{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_12811/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_12811","id":"gutenberg_12811","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12811","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Psychiatry/Psychology","Conduct of life"],"text":"THE HUMAN MACHINE\n\nBY ARNOLD BENNETT\n\n_First Published November 1908\n\nSecond Edition September 1910\n\nThird Edition April 1911\n\nFourth Edition August 1912\n\nFifth Edition January 1913\n\nSixth Edition August 1913_\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\nI\n\nTAKING ONESELF FOR GRANTED\n\nII\n\nAMATEURS IN THE ART OF LIVING\n\nIII\n\nTHE BRAIN AS A GENTLEMAN-AT-LARGE\n\nIV\n\nTHE FIRST PRACTICAL STEP\n\nV\n\nHABIT-FORMING BY CONCENTRATION\n\nVI\n\nLORD OVER THE NODDLE\n\nVII\n\nWHAT 'LIVING' CHIEFLY IS\n\nVIII\n\nTHE DAILY FRICTION\n\nIX\n\n'FIRE!'\n\nX\n\nMISCHIEVOUSLY OVERWORKING IT\n\nXI\n\nAN INTERLUDE\n\nXII\n\nAN INTEREST IN LIFE\n\nXIII\n\nSUCCESS AND FAILURE\n\nXIV\n\nA MAN AND HIS ENVIRONMENT\n\nXV\n\nL.S.D.\n\nXVI\n\nREASON, REASON!\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nTAKING ONESELF FOR GRANTED\n\n\nThere are men who are capable of loving a machine more deeply than they\ncan love a woman. They are among the happiest men on earth. This is not\na sneer meanly shot from cover at women. It is simply a statement of\nnotorious fact. Men who worry themselves to distraction over the\nperfecting of a machine are indubitably blessed beyond their kind. Most\nof us have known such men. Yesterday they were constructing motorcars.\nBut to-day aeroplanes are in the air--or, at any rate, they ought to be,\naccording to the inventors. Watch the inventors. Invention is not\nusually their principal business. They must invent in their spare time.\nThey must invent before breakfast, invent in the Strand between Lyons's\nand the office, invent after dinner, invent on Sundays. See with what\nardour they rush home of a night! See how they seize a half-holiday,\nlike hungry dogs a bone! They don't want golf, bridge, limericks,\nnovels, illustrated magazines, clubs, whisky, starting-prices, hints\nabout neckties, political meetings, yarns, comic songs, anturic salts,\nnor the smiles that are situate between a gay corsage and a picture hat.\nThey never wonder, at a loss, what they will do next. Their evenings\nnever drag--are always too short. You may, indeed, catch them at twelve\no'clock at night on the flat of their backs; but not in bed! No, in a\nshed, under a machine, holding a candle (whose paths drop fatness) up to\nthe connecting-rod that is strained, or the wheel that is out of centre.\nThey are continually interested, nay, enthralled. They have a machine,\nand they are perfecting it. They get one part right, and then another\ngoes wrong; and they get that right, and then another goes wrong, and so\non. When they are quite sure they have reached perfection, forth issues\nthe machine out of the shed--and in five minutes is smashed up, together\nwith a limb or so of the inventors, just because they had been quite\nsure too soon. Then the whole business starts again. They do not give\nup--that particular wreck was, of course, due to a mere oversight; the\nwhole business starts again. For they have glimpsed perfection; they\nhave the gleam of perfection in their souls. Thus their lives run away.\n'They will never fly!' you remark, cynically. Well, if they don't?\nBesides, what about Wright? With all your cynicism, have you never\nenvied them their machine and their passionate interest in it?\n\nYou know, perhaps, the moment when, brushing in front of the glass, you\ndetected your first grey hair. You stopped brushing; then you resumed\nbrushing, hastily; you pretended not to be shocked, but you were.\nPerhaps you know a more disturbing moment than that, the moment when it\nsuddenly occurred to you that you had 'arrived' as far as you ever will\narrive; and you had realised as much of your early dream as you ever\nwill realise, and the realisation was utterly unlike the dream; the\nmarriage was excessively prosaic and eternal, not at all what you\nexpected it to be; and your illusions were dissipated; and games and\nhobbies had an unpleasant core of tedium and futility; and the ideal\ntobacco-mixture did not exist; and one literary masterpiece resembled\nanother; and all the days that are to come will more or less resemble\nthe present day, until you die; and in an illuminating flash you\nunderstood what all those people were driving at when they wrote such\nunconscionably long letters to the _Telegraph_ as to life being worth\nliving or not worth living; and there was naught to be done but face the\ngrey, monotonous future, and pretend to be cheerful with the worm of\n_ennui_ gnawing at your heart! In a word, the moment when it occurred to\nyou that yours is 'the common lot.' In that moment have you not\nwished--do you not continually wish--for an exhaustless machine, a\nmachine that you could never get to the end of? Would you not give your\nhead to be lying on the flat of your back, peering with a candle, dirty,\nfoiled, catching cold--but absorbed in the pursuit of an object? Have\nyou not gloomily regretted that you were born without a mechanical turn,\nbecause there is really something about a machine...?\n\nIt has never struck you that you do possess a machine! Oh, blind! Oh,\ndull! It has never struck you that you have at hand a machine wonderful\nbeyond all mechanisms in sheds, intricate, delicately adjustable, of\nastounding and miraculous possibilities, interminably interesting! That\nmachine is yourself. 'This fellow is preaching. I won't have it!' you\nexclaim resentfully. Dear sir, I am not preaching, and, even if I were,\nI think you _would_ have it. I think I can anyhow keep hold of your\nbutton for a while, though you pull hard. I am not preaching. I am\nsimply bent on calling your attention to a fact which has perhaps wholly\nor partially escaped you--namely, that you are the most fascinating bit\nof machinery that ever was. You do yourself less than justice. It is\nsaid that men are only interested in themselves. The truth is that, as a\nrule, men are interested in every mortal thing except themselves. They\nhave a habit of taking themselves for granted, and that habit is\nresponsible for nine-tenths of the boredom and despair on the face of\nthe planet.\n\nA man will wake up in the middle of the night (usually owing to some\nform of delightful excess), and his brain will be very active indeed for\na space ere he can go to sleep again. In that candid hour, after the\nexaltation of the evening and before the hope of the dawn, he will see\neverything in its true colours--except himself. There is nothing like a\nsleepless couch for a clear vision of one's environment. He will see all\nhis wife's faults and the hopelessness of trying to cure them. He will\nmomentarily see, though with less sharpness of outline, his own faults.\nHe will probably decide that the anxieties of children outweigh the joys\nconnected with children. He will admit all the shortcomings of\nexistence, will face them like a man, grimly, sourly, in a sturdy\ndespair. He will mutter: 'Of course I'm angry! Who wouldn't be? Of\ncourse I'm disappointed! Did I expect this twenty years ago? Yes, we\nought to save more. But we don't, so there you are! I'm bound to worry!\nI know I should be better if I didn't smoke so much. I know there's\nabsolutely no sense at all in taking liqueurs. Absurd to be ruffled with\nher when she's in one of her moods. I don't have enough exercise. Can't\nbe regular, somehow. Not the slightest use hoping that things will be\ndifferent, because I know they won't. Queer world! Never really what you\nmay call happy, you know. Now, if things were different ...' He loses\nconsciousness.\n\nObserve: he has taken himself for granted, just glancing at his faults\nand looking away again. It is his environment that has occupied his\nattention, and his environment--'things'--that he would wish to have\n'different,' did he not know, out of the fulness of experience, that it\nis futile to desire such a change? What he wants is a pipe that won't\nput itself into his mouth, a glass that won't leap of its own accord to\nhis lips, money that won't slip untouched out of his pocket, legs that\nwithout asking will carry him certain miles every day in the open air,\nhabits that practise themselves, a wife that will expand and contract\naccording to his humours, like a Wernicke bookcase, always complete but\nnever finished. Wise man, he perceives at once that he can't have these\nthings. And so he resigns himself to the universe, and settles down to a\npermanent, restrained discontent. No one shall say he is unreasonable.\n\nYou see, he has given no attention to the machine. Let us not call it a\nflying-machine. Let us call it simply an automobile. There it is on the\nroad, jolting, screeching, rattling, perfuming. And there he is, saying:\n'This road ought to be as smooth as velvet. That hill in front is\nridiculous, and the descent on the other side positively dangerous. And\nit's all turns--I can't see a hundred yards in front.' He has a wild\nidea of trying to force the County Council to sand-paper the road, or of\nemploying the new Territorial Army to remove the hill. But he dismisses\nthat idea--he is so reasonable. He accepts all. He sits clothed in\nreasonableness on the machine, and accepts all. 