The Mystic Will - A Method of Developing and Strengthening the Faculties of the Mind, through the Awakened Will, by a Simple, Scientific Process Possible to Any Person of Ordinary Intelligence by Charles Godfrey Leland
page 17 of 134 (12%)
page 17 of 134 (12%)
|
perseverance, awakened and developed to any extent, and with it many
other faculties or states of mind. I can remember once being told by a lady that she thought there ought to be erected in all great cities temples to the Will, so as to encourage mankind to develop the divine faculty. It has since occurred to me that an equal number of school-houses, however humble, in which the art of mastering the Will by easy processes _seriatim_ should be taught, would be far more useful. Such a school-house is this work, and it is the hope of the author that all who enter, so to speak, or read it, will learn therefrom as much as he himself and others have done by studying its principles. To recapitulate or make clear in brief what I intend, I would say _Firstly_, that the advanced thinkers at this end of the century, weary of all the old indirect methods of teaching Morality, are beginning to enquire, since Duty is an indispensable condition, whether it is not just as well to do what is right, _because_ it is right, as for any other reason? _Secondly_, that this spirit of directness, the result of Evolution, is beginning to show itself in many other directions, as we may note by the great popularity of the answer to the question, "How not to worry," which is briefly, _Don't! Thirdly_, that enlightened by this spirit of scientific straightforwardness, man is ceasing to seek for mental truth by means of roundabout metaphysical or conventional ethical methods (based on old traditions and mysticism), and is looking directly in himself, or materially, for what Immaterialism or Idealism has really never explained at all--his discoveries having been within a few years much more valuable that all that _a priori_ philosophy or psychology ever yielded since the beginning. And, finally, that the leading faculties or powers of the mind, such as Will, Memory, the Constructive |
|