THE HUMAN MACHINE

BY ARNOLD BENNETT

_First Published November 1908

Second Edition September 1910

Third Edition April 1911

Fourth Edition August 1912

Fifth Edition January 1913

Sixth Edition August 1913_

CONTENTS

I

TAKING ONESELF FOR GRANTED

II

AMATEURS IN THE ART OF LIVING

III

THE BRAIN AS A GENTLEMAN-AT-LARGE

IV

THE FIRST PRACTICAL STEP

V

HABIT-FORMING BY CONCENTRATION

VI

LORD OVER THE NODDLE

VII

WHAT 'LIVING' CHIEFLY IS

VIII

THE DAILY FRICTION

IX

'FIRE!'

X

MISCHIEVOUSLY OVERWORKING IT

XI

AN INTERLUDE

XII

AN INTEREST IN LIFE

XIII

SUCCESS AND FAILURE

XIV

A MAN AND HIS ENVIRONMENT

XV

L. S. D. 

XVI

REASON, REASON!

I

TAKING ONESELF FOR GRANTED

There are men who are capable of loving a machine more deeply than theycan love a woman. They are among the happiest men on earth. This is nota sneer meanly shot from cover at women. It is simply a statement ofnotorious fact. Men who worry themselves to distraction over theperfecting of a machine are indubitably blessed beyond their kind. Mostof us have known such men. Yesterday they were constructing motorcars. But to-day aeroplanes are in the air--or, at any rate, they ought to be, according to the inventors. Watch the inventors. Invention is notusually their principal business. They must invent in their spare time. They must invent before breakfast, invent in the Strand between Lyons'sand the office, invent after dinner, invent on Sundays. See with whatardour they rush home of a night! See how they seize a half-holiday, like hungry dogs a bone! They don't want golf, bridge, limericks, novels, illustrated magazines, clubs, whisky, starting-prices, hintsabout neckties, political meetings, yarns, comic songs, anturic salts, nor the smiles that are situate between a gay corsage and a picture hat. They never wonder, at a loss, what they will do next. Their eveningsnever drag--are always too short. You may, indeed, catch them at twelveo'clock at night on the flat of their backs; but not in bed! No, in ashed, under a machine, holding a candle (whose paths drop fatness) up tothe connecting-rod that is strained, or the wheel that is out of centre. They are continually interested, nay, enthralled. They have a machine, and they are perfecting it. They get one part right, and then anothergoes wrong; and they get that right, and then another goes wrong, and soon. When they are quite sure they have reached perfection, forth issuesthe machine out of the shed--and in five minutes is smashed up, togetherwith a limb or so of the inventors, just because they had been quitesure too soon. Then the whole business starts again. They do not giveup--that particular wreck was, of course, due to a mere oversight; thewhole business starts again. For they have glimpsed perfection; theyhave the gleam of perfection in their souls. Thus their lives run away. 'They will never fly!' you remark, cynically. Well, if they don't?Besides, what about Wright? With all your cynicism, have you neverenvied them their machine and their passionate interest in it?

You know, perhaps, the moment when, brushing in front of the glass, youdetected your first grey hair. You stopped brushing; then you resumedbrushing, hastily; you pretended not to be shocked, but you were. Perhaps you know a more disturbing moment than that, the moment when itsuddenly occurred to you that you had 'arrived' as far as you ever willarrive; and you had realised as much of your early dream as you everwill realise, and the realisation was utterly unlike the dream; themarriage was excessively prosaic and eternal, not at all what youexpected it to be; and your illusions were dissipated; and games andhobbies had an unpleasant core of tedium and futility; and the idealtobacco-mixture did not exist; and one literary masterpiece resembledanother; and all the days that are to come will more or less resemblethe present day, until you die; and in an illuminating flash youunderstood what all those people were driving at when they wrote suchunconscionably long letters to the _Telegraph_ as to life being worthliving or not worth living; and there was naught to be done but face thegrey, monotonous future, and pretend to be cheerful with the worm of_ennui_ gnawing at your heart! In a word, the moment when it occurred toyou that yours is 'the common lot. ' In that moment have you notwished--do you not continually wish--for an exhaustless machine, amachine that you could never get to the end of? Would you not give yourhead to be lying on the flat of your back, peering with a candle, dirty, foiled, catching cold--but absorbed in the pursuit of an object? Haveyou not gloomily regretted that you were born without a mechanical turn, because there is really something about a machine. .. ?

It has never struck you that you do possess a machine! Oh, blind! Oh, dull! It has never struck you that you have at hand a machine wonderfulbeyond all mechanisms in sheds, intricate, delicately adjustable, ofastounding and miraculous possibilities, interminably interesting! Thatmachine is yourself. 'This fellow is preaching. I won't have it!' youexclaim resentfully. Dear sir, I am not preaching, and, even if I were, I think you _would_ have it. I think I can anyhow keep hold of yourbutton for a while, though you pull hard. I am not preaching. I amsimply bent on calling your attention to a fact which has perhaps whollyor partially escaped you--namely, that you are the most fascinating bitof machinery that ever was. You do yourself less than justice. It issaid that men are only interested in themselves. The truth is that, as arule, men are interested in every mortal thing except themselves. Theyhave a habit of taking themselves for granted, and that habit isresponsible for nine-tenths of the boredom and despair on the face ofthe planet. 

A man will wake up in the middle of the night (usually owing to someform of delightful excess), and his brain will be very active indeed fora space ere he can go to sleep again. In that candid hour, after theexaltation of the evening and before the hope of the dawn, he will seeeverything in its true colours--except himself. There is nothing like asleepless couch for a clear vision of one's environment. He will see allhis wife's faults and the hopelessness of trying to cure them. He willmomentarily see, though with less sharpness of outline, his own faults. He will probably decide that the anxieties of children outweigh the joysconnected with children. He will admit all the shortcomings ofexistence, will face them like a man, grimly, sourly, in a sturdydespair. He will mutter: 'Of course I'm angry! Who wouldn't be? Ofcourse I'm disappointed! Did I expect this twenty years ago? Yes, weought to save more. But we don't, so there you are! I'm bound to worry!I know I should be better if I didn't smoke so much. I know there'sabsolutely no sense at all in taking liqueurs. Absurd to be ruffled withher when she's in one of her moods. I don't have enough exercise. Can'tbe regular, somehow. Not the slightest use hoping that things will bedifferent, because I know they won't. Queer world! Never really what youmay call happy, you know. Now, if things were different . .. ' He losesconsciousness. 

Observe: he has taken himself for granted, just glancing at his faultsand looking away again. It is his environment that has occupied hisattention, and his environment--'things'--that he would wish to have'different, ' did he not know, out of the fulness of experience, that itis futile to desire such a change? What he wants is a pipe that won'tput itself into his mouth, a glass that won't leap of its own accord tohis lips, money that won't slip untouched out of his pocket, legs thatwithout asking will carry him certain miles every day in the open air, habits that practise themselves, a wife that will expand and contractaccording to his humours, like a Wernicke bookcase, always complete butnever finished. Wise man, he perceives at once that he can't have thesethings. And so he resigns himself to the universe, and settles down to apermanent, restrained discontent. No one shall say he is unreasonable. 

You see, he has given no attention to the machine. Let us not call it aflying-machine. Let us call it simply an automobile. There it is on theroad, jolting, screeching, rattling, perfuming. And there he is, saying:'This road ought to be as smooth as velvet. That hill in front isridiculous, and the descent on the other side positively dangerous. Andit's all turns--I can't see a hundred yards in front. ' He has a wildidea of trying to force the County Council to sand-paper the road, or ofemploying the new Territorial Army to remove the hill. But he dismissesthat idea--he is so reasonable. He accepts all. He sits clothed inreasonableness on the machine, and accepts all. 'Ass!' you exclaim. 'Whydoesn't he get down and inflate that tyre, for one thing? Anyone can seethe sparking apparatus is wrong, and it's perfectly certain the gear-boxwants oil. 

Why doesn't he--?' I will tell you why he doesn't. Just because he isn'taware that he is on a machine at all. He has never examined what he ison. And at the back of his consciousness is a dim idea that he isperched on a piece of solid, immutable rock that runs on castors. 

II

AMATEURS IN THE ART OF LIVING

Considering that we have to spend the whole of our lives in this humanmachine, considering that it is our sole means of contact and compromisewith the rest of the world, we really do devote to it very littleattention. When I say 'we, ' I mean our inmost spirits, the instinctivepart, the mystery within that exists. And when I say 'the human machine'I mean the brain and the body--and chiefly the brain. The expression ofthe soul by means of the brain and body is what we call the art of'living. ' We certainly do not learn this art at school to anyappreciable extent. At school we are taught that it is necessary tofling our arms and legs to and fro for so many hours per diem. We arealso shown, practically, that our brains are capable of performingcertain useful tricks, and that if we do not compel our brains toperform those tricks we shall suffer. Thus one day we run home andproclaim to our delighted parents that eleven twelves are 132. A feat ofthe brain! So it goes on until our parents begin to look up to usbecause we can chatter of cosines or sketch the foreign policy of LouisXIV. Good! But not a word about the principles of the art of living yet!Only a few detached rules from our parents, to be blindly followed whenparticular crises supervene. And, indeed, it would be absurd to talk toa schoolboy about the expression of his soul. He would probably mutter amonosyllable which is not 'mice. '

Of course, school is merely a preparation for living; unless one goes toa university, in which case it is a preparation for university. One issupposed to turn one's attention to living when these preliminaries areover--say at the age of about twenty. Assuredly one lives then; thereis, however, nothing new in that, for one has been living all the time, in a fashion; all the time one has been using the machine withoutunderstanding it. But does one, school and college being over, enterupon a study of the machine? Not a bit. The question then becomes, nothow to live, but how to obtain and retain a position in which one willbe able to live; how to get minute portions of dead animals and plantswhich one can swallow, in order not to die of hunger; how to acquire andconstantly renew a stock of other portions of dead animals and plants inwhich one can envelop oneself in order not to die of cold; how toprocure the exclusive right of entry into certain huts where one maysleep and eat without being rained upon by the clouds of heaven. And soforth. And when one has realised this ambition, there comes the desireto be able to double the operation and do it, not for oneself alone, butfor oneself and another. Marriage! But no scientific sustained attentionis yet given to the real business of living, of smooth intercourse, ofself-expression, of conscious adaptation to environment--in brief, tothe study of the machine. At thirty the chances are that a man willunderstand better the draught of a chimney than his own respiratoryapparatus--to name one of the simple, obvious things--and as forunderstanding the working of his own brain--what an idea! As for theskill to avoid the waste of power involved by friction in the businessof living, do we give an hour to it in a month? Do we ever at allexamine it save in an amateurish and clumsy fashion? A young ladyproduces a water-colour drawing. 'Very nice!' we say, and add, toourselves, 'For an amateur. ' But our living is more amateurish than thatyoung lady's drawing; though surely we ought every one of us to beprofessionals at living!

When we have been engaged in the preliminaries to living for aboutfifty-five years, we begin to think about slacking off. Up till thisperiod our reason for not having scientifically studied the art ofliving--the perfecting and use of the finer parts of the machine--is notthat we have lacked leisure (most of us have enormous heaps of leisure), but that we have simply been too absorbed in the preliminaries, have, infact, treated the preliminaries to the business as the business itself. Then at fifty-five we ought at last to begin to live our lives withprofessional skill, as a professional painter paints pictures. Yes, butwe can't. It is too late then. Neither painters, nor acrobats, nor anyprofessionals can be formed at the age of fifty-five. Thus we finishour lives amateurishly, as we have begun them. And when the machinecreaks and sets our teeth on edge, or refuses to obey the steering-wheeland deposits us in the ditch, we say: 'Can't be helped!' or 'Doesn'tmatter! It will be all the same a hundred years hence!' or: 'I must makethe best of things. ' And we try to believe that in accepting the _statusquo_ we have justified the _status quo_, and all the time we feel ourinsincerity. 

