It is now realized, and in position,

as a veritable creation ;
a new something, and ours,
by virtue of the power of our thought.
A fact like the following is not an unusual oc
currence: A
number of farmers are thinking of
establishing a bank with a capital of one hundred
thousand dollars. One hundred farmers agree to
contribute; each one thousand dollars. But where
is the money to come from, seeing they have none

in hand? They resolve to go home and work for

it, laying by their surplus earnings annually.
At
the expiration of four or five years each is ready
with the contribution agreed upon, and the bank
is established and officered. Here is a new crea
tion that, a few years agone, had no existence
whatever. But it confronts us now, a brave com
mercial structure which for years hung on the
constructive and prospective informations of its
projectors.
But now the same farmers would build a road.
And how is this to be done? They put their heads
together and conclude upon its feasibility, prospec-
tively plan its execution, and ultimately
build it
as planned.
The same plan is adopted whenever the ubiqui
tous railroad calls for money. And I might make
PREPARATORY INFORMATIONS 145

mention of divers other monuments of constructive

thought, such as churches, temples, art museums,
etc., conceived and determined upon by a consid
eration of the moral and aesthetic aspirations of
cultivated peoples.
I select these facts of every day s observation,
in order to bring out the point, that the power of
informations prepares the way for our attacking
allthe problems of life and business. For every
information is just so much mental power, and
every effort made is a tactful, careful, constructive
move of thought toward a result not yet reached.
The field of man s work is committed to himself.
It rests upon him, therefore, to acquire the requi
site pupillary knowledge, ere he would take the
plunge into business. If he seek his own good,
he must inform himself, and labor to possess it.
He must know of his wants and wishes, and strive
to realize them. His chief concern is himself, and
what pertains to his welfare. And yet, if he would
make sure of his own good, he will have to allow
for what is not himself.
All knowledge has an emphasis pointing to con
duct, and we have to await the day when, after
much thought, we can reach conclusions on which
to act. We see that some things can be entreated
to confer a good ; some, a beauty, and other some,
a utility. And we like the flavor of this discovery
and plan to possess We have a boundless
them.
field forexploration wherein to get knowledge and

qualify ourselves for compassing our ends. This

is but to get ready for work and look forward to
146 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

its accomplishment; appreciating our discoveries

as instrumental to the object in view.
In any event, and in respect of any proposed
work, we must see and interpret certain traits in
the things we
are contemplating which promise

points applicable to the problem before us, and then

aligning cause and effect with the direction of our
purposes, conclude upon a course of conduct that
will secure our object.
This will be apparent in what follows. We may
be conversant with corn, as merchandise. But now
we wish to grow it. Here it behooves us to be
prospective, constructive, and practical. It is a

question of bread, and a living competency. So,

we must satisfy ourselves that the land is produc
tive, and that we have the means for its cultivation.

And, therefore, the question of labor is considered:

horses and men; their hire and board; and whether
they are trustworthy, tractable, serviceable, etc.
And, if we are satisfied on these points, our pro-

spection completed, and we go to work.

is

But wherein consists the peculiarity of such

informations? Only in this: They are rational

powers held in reserve for the future. They mean

business, but, for the present, it is only a proposed
venture requiring special thought. Think of it!
The farmer has to control himself, lest he act
prematurely. He must have command of natural
forces, and bend them to his purposes. But in
order to this, he must know them with a knowl
edge so searching that he can discern the supreme
correlations existing between things individual,
PREPARATORY INFORMATIONS 147

but capable of co-acting, if needed in furthering

a contemplated result. In other words, he must

the special con
shape his way to acts through
siderations that go to establish them.

IV

I foresee that my account of preparatory informa

tions will be imperfect, unless I allow for their
effect in qualifying the mind itself for its peculiar
work. A brief exposition of this must suffice.

Every accession of such knowledge adds to the

mind s efficiency; for every efficiency is born of
the mindin its proximate antecedent condition,
and so carried over into the new birth. Hence
comes the fact that all our informations become in
time a psychological investment looking forward
to conduct, and finally reappearing there as the
result of our previous thoughts.
For whilst thought is being trained, it is accumu
lating a fund of prospective informations
which
are intrenched in the faculties, and held over for
future exigencies; acquisitions of the past reap
pearing as expert efficiencies of the present.

Indeed, if we have knowledge through an intelli

gent appreciation of facts, we must found on

our

previous acquisitions and present dexterity; every

succeeding information being dependent on the
view the mind can then take of its then wants.
Wherefore, as we grow in knowledge, we augment
the reserves of information which continue with
the soul as trained, or educated, efficiencies subject
to our call.
148 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

And yet, it is still true, that when we would do

something new, we shall have to reform our out
look, somewhat. For we have to discover, and
consider, not alone how to make use of our present
acquisitions, be they what they may, but how to
meet wants which are just now responding to our
sharpened apperceptions.
CHAPTER XV
ACTILE OR ULTIMATING INFORMATIONS

IN the matter of actively em ploy lag our rational

faculties,much of their character is brought out 011
a limited experience and observation of the reasons
why we act at all. I am now referring to the be
ginnings of our experience. For instance,
we are
a or probable, act to be done
meditating possible,
in futuro. Inquire now, why are we contemplating
such an act. The answer is : We have reasons for
it. In this way it will be seen that we have a rea
son for pondering any future act.

But now, if we regard man as an actor going

into perform
beyond his preparatory lucubrations
ance, we find that he takes this last step also,
because he has reasons for it. He has had, we may
and
say, a minimum of experience of the first kind,
this may be a reason why he would know some
thing of the power forward of his purely subjective,
but preparatory, reasons or contemplations the fact ;

of his being finite affording a sufficient reason why

he should try to discover the extent of both his own
and other powers. At all events, the efficiency in
both kinds of informations is a controlling reason.
149
150 THE POWEE OF THOUGHT

And similarly a controlling reason, good or bad,

determines his willingness to do anything. Yea,
even as his mind has been schooled to value good
or bad acts, so will it have a corresponding se
quence of acts. For what is a responsible or per
sonal act must ever answer power of some
to the

foregoing opinion; man being an actor solely by

virtue of the power of his thoughts. Indeed, every
act of man has an individual character which rests
on the different kind of informations that inform it.
And hence, we are driven to the conclusion that we
can neither begin, nor continue, a train of reason
ing, nor give effect to any thought, in any way,
without this controlling efficiency of our every
thought.

II

Having done with the above preliminary explana

tions, I hope we are now prepared for considering
the problem of actile or ultimating informations,
more distinctly. It is to be remarked that every
information, on reaching its final stage, has passed
beyond the condition of a mere subjective acquisi
tion, and pushed its way to a final term. For,
when it begets a completed work, it has assumed
that last change which a knowledge of the approved
time and place, and other finalizing touches of
action, determines. It becomes an operating power
in what we do, then and there.
But this last phase, too, is a question of one s

reasons, or desires, or choice and it ultimates, either

;

one or the other, as we may choose to regard them.

ACTILE OR ULTIMATING INFORMATIONS 151

For, as will hereafter be explained,

one cannot do
an act without desiring to do it, nor desire to do it
without some reason or motive for the desire nor ;

indeed do it in any way at all without choice, which

is simply the final stage of our operative or actile

thought, or reason, or desire. And, therefore, our

desire to do it is some reason or motive, ending in

preference or choice, which is the ultimate term or

decisive phase of our reason for doing it. Choice
isreason, or motive, ultimated.
I remark, further, that if we ultimate, or give
the final tone to an idea or information, we do it on
choice, and choice is the actile power in a given
information which decides our personal preference
and responsibility. So then, to ultimate the in
formation is to give it our personal adherence in
act, which is preference or choice. But this is to

liberate its actile or finalizing power. And, there

fore, when we say we are responsible for our opin
ions, we mean that we have given them the last
touch of final approval or choice.

Ill

Glancing for a moment at the moral aspects of

the problem, we are to consider such informations
as urge us with an authority intensely stringent.
And now, if we ultimate these last, we have gone
upon an act of responsible choice which expresses
the sovereign power of moral convictions.
But why are these so urgent ?
Because having, once for all, adventured their
discovery, we have uncovered an element of vehe-
152 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

mence in them, presented, it may be, more tensely,

but not more indisputably, than that of any of our
ordinary informations. For every information has
an vehemence of its own, which qualitatively
actile

distinguishes it from all others. And now, if we

are to act on these, we must have the light of other

informations, to determine the question of acting,

then and there. And therefore, again, the reason
for coming to an act of choice is some ancillary
information with power to precipitate and ultimate
the force of the main one. And I
may add that,
as the urgency in moral, or for that
matter, in any
other conceptions, is itself a discovery of thought,
it will be acted
on, finally or not, just as the mind
has been trained to prize it in comparison with such
as found on slighter considerations.

IV
I have, before, explained that
thought lives by
knowing acquiring mental power, and utilizing this
;

power, in its own way, and for good and sufficient

reasons. I have also pointed out that ultimating
informations and desires are but different aspects of
the same thing. For the latter are present and ulti-
mated, in every act of choice, because they do but
express the emotional or personal phase of the ulti
mating information (or reason).
Inasmuch, then, as desires represent the omnivo
rous gatherings of thought, they perform the office
of furnishing us with a
provisional orientation upon
which we may act,on choice or preference. And,
therefore, if thought does gather up all knowledges
ACTILE OR ULTIMATING INFORMATIONS 153

and give them the aforementioned, provisional ori

entation, as seen in our desires, all we have to do,
when we go upon some final act or procedure, is
either to act with such desires as we may then pre
fer, or else cast out these, and act on such as we
can espouse from a different point of view.
It may be objected, however, that desires often
exercise a very notable pressure on thought and con
duct. This we have no reason to deny, especially
in view of the fact that the desires themselves, with
their quantity and quality of impelling force, have
been mediated by the mind., and the pressure is con

sequently intelligent and voluntary, and that we are

supporting both desires and their pressure by a
rational estimate of the suitability of the objects
desired to our condition and circumstances. The
pressure is of our own procurement and so must
bespeak our mind.
For whenever we come to an act of choosing or
preferring, or fulfilling a given desire, we shall be
found desiring something intensely, or, vice versa,
languidly, just as we are informed of and value the
urgency at the instant of preference.
So, too, we may desire, or choose, or prefer, friv
olously, because our informations (and consequently,
our appreciation) of the urgency are not serious or ;

indifferently, because they are not satisfactory ;

or
even stupidly, because they are inadequate, etc.
And here, again, it is evident that the so-called
pressure or urgency of desires lies in the force of
our convictions, and that both responsible choice
and fulfilled desire express that force.
154 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

The Gulf Stream is impelled by the heat of the

sun. But here is a psychological stream of desires
propelled by the fervor of rational convictions and
evaluations a fervor, let me repeat, which is awak
;

ened, and continued in being, solely by the power

of thought.

A few words about desires finally rejected may be

allowed in this place.
The ipse dixit of thought has aforetime stored
these with their measure and degree of preparative,
or provisional, choice. But whether they be chosen
and acted upon is left tosome finalizing thought or
opinion.
A similar exposition applies to motives. For
what are they but the soul s rational hold on
what it can choose or finally desire ? Or, we may
preferably define them as desires
looked at as a
rational, or moral, impulsion or personal fervor,
with a clear purgation of unthinking animalism.
So also of inducements. These are indifferently
rational impulsions or rational desires, either sub

jective or objective the first looking

;
within upon
the intent the latter regarding, more particularly,
;

the reasons drawn from the object concerning which

we are taking an interest, reasons why it should
be prized or valued as ancillary to the true purpose
within. In either case, the determination issues
from the intent or purpose, or, if you prefer, the
desire or personal potency found in the final thought.

And, therefore, in this regard, an objective

in-
ACTILE OR ULTIMATING INFORMATIONS 155

ducement is in fact a
subjective desire, motive, or
purpose. In other words, we may view the power
of an objective inducement as that of a conception
in order to rational action, our every act being de
termined by a subjective cause, or the power of
some final thought conditioned on the quality of
mind we have on hand, as the result of the oppor
tunities we have improved. But these points will
receive fuller explication in subsequent discussions.
CHAPTEE XVI
POWERS IN AID OP FREE DETERMINATIONS

THIS chapter is not intended as a meresummary

of previous discussions. The powers under consid
eration are all such as, when correctly understood,
may be taken to be for an aid to thought, volition,
or free determinations. They, indeed, operate on
thought, in special ways, but are not its
volitional

powers.

I begin with the Appetencies. I may describe

them as native impulsions, born with the child. As

such, they present themselves as sensorial visita

tions, ere yet the child has come
into the possession
of any idea, emotion, desire, or knowledge of any
their
kind, unless I except a confused cognition of
simultaneous irruption upon its attention, at the in
stant of birth. And, therefore, is the child startled,
as I have said, by the presence of such unbidden
and unheralded strangers, at such a time.
I shall speak very guardedly of this dark delta
that begirts the infant soul. Meantime, let us await
disclosures. The desire centre is not slow to mani

fest itself, in response to some discovery of the

rational. For the rational is never off duty from
156
POWERS IN AID OF FREE DETERMINATIONS 157

the beginning. The moral enters the lists, later on.

At the moment of birth, there is small chance to
accentuate definite thought and action; and for a
brief interval, thought must have a herculean task
to clutch its first full idea. The situation is em
barrassing. Here is life full of blind impulsions,

and here, too, is thought without its first articulate

idea, and only ready for its discovery.
Facts will testify of the result. There is some
thing in the sudden fission from the foetal state
of the child to its separate life in the outer world,
something in the first freshness of its animal im
in its tender openness to
pulsions, something, too,
unwonted visitations but more in God s law for all
these infantile experiences. But the child breathes.
Its separate life is revealing itself, and, with life,

the centre for appetencies is born unto a state of

agnostic sensation and impulsion.
And now, the question comes up, how can the
child pass these adamantine barriers ? Can it ever

get beyond its For, as native

blind gropings?
active and im
instigations, and therefore, blindly
pulsive, the mission of the appetencies is not then
known, and cannot then be known, until thought
mediates between them and their, then, unknown
objects, testifying, thus, to
their ancillary or auxil

iary office, in respect of its own cognitive functions.

II

The Native Dispositions may now be

office of

considered. These also are original furnishings in

aid of thought and personal responsibility. They
158 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

constitute what is peculiar in the tone and temper

the bias, mental and moral, of men, as individ
uals, and so distinguish one man from another.
The same remarks apply to man s physique, as
part of his original endowment. But now, what
shall be said of this formidable array of native

powers, and their bearing on thought, or volition ?

We answer: They are simply and solely a subjective
environment, which does for man, after the manner
of external conditions; like those, for instance,
which differentiate the Chinese, or Polynesians,
from Teutons, or Caucasians, whereby we have
distinct groups of peoples and individuals each ;

with a destiny which smells of his locality and

surroundings.
As original, our native dispositions are involun
tary to us. And as manifested in the active details of
life, some regard them as equally involuntary there.
I have, once before, demurred to this last view,

by explaining that our entire, original stock of

competencies, so far as and ivhen they affect con

duct, are under the strictest supervision of thought,

and thus become whose objec
intelligent motors
tives await the discovery and appraisement of the
latter. For if we grant them the full force of an
animal impulse, they would still lack the power
to make us act blindly, when we would act deliber

ately and knowingly. But when we employ them,

on the morrow of adult responsibility, all such as we
have any reason for entreating hospitably are as vol
untary as a discriminating apperception can make
them, in exercising its right of choice and sanction.
POWERS IN AID OF FREE DETERMINATIONS 159

So then, if we hold them to be involuntary,

when manifested as modifiers of character and
in stock,
habits, they are to be regarded as goods
like environment, conditions, the potter s clay, etc. ;

the voluntaryefficiency having a like power over

them, in some way consistent with its free deter
minations and distinctions.

Ill

As coming within the scope of my present in

quiry, I mention some natural states of the body,
such as vitality, power and its opposite, health and
its opposite the two latter opening the way for a
;

feeling of unrest, or vague, disquieting apprehen

sions, etc., etc. For the most part, these are not
so clamorous in their primitive demands as to
require any particular statements. Indeed, they
partake more of the character of sensations than
appetencies. Nevertheless, I regard them as con
tributing a quite perceptible, native efficiency com
ing in before an act of thought, as auxiliary to its
peculiar transformations. But, being a part of the
constitutive outfit of thought, and therefore dating
to, or else contemporary with,
its discursions,
prior
they are in no condition to antagonize its volitional
determinations, but only provide a way for their
advent and subsequent behavior.

IV

Here, now, are some impulses much more import

unate than simple states of either body or mind.
Such are hunger, thirst, etc., the true appeten-
160 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

cies. Any exposition of such power as may be

viewed as auxiliary to those of thought, would
be strangely imperfect, if these most importunate
motors were omitted.
We have seen that thought is a watchful energy
whose office it is to discover knowledge, and so
have the advantage of its own role of action in the
midst of other powers, co-acting with, or else
modifying them, for reasons of policy, choice, etc.
Now, here are appetencies placed so near to thought
that they are in, and of, us. For body and mind
are mates from birth and because of this intimate
;

union, we have a home acquaintance of mental and

moral, physical and material, modes of being and
action.
Hence our sufficiency, from early childhood, for
achieving informations and emotions which are
ours, as the unit of body and spirit, and which fur
nish us with the voluntary impulsions which arise
from, and express, the power of our knowledges.
As thus furnished, there can be no doubt what
we shall do when confronted with the appetencies.
We hunger and thirst, etc., but not without
the careful inquisition and cooperation of mind.
They are seen to be unthinking and blind and ;

whilst attesting this, their involuntary character,

mind is contrasting itself as voluntary, with what
is involuntary in them. And now, we may discern
that the part played by all these involuntary impul
sions is that of a blind, incognitive stimulation, vital,

animal, and even brutish, etc. And I may say of

them, what I said of sensations, that whatever else
POWERS IN AID OF FREE DETERMINATIONS 161

they may do, they cannot usurp the peculium of

thought, by making over to it the gift of a single
rational idea, or information, of any kind. Thought
remains stubbornly cognitive.
For the office of the latter, in respect of these
outside forces, is to determine what manner of
things they are, to discover their outlying objec
tives, and to appraise their value for maturing re
fined (here personal) impulsions, or true desires.
It will, and can, act only as it is informed and let ;

an appetency be what it may, thought will have re

course to some exigent discursion, or perish. Where
fore if on a study of such native impulsions, mind
should explicate rational impulsions, all we need
say that thought is facile princeps, an expert
is

explorer, and has a right to such discoveries of

its own as will give it a rational, and therefore

personal, impulsion, be it emotion or desire.

Such being views, I must hold that, whilst
my
hunger, thirst, etc., are placed outside of mind, as
native forces, the mind, for its part, constructs
ideas of their mission, and leads them
them and
out into the ways and opportunities of intelligent
impulsions, through the sweeping metamorphosis
of inference and judgment.

Here I venture a passing remark. It will be

observed that I have not spoken of these appeten
cies as entitled to the name of native desires or
emotions. My reason is that neither the one nor
the other is native to us, and I never meet with these
162 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

phrases without revolting at the inaccuracy. Ap

petencies are native to us, but desires and emotions
are not. It is plain that one cannot desire, or be
emotioned at any object, before he apprehends it.
It is equally plain that there cannot be an object,
for any appetency, until it is sought out and

pointed out by mind. Only when thus discovered

and mediated by mind can it ever be such an
object. It is a better psychology which describes
them as native appetencies, propensities, or predis
positions, acting as blind instigations. For we are
but enouncing an immovable fact, when we affirm
that they depend on some propaedeutic teachings of
mind to reach even their most proximate objects of
gratification, and yet it is a matter of much impor
tance to have a distinct conception of what they
do in aid of mind. And this shall be our next

problem.

VI

In man the vital or animal impulses are under

the guardianship of a rational power which con
ceives human events and their gratifications. He
has appetencies, or propensities, which vaguely and
blindly foretoken the emotions and desires which
come to birth upon a conception of our intelligent
wants. Ever through life, he employs the dis

ciplinary stress and efficiency of some thought to

curb or modify, or else assist or adapt, his animal
impulsions. For whatever they are, and whatever
they can do, he will, for his part, walk in the

ways of thought. He is to them what the shep-

POWERS IN AID OF FREE DETERMINATIONS 163

herd is to his sheep: "He

putteth forth his own
sheep . . . and the sheep follow him, for they know
his voice."

This is correct and beautiful. But wherefore

does put them forth ? Let us hope we can divine
lie

the reason It is because there is in the sheep that

!

which provokes him to take them in charge, and

minister to their blind cravings. But he could not
do this, if he could not discern those blind cravings,
and, discerning them, evolve and devise a way for
their gratification.

Now, this is literally the case as between man

and the blind powers within him. He has to give
them sight and lead them forth, providing for them
the distinct opportunities revealed by his mighty
discursive energy.
But here we encounter a wish for fuller explana
tion. The situation is about this : A mere child may
be at the mercy of blind impulsions ; but, as he
grows older, we seehim doing for them after the
manner of his maturer, human type of mind. So
far we are secure. And yet there is in these blind

impulsions something apart from what man can do

with them. This also should be allowed for. We
have already given these native impulsions the
office of blind instigations to thought. But now,
more precisely, what
their special office in respect
is

of the essential competencies of thought, as a discov

erer of their functions ? Plainly, they are intended
to orient the beginner with some dark intimations of
the sequence between an animal impulse and its sat
isfying objects, and so lead him to ponder, and ulti-
164 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

mately discover, their connection with his personal

and responsible wants and voluntary impulsions.
And this is the commencement of the distinctively
discursive exploits of thought, and, as you see, due
allowance has been made for the parts played both
by voluntary and involuntary forces.
I need scarcely mention the fact that this orienta
tion discovered in the appetencies is some aspect of
divine thought seen in all His works, whether they
be statics, dynamics, attributes, relations, or aught
else,and seen there because of His law of rational
order which appeals to our intelligence.

VII

But perhaps I should explain more explicitly

what I mean by orienting the beginner. Well, we
are thinking of a beginner who has to discover his
facts by dint of careful scrutiny, and carry them
forward into a field of transformations denied to
impulsions strictly native and involuntary.
Now for the orientation. I have just now named
a feature in the appetencies which sets them apart
from what we can do with them. They mean some
thing, and can do something significant. This, then,
is their orientation, and it enables thought to remark

upon, and know what to do with them and with

itself, as now instructed by what it has discovered.
And as to their meaning. Sensations, impulses,
states of mind and body, etc., yea, everything in
the universe of thought and matter, each has its
allotted complement of meanings which one may

inquire into and act upon. And so far as these

POWERS IN AID OF FREE DETERMINATIONS 1G5

meanings can be wrested from the objects studied,

they amount to a very important orientation; sig
nificant, tangible, potent, fruitful.
But, as man can neither create these potencies,
nor fledge them with meaning, his task is to dis
cover that meaning, and pursue a line of conduct
corresponding with the knowledge evoked.

VIII

I have been all along admitting that our native

endowments and co-acting familiars of every kind,
are an. indispensable aid to our voluntary determina
tions. Now, so far as mind is thus dependent on
them for aid, the question arises, does not this

dependence imply some infringement of the pre

rogatives of a free or volitional power ?
Here it is needful to remember that any freedom
we may have (and that is all we contend for) is
finite, and must, therefore, depend on such limita
tions as restrict it to the finite. We are finite, but
it isa fact, equally well pronounced, that everything
that acts 011 us is likewise finite even so finite that
;

it cannot deliver a sensation, neither make any the

least impression on us without our help, poor as it

may be. As at present constituted, it is certainly

something help man, if only he have sense

to

enough to help himself.

The Omniscient has given him veracious stand
ards for his guidance in all this matter of potencies
within and without, their help, orientation, etc.;
and the more he studies them, the more he de
velops his several ability to command his own
166 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

and if so be he help himself, is not that

resources,
something to his credit ?
We work a crop of corn, and the land in turn
kindly helps us. So much for the help of a
friendly power ! But does that oust us of the work
we do ourselves ? We opine not.
I pass on to another point closely allied to the

above, but previously touched upon. Are not

hunger and thirst, mental and physical states, etc.,
not to mention sensations, compulsory ? Dare we
neglect them ?
I concede, at once, that all these involuntary
factors have a dynamic character so forcible that I
cannot refuse them due attention. Indeed, they
oftenest intrude upon my thought, not seldom vio
lently, and may destroy me at any moment. (But
this latter is a question apart from the present

exposition.)
It may be observed however, that by as much as

they are destroying me, they are destroying them

selves. "A house divided against itself cannot
stand."

Still, so long as I am not totally destroyed, my vol

untary I have simply
efficiencies are not estopped.
a very painful feature of the social dynamics of my
co-acting familiars to take note of and act upon.
However, if any normal visitation from these
involuntary impulsions does but allow me an
opportunity to exercise my own powers, it will be
readily seen that, so far from being a serious infrac
tion of my freedom, it simply calls me to a different
assertion of my discursive powers.
POWERS IN AID OF FREE DETERMINATIONS 167

If my freedom has been rudely assailed, it may

be abridged, to that extent, but its repair, and pos
sible reestablishment, may still be accorded me.