'Ass!' you exclaim. 'Why\ndoesn't he get down and inflate that tyre, for one thing? Anyone can see\nthe sparking apparatus is wrong, and it's perfectly certain the gear-box\nwants oil.\n\nWhy doesn't he--?' I will tell you why he doesn't. Just because he isn't\naware that he is on a machine at all. He has never examined what he is\non. And at the back of his consciousness is a dim idea that he is\nperched on a piece of solid, immutable rock that runs on castors.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nAMATEURS IN THE ART OF LIVING\n\n\nConsidering that we have to spend the whole of our lives in this human\nmachine, considering that it is our sole means of contact and compromise\nwith the rest of the world, we really do devote to it very little\nattention. When I say 'we,' I mean our inmost spirits, the instinctive\npart, the mystery within that exists. And when I say 'the human machine'\nI mean the brain and the body--and chiefly the brain. The expression of\nthe soul by means of the brain and body is what we call the art of\n'living.' We certainly do not learn this art at school to any\nappreciable extent. At school we are taught that it is necessary to\nfling our arms and legs to and fro for so many hours per diem. We are\nalso shown, practically, that our brains are capable of performing\ncertain useful tricks, and that if we do not compel our brains to\nperform those tricks we shall suffer. Thus one day we run home and\nproclaim to our delighted parents that eleven twelves are 132. A feat of\nthe brain! So it goes on until our parents begin to look up to us\nbecause we can chatter of cosines or sketch the foreign policy of Louis\nXIV. Good! But not a word about the principles of the art of living yet!\nOnly a few detached rules from our parents, to be blindly followed when\nparticular crises supervene. And, indeed, it would be absurd to talk to\na schoolboy about the expression of his soul. He would probably mutter a\nmonosyllable which is not 'mice.'\n\nOf course, school is merely a preparation for living; unless one goes to\na university, in which case it is a preparation for university. One is\nsupposed to turn one's attention to living when these preliminaries are\nover--say at the age of about twenty. Assuredly one lives then; there\nis, however, nothing new in that, for one has been living all the time,\nin a fashion; all the time one has been using the machine without\nunderstanding it. But does one, school and college being over, enter\nupon a study of the machine? Not a bit. The question then becomes, not\nhow to live, but how to obtain and retain a position in which one will\nbe able to live; how to get minute portions of dead animals and plants\nwhich one can swallow, in order not to die of hunger; how to acquire and\nconstantly renew a stock of other portions of dead animals and plants in\nwhich one can envelop oneself in order not to die of cold; how to\nprocure the exclusive right of entry into certain huts where one may\nsleep and eat without being rained upon by the clouds of heaven. And so\nforth. And when one has realised this ambition, there comes the desire\nto be able to double the operation and do it, not for oneself alone, but\nfor oneself and another. Marriage! But no scientific sustained attention\nis yet given to the real business of living, of smooth intercourse, of\nself-expression, of conscious adaptation to environment--in brief, to\nthe study of the machine. At thirty the chances are that a man will\nunderstand better the draught of a chimney than his own respiratory\napparatus--to name one of the simple, obvious things--and as for\nunderstanding the working of his own brain--what an idea! As for the\nskill to avoid the waste of power involved by friction in the business\nof living, do we give an hour to it in a month? Do we ever at all\nexamine it save in an amateurish and clumsy fashion? A young lady\nproduces a water-colour drawing. 'Very nice!' we say, and add, to\nourselves, 'For an amateur.' But our living is more amateurish than that\nyoung lady's drawing; though surely we ought every one of us to be\nprofessionals at living!\n\nWhen we have been engaged in the preliminaries to living for about\nfifty-five years, we begin to think about slacking off. Up till this\nperiod our reason for not having scientifically studied the art of\nliving--the perfecting and use of the finer parts of the machine--is not\nthat we have lacked leisure (most of us have enormous heaps of leisure),\nbut that we have simply been too absorbed in the preliminaries, have, in\nfact, treated the preliminaries to the business as the business itself.\nThen at fifty-five we ought at last to begin to live our lives with\nprofessional skill, as a professional painter paints pictures. Yes, but\nwe can't. It is too late then. Neither painters, nor acrobats, nor any\nprofessionals can be formed at the age of fifty-five. Thus we finish\nour lives amateurishly, as we have begun them. And when the machine\ncreaks and sets our teeth on edge, or refuses to obey the steering-wheel\nand deposits us in the ditch, we say: 'Can't be helped!' or 'Doesn't\nmatter! It will be all the same a hundred years hence!' or: 'I must make\nthe best of things.' And we try to believe that in accepting the _status\nquo_ we have justified the _status quo_, and all the time we feel our\ninsincerity.\n\nYou exclaim that I exaggerate. I do. To force into prominence an aspect\nof affairs usually overlooked, it is absolutely necessary to exaggerate.\nPoetic licence is one name for this kind of exaggeration. But I\nexaggerate very little indeed, much less than perhaps you think. I know\nthat you are going to point out to me that vast numbers of people\nregularly spend a considerable portion of their leisure in striving\nafter self-improvement. Granted! And I am glad of it. But I should be\ngladder if their strivings bore more closely upon the daily business of\nliving, of self-expression without friction and without futile desires.\nSee this man who regularly studies every evening of his life! He has\ngenuinely understood the nature of poetry, and his taste is admirable.\nHe recites verse with true feeling, and may be said to be highly\ncultivated. Poetry is a continual source of pleasure to him. True! But\nwhy is he always complaining about not receiving his deserts in the\noffice? Why is he worried about finance? Why does he so often sulk with\nhis wife? Why does he persist in eating more than his digestion will\ntolerate? It was not written in the book of fate that he should complain\nand worry and sulk and suffer. And if he was a professional at living he\nwould not do these things. There is no reason why he should do them,\nexcept the reason that he has never learnt his business, never studied\nthe human machine as a whole, never really thought rationally about\nliving. Supposing you encountered an automobilist who was swerving and\ngrinding all over the road, and you stopped to ask what was the matter,\nand he replied: 'Never mind what's the matter. Just look at my lovely\nacetylene lamps, how they shine, and how I've polished them!' You would\nnot regard him as a Clifford-Earp, or even as an entirely sane man. So\nwith our student of poetry. It is indubitable that a large amount of\nwhat is known as self-improvement is simply self-indulgence--a form of\npleasure which only incidentally improves a particular part of the\nmachine, and even that to the neglect of far more important parts.\n\nMy aim is to direct a man's attention to himself as a whole, considered\nas a machine, complex and capable of quite extraordinary efficiency,\nfor travelling through this world smoothly, in any desired manner, with\nsatisfaction not only to himself but to the people he meets _en route_,\nand the people who are overtaking him and whom he is overtaking. My aim\nis to show that only an inappreciable fraction of our ordered and\nsustained efforts is given to the business of actual living, as\ndistinguished from the preliminaries to living.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nTHE BRAIN AS A GENTLEMAN-AT-LARGE\n\n\nIt is not as if, in this business of daily living, we were seriously\nhampered by ignorance either as to the results which we ought to obtain,\nor as to the general means which we must employ in order to obtain them.\nWith all our absorption in the mere preliminaries to living, and all our\ncarelessness about living itself, we arrive pretty soon at a fairly\naccurate notion of what satisfactory living is, and we perceive with\nsome clearness the methods necessary to success. I have pictured the man\nwho wakes up in the middle of the night and sees the horrid semi-fiasco\nof his life. But let me picture the man who wakes up refreshed early on\na fine summer morning and looks into his mind with the eyes of hope and\nexperience, not experience and despair. That man will pass a delightful\nhalf-hour in thinking upon the scheme of the universe as it affects\nhimself. He is quite clear that contentment depends on his own acts, and\nthat no power can prevent him from performing those acts. He plans\neverything out, and before he gets up he knows precisely what he must\nand will do in certain foreseen crises and junctures. He sincerely\ndesires to live efficiently--who would wish to make a daily mess of\nexistence?