You exclaim that I exaggerate. I do. To force into prominence an aspectof affairs usually overlooked, it is absolutely necessary to exaggerate. Poetic licence is one name for this kind of exaggeration. But Iexaggerate very little indeed, much less than perhaps you think. I knowthat you are going to point out to me that vast numbers of peopleregularly spend a considerable portion of their leisure in strivingafter self-improvement. Granted! And I am glad of it. But I should begladder if their strivings bore more closely upon the daily business ofliving, of self-expression without friction and without futile desires. See this man who regularly studies every evening of his life! He hasgenuinely understood the nature of poetry, and his taste is admirable. He recites verse with true feeling, and may be said to be highlycultivated. Poetry is a continual source of pleasure to him. True! Butwhy is he always complaining about not receiving his deserts in theoffice? Why is he worried about finance? Why does he so often sulk withhis wife? Why does he persist in eating more than his digestion willtolerate? It was not written in the book of fate that he should complainand worry and sulk and suffer. And if he was a professional at living hewould not do these things. There is no reason why he should do them, except the reason that he has never learnt his business, never studiedthe human machine as a whole, never really thought rationally aboutliving. Supposing you encountered an automobilist who was swerving andgrinding all over the road, and you stopped to ask what was the matter, and he replied: 'Never mind what's the matter. Just look at my lovelyacetylene lamps, how they shine, and how I've polished them!' You wouldnot regard him as a Clifford-Earp, or even as an entirely sane man. Sowith our student of poetry. It is indubitable that a large amount ofwhat is known as self-improvement is simply self-indulgence--a form ofpleasure which only incidentally improves a particular part of themachine, and even that to the neglect of far more important parts. 

My aim is to direct a man's attention to himself as a whole, consideredas a machine, complex and capable of quite extraordinary efficiency, for travelling through this world smoothly, in any desired manner, withsatisfaction not only to himself but to the people he meets _en route_, and the people who are overtaking him and whom he is overtaking. My aimis to show that only an inappreciable fraction of our ordered andsustained efforts is given to the business of actual living, asdistinguished from the preliminaries to living. 

III

THE BRAIN AS A GENTLEMAN-AT-LARGE

It is not as if, in this business of daily living, we were seriouslyhampered by ignorance either as to the results which we ought to obtain, or as to the general means which we must employ in order to obtain them. With all our absorption in the mere preliminaries to living, and all ourcarelessness about living itself, we arrive pretty soon at a fairlyaccurate notion of what satisfactory living is, and we perceive withsome clearness the methods necessary to success. I have pictured the manwho wakes up in the middle of the night and sees the horrid semi-fiascoof his life. But let me picture the man who wakes up refreshed early ona fine summer morning and looks into his mind with the eyes of hope andexperience, not experience and despair. That man will pass a delightfulhalf-hour in thinking upon the scheme of the universe as it affectshimself. He is quite clear that contentment depends on his own acts, andthat no power can prevent him from performing those acts. He planseverything out, and before he gets up he knows precisely what he mustand will do in certain foreseen crises and junctures. He sincerelydesires to live efficiently--who would wish to make a daily mess ofexistence?--and he knows the way to realise the desire. 

And yet, mark me! That man will not have been an hour on his feet onthis difficult earth before the machine has unmistakably gone wrong: themachine which was designed to do this work of living, which is capableof doing it thoroughly well, but which has not been put into order!What is the use of consulting the map of life and tracing the itinerary, and getting the machine out of the shed, and making a start, if half thenuts are loose, or the steering pillar is twisted, or there is no petrolin the tank? (Having asked this question, I will drop themechanico-vehicular comparison, which is too rough and crude for thedelicacy of the subject. ) Where has the human machine gone wrong? It hasgone wrong in the brain. What, is he 'wrong in the head'? Mostassuredly, most strictly. He knows--none better--that when his wifeemploys a particular tone containing ten grains of asperity, and hereplies in a particular tone containing eleven grains, the consequenceswill be explosive. He knows, on the other hand, that if he replies in atone containing only one little drop of honey, the consequences may notbe unworthy of two reasonable beings. He knows this. His brain is fullyinstructed. And lo! his brain, while arguing that women are really tooabsurd (as if that was the point), is sending down orders to the musclesof the throat and mouth which result in at least eleven grains ofasperity, and conjugal relations are endangered for the day. He didn'twant to do it. His desire was not to do it. He despises himself fordoing it. But his brain was not in working order. His brain ranaway--'raced'--on its own account, against reason, against desire, against morning resolves--and there he is!

That is just one example, of the simplest and slightest. Examples can bemultiplied. The man may be a young man whose immediate future depends onhis passing an examination--an examination which he is capable ofpassing 'on his head, ' which nothing can prevent him from passing ifonly his brain will not be so absurd as to give orders to his legs towalk out of the house towards the tennis court instead of sending themupstairs to the study; if only, having once safely lodged him in thestudy, his brain will devote itself to the pages of books instead ofdwelling on the image of a nice girl--not at all like other girls. Orthe man may be an old man who will live in perfect comfort if only hisbrain will not interminably run round and round in a circle ofgrievances, apprehensions, and fears which no amount of contemplationcan destroy or even ameliorate. 

The brain, the brain--that is the seat of trouble! 'Well, ' you say, 'ofcourse it is. We all know that!' We don't act as if we did, anyway. 'Give us more brains, Lord!' ejaculated a great writer. Personally, Ithink he would have been wiser if he had asked first for the power tokeep in order such brains as we have. We indubitably possess quiteenough brains, quite as much as we can handle. The supreme muddlers ofliving are often people of quite remarkable intellectual faculty, with aquite remarkable gift of being wise for others. The pity is that ourbrains have a way of 'wandering, ' as it is politely called. Brain-wandering is indeed now recognised as a specific disease. I wonderwhat you, O business man with an office in Ludgate Circus, would say toyour office-boy, whom you had dispatched on an urgent message toWestminster, and whom you found larking around Euston Station when yourushed to catch your week-end train. 'Please, sir, I started to go toWestminster, but there's something funny in my limbs that makes me go upall manner of streets. I can't help it, sir!' 'Can't you?' you wouldsay. 'Well, you had better go and be somebody else's office-boy. ' Yourbrain is something worse than that office-boy, something moreinsidiously potent for evil. 

I conceive the brain of the average well-intentioned man as possessingthe tricks and manners of one of those gentlemen-at-large who, havingnothing very urgent to do, stroll along and offer their services gratisto some shorthanded work of philanthropy. They will commonly demoraliseand disorganise the business conduct of an affair in about a fortnight. They come when they like; they go when they like. Sometimes they areexceedingly industrious and obedient, but then there is an even chancethat they will shirk and follow their own sweet will. And they mustn'tbe spoken to, or pulled up--for have they not kindly volunteered, andare they not giving their days for naught! These persons are the bane ofthe enterprises in which they condescend to meddle. Now, there is a vastdeal too much of the gentleman-at-large about one's brain. One's brainhas no right whatever to behave as a gentleman-at-large: but it in factdoes. It forgets; it flatly ignores orders; at the critical moment whenpressure is highest, it simply lights a cigarette and goes out for awalk. And we meekly sit down under this behaviour! 'I didn't feel likestewing, ' says the young man who, against his wish, will fail in hisexamination. 'The words were out of my mouth before I knew it, ' says thehusband whose wife is a woman. 'I couldn't get any inspiration to-day, 'says the artist. 'I can't resist Stilton, ' says the fellow who is dyingof greed. 'One can't help one's thoughts, ' says the old worrier. Andthis last really voices the secret excuse of all five. 

And you all say to me: 'My brain is myself. How can I alter myself? Iwas born like that. ' In the first place you were not born 'like that, 'you have lapsed to that. And in the second place your brain is notyourself. It is only a part of yourself, and not the highest seat ofauthority. Do you love your mother, wife, or children with your brain?Do you desire with your brain? Do you, in a word, ultimately andessentially _live_ with your brain? No. Your brain is an instrument. Theproof that it is an instrument lies in the fact that, when extremenecessity urges, _you_ can command your brain to do certain things, andit does them. The first of the two great principles which underlie theefficiency of the human machine is this: _The brain is a servant, exterior to the central force of the Ego_. If it is out of control thereason is not that it is uncontrollable, but merely that its disciplinehas been neglected. The brain can be trained, as the hand and eye can betrained; it can be made as obedient as a sporting dog, and by similarmethods. In the meantime the indispensable preparation for braindiscipline is to form the habit of regarding one's brain as aninstrument exterior to one's self, like a tongue or a foot. 

IV

THE FIRST PRACTICAL STEP

The brain is a highly quaint organism. Let me say at once, lest I shouldbe cannonaded by physiologists, psychologists, or metaphysicians, thatby the 'brain' I mean the faculty which reasons and which gives ordersto the muscles. I mean exactly what the plain man means by the brain. The brain is the diplomatist which arranges relations between ourinstinctive self and the universe, and it fulfils its mission when itprovides for the maximum of freedom to the instincts with the minimum offriction. It argues with the instincts. It takes them on one side andpoints out the unwisdom of certain performances. It catches them by thecoat-tails when they are about to make fools of themselves. 'Don'tdrink all that iced champagne at a draught, ' it says to one instinct;'we may die of it. ' 'Don't catch that rude fellow one in the eye, ' itsays to another instinct; 'he is more powerful than us. ' It is, in fact, a majestic spectacle of common sense. And yet it has the mostextraordinary lapses. It is just like that man--we all know him andconsult him--who is a continual fount of excellent, sagacious advice oneverything, but who somehow cannot bring his sagacity to bear on his ownpersonal career. 

In the matter of its own special activities the brain is usuallyundisciplined and unreliable. We never know what it will do next. Wegive it some work to do, say, as we are walking along the street to theoffice. Perhaps it has to devise some scheme for making £150 suffice for£200, or perhaps it has to plan out the heads of a very importantletter. We meet a pretty woman, and away that undisciplined, sagaciousbrain runs after her, dropping the scheme or the draft letter, andamusing itself with aspirations or regrets for half an hour, an hour, sometimes a day. The serious part of our instinctive self feeblyremonstrates, but without effect. Or it may be that we have suffered agreat disappointment, which is definite and hopeless. Will the brain, like a sensible creature, leave that disappointment alone, and insteadof living in the past live in the present or the future? Not it! Thoughit knows perfectly well that it is wasting its time and casting a verypainful and utterly unnecessary gloom over itself and us, it can solittle control its unhealthy morbid appetite that no expostulations willinduce it to behave rationally. Or perhaps, after a confabulation withthe soul, it has been decided that when next a certain harmful instinctcomes into play the brain shall firmly interfere. 'Yes, ' says thebrain, 'I really will watch that. ' But when the moment arrives, is thebrain on the spot? The brain has probably forgotten the affair entirely, or remembered it too late; or sighs, as the victorious instinct knocksit on the head: 'Well, _next_ time!'

All this, and much more that every reader can supply from his ownexciting souvenirs, is absurd and ridiculous on the part of the brain. It is a conclusive proof that the brain is out of condition, idle as anigger, capricious as an actor-manager, and eaten to the core with loosehabits. Therefore the brain must be put into training. It is the mostimportant part of the human machine by which the soul expresses anddevelops itself, and it must learn good habits. And primarily it must betaught obedience. Obedience can only be taught by imposing one's will, by the sheer force of volition. And the brain must be mastered bywill-power. The beginning of wise living lies in the control of thebrain by the will; so that the brain may act according to the preceptswhich the brain itself gives. With an obedient disciplined brain a manmay live always right up to the standard of his best moments. 

To teach a child obedience you tell it to do something, and you see thatthat something is done. The same with the brain. Here is the foundationof an efficient life and the antidote for the tendency to make a fool ofoneself. It is marvellously simple. Say to your brain: 'From 9 o'clockto 9. 30 this morning you must dwell without ceasing on a particulartopic which I will give you. ' Now, it doesn't matter what this topicis--the point is to control and invigorate the brain by exercise--butyou may just as well give it a useful topic to think over as a futileone. You might give it this: 'My brain is my servant. I am not theplay-thing of my brain. ' Let it concentrate on these statements forthirty minutes. 'What?' you cry. 'Is this the way to an efficient life?Why, there's nothing in it!' Simple as it may appear, this _is_ the way, and it is the only way. As for there being nothing in it, try it. Iguarantee that you will fail to keep your brain concentrated on thegiven idea for thirty seconds--let alone thirty minutes. You will findyour brain conducting itself in a manner which would be comic were itnot tragic. Your first experiments will result in disheartening failure, for to exact from the brain, at will and by will, concentration on agiven idea for even so short a period as half an hour is an exceedinglydifficult feat--and a fatiguing! It needs perseverance. It needs aterrible obstinacy on the part of the will. That brain of yours will behopping about all over the place, and every time it hops you must bringit back by force to its original position. You must absolutely compel itto ignore every idea except the one which you have selected for itsattention. You cannot hope to triumph all at once. But you can hope totriumph. There is no royal road to the control of the brain. There is nopatent dodge about it, and no complicated function which a plain personmay not comprehend. It is simply a question of: 'I will, _I_ will, and I_will_. ' (Italics here are indispensable. )

Let me resume. Efficient living, living up to one's best standard, getting the last ounce of power out of the machine with the minimum offriction: these things depend on the disciplined and vigorous conditionof the brain. The brain can be disciplined by learning the habit ofobedience. And it can learn the habit of obedience by the practice ofconcentration. Disciplinary concentration, though nothing could havethe air of being simpler, is the basis of the whole structure. This factmust be grasped imaginatively; it must be seen and felt. The moreregularly concentration is practised, the more firmly will theimagination grasp the effects of it, both direct and indirect. After buta few days of honest trying in the exercise which I have indicated, youwill perceive its influence. You will grow accustomed to the idea, atfirst strange in its novelty, of the brain being external to the supremeforce which is _you_, and in subjection to that force. You will, as anot very distant possibility, see yourself in possession of the power toswitch your brain on and off in a particular subject as you switchelectricity on and off in a particular room. The brain will get used tothe straight paths of obedience. And--a remarkable phenomenon--it will, by the mere practice of obedience, become less forgetful and moreeffective. It will not so frequently give way to an instinct that takesit by surprise. In a word, it will have received a general tonic. With abrain that is improving every day you can set about the perfecting ofthe machine in a scientific manner. 