Apart from and under any ordinary circum

this,
stances of healthand surroundings, thought cannot
be got to complain of any amount of so-called forc
either to get
ing on the part of involuntary factors,
it into position, or to maintain it there, as a free
cause sufficient for its appointed tasks.
Wherefore, from every point of view, we may
native
regard thought as in charge of all these
forces, opening their eyes and adjusting their ori

entation to our dominant personal outlook, apprais

ing and then requiting their blind importunities.
It has discovered the underlying sympathy between
native impulsions and those which spring from
mind and morals. It has ascertained that the
former are an ordained support to the latter, in
that they can be transformed into intelligent and
as purely vital
personal motors. For, emerging
motors, they are transformed into the trained
effi

ciencies of the governing intellect, and so become

our familiar desires and emotions. The result is

that, having once compassed

the meaning and mis
sion of our appetencies, we begin to see some strong-
personal reasons for effecting that cognitive trans
formation which commutes what is an animal crav
ing into an emotion, or desire, for something
we
conceive to be promotive of our good.
And here let me explain that, in every such trans
mutation, the interest manifested is to be seen
in

our desires and emotions, but this desire or emotion

168 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

is, after all, nothing in the world but the personal

or partisan interest seen in every achievement of

thought. It is an element, or phase of, and born

with, all knowledge.
Moreover, this personal or partisan interest, this
emotion or desire, is the actual substitute for the
aforetime state of appetency seen in our native
impulsions. Hence, when we have once for all
acquired some knowledge, we can never commit the
psychological inadvertency of losing an interest in
it. For knowledge is personal power, as manifested
in. emotions and desires. But more of this anon.

IX
When one is told of instincts coming forward in
aid of thought, he is at a loss what to say or think ;

so little is known and so much is made of them.

They are stifled under a ban which forbids their

entering the current of thought. Still, I have an

opinion under advisement.

Of course every faculty of the soul has its first
send-off spontaneously, ere yet the intelligence is

born, and in order to its birth. But, onward from

that time, we have to achieve all knowledge by a
rational study of phenomena. And yet, there is
sometimes an appearance of acting too quickly for
any rational elaboration of the matter in hand.
And this has some little show of support, when we
are taken by a sharp surprise which may, in part,
break up the rational processes. For, if these are
quite broken up, the common catastrophe would
overwhelm instinct and intellect alike. I confess
POWERS IN AID OF FREE DETERMINATIONS 1C9

to some sharp surprises myself, but I never once

relapsed into a condition of mind which, did not

allow room for the play of, at least, a hasty con
sideration of the situation. I may be caught up so

suddenly that the suddenness of the situation will

awaken thought, and with it, the corresponding
emotions of fear, alarm, surprise, etc. It is to be

remembered that quite a large part of the life of

thought consists in knowing things by a mere glance
of recognition, thought becoming an expert, after
a varied experience of cognitive marks and their
evidence. But surely this is not to know them
without cognitive marks, as it would be in the case
of a supposed instinctive apprehension. haveWe
no instinctive, that is to say, unthinktive (?) knowl
edges (so to speak). The act of cognition may be
quite as quick as that of the supposed instinct.
But what is known is a thing of evidence and judg
ment ;
an act of the thinking and judging soul.

As was said, it was needful to begin life instinc

tively, or, I prefer saying, spontaneously,

before ever
we had been in a condition to turn the metamorphic
power of thought upon the evidences for our acts,
or upon the blind intimations seen in our native

impulsions. But so soon as we become discursive,

that swiftest recourse of reason (misnamed instinct)
isborn of oft-repeated thoughts and judgments, and
has its place, for reasons of economy and dispatch,
in our elaborating processes a ceaseless repetition
;

of the more deliberate trains of reasoning, under

all circumstances, ending in disastrous obstruction,
as a little reflection will distinctly disclose.
170 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

You remember the protracted, difficult, and tedi

ous processes the child resorted to in the effort to
conceive the rose, the cherry, the nurse, the father,
mother, and other domestic familiars, and how,
having undergone this careful home-schooling, it
set off to explore the universe, and perceived and
conceived the horse, the landscape, cause and effect,
law and order, and even God. But once completed,
we may never repeat the same discursions, except
under pressure of circumstances which will justify
us. We abridge the toil of repeating the discursion.
And now, that we have completed the details of
conception, we may, and do, neglect them, and so
behold the horse, the landscape, the rose, the cherry,
etc., directly (I say not instinctively), that is to
say, we perceive these objects in the mass. So that it

comes to this :
If, when
looking at the horse, nurse,
rose, etc. (after our previous elaboration of their
content of attributes), we only perceive, that is, see
them directly, it is because we keep all previous
elaboration out of our eyes, or, at least, in the back
ground, and see them immediately.
And in this sense, and for above reasons, we may
be said to see even cause, law, order, and God, by a
direct and immediate vision; i.e., perceive them.
At all events, we can reason fast or slow, to suit
the occasion and the degree of mental culture
reached, and still have no need to excogitate a re
crudescence like the so-called instinct of a child
on the threshold of intelligence. And yet, some
evolutionists can see nothing in all this manifesta
tion of mind but "

nature," natural selection," and

"
171
POWERS IN AID OF FREE DETERMINATIONS

even reflex
action,"
etc. and put it to selecting
;

objects in advance of their presentation for selection,

a involved in
by way of solving postulated mystery
accounting for the origin of new forms of life.

X
But, if it can be known that there is as little

need for instinct in animals as in man, then

it

at
would be worse than absurd to contend for it
on
all. For, not years agone, the text-books
many
assumed that animals acted
comparative psychology
on instinct alone. Nowadays, however, most phi
in many of their
losophers recognize intelligence
acts. Some later scientists, whilst holding that
con
instinct is the dominating factor in animals,
"

found it with "

reflex action," automatism," etc.,

as stated above. As I find I cannot agree with

either view, I propose to examine briefly some of

the facts which disclose the nature and functions

of the activities on which these
psychological
theories rest.
I see no reason why animals should not have a
themselves to their con
power of mind to adjust
ditions by discursive methods, after the
manner of
man.
I cannot delay upon any activity within the phy
in character and, therefore,
sique which is reflex
to attemper, such
wholly beyond the mind s power
as the circulation of the blood, etc. Physical crav
are common to
ings or appetites, propensities, etc.,

animal and man, and shall not be enlarged upon.

011
I may emphasize here, however, as bearing
172 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

what I shall urge later, that the physical activities

of diverse organisms are as diverse in character as
the organisms in which they act, and that they can
make only such appeals as will conform to the
diverse intelligences addressed.
Bearing the above statements in mind, it suggests
itself that when we come to animals we are moot

ing questions of comparative physiological appeals

addressed to intelligences differing among them
selves, and, from man, phylogenetically.
And here, we have a general consensus of opin
ion that whatever mind animals and the higher
insects may have, it must, like man s, rest on some
sort of physical basis for its psychological trans
formations. But man and animal have different
physiques, and they differ in type, much after the
manner of a bear from an ox, or a bee from an

ichthyosaurus. And this brings us, face to face,

with those profound and ineffaceable distinctions
which prescribe to each species of animals, and in
a lesser degree, to each individual, a role of activity
adapted to the play of its diversely circumscribed
powers, mental and physical. For, as the phy
siques, say, of a fish and a humming-bird, differ
so radically, their physical wants cannot be exactly
the same, and so cannot make identical appeals to
bird and fish alike. Given a peculiar physique,
and you will have a peculiar class of appetites and
propensities which determine its scale of being, and
limit it to the pursuit of such objects, and to such

alone, as will minister to its welfare. It cannot

enter upon a career at war with its organism.
POWERS IN AID OF FREE DETERMINATIONS 173

Now, I take it that mind and brain, in animals,

as in man, are co-acting and co-dependent factors ;

the one delivering such intra-cerebral excitations

as the other can deal with cognitively the latter ;

of what is delivered to
passing upon the meaning
it. In other words, mind and the organism must
be in perfect accord. For, if not, then one or the
other, or would be inadequate to the task set
both,
before it. For example, in order to perfect vision,
we must have a perfect visual organ and a compe
tent perceptive power to confer with the objects
presented.
At this point, our facts disclose some important
distinctions between man and animals which we
cannot ignore.
One consists in the latter s apperceptions be
ing limited in range,
whilst man s embrace the

universe.
Another takes departure from the fact, now
its

universally admitted, that many of the lower ani

mals and insects evince a capacity for clear and
that of man, in sundry
quick perception surpassing
particulars.
How do we account for this ? Nothing easier,

say certain leading thinkers,

who class them with
instincts, or physical impulses,
such as hunger,
thirst, etc. Butno careful thinker can
surely,
confound the surpassing intelligence of some ani
mals with the blind, physical impulsions of the
organism, many, if not
most of which, spring from
local secretions which separate one class of animals
from another, giving each a several nature.
174 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

Still another class of thinkers propound the

theory of heredity, with a bias for natural selec
tion, etc. Animals inherit aptitudes for special
tasks, these men aver. And they adduce the fact
that mancan acquire great dexterity of mind and
muscle, etc., and argue, thence, that animals and
insects cannot only acquire singularly clear per
ceptions and aptitudes, but pass them over to their
progeny, who have the fun of using them instinc
tively, much like little sucklings. Now, I can
readily assent to the theory that animals, insects,

etc., do acquire knowledge, precisely as man does ;

and if they do, where is the need of explaining their

acts by aggrandizing their dumb instincts, seeing
that all your dexterity of muscle, etc., was acquired
by the intellect and not by instinct ? The produc
tive efficiency is the intellect, and so, if we inherit

anything, it must come of the ancestor who was

productive of the thing inherited. But this whole
thing of heredity is badly complicated by the doc
trine of reversion to (it may be) some stupid an
cestor who might impart a huge momentum of

dulness, quite as infallibly as any one who acquired

special dexterities of mind or body. For, in a
question of this kind, who can tell whether the
progeny has been fecundated from the graves
of good men or of the bad from Jupiter Tonans
;

or Juno from Solon or his mother from Socrates

; ;

or Xanthippe !And whose heart has not given

place to mingled feelings of aversion and piteous
interest, on first coming to a knowledge of the many
torn and mutilated fragments of humanity persist-
POWERS IN AID OF FREE DETERMINATIONS 175

ently reappearing, generation after generation, in

families whose lineage can be traced back through
a long line of ancestors ? However, I agree that
animals and man can pass over to their descendants
any dexterity or habit acquired, but that is because
the ancestor is an experienced teacher, and is at

pains to impart what he knows to his progeny and

familiars. And a habit thus acquired might well
be mistaken for a so-called instinct.
Still another and fatal objection to this theory
is that, notwithstanding man has an immeasurable
capacity for acquiring dexterity of mind and muscle,
yet his posterity, even if he could pack it off to
them by heredity, would be in no better condition
to equal insects and animals in their special con

ceptions and clearer cognitions, than the ancestor

was himself. And it seems to me, therefore, that
another theory, more in keeping with the facts,
may be propounded and it may be precisely stated
;

as follows: The astounding facility and clearness

of perception displayed by these latter is backed

by an intellectual endowment specially qualified for

essaying the tasks allotted to them, but denied to
man.
Their level of capacity has been determined by the
same law that determined that of man. Human
intelligence which widens with the universe is not
equal to the task of working up the materials which
are local to, nor of discriminating and appropriating
the food substances of, say, for instance, a fish in
the bottom of the ocean.
But the mind of a fish is definitely qualified and
176 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

appointed for accomplishing that task. And there

fore the reason why the fish can do this, and man
cannot, lies in the fact that the former has a phy
sique whose blind cravings can be sated only by an
access of mental power, specially fitted to conceive
and evalue his piscatorial wants. Whereas, on
the other hand, man has no power of mind, so to
identify himself with either the physique or mind
of a fish as to appreciate the latter s cravings, adopt
his habits, and struggle with his environment.
A human intelligencealone can appease a human
appetite, an animal only an animal appetite. And
if so, why postulate an instinct for either ?

It seems plain, then, that because animals and

insects have unique organisms, they must also have
unique wants, and if so, they must be ministered to
by an intelligence uniquely qualified to provide for
them.
For their organisms are furnished with the pecul
iar secretions which provide for and specialize their

appetites, cravings, etc.

And therefore, may we say that even the envi
ronment, local to different beings, is, for the most
part, that which is determined by the unique cast
of theirminds and physiques. For mind, every
where, the dominant factor employed in selecting
is

an environment the materials of which can be re

modelled to suit the physique with which it is
mated anything in the teachings of evolutionists
;

to the contrary notwithstanding.

The distinctive tasks appointed to the different
classes of beings are determined by a God-given
POWERS IN AID OF FREE DETERMINATIONS 177

nature which enables them to select and make use

of thepowers of exterior nature, in the interest of
wants discursively educed.
And if this is necessarily as a
so, it results, as
that the sensations,
consequence from a principle,
impulses, etc., of animals must speak to them in a

language with many thousand effective inflections

utterly unknown to man s wider reach of vision.
On the other hand, why should not animals have
a gift of mind competent rapidly to classify and
accelerate the perception of such objects as come
within reach of their narrower range of vision ?
and psychological nature
It is to the physiological
and conditions of a being, therefore, that we must
look, if we would know the active principles which
determine what he does. And here I may mention
some peculiarities of structure in animals and
meet special needs
insects which are designed to
from natures which differ from that of
arising
man.
It is now ascertained that the use of compound
eyes in some insects enables them to enjoy dis
"

tinct vision during rapid flight." Whereas, in the

case of a man going at such rapid speed, no distinct
impression could be made of objects crossing
his

visual area. Here, as elsewhere, it is simply a ques

tion of comparative psychology and physiology;
mind and physique co-acting in the performance of
tasks prescribed by the law for their interdependent
activities. And yet, within the field of performance
allotted to each, it is not more unreasonable for
animals to surpass man in celerity and clearness of
178 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

perception, within their narrower horizon, than for

man to surpass them in his world-wide construc
tive conceptions.
I mention, here, some few concrete examples in

support of these views, though the argument em

braces all creatures. Consider the bee and its wax,
the spider and its thread, and the viscid and other
secretions of many other insects, along with the
special aptitudes acquired by each of the above.
Now, readily apprehended that these creatures
it is

could not at all act upon a knowledge of these di

verse anatomical structures, so furnished, neither
could they interpret their offices in respect of the
physical and rational needs they shadow forth, if
they were not part and parcel of an organism inti
mately connected with the diverse mental powers
appointed to conceive and act upon their dissimilar
intimations. And this is the rationale of all that

keen, sharp, quick intelligence displayed by some

animals and insects. They have a mind specially
appointed and qualified for discerning and appre
ciating the unique animal impulsions, native to
their diversely appointed physiques.

XI
And now, at the last moment before I close, I
am led to make
a further explanation In remark :

ing upon the resemblances and differences of the

human and animal intelligence, I felt constrained
to express a high opinion of the latter, holding
that,within the pale of its nature and possibilities,
an animal could reason as correctly and clearly as
POWERS IN AID OF FREE DETERMINATIONS 179

man, protesting, nevertheless, that the similarity of

their mental powers and sensorial data furnished
no evidence that an animal was furnished with a
sweep of mental vision, and power of elaboration of
data, equal to that of man. On the contrary, I
hold that to each is given a power of mind adapted
to construct his own world of egoism and personal
satisfactions, in precise conformity to his several
ability to appreciate the significance of the things
which can be made to contribute to his welfare.
And this remits the one, as well as the other, to a
nature and destiny whose barriers neither can sur
mount.
Each can reason and act upon reasons, within the
confines prescribedby and confronting
his nature

environment, because to each is appointed a meas

ure of mental power suited to his nature and envi
ronment. And therefore, as thus constituted and
conditioned, an animal can frame and put to a de
terminate use a certain kind and number of concep
tions that will appease a certain kind and number
of wants, peculiar to an animal and denied to man.
A definite physique and mind, definitely correlated
for a conjoint work, is the measure and promise of
all man, or animal, can do ;
and as thus empowered
and restricted, each is left free to seek his indi
vidual wants.
As
illustrating these views, I recall an incident
or two which transpired when we were children,
and which may serve to place my contention in
clearer outline before the reader. In those halcyon
days, we companioned with an intelligent cur that
180 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

had discovered a habit of running away from the

hares in a direct line to their holes in the ground,
and from that position running them down at his
pleasure. As a matter of course, in the dawn of

childhood, we, his companions, were more than de

lighted with such wonderful feats. But we were
destined to see more of the surprising and surpass
ing power of mind in our poor dumb favorite.
For, once upon a time, he kept up a prolonged
and deep-mouthed barking the major part of a
summer s day, away down in the bottom lands,
about a mile from our house. The evening twilight
was approaching, when a half-dozen of us little
children, our hearts flushed with rosiest anticipa
tions, toddled down to where he still kept up his
fierce barking. To us, in our infantile innocence
and inexperience, it was an outing of eager inter
est and wonderment, which the rude touch of time,
and a wider experience, had not yet robbed of its
awful significance. The dog had unearthed a den
of foxes, nestled at the end of a hole excavated far
within the soft ground, and was busy destroying
the whelps, a feat which he accomplished soon
after our arrival there And so it happened that,
!

just at this time, the old mother fox hove in sight

of this scene of slaughter, and the dog espying

her, we were made spectators to the philosophy of

a race for life or death.

I need not say that we were wildly excited. The

fox made for a precipitous cliff on the bank of the
little river along which she ran, and about a mile
from where we stood. The dog, for his part, was
POWERS IN AID OF FREE DETERMINATIONS 181

familiar with the approaches to the cliff, and its

crumpled folds and fissures, the safe refuge for
all the foxes for miles around. I should have said
that the river here describes a complete semicircle
between where we were standing and the afore
mentioned cliff. As I said, the fox ran along the

river, and, of course, with the semicircle, so that, in

case she were hotly pursued, she could take advan
tage of the undergrowth that fringed its border.
So much for the fox. And now, you may imagine
the amazement of, at least, one of the little children
when he saw that his aforetime sagacious cur would
not run after the fox at all, indeed, would not so
much as deign to look at her, but kept heading for
ward along an inner line pointing directly to the
cliff, and four hundred yards off to one side
or five
of the fox. of, and not looking
Off to one side
toward her ! And we poor, little innocents were
sore confounded and mystified for many a weary

day for, to us, it seemed passing strange that our

once conspicuously intelligent dog should now run
so witlessly off to one side of the fox But then, as
!

we afterward learned, the dog made his point and

captured the fox and this reassured us somewhat.
;

And now, after the lapse of more than sixty

years, it seems abundantly plain that both dog and
fox alike had been doing some remarkably clear
thinking, evincing consummate judgment, and prac
tical insight in mastering the details of a problem
involving the issues of life and death. And in all

this, they were the equals of any man. The dog,

in particular, must have reasoned from his mul-
182 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

tiform experiences of the behavior of hares and

foxes to the particular case of the fox and the foot
race. But he could not have done this without
resorting to some process of rational elaboration
which would call for the exercise of the resources
of comparison, discriminating judgment, and infer
ence from facts, solving thus the difficult prob
lems which grow out of a present and pressing
emergency by a grand induction from former expe
riences to the case in hand. It is to be understood,

however, that this range of mental vision and elab

oration found in animals never extends much be

yond these and similar experiences. For both dog

and fox equally are at touch with a physical and
mental nature which restricts them to conceptions
framed in conformity to their definitely appointed
animal possibilities, and to nothing beyond.
For instance, to compare them with the toddling
infants who witnessed their race in the field,
neither of them could conceive, much less build,
a house in the sand, with, say, chimneys, doors,
rooms, windows, etc., not to mention sundry other,
little toilette appointments, constructed of chips
and and what not
sticks, cobs, sods, rocks, mosses,
such as the just mentioned children, heirs to
larger conceptive visions, not seldom conceive and
build, and, mayhap, on that very day did conceive
and build.For, the inferences and deductions
upon which a human being acts, though, as a mat
ter of course, limited by his human nature, embrace
the bolder flights of constructive vision which
inform and empower a human soul.
POWERS IN AID OF FREE DETERMINATIONS 183

We
conclude, therefore, that the nature of any
creature determines the character, and limits the
scope, of his intellections, even the individual point
of view he will take when attacking the problems
of life and personal well-being.
But, if you want to put all thought of a correct
psychology to grief, only keep up this dusky
prattle about animals, and even man, acting on
"

instinct,"
"

reflex action," etc., so much affected,

nowadays, by some leading scientists. An animal,
for example, simply takes an animal view of him
self and surroundings, and he is just as
competent
to reason from his nature and surroundings to his

peculiar needs as man, from his nature and sur

roundings, to his peculiar needs. Let us have man
or animal to discover all he can discover of the

significance of things, inner and outer, and connect

all he can discover of them with the personal, in
dividual, and social requirements indicated by his
nature and surroundings.
CHAPTER XVII
THOUGHT AND EXTERIOR POWERS CONTRASTED

THINGS exterior do impress mind, but is the

latter on that account only receptive of the impres
sion, only subjective in their presence? Might not
thought, for its part, be as active, aggressive, and
discrete in its own way and by virtue of its own
resources as any exterior power?

Observe that the appeal is to mind, and not to

anything exterior, for an opinion. And if this is
so, it seems clear that the
former is already in court
with an antecedent claim that everything in the
universe is bound to respect. For, as Hamilton
expresses itwe know everything through
: If

mind, we must know mind beyond doubt, for the

paramount reason that we know all else through it.
Now, if thought is thus admittedly such a pre
retort on the
potent affirmative energy, I might
extreme school of sensationists, by disallowing
the claims of sensations altogether. For, look at
the argument! All I know of mind is a subjec
tivity seen in thought and inferences.
my So,

too, all I know of external nature is

this same
subjectivity, seen as above. Moreover, though I
184
THOUGHT AND EXTERIOR POWERS 185

am a unit of body and mind, all I know, and can

know, of either is the same subjectivity, seen
also

as above. Am an idealist? By no
I therefore
means I am no more an idealist than a materi
!

Thought gives me both, and the one is

alist. as
other.
solidly anddefiantly accredited as the
as a
Still, if either has place something
in thought
affirmed and accredited, it is there on the sole
testimony of the cognitive energy which decisively
avouches a knowledge of it.
Admitting then the presence and power of sensa
tions as unquestionable, what I would contend for
is that mind is not a mere receptive blank, capable

of only witnessing for what is delivered to it by

means of sensor ial impressions. It has rational
with which,
potencies for achieving knowledges,
in an act of cognition, every exterior potency
has to be brought into sympathetic and helpful
cooperation.
It speaks the word of authority without which
could
the very being and possibilities of a sensation
never be called forth. It is a cognitive power, and
so much so that it cannot even receive a sensor ial

impression without affirming it by an

act of percep

tion or conception. It has a boundless curiosity,

to begin with, and its very life depends on what it
can discover of, and do with, the things of self
and not self. It lives on the power of the ideas
it acquires. And this capacity for thought and
deed, this intellectual power and performance, is so
a momen
intrepid that we can scarcely imagine
tary interval in which we have nothing to do,
186 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

without our having, in the selfsame instant, a

multitude of things to be done staring us in the
face and calling for attention; the intelligence is
so promptly and punctually active and aggressive.
Indeed, we cannot take the most indifferent and
cursory glance at anything without immediately
framing some opinion of its value, as a discovery
conceived to be related, in some way, to our inter
ests. And, in all such cases, we advance as we
perceive and conceive. Observe a child taking an
interest in its childish affairs. Its every thought
is in the direction of its welfare, as an individual
power diverse from all others, say, to feel its mus
cular powers to put some first, faint estimate on
;

the kind attentions of a mother, nurse, etc., to

recognize her presence as the frequent source of
its happiness, it may be, as a great outside
per
son, or alter ego, caring for its whims, wants, or
hurts. And here, beyond doubt, we have a per
sonal power, at one and the same moment affirming
and contrasting itself with things and potencies
not itself.

is a distinct
Thought, then, entity which founds
on discursive resources for acquiring power and
its

action of its own. But if sensations give it ideas,

then we have informations without the rational
scrutiny needed to fetch them. We have not found
truth, but it has found us. And if this is so, it
isimposed on us, and we are not free.
However, let us examine this point carefully.
We hold to the fundamental postulate that nothing
is known except through the active intervention
THOUGHT AND EXTERIOR POWERS 187

of mind. From earliest infancy onward, this our

thinking equipment has to discover and affirm

the
every fact for our guidance, noting intently
very first coming of sensations,
and so entering
upon a broader plane of exploration and discovery.
The mind takes cognitive interest in these sen-
sorial impressions, and straightway proceeds to
form a more intimate acquaintance with entities
and activities exterior to itself, acquiring power
to act in accordance with what it affirms of them
and their mission.
Indeed, it is incumbent on us to know tilings not
ourselves; affirming and appreciating their content
of attributes, actions, and relations, lest otherwise
we be at their mercy. It is to be observed that we
are not claiming for thought the position of an
isolated or independent entity. It is surrounded

with a universe of other entities which it essays to

know, and must know as entities coupled in some
way with its welfare; must commune with these
as things of meaning, each having a special signifi
cance imparted to it by Him who gave them place
to sport their powers hereabouts, and must make
all it them so entirely its own that it
can learn of
can employ what it learns of them, as a personal

power promotive of its own good.

It is to be remarked that I make due allowance
for the extra-mental potencies which act on, or with,
our thought, endeavoring to point out their relation
to the volitional and personal factors which call out
our educated, or personal, traits and wants. For
the reader should now understand that, whenever
188 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

we have the rational impulsions called desires, they

act as our personal motors or powers and so act
because called forth by the rational and construc
tive appreciations that beget personal considera
tions and a personal outlook.