--and he knows the way to realise the desire.\n\nAnd yet, mark me! That man will not have been an hour on his feet on\nthis difficult earth before the machine has unmistakably gone wrong: the\nmachine which was designed to do this work of living, which is capable\nof doing it thoroughly well, but which has not been put into order!\nWhat is the use of consulting the map of life and tracing the itinerary,\nand getting the machine out of the shed, and making a start, if half the\nnuts are loose, or the steering pillar is twisted, or there is no petrol\nin the tank? (Having asked this question, I will drop the\nmechanico-vehicular comparison, which is too rough and crude for the\ndelicacy of the subject.) Where has the human machine gone wrong? It has\ngone wrong in the brain. What, is he 'wrong in the head'? Most\nassuredly, most strictly. He knows--none better--that when his wife\nemploys a particular tone containing ten grains of asperity, and he\nreplies in a particular tone containing eleven grains, the consequences\nwill be explosive. He knows, on the other hand, that if he replies in a\ntone containing only one little drop of honey, the consequences may not\nbe unworthy of two reasonable beings. He knows this. His brain is fully\ninstructed. And lo! his brain, while arguing that women are really too\nabsurd (as if that was the point), is sending down orders to the muscles\nof the throat and mouth which result in at least eleven grains of\nasperity, and conjugal relations are endangered for the day. He didn't\nwant to do it. His desire was not to do it. He despises himself for\ndoing it. But his brain was not in working order. His brain ran\naway--'raced'--on its own account, against reason, against desire,\nagainst morning resolves--and there he is!\n\nThat is just one example, of the simplest and slightest. Examples can be\nmultiplied. The man may be a young man whose immediate future depends on\nhis passing an examination--an examination which he is capable of\npassing 'on his head,' which nothing can prevent him from passing if\nonly his brain will not be so absurd as to give orders to his legs to\nwalk out of the house towards the tennis court instead of sending them\nupstairs to the study; if only, having once safely lodged him in the\nstudy, his brain will devote itself to the pages of books instead of\ndwelling on the image of a nice girl--not at all like other girls. Or\nthe man may be an old man who will live in perfect comfort if only his\nbrain will not interminably run round and round in a circle of\ngrievances, apprehensions, and fears which no amount of contemplation\ncan destroy or even ameliorate.\n\nThe brain, the brain--that is the seat of trouble! 'Well,' you say, 'of\ncourse it is. We all know that!' We don't act as if we did, anyway.\n'Give us more brains, Lord!' ejaculated a great writer. Personally, I\nthink he would have been wiser if he had asked first for the power to\nkeep in order such brains as we have. We indubitably possess quite\nenough brains, quite as much as we can handle. The supreme muddlers of\nliving are often people of quite remarkable intellectual faculty, with a\nquite remarkable gift of being wise for others. The pity is that our\nbrains have a way of 'wandering,' as it is politely called.\nBrain-wandering is indeed now recognised as a specific disease. I wonder\nwhat you, O business man with an office in Ludgate Circus, would say to\nyour office-boy, whom you had dispatched on an urgent message to\nWestminster, and whom you found larking around Euston Station when you\nrushed to catch your week-end train. 'Please, sir, I started to go to\nWestminster, but there's something funny in my limbs that makes me go up\nall manner of streets. I can't help it, sir!' 'Can't you?' you would\nsay. 'Well, you had better go and be somebody else's office-boy.' Your\nbrain is something worse than that office-boy, something more\ninsidiously potent for evil.\n\nI conceive the brain of the average well-intentioned man as possessing\nthe tricks and manners of one of those gentlemen-at-large who, having\nnothing very urgent to do, stroll along and offer their services gratis\nto some shorthanded work of philanthropy. They will commonly demoralise\nand disorganise the business conduct of an affair in about a fortnight.\nThey come when they like; they go when they like. Sometimes they are\nexceedingly industrious and obedient, but then there is an even chance\nthat they will shirk and follow their own sweet will. And they mustn't\nbe spoken to, or pulled up--for have they not kindly volunteered, and\nare they not giving their days for naught! These persons are the bane of\nthe enterprises in which they condescend to meddle. Now, there is a vast\ndeal too much of the gentleman-at-large about one's brain. One's brain\nhas no right whatever to behave as a gentleman-at-large: but it in fact\ndoes. It forgets; it flatly ignores orders; at the critical moment when\npressure is highest, it simply lights a cigarette and goes out for a\nwalk. And we meekly sit down under this behaviour! 'I didn't feel like\nstewing,' says the young man who, against his wish, will fail in his\nexamination. 'The words were out of my mouth before I knew it,' says the\nhusband whose wife is a woman. 'I couldn't get any inspiration to-day,'\nsays the artist. 'I can't resist Stilton,' says the fellow who is dying\nof greed. 'One can't help one's thoughts,' says the old worrier. And\nthis last really voices the secret excuse of all five.\n\nAnd you all say to me: 'My brain is myself. How can I alter myself? I\nwas born like that.' In the first place you were not born 'like that,'\nyou have lapsed to that. And in the second place your brain is not\nyourself. It is only a part of yourself, and not the highest seat of\nauthority. Do you love your mother, wife, or children with your brain?\nDo you desire with your brain? Do you, in a word, ultimately and\nessentially _live_ with your brain? No. Your brain is an instrument. The\nproof that it is an instrument lies in the fact that, when extreme\nnecessity urges, _you_ can command your brain to do certain things, and\nit does them. The first of the two great principles which underlie the\nefficiency of the human machine is this: _The brain is a servant,\nexterior to the central force of the Ego_. If it is out of control the\nreason is not that it is uncontrollable, but merely that its discipline\nhas been neglected. The brain can be trained, as the hand and eye can be\ntrained; it can be made as obedient as a sporting dog, and by similar\nmethods. In the meantime the indispensable preparation for brain\ndiscipline is to form the habit of regarding one's brain as an\ninstrument exterior to one's self, like a tongue or a foot.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nTHE FIRST PRACTICAL STEP\n\n\nThe brain is a highly quaint organism. Let me say at once, lest I should\nbe cannonaded by physiologists, psychologists, or metaphysicians, that\nby the 'brain' I mean the faculty which reasons and which gives orders\nto the muscles. I mean exactly what the plain man means by the brain.\nThe brain is the diplomatist which arranges relations between our\ninstinctive self and the universe, and it fulfils its mission when it\nprovides for the maximum of freedom to the instincts with the minimum of\nfriction. It argues with the instincts. It takes them on one side and\npoints out the unwisdom of certain performances. It catches them by the\ncoat-tails when they are about to make fools of themselves. 'Don't\ndrink all that iced champagne at a draught,' it says to one instinct;\n'we may die of it.' 'Don't catch that rude fellow one in the eye,' it\nsays to another instinct; 'he is more powerful than us.' It is, in fact,\na majestic spectacle of common sense. And yet it has the most\nextraordinary lapses. It is just like that man--we all know him and\nconsult him--who is a continual fount of excellent, sagacious advice on\neverything, but who somehow cannot bring his sagacity to bear on his own\npersonal career.\n\nIn the matter of its own special activities the brain is usually\nundisciplined and unreliable. We never know what it will do next. We\ngive it some work to do, say, as we are walking along the street to the\noffice. Perhaps it has to devise some scheme for making \u00a3150 suffice for\n\u00a3200, or perhaps it has to plan out the heads of a very important\nletter. We meet a pretty woman, and away that undisciplined, sagacious\nbrain runs after her, dropping the scheme or the draft letter, and\namusing itself with aspirations or regrets for half an hour, an hour,\nsometimes a day. The serious part of our instinctive self feebly\nremonstrates, but without effect. Or it may be that we have suffered a\ngreat disappointment, which is definite and hopeless. Will the brain,\nlike a sensible creature, leave that disappointment alone, and instead\nof living in the past live in the present or the future? Not it! Though\nit knows perfectly well that it is wasting its time and casting a very\npainful and utterly unnecessary gloom over itself and us, it can so\nlittle control its unhealthy morbid appetite that no expostulations will\ninduce it to behave rationally. Or perhaps, after a confabulation with\nthe soul, it has been decided that when next a certain harmful instinct\ncomes into play the brain shall firmly interfere. 