V

HABIT-FORMING BY CONCENTRATION

As soon as the will has got the upper hand of the brain--as soon as itcan say to the brain, with a fair certainty of being obeyed: 'Do this. Think along these lines, and continue to do so without wandering until Igive you leave to stop'--then is the time arrived when the perfecting ofthe human machine may be undertaken in a large and comprehensive spirit, as a city council undertakes the purification and reconstruction of acity. The tremendous possibilities of an obedient brain will beperceived immediately we begin to reflect upon what we mean by our'character. ' Now, a person's character is, and can be, nothing else butthe total result of his habits of thought. A person is benevolentbecause he habitually thinks benevolently. A person is idle because histhoughts dwell habitually on the instant pleasures of idleness. It istrue that everybody is born with certain predispositions, and that thesepredispositions influence very strongly the early formation of habits ofthought. But the fact remains that the character is built bylong-continued habits of thought. If the mature edifice of characterusually shows in an exaggerated form the peculiarities of the originalpredisposition, this merely indicates a probability that the slowerection of the edifice has proceeded at haphazard, and that reason hasnot presided over it. A child may be born with a tendency to bentshoulders. If nothing is done, if on the contrary he becomes a clerk andabhors gymnastics, his shoulders will develop an excessive roundness, entirely through habit. Whereas, if his will, guided by his reason, hadcompelled the formation of a corrective physical habit, his shouldersmight have been, if not quite straight, nearly so. Thus a physicalhabit! The same with a mental habit. 

The more closely we examine the development of original predispositions, the more clearly we shall see that this development is not inevitable, is not a process which works itself out independently according tomysterious, ruthless laws which we cannot understand. For instance, theeffect of an original predisposition may be destroyed by an accidentalshock. A young man with an inherited tendency to alcohol may developinto a stern teetotaller through the shock caused by seeing his drunkenfather strike his mother; whereas, if his father had chanced to beaffectionate in drink, the son might have ended in the gutter. Noruthless law here! It is notorious, also, that natures are sometimescompletely changed in their development by chance momentary contactwith natures stronger than themselves. 'From that day I resolved--' etc. You know the phrase. Often the resolve is not kept; but often it iskept. A spark has inflamed the will. The burning will has tyrannisedover the brain. New habits have been formed. And the result looks justlike a miracle. 

Now, if these great transformations can be brought about by accident, cannot similar transformations be brought about by a reasonable design?At any rate, if one starts to bring them about, one starts with theassurance that transformations are not impossible, since they haveoccurred. One starts also in the full knowledge of the influence ofhabit on life. Take any one of your own habits, mental or physical. Youwill be able to recall the time when that habit did not exist, or if itdid exist it was scarcely perceptible. And you will discover thatnearly all your habits have been formed unconsciously, by dailyrepetitions which bore no relation to a general plan, and which youpractised not noticing. You will be compelled to admit that your'character, ' as it is to-day, is a structure that has been built almostwithout the aid of an architect; higgledy-piggledy, anyhow. Butoccasionally the architect did step in and design something. Here andthere among your habits you will find one that you consciously and ofdeliberate purpose initiated and persevered with--doubtless owing tosome happy influence. What is the difference between that conscioushabit and the unconscious habits? None whatever as regards its effect onthe sum of your character. It may be the strongest of all your habits. The only quality that differentiates it from the others is that it has adefinite object (most likely a good object), and that it wholly orpartially fulfils that object. There is not a man who reads these linesbut has, in this detail or that, proved in himself that the will, forcing the brain to repeat the same action again and again, can modifythe shape of his character as a sculptor modifies the shape of dampclay. 

But if a grown man's character is developing from day to day (as it is), if nine-tenths of the development is due to unconscious action andone-tenth to conscious action, and if the one-tenth conscious is themost satisfactory part of the total result; why, in the name of commonsense, henceforward, should not nine-tenths, instead of one-tenth, bedue to conscious action? What is there to prevent this agreeableconsummation? There is nothing whatever to prevent it--exceptinsubordination on the part of the brain. And insubordination of thebrain can be cured, as I have previously shown. When I see men unhappyand inefficient in the craft of _living_, from sheer, crass inattentionto their own development; when I see misshapen men building upbusinesses and empires, and never stopping to build up themselves; whenI see dreary men expending precisely the same energy on teaching a dogto walk on its hind-legs as would brighten the whole colour of their ownlives, I feel as if I wanted to give up the ghost, so ridiculous, sofatuous does the spectacle seem! But, of course, I do not give up theghost. The paroxysm passes. Only I really must cry out: 'Can't you seewhat you're missing? Can't you see that you're missing the mostinteresting thing on earth, far more interesting than businesses, empires, and dogs? Doesn't it strike you how clumsy and short-sightedyou are--working always with an inferior machine when you might have asmooth-gliding perfection? Doesn't it strike you how badly you aretreating yourself?'

Listen, you confirmed grumbler, you who make the evening meal hideouswith complaints against destiny--for it is you I will single out. Areyou aware what people are saying about you behind your back? They aresaying that you render yourself and your family miserable by the habitwhich has grown on you of always grumbling. 'Surely it isn't as bad asthat?' you protest. Yes, it is just as bad as that. You say: 'The factis, I know it's absurd to grumble. But I'm like that. I've tried to stopit, and I can't!' How have you tried to stop it? 'Well, I've made up mymind several times to fight against it, but I never succeed. This isstrictly between ourselves. I don't usually admit that I'm a grumbler. 'Considering that you grumble for about an hour and a half every day ofyour life, it was sanguine, my dear sir, to expect to cure such a habitby means of a solitary intention, formed at intervals in the brain andthen forgotten. No! You must do more than that. If you will daily fixyour brain firmly for half an hour on the truth (you know it to be atruth) that grumbling is absurd and futile, your brain will henceforwardbegin to form a habit in that direction; it will begin to be moulded tothe idea that grumbling is absurd and futile. In odd moments, when itisn't thinking of anything in particular, it will suddenly remember thatgrumbling is absurd and futile. When you sit down to the meal and openyour mouth to say: 'I can't think what my ass of a partner means by--'it will remember that grumbling is absurd and futile, and will alter thearrangement of your throat, teeth, and tongue, so that you will say:'What fine weather we're having!' In brief, it will rememberinvoluntarily, by a new habit. All who look into their experience willadmit that the failure to replace old habits by new ones is due to thefact that at the critical moment the brain does not remember; it simplyforgets. The practice of concentration will cure that. All depends onregular concentration. This grumbling is an instance, though chosen notquite at hazard. 

VI

LORD OVER THE NODDLE

Having proved by personal experiment the truth of the first of the twogreat principles which concern the human machine--namely, that the brainis a servant, not a master, and can be controlled--we may now come tothe second. The second is more fundamental than the first, but it can beof no use until the first is understood and put into practice. The humanmachine is an apparatus of brain and muscle for enabling the Ego todevelop freely in the universe by which it is surrounded, withoutfriction. Its function is to convert the facts of the universe to thebest advantage of the Ego. The facts of the universe are the materialwith which it is its business to deal--not the facts of an idealuniverse, but the facts of this universe. Hence, when friction occurs, when the facts of the universe cease to be of advantage to the Ego, thefault is in the machine. It is not the solar system that has gone wrong, but the human machine. Second great principle, therefore: '_In case offriction, the machine is always at fault_. '

You can control nothing but your own mind. Even your two-year-old babemay defy you by the instinctive force of its personality. But your ownmind you can control. Your own mind is a sacred enclosure into whichnothing harmful can enter except by your permission. Your own mind hasthe power to transmute every external phenomenon to its own purposes. Ifhappiness arises from cheerfulness, kindliness, and rectitude (and whowill deny it?), what possible combination of circumstances is going tomake you unhappy so long as the machine remains in order? Ifself-development consists in the utilisation of one's environment (notutilisation of somebody else's environment), how can your environmentprevent you from developing? You would look rather foolish without it, anyway. In that noddle of yours is everything necessary for development, for the maintaining of dignity, for the achieving of happiness, and youare absolute lord over the noddle, will you but exercise the powers oflordship. Why worry about the contents of somebody else's noddle, inwhich you can be nothing but an intruder, when you may arrive at abetter result, with absolute certainty, by confining your activities toyour own? 'Look within. ' 'The Kingdom of Heaven is within you. ' 'Oh, yes!' you protest. 'All that's old. Epictetus said that. Marcus Aureliussaid that. Christ said that. ' They did. I admit it readily. But if youwere ruffled this morning because your motor-omnibus broke down, andyou had to take a cab, then so far as you are concerned these greatteachers lived in vain. You, calling yourself a reasonable man, aregoing about dependent for your happiness, dignity, and growth, upon athousand things over which you have no control, and the most exquisitelyorganised machine for ensuring happiness, dignity, and growth, isrusting away inside you. And all because you have a sort of notion thata saying said two thousand years ago cannot be practical. 

You remark sagely to your child: 'No, my child, you cannot have thatmoon, and you will accomplish nothing by crying for it. Now, here isthis beautiful box of bricks, by means of which you may amuse yourselfwhile learning many wonderful matters and improving your mind. You musttry to be content with what you have, and to make the best of it. If youhad the moon you wouldn't be any happier. ' Then you lie awake half thenight repining because the last post has brought a letter to the effectthat 'the Board cannot entertain your application for, ' etc. You say thetwo cases are not alike. They are not. Your child has never heard ofEpictetus. On the other hand, justice _is_ the moon. At your age yousurely know that. 'But the Directors _ought_ to have granted myapplication, ' you insist. Exactly! I agree. But we are not in a universeof _oughts_. You have a special apparatus within you for dealing with auniverse where _oughts_ are flagrantly disregarded. And you are notusing it. You are lying awake, keeping your wife awake, injuring yourhealth, injuring hers, losing your dignity and your cheerfulness. Why?Because you think that these antics and performances will influence theBoard? Because you think that they will put you into a better conditionfor dealing with your environment to-morrow? Not a bit. Simply becausethe machine is at fault. 

In certain cases we do make use of our machines (as well as their sadcondition of neglect will allow), but in other cases we behave in anextraordinarily irrational manner. Thus if we sally out and get caughtin a heavy shower we do not, unless very far gone in foolishness, sitdown and curse the weather. We put up our umbrella, if we have one, andif not we hurry home. We may grumble, but it is not serious grumbling;we accept the shower as a fact of the universe, and control ourselves. Thus also, if by a sudden catastrophe we lose somebody who is importantto us, we grieve, but we control ourselves, recognising one of thosehazards of destiny from which not even millionaires are exempt. And theresult on our Ego is usually to improve it in essential respects. Butthere are other strokes of destiny, other facts of the universe, against which we protest as a child protests when deprived of the moon. 

Take the case of an individual with an imperfect idea of honesty. Now, that individual is the consequence of his father and mother and hisenvironment, and his father and mother of theirs, and so backwards tothe single-celled protoplasm. That individual is a result of the cosmicorder, the inevitable product of cause and effect. We know that. We mustadmit that he is just as much a fact of the universe as a shower of rainor a storm at sea that swallows a ship. We freely grant in the abstractthat there must be, at the present stage of evolution, a certain numberof persons with unfair minds. We are quite ready to contemplate such anindividual with philosophy--until it happens that, in the course of theprogress of the solar system, he runs up against ourselves. Then listento the outcry! Listen to the continual explosions of a righteous managgrieved! The individual may be our clerk, cashier, son, father, brother, partner, wife, employer. We are ill-used! We are being treatedunfairly! We kick; we scream. We nourish the inward sense of grievancethat eats the core out of content. We sit down in the rain. We declineto think of umbrellas, or to run to shelter. 