II

Knowledge not made over to us by any power

is

from an ordinary discursion. We have

different
to acquire it as best we can. We
have to discover
our rational humanities, and so be moved to act
from rational considerations and trained impul
sions. There is a close brotherhood of mental and
physical forces in man. They are roofed together
from childhood, and constitute an original, or au
tochthonous, brood co-acting in furtherance of a
conjoint work. Some contribute to the animal
economy, such as sensations, physical cravings,
appetites, etc. But all these blind physical factors
occupy sheltered retreats, speechless and sightless,
until they are made to disclose their mission by
the party that intermeddles with wisdom.
Quite on the confines of this close brotherhood is
that vast horde of physical and material entities
our outdoor neighbors who people the immen
sities of time and space with the mind of God. It
were well that these physical, vital, and remoter
parties should make a call upon the thoughtful
party. And they are now, face to face, in actual
contact,and exchanging civilities.
Now, what is the effect of this exterior visi
tation? Simply a notification of business of
THOUGHT AND EXTERIOR POWERS 189

importance to both parties, the exterior parties

proclaiming in effect: "Try and forget it. We
have our rude way of coming into your presence.
Do not be the least disturbed. No harm meant.
We are commissioned to furnish you with a speci
men of our peculiar dynamics. Here are some
sensorial impressions to your hand in the sen-
sorium for your thoughtful appreciation. We
are but pursuing the letter of the enabling act
which prescribes and limits our functions, even
as it does yours. And we are doing our part to
promote the social intercourse, if not welfare, of
both. We cannot act anti-socially, even if we
would. It is neither our fault nor yours, if this

our social compact and intercourse should entail

some grave responsibilities and rough experiences
upon our intelligent brother. Sufficient for all
that is the Omniscient. We have fulfilled our
mission. We trust we have not been offensively
intrusive. Business is business. Still, may we
not look for you to give us, in turn, a touch of
your friendly regards? We leave you to your
reflections. Good morning to you!
"

III

The order of treatment of such a vast subject

leads me to speak of another aspect of our problem.
I am referring to efforts made to confound the
contents of our sensations with thought, feeling
(emotion), and volition, etc. For we are informed
that these latter are simply complexes of sensa
tions, that is to say, of elements, each essentially
190 THE POWEK OF THOUGHT

similar to blue, hot, cold, sour, etc. This we deny

in toto.
I had thought that I had said enough to give
thought and sensations their proper places in the
scheme of interaction devised for the diverse fac
tors concerned. But here is perhaps the proper
place to define more precisely this very matter of
the power and interdependence of the two.
Every sensation, so this doctrine runs, has a
quality and intensity which represent the nature
and strength of the stimulus which determines the
thought, emotion, etc., of the thinker. And this,
we are told, is a deliverance of science, which is
incontrovertible and final. But how much truer
to science, and sensations as well, it would be, if,

whilst allowing for all a sensation can do, science

would allow for all thought can do?
I am under constraint to my practicable limits,

proposing to place before my reader only a few of

the controlling facts quietly ignored by the scientist.
I grant the power, stress, and tone of sensations.
Thought does not propose to interfere, indeed has
no need to interfere, with the nature and powers
of things, external or internal. What I contend
for is that this can never explain a state of mind
which has an appointed outfit of resources of its

own, for dealing with sensations and their tone.

Finite thought and sensation must hang together,
as contrasted but co-active factors, let the stress
and tone of either be what they may. But that
any normal peculiarity of sensation should antago
nize the distinctive efficiencies of thought, or that
THOUGHT AND EXTERIOR POWERS 191

is to the last degree

of thought, those of sensation,

unpsychological and false. I have, all along, con

tended that sensation has power, and quality of
power, sufficient to impress thought with its pe
culiar dynamics, arresting its attention, and so

opening a way for the assertion of its cognitive

transformations. And this is but a pre-arrange-
ment of the Creator for establishing and conserv

ing the interaction and co-action of the diverse

factors concerned.

But, says an objector, what becomes of the tone

and temper, dominant stress, etc., of a sensation?
Well, I shall now attend to that point too. And
I would propose to my objectors simply to let both
thought and sensation have a tone and temper of
their own, undisturbed and undisputed, and so

preserve both, intact. Let the sensorial efficien

cies deliver an impression in the sensorium, and
letthought do its own thinking, and the tone and
temper of both will be preserved. I am intently
regarding the sensation and its tone as seen in the
sensorium and nowhere else, and inquiring how
that tone is there set up and what sets it up.
And I affirm that the tone and stress of sensation
is as much set up genetically by mind asby the
exterior potency. It takes both to set them up.
For whatever they may be in anything placed out
side of the mind s cooperative efficiencies, the tone
and found in a sensation (and that is the
stress

only evidence we have for them) depend as much

on mind for being and action as upon the sensorial
impression made in the brain. And if they step
192 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

forth as distinguishable elements of a sensation,

they will have to undergo some careful manipula
tion at the hands of thought.
I deny to mind the least power to fledge exterior

things with either tone or pressure proper to their

nature. And I am as emphatic in denying to these
latter the least power to fledge mind with any tone
or pressure proper to its several nature. The inhi
bition applies to both. But conceding the tone
and pressure of things exterior to be what it may,
mind can lay claim to the diverse, but correlative,
power of reacting upon that tone and pressure with
a cognitive tone and pressure peculiar to itself, and
estranged from any external power. It has a life
and growth of its own furnished with intellectual
peculiarities of its own, and goes out to try con
clusions with exterior impressions, and so make

conquest of their mode and manner of being,

gathering power and building up its counter-activi
ties, as it captures idea after idea from the static
and dynamic naturalism of things exterior. For,
with every idea captured, is born a personal, that
is to say, an emotional or desiderative
vehemence,
which is consummated in conduct or acts held in
conscious contrast with exterior powers and trans
formations. For we are now in the power of our
thoughts, and can make our points as we think.
PART IV

PERSONAL AND VOLUNTARY POWER

OF INFORMATIONS
CHAPTER XVIII

DESIRES AND EMOTIONS

IN other connections I have maintained the

thesis that knowledge is ours by right of discovery,
and that, being ours, its power is also ours, for our
guidance and governance. The same view obtains
in the treatment of desires and emotions. For
these are nothing but the stress of our informa
tions manifested as personal or voluntary power
in the realm of conduct. And this view is the
keystone in the arch of free determinations.

Let us carefully consider the problem. We

transport us to the time, when we are inspired by
the aims and purposes that express our desires
and emotions. At this period, we are permitted
to think that we have measurably completed the
discoveries and distinctions which inform and
educe our rational wants.
And, here, it is important to remark that the
birth of our rational wants is the birth of personal
or voluntary powers. This seems evident. But,
for themoment, let us inquire what is the fortune
and function of the desires and emotions which we
may not now embrace? For we see them tempora-
195
196 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

rily replaced by others which emphasize our pres

ent or prevailing views. And yet they continue
along with us, as psychological possessions, reap
pearing, it may be, on a sudden, as a provisional
instigation to conduct, and though we may repulse
their demands, we cannot repress their importu
nities.
If this be so, then we may be prompted to act
from two sets of desires, one active, the other

potential. The former may be likened to a man-

of-war steering in the face of the gales. The latter
is more like a league of gunboats attached to the

command, and subject to the orders, of the admiral.

What, then, is the office of these floating desires?
We have seen that our native appetencies possess
the trait of an original orientation for mind. But
our floating desires possess that of an acquired
orientation for conduct. For they are trained, and,
therefore, personal motors, and show the influence
of a careful teacher.
But if trained, then they are not to be classed
with native potencies. And yet, as their orienta
tion was determined by some prior thought, their

impulsion must set in before a present one, after

the manner of a native appetency. Nevertheless,
as their intimations are traceable solely to some

foregoing thought, they are to be regarded as our

own, i.e., personal and voluntary impulsions. And
so, when they emerge as a present spur to conduct,

they occupy the border ground which shades off

into both past and present.

They can, therefore, make a strong personal

DESIRES AND EMOTIONS 197

appeal to the authority of reason. If, however,

on due consideration, they should antagonize our
present views, we may dismiss their appeal. Still,

they are a fairly correct and forcible demarkation

for conduct, exhibiting a diversity of character and
vehemence whose every feature reveals some trace
of previous thought.

II

Keverting now to a former illustration, I may

remark that man position, touching these afore
s

time trained impulsions, or floating desires, is not

exactly that of the shepherd to the fold, seeing
that they were called forth by his voluntary pro
curement, and that he controls them as his own
voluntary efficiencies. Hence, their power over
conduct is not a question between him and another
something, but between him and his own some
thing. Stated otherwise, it is not between him
and what is not his, but between him and what

is his.

Ill

I turn now
to the subject of active desires medi
ated in the present. I explain by remarking that
we have an original capacity for acquiring such
desires and emotions as depend on the ability
to discover their satisfying objects. For every
rational satisfaction is an object of desire
solely
through the mind power of conception and elabo
s

ration. Knowing an object, once for all, we must

also know why we should desire it ;
our intelligence
ever going before, to witness for our desires.
198 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

Indeed, if any sane mind, turned twenty, can

entertain rudimental impulses unchallenged of
thought, it is because nothing of superior dignity
can impress it.
One securely rational imports his own desires
from his own substance (here actively thought
ful and voluntary), and puts his own substance

(explained as above) into whatever affects conduct,

be it regarded as information, emotion, desire, or
what not.

And, therefore, I affirm that our freedom is won

by a carefully intelligent sifting and testing in
manifold ways of that which we conceive will
contribute something desirable, or otherwise unde
sirable, enabling us to choose the one, and discard
the other. For the conceit of mind is everywhere
trying conclusions in respect of what we should

desire, and we put our best thought into what we

are pondering, and incline to it, or not, by an act
of judgment affirming choice or ultimate desire.
moment. Make me altogether human,
Reflect a
but endowed with the brutish proclivities of a
beast How could I perceive, much less prize and
:

prefer, the qualities of human excellence, to be

desiring them? We
must have a human soul and
its broader sweep of vision: That is to say, we

must have the power of human ideas or informa

tions, to give us the psychological competency for
appreciating what can placate or repel a human
being; for we must act upon informations which
shut us up to final choice as completed desire.
Every fact of experience attests this. Here is a
DESIRES AND EMOTIONS 199

class of emotions which spring from the contempla

tion of objects of beauty, or else the sublime and
wonderful. In the presence of such objects, who
is not either thrilled with ecstasy, or subdued into
awe? But why? It is all in the quality and
qualifications of mind. A dog would speed by the
pyramids of Egypt, as heedless of their majestic
significance as of the sorriest protoplasmic dust
beneath his feet. He hies on, outspeeding the
award of even a passing glance. But then, he
has no mind for either protoplasmic or pyramidal
grandeurs. That is all! Intellectual, or moral,
or aesthetic sense in an
empty pate is a nonentity
that can by no means be baited into being.
But man s mental competency is ceaselessly gen
dering the emotions and desires which crown him
lord of the humanities. We must appreciate the
aesthetic significance of such objects, ere we are

permitted to feel the characteristic emotions. And,

in order to this, we shall have to cultivate a class
of refined conceptions whose presence alone can

inspire the appropriate emotions and desires.

It will behoove us, therefore, to see our way out

appointed to inspire us with

to the objects specially
such desires and emotions as our human intelli
gence can elicit and sanction, imparting to them
the life-giving force of our conceptions. For they
can never become factors for conduct, save as they
are inspired by and walk with our thought.
Emotions and desires must have power, but then,
they must energize as we think, carrying out in all
literalness the force of our thoughts, as I wish to
200 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

make evident, later on. Even now as I write, I

can almost visualize some object divinely fair and
bright. Suppose though that this reconstructive
power of the imagination is lost to me. How could
I, then, have either emotion or desire for the object?
It seems plain, therefore, that some mental or moral

power must be resorted to, in order to my having a

reason for my interest in the object desired.
It is absolutely impossible for any human mind
to desire at the bidding of a blind impulse. In the
strictest psychological sense, therefore, the self
determines conduct by making choice, or effectu
ating some final desire; the choice or final desire
simply expressing, or emphasizing, our personal
preference or prevailing reason or opinion. Desire
is a reason personally attempered. We desire only
as we think.

IV

One may contend, however, that as many of our

desires are implicated with our native cravings and

propensities, they prompt, and in prompting affect,

conduct, in spite of the power of thought. This
misconception has been freshly gone upon in former
pages, but as it turns up here, we may remark upon
it in passing.

I have explained the function of thought as the

genetic source of emotions and desires in contrast

with all these involuntary forces, and shall not
therefore go into all that problem here.
But I may be allowed to remark, further, that if

one should not become deeply moved, or else sup-

DESIRES AND EMOTIONS 201

or desire when
ported by some form of emotion
contemplating the curious and persistent strivings
of his blind, animal impulses, he could never take
an interest in their study sufficient to put him on
the track of their rational explanation. As it is,

he remarks and ponders their significance, and so

is moved to discover all knowledge which will pre

pare him for leading them forth in the ways of

thought.
The truth is, as heretofore explained, we start

with a stock of native propensities which, as native,

are sheerly animal and blind impulsions, emerging
outside of thought, as irrational and involuntary in
stigations providing for its advent. And they
have
no other function. And here I beg to repeat that
that which isin a state of natural priority to what
we can intelligently desire is in no position to take
in hand the peculiar tasks of thought, these being

subsequent, cognitive, and, therefore, personal

achievements of the awakened intelligence. For
thought must have command of its own resources,
ere can have a reason for acting, springing from
it

a view of what it can personally desire or prefer.

And when it has command of these, it moves on a
plane of personal responsibility for its every desire.
And thenceforth, it will have its own desire, in its
own way of thinking, or none at all. Otherwise,
itwould lack power to mediate its own impulsions,
and couple them with aims and objects rationally
affirmed and sanctioned.
But granting, now, that these blind impulses do
blindly prompt to action, let me ask, How can that
202 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

antagonize thought in the slightest degree? The

fact is indisputable that there can never be any

prompting by any impulse independent of our

seeing something in an object which prompts the
desire, or moves us to desire it. And mind alone
can do that.
Now, who or what does this seeing or thinking;
who affirms the object desired, if not the responsible

actor, man? So then, if this be so, the real prompt

ing isdone by a desire mediated by the power of
thought. For all desire comes of, and is born
with, some thought, and so is really but an
expression of its personal force or power.
It is evident, therefore, that a mere blind impulse
fails to account for man s acts. He is not quite
rawer than the rawest specimen of an animal. He
reasons and acts with his reasons, as indeed he acts
them, whenever he makes choice or fulfils desire,
for fulfilling a desire is, and can be, nothing but

actualizing choice or preference, ultimating the

personal power of some thought.
From all which, it is evident that the elaborating
and constructive efficiencies of mind give us volun
tary, not necessary, actions; intelligent desires,
not blind promptings; even ultimate desires, and
personal power and responsibility. And the general
conclusion reached is that whatever man does is
done in accordance with his rational convictions,
and that, whenever he acts from reason, he may
have both desires and their objective satisfactions,
as he reasons, and because of his reasons.
And this means, further, that we may put a term
DESIRES AND EMOTIONS 203

to any floating desires that we might go upon in

the unguarded moments of sinful solicitations.
For we are free, moral agents only when we can
make some choice final, in the light of a judicious
view of our personal responsibility. I may there
fore lay down the two following propositions as
incontrovertible :

1. Man discovers what to choose or desire,

training his mind to a knowledge and appreciation
of such objects, and such satisfactions, as he can

prefer, or choose, or desire; employing thus the

energy found in some intelligent appreciation of
the object desired that is to say, desire must lean
;

upon thought, here opinion or information of

some kind, in order that it maybe responsible
as choice.
2. Man must know what to choose, as a re
sponsible person walking in the light of educated
or voluntary impulsions; and so he walks by the

power of the thoughts which beget the desires for

which he is responsible.
The following illustration may serve to support

my contention. I am beholding a rainbow with

emotions of wildering pleasure. Whence come all
these fervid emotions? They are unquestionably
mine, if not by former experience and personal
espousal, at least by present, intelligent, propae
deutic elaboration. The assertion may seem bold,
but they cannot be rightly described as prompting
me at all, they are so intimately my own. Every
effort of thought, past or present, has contributed
its quota of personal power to give me the joy of
204 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

such a resplendent display of prismatic colors.

And now that I am possessed of the
corresponding
emotions, it is not impertinent to repeat that it
would not be strictly correct to say It is a question
:

between me and my emotions.

Nay, rather, it is
I myself, with the susceptibilities I have
fostered,
taking pleasure in an object brought before my
thought, to the extent of my capacity for affirming
such elements of the beautiful stored in nature.
For the gospel of such a glad revelation of nature
can never be enjoyed in the absence of mind to
appreciate the revelation.
Now will any one dare say that these and kin
dred emotions, or desires, are the promptings of
that which acts without the intervention of
my
intelligence and vivid appreciations? Have not
the desires which prompt me been made mine by a
whole life ofachievement in the domain of mind,
morals, and aesthetics? I am moved toward what
I desire by a power of thought and its careful dis

tinctions, and I enter upon choice or ultimate desire

with the eyes of my judgment opened upon the
object, and I enter upon what I do by projecting
this very thought into the thing to be done.

Yes, pleasing were those emotions of the beauti

ful,and taught of all the humanities of thought to
rejoice in its ways and do them.

I am still debating the ability of a responsible

creature to conceive reasons which move him to act.
Let me vary the mode of inquiry somewhat. The
DESIRES AND EMOTIONS 205

finger responds with but little previous training to

the stimulus of thought. On the other hand, the
moral factor has to be sedulously and continually
trained to act with foresight of consequences, ere
it can entertain, much less finally act upon, its

peculiar stimuli.
The the finger is denoted by its obvious
office of

structure, and so the analogy between it and the

moral factor might seem to be imperfect. But if
we could teach the finger to discharge some nobler
function determined by the exigencies of a higher
life to be entered upon when properly instructed,

such as that of intellectual power and personal

responsibility, we might bring home to our con
ception an instance of intense and vivid training
parallel to that of our own voluntary experience.
Now it is just here, and in this connection, that I
am led to observe that the desire centre, when
trained) responds as promptly to the authority of
reason as does the finger. The power of thought
begets a desire as promptly as it can release and
control the blind forces shutup in the finger.
Permit me to explain further. Let us imagine
that we are now in possession of much that reason
affirms to be desirable; objects for which we may
strive. For we have affirmed their points of attrac
tion and struggle for their possession. Now, all
this is in the line of our voluntary powers, or per
sonal and responsible achievements. And, there
fore, it has not been our fortune, so far, to detect

any element of necessity in any promptings of the

emotions or desires involved.
206 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

Butafter all, do they not often make a

very
urgent appeal to reason? Yes, very often. And
so here may be our chance to trump
up necessity.
I call for the appeal. A
presbyterial overture
goes
before the synod. The overturists either suggest
some action, or ask for instructions. The synod
may, if it with the suggestion, or it may
chooses, act
lay down a rule of conduct for the inferior court.
As it is a petition for advice or a rule of
action,
it acts finally, and that settles the case for the
overturists.
Nowsuppose we take the appeals of our floating
desires to be distinctly separable from
any power
of thought or morals to give them their wonted

efficiency though this supposition is contrary to

fact! Even then, the fact of their making an
appeal to reason isa confession of subordination.
And now, when they obey the latter s behests, they
stand in an attitude analogous to one of our physi
calmembers moving at the command of thought.
But now, let us suppose that we have long since
made the desires we have on hand to be our own,
and this, whether our success in their elicitation
and cultivation could be commended or not. What
would, then, be the character of their appeals?
Evidently, our own, be they good or bad. But, if
our own, and elicited by our own efforts, where
would be the taint of necessity?

impulsion thus made our own (and for any

Any
reason) is, and can be, nothing but a personal and
voluntary vehemence which bespeaks our thought,
coming into being and taking orders, as it does,
DESIRES AND EMOTIONS 207

from the power that mediates every possible emo

tion or desire even what should and what should
not, be desired. For the good or bad of what is
ours has been pondered and felt from aforetime in
the forum of reason, and we have to act on any,
the last instigation, proceeding from the last phase
of our desires, as we did on any previous one we ;

choose or reject it at our peril.

And I contend that this dependence of all our
emotional or desiderative impulsions is so all-
embracing and thoroughgoing that, at any time
we would do something, there is not one single
emotion or desire which is not conditioned by some
power of mind, any force it may have, when
for

rising into consciousness. For here is concentrated

all the antecedent experiences of the soul, embrac

ing the unbroken continuity of the whole series,

such as every new thought and its power, even emo
tions and desires keeping step with the thoughts
that inspired them.
So much for the power of thought and its insep
arable train of emotions and desires.

VI
It seems plain, therefore, that neither appeten
cies, nor floating desires, nor for that matter any
force, exterior or not, can trench upon the preroga
tives of thought, choice, or voluntary determina
tion. They are all bound by the enabling clause
of the fundamental law which prescribes and limits
their functions, just as the man, as a whole, is
similarly limited and bound.
208 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

He, has to submit to a law for his finite

too,
powers. He
cannot alter the nature of any of his
members, say again, a finger. He can, indeed,
command a power which will move it. if it
And,
move, it is because, say, of his desire to move it.
The bones, muscles, and jointed, prehensile struct
ure, etc., are furnished by Another, and he, for
his part, can neither annihilate these furnished

materials, nor vacate their functions. But he can

(and that is all I
claim) summon into being every
idea,emotion, or desire needed for such move
ments of the finger, or other physical
members, as
will actualize the
(now) personal and voluntary
power involved in moving it, or else required for
any of the tasks of life set before him.
CHAPTER XIX
CHOICE AND MOKAL SANCTIONS

THE problem in this chapter is to determine the

function of those ultimating informations which
cover acts of choice and personal responsibility. I
recall some distinctions. Our reasons, viewed as
intellections, express intellectual power,
but viewed
as emotions or desires they express personal power ;

and both are employed in acts of choice and morals.

This will be further explained, later on.

To begin with a case of moral lapse or declension.

Not seldom do we choose to indulge a literal demand
of some sinful desire or purpose, or motive, moral

protests to the contrary notwithstanding. Then,

on the other hand, we may assert the claims of our
better humanity in opposition to the former. This
looks embarrassing for at first glance, one would
;

think that the force of a rational and moral convic

tion would be with the right, and that, there
always
fore, our personal preference would always be with
the right. But would be a grave mistake.
this
Sufficient allowance must be made for our frail
humanities, especially for the daring and perilous
of
sweep of conception, in dealing with questions
P 209
210 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

practical conduct, under conditions of temptation,

alternative choice, and personal responsibility.
We have choice between good and bad, but we
must reap the inevitable consequences of our choice.
And though we make a bad choice, we can never
question the authority and blessedness of morals,
albeit even morals are conditioned on a law which

protests the divine right of choice and its tremen

dous responsibilities.
Again, the idea or conception of right and wrong,
as also that of choice between them, are equally
achievements of mind. But mind cannot employ
these conceptions at their best, unless they are
maintained in their integrity.
Furthermore, the sanctity of morals can neither
be weakened nor effaced, except as the right of
choice between right and wrong is effaced or weak
ened, through its sinful abuse. This will be ex
plained more fully as we proceed.
Ponder another distinction. The mere discovery
of the idea of right and wrong, or even that of choice
between them, can never destroy the right of choice.
We shall have to look otherwhere for that fearful
undoing which overwhelms the right of choice.
It would certainly be a surprising discovery, if on
a discovery of a moral find, the discoverer should
discover that he had thereby lost the right of re
sponsible choice. The moment such a discovery
would be made, that very instant the obligatory
force of morals would cease. Displace the right of
choice, and even the conception of morals will cease
with it, as will be explained in the sequel.
CHOICE AND MORAL SANCTIONS 211

Lost it may be, however, but far otherwise.

Only let one choose sin HABITUALLY, and he will
know of the process; because he will have so
fostered his evil propensities that they will compel
the promptest subserviency to their behests.
It would appear, then, that there is nothing in
moral conceptions inimical to the right of choice.
The obligation, though divine and because divine,
is not compulsory. It appeals to us through the
force of righteous convictions, imploring us to be
life, and ponder the mischiefs of
hold the way of a

wrong choice, and with it a profligate violation of

our conception of right.
Now, in all this matter of an appeal to our loftier
humanities, we fail to see anything like the annihi
lation of the right of choice. On the contrary, it is

an earnest, loving, tearful, and solemn appeal to our

discretion, remitting the final decision to the tribu
nal of judgment and personal responsibility. And,
as thus viewed, it becomes a problem for careful

thought, a matter for conscience and information,

a search for ideas which are valued and employed
in the affairs of personal conduct, like other infor

mations, at our peril.

We may well pause, in view of the fearful
which follow the wanton disregard of
retributions
such an appeal. But here is a temptation to in
dulge some sinful inclination, very persuasive to
certain latitudinarian proclivities of choice. We
contrast this with the life-giving principles of recti
tude. The alternatives are good or bad, right or

wrong. We have choice among the reasons pro

212 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

and con. What happens ? The sinful reasons pre

vail!
We choose sin, and take the consequence !

II

Now happens that I hear an indignant

it so
reader exclaiming You have opened to us a view
:
"

of the divine authority of right, and yet you say :

We can prefer sin. What then becomes of the

divinity of the obligation of morals ? What is
clothed with divine sanctions should forever be the
strongest reason, and so prevail against one not so
clothed. And do you not concede that the strong
est reason
"

always prevails ?
My reader seems to be clever, but a trifle touchy.
However, facts are implacable. We can, and do
sin. Indeed, we are moral agents solely through
this stubborn power of choice between good and
bad. Yes, we are so human, and so taught of
our frail humanities, that we can take delight in
naughty preferences and sinful pleasures. But if so,
we must have reasons for it, for one cannot sin with
out them. And, therefore, are we determined to
sin by them. And if thus determined, they must
be to us (gifted as we are with the power to choose
between diverse, and even opposite, ways of life)
the most urgent reasons. For it is quite impossible
for us to act on any reason which is overborne by

stronger ones.
You may be dazed by an order of things that
permits sin. But there is a wisdom above man s.
The truth is as I have stated it. We cannot be moral
CHOICE AND MORAL SANCTIONS 213

agents without this power to choose between good

and bad, at our peril. And, beyond doubt, we
have a varied experience of both, and must have
inclined to sin, for some reason, acting with it, or
not, as we had power to overcome, or else resist, the
evil. The power of our moral convictions, if not
wholly blotted out, will assist us in the struggle.
But repeated and profligate indulgence will, in time,
become the dominant factor.
I am arguing from the force of the reasons pres
ent to the sinner, in an act of choice.
Mark the nature of his soul.
His reasons may be good or bad in the forum of
conscience, an authority he never questions, so
long as he can appreciate the normal significance
of the two. For what is sin but a violation of
right whilst acknowledging its sanctity ? But now
that he has dallied with the baser choice, too often
and too long, he puts the question evasively before
the court of conscience. He feels his obligations
and would not part from them. Still, his temper
is a little uncertain. He is but awaiting "

a more
convenient season."