'Yes,' says the\nbrain, 'I really will watch that.' But when the moment arrives, is the\nbrain on the spot? The brain has probably forgotten the affair entirely,\nor remembered it too late; or sighs, as the victorious instinct knocks\nit on the head: 'Well, _next_ time!'\n\nAll this, and much more that every reader can supply from his own\nexciting souvenirs, is absurd and ridiculous on the part of the brain.\nIt is a conclusive proof that the brain is out of condition, idle as a\nnigger, capricious as an actor-manager, and eaten to the core with loose\nhabits. Therefore the brain must be put into training. It is the most\nimportant part of the human machine by which the soul expresses and\ndevelops itself, and it must learn good habits. And primarily it must be\ntaught obedience. Obedience can only be taught by imposing one's will,\nby the sheer force of volition. And the brain must be mastered by\nwill-power. The beginning of wise living lies in the control of the\nbrain by the will; so that the brain may act according to the precepts\nwhich the brain itself gives. With an obedient disciplined brain a man\nmay live always right up to the standard of his best moments.\n\nTo teach a child obedience you tell it to do something, and you see that\nthat something is done. The same with the brain. Here is the foundation\nof an efficient life and the antidote for the tendency to make a fool of\noneself. It is marvellously simple. Say to your brain: 'From 9 o'clock\nto 9.30 this morning you must dwell without ceasing on a particular\ntopic which I will give you.' Now, it doesn't matter what this topic\nis--the point is to control and invigorate the brain by exercise--but\nyou may just as well give it a useful topic to think over as a futile\none. You might give it this: 'My brain is my servant. I am not the\nplay-thing of my brain.' Let it concentrate on these statements for\nthirty minutes. 'What?' you cry. 'Is this the way to an efficient life?\nWhy, there's nothing in it!' Simple as it may appear, this _is_ the way,\nand it is the only way. As for there being nothing in it, try it. I\nguarantee that you will fail to keep your brain concentrated on the\ngiven idea for thirty seconds--let alone thirty minutes. You will find\nyour brain conducting itself in a manner which would be comic were it\nnot tragic. Your first experiments will result in disheartening failure,\nfor to exact from the brain, at will and by will, concentration on a\ngiven idea for even so short a period as half an hour is an exceedingly\ndifficult feat--and a fatiguing! It needs perseverance. It needs a\nterrible obstinacy on the part of the will. That brain of yours will be\nhopping about all over the place, and every time it hops you must bring\nit back by force to its original position. You must absolutely compel it\nto ignore every idea except the one which you have selected for its\nattention. You cannot hope to triumph all at once. But you can hope to\ntriumph. There is no royal road to the control of the brain. There is no\npatent dodge about it, and no complicated function which a plain person\nmay not comprehend. It is simply a question of: 'I will, _I_ will, and I\n_will_.' (Italics here are indispensable.)\n\nLet me resume. Efficient living, living up to one's best standard,\ngetting the last ounce of power out of the machine with the minimum of\nfriction: these things depend on the disciplined and vigorous condition\nof the brain. The brain can be disciplined by learning the habit of\nobedience. And it can learn the habit of obedience by the practice of\nconcentration. Disciplinary concentration, though nothing could have\nthe air of being simpler, is the basis of the whole structure. This fact\nmust be grasped imaginatively; it must be seen and felt. The more\nregularly concentration is practised, the more firmly will the\nimagination grasp the effects of it, both direct and indirect. After but\na few days of honest trying in the exercise which I have indicated, you\nwill perceive its influence. You will grow accustomed to the idea, at\nfirst strange in its novelty, of the brain being external to the supreme\nforce which is _you_, and in subjection to that force. You will, as a\nnot very distant possibility, see yourself in possession of the power to\nswitch your brain on and off in a particular subject as you switch\nelectricity on and off in a particular room. The brain will get used to\nthe straight paths of obedience. And--a remarkable phenomenon--it will,\nby the mere practice of obedience, become less forgetful and more\neffective. It will not so frequently give way to an instinct that takes\nit by surprise. In a word, it will have received a general tonic. With a\nbrain that is improving every day you can set about the perfecting of\nthe machine in a scientific manner.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nHABIT-FORMING BY CONCENTRATION\n\n\nAs soon as the will has got the upper hand of the brain--as soon as it\ncan say to the brain, with a fair certainty of being obeyed: 'Do this.\nThink along these lines, and continue to do so without wandering until I\ngive you leave to stop'--then is the time arrived when the perfecting of\nthe human machine may be undertaken in a large and comprehensive spirit,\nas a city council undertakes the purification and reconstruction of a\ncity. The tremendous possibilities of an obedient brain will be\nperceived immediately we begin to reflect upon what we mean by our\n'character.' Now, a person's character is, and can be, nothing else but\nthe total result of his habits of thought. A person is benevolent\nbecause he habitually thinks benevolently. A person is idle because his\nthoughts dwell habitually on the instant pleasures of idleness. It is\ntrue that everybody is born with certain predispositions, and that these\npredispositions influence very strongly the early formation of habits of\nthought. But the fact remains that the character is built by\nlong-continued habits of thought. If the mature edifice of character\nusually shows in an exaggerated form the peculiarities of the original\npredisposition, this merely indicates a probability that the slow\nerection of the edifice has proceeded at haphazard, and that reason has\nnot presided over it. A child may be born with a tendency to bent\nshoulders. If nothing is done, if on the contrary he becomes a clerk and\nabhors gymnastics, his shoulders will develop an excessive roundness,\nentirely through habit. Whereas, if his will, guided by his reason, had\ncompelled the formation of a corrective physical habit, his shoulders\nmight have been, if not quite straight, nearly so. Thus a physical\nhabit! The same with a mental habit.\n\nThe more closely we examine the development of original predispositions,\nthe more clearly we shall see that this development is not inevitable,\nis not a process which works itself out independently according to\nmysterious, ruthless laws which we cannot understand. For instance, the\neffect of an original predisposition may be destroyed by an accidental\nshock. A young man with an inherited tendency to alcohol may develop\ninto a stern teetotaller through the shock caused by seeing his drunken\nfather strike his mother; whereas, if his father had chanced to be\naffectionate in drink, the son might have ended in the gutter. No\nruthless law here! It is notorious, also, that natures are sometimes\ncompletely changed in their development by chance momentary contact\nwith natures stronger than themselves. 'From that day I resolved--' etc.\nYou know the phrase. Often the resolve is not kept; but often it is\nkept. A spark has inflamed the will. The burning will has tyrannised\nover the brain. New habits have been formed. And the result looks just\nlike a miracle.\n\nNow, if these great transformations can be brought about by accident,\ncannot similar transformations be brought about by a reasonable design?\nAt any rate, if one starts to bring them about, one starts with the\nassurance that transformations are not impossible, since they have\noccurred. One starts also in the full knowledge of the influence of\nhabit on life. Take any one of your own habits, mental or physical. You\nwill be able to recall the time when that habit did not exist, or if it\ndid exist it was scarcely perceptible. And you will discover that\nnearly all your habits have been formed unconsciously, by daily\nrepetitions which bore no relation to a general plan, and which you\npractised not noticing. You will be compelled to admit that your\n'character,' as it is to-day, is a structure that has been built almost\nwithout the aid of an architect; higgledy-piggledy, anyhow. But\noccasionally the architect did step in and design something. Here and\nthere among your habits you will find one that you consciously and of\ndeliberate purpose initiated and persevered with--doubtless owing to\nsome happy influence. What is the difference between that conscious\nhabit and the unconscious habits? None whatever as regards its effect on\nthe sum of your character. It may be the strongest of all your habits.