We care not that that individual is a fact which the universe has beenslowly manufacturing for millions of years. Our attitude implies that wewant eternity to roll back and begin again, in such wise that we at anyrate shall not be disturbed. Though we have a machine for thetransmutation of facts into food for our growth, we do not dream ofusing it. But, we say, he is doing us harm! Where? In our minds. He hasrobbed us of our peace, our comfort, our happiness, our good temper. Even if he has, we might just as well inveigh against a shower. But hashe? What was our brain doing while this naughty person stepped in androbbed us of the only possessions worth having? No, no! It is not thathe has done us harm--the one cheerful item in a universe of stony factsis that no one can harm anybody except himself--it is merely that wehave been silly, precisely as silly as if we had taken a seat in therain with a folded umbrella by our side. .. . The machine is at fault. Ifancy we are now obtaining glimpses of what that phrase really means. 

VII

WHAT 'LIVING' CHIEFLY IS

It is in intercourse--social, sentimental, or business--with one'sfellows that the qualities and the condition of the human machine areput to the test and strained. That part of my life which I conduct bymyself, without reference--or at any rate without direct reference--toothers, I can usually manage in such a way that the gods do notpositively weep at the spectacle thereof. My environment is simpler, less puzzling, when I am alone, my calm and my self-control less liableto violent fluctuations. Impossible to be disturbed by a chair!Impossible that a chair should get on one's nerves! Impossible to blamea chair for not being as reasonable, as archangelic as I am myself! Butwhen it comes to people!. .. Well, that is'living, ' then! The art of life, the art of extracting all its powerfrom the human machine, does not lie chiefly in processes ofbookish-culture, nor in contemplations of the beauty and majesty ofexistence. It lies chiefly in keeping the peace, the whole peace, andnothing but the peace, with those with whom one is 'thrown. ' Is it insitting ecstatic over Shelley, Shakespeare, or Herbert Spencer, solitaryin my room of a night, that I am 'improving myself' and learning tolive? Or is it in watching over all my daily human contacts? Do not seekto escape the comparison by insinuating that I despise study, or bypointing out that the eternal verities are beyond dailiness. Nothing ofthe kind! I am so 'silly' about books that merely to possess them givesme pleasure. And if the verities are good for eternity they ought to begood for a day. If I cannot exchange them for daily coin--if I can'tbuy happiness for a single day because I've nothing less than an eternalverity about me and nobody has sufficient change--then my eternal verityis not an eternal verity. It is merely an unnegotiable bit of glass(called a diamond), or even a note on the Bank of Engraving. 

I can say to myself when I arise in the morning: 'I am master of mybrain. No one can get in there and rage about like a bull in a chinashop. If my companions on the planet's crust choose to rage about theycannot affect _me_! I will not let them. I have power to maintain my owncalm, and I will. No earthly being can force me to be false to myprinciples, or to be blind to the beauty of the universe, or to begloomy, or to be irritable, or to complain against my lot. For thesethings depend on the brain; cheerfulness, kindliness, and honestthinking are all within the department of the brain. The disciplinedbrain can accomplish them. And my brain is disciplined, and I willdiscipline it more and more as the days pass. I am, therefore, independent of hazard, and I will back myself to conduct all intercourseas becomes a rational creature. ' . .. I can say this. I can ram thisargument by force of will into my brain, and by dint of repeating itoften enough I shall assuredly arrive at the supreme virtues of reason. I should assuredly conquer--the brain being such a machine ofhabit--even if I did not take the trouble to consider in the slightestdegree what manner of things my fellow-men are--by acting merely in myown interests. But the way of perfection (I speak relatively) will beimmensely shortened and smoothed if I do consider, dispassionately, thecase of the other human machines. Thus:--

The truth is that my attitude towards my fellows is fundamentally andtotally wrong, and that it entails on my thinking machine a strainwhich is quite unnecessary, though I may have arranged the machine so asto withstand the strain successfully. The secret of smooth living is acalm cheerfulness which will leave me always in full possession of myreasoning faculty--in order that I may live by reason instead of byinstinct and momentary passion. The secret of calm cheerfulness iskindliness; no person can be consistently cheerful and calm who does notconsistently think kind thoughts. But how can I be kindly when I passthe major portion of my time in blaming the people who surround me--whoare part of my environment? If I, blaming, achieve some approach tokindliness, it is only by a great and exhausting effort of self-mastery. The inmost secret, then, lies in not blaming, in not judging andemitting verdicts. Oh! I do not blame by word of mouth! I am far tooadvanced for such a puerility. I keep the blame in my own breast, whereit festers. I am always privately forgiving, which is bad for me. Because, you know, there is nothing to forgive. I do not have to forgivebad weather; nor, if I found myself in an earthquake, should I have toforgive the earthquake. 

All blame, uttered or unexpressed, is wrong. I do not blame myself. Ican explain myself to myself. I can invariably explain myself. If Iforged a friend's name on a cheque I should explain the affair quitesatisfactorily to myself. And instead of blaming myself I shouldsympathise with myself for having been driven into such an excessivelyawkward corner. Let me examine honestly my mental processes, and I mustadmit that my attitude towards others is entirely different from myattitude towards myself. I must admit that in the seclusion of my mind, though I say not a word, I am constantly blaming others because I amnot happy. Whenever I bump up against an opposing personality and mysmooth progress is impeded, I secretly blame the opposer. I act asthough I had shouted to the world: 'Clear out of the way, every one, forI am coming!' Every one does not clear out of the way. I did not reallyexpect every one to clear out of the way. But I act, within, as though Ihad so expected. I blame. Hence kindliness, hence cheerfulness, isrendered vastly more difficult for me. 

What I ought to do is this! I ought to reflect again and again, and yetagain, that the beings among whom I have to steer, the livingenvironment out of which I have to manufacture my happiness, are just asinevitable in the scheme of evolution as I am myself; have just as muchright to be themselves as I have to be myself; are precisely my equalsin the face of Nature; are capable of being explained as I am capableof being explained; are entitled to the same latitude as I am entitledto, and are no more responsible for their composition and theirenvironment than I for mine. I ought to reflect again and again, and yetagain, that they all deserve from me as much sympathy as I give tomyself. Why not? Having thus reflected in a general manner, I ought totake one by one the individuals with whom I am brought into frequentcontact, and seek, by a deliberate effort of the imagination and thereason, to understand them, to understand why they act thus and thus, what their difficulties are, what their 'explanation' is, and howfriction can be avoided. So I ought to reflect, morning after morning, until my brain is saturated with the cases of these individuals. Here isa course of discipline. If I follow it I shall gradually lose thepreposterous habit of blaming, and I shall have laid the foundations ofthat quiet, unshakable self-possession which is the indispensablepreliminary of conduct according to reason, of thorough efficiency inthe machine of happiness. But something in me, something distinctlybase, says: 'Yes. The put-yourself-in-his-place business over again! Thedo-unto-others business over again!' Just so! Something in me is ashamedof being 'moral. ' (You all know the feeling!) Well, morals are naughtbut another name for reasonable conduct; a higher and more practicalform of egotism--an egotism which, while freeing others, frees myself. Ihave tried the lower form of egotism. And it has failed. If I am afraidof being moral, if I prefer to cut off my nose to spite my face, well, Imust accept the consequences. But truth will prevail. 

VIII

THE DAILY FRICTION

It is with common daily affairs that I am now dealing, not with heroicenterprises, ambitions, martyrdoms. Take the day, the ordinary day inthe ordinary house or office. Though it comes seven times a week, and isthe most banal thing imaginable, it is quite worth attention. How doesthe machine get through it? Ah! the best that can be said of the machineis that it does get through it, somehow. The friction, though seldomsuch as to bring matters to a standstill, is frequent--the sort offriction that, when it occurs in a bicycle, is just sufficient to annoythe rider, but not sufficient to make him get off the machine andexamine the bearings. Occasionally the friction is very loud; indeed, disturbing, and at rarer intervals it shrieks, like an omnibus brake outof order. You know those days when you have the sensation that life isnot large enough to contain the household or the office-staff, when thebusiness of intercourse may be compared to the manoeuvres of two peoplewho, having awakened with a bad headache, are obliged to dresssimultaneously in a very small bedroom. 'After you with that towel!' inaccents of bitter, grinding politeness. 'If you could kindly move yourthings off this chair!' in a voice that would blow brains out if it werea bullet. I venture to say that you know those days. 'But, ' you reply, 'such days are few. Usually. .. !' Well, usually, the friction, thoughless intense, is still proceeding. We grow accustomed to it. We scarcelynotice it, as a person in a stuffy chamber will scarcely notice thestuffiness. But the deteriorating influence due to friction goes on, even if unperceived. And one morning we perceive its ravages--and writea letter to the _Telegraph_ to inquire whether life is worth living, orwhether marriage is a failure, or whether men are more polite thanwomen. The proof that friction, in various and varying degrees, ispractically conscious in most households lies in the fact that when wechance on a household where there is no friction we are startled. Wecan't recover from the phenomenon. And in describing this household toour friends, we say: 'They get on so well together, ' as if we weresaying: 'They have wings and can fly! Just fancy! Did you ever hear ofsuch a thing?'

Ninety per cent. Of all daily friction is caused by tone--mere tone ofvoice. Try this experiment. Say: 'Oh, you little darling, you sweet pet, you entirely charming creature!' to a baby or a dog; but roar thesedelightful epithets in the tone of saying: 'You infernal littlenuisance! If I hear another sound I'll break every bone in your body!'The baby will infallibly whimper, and the dog will infallibly mouch off. True, a dog is not a human being, neither is a baby. They cannotunderstand. It is precisely because they cannot understand andarticulate words that the experiment is valuable; for it separates theeffect of the tone from the effect of the word spoken. He who speaks, speaks twice. His words convey his thought, and his tone conveys hismental attitude towards the person spoken to. And certainly theattitude, so far as friction goes, is more important than the thought. Your wife may say to you: 'I shall buy that hat I spoke to you about. 'And you may reply, quite sincerely, 'As you please. ' But it will dependon your tone whether you convey: 'As you please. I am sympatheticallyanxious that your innocent caprices should be indulged. ' Or whether youconvey: 'As you please. Only don't bother me with hats. I am above hats. A great deal too much money is spent in this house on hats. However, I'mhelpless!' Or whether you convey: 'As you please, heart of my heart, butif you would like to be a nice girl, go gently. We're rather tight. ' Ineed not elaborate. I am sure of being comprehended. 

As tone is the expression of attitude, it is, of course, caused byattitude. The frictional tone is chiefly due to that general attitude ofblame which I have already condemned as being absurd and unjustifiable. As, by constant watchful discipline, we gradually lose this sillyattitude of blame, so the tone will of itself gradually change. But thetwo ameliorations can proceed together, and it is a curious thing thatan agreeable tone, artificially and deliberately adopted, willinfluence the mental attitude almost as much as the mental attitude willinfluence the tone. If you honestly feel resentful against some one, but, having understood the foolishness of fury, intentionally mask yourfury under a persuasive tone, your fury will at once begin to abate. Youwill be led into a rational train of thought; you will see that afterall the object of your resentment has a right to exist, and that he isneither a doormat nor a scoundrel, and that anyhow nothing is to begained, and much is to be lost, by fury. You will see that fury isunworthy of you. 

Do you remember the gentleness of the tone which you employed after thehealing of your first quarrel with a beloved companion? Do you rememberthe persuasive tone which you used when you wanted to obtain somethingfrom a difficult person on whom your happiness depended? Why should notyour tone always combine these qualities? Why should you not carefullyschool your tone? Is it beneath you to ensure the largest possibleamount of your own 'way' by the simplest means? Or is there at the backof your mind that peculiarly English and German idea that politeness, sympathy, and respect for another immortal soul would imply deplorableweakness on your part? You say that your happiness does not depend onevery person whom you happen to speak to. Yes, it does. Your happinessis always dependent on just that person. Produce friction, and yousuffer. Idle to argue that the person has no business to be upset byyour tone! You have caused avoidable friction, simply because yourmachine for dealing with your environment was suffering from pride, ignorance, or thoughtlessness. You say I am making a mountain out of amole-hill. No! I am making a mountain out of ten million mole-hills. And that is what life does. It is the little but continuous causes thathave great effects. I repeat: Why not deliberately adopt a gentle, persuasive tone--just to see what the results are? Surely you are notashamed to be wise. You may smile superiorly as you read this. Yet youknow very well that more than once you _have_ resolved to use a gentleand persuasive tone on all occasions, and that the sole reason why youhad that fearful shindy yesterday with your cousin's sister-in-law wasthat you had long since failed to keep your resolve. But you were of mymind once, and more than once. 