He continues speciously. "

you the mag

I grant
netic impressiveness of morals, and do it homage,
notwithstanding my many lamentable aberrations.
But then, it is quite in keeping with my views of
choice and personal responsibility for me to have an
adequate, practical standard of comparison between
right and wrong and I can have none until I have
;

had a sharpened experience of the two, easy to

hand, for any trustworthy estimate of their rival
214 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

claims. And, even though I do commit sin, do I

not hold mefearfully responsible for venture ?
my
"

I am not inclined to endorse this euphemistic, if

not fantastic, subterfuge, though, perhaps, the sin
ner may be assigning his reason for the commission,
in the hour of temptation and choice. His excuse
is no justification. Of this, later on.
And yet it is too true, that when he tramples on
the right, with his eyes still open to its sanctity,
some sinful reason carries the power that precipi
tates choice; and with choice of sin, its wasting
train of consequences. But, after allowing for all
the mischief he does to himself, and that is often
irreparable, he may still count upon what is left of
his right of choice, as an important aid to discipline
and reformation.
The conclusion is irresistible, therefore, that the
right of choice is a pervading and constant feature
which the mere authority of morals has no power
to displace, for, although it can never be asserted in

dependent of moral conceptions, it may not always

be upright. Moreover, though one be convinced
that, if he give way to the bad, he will wrong his
moral compunctions, yet if he does give way, he may
still be regarded as maintaining his right of choice,
albeit under a sense of moral degradation which, if
not relieved, and the right of choice be yet further
abused, may ultimately disable the power to choose.

Ill

But, I am not done with the more serious aspects

of the problem. It is to be understood that, though
CHOICE AND MORAL SANCTIONS, 215

everything must give way to that final phase of

information which determines choice and personal
responsibility, yet the sinner, meantime, is under
going a moral declension which is undermining the
authority of his moral conceptions. The preroga
tive of choice, as a normal and beneficent power for
good, being gradually and insidiously blotted out,
is

by as much as sinful practices have sapped the

foundations of morals. Moral convictions are los
ing their wonted force, and the sinner lapses into
forbidden paths.
For, if one would preserve intact the right of
same time, be perfectly free, he
choice, and, at the
should choose the right and maintain it firmly
through life. He will then learn of a perfect law
for both right and choice, good and liberty, which
shall bless him in all he does; a law which will

uphold the equal primacy of both, so long as he

does right.
I make no distinctionbetween the power and
right of choice. For our power to choose depends
on whether we are, and to what extent, free from
the despotism of profligate desires, and this involves
the right to choose. For if we are slaves to the
madness of passions, we shall do their bidding, and
so doing, we shall trample under foot both the

power and right of choice.

I have explained that the constraint of morals
can have no force and no place in conduct, except
as mind uncovers the ideas of right and wrong, in.
order to a choice between them. And I could not
imagine a stultification so vacuous as the contention
216 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

that the mere discovery of such ideas as right and

wrong should have the torsionary effect of wresting
the right of choice from its foundations. This it
cannot do, and never done, so long as the discov
is

erer is free to put the force of moral convictions

into what he does. But if he sin, and
particularly,
if he persist in it, his
very convictions themselves
become so utterly debauched that he is no longer
able to resist the tyranny of his passions, and so,
to that extent, abridges, or loses, the right of choice.
This not to say that the force of moral concep
is

tions isnot a supreme authority to as many as defer

to it, by a godly walk and conversation, only that,
in the sinner s lapsed condition, the sinner s sinful

reasons are the strongest to him, some of his fairer

gifts of moral appreciation having undergone a par
tial deformation. For the power of a moral concep
tion is not the same to the pure and imp are. And,
to prevent misconception, let me here state
explic
itly that, if we stoop too often to pick up sin, the
day will surely come when we shall dump our shaky,
moral compunctions in the mire, and their afore
time office of reformation and righteous repression
will forever cease.
And now, to sum up what I have said, I reaffirm
that the right of choice is never evicted, so long as
we are in a condition to assert it, in opposition to
vile practices. But then, on the other hand, I claim
that the moral law is competent, at all times, to
protect this right, if peradventure we have not,

meantime, sunk our distinctive humanities beneath

its reach, by a reckless abuse of the
right of choice.
CHOICE AND MORAL SANCTIONS 217

IV

I am now thinking of some further details which

may be needed to support my
contention, confin

ing attention, more

particularly, to some of the psy
chological evidences involved.
Let us say that we have just conceived the idea
of rightand wrong, as also that of their antithesis,
two very important informations, to begin with.
For, here we have our first revelation of the essen
tial elements, upon which we found conduct, and

the practical honesties and dishonesties of years of

responsibility.
A step further leads us to conceive the idea of
choice between the alternatives, adjudging this
choice to be so inseverable from us that we cannot
part company from it, and be ourselves, at least so

long as it is not literally overborne by the lusts of

the flesh, another important information.
We now take some steps to appraise the value of
right or rectitude and if we come to the conclusion
;

that there is something in it so august that, if we

do not give it precedence in comparison with other
ideas, we must atone for the incivility in some way,
we shall, then, be in a position to make a judicious
choice between the alternatives of good and bad,
another important information.
still

Here I have brought out the two principles em

ployed in the government of conduct the right of:

choice, and the authority of morals.

Then, a time comes when we would avail our
selves of choice, and so have a practical knowledge
218 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

of the two principles involved. We would know,

from personal experience, what is the effect of an
actual choice of good and bad upon our personal

welfare; how we feel as personal and responsible

actors in the drama of life, still other important
informations.
Suppose, now, we choose the bad. It will be evi
dent that we have outraged the authority of morals.
It will be apparent, too, that we have weakened the

power of choice, by as much as we have set at

naught the sanction of morals. For if the latter is

contemned, the mischief of the vicious appreciation

will appear in the former.
Bear in mind that I am not making a distinction
between the power and right of choice, for both
are seen in an act of choice, even as both are weak
ened, whenever the righteous sway of morals is
substituted by the domination of the passions for, ;

constituted as we are, one or the other of these lat

ter must rule.
However this may be, let me repeat that no man
can have any real freedom of choice who lightly
holds the authority of morals. Choice is always
weakened, if not exterminated, when put to play

ing the artful dodger between right and wrong. If

it would hold its own, it should cleave to the right,

not solely because it is right, but also because it

would be free, as I shall endeavor to explain.

It has been already remarked that the whole

problem of conduct is a matter for the careful

appreciations of thought. If, then, we should dis
cover the fact that the sanctity of rectitude should
CHOICE AND MORAL SANCTIONS 219

be held inviolable, not solely for reasons of morals,

but for those of choice as well and if we should
;

conclude that this information, if acted on, will

secure us both moral good and free choice, in a
measure adequate to satisfy the demands of our
nobler humanities, then the power to choose be
tween right and wrong can neither derogate from
morals nor from the freest choice. And now, if
we can attain unto this mount of knowledge, and
consistently abide in it, as our rule of conduct, we
shallhave discovered a way to establish both choice
and morals, on an immovable foundation we shall:

be free to choose the good.

If any one would object that the habitual observ
ance of the law for rectitude may abridge the free
dom of choice, seeing it would practically inhibit
choice of sin, let him observe that, in every act of
moral choice, we are in effect choosing between
good and bad, and so cannot choose the former
without comparing it with the latter in order to
our preference.
Suppose, though, we do retrench the sweep of
choice in the direction of the experiential immor
alities, we are certainly not retrenching the sweep
of judgment and wise discretion; and if these lat
ter lead us to turn away permanently from sin,
then, surely, inasmuch as we have repulsed it for
reasons of judicious choice, we have been fortifying
the authority of morals whilst extending its sweep
in the direction of our higher humanities. But, on
the other hand, if we permit us an unlimited indul
gence in sin, the sweep of choice will be similarly
220 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

retrenched in the direction of morals, if not alto

gether supplanted by the conquering hosts of un
bridled lusts.
Here allow another word, per contra: We may
say of the good man that he is constantly approxi
mating a condition of moral power, wherein he can
eschew the bad for inhibitory reasons far surpass
ing those of the bad man, not simply because of
his better appreciation of morals, but because he
has a truer estimate of the intrinsic repulsiveness
of sin.
An immoral choice deforms both choice and mor
als. The crushing facts gleam upon us from every
new vista in our pathway.
Behold the process, for a moment. Bighteous-
ness and sin have been deliberately affirmed as
contrasting alternatives. Before us is an act to be
done, and there can be no question of our ability
to do it. The whole problem of right and wrong is
up before us and we are careful not to act hastily,
;

for we would see to it that we make a judicious

choice between the two. And so the choice is
made, and we side with the wrong. Right is out
raged, and her authority contemned. She may,
nevertheless, continue the struggle, chasing the out
rage with the painful repressions of remorse. She
inflicts a penalty for disloyalty, and in order to a

possible reformation. But an authority, once con

temned, is, to that extent, crippled. It is to be
remarked, however, that, in all this struggle, con
science is but making an effort to uphold the sanc
tity of right by proper reformatory methods, but
CHOICE AND MORAL SANCTIONS 221

without ever challenging the right to choose good

or bad, in any one who has still any, the least rem
nant of it And this seems plain.
remaining.
And, therefore, whenever we are in a position to
affirm that a bad choice shall not go unpunished,
we are calling attention to the fact that we are
neither adequately free, nor completely human, save
as we conform to that law of rectitude which condi
tions true freedom on a judicious and conscientious
choice. And, as bound by that law, it behooves us
to see to it that we effect some conception of right,
or duty, if we would ever have a self-respecting

regard for ourselves. And, if we would have per

fect freedom, we should walk blameless in the
law which has in charge the conative aspects and
retributions of morals.

For, here and nowhere else, is real freedom of

choice. A
violated law tells its own tale of humili
ationand ruin. The sentence of death is already,
and ineffaceably, jotted down in the creative act
which guards the sanctity of right, by the revenges
which follow its violation.

We are still in the shadow of a partial overthrow

of the supremacy of choice, noting developments.
Now, as ever, we act on reasons. The sinfulness of
every desire that besets us has received its every
content of power and character through the active
intervention of mind. For what is such a desire
(and I may include the propensities on which the
desire may be founded) but our thought gazing at
222 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

some object with an intensity of emotion that voices

the potency of our reasons ?
It is to be understood that we take the
propensi
ties, atany moment on hand to a present thought,
as under charge of that thought, and to be dealt
with as it deals with any of our common sensations.
For, like the latter, they contribute a peculiar batch
of characters, of which thought may make use in

reaching a decisive choice.

Some may be sinful because we now conceive the
sin; others, because we have done so aforetime,
and sin sticks.
We may, however, still choose, though on ac
count of our frequent dallying with sin, we now
make choice from the lower level of a depraved
outlook; our moral powers undergoing a declen
sion uniform with the grade of our turpitude.

For, once tampering with sin, we may so foster

the mob of unregenerate desires that their im
portunitiesmay begin to have the force of over
mastering demands. And then the power of choice
is shattered, and though we may still affect its

exercise, we
shall be but parading in the dilapi
dated toggery of a fallen empire.
Nevertheless, if thought is not utterly vanquished,
this right of choice, now so abused and battered,
has a valid claim in the court of conscience, and
so may even yet regain its normal
supremacy.

VI
Here the question suggests itself, can mind lose
the right of choice utterly, even though sinful de-
CHOICE AND MORAL SANCTIONS 223

sires be persistently cultivated to the last extreme

of beastly excess ?
If one be thrown headlong down a precipice, the

propulsion is much more forceful and mechanical

than rational. So of a reckless indulgence in sin.
In this case, to revert to a previous illustration,
the appeal is much stronger than a presbyterial
overture. For, here, the overturists directly an
tagonize, and finally displace, the authority of the
synod. And we need not add that this fate, not
seldom, betokens the fall of the authority of reason
and conscience.
How then shall we interpret this palpable over
throw of moral choice ?
We do not see that a soul ever becomes a slave
to passions, either through some unaccountable

eccentricity of his desires, propensities, or even

hereditary bent, or, for that matter, anything not
himself, or, at least, not of his own procurement.
The man himself is the author of his own undoing.
He might have controlled his sinful impulsions,
but he did not do it.

In other paragraphs, I availed myself of the

privilege of witnessing him acquiring knowledge
from all quarters, and then adventuring many per
formances through its power and I made up my;

mind that he could have such desires as came of

his own procurement and act with clear vision of
;

his personal responsibility for all he did, or could

do. And, I endeavored to show that he had his
desires made over to him by right of discovery,
just as he got the thoughts that inspired them.
224 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

And so, with such, views, and feeling, as I did, that

he framed every conception of sin and, therefore,
of the objects of sinful desires as well, I was not

surprised to find him devising a way to secure

those objects. And I remarked, further, that as
between a sinful inclination thus conceived and
fostered, and the object desired, he had deliberately
and actually preferred to commit the sin, and so
made himself personally responsible for its com
mission. For, did he not take abundant care to
secure this advanced order of personal motives,
emotional, desiderative, and voluntary, and to train
them to the office of moral factors, on deliberation
and purpose, for his own behoof? And does he not
take abundant pains to sate them with the very
satisfactions he prefers ?
And now, if he thus deliberately prefer sin, and
act on his preference, the act is his own, and he
alone is responsible. For, he has walked in the
power of thoughts, which awoke him to a knowl
edge of the voluntary and responsible impulsions
due to his human nature.
But it is well to remember, in passing, that there
is one thing beyond the power of thought at the
command of man. Be his thought what it may, he
has to defer to the inevitable REVENGES which follow
his sinful indulgences. He can by no means de
bauch his moral standards without losing the legiti
mate control of his emotions and desires, the power
of choice and morals undergoing an equal declen
sion and final breakdown. In other words, there
is an inability of will, as perhaps Jonathan Ed-
CHOICE AND MORAL SANCTIONS 225

wards put it, but as I would rather have it : The

legitimate control of our moral conceptions is frit
tered away and lost by a base profanation of their
divine sanctions. But, Jonathan Edwards aside,
once lost, there is never more appeal to reason ;

the self-assertion and now frenzied aberration of

the passions allowing none.
At this stage of my argument, it must be evident
to the reader that I do not regard the action of our
normal desires or even propensities, supposing they
are under the discipline of thought, as presenting
to conduct any illicit or unholy instigation which
itcannot control. On the contrary, so long as rea
son retains a shred of conservatism, it inspires and
puts its now (let us suppose) somewhat emascu
lated power into every desire realized in our practi
cal experiences, and to that extent is free.
But, when it abdicates their control, the principle
of freedom of choice is either partially or totally
nullified. For when we enter upon a career of sin
ful practices, we may contract bad habits, and then
the delirium of the passions may snatch the reins
from the nerveless grasp of the intellect, and death
burst upon the scene.
If one gives
way habitually to sinister influences,
he courting the final overthrow of moral princi
is

ples. It is only when our moral convictions are

held as a dominant power, fearfully ours, and call
ing upon us to maintain their sway over conduct,
that they become our rule of conduct. For, the
more habitually one defers to the right, the more
he has of true freedom. But suppose, now, that
Q
226 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

we have once gone into sin, do we not see that the

normal force of our moral convictions is no longer
so within our grasp that we can have either the joy
or strength that comes to one who has walked in
all the ordinances of moral freedom, uiidefiled ?

But, if we weaken the authority of right, we shall

so confuse, or else efface the very idea of moral
freedom that we shall lose the capacity to appraise
our moral conceptions, and so keep in touch with
our truer humanities and truer freedom. Liberty,
amended by a profane tampering with its sanctions,

is fettered in chains. And moral choice is confined

within limits, beyond which it may not pass, with
out danger of serious breakage.
To be truly free is to have our freedom in hand,
without flaw, or lapse, or declension of any kind.
One must welcome the austere authority of right,
let it retrench the bastard liberties of the evil-doer
ever so much.
The liberty that comes of a monster craze of the
passions ends in death.

VII

So then, it comes to this One cannot have a full

:

measure of freedom without a law to enforce per

sonal responsibility, upon its violation and if this
;

law be overborne by the despotism of unbridled

passions, we are really worse than brutes, wanton
ing in excesses, without a thought of constraint;
we are libertines, sensualists, voluptuaries, with
the vulture of remorse preying upon our vitals.
Now, how can we account for all this self-inflicted
CHOICE AND MORAL SANCTIONS 227

ruin, somournfully prevalent ? We may say that

there an inherent proclivity in our very nature,
is

to seek a wilder liberty, through an infraction of

its underlying principles.
We may lack faith in our moral convictions,
albeit we may never doubt their promise of good to
such as walk in their ordinances. For the realiza
tion of a promise is projected into the future, and
our frail faith may suppress its power and, lo, we ;

turn away to seek happiness in sinful excesses of

the present This is the liberty of license and
!

death.
But why should it end in a banquet of death ?
Here I confess to a fear that, notwithstanding the
careful presentation of my views, the young reader

may see nothing but a vast horde of vile propensi

ties going forth, of their own motion and force, to
finish with, and disarm, the power of morals. But
I would have him remember that these very pro
pensities, apparently so inimical to morals and free
dom (and whatever may be their native force and
mission), cannot, at all, act without
the cognitive
surveillance of mind, and do not act upon conduct,
unless as trained potencies, and as much our own
potencies as any power of thought, or any power
consciouslyachieved by thought; and if so, we
have brought upon ourselves the desolations com
plained of.

Intrinsically, as I have said, the power of moral

convictions stronger than any others, and should
is

have precedence without question, and if we defer

to it habitually, we shall know of the power of God
228 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

and be blessed. But then, in order to our freedom

and moral responsibility, just as soon as we can
distinguish between right and wrong, we have an
alternative choice, and can prefer even the baser
than beastly gratifications which end in death for ;

this seems to be the constitutive and fundamental

law for this order of transformations. Indeed, so
intent may we be upon some proximate sinful in
dulgence, and the process of moral dwarfing is so
subtile and insidious that we may not feel the
shackles we are forging until too late. But this is
as much as to say: There is something originally

tempting in sin, otherwise we had never made up

our mind to it with its lengthening train of pains
and penalties.
The truth is that it could never, at all, become
an object of choice, if it were so totally repulsive
to our fairer and truer humanities that we could
not feel inclined to it for reasons of choice, seduc

tively and deliberately immoral, seeing it is an

alternative we are not driven to choose in defiance
of reason of preference.

VIII

How, we ever come to have this power

then, did
to choose between right and wrong ?
This is an old, old problem, concerning which
this paper shall offer no bold teaching. All one
can look for is a candid expression of views, within
the pale of finite reason.
True, I cannot see with the eyes of Omniscience,
but I may see a valid reason for permitting the
CHOICE AND MORAL SANCTIONS 229

rise of sinunder a dispensation which provides for

a moral government coupled with pains and penal
ties, and connected with a plan of salvation
which
exalts the true believer even above the angels.
And allow me to say that, although this plan is

complicated with the question of eternal punish

ment, I think I can see why even such frail creat
ures as we are always excepting such witless
and godless humanitarians as take it upon them
selves to go before the Omniscient as an emergency

force, to soften the rigor of eternal justice why

even such creatures as we are would not hesitate
to rise, as one man, and demand the limitless pun

ishment, and even extinction, of a class of obdurate

criminals whom it were impossible to deter from
trampling upon the principles of purity and social
rectitude upon which the very life of our common
humanity rests.
But the ultimate reason why sin and death came
into the world no man can tell. Omniscient thought
and righteousness alone can answer that question.
But why should we stumble at the mystery, at least,
so long as we are not permitted to have an all-com

prehensive vision of the universe ?

Outside nature has a rock-ribbed scheme of trans
formations peculiar to herself. The vegetable and
animal kingdoms have each a several scheme distinct
from the former, so also has man one uniquely his
own. And no man can understand either thoroughly.
How unspeakably unjust, then, would it be to com
pare these diverse works to the disadvantage of
either? Who can compare the poel Keats with
230 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

Achilles or Ajax? Who has the psychological

ability to compare mind with mere physical power ?
Still, two paintings may be compared in respect
of their fidelity to nature, and we may see that one
will surpass the other, for we are comparing works
of one man with another s. But now let us con
ceive a painter of diviner vision than any other
man. He has for motive-subject, let us imagine,
the sea, and its wild rolling waves. The painter s
vision is away off into the illimitable distances.

The perceptive appreciations of. his eye surpassing

those of any ordinary man, it would be quite natu
ral for him to depict a coloration of waves at great
distances quite different from the dark, deep, sea-
green plastering seen in our best canvases. Indeed,
the characteristic positions and curves peculiar to
the shifting and blending of the fluctuations might
be caught up and rendered with a degree of truth,
literally bewildering to outsiders. But whether a
superior power of perspective could accomplish this,
I know not, for I am not a painter.
Now what would be the judgment of contempo
rary artists on such a picture ? Not seeing nature,
as he saw they would pounce upon it as a sheer
it,

perversion of her actual look, a wanton spoliation

of her features. Whereas, in fact, he alone would
be giving us a bit of nature, a picture truer to
nature, but not to be seen with our imperfect eyes.
It is readily seen that, with shortened visual

apperceptions, and denser perspective insight, the

adverse criticism could never be justified. It takes
a higher order of mind to pass upon a higher order
of work.
CHAPTER XX
ALTERNATIVE CHOICE

THIS problem is difficult. The sturdiest thinker

may not solve it. It should have careful thought

and fair treatment. Du Bois-Reymond shall begin
the argument That in a given instant one or the
:
"

other of two things will happen is unthinkable,"

says he. I enter no dissent, not seeing where the
trouble comes in. For, taking thought to be free
is no reason, so far as I can see, why its acts of
choice are so ordered that "hi a given instant
one or the other of two things will happen," or that
either shallhappen irrespective of a rational pref
erence of one. Reasons lay hold of one,"
and "

cast out the other Reasons determine choice.

"
"

No reasons, no choice no one and no other." ;

"
" "

And a rational preference of

choice is
"

one,"

011 information which forbids our selecting "the

other" ;
not the indifference of an idiot, flitting heed
lesslyfrom one thing to another. It is the absolute
negation of rational indifference, and means that
we are acting on some final reason for preferring
one of two things." We prefer the one and reject
"

the other, until we see a reason for a change of con

viction. The stronger reason will forever displace
231
232 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

a weaker. So, whenever we have this stronger rea

son, we have our choice, or rational preference, and,

along with a righteous personal responsibility.
this,
When, therefore, we choose the we reject "one,"

"the
other," by a rational preference and rejection,
not because, for example, we can taste apple and
peach, and then take either, ignoring the difference,
without concern, wish, or aversion, as between the
two. The force of some reason or information, in
accordance with which we cleave to one of two
alternatives, determines our partiality, or prefer
ence for it. The person as responsible, is as much
in every act of choice, as in every act of thought.
And so, it is indeed "unthinkable" for one who
acts on choice to stride from one to the other,
whilst holding to one, without making any differ
ence. The act of choice confines him to the chosen
alternative, at the instant of choice.
" "

The result is that, if choice of the one is a rejec

tion of the other, then, every such choice is a
rational discrimination,and preference, which pre
cludes our choosing the latter in the self-same
instant we are holding to the former.
If we make choice at all, we shall have to stand
upon our prevailing reason, and a prevailing reason
cannot be prevailed against. Indeed, we cannot
rise to a full act of choice, until the power of some
prevailing reason conies in to complete our choice.

II

But my position may be apprehended the better,

if set forth in the lines of some conclusions reached
ALTERNATIVE CHOICE 233

in previous discussions. This I will presently offer

to do.

Thought secures choice. Having thought, we

have a reason for choice, and act upon our reason ;

that is to say, we prefer, or choose, in

accordance
with our cognitive intimations, and so, if we are
free, we are beholden to some power
of our thought,
and not to an alien force.
If views are correct, it is evident that
these
choice is not free (indeed is not anything), in the
sense of being independent of motives or reasons,
but acts through their power; and that this power,
whether manifested in emotions or desires, or
otherwise traced back to pure intellections, is the
energy that goes finally into conduct
and deeds.
We are beholden to our own efforts, for any

knowledge we ever have, searching for and appro

alone is
priating our finds; and that knowledge
our causal efficient, ours and free, because, having
discursively, we can make use
it of it cona-
acquired
tively, free from causal constraint ab extra.
Then again, choice must not, indeed cannot, be
made over to us by any exterior agency. It must
come, if at all, through the informations
we have
been at pains to work for, or more correctly, through
the one we have decisive reasons for acting on.
discriminate
For, unless I acquire the power to
between two competing alternatives, and to elect
one, how can I take to it by a
rational preference,
or on the other hand, reject the other, by a posi
its ineligible traits ?
tive, tangible affirmation of
To do, or not to do, one or the other of two things
234 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

is decided by an act of judgment affirming prefer

ence, and therefore precluding the motiveless flop
ping about from one to the other alternative, of
course with variations quite unthinkable
"

and "

innumerable.
The power of a final reason explodes in a selective
restriction to one. And this power, let me repeat,
being ours by right of intelligent acquisition, is,

hence, equally ours, when employed in committing

us to a line of conduct which we have chosen, and
for which we hold ourselves personally responsible.