\nThe only quality that differentiates it from the others is that it has a\ndefinite object (most likely a good object), and that it wholly or\npartially fulfils that object. There is not a man who reads these lines\nbut has, in this detail or that, proved in himself that the will,\nforcing the brain to repeat the same action again and again, can modify\nthe shape of his character as a sculptor modifies the shape of damp\nclay.\n\nBut if a grown man's character is developing from day to day (as it is),\nif nine-tenths of the development is due to unconscious action and\none-tenth to conscious action, and if the one-tenth conscious is the\nmost satisfactory part of the total result; why, in the name of common\nsense, henceforward, should not nine-tenths, instead of one-tenth, be\ndue to conscious action? What is there to prevent this agreeable\nconsummation? There is nothing whatever to prevent it--except\ninsubordination on the part of the brain. And insubordination of the\nbrain can be cured, as I have previously shown. When I see men unhappy\nand inefficient in the craft of _living_, from sheer, crass inattention\nto their own development; when I see misshapen men building up\nbusinesses and empires, and never stopping to build up themselves; when\nI see dreary men expending precisely the same energy on teaching a dog\nto walk on its hind-legs as would brighten the whole colour of their own\nlives, I feel as if I wanted to give up the ghost, so ridiculous, so\nfatuous does the spectacle seem! But, of course, I do not give up the\nghost. The paroxysm passes. Only I really must cry out: 'Can't you see\nwhat you're missing? Can't you see that you're missing the most\ninteresting thing on earth, far more interesting than businesses,\nempires, and dogs? Doesn't it strike you how clumsy and short-sighted\nyou are--working always with an inferior machine when you might have a\nsmooth-gliding perfection? Doesn't it strike you how badly you are\ntreating yourself?'\n\nListen, you confirmed grumbler, you who make the evening meal hideous\nwith complaints against destiny--for it is you I will single out. Are\nyou aware what people are saying about you behind your back? They are\nsaying that you render yourself and your family miserable by the habit\nwhich has grown on you of always grumbling. 'Surely it isn't as bad as\nthat?' you protest. Yes, it is just as bad as that. You say: 'The fact\nis, I know it's absurd to grumble. But I'm like that. I've tried to stop\nit, and I can't!' How have you tried to stop it? 'Well, I've made up my\nmind several times to fight against it, but I never succeed. This is\nstrictly between ourselves. I don't usually admit that I'm a grumbler.'\nConsidering that you grumble for about an hour and a half every day of\nyour life, it was sanguine, my dear sir, to expect to cure such a habit\nby means of a solitary intention, formed at intervals in the brain and\nthen forgotten. No! You must do more than that. If you will daily fix\nyour brain firmly for half an hour on the truth (you know it to be a\ntruth) that grumbling is absurd and futile, your brain will henceforward\nbegin to form a habit in that direction; it will begin to be moulded to\nthe idea that grumbling is absurd and futile. In odd moments, when it\nisn't thinking of anything in particular, it will suddenly remember that\ngrumbling is absurd and futile. When you sit down to the meal and open\nyour mouth to say: 'I can't think what my ass of a partner means by--'\nit will remember that grumbling is absurd and futile, and will alter the\narrangement of your throat, teeth, and tongue, so that you will say:\n'What fine weather we're having!' In brief, it will remember\ninvoluntarily, by a new habit. All who look into their experience will\nadmit that the failure to replace old habits by new ones is due to the\nfact that at the critical moment the brain does not remember; it simply\nforgets. The practice of concentration will cure that. All depends on\nregular concentration. This grumbling is an instance, though chosen not\nquite at hazard.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nLORD OVER THE NODDLE\n\n\nHaving proved by personal experiment the truth of the first of the two\ngreat principles which concern the human machine--namely, that the brain\nis a servant, not a master, and can be controlled--we may now come to\nthe second. The second is more fundamental than the first, but it can be\nof no use until the first is understood and put into practice. The human\nmachine is an apparatus of brain and muscle for enabling the Ego to\ndevelop freely in the universe by which it is surrounded, without\nfriction. Its function is to convert the facts of the universe to the\nbest advantage of the Ego. The facts of the universe are the material\nwith which it is its business to deal--not the facts of an ideal\nuniverse, but the facts of this universe. Hence, when friction occurs,\nwhen the facts of the universe cease to be of advantage to the Ego, the\nfault is in the machine. It is not the solar system that has gone wrong,\nbut the human machine. Second great principle, therefore: '_In case of\nfriction, the machine is always at fault_.'\n\nYou can control nothing but your own mind. Even your two-year-old babe\nmay defy you by the instinctive force of its personality. But your own\nmind you can control. Your own mind is a sacred enclosure into which\nnothing harmful can enter except by your permission. Your own mind has\nthe power to transmute every external phenomenon to its own purposes. If\nhappiness arises from cheerfulness, kindliness, and rectitude (and who\nwill deny it?), what possible combination of circumstances is going to\nmake you unhappy so long as the machine remains in order? If\nself-development consists in the utilisation of one's environment (not\nutilisation of somebody else's environment), how can your environment\nprevent you from developing? You would look rather foolish without it,\nanyway. In that noddle of yours is everything necessary for development,\nfor the maintaining of dignity, for the achieving of happiness, and you\nare absolute lord over the noddle, will you but exercise the powers of\nlordship. Why worry about the contents of somebody else's noddle, in\nwhich you can be nothing but an intruder, when you may arrive at a\nbetter result, with absolute certainty, by confining your activities to\nyour own? 'Look within.' 'The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.' 'Oh,\nyes!' you protest. 'All that's old. Epictetus said that. Marcus Aurelius\nsaid that. Christ said that.' They did. I admit it readily. But if you\nwere ruffled this morning because your motor-omnibus broke down, and\nyou had to take a cab, then so far as you are concerned these great\nteachers lived in vain. You, calling yourself a reasonable man, are\ngoing about dependent for your happiness, dignity, and growth, upon a\nthousand things over which you have no control, and the most exquisitely\norganised machine for ensuring happiness, dignity, and growth, is\nrusting away inside you. And all because you have a sort of notion that\na saying said two thousand years ago cannot be practical.\n\nYou remark sagely to your child: 'No, my child, you cannot have that\nmoon, and you will accomplish nothing by crying for it. Now, here is\nthis beautiful box of bricks, by means of which you may amuse yourself\nwhile learning many wonderful matters and improving your mind. You must\ntry to be content with what you have, and to make the best of it. If you\nhad the moon you wouldn't be any happier.' Then you lie awake half the\nnight repining because the last post has brought a letter to the effect\nthat 'the Board cannot entertain your application for,' etc. You say the\ntwo cases are not alike. They are not. Your child has never heard of\nEpictetus. On the other hand, justice _is_ the moon. At your age you\nsurely know that. 'But the Directors _ought_ to have granted my\napplication,' you insist. Exactly! I agree. But we are not in a universe\nof _oughts_. You have a special apparatus within you for dealing with a\nuniverse where _oughts_ are flagrantly disregarded. And you are not\nusing it. You are lying awake, keeping your wife awake, injuring your\nhealth, injuring hers, losing your dignity and your cheerfulness. Why?\nBecause you think that these antics and performances will influence the\nBoard? Because you think that they will put you into a better condition\nfor dealing with your environment to-morrow? Not a bit. Simply because\nthe machine is at fault.\n\nIn certain cases we do make use of our machines (as well as their sad\ncondition of neglect will allow), but in other cases we behave in an\nextraordinarily irrational manner. Thus if we sally out and get caught\nin a heavy shower we do not, unless very far gone in foolishness, sit\ndown and curse the weather. We put up our umbrella, if we have one, and\nif not we hurry home. We may grumble, but it is not serious grumbling;\nwe accept the shower as a fact of the universe, and control ourselves.\nThus also, if by a sudden catastrophe we lose somebody who is important\nto us, we grieve, but we control ourselves, recognising one of those\nhazards of destiny from which not even millionaires are exempt. And the\nresult on our Ego is usually to improve it in essential respects. But\nthere are other strokes of destiny, other facts of the universe,\nagainst which we protest as a child protests when deprived of the moon.