What you have to do is to teach the new habit to your brain by dailyconcentration on it; by forcing your brain to think of nothing else forhalf an hour of a morning. After a time the brain will begin to rememberautomatically. For, of course, the explanation of your previousfailures is that your brain, undisciplined, merely forgot at thecritical moment. The tone was out of your mouth before your brain hadwaked up. It is necessary to watch, as though you were a sentinel, notonly against the wrong tone, but against the other symptoms of theattitude of blame. Such as the frown. It is necessary to regard yourselfconstantly, and in minute detail. You lie in bed for half an hour andenthusiastically concentrate on this beautiful new scheme of the righttone. You rise, and because you don't achieve a proper elegance ofnecktie at the first knotting, you frown and swear and clench yourteeth! There is a symptom of the wrong attitude towards yourenvironment. You are awake, but your brain isn't. It is in such asymptom that you may judge yourself. And not a trifling symptom either!If you will frown at a necktie, if you will use language to a necktiewhich no gentleman should use to a necktie, what will you be capable ofto a responsible being?. .. Yes, it is very difficult. But it can bedone. 

IX

'FIRE!'

In this business of daily living, of ordinary usage of the machine inhourly intercourse, there occurs sometimes a phenomenon which is thecause of a great deal of trouble, and the result of a very ill-tendedmachine. It is a phenomenon impossible to ignore, and yet, so shamefulis it, so degrading, so shocking, so miserable, that I hesitate tomention it. For one class of reader is certain to ridicule me, loftilysaying: 'One really doesn't expect to find this sort of thing in printnowadays!' And another class of reader is certain to get angry. Nevertheless, as one of my main objects in the present book is todiscuss matters which 'people don't talk about, ' I shall discuss thismatter. But my diffidence in doing so is such that I must approach itdeviously, describing it first by means of a figure. 

Imagine that, looking at a man's house, you suddenly perceive it to beon fire. The flame is scarcely perceptible. You could put it out if youhad a free hand. But you have not got a free hand. It is his house, notyours. He may or may not know that his house is burning. You are aware, by experience, however, that if you directed his attention to the flame, the effect of your warning would be exceedingly singular, almostincredible. For the effect would be that he would instantly begin tostrike matches, pour on petroleum, and fan the flame, violentlyresenting interference. Therefore you can only stand and watch, hopingthat he will notice the flames before they are beyond control, andextinguish them. The probability is, however, that he will notice theflames too late. And powerless to avert disaster, you are condemned, therefore, to watch the damage of valuable property. The flames leaphigher and higher, and they do not die down till they have burnedthemselves out. You avert your gaze from the spectacle, and until youare gone the owner of the house pretends that nothing has occurred. Whenalone he curses himself for his carelessness. 

The foregoing is meant to be a description of what happens when a manpasses through the incendiary experience known as 'losing his temper. '(There! the cat of my chapter is out of the bag!) A man who has lost histemper is simply being 'burnt out. ' His constitutes one of the mostcurious and (for everybody) humiliating spectacles that life offers. Itis an insurrection, a boiling over, a sweeping storm. Dignity, commonsense, justice are shrivelled up and destroyed. Anarchy reigns. Thedevil has broken his chain. Instinct is stamping on the face of reason. And in that man civilisation has temporarily receded millions of years. Of course, the thing amounts to a nervous disease, and I think it isalmost universal. You at once protest that you never lose yourtemper--haven't lost your temper for ages! But do you not mean that youhave not smashed furniture for ages? These fires are of varyingintensities. Some of them burn very dully. Yet they burn. One man loseshis temper; another is merely 'ruffled. ' But the event is the same inkind. When you are 'ruffled, ' when you are conscious of a resentfulvibration that surprises all your being, when your voice changes, whenyou notice a change in the demeanour of your companion, who sees that hehas 'touched a tender point, ' you may not go to the length of smashingfurniture, but you have had a fire, and your dignity is damaged. Youadmit it to yourself afterwards. I am sure you know what I mean. And Iam nearly sure that you, with your courageous candour, will admit thatfrom time to time you suffer from these mysterious 'fires. '

'Temper, ' one of the plagues of human society, is generally held to beincurable, save by the vague process of exercising self-control--aprocess which seldom has any beneficial results. It is regarded now assmallpox used to be regarded--as a visitation of Providence, which mustbe borne. But I do not hold it to be incurable. I am convinced that itis permanently curable. And its eminent importance as a nuisance tomankind at large deserves, I think, that it should receive particularattention. Anyhow, I am strongly against the visitation of Providencetheory, as being unscientific, primitive, and conducive to unashamed_laissez-aller. _ A man can be master in his own house. If he cannot bemaster by simple force of will, he can be master by ruse and wile. Iwould employ cleverness to maintain the throne of reason when it islikely to be upset in the mind by one of these devastating anddisgraceful insurrections of brute instinct. 

It is useless for a man in the habit of losing or mislaying his temperto argue with himself that such a proceeding is folly, that it serves noend, and does nothing but harm. It is useless for him to argue that inallowing his temper to stray he is probably guilty of cruelty, andcertainly guilty of injustice to those persons who are forced to witnessthe loss. It is useless for him to argue that a man of uncertain temperin a house is like a man who goes about a house with a loaded revolversticking from his pocket, and that all considerations of fairness andreason have to be subordinated in that house to the fear of therevolver, and that such peace as is maintained in that house is often ashameful and an unjust peace. These arguments will not be strong enoughto prevail against one of the most powerful and capricious of allhabits. This habit must be met and conquered (and it _can_ be!) by aneven more powerful quality in the human mind; I mean the universal humanhorror of looking ridiculous. The man who loses his temper often thinkshe is doing something rather fine and majestic. On the contrary, so faris this from being the fact, he is merely making an ass of himself. Heis merely parading himself as an undignified fool, as that supremelycontemptible figure--a grown-up baby. He may intimidate a feeblecompanion by his raging, or by the dark sullenness of a more subduedflame, but in the heart of even the weakest companion is a bedrockfeeling of contempt for him. The way in which a man of uncertain temperis treated by his friends proves that they despise him, for they do nottreat him as a reasonable being. How should they treat him as areasonable being when the tenure of his reason is so insecure? And ifonly he could hear what is said of him behind his back!. .. 

The invalid can cure himself by teaching his brain the habit of dwellingupon his extreme fatuity. Let him concentrate regularly, with intensefixation, upon the ideas: 'When I lose my temper, when I get ruffled, when that mysterious vibration runs through me, I am making a donkey ofmyself, a donkey, and a donkey! You understand, a preposterous donkey! Iam behaving like a great baby. I look a fool. I am a spectacle bereft ofdignity. Everybody despises me, smiles at me in secret, disdains theidiotic ass with whom it is impossible to reason. '

Ordinarily the invalid disguises from himself this aspect of hisdisease, and his brain will instinctively avoid it as much as it can. But in hours of calm he can slowly and regularly force his brain, bythe practice of concentration, to familiarise itself with just thisaspect, so that in time its instinct will be to think first, and notlast, of just this aspect. When he has arrived at that point he issaved. No man who, at the very inception of the fire, is visited with aclear vision of himself as an arrant ass and pitiable object ofcontempt, will lack the volition to put the fire out. But, be it noted, he will not succeed until he can do it at once. A fire is a fire, andthe engines must gallop by themselves out of the station instantly. Thismeans the acquirement of a mental habit. During the preliminary stagesof the cure he should, of course, avoid inflammable situations. This isa perfectly simple thing to do, if the brain has been disciplined out ofits natural forgetfulness. 

X

MISCHIEVOUSLY OVERWORKING IT

I have dealt with the two general major causes of friction in the dailyuse of the machine. I will now deal with a minor cause, and make an endof mere dailiness. This minor cause--and after all I do not know thatits results are so trifling as to justify the epithet 'minor'--is thestraining of the machine by forcing it to do work which it was neverintended to do. Although we are incapable of persuading our machines todo effectively that which they are bound to do somehow, we continuallyoverburden them with entirely unnecessary and inept tasks. We cannot, itwould seem, let things alone. 

For example, in the ordinary household the amount of machine horse-powerexpended in fighting for the truth is really quite absurd. This purezeal for the establishment and general admission of the truth is usuallytermed 'contradictoriness. ' But, of course, it is not that; it issomething higher. My wife states that the Joneses have gone into a newflat, of which the rent is £165 a year. Now, Jones has told mepersonally that the rent of his new flat is £156 a year. I correct mywife. Knowing that she is in the right, she corrects me. She cannot bearthat a falsehood should prevail. It is not a question of £9, it is aquestion of truth. Her enthusiasm for truth excites my enthusiasm fortruth. Five minutes ago I didn't care twopence whether the rent of theJoneses' new flat was £165 or £156 or £1056 a year. But now I careintensely that it is £156. I have formed myself into a select societyfor the propagating of the truth about the rent of the Joneses' newflat, and my wife has done the same. In eloquence, in argumentativeskill, in strict supervision of our tempers, we each of us squanderenormous quantities of that h. -p. Which is so precious to us. And thenet effect is naught. 

Now, if one of us two had understood the elementary principles of humanengineering, that one would have said (privately): 'Truth isindestructible. Truth will out. Truth is never in a hurry. If it doesn'tcome out to-day it will come out to-morrow or next year. It can takecare of itself. Ultimately my wife (or my husband) will learn theessential cosmic truth about the rent of the Joneses' new flat. Ialready know it, and the moment when she (or he) knows it also will bethe moment of my triumph. She (or he) will not celebrate my triumphopenly, but it will be none the less real. And my reputation foraccuracy and calm restraint will be consolidated. If, by a raremischance, I am in error, it will be vastly better for me in the day ofmy undoing that I have not been too positive now. Besides, nobody hasappointed me sole custodian of the great truth concerning the rent ofthe Joneses' new flat. I was not brought into the world to be asafe-deposit, and more urgent matters summon me to effort. ' If one of ushad meditated thus, much needless friction would have been avoided andpower saved; _amour-propre_ would not have been exposed to risks; thesacred cause of truth would not in the least have suffered; and the rentof the Joneses' new flat would anyhow have remained exactly what it is. 

In addition to straining the machine by our excessive anxiety for thespread of truth, we give a very great deal too much attention to thestate of other people's machines. I cannot too strongly, toosarcastically, deprecate this astonishing habit. It will be found to berife in nearly every household and in nearly every office. We are mostof us endeavouring to rearrange the mechanism in other heads than ourown. This is always dangerous and generally futile. Considering thedifficulty we have in our own brains, where our efforts are sure ofbeing accepted as well-meant, and where we have at any rate a roughnotion of the machine's construction, our intrepidity in adventuringamong the delicate adjustments of other brains is remarkable. We arecursed by too much of the missionary spirit. We must needs voyage intothe China of our brother's brain, and explain there that things areseriously wrong in that heathen land, and make ourselves unpleasant inthe hope of getting them put right. We have all our own brain and bodyon which to wreak our personality, but this is not enough; we mustextend our personality further, just as though we were a colonisingworld-power intoxicated by the idea of the 'white man's burden. '

One of the central secrets of efficient daily living is to leave ourdaily companions alone a great deal more than we do, and attend toourselves. If a daily companion is conducting his life upon principleswhich you know to be false, and with results which you feel to beunpleasant, the safe rule is to keep your mouth shut. Or if, out of yoursingular conceit, you are compelled to open it, open it with allprecautions, and with the formal politeness you would use to a stranger. Intimacy is no excuse for rough manners, though the majority of us seemto think it is. You are not in charge of the universe; you are in chargeof yourself. You cannot hope to manage the universe in your spare time, and if you try you will probably make a mess of such part of theuniverse as you touch, while gravely neglecting yourself. In everyfamily there is generally some one whose meddlesome interest in othermachines leads to serious friction in his own. Criticise less, even inthe secrecy of your chamber. And do not blame at all. Accept yourenvironment and adapt yourself to it in silence, instead of noisilyattempting to adapt your environment to yourself. Here is true wisdom. You have no business trespassing beyond the confines of your ownindividuality. In so trespassing you are guilty of impertinence. This isobvious. And yet one of the chief activities of home-life consists inprancing about at random on other people's private lawns. What I sayapplies even to the relation between parents and children. And though myprecept is exaggerated, it is purposely exaggerated in order effectivelyto balance the exaggeration in the opposite direction. 

All individualities, other than one's own, are part of one'senvironment. The evolutionary process is going on all right, and theyare a portion of it. Treat them as inevitable. To assert that they areinevitable is not to assert that they are unalterable. Only thealteration of them is not primarily your affair; it is theirs. Youraffair is to use them, as they are, without self-righteousness, blame, or complaint, for the smooth furtherance of your own ends. There is nointention here to rob them of responsibility by depriving them offree-will while saddling _you_ with responsibility as a free agent. Asyour environment they must be accepted as inevitable, because they _are_inevitable. But as centres themselves they have their ownresponsibility: which is not yours. The historic question: 'Have wefree-will, or are we the puppets of determinism?' enters now. As aquestion it is fascinating and futile. It has never been, and it neverwill be, settled. The theory of determinism cannot be demolished byargument. But in his heart every man, including the most obstinatesupporter of the theory, demolishes it every hour of every day. On theother hand, the theory of free-will can be demolished by ratiocination!So much the worse for ratiocination! _If we regard ourselves as freeagents, and the personalities surrounding us as the puppets ofdeterminism_, we shall have arrived at the working compromise from whichthe finest results of living can be obtained. The philosophic experienceof centuries, if it has proved anything, has proved this. And the manwho acts upon it in the common, banal contracts and collisions of thedifficult experiment which we call daily life, will speedily becomeconvinced of its practical worth. 