And, therefore, would I emend Du Bois-Rey-

mond s dictum, so as to have it read That in a
:
"

given instant one or the other of two things will

happen (in defiance of a prevailing reason) is
"
"

unthinkable." This lets in the facts which cover

the case, giving the proper (selective) power of the
decisive word in acts of choice, to the agency which
has been to the trouble, both to discover the alter
natives, and the reasons for choice, between them.
And this is all I claim for it. Choice, then, is a
rational preference. And so, indeed, a non-rational
choice is inconceivable. The power of some deci
sive thought must be present, to commit us per

sonally to acts for which we are consciously and

personally responsible.

Ill

Here an objector presents his view: "We grant

all you say, still, how could one choose either of

two alternatives, without being led to his choice

either by his character or precedent reasons?
ALTERNATIVE CHOICE 235

For answer to this I remark: 1. We make our

character what it is by discovering the informations
that determine its nature, mission, and value, and
have thus made it ours by force of the thoughts
that went to equip it for the work of choice.
2. Having thus acquired all the informations

that can be construed as in any way efficient in

attempering choice, we have acquired the right

to

employ them as our own, whether acquired now, or

at any previous time. So then, it comes to this :

If we have apresent reason, free by right of intel

ligent discovery, how can it be under bondage
to

those previously acquired in order to it, and like

wise free by the same right? The precedent
and present reasons are equally free, and equally
ours, by the same right of discovery.
In other
words, we have both character and choice, through
the informations which go to make them what they
are, and to make them ours, to be used as our own.
Our antecedent acquisitions stand to the subse
quent ones as enabling attainments, much like edu
cational advantages to children, qualifying them
for thinking and acting for themselves. For, when
children act from native impulses, and without the
guidance of thought, the impulses are everything,
and the actors nothing but puppets played upon by
powers not their own. But when taught of the
ideas they have achieved, they have educated poten
tials in hand for determining choice and conduct,
and so become responsible actors; acting and
responsible by reason of informations,
whether
acquired in the present, or at any other time.
236 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

IV

I note, in passing, some other distinctions.

Choice must be of something allowable. On the
way to its last stage, it is either alterable, or unal
terable. We
are often, for a season, as much pur
posed to choose one alternative as another ;
for we
may be making our way in doubt. Still, we are
never wholly indifferent in the presence of our
alternatives.
We are not to suppose, however, that every
opin
ion is open to change. Some have our unchange
able assent. An endless stream of changes would
secure neither certainty nor stability, and choice
would be futile, vanishing utterly in a flux of con
secutions without result.
Contrariwise, the search for a definitive choice
is a quest for something definite and certain, a
search for an access of discursive power, sufficient
for a chosen result. For we are battling for a
teleological find, and must take thought, in view of
the personal ends and interests at stake.
The first important step we take is to conceive
and outline our competing and contrasting alterna
tives. Then follow many tentative conceptions as
to their eligibility, or ineligibility, in respect of
what we shall do with ourselves and things not our
All this to prelude what follows.
selves, etc., etc.
Necessitarians assume that, if allowed to choose,
we are at the mercy of shoreless uncertainties,
but if we have certainty, we are in the jaws of
necessity. I enter here a general and particular
ALTERNATIVE CHOICE 237

denial of both assumptions. I shall remark first

upon the argument from uncertainties, confining

my attention, for the present, mainly to what pre
cedes and prepares for the coming out of choice.
To begin with, let us believe that we have to
wrestle with a world of uncertainties. We
are not

self-luminous, neither are we filled with all knowl

edge from start to finish. We
have to cleave our
on the
way, as best we can, to certainties, resting
evidences for the facts, which we can affirm and
act upon. Furthermore, we are impelled to elabo
rate, and hold to, opinions,
on consideration of the
evidences for them, because we would not have
in
them (indeed they cannot be) thrust upon us,
would rather have them
defiance of our consent, but
discovered and wrought up by cognitive methods
which attest our judgment, and put us on the road
to choice and responsibility, where we can act as
we think. For, when one acts discursively, he
becomes personally implicated in solving the prob
lems on which he acts; asserting powers of his
own, and struggling for more.
The opinion on which we act may be one of a
thousand, and may hang on the brink of disaster
a thousand times. At one moment, it may be

supreme, at another, crowded aside by others, and

so on, ad infinitum.
Often, the leading points of the best matured
plans have to be abandoned, and often, again, impor
tant decisions annulled, the check to our policy be
coming absolute. We
may be a nation struggling
for supremacy on land and water. If we adhere to
238 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

old wont and custom, we may encourage our rivals

by proofs of weakness, irresolution, etc. And,
thereupon, we resolve to disenchant them, lest, per-

adventure, we invite assault, when least prepared

for it.

That this nice balancing of views results in a

corresponding vacillation of purpose is evident.
But in all this shifting of position, we are but tax
ing the mind s distinctive resources to arrive at cer

tainty of choice and action. And, if so be we reach

a conclusion exact to these requirements, we have
gained our point. We
have reached a decision that
goes forth into result as a voluntary certainty
springing from the power of thought. We have
seen our Avay to a cognitive result, and cannot
longer dally with the uncertainties we were afore
time eliminating.
And now, the world has an indubitable certainty,
modulated into conformity to our thoughts.
Here I interpose a passing remark: The un
certainties, referred to above, arise, not so much
from the sheer reaching a certain con
difficulty of
clusion (anybody of the ordinary sort can have such
by the thousands), as from the fact that we may
not feel bound to act on even the correctest conclu
sion, seeing we can choose moral good or bad, on
condition of personal responsibility for our choice.
And so, we have a very common uncertainty which
arises from the fact that, for reasons of choice, we
accommodate opinion to the cry of our degraded pro
pensities and sinful habits.
I am not now to discuss morals. I am simply
ALTERNATIVE CHOICE 239

claiming that all these, and other, uncertainties, at

least so far as they help us on the way to choice

and action, are the characteristic features of a free
cause, as contradistinguished from either a
necessi

tating one, or an alleged power to choose any alter

native, irrespective of a prevailing reason. And,

therefore, is evident that, so far from clashing
it

with the prerogatives of choice, they are in order

to its discovery and command of its own multitu
dinous rational certainties, opening the way to a
chosen result. And in so doing, thought has gone
to the trouble of placing within the pale of fact and

reality a whole class of certainties, rational and

voluntary, unknown to and beyond the reach of blind
material transformations, for they are not mechan
ical results, but discursive achievements born of

thought.
What is of nature, belongs to nature, what of
thought, to thought. The diversities of the two
can never be commuted, and never equated. The
essential certainties, for the thoughtfuland respon
sible factor, are a prevailing reason and the choice
which is born with and founds on that reason.
I explain further. Thought seeking reasons why
itshould, or should not, pursue a given line of con
duct, is quite a different thing from what it is
when in an act of choice and performance. In the
former, though we may form any number of waver
ing, but valid, opinions, we may not see
our way to
choice, with absolute certainty. In the latter, we
stand upon a finality, the power of thought giving
us a chosen result. Whether the difficulty of pre-
240 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

diction obtains equally in things material is not

within the scope of our present inquiry. What is
uncertain for any reason is so, only because it is
unknown. And, whether there is as much, or
more of it, in the one case as in the other, I do
not know, and do not care to know. A voluntary
cause is sufficient unto itself, by a law of thought
which discovers its own certainties, and which per
mits and conditions choice and personal responsi
on the presence of a prevailing reason.
bility,
Such a discursive cause may have to make the
acquaintance of uncertainties innumerable. But
then, its mission is to take charge of these uncer

tainties, and carefully labor up to conclusions on

which it
may act decisively. And in all this, it
isa discoverer and revealer of a transformed and
transcendent order of facts denied to any form or
combination of matter which cannot act on its
reasons (if it have any). But such uncertainties
as are gone upon in view of results are part and
parcel of every problem of morals and conduct
brought before a competent intelligence.
The measure of all certainty is thought and its
rational standards, and if this is so, it will be at

pains to guard against any uncertainty of choice

between two alternatives. It has discovered a

knowledge, say, of the sequences of material causa

tion, and communes with these as evidencing some
trace of creative intelligence left in that work. It
remarks that no event can take place independent
of some law of thought to safeguard its advent.

For, if anything could come at the call of utter

ALTERNATIVE CHOICE 241

lawlessness, the whole scheme of mind, power, and

action, for man, would fall to the ground.
Thought discovers and acts upon some law of

thought in all it does. When the merchants of

New York would ship goods to the Great West,
we do not by the way of Spitzbergen
find they go
or the Amazon. A discursive law of some kind is
forever on the watch against such a peripatetic
diversion. Everything, everywhere, acts as it is,
or has been, informed by some inviolable behest of
thought. And here, I need not say that matter is
so bound by the law for material sequences that
it has no action of its own, and no power to deter

mine any. Thought, too, has to conform to the

fundamental laws of its creation, in virtue of which
it has been left free to determine actions of its own
by powers of its own. And, now, because it is an
innovating, constructive, cognitive force, with power
to act on the informations it achieves, its task is to
win a fresh wealth of verities, utterly unknown in
the realm of material transformations.
For example, the natural walk of electricity is
necessitated. As conditioned by natural limita
tions, it can never press forward into the new
combinations so recently sought out by scientists.
So, also, in the manufacture of metals, we may re
mark a number of chemical reactions taking place
at the command of, and in accordance with, some

requirement of thought.
A
rational certainty is, then, not one of this cast-
iron sort, but has to be elaborated, and integrated
by some present effort of thought.
242 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

And for this reason, we may not predict every dis

cursive event with absolute certainty. But if we
could, where would be the need of choice, seeing
we could, then, have our own, and our neighbor s,
actions consciously affirmed in the present ?
Indeed, if we could antecedently trump up acts
stillin the future, and still depending on future
inclinations to good or bad, this exhaustive sweep
of prediction would be omniscient. Moreover, an
unlimited power of forecasting results among men,
would, in practice, amount to a thoroughgoing com
munism of intellects absolutely identical and omni
scient. But if we are to be free, and individually
responsible, we have at our command a power of
rational discursionand research which will provide
the world with an order of certainties and acts born
of our individual thoughts. And yet it is a distin
guishing trait of an agent, individually thoughtful,
may be logically certain (and
that, whilst his acts
when gone upon, logically determined certainties),
they may never be foreknown with absolute cer
tainty; you could identify your
unless, perhaps,
mind with your neighbor s, and also anticipate
every turn of thought, and every extraneous cir
cumstance of the future.

V
So far, we have not seen the shadow of the
faintest resemblance of necessity in acts of choice.
But a new horror flits across the stage !

It is objected that when choice becomes unchange

able and certain, it is because of the reasons which
ALTERNATIVE CHOICE 243

constrain and compel us to make it. Now, we might

admit all this constraint, etc., and then deny that
the force of our reasons, be they ever so stringent,
can militate against our freedom of choice. We
do admit that the march of thought is onward and
irresistible. For we are so tied down to our reasons
that we cannot break with them. Our choice is
for reasons so invincibly ours, that we cannot take
sides against them, without taking sides against
ourselves. Their power is our own. We have,
first, the force of the thoughts we have achieved,
and, then, their consummation in choice, as result.
However, let us now have a fair exhibit of the
quality and intent of their peculiar constraint.
And here it ispertinent to inquire, how we ever
came to have alternatives before us, competing for

preference ? Observe two ordinary ones. How

did they become such ? Only through the power
of some thought of ours, placing them in contrast.
As alternatives, they have neither power, nor ex
istence even, except what we have given them in
the act of conception that parts them off into con
trasted, but elective, constituents, for the exercise
of a discriminating partiality.
Nowthen, inasmuch as we cannot constrain our
selvesby our own powers, for all such pressure
must have our own consent, and would therefore
be our own, and not that of an exterior force,
the question of constraint is resolved into one of
consent, determined by our reasons, and therefore
devoid of the least taint of necessity, in the ordi
nary acceptation of the term. And so, we have
244 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

the alternatives of choice, with their quality and

quantum of power, made such by the conceptive
and constructive efficiency of mind; made what
we would have them to be, in power, pressure, or
constraint.

VI

Consider, now, what takes place in an act of

choice.
We have just made our alternatives available
in an act of conception. And, now, if we make
choice of either, we must conceive a reason for it.
So, we compare the one with the other, in order to
ascertain which is the more eligible. We are in

quest of informations on which to act; informa

tions, whose special power we employ when we
prefer (choose) one thing and reject another.
Remember, we had to resort to reasons for set
ting up the sign of alternative choice in our
mind.
And now, we would have reasons for coming to an
actual choice, preferring one thing to the other.
Here my argument is that this sign of eligible
alternatives previously set up in our minds, as
above stated, does, in fact, suggest (orient) alterna
tive action ; and, if we act on the suggestion and
make we are but giving reality to one of
choice,
the eligible constituents of our alternative concep
tion. Weend, as we start. Completed choice is
conception realized; and this, in turn, is but to
realize, or give a practical issue to, the force, press
ure, or constraint of our conceptions, on choice,
preference, or consent.
ALTERNATIVE CHOICE 245

VII

It is further objected that the very force of our

convictions so fastens choice to one of the alterna
tives that weare disabled from choosing the other,
and that, therefore, there is, after all, no such thing
as a free alternative choice.
This objection, whatever else it may mean, im
plies that a free choice calls for certain
indefinable
and unfathomable, voluntary variations taking place
in defiance of reason and judgment. This would
certainly be very
"

unthinkable."

Among a certain class of theorists, there seems

to be a vague notion that a free cause should be
made of anything that comes handy. But, let
such advanced thinkers try their hand at giving us
their definition of a will, minus a prevailing reason
charged with the proper efficiency for determining
acts. Of course, there can be no acts of any kind
without power of some kind to produce them. But
the very moment they would equip such a handy
cause with power to act, this pretentious argument,
from a forceful vigor of reasons to necessity, or, if
you prefer, from the absence of a prevailing reason
to a free cause or free determination, would fall to
the ground.
As a matter of fact, consciously affirmed in all
manner of discursions, we get the opinion we want,
and put it to work, where we want going with it,
;

where we want it to go and it has the precise

;

amount, and kind, of power, we want it to have,

and no other.
246 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

For, whatever the opinion may be on which we

act, it, and its power, or pressure, is ours by right

of conception, preference, and conation, and, when

we make choice, it does not mean that our opinion
can be emptied of its power, and, evasively and
indifferently, make for
any alternative.
If we choose at must be for sufficient rea
all, it

sons, and if so be we acquire these, we have ac

quired the power to choose and act. Constraint, or
bondage, coming from an appreciative discrimina
tion of our own select alternatives, is a self-contra
diction. Our thought,
as causative, is but the force
of our reasons, as active. And, if nothing but this,
the pressure is of our own procurement, that is to
say, by virtue of intelligent elaboration.
But, perhaps, a simpler way of testing this gen
eral theory of constraint, or compulsion, would be
a brief contrast of our own powers with powers not
our own.
You bid a servant to do this or that ! He obeys,
ivith consent and on reflection. And so, the deter
mination is his own and therefore free, by right of
consent. But, he may disobey, for good reasons.
In this, too, he is free from bondage to opinions
not his own, for he held fast to his own, and dis
obeyed. But now, if he obey under pressure from
his neighbor, he would be a slave. And the same
is true of any exterior force overriding one s rea
sons. It would be a case of bondage, compulsion,

necessity, etc.
But freedom to choose enables the chooser to com
pass his ends by the power of his own thoughts ;
ALTERNATIVE CHOICE 247

his acts responding to the call (here power) of some

decisive conviction. Our causality is an act of con
sent, or choice.
We may here ponder another illustration. If, in
the existing order of things, all the resources of

thinking had been committed to a select few, who,

having thus a monopoly of ideas, apportioned them
out among the ignorant rabble, then, these latter
might rightfully complain of bondage to ideas not
their own, and because not their own. And yet,
notwithstanding all this intellectual despotism, if
the masses themselves were still free to conceive
it to be for their good, they would be free, to that
extent.
And from every point of view, the conclusion
so,
that the acts of a free agent can have
is irresistible

neither existence nor power, except so far as he has

power of thought to decide upon them. How, then,
can anything exterior come in, as an interloper, be
tween our thought and its power, at least so long
as we are permitted to do our own thinking ?
What we have through mind must have our sanc
tion, for it comes at our call, and so, is free.
We may constrain other things, but can never
constrain a thought, or be constrained, or necessi
tated, by one. Consider what takes place in mov
ing an arm. Thought is both cognitive and actile,
or conative, with no intermediary between it and
what it does. The act is its own, and, therefore,
free. True, we avail ourselves of bone, muscle,
nerves, etc., instrumentalities furnished of God.
But, as previously explained, so far as we can take
248 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

advantage of furnished materials coming from any

source whatever, they certainly do not unfit us for
exercising our voluntary powers upon them.
When America was discovered, the aborigines
knew nothing of iron. The more thoughtful Span
iard brought it over. The Indian picked it up, and
used it. Did the iron, thus furnished, abridge his
freedom, any more than the copper with which he
had furnished himself, ages before the advent of
the Spaniard ? Was
he any freer without it ?
At all events, we make of our arms or
the use
limbs does not estop, or hinder, or conflict with our
discursive freedom in the least particular. To put
our power on things exterior to our thought, even to
constrain them to serve our purposes, is a plain vin
dication of the several power of mind. And, to take
that step, we must acquire a fit knowledge of them,
and what we can do with them. In other words,
we make up our mind that we can employ them to
our advantage, and then act in pursuance of our
thought, doing what we prefer doing.
Now, to apply this line of
remarks to the subject
in hand, we maintain that, although man
may con
strain other things to his purposes, he
may never,
by, his own
at all, constrain, or be constrained

thoughts. He is very careful to work up to the

complexity of the task before him, but ever with a
view to actualizing his thoughts. And so, the ques
tion is, not that he can make use of other things,

but whether he can have an opinion of his own and

take advantage of it, be it what it may, and ex
ercised on what it may.
ALTERNATIVE CHOICE 249

VIII

And now I would have a last word or two with

the logicians. I have no unkindness for logic of
the veracious sort. But when plain facts contra
dictnineteenth-century, syllogistic reasoning, I
may be fairly excused for losing faith in the argu
ment for necessity stated in that traditional form.
I give it in full :

1. Every change is caused.

A volition is a change.
It is, therefore, caused.

2. What is caused, is necessitated.

A volition is caused.
It is, therefore, necessitated.

And now for our animadversions ! The major

premise of the second syllogism (what is caused, is
necessitated) is neither an axiomatic, nor universal,
truth. It is no truth at all. It is a palpable per
version of fact, a suppressio veri. But facts, alone,
should determine the contents of our syllogisms.
For, if not informed by these, they cannot be toler
ated in any court of reason. What is needed, is
not a regulation form of words, but a plain state
ment in any words that will carry the facts.
I own that my views call in question the so-called
universal law of causation, a law which has domi
nated and crazed logic from time immemorial.
I deny that this law can embrace the universe of
mind. Nor is there any conceivable reason why
250 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

it should. A
law of causation, universal for mat
ter, is all right.And a law of causation, universal
for mind, is equally right. No one need disturb
either. And there is no reason why anything,
under heaven, should disturb either law, least of
all should a law of matter overstep its plain limi

tations, and displace one peculiar to mind. It

would be just as reasonable to contend that a law
for discursion and choice displaces the law of gravi
tation. However that may be, there seems to be,
nowadays, a widely prevalent feeling, a relic of the
a priori teachings, that a law is in better form,
or, at least, a better law, if you give it a wide ex

tension; the wider, the better. Remark the gen

eral tendency to discover the universal law. From
time immemorial we meet with these all-compre
hending universals. There is the universal (?) law
of gravitation. But does that law apply to mind,
or I might say, to electricity and the luminiferous
ether ? Pray, tell me, if either of the above is
ponderable. Besides, illustrations drawn from what
matter and does, are utterly valueless for the
is

interpretation of the self-conscious cognitions and

transformations of mind, to say nothing of electric
ityand the luminiferous ether, neither of which, so
far as I can see, are either mind or matter. It may
seem strange, but is yet a fact, that everything in
the universe privileged, by common consent, to
is

have peculiar class of powers for doing its

its

peculiar kind of work, except thought. But

why should it be contraband ? Why should it not
be free to hold a court of discursion, judgment, and
ALTERNATIVE CHOICE 251

choice, and manage its own affairs, in. its own

way?
It has certainly a history, not to say a folk-lore, of
its own, along with that of causation ;
and no law
of material causation has ever dared to say nay to
itsacquiring informations, and consequently power
specially qualified to command a result in accord
ance with the distinctly discursive methods which
furnish us with deeds, or acts, for which we are
personally responsible. But in order to an even-
handed discussion with necessitarians of the syllo
gistic camp, I construct a pair of syllogisms which,
let us hope, have some respect for facts.
1. What is voluntarily caused, affirms the volun

tary power of the antecedent. A

volition is volun

tarily caused. Therefore it affirms the voluntary

power of its antecedent.
2. What is accomplished by the power of a
sufficient reason, is a voluntary act or free achieve
ment. An act of choice is thus accomplished. It

is, therefore, a voluntary act or free achievement.

These syllogisms will be referred to, and ex
plained in connection as we proceed. You are
careful to notice that I am recognizing the fact

that, when a
cognitive cause passes on to result,
the latter the final stage of the former.
is pecul A
iar cause will forever give a peculiar result, let a
law for material causation be what it may. For
example: Two men at work on the same subject-
matter will reach results as characteristically dis
similar as their dissimilar casts of mind, and the
different mental and other training they have under-
252 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

gone. But why? Because each has a power of

thought distinctly individual and personal, in re
spect of quality and vigor. Now, to compare men
taland material, or mechanical, power, what forbids
the former, as a cause distinctly individual and
dissimilar, achieving results characteristically free
in contrast with the latter? It has been shown
elsewhere that, in any work of mind, its impress
may be traced in all we know of that work. The law
for uniformity in nature, and diversity of causes,
affirms all this when it declares that like CAUSES

produce like KESULTS. And it results, as a conse

quence from a principle, that unlike causes produce
unlike results.

Indeed, until you allow for the peculiarities of

the cause, all you can affirm of any result is that it
is caused, nothing more. But the question whether
it is free or necessitated, even the how and where
fore of its modus operandi, lies wholly with the
several ability of the antecedent. And, therefore,
when thought conceives a result posited in futuro,
and which it afterward achieves, this result can
claim no other antecedent efficient than the voli
tional one that cognitively achieved it, if it be per
mitted to give its own version of the details of
performance.
Ponder distinctly what we have before us. I
need scarcely say, an actor and his act. If lie is
free in conceiving his act, can any one tell me how
he turns up a slave by completing the act ? The
power seated in his thought has simply moved from
the former to the latter, the completed act only
ALTERNATIVE CHOICE 253

making the transition and transaction the better

known, or knowable, as a whole, giving us the
finishing touches to a deed or work, to which we
have committed ourselves irrevocably. And, there
fore, should our syllogisms be so constructed as
to cover these facts.
I repeat A thought once free, as cause, cannot
:

take up any tinge of necessity from the fact of

going on to completion, as result. The same effi
ciency that conceives completes the result and so ;

both conception and result are attempered by the

voluntary findings and determinations of mind.
That the power of thought may compel or neces
sitate exterior things by as much as it can modify
or control their wonted transformations in the in
terest of itself has been previously explained but ;

always in order to accomplishing our purposes, and,

therefore, as ancillary to a contemplated result.
But, in this case also, our act, taken as the realiza
tion of a preceding conception, is but the intelligent
renewal and complete establishment of the conception
whose power went forth to consummate it. As
conception, or reason, or motive, or voluntary im
pulse, it has only assumed a final phase which we
agree to name completed choice. For,
result, or
result must be conceived, ere it can ever be
first

achieved. And, if so, it is potentially achieved

when only conceived the sole difference being in
;

the stage of action reached, whereby what was once

potential is now an active, and actually operative,
cause.
And now, allow me to ask, if the mere potential
254 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

is free and voluntary, how can it become bond by

taking a resolutely decisive step ? Would it not be
quite as reasonable for one to say it is necessitated,
because it is in process of completion, as because it
has reached completion ?
And here, I should perhaps explain that, as a
cognitive result is conceived and gone into on pur
pose, it will often require a prolonged study to
reach a decisive conviction exact for the determina
tion of a satisfactory choice. And therefore again,
choice as result from our study, is a personal achieve
ment conceived to be for our good (or bad), etc.,
and is, therefore, informed of all these particulars
of thought ; and, if so, then, opinions, motives, voli
tions, etc., are preeminently achievements of per
sonal power by and for the agent, and, as such, are

logically employed in the tasks of free determi

nations.
So much to clear the way for constructing a syl
logism which shall be informed of and conserve the
controlling facts of free determinations.

