{"collection":"mor","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/mor/tfd/chap19.htm","path":"mor/tfd/chap19.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/mor/tfd/chap19.htm","text":"\"Mind is the great lever of all things; human thought is the process by which human ends are ultimately answered.\"\nDaniel Webster\nIN this age of applied psychology it is interesting and educative to note the \nmastery of mind ' over matter in the settlement, by civilized people, of the wild \nwastes of Utah at the time of the great Mormon trek across the plains. Mind was \ndominant, later, in the scientific search for, and recovery of, the mineral values, \nso long hidden and useless, in the mountains of the territory.\nThe interaction of these two forces, the mental and the physical, produce the evolution \nand thereby the development of a country and its people. Then comes wealth, comfort, \nease, and further exercise of mind to its higher possibilities. When life is low-graded \nand the human mind content to grub in the ground or to hunt wild animals for a living, \na land remains the habitat of wild people.\nA mind of a higher grade was the main asset of the white discoverers of America. \nTheir superior weapons, skill and transportation were entirely due to the advance \nof mind from the times of the dark ages. The early voyagers from Norse-land, in \ntheir open-decked ships, were hardy seamen, but they brought no advancement to the \nnew continent, since these rude warriors had no mind above fighting and despoiling \ntheir foes.\nAll that was unfamiliar to them in human life was regarded as an enemy to be overcome \nby force. It was the Era of Might, and the one of the most Might was Right, because \nhe won. The barbarian era has, at all times, been hard to supersede, and even in \nthese days of supposed \"Kul-tur\" there are strong advocates of a reversion to type \nof the old Norse Vikings, Attila the Hun, or Caesar and his legions.\nWe do not affirm that the mentality of the Mormon leaders was very high. These leaders \nwere men of keen wit but of little culture, judged by their speeches and writings, \nwhile the people in general were very commonplace. They had a few scholars who occupied \na back seat, for the men of action and administration were the real shapers of history \nin Utah.\nOf course the mentality found in the religious faith of the people was due to a \nreligious genius like Joseph Smith. If you consider a moment this young man at the \nbeginning of his mission, unknown and obscure, yet possessing an inner mental purpose \nand power sufficient to win over by words, declarations, arguments and exhortations \na host of hard-headed Eastern and Western people, you will see at once the power \nof mind when it is illumined by a purpose born of faith in a revelation from a higher \nPower.\nThe emerging of Joseph Smith from obscurity to notoriety, as the American Prophet \nof a new faith, reads like that of the emerging of Mohammed, an uninfluential and \nepileptic young man, amid the turbulent tribes of Arabia when he became the Father \nof the Faithful, to the Arabians, as Abraham became the same to the Hebrews. All \nthree characters are graphic illustrations of the mastery of the mind.\nIt does not follow that an enthusiasm and devotion which carries one to the death \nis proof of the cause advocated. It does prove the sincerity and earnestness of \nthe advocate making the sacrifice.\nMany good people have perished in a poor cause which they thought sublime. Delusions \nof mind distort its visions, but not its powers. It is for this reason that the \nexalted fanaticism of the early Mormons carried them on to strenuous deeds, and \nyet did not impair their powers of common sense. They could subdue a wild country \nand learn to utilize its hidden wealth.\nWe are prone to think it all bad, when some part of a delusion obsesses a race or \ngeneration. If this were true the Mohammedan illusion would be rotten from core \nto circumference. Some intense people so assert, but such is not true, as calm reflection \nshows. A fine civilization existed in Spain under the Mohammedan Moors for seven \ncenturies, superior in art and science to the ruder life of both Franks and Teutons.\nSo, while the products of Joseph Smith's visions and declarations were often erratic \nand fanatic, nevertheless much honest-hearted goodness in word and deed is in evidence \nif you are fair enough to look for it. I found it to be so, and I affirm that the \nmental influence of this Latter Day faith had a constructive power to establish \non barren ground and amid the rude forces of nature, a settlement of homes and firesides \ndevoted to religion and to an honest life. Putting by the extremes of an ecstatic \npeople, it is undeniable that they excelled in usefulness as light excels darkness \nthe roving Indian aborigines.\nWhen I walked about that modern Zion of Salt Lake, \"and told the homes and streets \nthereof.\"\nI could not fail to read the evidence of the power of mind over matter which had \nbuilt a city where the Indian's wikiup had stood and had made farms out of land \nwhose only products once were sage-brush and reptiles.\nStill, the Mormon mind was not scientific, but ecstatic, and walked by faith, although \nit had the common sense to work by sight. It was a fine motive force to lift to \nhigher levels the lives of multitudes otherwise inert, and to put the spade or hoe \nof industry into idle hands. It redeemed a waste.\nUtah would not have advanced to her present prosperity and power had not another \nkind of mentality sought out its treasures. It may seem a sordid motive to seek \nfor gold and silver in place of seeking for the sanctuary and salvation. Yet such \na sordid search has invariably preceded the higher development of a country. Trade \nhas its argonauts and argosies which in the end serve for higher things.\nWith minds alert for mineral treasure, men drifted into the Territory, at first \na few, and later on with a rush to supplement the civilizing work of the Mormons. \nTo some their advent seemed a destructive one, for they were not religious, and \nscoffed at the religion of the Mormons. They pointed out its weak, if not wicked \nelements, and laughed in derision of such a faith. They were a rude lot of humanity, \nand the Mormons countered back with accusations of their profanity and immorality. \nThese rough-living miners, unknown to themselves, were the advertisers of a coming \nsuperior mental culture, which would do much for Utah's future.\nWhen I saw the skilled miner, and the skilled mineralogist at work with their machinery, \nas nicely fitted for its task as a watch's mechanism, I saw the mastery of mind \nover minerals, as I had seen it over men. Whose eyes saw and whose purpose sought \nout this secreted wealth? It was the scientific miner, the chemist, the mineralogist, \nthe capitalist, the economist and publicist. One and all, they united their heads \nand hands to do it. Of the wealth that they won from the rocks, some of it is in \nbanks, some in ships, some in newspapers, some in books, and some in great industrial \nplants. Little of it is lying idle, for the men who made this wealth were not idlers. \nBoth Gentile and Mormon have had a hand in the making of a State and a Star in the \nconstellation of the Union.","title":"Chapter XIX: Mind as the Master Worker","type":"page"}