of them. I see, now, how my SINGLE impulse to rob the man is not
the one that makes me do it, but only the LAST one of a
preparatory series. You might illustrate with a parable.
A Parable
O.M. I will. There was once a pair of New England boys–
twins. They were alike in good dispositions, feckless morals,
and personal appearance. They were the models of the Sunday-
school. At fifteen George had the opportunity to go as cabin-boy
in a whale-ship, and sailed away for the Pacific. Henry remained
at home in the village. At eighteen George was a sailor before
the mast, and Henry was teacher of the advanced Bible class. At
twenty-two George, through fighting-habits and drinking-habits
acquired at sea and in the sailor boarding-houses of the European
and Oriental ports, was a common rough in Hong-Kong, and out of a
job; and Henry was superintendent of the Sunday-school. At
twenty-six George was a wanderer, a tramp, and Henry was pastor
of the village church. Then George came home, and was Henry’s
guest. One evening a man passed by and turned down the lane, and
Henry said, with a pathetic smile, “Without intending me a
discomfort, that man is always keeping me reminded of my pinching
poverty, for he carries heaps of money about him, and goes by
here every evening of his life.” That OUTSIDE INFLUENCE–that
remark–was enough for George, but IT was not the one that made
him ambush the man and rob him, it merely represented the eleven
years’ accumulation of such influences, and gave birth to the act
for which their long gestation had made preparation. It had
never entered the head of Henry to rob the man–his ingot had
been subjected to clean steam only; but George’s had been
subjected to vaporized quicksilver.
V
More About the Machine
Note.–When Mrs. W. asks how can a millionaire give a single
dollar to colleges and museums while one human being is destitute
of bread, she has answered her question herself. Her feeling for
the poor shows that she has a standard of benevolence; there she
has conceded the millionaire’s privilege of having a standard;
since she evidently requires him to adopt her standard, she is by
that act requiring herself to adopt his. The human being always
looks down when he is examining another person’s standard; he
never find one that he has to examine by looking up.
The Man-Machine Again
Young Man. You really think man is a mere machine?
Old Man. I do.
Y.M. And that his mind works automatically and is
independent of his control–carries on thought on its own hook?
O.M. Yes. It is diligently at work, unceasingly at work,
during every waking moment. Have you never tossed about all
night, imploring, beseeching, commanding your mind to stop work
and let you go to sleep?–you who perhaps imagine that your mind
is your servant and must obey your orders, think what you tell it
to think, and stop when you tell it to stop. When it chooses to
work, there is no way to keep it still for an instant. The
brightest man would not be able to supply it with subjects if he
had to hunt them up. If it needed the man’s help it would wait
for him to give it work when he wakes in the morning.
Y.M. Maybe it does.
O.M. No, it begins right away, before the man gets wide
enough awake to give it a suggestion. He may go to sleep saying,
“The moment I wake I will think upon such and such a subject,”
but he will fail. His mind will be too quick for him; by the
time he has become nearly enough awake to be half conscious, he
will find that it is already at work upon another subject. Make
the experiment and see.
Y.M. At any rate, he can make it stick to a subject if he
wants to.
O.M. Not if it find another that suits it better. As a
rule it will listen to neither a dull speaker nor a bright one.
It refuses all persuasion. The dull speaker wearies it and sends
it far away in idle dreams; the bright speaker throws out