IX
I propose now, to offer a syllogism which, I may

hope, will accommodate the facts, and the logic of

the facts uncovered in the discussions of the pre
ceding section for I am not quite done with the
;

false assumptions of these mechanical views of vol

untary determinations.
3. Every change that is a conscious renewal, and

establishment of the power that conceived it, is a

free result.
ALTERNATIVE CHOICE 2o5

Motives, opinions, reasons of choice, etc., are a

conscious renewal, and establishment of the power
that conceived them.
Therefore they are free results.
It will be seen, and I hope the reader will care

fully note the fact, that I am here regarding mo

tives, opinions, reasons, etc., for choice, not now as
causes going into results when we are ripe for them,
but as RESULTS from our previous efforts to achieve
them, and therefore determined, or fetched by those
previous efforts. For what is born of a previous
perceptive, conceptive, analytic, and synthetic elab
oration and combination of materials, is the result
of those previous efforts.
And surely, any information, or idea on which
we may finally act, and here viewed as beholden to
some careful, previous pondering, cannot be any
thing but the conscious renewal and complete estab
lishment of the antecedent competency that went
forth to conceive or achieve it. And, therefore, if

the antecedent motives, reasons, ends, etc., were

likewise achieved by, and for, the same agent, and
no matter for what intent, how can the subsequent
ones, similarly achieved, and for any purpose, but
here taken as results from the previous elaboration,
conflict in any wise with voluntary determinations,
of which they were part and parcel ?
You apprehend that I am denying that a law for
material causation can, at all, apply to a discursive
competency which underlies and informs every act
of choice, conceiving and accomplishing what it
conceives. But this it could not do, if a law for
256 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

material causation which claims that "what is

caused is necessitated," could foist itself into the

body and soul of discursion and supplant or sup
press its intelligent procedures.
The act of thinking is the life of mind, and every
such act involves the unbroken continuity and

identity of that life in every stage of conception

and action. And, therefore, is it that mind is a
ceaseless discursive flow of free antecedents and con
sequents. Its condition, at any one instant, is a free
achievement in the present projected from a free
achievement gone upon in the previous instant, and
so on, back to the first thought a preceding achieve
;

ment ever combining with and establishing a sub

sequent one, without the possibility of a split in the
discursive fusion, or a break in the continuity. And
if this is a true psychology of the mental transfor
mations resorted to, we have here an irreducible
unit of discursive power and personal responsibility
running back to the beginnings of thought.
And therefore, I lay down the following propo
sition, as incontrovertible Man s freedom lies in
:

the sturdy continuity of his discursive methods,

whereby thought, at each instant, renews and founds
on the competency had reached in the previous,
it

indivisible instant. And

therefore, and in this re
gard, conception and choice, viewed even as results
from previous thoughts, are different from all other
results, seeing that they are a continuous renewal
and reassertion of the power that achieved them,
and not simply receptive of that power, after the
manner of results determined by an exterior power.
ALTERNATIVE CHOICE 257

And now I shall ask logicians to make room for

another fact.
It is known that each man for himself believes
that he determines his own acts freely. Shall an
antiquated syllogism which avers that, whatever is
caused, is necessitated, be permitted any longer to
nullify a rational, universal, and constant deliver
ance of thought, that man everywhere, and under
all circumstances, believes he is free and acts upon
his belief ? Observe that this conviction is fortified
by the undogmatic and non-speculative character of
the testimony. It is also further strengthened by
the fact that the witnesses affirm their conviction
with one accord, and without previous concert, or
collusive advisement. Besides, the belief is alike
individual, universal, and constant, in the sense that
all the individuals who constitute the universal, at
all times, and under all circumstances, persist in
affirming this belief, none denying it, and none
capable of denying it, at least, so long as man
thinks and acts for himself. Could any fact be
more firmly grounded on evidence ?
We are told, though, that such belief, however
honestly held, untutored, illogical, and not to be
is

trusted. Of course, we are thankful that all men,

under all circumstances, as long as we can think
and act for ourselves on reasons of conscious knowl
edge and evidence, can persist in honestly entertain
ing a stupid belief in the teeth of such logical
teachers. However, if the logic of the evidence is
258 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

no wonder we all have the stupid belief.

irresistible,
We can honestly believe, say our sapient logicians !

How exceedingly kind and patronizing are our su

periors !
Still, it may stretch one s sense of conven
tional courtesy a trifle too much to compliment a

chimpanzee for some rudimentary conceptions of an

honest, but pitifully illogical sort. However, the
chimpanzee has never been taught of the exotic lore
of formal logic, any more than all men.
But if all men, at all times, and under all circum
stances, will still persist in maintaining a stupid
belief, even after a so-called logical disproof of it,
how could it be possible for any set of men, with
such hopelessly stolid and illogical antecedents,
ever to acquire such knowledge of formal logic as
to divine what to be either logical or illogical ?
it is

Voluntary freedom is either a discovery at first

hand or an inference from one. We judge it on
informations consciously affirmed and carried for
ward into acts; and if all men affirm these in
formations, they are affirming voluntary powers,
consciously cognitive and, therefore, personal and
free. Indeed, if it were so that we had no knowl
edge of our own powers, but could reason, as we
now do, about the actions of other animate creat
ures, we should be led, logically, and correctly, to
infer that they were free to the full extent of their

mental capacities.
Formal logic, if true to reason and the evidence,
is, and can be, nothing but the statement of, say,

the informal cognitions and affirmations, on evi

dence that justified and built up the individual and
ALTERNATIVE CHOICE 259

universal conviction of human freedom. For such

a conviction attested in affirming every thought
is

and every achievement of thought. In fact, if any

belief can be affirmed as true, because affirmed in

achieving and affirming our every thought, the be

lief that we are free to think and act for
ourselves,
in defiance of thelaw for material causation, must be
accepted as logically validated, on incontrovertible
evidence.
If there be such a measure of gullibility and fal

lacy in this belief of volitional freedom, let our

logicians prove either an incorrigible imbecility, or
else utter recklessness on the part of all men in

respect of the laws of their own thinking. But if

we all say that we are free, spelling out, in all
literalness, our conscious thoughts and acts, an
informal but fundamental logic, veraciously accred
ited beyond the possibility of doubt, will affirm our
freedom from what we affirm in every thought, and
every phase of thought.
We are not todeny that there are many foolish
beliefs; some anthropomorphic, some naturalistic,
and some material. Explaining nature too literally
from the standpoint of consciousness, we have feti-
chism. Explaining man in terms of external nature,
we have atheism, materialism, and bad logic. Both
issue in myth. The former is the first rude attempt,
among uncivilized peoples, to reduce the chaos of
facts observed in the material world to some rational
coherence. The
latter is a later stage of this sys-

temizing tendency, but put forth to correct the dis

mal follies of the former. Indeed, some eminent
260 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

scientists are even now prating glibly of Darwinian

theories which work forward nnder the guidance of
laws which know not a lawgiver.
And here, I would explain that mere science,
authority, antiquity, etc., are no conclusive proof
of any theory which conflicts with belief in any

fact at first hand to say nothing of a belief con

;

sciously affirmed in affirming anything, from a dis

cursive fact within us to any theory, true, or false.
For, although men have given way to sundry base
and have stoutly maintained them for
less beliefs,

ages unnumbered, still, after all that is said, we do

not find that all men, at any time, have given way
to any theory at war with their belief in the fact
that they are free to determine their own acts.
For a fact, thus consciously affirmed, can never be
disturbed by any amount of theorizing about it.

Indeed, such a universal belief, so avouched for all

men under all circumstances, must be consistent

with every belief similarly avouched, and whether
of mind or matter, as I have endeavored to explain
in preceding paragraphs. And, as to this particu
lar belief in man s freedom, no theory of necessity
founded on mechanical causation is at all appli
cable to a power which determines choice by dis
cursive methods and considerations for which men
universally hold themselves responsible.
We have no right to take either mind or matter,
thought or sensation, and construct a theory at war
with the facts of either. We are not permitted to

tamper with our facts.

We must allow for the diversely appointed and
ALTERNATIVE CHOICE 261

restricted powers of self and not self, if we are to

preserve the purity and individuality of their social

intercourse intact. Truth is never to be had by
disregarding the laws which prescribe and restrict
the interaction of entities diversely empowered and
individualized.
If you interview matter, you will remark the
molecular ring of mechanical transformations issu
ing from its very pores. On the other hand, if you
could but touch pure intellect, you would possibly
observe nothing but a gleam of light, pale, pulse
less, and chilly cold, streaming forth from the tips
of your fingers. But man is more than sheerly
intelligent and so if you interview him, you will
;

discover life, individuality, and personal responsi

bility, a discursive energy, innovating, thoughtful,
conative, burning with voluntary impulsions and
humanities as bright as his intelligence. Thus far,
we are dealing with the facts of matter and mind.
Now, what shall we say of logicians who would
give us truth by a mere formal arrangement of
words so devised that such facts as our conscious
affirmations disclose are either cast away, or driven
to the wall.
The logic is with the facts, and not with the
select few who propound premises with the facts
of our conscious affirmations left out. And yet, if
the select few have been all their lives, and are
even now, indulging a silly belief of their freedom,
they have a poor way of backing their qualifica
tions for reforming that, or any other, belief.

However, to be fair, I offer them the benefit of a

262 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

formal syllogism which will cover their distrust of

the informal logic of all men.
4. Whoever habitually thinks, and acts on the

belief, that heis free, has no conception of the

logical connection between the power of thought

and free determination.
All men and act, and that habitually.
so think

They have, no conception of the logical

therefore,
connection between the power of thought and free
determination.
It is pleasant to hope that such a syllogism will
allay any distrust of my absolute fairness in deal
ing with the theoretical and formalizing logicians.
Still, one could wish them to give one the logic
of incontrovertible facts ; for every other kind is
chimerical.
But let me now contrast this mendacious syllogism
with one which will have a due regard for the facts.
5. A conviction affirmed in affirming every
thought and every act of thought is the one true

fact of the logical understanding, equally individ

ual, universal, authoritative, and incontrovertible.
The fact that we are free is so affirmed. It is,

therefore, the one true fact of the logical under

standing, equally individual, universal, authorita
tive, and incontrovertible.

XI
I recall, in passing, a point or two touched upon
in previous connections.
A prevalent error is to regard the alternatives
in choice as a conflict of independent and distinct
ALTERNATIVE CHOICE 263

forces struggling for supremacy over the will as

a something objectively distinct from themselves.
Whereas, as a matter of fact, they have no power
of themselves, but are what they are as our di

versely appointed conceptions struggling toward

that ultimate form which is reached in volition,
will, choice, personal preference, as it is variously
phrased. It is to be remembered that we
have,
here, a personal agent who conceives the alterna

tives,walking with such motives, purposes, desires,

etc., ashe can prefer and make his own, and finally
acting upon that select conception which explodes
in fulfilled desire, or responsible choice, as I have
so often explained.

XII

Iii some specula

this section, I propose to offer
tions upon the problem of ancestral heredity, and
its power to enfold our future in a germ cell, which,
it is alleged, predetermines choice.
What, then, shall we say of such a power, stored
up in a germ cell ? Well, for part, so long as
my
of our own, I
it gives us an express individuality
Avould not have one bit of it expurgated, for my ben
efit. Let it severely alone, as long as it is not some

blighting abnormality. For, speaking generally,

and after allowing for all manner of differences, I
am unable to see, how such a cell has any more
than
power to cripple choice with predetermination
or
any ordinary sensation, climatic conditions,
wide vistas of mountain and valley, or even the
cult of peoples with whom we live, etc., etc. There
264 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

to be sure, quite a wide diversity of effects

is, pro
duced by these diverse agencies, but the make-up
of individual choice is not robbed of one iota of its

prerogatives. Every exterior power has a distinct

office toperform, in respect of thought, but none
can disturb the right of choice, under normal con
ditions. Give each man the proper humanities of
the race, and you have race responsibility, normal
experiences, alternative choice, free determinations
and morals.
But I am not now committed to the task of say
ing any more on that aspect of the subject. The
point to be investigated is the relation Of the
present self and its present powers to the predeter-
minant powers of the germ cell.
And here let me say, that any amount or quality
of power packed away in a germ cell, that goes
only to the birth, being, and capabilities of the
individual, is simply an ordinance of God, in accord
ance with which such an individual must walk, in
order to be free and without which a free choice
would be a failure. And this is as far as
any germ
cell can go. It gives us an individual being, and
remits us to an individual choice ;
that is all.

But then, says an objector, this your germ cell,

walking so innocently before your sweet individu
ality, is charged with the virus of innumerable
other germ cells, coming down from the remote
past, and piling upon you a huge mass of predeter
mining influences which you cannot away with.
Very correct, and cheerfully conceded is all this
talk about one s ancestors and you must not sup-
;
ALTERNATIVE CHOICE 265

pose that we could wish, company from them.

to part
The man s
individuality and responsibility, his

power of thought and choice, for all that, is left

intact. And no amount and no strength of an

ancestral germ cell can determine anything for him
contrary to a present act of thought, or choice.
The power of thought never lets up in the presence
of any genetic force, so long as the man s proper
humanities and individuality are not evicted.

XIII

I conclude with some detached observations

bearing upon the problems remarked upon in the
immediately preceding sections. Choice is deter
mined by motives, qualitatively appointed for going
upon a final act. But, strictly speaking, a motive
is an end or purpose conceived in order to choice.

And, therefore, choice implies a searching, prepar

atory study of all the problems which bear upon
our personal responsibility for what we are about
to do, as well as also final consent and conation.

Hence, the problem of volition must forever rest

upon the view we can take of our personal well-
being and responsibility a careful allowance being
;

made for exterior potencies, present or antecedent,

whose presence and power we may by no means
ignore.
We are not omniscient, but, though finite, we
hold ourselves responsible for what we do, often
blundering on the way to our objective purpose.
Still, if we are really doing our best to reach some
conclusion upon which we may be free to act by
266 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

right of the conceptive power of our own thoughts,

that is to say, by the power of choice or a prevail
ing reason, we have not striven in vain. We are

simply doing our best, under our finite conditions

and limitations and in our various callings, to bring
our best thought and experience to bear upon the
problems of life, and in pursuance of those loftier
ambitions which are denied to orders of intelligence
where thought and animal impulse are more at one.
The process is an act of attention, deliberation,
and comparison, whereby a conception of alterna
tives and a judgment 011 their contrasting preten
sions clears the way to a final eligible conception
which we call our choice.
And having thus discovered a conception ade
quate to the demands of choice and personal respon
sibility, we set this conception forward upon our

contemplated work for thought not only illumines

;

our path, but directs, decides, and completes our

purposed tasks.
Finally, analyze thought as we may, there is still
leftover a vast residuum of ever present conditions,
such as sensations, dispositions, mental, moral, and
physical endowments, heredity, environment, etc.,
etc., whose office, as heretofore explained, is to give

thought the competency and opportunity to con

ceive a line of action for itself within the limitations
fixed by said conditions. And as thus limited, its
essential prerogatives, as a rational, volitional, and

responsible cause, are no more infringed upon than

those of matter and even God (be they what they
may) are infringed upon by conditions and limita-
ALTERNATIVE CHOICE 267

which prescribe and qualify a mode of being

tions
and activity for them. For, beyond the special
there is
nature, or strictly inner life of anything,
an infinite number of other entities, with diversely
whose presence and
qualified functions and powers,
role of action thought can by no means overlook,
but which, for their part, can by no means do, or

undo, what is thethought to do.

office of

Moreover, though thought must depend upon its

conditions, surroundings, etc., these can never ex
For
plain choice, whatever may be
their office.

thought has a character and competency, peculiar

to itself; even as the thronging potencies which
confront on every side have what is individual
it

to themselves. But to say that either the one or

the other can step beyond his natural province,
and, under the usual conditions of action and
inter
indi
action, supplant or suppress the distinctive
viduality of the other, is not only unphilosophical
and unpsychological, but utterly recalcitrant to any
scheme of reason which would provide for, and
conserve, the action and interaction of the two.
CHAPTEK XXI
OlJKSELF OR SOUL

WE have life and thought compacted together, in

a variety of ways, by the bond of
personal interest
in all we do, securing thus a
casting vote without
schism among the parts. We
never see life as an
undifferentiated integer. It is ever a memberment
of parts cooperating as
contributory factors in sub
ordination to a central whole. I refer to that
power
which, whilst securing a regulated concert of action
among the parts, perfectly conserves their diverse
functions. Life is memberment, plus a central
authority which is single, personal, and supreme
over all the parts. It has no expression, no mean

ing, no existence even, except as thus rendered.

It is objected, however, that there is no

proof of.
this unit of power within and observa
experience
tion.
"

How know we it ? All we knowis sensa

tions,"
etc. On the other hand, I contend that the
proof is through experience and observation; that
all our
experiences, even that of asensation, are
discursive achievements depending on some
power
of mind to judge and avouch what we observe.
A sensation is known, and can be
known, only
by the marks that accredit it. All knowledge
268
OURSELF OR SOUL 269

founds on the same power, namely, that which

achieves the idea of a sensation, emotion, relation,
or anything else, and discriminates one idea or

object from another. It comes of the heaven-born

and distinguish by traits, or marks
ability to judge
which identify objects of knowledge. In other
language,we infer life, cause, soul, etc., even as,
from a perturbation in the sensorium, we conclude
that it is a sensation, and not a cognition, a some
that under
thing which is not an act of the power
takes to know it. Indeed, we verify everything,
as we prove the existence of our neighbors, by
just
the unanswerable logic of their footprints, or other
marks of life and thought.
Eemarking now, more particularly, upon the
evidences for ourself or soul, I note that the infer
ence is not locally remote, like many we draw.
An immediate judgment affirms the immediate
cause of our subjective acts; as also the kind of
causes is likewise determined by an immediate
of the conceptions
appraisement of the character
transpiring under the direct gaze of consciousness :

when our attention is directed to acts of

just as,

right and wrong, we are remarking their contrast

ing values, affirming and appraising, at one and

the same time, and equally, acts and their kind or
character, of course somewhat vaguely, but still

intelligently, upon our first intercourse

with such
facts. And similarly, whenever we are regarding
the acts of a subjective cause, we are affirming
ourselves as their conscious cause.
For consciousness implies a conscious actor,
270 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

solely because, in conscious acting, we are the con

scious actor; the judgment
embracing and affirm
ing simultaneously one as much as the other.
Here I may explain that what we are
affirming
is an action and an actor
given in a concrete presen
tation, the judgmentavouching bothsimultaneously
and and therefore the affirmation of both
directly,
is
instantaneous, for you cannot affirm an action
severed from an actor. And this is emphatically
true of conscious
thinking, the affirmation of which
involves the coetaneous affirmation of a conscious
thinker or soul.
But how could one affirm any
for that matter,
thing without, then and there, affirming himself as
the affinner. Besides, there can be no
difference
in affirming an act of mind and affirming mind as
an actor.
The reader need not be reminded that the discur
sive acts just mentioned
are, for the most part, but
the beginnings of
thought. But though it
proceeds
from a present, conscious, mental
act, seen (at first)
in the concrete as an indivisible
part, to the actor
seen as its counterpart, it advances from the attri
butes immediately affirmed to the remoter
things
which manifest them, and from
things to a coordina
tion of their statics and
dynamics, reaching finally
a clear conception of the
personal and moral prob
lems suggested by such fruitful discoveries.

II

And so, we conceive ourselves to be what our

acts indicate, I am aware
nothing beyond. of a
OURSELF OR SOUL 271

prevalent illusion which bids

us find something
distinct from the mind and its phenomenal mani
festations ;
a something outside of what we know of
the mind as a self-conscious activity; a substratum
or essence, in which the mind, and its powers,
inhere. But this is a plunge into an abyss utterly
void of any tangible support. I know nothing, and

can say nothing, of such an essence. All I can

affirm is some really existing thing, such as mind
or matter; and I can know it only by what it is

and does.
As an mind must work as it knows. It
activity,
cannot grapple with its work without the power of
some thought enlisted in its performance. But the
soul cannot be said to be present as a free cause, or

personal and responsible unit of action, until we

have the aims which come of an intelligent devel
opment of our discursive possibilities. It must,
once for all, be born. We must have command of
all our cognitive resources. Neither the will, nor
any act for which we are responsible, can come
sauntering into notice, unbidden of the soul. And,
though we may rightly regard the will, emotions,

desires, etc., as indispensable forces, at our service,

or
yet the real efficiency is with the rational unit,
as these are
responsible soul. Forasmuch, then,
our instrumental forces, we ourself, as differenti
ated by organs, capacities, etc., determine our con
duct through them. Upon us is laid the burden of
conceptive power, not upon them, and we alone
are responsible for the manner in which that power
is employed.
272 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

You remark that the moral unit does not take

the character of a pronounced, personal cause, until
it has carefully cleared the
way to a mature re
sponsibility for its acts. It has to await the occa
sion of its discovery arid appreciation of moral
distinctions and needs, ere it can act on them. In
order to the empire of mind and morals, it must
have acquired the ideas of right and wrong, good
and bad, mine and thine, duty, obligation, etc.,
upon which to found an adequate conception of
itself as a power, single, personal, and responsible.
Otherwise how could the variant hopes and fears,
joys and sorrows, aims, anxieties, and bothers of
life, be combined, and not antagonized, in conduct?

Moreover, though we might acquire all knowledge,

yet, ifwe could not employ it as an innovating,
reconstructive power for our own good or bad, we
could never build up acts for which we are indi
vidually and personally responsible, and so could
not be ourself.

Ill

Thewill in particular, as tested by these con

siderations, is simply the force of our final concep

tion, or if you prefer, the force of our final reason
or judgment. For, what one does by any of his
members, he does himself. If he is only medita
tive, he does that work; if purposing, that work;
if acting or willing, that work.

It seems, plain, therefore, that, when we affirm

ourself, or ego, or soul, or person, as the doer of

an act, we are affirming a unit of power that carries
OURSELF OR SOUL 273

the force of our convictions into what we do. Now

the Avill, viewed
as our executive power, is but our-
self going along with our most urgent reasons. For
we cannot be personally responsible for either will
or reasons, emotions or desires, or anything mental
or moral, which undertakes to do duty as an outside
factor. And so, it all comes to this, that the man
himself, as rational and responsible, acquires and
wields a power he has acquired in acquiring his
informations. And, therefore, have we a personal
power which takes character from the grade of our
mental and moral distinctions and we advance in
;

power, paripassu with every advance in knowledge.

IV

Holding these views, I venture a version of

what transpires in an act of free determination in
accordance with my theory of discovering power as
we discover knowledge.
My first remark is that there is no call for any
of our psychical members to be free. Are any
of them responsible? As previously suggested,
motives or reasons, and the will, are not to be
regarded as competing for supremacy in acts of
choice. Man s motives, even emotions, desires,
and the will, are his own by reason of the acts of
exploration and discovery which made them his,

just as his will is his own rational impulse, because

born with and part of the informations he acquires.
Thereno segregated action of motives upon
is

the will, less can the will be disjoined from

much
motives or informations and left to work up for
274 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

itselfan executive power, personal and voluntary.

Man a sole energy in all he does, acquiring, and
is

having full command of, every information whose

final stringency is utilized in the crisis of responsi
ble performance. A sane man cannot do anything
without a sufficiently strong reason for what he
does.
The story is the same in whatever way we may
handle the facts before us. The soul is the rational
centre for both thought and act. The organs and
capacities are our own. Thought gives power.
But the doing of anything, in any way, does not
alter the essential fact that we do it ourself, on

deliberation and responsible choice. For, when

ever we act, we unite, adjust, and direct our every
spiritual member to secure those conjoint results
known as our deeds or works. We
do it all.
Our personal power as distinctly seen in one
is

act as in another; in the most ordinary, as in the

most complicated act of reasoning; in what is
simply tentative and preliminary, as in that last,
grim nisus, or effort, which delivers the works of
our hands. For whilst our members have no action
of their own, certainly none exterior to, and causa
tive of, the unitary power which combines and
controls their action, they act ever in concert and

subordination, as social factors under charge of the

above unitary power.
You see that we are regarding our spiritual
organism as differentiated by a variety of social
members under the control of a responsible factor
which acts with undivided sovereignty in the sphere
OURSELF OR SOUL 275

of thought and deed, and is therefore responsible

for both.

Now, the logic of the situation would be wholly

changed, the parts could act independently.
if On
that supposition, we should have thought without
our thinking; will, purpose, choice, conduct, char
acter, etc., without our being in either one or the
other. Besides, if we regard our psychical mem
bers as acting independently of each other, we
should invoke another batch of absurdities, such as
perception, without conception, and vice versa; or
information, without desire or emotion; or choice,
without any logical elaboration, or ultimating
reason of our own; and so on, to the end.
The fact of the unitary power of the mind stands
firm against all criticism. It is seen that neither

severalty nor schism is allowed among the psychi

cal members. Each yields a distinct, but regulated,
social service to the federal head. And the latter,
in turn, enforces a guarded responsibility by a
thoughtful employment of the subordinate instru
mentalities.
Asupreme ruler, we are not dependent on the
will, or any subservient member, for any help
exterior to our authority. An autocrat, with an
individuality and domestic economy of our own,
we act on judgment and personal responsibility;
never permitting our subordinates to step out of
the line of subservience to our behests and set
up superserviceable actions of their own, lest we
invite the instant subversion of our discursive
individuality.
276 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

My debate will conclude with a synopsis of pre

ceding views.
Our soul is a unit of functions, each of which
contributes a scheme of service called forth at the
command of the former, and without a trace of

extraneous, or otherwise intrusive, action on their

part. For, whatever be their role of action, it is

but the action of the soul, when employed in

rational work.
Neither the will, nor motives or reasons, nor
emotions and desires, can perform the office of a
supreme, personal functionary. Our freedom can
not recognize the action of factors partitively
pushing their way into independent results.
We mustact as persons, personally responsible
for our acts. Our psychical forces are but con
stituent elements of a discursive energy which
undertakes to know, and then acts as it knows.
What we call the will, for example, is but the
force of our decisive thought, and, therefore, a
power of our own.
Grant me thought, and I have its power or
urgency, and this same urgency is my personal
power or will, going into all I do. Our thought,
with its executive power, called emotion or desire,
in reference to the instructed soul or person ; called
the will, when referring more directly to our execu
tive, or ultimating power, is, therefore, our sole

efficiency in responsible conduct.