XI

AN INTERLUDE

For ten chapters you have stood it, but not without protest. I know thefeeling which is in your minds, and which has manifested itself innumerous criticisms of my ideas. That feeling may be briefly translated, perhaps, thus: 'This is all very well, but it isn't true, not a bit!It's only a fairy-tale that you have been telling us. Miracles don'thappen, ' etc. I, on my part, have a feeling that unless I take yourfeeling in hand at once, and firmly deal with it, I had better put myshutters up, for you will have got into the way of regarding me simplyas a source of idle amusement. Already I can perceive, from theexpressions of some critics, that, so far as they are concerned, Imight just as well not have written a word. Therefore at this point Ipause, in order to insist once more upon what I began by saying. 

The burden of your criticism is: 'Human nature is always the same. Iknow my faults. But it is useless to tell me about them. I can't alterthem. I was born like that. ' The fatal weakness of this argument is, first, that it is based on a complete falsity; and second, that it putsyou in an untenable position. Human nature _does_ change. Nothing can bemore unscientific, more hopelessly mediĉval, than to imagine that itdoes not. It changes like everything else. You can't see it change. True! But then you can't see the grass growing--not unless you arisevery early. 

Is human nature the same now as in the days of Babylonian civilisation, when the social machine was oiled by drenchings of blood? Is it the samenow as in the days of Greek civilisation, when there was no such thingas romantic love between the sexes? Is it the same now as it was duringthe centuries when constant friction had to provide its own cure in theshape of constant war? Is it the same now as it was on 2nd March 1819, when the British Government officially opposed a motion to consider theseverity of the criminal laws (which included capital punishment forcutting down a tree, and other sensible dodges against friction), andwere defeated by a majority of only nineteen votes? Is it the same nowas in the year 1883, when the first S. P. C. C. Was formed in England?

If you consider that human nature is still the same you should instantlygo out and make a bonfire of the works of Spencer, Darwin, and Wallace, and then return to enjoy the purely jocular side of the present volume. If you admit that it has changed, let me ask you how it has changed, unless by the continual infinitesimal efforts, _upon themselves_, ofindividual men, like you and me. Did you suppose it was changed bymagic, or by Acts of Parliament, or by the action of groups on persons, and not of persons on groups? Let me tell you that human nature haschanged since yesterday. Let me tell you that to-day reason has a morepowerful voice in the directing of instinct than it had yesterday. Letme tell you that to-day the friction of the machines is less screechyand grinding than it was yesterday. 

'You were born like that, and you can't alter yourself, and so it's nouse talking. ' If you really believe this, why make any effort at all?Why not let the whole business beautifully slide and yield to yourinstincts? What object can there be in trying to control yourself in anymanner whatever if you are unalterable? Assert yourself to beunalterable, and you assert yourself a fatalist. Assert yourself afatalist, and you free yourself from all moral responsibility--and otherpeople, too. Well, then, act up to your convictions, if convictions theyare. If you can't alter yourself, I can't alter myself, and supposingthat I come along and bash you on the head and steal your purse, youcan't blame me. You can only, on recovering consciousness, affectionately grasp my hand and murmur: 'Don't apologise, my dearfellow; we can't alter ourselves. '

This, you say, is absurd. It is. That is one of my innumerable points. The truth is, you do not really believe that you cannot alter yourself. What is the matter with you is just what is the matter with me--sheeridleness. You hate getting up in the morning, and to excuse yourinexcusable indolence you talk big about Fate. Just as 'patriotism isthe last refuge of a scoundrel, ' so fatalism is the last refuge of ashirker. But you deceive no one, least of all yourself. You have not, rationally, a leg to stand on. At this juncture, because I have made youlaugh, you consent to say: 'I do try, all I can. But I can only altermyself a very little. By constitution I am mentally idle. I can't helpthat, can I?' Well, so long as you are not the only absolutelyunchangeable thing in a universe of change, I don't mind. It issomething for you to admit that you can alter yourself even a verylittle. The difference between our philosophies is now only a questionof degree. 

In the application of any system of perfecting the machine, no twopersons will succeed equally. From the disappointed tone of some of yourcriticisms it might be fancied that I had advertised a system for makingarchangels out of tailors' dummies. Such was not my hope. I have nobelief in miracles. But I know that when a thing is thoroughly welldone it often has the air of being a miracle. My sole aim is to insistthat every man shall perfect his machine to the best of _his_ powers, not to the best of somebody else's powers. I do not indulge in any hopethat a man can be better than his best self. I am, however, convincedthat every man fails to be his best self a great deal oftener than heneed fail--for the reason that his will-power, be it great or small, isnot directed according to the principles of common sense. 

Common sense will surely lead a man to ask the question: 'Why did myactions yesterday contradict my reason?' The reply to this question willnearly always be: 'Because at the critical moment I forgot. ' The supremeexplanation of the abortive results of so many efforts atself-alteration, the supreme explanation of our frequent miserablescurrying into a doctrine of fatalism, is simple forgetfulness. It isnot force that we lack, but the skill to remember exactly what ourreason would have us do or think at the moment itself. How is this skillto be acquired? It can only be acquired, as skill at games is acquired, by practice; by the training of the organ involved to such a point thatthe organ acts rightly by instinct instead of wrongly by instinct. Thereare degrees of success in this procedure, but there is no suchphenomenon as complete failure. 

Habits which increase friction can be replaced by habits which lessenfriction. Habits which arrest development can be replaced by habitswhich encourage development. And as a habit is formed naturally, so itcan be formed artificially, by imitation of the unconscious process, byaccustoming the brain to the new idea. Let me, as an example, referagain to the minor subject of daily friction, and, within that subject, to the influence of tone. A man employs a frictional tone throughhabit. The frictional tone is an instinct with him. But if he had aquarter of an hour to reflect before speaking, and if during thatquarter of an hour he could always listen to arguments against thefrictional tone, his use of the frictional tone would rapidly diminish;his reason would conquer his instinct. As things are, his instinctconquers his reason by a surprise attack, by taking it unawares. Regulardaily concentration of the brain, for a certain period, upon thenon-frictional tone, and the immense advantages of its use, willgradually set up in the brain a new habit of thinking about thenon-frictional tone; until at length the brain, disciplined, turns tothe correct act before the old, silly instinct can capture it; andultimately a new sagacious instinct will supplant the old one. 

This is the rationale. It applies to all habits. Any person can test itsefficiency in any habit. I care not whether he be of strong or weakwill--he can test it. He will soon see the tremendous difference betweenmerely 'making a good resolution'--(he has been doing that all his lifewithout any very brilliant consequences)--and concentrating the brainfor a given time exclusively upon a good resolution. Concentration, theefficient mastery of the brain--all is there!

XII

AN INTEREST IN LIFE

After a certain period of mental discipline, of deliberate habit-formingand habit-breaking, such as I have been indicating, a man will begin toacquire at any rate a superficial knowledge, a nodding acquaintance, with that wonderful and mysterious affair, his brain, and he will alsobegin to perceive how important a factor in daily life is the control ofhis brain. He will assuredly be surprised at the miracles which liebetween his collar and his hat, in that queer box that he calls hishead. For the effects that can be accomplished by mere steady, persistent thinking must appear to be miracles to apprentices in thepractice of thought. When once a man, having passed an unhappy daybecause his clumsy, negligent brain forgot to control his instincts at acritical moment, has said to his brain: 'I will force you, byconcentrating you on that particular point, to act efficiently the nexttime similar circumstances arise, ' and when he has carried out hisintention, and when the awkward circumstances have recurred, and hisbrain, disciplined, has done its work, and so preventedunhappiness--then that man will regard his brain with a new eye. 'ByJove!' he will say; 'I've stopped one source of unhappiness, anyway. There was a time when I should have made a fool of myself in a littledomestic crisis such as to-day's. But I have gone safely through it. Iam all right. She is all right. The atmosphere is not dangerous withundischarged electricity! And all because my brain, being in propercondition, watched firmly over my instincts! I must keep this up. ' Hewill peer into that brain more and more. He will see more and more ofits possibilities. He will have a new and a supreme interest in _life_. A garden is a fairly interesting thing. But the cultivation of a gardenis as dull as cold mutton compared to the cultivation of a brain; andwet weather won't interfere with digging, planting, and pruning in thebox. 

In due season the man whose hobby is his brain will gradually settledown into a daily routine, with which routine he will start the day. Theidea at the back of the mind of the ordinary man (by the ordinary man Imean the man whose brain is not his hobby) is almost always this: 'Thereare several things at present hanging over me--worries, unfulfilledambitions, unrealised desires. As soon as these things are definitelysettled, then I shall begin to live and enjoy myself. ' That is theordinary man's usual idea. He has it from his youth to his old age. Heis invariably waiting for something to happen before he really begins tolive. I am sure that if you are an ordinary man (of course, you aren't, I know) you will admit that this is true of you; you exist in the hopethat one day things will be sufficiently smoothed out for you to beginto live. That is just where you differ from the man whose brain is hishobby. His daily routine consists in a meditation in the following vein:'This day is before me. The circumstances of this day are myenvironment; they are the material out of which, by means of my brain, Ihave to live and be happy and to refrain from causing unhappiness inother people. It is the business of my brain to make use of _this_material. My brain is in its box for that sole purpose. Not to-morrow!Not next year! Not when I have made my fortune! Not when my sick childis out of danger! Not when my wife has returned to her senses! Not whenmy salary is raised! Not when I have passed that examination! Not whenmy indigestion is better! But _now!_ To-day, exactly as to-day is! Thefacts of to-day, which in my unregeneracy I regarded primarily asanxieties, nuisances, impediments, I now regard as so much raw materialfrom which my brain has to weave a tissue of life that is comely. '

And then he foresees the day as well as he can. His experience teacheshim where he will have difficulty, and he administers to his brain thelessons of which it will have most need. He carefully looks the machineover, and arranges it specially for the sort of road which he knows thatit will have to traverse. And especially he readjusts his point of view, for his point of view is continually getting wrong. He is continuallyseeing worries where he ought to see material. He may notice, forinstance, a patch on the back of his head, and he wonders whether it isthe result of age or of disease, or whether it has always been there. And his wife tells him he must call at the chemist's and satisfy himselfat once. Frightful nuisance! Age! The endless trouble of a capillarycomplaint! Calling at the chemist's will make him late at the office!etc. Etc. But then his skilled, efficient brain intervenes: 'Whatpeculiarly interesting material this mean and petty circumstance yieldsfor the practice of philosophy and right living!' And again: 'Is _this_to ruffle you, O my soul? Will it serve any end whatever that I shouldbuzz nervously round this circumstance instead of attending to my usualbusiness?'

I give this as an example of the necessity of adjusting the point ofview, and of the manner in which a brain habituated by suitableconcentration to correct thinking will come to the rescue in unexpectedcontingencies. Naturally it will work with greater certainty in themanipulation of difficulties that are expected, that can be 'seen coming'; and preparation for the expected is, fortunately, preparation for theunexpected. The man who commences his day by a steady contemplation ofthe dangers which the next sixteen hours are likely to furnish, and byarming himself specially against those dangers, has thereby armedhimself, though to a less extent, against dangers which he did not dreamof. But the routine must be fairly elastic. It may be necessary tocommence several days in succession--for a week or for months, even--with disciplining the brain in one particular detail, to thetemporary neglect of other matters. It is astonishing how you can weedevery inch of a garden path and keep it in the most meticulous order, and then one morning find in the very middle of it a lusty, full-grownplant whose roots are positively mortised in granite! All gardeners arefamiliar with such discoveries. 

But a similar discovery, though it entails hard labour on him, will notdisgust the man whose hobby is his brain. For the discovery in itself ispart of the material out of which he has to live. If a man is to turneverything whatsoever into his own calm, dignity, and happiness, he mustmake this use even of his own failures. He must look at them asphenomena of the brain in that box, and cheerfully set about takingmeasures to prevent their repetition. All that happens to him, successor check, will but serve to increase his interest in the contents ofthat box. I seem to hear you saying: 'And a fine egotist he'll be!'Well, he'll be the right sort of egotist. The average man is not halfenough of an egotist. If egotism means a terrific interest in one'sself, egotism is absolutely essential to efficient living. There is nogetting away from that. But if egotism means selfishness, the seriousstudent of the craft of daily living will not be an egotist for morethan about a year. In a year he will have proved the ineptitude ofegotism. 

