LESSON IV

COMMON SENSE AND IMPULSE


Impulsive people are those who allow themselves to be guided by their
initial impressions and make resolutions or commit acts tinder the
domination of a special consciousness into which perception has
plunged them.

Impulse is a form of cerebral activity which, forces us to make a
movement before the mind is able to decide upon it by means of reflection
or reasoning. The Shogun deals with it at length and defines it thus:

"Impulse is an almost direct contact between perception and result.

"Memory, thought, deduction, and, above all, reason are absolutely
excluded from these acts, which are never inspired by intellectuality.

"The impression received by the brain is immediately transmuted into an
act, similar to those acts which depend entirely on automatic memory.

"It is certain in making a series of movements, which compose the act of
walking upstairs or the action of walking from one place to another, we
do not think of analyzing our efforts and this act of walking almost
limits itself to an organic function, so little does thought enter into