CHAPTER XXII
KEVIEW OF THE ARGUMENT

THOUGHT affirms an object and points out some

of its attributes, namely, some of its statics and

dynamics, and their phenomenal relations, indi

vidual or social. And, therefore, it affirms some
real things, not phantoms, and not merely
matter, but the realities of its own activities as
well.
It is powerless to affirm a nonentity; for the
latter is neither reality nor attributes. Nor can it
affirm chaos ;
for that has no principle of being or

action, and so neither substance nor attributes,

and, therefore also, no points of connection or
relation with either thought or things.

But in virtue of its contact with its sensor

organs, mind becomes conscious of a non-conscious

excitation in the sensorium. Now it is this excita
tion, or sensation, that the mind first feels in vague,
unripe cognition, and afterward perceives in clearer
cognition; and this is all it does perceive in sensi
ble perception. The sensation is immediately pre
sented to the mind, and the latter immediately
perceives it; achieving thus the naked idea of a
non-conscious energy acting on itself. For I take
277
278 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

perception to be the readiest cognition of some

thing whose features, or detailed individual attri
butes, have not then been, or else need not be,
carefully abstracted and accredited, on reflection
and logical elaboration. In fact, at the stage of
perception, the soul does not feel committed to the
task of affirming or denying any details, with par
ticular care. It simply beholds a something which
is not itself, and which it can so affirm. But, as
soon. as it can detach and study characteristic feat
ures, it is on the point of mediating and correlating
remoter and broader ideas, by means of conception
and logic.
Perceptive knowledge is relatively limited, the
mind not having certified anything beyond a con
crete impression in the sensorium, exterior to itself,
and so not having any rational conceptions; and
since it has not attained to a view of objects, as
founded on laws, forms, changes, features, and the
unalterable relationships which bind each of them,
as a part of knowledge to the whole which includes
the assemblage of characteristic features, since
it has not done this, it does not have such a knowl

edge of itself and other things, as will enable it to

elicita conception of its own wants, and to act
accordingly.
On the contrary, the office of conception is to
ponder the ideas reached by perception, compare
notes with the attributes of objects and elicit their
logical affiliations. It begins an active exploration
of such objects as it perceives, fixing attention
on,
say, some particular kind of energy and tracing it
REVIEW OF THE ARGUMENT 279

back to some outer or inner potency, or else con

trasting one attribute with another, or with others,
or with ideas and emotions or else discriminat
;

ing it as voluntary from a non-voluntary activity,

and so on, it has mastered the facts and
until

principles upon which it can act as a

responsible
person. But I may not go into further details in
this place.

II

Man is a personal power, taking a personal

interest in all that transpires within the purview
of his thoughts. His feelings are enlisted. He is
now SL
person.
Hence arise various emotions, answering to the
diverse character of his informations. He may
have attained to aesthetic and moral conceptions.
If so, his personal interest will be manifested
by
emotions which will express their character and
power. For one must have acquired the ideas of
the true, the beautiful, the sublime, the good and
bad, right and wrong, ere the attaching interest
can report itself emotionally.
And he is the more impressively emotioned,
because, being human, he comes to know that he
has secured these personal motors through the
watchful interest he takes in constructing a life
of rational impulsions and satisfactions.
Kemark distinctly that, when our emotions found
on conceptions of moral good and evil, any power
they may have over conduct is perfectly consistent
with our personal freedom, and this for the plain
280 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

reason that all our higher emotions are called forth

by some fact, sought out of the mind, which deter
mines their being and mission.
The hidden man of the heart is, in fact, never
" "

hidden from the power of mind. We may go off

into wild ways when led by vile emotions. This
is dowery of freedom. But it does not
part of the
change the dependence of emotion on thought. The
latter may be as wild as the dependent emotions,
and still direct them. Whenever we come to
ourselves, like the prodigal son, we have simply
returned to a previous condition of mind and
morals wherein we could think differently and
determine our emotions accordingly. We"
may
review and amend our ways, on occasion of a
sufficient experience of the penalties inflicted for
moral dereliction. For when one s views change,
his emotions change with them.

Ill

In foregoing discussions it was shown that, by

cultivating his powers, man walks as a differenti
ated and conscious integer, having power to liberate
an executive energy which goes into his work or
conduct. I would now retouch this discussion, for
reasons of clearer perceptive if indeed our free

dom is not an illusion.

Be that as it may, it does not consist in any
efficiency separate from that of thought. It is
not to be found in the will, viewed as an indepen
dent, self-acting, free cause. But it is in the ego,
or responsible soul, freely acquiring knowledge,
REVIEW OF THE ARGUMENT 281

and freely using its power in matters of choice

and responsible determinations.
But, as a striking feature in the conception and
choice of work is the display of sufficient power to
do the work, philosophers seem agreed to call that
power the will in distinction from other mental
powers, many holding that it steps in at the
opportune moment, and somehow or other, makes
us free by an impulse of its own, even in the pres
ence of our decisive reasons.
To all which the facts elicited in past discussions

give ample denial. There is no such thing as the

will acting upon or for the man, or upon or for his
reasons, and imparting to either, or both, a volun
tary efficiency not already theirs. The man him
self, as rational, controls himself by the power of
his reasons, effectuating choice by the conscious

employment of the power of his ideas in all he

does. The man thinks, and wills, as he thinks.
For doing at will, or by the will, is doing as one
thinks or opines; accomplishing in act or deed
that, for the doing of which, his informations have
furnished him the
requisite power, the result
being that, in allhe does, man is impelled by his
strongest reason, and can never, at all, act with
out it.

Another point previously made may be adverted

to in this connection. It is to this effect, that,
as man cannot perform a work by simply getting
ready for it, he must find some way of giving
finality to his opinions, or reasons. An opinion
whose force is smuggled out of the way in the
282 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

crisis of performance, does not possess the re

quired efficiency. Besides, it must have a pur
posed, practical stringency, if the thinker is to
be charged with personal responsibility for his
act.
An inexorable code of reason requires us to
excogitate some power of thought which will do
our work, and show us when to do it, in order to
our having any intelligent command of the reasons
why we should be charged with doing it. For, if
we do a work by conceptive power, we know it is
ours by a power of our own.
I confess to some anxiety to give these distinc
tions in clearest outline. I am holding to the view
that man competently equipped for acquiring
is

knowledge, and making use of its power, in his

acts. In virtue of the fact that he is a unit of
body and mind, he has command of the resources
of both. And, in virtue of his preeminent capacity
for discursion, and in behalf of the susceptibilities
which he cultivates and makes use of, he advances
upon the worlds of mind and matter, and wins from
them a wide range of unwonted transformations,
due solely to the force and dignity of his cogni
tions. In other words, he is an innovator, a
setter-up of a strange power, affronting and
remodelling the unchanging use and wont pre
vailing in the world of material causes and
sequences. And he does it all by employing a
power which is born with his thoughts. The force
of his thoughts, or reasons, is his sole efficient in
what he does.
REVIEW OF THE ARGUMENT 283

IV

Turning now, for a moment, to a more articulate

treatment of the function of reasons, informations,
etc., we are to regard them as man s all-sufficient
resources in the work of his hand; finalizing his
thoughts, in finalizing his work. And, whatever
impelling force they may have is his own ; the fact
of his achieving and employing them constituting
him a free agent, and personally responsible for
his acts. He himself is ever in, and with them,
either as a discursive presence remarking their
special characters, and discriminating their social
affiliations, or else actively choosing them, in some
final procedure.
Let me hope that the following incident may
servo to make this securely plain I see one ford
:

ing a river on horseback. He

holding up his is

feet. But now, why hold them up? The reason

is plain. He is moved by reasons, or informations,
which will have it, that it is for his good. But, it
is so that his feet still tip the water, and, there

upon, he elevates them still higher. The motive

here is likewise manifest. He is informed of the
unpleasant results which follow such watery indis
cretions, and would now protect himself from their
recurrence. So, from every point of view, we see
that man s actions come at the call of his reasons,
and he always acts as they urge him, walking very
literally "in all their commandments and ordi
nances," without the trace of a single deviation.
And yet, man is a free agent, and cannot be free
284 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

in any other way. For, as so often explained, his

informations are his own powers, made his own by
right of discovery and conquest, and so are not
made over to him by any power ab extra. And,
therefore, if they do determine his will, or acts, or
conduct, it is his own thought that does it. He
has been at pains to acquire, and now puts forth
the power, thus acquired, to go upon his work, and
do it, and so, he, alone, is responsible. No one
can take thought of the attributes and potencies of
things of himself and things not himself, in his
stead,and so, no one can do for him what is per
sonal and responsible in his judgments of choice
and action. And if he thinks he has a will, and
should employ it as a subservient instrumentality

for giving effect to his reasons, he would still

be employing the power of his informations and
giving them wonted sanction in conduct.
A
pertinent example will explain all this. A
certain man has an opinion which habitually con
trols his conduct. Suppose, now, that a neighbor
should attempt to give him one that he could not
make his own, and so control his conduct differ
ently. Would he not literally talk out the psy
chological facts speaking in his soul, if he should
object: "This thing you propose, will never do.
It would contravene my freedom, and make me

your slave. If you give me your opinions, and

deny me mine, why, sir, I am a mere machine.
I lose myself and personal responsibility besides,
when I lose my own opinions. You think to give
me your opinions, and make them mine, but if I
REVIEW OF THE ARGUMENT 285

cannot have my own, and give them full play and

power, in the determination of my own conduct,
you fracture that organic oneness of soul, by which
it is possible for me alone to determine my conduct

and responsibility in their untrammelled correla

tions. I cannot afford to vacate my freedom and

personal identity at one and the same time. I

dance to my own piping in the affairs of thought
and conduct. My opinion is mine; your opinion
is yours, and away with it.
"

This language wears the air of an indignant chal

lenge,and rightly, because it is a defence of perso
nal right and competency. You observe that the
speaker plants his freedom on his own opinions.
He has no quarrel with that. But he protests
vigorously against its being founded on opinions
not his own. He must have his own way of solv
ing the problems of life, and so hold himself, and
not his neighbor, responsible for his conduct.
And, therefore again, I conclude that a man stands
as his thoughts stand, acting only as he is in
formed and impelled by them, and that, whatever
he may do, and with whatever instrumentality,
be it emotion, desire, or will, or even his physical
members, so far as he can command their service,
the sole and indispensable efficiency resorted to
in consummating his voluntary and responsible
endeavors is the force of his reasons, or con
victions.
One or another of us has seen or read of some
thing like the following: A
great general matures
his plans, marshals his forces, and tramples upon
286 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

the columns of his enemy. A battle is fought

and won. He had to rely on the prompt service of
powder and ball as instrumentalities to be availed
of in aid of his plans. But in accounting for his
bloody laurels, would amaze us to hear one say
it :

The powder and ball achieved the victory." That

"

would be (to use, perhaps, a familiar illustration)

much like accounting for the production of some
great picture, not by the aesthetic and constructive
appreciations of the painter, but by the want of
thought in the pigments.
Victory will forever perch upon the banner of
the general whose power of thought conceives, and
executes, such efficient combinations as a disci
plined and faithful soldiery are competent to carry
out in practice. Powder and ball and paint are
but matter, fundamentally remodelled of thought
for carrying special concepts forward into con
ceived results. Kesult is victory.
A
thought, once born, halts not short of some
achievement. And once born, it is henceforth our
personal and responsible energy. It is renewed
and reformed with every process of discursion.
It is immortal.

As constituting a feature of my discussions, I

submit a few words upon the part played by the
appetites, as native propensities, in relation to
that of thought. As native forces they lend sup
port to our animal and vital economy, preparing
the way for the conquests of discursion. And, so
REVIEW OF THE ARGUMENT 287

far as they are not tempered by the latter, their

action is
wholly involuntary. And yet, in time,
they become so habitually under the latter s charge,

that they make only such demands as bespeak its

responsible supervision and sanction. That is to
say, they depend on thought for a rational instiga
tion.

Allowing, then, for what is voluntary and in

voluntary in our nature, we may see how the
continuity of reason is kept up; in part, by the
persistent importunity of our animal and vital,
and, in part, by our mental and moral needs.
And in this we have a way appointed, not only
for life, but for rational work, as well. Indeed,
thought could never, at all, enter upon its destined
work without these unthinking, sensorial perturba
tions. Nor could it ever have a conception beyond
them, save when, on occasion of their emergence,
or that of similar sensations, it essayed the dis

covery of its own powers. But let an impulse be

simply vital or animal, or mental or moral, or
mixed, and whether the ego be ready or getting
ready, the ideas on which we act are of our own
procurement, and accomplish the work of our
choice, or prevailing reason.

VI
Similar remarks apply to emotions and desires.
In acts of choice, for instance, what are they but
the personal and voluntary phase of some final
thought which overbalances some alternative one?
For, as previously intimated, though neither alter-
288 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

native has any power of competition except what

thought imparts, yet, as intelligent impulsions,
they occupy the position of release from, or advance
upon, our blind impulsions. Further remarks are
reserved for the chapter on the Will.

VII

Similar observations obtain in the treatment of

dispositions. In a former chapter I have shown
how they subserve our rational ends and work.
And here again, I repeat that we still act, as we
are informed.
Ponder carefully the following incident: I once
consulted a lawyer about some land I had pur
chased, the title to which some other party had
subsequently disputed. He asked me if I had made
any promises of payment to the creditor, after the
titlehad become clouded. I replied, "

Certainly, if
such a question had ever been propounded to me."

Now, for the drift of this incident. 1. It dis

closes an affirmed identity of person, at two differ
ent periods separated by years. 2. It asserts the

power of my dispositions (here character) over my

conduct; otherwise I had not affirmed that I must
have promised payment. 3. It affirms that the

dispositions or character are an ever-present power

for which I am responsible, as a conscious, con

tinuous, determinant of my actions, past or present.

And this is plainly what is meant by one s dis
positions affecting one s conduct. Speaking so
confidently of what I would have said, I must have
known my moral character as a power over my
REVIEW OF THE ARGUMENT 289

conduct. It is to be understood, however, that

whatever power there may be in dispositions or
character, has been built up by dint of the informa
tions, that so form and transform it, that it is made
ours in contradistinction from another s. And so,
here too, we are beholden to reasons, ideas, infor
mations, etc., for conceiving and shaping character;
giving us rational power and egoistical responsi
bility.
But I call up another example to illustrate and
support my contention. We take kindly to a child,
let us say, because we love it. Now, it is apparent
that, whatever may be the content of this sentiment
it is mine, and, therefore, if moved to do the child
a kindness, some motive of tenderness would impel
me. But what put it into my soul, and held it
there so stubbornly that I. could so confidently and
correctly claim it to be mine ? The answer is that
the whole past of my life has been one unending
quest for informations, some tender, gentle,
affectionate, some aesthetic, some softly beautiful,
some flower-like and bright, and I discovered
and fixed the sentiment forever in my soul.
And may say that you may take any moment
I
of the past, be it away back at the beginning, and
if it be a question how I came by either motives
or personal character, there can be but one answer :

Every factor that dares to control, or has controlled

me, I made my own by the quality and power of
my own unless, perchance, I lost
thoughts, my
personal powers and identity in the meantime.
I notice that my remarks are becoming, more and
290 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

more, egoistical if not egotistical. But then, there

are reasons for this, too. For I would have it
understood that, in rational determinations, we
have to deal with the person, or ego, and in this
way have every act egoistical or personal, i.e., gone
upon for reasons of personal effort and responsi
bility.

VIII

It may, however, still be objected that whatever

acts on the ego, must necessitate thought to that
extent. Now, I do not controvert that view, when
properly explicated. But it is misleading, in that
it does not give a fair view of the prerogatives of

thought. I admit that it takes many things to put

a free cause in place for entering upon its discursive
functions. And no one can object to the binding
force of the enabling laws which support, and con

serve, the rational procedures, on which we are free

to think and act. But, what is all this pre-arrange-
ment for the necessary action of exterior things,

upon us, but the complement of prerequisites fur

nished of God, in order to the incoming of our
voluntary competencies? And why should not
thought be informed of the presence and power of
neighboring, and co-active, entities? What for
bids our having neighbors on such terms as will
allow our being so conversant with them and their
ways, that we may be profited by as much as we can
discover of them and their ways? Certainly, it is
from these thronging potencies, thought s outside
objects, that we discover the very informations
REVIEW OF THE ARGUMENT 291

which us for dealing with them efficiently, in

fit

consummating all our voluntary undertakings.

Indeed, if we are ever to have discursive liberty
in acts, it is all in the power of thought to gain
such knowledge of neighboring potencies, be

they native endowments or what not, as will

enable us to square our conduct by what we know
of them. It is a question of two potencies, one

discursive, the other material, naturalistic, or else

animal. The former must know the powers of the
latter, as well as those of itself, in order to the

performance of acts in accordance with what

it

knows of both.
CHAPTER XXIII
A SELF-ACTING WILL

SOME philosophers deny to reason the power to

determine the will, or acts seeking man s freedom
;

in a self-acting will, so called. A brief examination

will disclose the curious psychological perversions
of this theory.

However, if we are free through the self-action

of the will, it may be of some interest to see how
such action makes us free, and to connect (if we
can) the logical conclusions with that freedom. I
protest, though, that I regard such a will as a non
descript factor with which I have no acquaintance,
its apostles reporting its features in vaguest
verbiage. It is to be hoped, however, that we can

presently see how this fantastic self-action of the

will can be got to work in the tackle of truth.
1. I remark that if there is really no need of a
will,taken as something distinct from the inherent
force of our reasons, then, why should we impro
vise this additional factor, which claims to be not

only distinct from the force of our thoughts, but

self-acting ? There must be some very incoherent
thinking on the part of one who, in constructing a
theory to relieve us of the efficiency and sufficiency
of motives, clutters it up with such incongruous
and unphilosophical padding.
292
A SELF-ACTING WILL 293

2. As to the fundamental facts of volition, my

position is now perhaps so well known, that
I recur
to it only as a reminder in passing. I repeat
that, if we would do anything, we must have a con

ception of the thing to be done, and then follow it

up by a decisive reason for doing it and we do

;
it

by the power which born with our decisive rea

is

son. This seems explicit, to a finish.

However, it is allowable to suppose that there

may be another force standing outside of this

final and decisive reason. But even then, it could
not be said to be self-acting, if it be found habitu
ally toconform to the appreciations of the former.
So then, if the same potency that conceives and
concludes to do things, in posse, instantaneously
and actually does them, there is no more neces
sity for excogitating an independent and self-
acting will than for an independent and self-acting
memory, judgment, imagination, or divers other
elaborative processes. Such facts as these proclaim
the man himself, or say, in a phrase, the power of
his thought, and nothing else, to be the sole energy
resorted to in conception and act.
The power of some reason determines all he
does a power which is not withdrawn in the
presence of a self-acting will, if there should be
any such. But for that matter, even if such a
will should attempt to block the way of an energy
so resistless as a decisive reason, the shock of the
conflict would amount to zero, the power of reason
forever exacting a rigorous conformity to its behests.
3. A self-acting will cannot achieve our free-
294 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

dom. The impossible feat would make us slaves

to a neighboring factor, playing the role of an
officious intermeddler. Psychology is of stubborn
facts, not baseless surmises, otherwise we can af
firm, or deny, as we
list, and get only rubbish for
our pains. is in facts that we must seek
"It

general principles, and these must always accord

with the facts," says Aristotle.
I delay to ponder this teaching, for a moment,
in connection with the facts of our active and
forceful intelligence, as seen in the power of our
informations. Founding on reasons, consciously
our own, we have achievements, consciously our
own and if thus consciously our own, where can
;

a self-acting will come in, if at all ? An inter

loper is a born outsider, without knowledge and
without its power. Moreover, if we act as we
think, nothing can divide our responsibility, for
we are equally and impregnably conscious of
having won such informations as fix the value of
our own, and others acts, and define the confines
,

of themeum and tuum of each.

And therefore, let me insist that,
if we are the
cause of our acts through the force of our rea
sons, it cannot be denied that we are responsible
for them; and that much being settled beyond

controversy, the claims made for the non-deter

mination of conduct by motives or reasons must
fall to the ground.
So, too, we can have no need to soften down, or
else avoid, the force of our sinful motives, lest we

question an ordinance of God by which they act

A SELF-ACTING WILL 295

efficiently for our good or bad, in defiance of tlie

evasive self-sufficiency of a self-acting will. The
urgency for some clever way of relieving God of
responsibility for sin is not so apparent just here,
seeing we are free through a conscious achieve
ment of informations, consciously ours, and for
which we are, therefore, consciously responsible.
4. But other anomalies coming in, almost un

announced, may explain this pet scheme of a self-

acting will. Though the will is put forward as a

self-acting energy, I aminclined to opine that it is,

nevertheless, not so. For, inasmuch as it is con

fessedly our will, action must be ours also and
its ;

if ours, what becomes of the theory of self-action ?

5. It must be independent, in some way or other.
But if so, how ?

6. It cannot be both independent and depen

dent. And yet, it is both. For, whereas they
dogmatically asseverate its self-action, they never
theless argue that this self-action must, in some
way, be man s ;
and a dependent energy.
if so, it is

7. If it is either singly, then the other is a

myth. But query, which of the two is non-

mythical ?
8. If you destroy a self-acting will, the theory

falls to pieces, and nobody is hurt. For man may

yet be free through the constructive might of his
intellections.

Contrariwise, if you destroy our will as our own

conscious energy going into acts of conduct and
choice, then you are in this position You have de :

stroyed that power in thoughts by which you have

296 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

any choice or preference in acts, and have no power

henceforth even to conceive how a self-acting will
can make over to you a conscious achievement of
your own.
We must have a will of our own for our own
action. The theory for any action extraneous to
the power of thought is untenable.
9. If the will is to be made
self-acting, and so
can act from its own centre, in order to free it from
the power of motives or reasons, then the man him
self is not free. For moral rectitude and wrong
depend on right and wrong motives.
10. And furthermore, if it is
self-acting, and so
can act independently, whence comes the turpitude
of our acts ?
Especially, how can man sin, when,
though he may feel his sinful motives much as one
feels a sensation, the power to employ them in con
duct remains with a self-acting will, beyond his
control ?
11.Or, as a possible alternative, do motives, after
really influence the will ?
all, But if so, what be
comes of the surplus and extraneous factor of its
self-action ?
12. As man is free
(let us concede) not through
the efficiency of his thought, but in virtue of a self-
acting will, it is in fact not he that is free, but
really and only his self-acting will. And so, we
have again the same old, redoubtable
anomaly that,
whilst he, for his part, has no power of thought for
his determinations, the self-acting will,
being, for
its part,the real efficient in conduct, alone is the
author of sin, and the man himself is guiltless.
A SELF-ACTING WILL 297

But, a will can exploit this unconditioned

if such,

fencing, then we have, on the one hand,

man with
a moral spontaneity, fitted for choice, and open to
sin, but powerless for its commission, because he
cannot determine his way either to or from it.

And so, on the other hand, we have God creating

a

being who can have sinful desires and cherish them,

too (which is sin) and the man himself,
;
sinful

though he be, improvising an irresponsible factor

of self-action to relieve his Creator, at the expense
of his own freedom and worse, the creature mak
;

ing himself and his Creator equally ridiculous by

a theory which, besides being a failure, belittles
and besmirches both.
13. As a self-acting will determines actions for
itself (lest otherwise motives might
determine
man s actions),then, however much it may be ac

quainted with sin, it is nevertheless irresponsible.

Divorcing from motives, it is in the condition
itself
of an idiot who knows of none to be divorced from.
14. I may mention another curious consequence

resulting from this mistaken analysis of the facts

of volition. Inasmuch as by this theory (see pre
vious paragraphs) a man s reasons cannot determine
his acts, he cannot, for that reason, be held respon
sible for them. Still, as they are
determined by
his vicar (the supposed self-acting will), notwith
standing the contradiction which is a perquisite of
its self-action, he yet be regarded as the real
may
and responsible doer of them. For, what a man
does by his vicar, he does himself (though, if the
vicar act for himself, how can another lay claim to
298 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

his acts ?). However, inasmuch as man thinks he

there remains the possibility that his vicar
is free,

has some way of commending to him the freedom

and responsibility due to a competent thinker.
Now let us think that he succeeds in. this. Then,
we have the man free by the self-action of his will,
and all he has to do arms and wait,
is to fold his
until his vicar has made
his freedom over to him,
011 condition, however, that it should in no case

cause him to accept it, neither permit his motives

to do so.
15. Here another formidable puzzle obtrudes
itself : I am free to admit that, inasmuch as non-
determinists are not over-careful in their language,
it may after all be claimed that a self-acting will
is man s, and that, therefore, whilst the Creator is
exculpated from sin (seeing that, by the present
supposition, it must rest with the voluntary act
of
the man who has such a will) it does not necessarily
relieve the latter, now that he is furnished with

such a will, at his command, if indeed he can com

mand such a will. Now, we have here a self-acting
will put forward to relieve God of responsibility
for man s sinful thoughts and deeds. But you
remember that such a will is placed outside and

independent of motives, expressly to give it a self-

sufficiency relieved of their power. (I have already
mooted this point in other connections.)
But I wish now to see how this newer figment
fits in with the known facts of thought and voli

tion or choice. Granting such a will to be man s,

it is to be remembered that iion-determinists have

A SELF-ACTING WILL 299

it self-active, for the reason that neither the force

of one s reasons nor that of anything else, save
such a will, should determine our conduct. Bear
ing this in mind, I am tempted
to propound the

question If such a will is

: so fledged with the self-
sufficiency of self-action as to be independent of
God as a causal efficient, in its own acts, and in this

way exonerate Him from responsibility for the sins

of Adam and his posterity, would it not, in like
manner and for like reasons, also discharge any
man with such a will from the guilt of sin ? The
logic is inexorable. If it exculpates one, it excul

pates the other. Any kind of self-action devised

expressly to traverse cause, and so
have the Cre
ator eliminated as, in any way, a responsible fac
tor for what we see of sin, equally traverses the
causal efficiency of our reasons, and with like
result.
Such lavish blundering may be a trifle pictu
resque, but not very instructive.
The determinist handles these points in accord
ance with the known facts of volition and choice.
He has an abiding faith in the power and office of
his reasons. He argues If the man
: himself does
his acts, by the inherent force of his reasons in

other phrase, if he is endowed with the capacity

in
for achieving knowledge and acting upon it
that case, the actis his own, and he alone is respon

sible. For he walks by the light of the prevailing

reasons or motives which he affirms and these
;

identify him with his acts, as having consciously

conceived, and, then, exercised, a power to
do them ;
300 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

and therefore has he made himself consciously and

personally responsible for the exercise of that
power, in he does. He sees the act is his, by
all

conception and execution, and therefore, also the

guilt or innocence, if there be any. Of this there
is not even the faintest shadow of doubt in him,
any more than he can doubt of his conceiving
the prevailing reason on which he acted. He is
open-minded and trustful. He is not to be found
poking about with a candle in hand, in order to
discover how God could formulate a moral govern
ment of choice and personal responsibility for sin,
and Himself be guiltless, ere he, for himself, could
feel sure of the unspeakable responsibility which
rests upon himself for the deliberate conception
and choice of sin. His great concern is for him
self and what is true of himself as a sinner,
true of the power of his sinful thoughts to fix the

responsibility upon himself for his sinful acts.