\n\nTake the case of an individual with an imperfect idea of honesty. Now,\nthat individual is the consequence of his father and mother and his\nenvironment, and his father and mother of theirs, and so backwards to\nthe single-celled protoplasm. That individual is a result of the cosmic\norder, the inevitable product of cause and effect. We know that. We must\nadmit that he is just as much a fact of the universe as a shower of rain\nor a storm at sea that swallows a ship. We freely grant in the abstract\nthat there must be, at the present stage of evolution, a certain number\nof persons with unfair minds. We are quite ready to contemplate such an\nindividual with philosophy--until it happens that, in the course of the\nprogress of the solar system, he runs up against ourselves. Then listen\nto the outcry! Listen to the continual explosions of a righteous man\naggrieved! The individual may be our clerk, cashier, son, father,\nbrother, partner, wife, employer. We are ill-used! We are being treated\nunfairly! We kick; we scream. We nourish the inward sense of grievance\nthat eats the core out of content. We sit down in the rain. We decline\nto think of umbrellas, or to run to shelter.\n\nWe care not that that individual is a fact which the universe has been\nslowly manufacturing for millions of years. Our attitude implies that we\nwant eternity to roll back and begin again, in such wise that we at any\nrate shall not be disturbed. Though we have a machine for the\ntransmutation of facts into food for our growth, we do not dream of\nusing it. But, we say, he is doing us harm! Where? In our minds. He has\nrobbed us of our peace, our comfort, our happiness, our good temper.\nEven if he has, we might just as well inveigh against a shower. But has\nhe? What was our brain doing while this naughty person stepped in and\nrobbed us of the only possessions worth having? No, no! It is not that\nhe has done us harm--the one cheerful item in a universe of stony facts\nis that no one can harm anybody except himself--it is merely that we\nhave been silly, precisely as silly as if we had taken a seat in the\nrain with a folded umbrella by our side.... The machine is at fault. I\nfancy we are now obtaining glimpses of what that phrase really means.\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nWHAT 'LIVING' CHIEFLY IS\n\n\nIt is in intercourse--social, sentimental, or business--with one's\nfellows that the qualities and the condition of the human machine are\nput to the test and strained. That part of my life which I conduct by\nmyself, without reference--or at any rate without direct reference--to\nothers, I can usually manage in such a way that the gods do not\npositively weep at the spectacle thereof. My environment is simpler,\nless puzzling, when I am alone, my calm and my self-control less liable\nto violent fluctuations. Impossible to be disturbed by a chair!\nImpossible that a chair should get on one's nerves! Impossible to blame\na chair for not being as reasonable, as archangelic as I am myself! But\nwhen it comes to people!... Well, that is\n'living,' then! The art of life, the art of extracting all its power\nfrom the human machine, does not lie chiefly in processes of\nbookish-culture, nor in contemplations of the beauty and majesty of\nexistence. It lies chiefly in keeping the peace, the whole peace, and\nnothing but the peace, with those with whom one is 'thrown.' Is it in\nsitting ecstatic over Shelley, Shakespeare, or Herbert Spencer, solitary\nin my room of a night, that I am 'improving myself' and learning to\nlive? Or is it in watching over all my daily human contacts? Do not seek\nto escape the comparison by insinuating that I despise study, or by\npointing out that the eternal verities are beyond dailiness. Nothing of\nthe kind! I am so 'silly' about books that merely to possess them gives\nme pleasure. And if the verities are good for eternity they ought to be\ngood for a day. If I cannot exchange them for daily coin--if I can't\nbuy happiness for a single day because I've nothing less than an eternal\nverity about me and nobody has sufficient change--then my eternal verity\nis not an eternal verity. It is merely an unnegotiable bit of glass\n(called a diamond), or even a note on the Bank of Engraving.\n\nI can say to myself when I arise in the morning: 'I am master of my\nbrain. No one can get in there and rage about like a bull in a china\nshop. If my companions on the planet's crust choose to rage about they\ncannot affect _me_! I will not let them. I have power to maintain my own\ncalm, and I will. No earthly being can force me to be false to my\nprinciples, or to be blind to the beauty of the universe, or to be\ngloomy, or to be irritable, or to complain against my lot. For these\nthings depend on the brain; cheerfulness, kindliness, and honest\nthinking are all within the department of the brain. The disciplined\nbrain can accomplish them. And my brain is disciplined, and I will\ndiscipline it more and more as the days pass. I am, therefore,\nindependent of hazard, and I will back myself to conduct all intercourse\nas becomes a rational creature.' ... I can say this. I can ram this\nargument by force of will into my brain, and by dint of repeating it\noften enough I shall assuredly arrive at the supreme virtues of reason.\nI should assuredly conquer--the brain being such a machine of\nhabit--even if I did not take the trouble to consider in the slightest\ndegree what manner of things my fellow-men are--by acting merely in my\nown interests. But the way of perfection (I speak relatively) will be\nimmensely shortened and smoothed if I do consider, dispassionately, the\ncase of the other human machines. Thus:--\n\nThe truth is that my attitude towards my fellows is fundamentally and\ntotally wrong, and that it entails on my thinking machine a strain\nwhich is quite unnecessary, though I may have arranged the machine so as\nto withstand the strain successfully. The secret of smooth living is a\ncalm cheerfulness which will leave me always in full possession of my\nreasoning faculty--in order that I may live by reason instead of by\ninstinct and momentary passion. The secret of calm cheerfulness is\nkindliness; no person can be consistently cheerful and calm who does not\nconsistently think kind thoughts. But how can I be kindly when I pass\nthe major portion of my time in blaming the people who surround me--who\nare part of my environment? If I, blaming, achieve some approach to\nkindliness, it is only by a great and exhausting effort of self-mastery.\nThe inmost secret, then, lies in not blaming, in not judging and\nemitting verdicts. Oh! I do not blame by word of mouth! I am far too\nadvanced for such a puerility. I keep the blame in my own breast, where\nit festers. I am always privately forgiving, which is bad for me.\nBecause, you know, there is nothing to forgive. I do not have to forgive\nbad weather; nor, if I found myself in an earthquake, should I have to\nforgive the earthquake.\n\nAll blame, uttered or unexpressed, is wrong. I do not blame myself. I\ncan explain myself to myself. I can invariably explain myself. If I\nforged a friend's name on a cheque I should explain the affair quite\nsatisfactorily to myself. And instead of blaming myself I should\nsympathise with myself for having been driven into such an excessively\nawkward corner. Let me examine honestly my mental processes, and I must\nadmit that my attitude towards others is entirely different from my\nattitude towards myself. I must admit that in the seclusion of my mind,\nthough I say not a word, I am constantly blaming others because I am\nnot happy. Whenever I bump up against an opposing personality and my\nsmooth progress is impeded, I secretly blame the opposer. I act as\nthough I had shouted to the world: 'Clear out of the way, every one, for\nI am coming!' Every one does not clear out of the way. I did not really\nexpect every one to clear out of the way. But I act, within, as though I\nhad so expected. I blame. Hence kindliness, hence cheerfulness, is\nrendered vastly more difficult for me.\n\nWhat I ought to do is this! I ought to reflect again and again, and yet\nagain, that the beings among whom I have to steer, the living\nenvironment out of which I have to manufacture my happiness, are just as\ninevitable in the scheme of evolution as I am myself; have just as much\nright to be themselves as I have to be myself; are precisely my equals\nin the face of Nature; are capable of being explained as I am capable\nof being explained; are entitled to the same latitude as I am entitled\nto, and are no more responsible for their composition and their\nenvironment than I for mine. I ought to reflect again and again, and yet\nagain, that they all deserve from me as much sympathy as I give to\nmyself. Why not? Having thus reflected in a general manner, I ought to\ntake one by one the individuals with whom I am brought into frequent\ncontact, and seek, by a deliberate effort of the imagination and the\nreason, to understand them, to understand why they act thus and thus,\nwhat their difficulties are, what their 'explanation' is, and how\nfriction can be avoided. So I ought to reflect, morning after morning,\nuntil my brain is saturated with the cases of these individuals. Here is\na course of discipline. If I follow it I shall gradually lose the\npreposterous habit of blaming, and I shall have laid the foundations of\nthat quiet, unshakable self-possession which is the indispensable\npreliminary of conduct according to reason, of thorough efficiency in\nthe machine of happiness. But something in me, something distinctly\nbase, says: 'Yes. The put-yourself-in-his-place business over again! The\ndo-unto-others business over again!' Just so! Something in me is ashamed\nof being 'moral.' (You all know the feeling!) Well, morals are naught\nbut another name for reasonable conduct; a higher and more practical\nform of egotism--an egotism which, while freeing others, frees myself. I\nhave tried the lower form of egotism. And it has failed. If I am afraid\nof being moral, if I prefer to cut off my nose to spite my face, well, I\nmust accept the consequences. But truth will prevail.