XIII

SUCCESS AND FAILURE

I am sadly aware that these brief chapters will be apt to convey, especially to the trustful and enthusiastic reader, a false impression;the impression of simplicity; and that when experience has roughlycorrected this impression, the said reader, unless he is most solemnlywarned, may abandon the entire enterprise in a fit of disgust, and forever afterwards maintain a cynical and impolite attitude towards alltheories of controlling the human machine. Now, the enterprise is not asimple one. It is based on one simple principle--the consciousdiscipline of the brain by selected habits of thought--but it is justabout as complicated as anything well could be. Advanced golf is child'splay compared to it. The man who briefly says to himself: 'I will getup at 8, and from 8. 30 to 9 I will examine and control my brain, and somy life will at once be instantly improved out of recognition'--that manis destined to unpleasant surprises. Progress will be slow. Progress mayappear to be quite rapid at first, and then a period of futility may setin, and the would-be vanquisher of his brain may suffer a series of themost deadly defeats. And in his pessimism he may imagine that all hispains have gone for nothing, and that the unserious loungers inexhibition gardens and readers of novels in parlours are in the right ofit after all. He may even feel rather ashamed of himself for havingbeen, as he thinks, taken in by specious promises, like the purchaser ofa quack medicine. 

The conviction that great effort has been made and no progress achievedis the chief of the dangers that affront the beginner inmachine-tending. It is, I will assert positively, in every case aconviction unjustified by the facts, and usually it is the mere resultof reaction after fatigue, encouraged by the instinct for laziness. I donot think it will survive an impartial examination; but I know that aman, in order to find an excuse for abandoning further effort, iscapable of convincing himself that past effort has yielded no fruit atall. So curious is the human machine. I beg every student of himself toconsider this remark with all the intellectual honesty at his disposal. It is a grave warning. 

When the machine-tender observes that he is frequently changing hispoint of view; when he notices that what he regarded as the kernel ofthe difficulty yesterday has sunk to a triviality to-day, being replacedby a fresh phenomenon; when he arises one morning and by means of anew, unexpected glimpse into the recesses of the machine perceives thathitherto he has been quite wrong and must begin again; when he wondershow on earth he could have been so blind and so stupid as not to seewhat now he sees; when the new vision is veiled by new disappointmentsand narrowed by continual reservations; when he is overwhelmed by thecomplexity of his undertaking--then let him unhearten himself, for he issucceeding. The history of success in any art--and machine-tending is anart--is a history of recommencements, of the dispersal and reforming ofdoubts, of an ever-increasing conception of the extent of the territoryunconquered, and an ever-decreasing conception of the extent of theterritory conquered. 

It is remarkable that, though no enterprise could possibly present morediverse and changeful excitements than the mastering of the brain, thesecond great danger which threatens its ultimate success is nothing buta mere drying-up of enthusiasm for it! One would have thought that in anaffair which concerned him so nearly, in an affair whose results mightbe in a very strict sense vital to him, in an affair upon which hishappiness and misery might certainly turn, a man would not weary fromsheer tedium. Nevertheless, it is so. Again and again I have noticed theabandonment, temporary or permanent, of this mighty and thrillingenterprise from simple lack of interest. And I imagine that, inpractically all cases save those in which an exceptional original forceof will renders the enterprise scarcely necessary, the interest in itwill languish unless it is regularly nourished from without. Now, theinterest in it cannot be nourished from without by means of conversationwith other brain-tamers. There are certain things which may not bediscussed by sanely organised people; and this is one. The affair istoo intimate, and it is also too moral. Even after only a few minutes'vocalisation on this subject a deadly infection seems to creep into theair--the infection of priggishness. (Or am I mistaken, and do I fancythis horror? No; I cannot believe that I am mistaken. )

Hence the nourishment must be obtained by reading; a little readingevery day. I suppose there are some thousands of authors who havewritten with more or less sincerity on the management of the humanmachine. But the two which, for me, stand out easily above all the restare Marcus Aurelius Antoninus and Epictetus. Not much has beendiscovered since their time. 'The perfecting of life is a power residingin the soul, ' wrote Marcus Aurelius in the ninth book of _To Himself_, over seventeen hundred years ago. Marcus Aurelius is assuredly regardedas the greatest of writers in the human machine school, and not to readhim daily is considered by many to be a bad habit. As a confession hiswork stands alone. But as a practical 'Bradshaw' of existence, I wouldput the discourses of Epictetus before M. Aurelius. Epictetus isgrosser; he will call you a blockhead as soon as look at you; he iswitty, he is even humorous, and he never wanders far away from theincidents of daily life. He is brimming over with actuality for readersof the year 1908. He was a freed slave. M. Aurelius was an emperor, andhe had the morbidity from which all emperors must suffer. A finer soulthan Epictetus, he is not, in my view, so useful a companion. Not all ofus can breathe freely in his atmosphere. Nevertheless, he is of courseto be read, and re-read continually. When you have gone throughEpictetus--a single page or paragraph per day, well masticated anddigested, suffices--you can go through M. Aurelius, and then you canreturn to Epictetus, and so on, morning by morning, or night by night, till your life's end. And they will conserve your interest in yourself. 

In the matter of concentration, I hesitate to recommend Mrs. AnnieBesant's _Thought Power_, and yet I should be possibly unjust if I didnot recommend it, having regard to its immense influence on myself. Itis not one of the best books of this astounding woman. It is addressedto theosophists, and can only be completely understood in the light oftheosophistic doctrines. (To grasp it all I found myself obliged tostudy a much larger work dealing with theosophy as a whole. ) It containsan appreciable quantity of what strikes me as feeble sentimentalism, andalso a lot of sheer dogma. But it is the least unsatisfactory manual ofthe brain that I have met with. And if the profane reader ignores allthat is either Greek or twaddle to him, there will yet remain for hisadvantage a vast amount of very sound information and advice. All thesethree books are cheap. 

XIV

A MAN AND HIS ENVIRONMENT

I now come to an entirely different aspect of the whole subject. Hitherto I have dealt with the human machine as a contrivance foradapting the man to his environment. My aim has been to show how muchdepends on the machine and how little depends on the environment, andthat the essential business of the machine is to utilise, for making thestuff of life, the particular environment in which it happens to finditself--and no other! All this, however, does not imply that one mustaccept, fatalistically and permanently and passively, any preposterousenvironment into which destiny has chanced to throw us. If we carry farenough the discipline of our brains, we can, no doubt, arrive atsurprisingly good results in no matter what environment. But it wouldnot be 'right reason' to expend an excessive amount of will-power onbrain-discipline when a slighter effort in a different direction wouldproduce consequences more felicitous. A man whom fate had pitched into acanal might accomplish miracles in the way of rendering himselfamphibian; he might stagger the world by the spectacle of his philosophyunder amazing difficulties; people might pay sixpence a head to come andsee him; but he would be less of a nincompoop if he climbed out andarranged to live definitely on the bank. 

The advantage of an adequate study of the control of the machine, suchas I have outlined, is that it enables the student to judge, with somecertainty, whether the unsatisfactoriness of his life is caused by adisordered machine or by an environment for which the machine is, inits fundamental construction, unsuitable. It does help him to decidejustly whether, in the case of a grave difference between them, he, orthe rest of the universe, is in the wrong. And also, if he decides thathe is not in the wrong, it helps him to choose a new environment, or tomodify the old, upon some scientific principle. The vast majority ofpeople never know, with any precision, why they are dissatisfied withtheir sojourn on this planet. They make long and fatiguing excursions insearch of precious materials which all the while are concealed in theirown breasts. They don't know what they want; they only know that theywant something. Or, if they contrive to settle in their own minds whatthey do want, a hundred to one the obtaining of it will leave them justas far off contentment as they were at the beginning! This is a matterof daily observation: that people are frantically engaged in attemptingto get hold of things which, by universal experience, are hideouslydisappointing to those who have obtained possession of them. And stillthe struggle goes on, and probably will go on. All because brains arelying idle! 'It is no trifle that is at stake, ' said Epictetus as to thequestion of control of instinct by reason. '_It means, Are you in yoursenses or are you not_?' In this significance, indubitably the vastmajority of people are not in their senses; otherwise they would notbehave as they do, so vaguely, so happy-go-luckily, so blindly. But theman whose brain is in working order emphatically _is_ in his senses. 

And when a man, by means of the efficiency of his brain, has put hisreason in definite command over his instincts, he at once sees things ina truer perspective than was before possible, and therefore he is ableto set a just value upon the various parts which go to make up hisenvironment. If, for instance, he lives in London, and is aware ofconstant friction, he will be led to examine the claims of London as aMecca for intelligent persons. He may say to himself: 'There issomething wrong, and the seat of trouble is not in the machine. Londoncompels me to tolerate dirt, darkness, ugliness, strain, tedious dailyjourneyings, and general expensiveness. What does London give me inexchange?' And he may decide that, as London offers him nothing specialin exchange except the glamour of London and an occasional seat at agood concert or a bad play, he may get a better return for hisexpenditure of brains, nerves, and money in the provinces. He mayperceive, with a certain French novelist, that 'most people of trulydistinguished mind prefer the provinces. ' And he may then actually, inobedience to reason, quit the deceptions of London with a tranquilheart, sure of his diagnosis. Whereas a man who had not devoted muchtime to the care of his mental machinery could not screw himself up tothe step, partly from lack of resolution, and partly because he hadnever examined the sources of his unhappiness. A man who, not havingfull control of his machine, is consistently dissatisfied with hisexistence, is like a man who is being secretly poisoned and cannotdecide with what or by whom. And so he has no middle course betweenabsolute starvation and a continuance of poisoning. 

As with the environment of place, so with the environment ofindividuals. Most friction between individuals is avoidable friction;sometimes, however, friction springs from such deep causes that no skillin the machine can do away with it. But how is the man whose brain isnot in command of his existence to judge whether the unpleasantness canbe cured or not, whether it arises in himself or in the other? He simplycannot judge. Whereas a man who keeps his brain for use and not for idleamusement will, when he sees that friction persists in spite of hisbrain, be so clearly impressed by the advisability of separation as thesole cure that he will steel himself to the effort necessary for aseparation. One of the chief advantages of an efficient brain is that anefficient brain is capable of acting with firmness and resolution, partly, of course, because it has been toned up, but more because itsoperations are not confused by the interference of mere instincts. 

Thirdly, there is the environment of one's general purpose in life, which is, I feel convinced, far more often hopelessly wrong and futilethan either the environment of situation or the environment ofindividuals. I will be bold enough to say that quite seventy per cent. Of ambition is never realised at all, and that ninety-nine per cent. Ofall realised ambition is fruitless. In other words, that a giganticsacrifice of the present to the future is always going on. And hereagain the utility of brain-discipline is most strikingly shown. A manwhose first business it is every day to concentrate his mind on theproper performance of that particular day, must necessarily conserve hisinterest in the present. It is impossible that his perspective shouldbecome so warped that he will devote, say, fifty-five years of hiscareer to problematical preparations for his comfort and his gloryduring the final ten years. A man whose brain is his servant, and nothis lady-help or his pet dog, will be in receipt of such daily contentand satisfaction that he will early ask himself the question: 'As forthis ambition that is eating away my hours, what will it give me that Ihave not already got?' Further, the steady development of interest inthe hobby (call it!) of common-sense daily living will act as anautomatic test of any ambition. If an ambition survives and flourisheson the top of that daily cultivation of the machine, then the owner ofthe ambition may be sure that it is a genuine and an invincibleambition, and he may pursue it in full faith; his developed care for thepresent will prevent him from making his ambition an altar on which thewhole of the present is to be offered up. 

I shall be told that I want to do away with ambition, and that ambitionis the great motive-power of existence, and that therefore I am an enemyof society and the truth is not in me. But I do not want to do away withambition. What I say is that current ambitions usually result indisappointment, that they usually mean the complete distortion of alife. This is an incontestable fact, and the reason of it is thatambitions are chosen either without knowledge of their real value orwithout knowledge of what they will cost. A disciplined brain will atonce show the unnecessariness of most ambitions, and will ensure thatthe remainder shall be conducted with reason. It will also convince itspossessor that the ambition to live strictly according to the highestcommon sense during the next twenty-four hours is an ambition that needsa lot of beating. 