And here, he is above all things sure, beyond all
doubt j
sure of conceiving a power of thought for
finalizing and actualizing choice sure of his
;
sin
and the resulting personal responsibility for its
commission.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE WILL

A DISCUSSION of the will is a discussion of ulti-

mating reasons or opinions, or choice. Expounded

distinctly, the will is the inborn force of our final
or decisivereason. The explanation has been
explicitly outlined in preceding pages, somewhat
after the following manner You have opinions of
:

some kind, such that you are in the position of one

who is about to take some final action. And these
antecedent opinions prepare the way for your tak

ing that final action or step. And now, when you

actually take that step, you must also have an
opinion, or reason, for that too. Suppose, now,
that you are engaged in the very act of taking that
step. What becomes of the opinion in the instant
of action ? Can you annihilate it instanter, and do
the act without your reason, or reasons, impro
vising an alien force, for the nonce? May be,

you could not. But, even if you could, you would

still have to conceive a reason for that too and ;

you would be exactly where you were before, act

ing on your last reason.

II

So then, we are driven to the conclusion that

thought, opinion, information, or reasons, is not an
301
302 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

insulated ideation posing listlessly as a mere sub

jective consciousness, but an activity going for

ward into act or conduct. And, if our opinions do
have this practical outlet, we must needs be adher
ing to them with a personal (here emotional and
desiderative) fervor, adequate to pass them over
into our acts and if thus passed over, we have
;

gone upon an act of choice or preference, as I may

now explain more particularly.
An act of choice is an act of personal preference,
on mature reflection, let us think. For, here you
hold an opinion of personal preference so tensely
personal that you abide in, and side with it, it may
be, through all the successive stages and phases of
preparation and final consummation in act or deed.
The opinion is yours in conception and deed,
"

one and inseparable." You choose, or prefer, or

wed, all your acts.
But wherefore
? Because an opinion of prefer
ence but yourself, discursively working up to a
is

contemplated result. You have sought out your

final working opinion, and now you cannot play
fast and loose with it,and so recall the power you
are putting into it. In its various stages of pro
gressive achievement, it had your support, and now
that you have come to an act of choice, you cannot
withdraw the same support. You have won the
power to act on your final thought, and a final
thought goes on to result, as remorselessly as an
iceberg.
To be sure, every opinion, in its earlier stages,
is held with a vigor, perhaps somewhat more cogni-
THE WILL 303

tive than actile, or finalizing. But then, as soon as

it becomes final, it and its peculiar vigor become
both conceptive and creative of a preferred work.
I need not say that this vigor may be remarked
even in the faintest perceptions, or the beginnings
of thought. But then, as previously intimated,
when it culminates in conduct or deed, the personal
fervor becomes more intense, and so is given over
to an actile or efficiently constructive effort.

Wherefore, I claim that, from every point of

view, whatever may be the last phase of the thought
we take for doing an act, we take the same in doing
it. Or, to put it differently, we may say that what
prepares us for doing an act reappears in the work
we do as the power of our final discursion. It does
our work.
And, to prevent misconception, let me say dis

tinctly that this power of our last discursion, this

personal fervor which is born in and with our de
cisive thoughts, is the sole, true cause of all our

acts, passing over, asdoes, into all we do, as

it

our personal preference or choice, and giving us an

act of volition or will. For an act of will is an act
of volition, which, in turn, is nothing more or less
than an act of personal preference, or choice, deter
mined by a prevailing reason. So much to give my
position explicitly.

Ill

I am fighting my way up to the mount whence

we may see how a productive energy like thought,
behaves itself when, upon reaching the crisis of
304 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

performance, it would finish with its proposed task.

And, I could wish to see more clearly, if possible,
whether this power of thought which gives us pref
erence or choice, is volition or will, or whatever else
we may call the real cause of our acts.
As intimated above, similar considerations apply
to questions of power in all knowledge, whether

preparative or actile. For every information, b p

it perception or conception, or what not, has i-f

peculiar power, which, on becoming final, issues i

conduct as our voluntary cause. But this pow^

of knowledge is the power of the person who Ac
quires it. And, therefore, whenever we conceive
an ultimating opinion or conviction, we have ac
quired a personal energy, called indifferently an
intelligent impulsion or voluntary cause. Thought
and its power is, then, the true cause of all we do,
or can do.
It is, of course, gradually attempered by every in
crement of knowledge, every such increment telling
(in the quality and vigor of the impulsion) of the de
gree of culture attained by the thinker, as may be
seen from the following. Inform a mere child of the
letters and civilization of Greece and Borne, and
he would not be moved by the same impulses,
either in kind or degree, as a cultivated scholar.
In either case, however, the thing called opinion,
or reason, or conviction, does not profess to be knowl

edge without at least a due minimum of mental and

personal vehemence. It must have some vim, else
it cannot live.

Now then, if the character of this vehemence is

THE WILL 305

measured by the amount and quality of mental and

moral cultivation on hand at the moment of acting,
it isevident that, by the lex prioritatis, every pre
con
ceding opinion, whatever may be its peculiar
tingent of power, is also to be measured by the
extent of our, then, cultivation. And if this be so,
then the impulse, which we call the will, is here
again, as always, a constituent
element of our
jmght or opinion, etc. or a power in knowledge,
;

thout which no thought can pretend to main-

itself for an instant, whether preparatory or
<n

And conclude, again, that the will is noth

so we
final reason passing on to
ing, but the force of our
performance, and doing battle there as choice, or
the personal fidelity of the thinker to his own pre
vailing reason.
Knowledge is power, personal power, and there
fore thepower of our thought is always on hand,
and always in season.
The slightest consideration will confirm these
views. A step backward, and we are with the
child and its stormy passions and propensities, its
immature conceptions and wildering emotions. It
has yet to learn of the intelligent and more per
sonal ardor inspired by wider vistas of knowledge.
It is mainly governed by a flush of impulses
which proceed from a natural curiosity, or capac
for knowledge, as seen in the many phases
ity,
of childish wonder. For this infantile curiosity,
be understood, is to be explained as an original
it

datum, not to knowledge, but to the thinking faculty

306 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

it with discursive
itself, vesting potentials and
possibilities which become developed and actual in
motives and conduct. And here, too, let me repeat,
it must needs have emotions, such as fear, wonder,
surprise, etc., corresponding with the broken lines
of its juvenile conceptions.
And here, it will be readily seen that, since its
mental powers can, then, be but slightly
articulated,
the emphasis of its thoughts, though
present, is
marked by the and incomplete
flux of indefinite

emotions, corresponding with the wavering articu

lation of its first ideas.
However, these remarks
are strictly applicable only to the initial
stages of
thought. For both native curiosity and infantile
emotion are transformed into, or else remodelled
by,
rational potencies, as soon as these infantile efforts
have stimulated the rational factor into an exercise
of its conceptive and constructive functions.
And this suggests a further explanation. When
ever one achieves his first distinct
idea, known to
be such, he has rational power,
actile, desidera-
tive, decisive, voluntary, and at that very mo
ment begins to be a person. For until he can have
an idea, in clear distinct outline, he is but an ani
mal, in the vegetative stage. Such an idea, thus
distinctly outlined and affirmed, is then a personal
power, because, in acquiring it, thus distinctly out
lined, the child begins to rate himself as an indi
vidual energy distinct from
objects not himself.
But such an idea, be it ever so infantile, is at once
information and infantile power, the information
and power of a person, and therefore a personal
THE WILL 307

conceit and power going into the infant s deeds and

enouncing the force of personal convictions.
Thenceforward, mind and person grow up to
gether, and the child is more and more governed
by personal considerations and now he essays to
;

set up the signs of an intelligent interest, self-

esteem, personal preference, and a judicious choice

of such alternatives as found on these advanced

appreciations. And as all these infantile consid

erations now artless, now astute, but ever dis
criminating grow and take on discursive power,
the actile force of the child s ideas is undergoing
a corresponding metamorphosis, and he begins to
employ them in maturer acts of volition and choice.
His will is born. He is a power unto himself.

IV
I now take advantage of these distinctions, in
order to their application to acts of perception,
more particularly.
Webegin by perceiving, say, a disturbance in
one of our sensor organs, called a sensation. Here
we have achieved the idea of this disturbance. Now
what is the power of this idea or information?
Reflect a moment.
On appearance the child has no experi
its first

ence, and so may, for a season, have a weakness for

the native (untrained) curiosity of the ante-rational
period, and so realize action without any knowledge
of those alternative considerations which modify
its action in later years. If so, it will be more or
less dazed by the craze of unbridled impulses which
308 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

attract and distract its attention. But if the mind

apprehend the sensation, and so make a distinction
between it and its apprehension, or, if it see the dis
turbance to be one thing, and its conscious appre
hension another, and thus bring this idea into
relation with itself, giving it a meaning and
affirming its relation to itself as the party for
it is so far forth enriched
thought, by the power
of the ideas acquired. It is now a personal and

voluntary power, capable of acting for itself within

the confines of its limited experiences.
Turning, now, to informations sought out of con
ception and its wider sweep of vision, I note a
corresponding accretion of power in ideas.
Here we found on a more varied experience, and
regard everything with an interest more adultly
personal and responsible. We have reached the
point where we can on conceptions, not alone
act
of things external, but of what we can do with
them in the interest of our self-conscious and cal
culated needs and prejudices.
But here conception, it were almost a folly to
repeat, is reinforced and strengthened by an in
crease of personal interest, or egoism, developed in
developing our own world of educated conceits and
wants.
And here, again, we have reached the point where
we can exercise a rational curiosity, admeasured by
maturer thoughts. We
have become a thoughtful,
provident, watchful person, choosing, or else es
chewing, everything out of a regard for the perso
nal interests involved in building up ourselves.
THE WILL 309

But the force of every information thus acquired

is the force of our personal and responsible distinc
tions. And if so, it becomes the motor force which
irreversibly determines conduct. It is the Will.
So distinctly can the point be made out that each
idea has a power peculiar to itself, and which goes
into conduct as our conative energy I have been
!

careful to explain that the first, chronologically,

may have but a minimum of the personal vehemence
born with those which rest on a broader concep
tion of our growing needs. Indeed, the conclusion
we are driven to, on evidence, proceeds upon the
indisputable fact that, whether we act upon a natu
ral curiosity almost flagrantly juvenile, or from an
intelligent view of the perilous responsibilities of a
maturer choice, our informations gather power and
quality from the degree of personal interest, con
servative, latitudinarian, or other, developed in
their acquisition. It seems, then, that every idea
we achieve is just so much personal power, emo
tional or desiderative, at our service for consum
mating ourpurposes, its vigor waxing more
intensely personal, the more we uncover our per
sonal wants, or educed requirements.

V
I have been remarking upon the power of ideas,
as seen in every stage and phase of intellection. I
found this power everywhere, promptly active and
decisive, giving us effective and final discursion.
So far, so good. This was part of my scheme.
And I have maintained that we may designate this
310 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

power, at our option, as emotion or desire, choice or

will, etc., holding, nevertheless, that it is ever, and
unchangeably, a vehemence inherent in our opin
ions or informations, yielding a volitional impulse,
it may more intensely personal, when we have
be,
acquired the power to rate our conceptions in ac
cordance with their bearing on our welfare.
And this leads me to explain that this more
personal force of our thought is the discovery of
rational impulses, called emotions and desires. For
just as we remove the borders of ignorance, we
discover our rational impulses, and throw off the
yoke of blind propensities. But all the personal
power you can put into emotions or desires is
born of the thoughts or opinions which inspire
them. This will appear as we proceed.
However, let us here contrast our blind impulses
with our intelligent motors, emotions and desires.
And in order to this, I call attention to the fact
that weare being daily bred to an intelligent exer
cise of our capabilities upon the things of self and
our surroundings. We may still have blind prompt

ings, as aforetime. But our mind and moral pow

ers keep up a tireless watch for their control, in the
interest of a developing humanity which may re

tire, or qualify, or even nullify, any impulse

not
sanctioned by the now dominant personal (here
emotional and desiderative) outlook.
I explain further. In other connections it was
stated that, in its intercourse with things, mind
brought home to itself only an idea or bare affir

mation of things and their relations, etc., etc. Now

THE WILL 311

however, considering the careful study we are at

present making, of the real, psychological status

of the idea, this seems to be quite a beggarly im

portation. For it has been shown to be a personal

POWER, moving us to act, and faithfully releas

ing the vehemence of our emotions and desires.

Whereas these latter, for their part, as faithfully
reflect thepower of the informations involved in
conceiving and actualizing what we shall do.
Only a word more. The question may be asked,
what shall we say of persons who are excessively
emotioned ? I answer that, if any one apprehend
things or their impressions with a maximum of
emotion, we need only look for the cause of this
excess. In every such case it will be seen that
some idea or information determines this emotional
overplus. That is to say, some discovery of the
mind, resulting in choice, or personal preference,
asserts itself emotionally, to the point of redun

dancy. The motive power of emotions and de

sires is always with the intellections that inspire
them. But I pass on to other considerations.

VI
In concluding this branch of our subject, I submit
that I have been able to establish some important
conclusions, the which I may presently summarize.
I need scarcely remind the reader that, in an act of
bestowed his final thought
choice, the thinker has
and power, upon what he is minded to do, and
its

that he does it in the selfsame instant by the

same power of thought put forward into his act
312 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

or deed,and that it is this last effort of thought

which does the work, etc., etc. I have also ex

pounded the offices of thought in other particulars.

I have explained that it determines a condition of
soul, for the infant, in virtue of which it becomes
& person, competent to take a peculiar interest in
itself and that world of alternatives which it pro
pounds for choice and action. I have also shown
that has charge of our native propensities and
it

vagrant passions, giving us true emotions and de

sires, for our rational impulsion. And I have like
wise shown that these latter are our personal
motors, and that they lean upon informations
which reflect their every phase, from the most in
dolent conception to that irreversible one which
has charge of the details of performance and
conduct, maintaining ever that the operative strin
gency of our thoughts is our sole voluntary effi
ciency, and denying that there is such a thing as
a will distinct from this.
And now pardon a word for myself, for I, too,
have my share of thought and its power, and I
can say that my whole life has been one unending,
impetuous, uiicrushable and consciously thoughtful
(personal and responsible) irruption upon the king
doms of matter and mind which allure me with
their spoils, and repay me with discoveries which
minister to the self-conscious little world of egoism
I have built up of the force of my conceptions.
And yet, for colloquial reasons, one may be held
to have a will characteristically indolent or ener

getic, resolute or vacillating, halting or determined,

THE WILL 313

artless or astute, pliant or stubborn, etc., etc. But

what is that, but the soft, or else severe intentness
of the intellectual gaze, a phase or expression of
the personal interest we all take in our own opin
ions, or convictions.

VII

If now I am correct in my exposition, why should

we be the least concerned about our volitions (pref
erences or choices) being determined by motives
or reasons ? Something must determine our choice,
and if that is in the thought itself, then the deter
mination by a power of mental discursion, and
is

therefore free and voluntary. I am overhauling

the argument to make the points explicit and un
mistakable. And
therefore, I repeat that, if in
this determination, we are employing an energy
that is inseparable from, and an original element

of, our thought, then we do but project the power

of our decisive thought into what we do, and that,
alone, is the energy we are in search of. And this
domination of the stress of our thought or informa
tion, as expressed in our emotions or desires when
consummated in choice of act or deed, it is this

dominant urgency of our thought, which implicates

us with acts for which we are personally responsi
ble. For thought makes us persons, and personally
accountable, as well.
Now, if the power that goes into our acts is an
element of the knowledge we acquire, it is in fact
thought itself, grasping its objects by a power of
its own. But now, if we take the position that
314 THE POWEK OF THOUGHT

this energy, so rational and so intimately ours, is

in some way inscrutable to us, distinct from thought
and its achievements, even then we might regard
itin the light of an instrument, at our service, like,

say, a finger whose activities are called forth by

the power of thought and its distinctions. But
whose distinctions, whose power? Plainly the
man s own, by right of his active discovery of
knowledge, and the moral (thoughtful) evaluations
of both motives and conduct, evaluations which
make him personally accountable for his acts.
But again, some regard the will as a distinct
actile power sufficient unto itself, as a voluntary
cause set apart to do the work of volition, or choice.
This theory has been abundantly adverted to in
previous paragraphs. But now, without knowing
exactly what is meant by such a will, allow me to
observe that, even if we had a will, as a distinct
volitional efficiency, we could never will ourselves

discharged from the force of our reasons, without

evicting our personal responsibility. For the very
life of moral freedom hangs on the reasons that
determine acts of choice. We can indeed act on
either a good or bad reason, but we must have, at

least, one of some kind, or not act- at all. But

whatever be our reasons, these fetch us choice, and
not a power of will to do anything. The law for
personal rectitude covers every act of choice, and
this choice issimply our ultimate reason for doing
something in preference to another something.
For though free, we are bound by the enabling
act which restricts us to our choice and conditions
THE WILL 315

its exercise by a conception of the moral and other

consequences involved.
But allow me to submit the so-called will to some
further scrutiny.
We often say : The will determines actions. And
this is correct, if we
are referring to the will, as
the personal preference of a competent thinker
walking in the strength of some final conviction.
Whatever may be our language colloquially, we
can mean only that our actions are determined
by what we think, when we act efficiently. And
surely, until our thought turns unchangeably effi
cient in our acts, it may not have acquired the dis
tinctive feature ofan actile energy which fits it
for the tasks and problems of life and acts. We
see then, from these several points of view, that
motives, reasons, informations, etc., determine con
duct, determine personal preference and behavior,
going forward into result as our conative energy
and equally present and urgent in
resolutely final,
deeds, and the multiform elaborative processes of
discursion.
The power of informations is always on hand,
and always in season.

VIII

I propose now to see how this our power of rea

sons will deport itself when confronting still other
and deeper problems of life.

I am taking it for granted that man acquires

power in acquiring knowledge, and that this power
determines all he does. And herein, he is free, and
316 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

so far supernatural) just as his Creator is

super
natural. That he should make sure of what he
will do, and also feel bound his moral
by apprecia
tions and the sanctions of a divine law for
personal
implication in, and responsibility for, all he does,
this is an ordinance of God
holding him bound by
his thoughts and acts.
For, to be a moral agent,
the acts must have the power of
knowledge. The
character of our reasons determines the character
of our acts. And this is the one unique power
(specialized, of course, according to the measure
and quality of our
culture), which culminates in
deeds for which we are responsible. The conclusion
is irresistible
that, when we act on reasons, we act
on their inherentforce, but this force depends on
the personal interest we take in a self-conscious
condition of soul which we have made our own by
cultivating our intellectual powers. For now that
we have sought out knowledge, we do not
lay it
on the shelf, but cleave to it and
keep it in hand,
as part and parcel of ourself. And so when one
sees his own thoughts going over into conduct as
its cause, and dares to know of the divine sanctions
which bind a conscious actor to what he
does, he
cannot escape personal
responsibility for such a
venture, without the complete deformation of both
mind and morals. And, therefore, I insist that
every thought has a distinctive power of its own
which, on becoming causative, cries out: Hoc est
agendum. And this cry of peremptory command
goes with every variety of from the
information,
most easy-going perception to moral constraint.
THE WILL 317

At to repeat, it may be but sparingly per

first,

sonal, the child not having, as yet, conceived any

definite idea of its personal belongings, but it grows
with the growth of our educed humanities.
It may proceed from some gentle idealism which

suggests only indifference to action. But when it

nestles in the practical honesties of a responsible

soul, the fervor of this personal power will be

immeasurably intensified.
And, permit me to remark, in passing, that the
power which is begotten of all knowledge is in
itself an element of irresistible attraction to man.

Indeed, it is chiefly this thing of its power which

impels us to search for, and so make use of, the
constructive ideas of Omniscience placed within our
reach. For, as before explained, He has spoken to
our intelligence in all we see of matter and mind,
and we amass all our knowledge by a most literal
certification of some of His thoughts.
So too, after the manner of His mind, but within
finite limits, we may put the power of our thoughts
into the work of our hands, and this finite work of
our hands will have place in our day as a new crea

tion, giving forth ideas of cause and effect, subject

and attribute, meaning, principle, etc.,
purpose,
just as His works do, and because all work pro
claims knowledge. And therefore, do I maintain
that, in all this thing of perception and conception,
the human mind an autonomy of rational capaci
is

ties, equipped for the tasks of discursion and deeds.

And, if it ever is to have this power, it is because

of an original ordinance which fits it for achieving
318 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

ideas ideas which are born of the fiat of our dis

cursive processes, starting from the rational centre
in quest of the rational coordination of all things
we affirm in the domains of matter and mind.

IX
Our long discussion must now close, and what
I have hitherto written must be left in garrison,
to conserve the positions gained, whilst, withal, it
behooves me, for my
part, to pass over the river
"

and rest in the shade."

I conclude with a brief summary of the points

urged: The power of thought is always in hand,
always in season, and always efficient. Its vigor
is born with, and part and parcel of, its achieve
ment. So also is its distinctive quality or individ
uality. If it be of the stupid kind, it is, so far forth,
robbed of its normal role of action. Nevertheless,
it would be a sheer
monstrosity, if any information,
however feeble, should be deficient in its proper
vigor. The very soul of an idea is its individual
vigor, be it strong, or be it feeble.
But what becomes of this power when we are
engaged in a decisive act ? It is, as before averred,
promptly present, and, upon the touch of opportu
nity, moves into position, and passes like current
gold.
But here I must be careful to get all the facts
before me. Even the opportune moment for deci
sive action is a problem to be solved by an appre

ciation of the facts, and judgment on their eviden

tial force. Moreover, even the force of our reasons
THE WILL 319

of other reasons
is kept under control by the force
which determine conduct finally for one may not
;

go into acts for which he knows he will be person

until he is satisfied of the reasons
ally responsible,
which, from his then point of view, he can make
free to act upon.

Hence, the latent stress of every thought that

solves of business, duty, or personal
questions
responsibility, or even personal worthlessness,
is

never brought out, until we are convinced that we

can act with required resolution, precision, and
in making the attack.
efficiency,
And so it comes
to this that mental and moral power is born of the
force of our ideas, and the idea itself is simply a
discursive achievement of one competent to report
it. Wherefore, whenever such an one has acquired
an he has, ipso facto, acquired its actile force.
idea,
And this force goes into what we do, as our volun
vehemence of our
tary efficiency, or the finalizing
very doubtless, even from the
And first
thought.
intellections of the child, an idea once acquired,
becomes a personal fervor, emotional or desidera-
tive, tingling with causative expectancy. For how
could it maintain itself, even for an instant, out of
all connection with the person who conceives and
of course very artlessly
plans for its fulfilment,
in the beginnings of infantile discursion ? But
be
thenceforward, every idea, from every source,
comes more and more a personal power, or volun
in emotion, or desire,
tary impulsion, expressed
and ultimated in work, or conduct. And so, I

conclude that every information, reached by atten-

320 THE POWER OF THOUGHT

tion and mental elaboration, has, in itself, a power

which passes over into deeds or acts, as our per
sonal and voluntary efficiency. Nay, more, it is an
investment in mental and moral culture which is
kept in store for the exigencies of future action and
conduct first idea, with its
the acquisition of a
peculiar power, helping on to a second, with its
peculiar power, and so on, ad infinitum. And this
power seats itself so firmly in what it accomplishes
that you cannot even conceive of its inhibition
in loco.
The reader can say whether there is any will,
or need of any, conceived as distinctly separable
from the inherent force of the reasons on which
we act.

There is pluck and determination in an idea. It

is born to rule. It asserts undivided sway over the

empire of volition and morals. It forges its way

to performance with a tenacity of purpose almost
ferocious. It is ubiquitous. It is a pervading
presence. It has stood every pressure from the
beginning. It informs and empowers everything,
from the minutest atoms to the mills of the Gods."
"

It is a law for a universe of entities. It is our

personal and voluntary competency. It is salted

with the salt of all our possibilities. It shapes
our ends. It has charge of all our humanities. It
spans the confines of time, space, and eternity. It
and cannot be ruled out. It has
is irrepressible,

come to stay.
03 9 P*w

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