\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nTHE DAILY FRICTION\n\n\nIt is with common daily affairs that I am now dealing, not with heroic\nenterprises, ambitions, martyrdoms. Take the day, the ordinary day in\nthe ordinary house or office. Though it comes seven times a week, and is\nthe most banal thing imaginable, it is quite worth attention. How does\nthe machine get through it? Ah! the best that can be said of the machine\nis that it does get through it, somehow. The friction, though seldom\nsuch as to bring matters to a standstill, is frequent--the sort of\nfriction that, when it occurs in a bicycle, is just sufficient to annoy\nthe rider, but not sufficient to make him get off the machine and\nexamine the bearings. Occasionally the friction is very loud; indeed,\ndisturbing, and at rarer intervals it shrieks, like an omnibus brake out\nof order. You know those days when you have the sensation that life is\nnot large enough to contain the household or the office-staff, when the\nbusiness of intercourse may be compared to the manoeuvres of two people\nwho, having awakened with a bad headache, are obliged to dress\nsimultaneously in a very small bedroom. 'After you with that towel!' in\naccents of bitter, grinding politeness. 'If you could kindly move your\nthings off this chair!' in a voice that would blow brains out if it were\na bullet. I venture to say that you know those days. 'But,' you reply,\n'such days are few. Usually...!' Well, usually, the friction, though\nless intense, is still proceeding. We grow accustomed to it. We scarcely\nnotice it, as a person in a stuffy chamber will scarcely notice the\nstuffiness. But the deteriorating influence due to friction goes on,\neven if unperceived. And one morning we perceive its ravages--and write\na letter to the _Telegraph_ to inquire whether life is worth living, or\nwhether marriage is a failure, or whether men are more polite than\nwomen. The proof that friction, in various and varying degrees, is\npractically conscious in most households lies in the fact that when we\nchance on a household where there is no friction we are startled. We\ncan't recover from the phenomenon. And in describing this household to\nour friends, we say: 'They get on so well together,' as if we were\nsaying: 'They have wings and can fly! Just fancy! Did you ever hear of\nsuch a thing?'\n\nNinety per cent. of all daily friction is caused by tone--mere tone of\nvoice. Try this experiment. Say: 'Oh, you little darling, you sweet pet,\nyou entirely charming creature!' to a baby or a dog; but roar these\ndelightful epithets in the tone of saying: 'You infernal little\nnuisance! If I hear another sound I'll break every bone in your body!'\nThe baby will infallibly whimper, and the dog will infallibly mouch off.\nTrue, a dog is not a human being, neither is a baby. They cannot\nunderstand. It is precisely because they cannot understand and\narticulate words that the experiment is valuable; for it separates the\neffect of the tone from the effect of the word spoken. He who speaks,\nspeaks twice. His words convey his thought, and his tone conveys his\nmental attitude towards the person spoken to. And certainly the\nattitude, so far as friction goes, is more important than the thought.\nYour wife may say to you: 'I shall buy that hat I spoke to you about.'\nAnd you may reply, quite sincerely, 'As you please.' But it will depend\non your tone whether you convey: 'As you please. I am sympathetically\nanxious that your innocent caprices should be indulged.' Or whether you\nconvey: 'As you please. Only don't bother me with hats. I am above hats.\nA great deal too much money is spent in this house on hats. However, I'm\nhelpless!' Or whether you convey: 'As you please, heart of my heart, but\nif you would like to be a nice girl, go gently. We're rather tight.' I\nneed not elaborate. I am sure of being comprehended.\n\nAs tone is the expression of attitude, it is, of course, caused by\nattitude. The frictional tone is chiefly due to that general attitude of\nblame which I have already condemned as being absurd and unjustifiable.\nAs, by constant watchful discipline, we gradually lose this silly\nattitude of blame, so the tone will of itself gradually change. But the\ntwo ameliorations can proceed together, and it is a curious thing that\nan agreeable tone, artificially and deliberately adopted, will\ninfluence the mental attitude almost as much as the mental attitude will\ninfluence the tone. If you honestly feel resentful against some one,\nbut, having understood the foolishness of fury, intentionally mask your\nfury under a persuasive tone, your fury will at once begin to abate. You\nwill be led into a rational train of thought; you will see that after\nall the object of your resentment has a right to exist, and that he is\nneither a doormat nor a scoundrel, and that anyhow nothing is to be\ngained, and much is to be lost, by fury. You will see that fury is\nunworthy of you.\n\nDo you remember the gentleness of the tone which you employed after the\nhealing of your first quarrel with a beloved companion? Do you remember\nthe persuasive tone which you used when you wanted to obtain something\nfrom a difficult person on whom your happiness depended? Why should not\nyour tone always combine these qualities? Why should you not carefully\nschool your tone? Is it beneath you to ensure the largest possible\namount of your own 'way' by the simplest means? Or is there at the back\nof your mind that peculiarly English and German idea that politeness,\nsympathy, and respect for another immortal soul would imply deplorable\nweakness on your part? You say that your happiness does not depend on\nevery person whom you happen to speak to. Yes, it does. Your happiness\nis always dependent on just that person. Produce friction, and you\nsuffer. Idle to argue that the person has no business to be upset by\nyour tone! You have caused avoidable friction, simply because your\nmachine for dealing with your environment was suffering from pride,\nignorance, or thoughtlessness. You say I am making a mountain out of a\nmole-hill. No! I am making a mountain out of ten million mole-hills.\nAnd that is what life does. It is the little but continuous causes that\nhave great effects. I repeat: Why not deliberately adopt a gentle,\npersuasive tone--just to see what the results are? Surely you are not\nashamed to be wise. You may smile superiorly as you read this. Yet you\nknow very well that more than once you _have_ resolved to use a gentle\nand persuasive tone on all occasions, and that the sole reason why you\nhad that fearful shindy yesterday with your cousin's sister-in-law was\nthat you had long since failed to keep your resolve. But you were of my\nmind once, and more than once.\n\nWhat you have to do is to teach the new habit to your brain by daily\nconcentration on it; by forcing your brain to think of nothing else for\nhalf an hour of a morning. After a time the brain will begin to remember\nautomatically. For, of course, the explanation of your previous\nfailures is that your brain, undisciplined, merely forgot at the\ncritical moment. The tone was out of your mouth before your brain had\nwaked up. It is necessary to watch, as though you were a sentinel, not\nonly against the wrong tone, but against the other symptoms of the\nattitude of blame. Such as the frown. It is necessary to regard yourself\nconstantly, and in minute detail. You lie in bed for half an hour and\nenthusiastically concentrate on this beautiful new scheme of the right\ntone. You rise, and because you don't achieve a proper elegance of\nnecktie at the first knotting, you frown and swear and clench your\nteeth! There is a symptom of the wrong attitude towards your\nenvironment. You are awake, but your brain isn't. It is in such a\nsymptom that you may judge yourself. And not a trifling symptom either!\nIf you will frown at a necktie, if you will use language to a necktie\nwhich no gentleman should use to a necktie, what will you be capable of\nto a responsible being?... Yes, it is very difficult. But it can be\ndone.\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\n'FIRE!'\n\n\nIn this business of daily living, of ordinary usage of the machine in\nhourly intercourse, there occurs sometimes a phenomenon which is the\ncause of a great deal of trouble, and the result of a very ill-tended\nmachine. It is a phenomenon impossible to ignore, and yet, so shameful\nis it, so degrading, so shocking, so miserable, that I hesitate to\nmention it. For one class of reader is certain to ridicule me, loftily\nsaying: 'One really doesn't expect to find this sort of thing in print\nnowadays!' And another class of reader is certain to get angry.