XV

L. S. D. 

Anybody who really wishes to talk simple truth about money at thepresent time is confronted by a very serious practical difficulty. Hemust put himself in opposition to the overwhelming body of publicopinion, and resign himself to being regarded either as a _poseur_, acrank, or a fool. The public is in search of happiness now, as it was amillion years ago. Money is not the principal factor in happiness. Itmay be argued whether, as a factor in happiness, money is oftwentieth-rate importance or fiftieth-rate importance. But it cannot beargued whether money, in point of fact, does or does not of itself bringhappiness. There can be no doubt whatever that money does not bringhappiness. Yet, in face of this incontrovertible and universal truth, the whole public behaves exactly as if money were the sole or theprincipal preliminary to happiness. The public does not reason, and itwill not listen to reason; its blood is up in the money-hunt, and thephilosopher might as well expostulate with an earthquake as try to takethat public by the button-hole and explain. If a man sacrifices hisinterest under the will of some dead social tyrant in order to marrywhom he wishes, if an English minister of religion declines twenty-fivethousand dollars a year to go into exile and preach to New Yorkmillionaires, the phenomenon is genuinely held to be so astounding thatit at once flies right round the world in the form of exclamatorynewspaper articles! In an age when such an attitude towards money issincere, it is positively dangerous--I doubt if it may not beharmful--to persist with loud obstinacy that money, instead of beingthe greatest, is the least thing in the world. In times of high militaryexcitement a man may be ostracised if not lynched for uttering opinionswhich everybody will accept as truisms a couple of years later, and thusthe wise philosopher holds his tongue--lest it should be cut out. So atthe zenith of a period when the possession of money in absurd masses isan infallible means to the general respect, I have no intention eitherof preaching or of practising quite all that I privately in the matterof riches. 

It was not always thus. Though there have been previous ages as lustfulfor wealth and ostentation as our own, there have also been ages whenmoney-getting and millionaire-envying were not the sole preoccupationsof the average man. And such an age will undoubtedly succeed to ours. Few things would surprise me less, in social life, than the upspringingof some anti-luxury movement, the formation of some league or guildamong the middling classes (where alone intellect is to be found inquantity), the members of which would bind themselves to stand alooffrom all the great, silly, banal, ugly, and tedious _luxe_-activities ofthe time and not to spend more than a certain sum per annum on eating, drinking, covering their bodies, and being moved about like parcels fromone spot of the earth's surface to another. Such a movement would, andwill, help towards the formation of an opinion which would condemnlavish expenditure on personal satisfactions as bad form. However, theshareholders of grand hotels, restaurants, and race-courses of allsorts, together with popular singers and barristers, etc. , need feel noimmediate alarm. The movement is not yet. 

As touching the effect of money on the efficient ordering of the humanmachine, there is happily no necessity to inform those who have begunto interest themselves in the conduct of their own brains that moneycounts for very little in that paramount affair. Nothing that reallyhelps towards perfection costs more than is within the means of everyperson who reads these pages. The expenses connected with dailymeditation, with the building-up of mental habits, with the practice ofself-control and of cheerfulness, with the enthronement of reason overthe rabble of primeval instincts--these expenses are really, you know, trifling. And whether you get that well-deserved rise of a pound a weekor whether you don't, you may anyhow go ahead with the machine; it isn'ta motor-car, though I started by comparing it to one. And even when, having to a certain extent mastered, through sensible management of themachine, the art of achieving a daily content and dignity, you come tothe embroidery of life--even the best embroidery of life is notabsolutely ruinous. Meat may go up in price--it has done--but bookswon't. Admission to picture galleries and concerts and so forth willremain quite low. The views from Richmond Hill or Hindhead, or alongPall Mall at sunset, the smell of the earth, the taste of fruit and ofkisses--these things are unaffected by the machinations of trusts andthe hysteria of stock exchanges. Travel, which after books is the finestof all embroideries (and which is not to be valued by the mile but bythe quality), is decidedly cheaper than ever it was. All that isrequired is ingenuity in one's expenditure. And much ingenuity with alittle money is vastly more profitable and amusing than much moneywithout ingenuity. 

And all the while as you read this you are saying, with your impatientsneer: 'It's all very well; it's all very fine talking, _but_ . .. ' Inbrief, you are not convinced. You cannot deracinate that wide-rooteddogma within your soul that more money means more joy. I regret it. Butlet me put one question, and let me ask you to answer it honestly. Yourfinancial means are greater now than they used to be. Are you happier orless discontented than you used to be? Taking your existence day by day, hour by hour, judging it by the mysterious _feel_ (in the chest) ofresponsibilities, worries, positive joys and satisfactions, are yougenuinely happier than you used to be?

I do not wish to be misunderstood. The financial question cannot beignored. If it is true that money does not bring happiness, it is noless true that the lack of money induces a state of affairs in whichefficient living becomes doubly difficult. These two propositions, superficially perhaps self-contradictory, are not really so. A modestincome suffices for the fullest realisation of the Ego in terms ofcontent and dignity; but you must live within it. You cannot righteouslyignore money. A man, for instance, who cultivates himself and instructsa family of daughters in everything except the ability to earn their ownlivelihood, and then has the impudence to die suddenly without leaving apenny--that man is a scoundrel. Ninety--or should I sayninety-nine?--per cent. Of all those anxieties which render properliving almost impossible are caused by the habit of walking on the edgeof one's income as one might walk on the edge of a precipice. Themajority of Englishmen have some financial worry or other continually, everlastingly at the back of their minds. The sacrifice necessary toabolish this condition of things is more apparent than real. Allspending is a matter of habit. 

Speaking generally, a man can contrive, out of an extremely modestincome, to have all that he needs--unless he needs the esteem of snobs. Habit may, and habit usually does, make it just as difficult to keep afamily on two thousand a year as on two hundred. I suppose that for themajority of men the suspension of income for a single month would meaneither bankruptcy, the usurer, or acute inconvenience. Impossible, undersuch circumstances, to be in full and independent possession of one'simmortal soul! Hence I should be inclined to say that the firstpreliminary to a proper control of the machine is the habit of spendingdecidedly less than one earns or receives. The veriest automaton of aclerk ought to have the wherewithal of a whole year as a shield againstthe caprices of his employer. It would be as reasonable to expect theinhabitants of an unfortified city in the midst of a plain occupied by ahostile army to apply themselves successfully to the study oflogarithms or metaphysics, as to expect a man without a year's income inhis safe to apply himself successfully to the true art of living. 

And the whole secret of relative freedom from financial anxiety lies notin income, but in expenditure. I am ashamed to utter this antiqueplatitude. But, like most aphorisms of unassailable wisdom, it iscompletely ignored. You say, of course, that it is not easy to leave amargin between your expenditure and your present income. I know it. Ifraternally shake your hand. Still it is, in most cases, far easier tolessen one's expenditure than to increase one's income withoutincreasing one's expenditure. The alternative is before you. However youdecide, be assured that the foundation of philosophy is a margin, andthat the margin can always be had. 

XVI

REASON, REASON!

In conclusion, I must insist upon several results of what I may call the'intensive culture' of the reason. The brain will not only grow moreeffectively powerful in the departments of life where the brain issupposed specially to work, but it will also enlarge the circle of itsactivities. It will assuredly interfere in everything. The student ofhimself must necessarily conduct his existence more and more accordingto the views of his brain. This will be most salutary and agreeable bothfor himself and for the rest of the world. You object. You say it willbe a pity when mankind refers everything to reason. You talk about theheart. You envisage an entirely reasonable existence as a harsh andcallous existence. Not so. When the reason and the heart come intoconflict the heart is invariably wrong. I do not say that the reason isalways entirely right, but I do say that it is always less wrong thanthe heart. The empire of the reason is not universal, but within itsempire reason is supreme, and if other forces challenge it on its ownsoil they must take the consequences. Nearly always, when the heartopposes the brain, the heart is merely a pretty name which we give toour idleness and our egotism. 

We pass along the Strand and see a respectable young widow standing inthe gutter, with a baby in her arms and a couple of boxes of matches inone hand. We know she is a widow because of her weeds, and we know sheis respectable by her clothes. We know she is not begging because she isselling matches. The sight of her in the gutter pains our heart. Ourheart weeps and gives the woman a penny in exchange for a halfpenny boxof matches, and the pain of our heart is thereby assuaged. Our heart hasperformed a good action. But later on our reason (unfortunately asleepat the moment) wakes up and says: 'That baby was hired; the weeds andmatches merely a dodge. The whole affair was a spectacle got up toextract money from a fool like you. It is as mechanical as a penny inthe slot. Instead of relieving distress you have simply helped toperpetuate an infamous system. You ought to know that you can't do goodin that offhand way. ' The heart gives pennies in the street. The brainruns the Charity Organisation Society. Of course, to give pennies in thestreet is much less trouble than to run the C. O. S. As a method ofproducing a quick, inexpensive, and pleasing effect on one's egotism theC. O. S. Is simply not in it with this dodge of giving pennies at random, without inquiry. Only--which of the two devices ought to be accused ofharshness and callousness? Which of them is truly kind? I bring forwardthe respectable young widow as a sample case of the Heart _v_. Brainconflict. All other cases are the same. The brain is always more kindthan the heart; the brain is always more willing than the heart to putitself to a great deal of trouble for a very little reward; the brainalways does the difficult, unselfish thing, and the heart always doesthe facile, showy thing. Naturally the result of the brain's activity onsociety is always more advantageous than the result of the heart'sactivity. 

Another point. I have tried to show that, if the reason is put incommand of the feelings, it is impossible to assume an attitude of blametowards any person whatsoever for any act whatsoever. The habit ofblaming must depart absolutely. It is no argument against this statementthat it involves anarchy and the demolition of society. Even if it did(which emphatically it does not), that would not affect its truth. Allgreat truths have been assailed on the ground that to accept them meantthe end of everything. As if that mattered! As I make no claim to be thediscoverer of this truth I have no hesitation in announcing it to be oneof the most important truths that the world has yet to learn. However, the real reason why many people object to this truth is not because theythink it involves the utter demolition of society (fear of the utterdemolition of society never stopped any one from doing or believinganything, and never will), but because they say to themselves that ifthey can't blame they can't praise. And they do so like praising! Ifthey are so desperately fond of praising, it is a pity that they don'tpraise a little more! There can be no doubt that the average man blamesmuch more than he praises. His instinct is to blame. If he is satisfiedhe says nothing; if he is not, he most illogically kicks up a row. Sothat even if the suppression of blame involved the suppression of praisethe change would certainly be a change for the better. But I canperceive no reason why the suppression of blame should involve thesuppression of praise. On the contrary, I think that the habit ofpraising should befostered. (I do not suggest the occasional use of trowels, but the regular use ofsalt-spoons. ) Anyhow, the triumph of the brain over the naturalinstincts (in an ideally organised man the brain and the naturalinstincts will never have even a tiff) always means the ultimate triumphof kindness. 

And, further, the culture of the brain, the constant disciplinaryexercise of the reasoning faculty, means the diminution of misdeeds. (Donot imagine I am hinting that you are on the verge of murdering yourwife or breaking into your neighbour's house. Although you personallyare guiltless, there is a good deal of sin still committed in yourimmediate vicinity. ) Said Balzac in _La Cousine Bette_, 'A crime is inthe first instance a defect of reasoning powers. ' In the appreciation ofthis truth, Marcus Aurelius was, as usual, a bit beforehand with Balzac. M. Aurelius said, 'No soul wilfully misses truth. ' And Epictetus hadcome to the same conclusion before M. Aurelius, and Plato beforeEpictetus. All wrong-doing is done in the sincere belief that it is thebest thing to do. Whatever sin a man does he does either for his ownbenefit or for the benefit of society. At the moment of doing it he isconvinced that it is the only thing to do. He is mistaken. And he ismistaken because his brain has been unequal to the task of reasoning thematter out. Passion (the heart) is responsible for all crimes. Indeed, crime is simply a convenient monosyllable which we apply to what happenswhen the brain and the heart come into conflict and the brain isdefeated. That transaction of the matches was a crime, you know. 

Lastly, the culture of the brain must result in the habit of originallyexamining all the phenomena of life and conduct, to see what they reallyare, and to what they lead. The heart hates progress, because the dearold thing always wants to do as has always been done. The heart isconvinced that custom is a virtue. The heart of the dirty working manrebels when the State insists that he shall be clean, for no otherreason than that it is his custom to be dirty. Useless to tell his heartthat, clean, he will live longer! He has been dirty and he will be. Thebrain alone is the enemy of prejudice and precedent, which alone are theenemies of progress. And this habit of originally examining phenomenais perhaps the greatest factor that goes to the making of personaldignity; for it fosters reliance on one's self and courage to accept theconsequences of the act of reasoning. Reason is the basis of personaldignity. 

I finish. I have said nothing of the modifications which the constantuse of the brain will bring about in the _general value of existence_. Modifications slow and subtle, but tremendous! The persevering willdiscover them. It will happen to the persevering that their whole livesare changed--texture and colour, too! Naught will happen to those who donot persevere. 

THE END