\nNevertheless, as one of my main objects in the present book is to\ndiscuss matters which 'people don't talk about,' I shall discuss this\nmatter. But my diffidence in doing so is such that I must approach it\ndeviously, describing it first by means of a figure.\n\nImagine that, looking at a man's house, you suddenly perceive it to be\non fire. The flame is scarcely perceptible. You could put it out if you\nhad a free hand. But you have not got a free hand. It is his house, not\nyours. He may or may not know that his house is burning. You are aware,\nby experience, however, that if you directed his attention to the flame,\nthe effect of your warning would be exceedingly singular, almost\nincredible. For the effect would be that he would instantly begin to\nstrike matches, pour on petroleum, and fan the flame, violently\nresenting interference. Therefore you can only stand and watch, hoping\nthat he will notice the flames before they are beyond control, and\nextinguish them. The probability is, however, that he will notice the\nflames too late. And powerless to avert disaster, you are condemned,\ntherefore, to watch the damage of valuable property. The flames leap\nhigher and higher, and they do not die down till they have burned\nthemselves out. You avert your gaze from the spectacle, and until you\nare gone the owner of the house pretends that nothing has occurred. When\nalone he curses himself for his carelessness.\n\nThe foregoing is meant to be a description of what happens when a man\npasses through the incendiary experience known as 'losing his temper.'\n(There! the cat of my chapter is out of the bag!) A man who has lost his\ntemper is simply being 'burnt out.' His constitutes one of the most\ncurious and (for everybody) humiliating spectacles that life offers. It\nis an insurrection, a boiling over, a sweeping storm. Dignity, common\nsense, justice are shrivelled up and destroyed. Anarchy reigns. The\ndevil has broken his chain. Instinct is stamping on the face of reason.\nAnd in that man civilisation has temporarily receded millions of years.\nOf course, the thing amounts to a nervous disease, and I think it is\nalmost universal. You at once protest that you never lose your\ntemper--haven't lost your temper for ages! But do you not mean that you\nhave not smashed furniture for ages? These fires are of varying\nintensities. Some of them burn very dully. Yet they burn. One man loses\nhis temper; another is merely 'ruffled.' But the event is the same in\nkind. When you are 'ruffled,' when you are conscious of a resentful\nvibration that surprises all your being, when your voice changes, when\nyou notice a change in the demeanour of your companion, who sees that he\nhas 'touched a tender point,' you may not go to the length of smashing\nfurniture, but you have had a fire, and your dignity is damaged. You\nadmit it to yourself afterwards. I am sure you know what I mean. And I\nam nearly sure that you, with your courageous candour, will admit that\nfrom time to time you suffer from these mysterious 'fires.'\n\n'Temper,' one of the plagues of human society, is generally held to be\nincurable, save by the vague process of exercising self-control--a\nprocess which seldom has any beneficial results. It is regarded now as\nsmallpox used to be regarded--as a visitation of Providence, which must\nbe borne. But I do not hold it to be incurable. I am convinced that it\nis permanently curable. And its eminent importance as a nuisance to\nmankind at large deserves, I think, that it should receive particular\nattention. Anyhow, I am strongly against the visitation of Providence\ntheory, as being unscientific, primitive, and conducive to unashamed\n_laissez-aller._ A man can be master in his own house. If he cannot be\nmaster by simple force of will, he can be master by ruse and wile. I\nwould employ cleverness to maintain the throne of reason when it is\nlikely to be upset in the mind by one of these devastating and\ndisgraceful insurrections of brute instinct.\n\nIt is useless for a man in the habit of losing or mislaying his temper\nto argue with himself that such a proceeding is folly, that it serves no\nend, and does nothing but harm. It is useless for him to argue that in\nallowing his temper to stray he is probably guilty of cruelty, and\ncertainly guilty of injustice to those persons who are forced to witness\nthe loss. It is useless for him to argue that a man of uncertain temper\nin a house is like a man who goes about a house with a loaded revolver\nsticking from his pocket, and that all considerations of fairness and\nreason have to be subordinated in that house to the fear of the\nrevolver, and that such peace as is maintained in that house is often a\nshameful and an unjust peace. These arguments will not be strong enough\nto prevail against one of the most powerful and capricious of all\nhabits. This habit must be met and conquered (and it _can_ be!) by an\neven more powerful quality in the human mind; I mean the universal human\nhorror of looking ridiculous. The man who loses his temper often thinks\nhe is doing something rather fine and majestic. On the contrary, so far\nis this from being the fact, he is merely making an ass of himself. He\nis merely parading himself as an undignified fool, as that supremely\ncontemptible figure--a grown-up baby. He may intimidate a feeble\ncompanion by his raging, or by the dark sullenness of a more subdued\nflame, but in the heart of even the weakest companion is a bedrock\nfeeling of contempt for him. The way in which a man of uncertain temper\nis treated by his friends proves that they despise him, for they do not\ntreat him as a reasonable being. How should they treat him as a\nreasonable being when the tenure of his reason is so insecure? And if\nonly he could hear what is said of him behind his back!...\n\nThe invalid can cure himself by teaching his brain the habit of dwelling\nupon his extreme fatuity. Let him concentrate regularly, with intense\nfixation, upon the ideas: 'When I lose my temper, when I get ruffled,\nwhen that mysterious vibration runs through me, I am making a donkey of\nmyself, a donkey, and a donkey! You understand, a preposterous donkey! I\nam behaving like a great baby. I look a fool. I am a spectacle bereft of\ndignity. Everybody despises me, smiles at me in secret, disdains the\nidiotic ass with whom it is impossible to reason.'\n\nOrdinarily the invalid disguises from himself this aspect of his\ndisease, and his brain will instinctively avoid it as much as it can.\nBut in hours of calm he can slowly and regularly force his brain, by\nthe practice of concentration, to familiarise itself with just this\naspect, so that in time its instinct will be to think first, and not\nlast, of just this aspect. When he has arrived at that point he is\nsaved. No man who, at the very inception of the fire, is visited with a\nclear vision of himself as an arrant ass and pitiable object of\ncontempt, will lack the volition to put the fire out. But, be it noted,\nhe will not succeed until he can do it at once. A fire is a fire, and\nthe engines must gallop by themselves out of the station instantly. This\nmeans the acquirement of a mental habit. During the preliminary stages\nof the cure he should, of course, avoid inflammable situations. This is\na perfectly simple thing to do, if the brain has been disciplined out of\nits natural forgetfulness.\n\n\n\n\nX\n\nMISCHIEVOUSLY OVERWORKING IT\n\n\nI have dealt with the two general major causes of friction in the daily\nuse of the machine. I will now deal with a minor cause, and make an end\nof mere dailiness. This minor cause--and after all I do not know that\nits results are so trifling as to justify the epithet 'minor'--is the\nstraining of the machine by forcing it to do work which it was never\nintended to do. Although we are incapable of persuading our machines to\ndo effectively that which they are bound to do somehow, we continually\noverburden them with entirely unnecessary and inept tasks. We cannot, it\nwould seem, let things alone.\n\nFor example, in the ordinary household the amount of machine horse-power\nexpended in fighting for the truth is really quite absurd. This pure\nzeal for the establishment and general admission of the truth is usually\ntermed 'contradictoriness.' But, of course, it is not that; it is\nsomething higher. My wife states that the Joneses have gone into a new\nflat, of which the rent is \u00a3165 a year. Now, Jones has told me\npersonally that the rent of his new flat is \u00a3156 a year. I correct my\nwife. Knowing that she is in the right, she corrects me. She cannot bear\nthat a falsehood should prevail. It is not a question of \u00a39, it is a\nquestion of truth. Her enthusiasm for truth excites my enthusiasm for\ntruth. Five minutes ago I didn't care twopence whether the rent of the\nJoneses' new flat was \u00a3165 or \u00a3156 or \u00a31056 a year. But now I care\nintensely that it is \u00a3156. I have formed myself into a select society\nfor the propagating of the truth about the rent of the Joneses' new\nflat, and my wife has done the same. In eloquence, in argumentative\nskill, in strict supervision of our tempers, we each of us squander\nenormous quantities of that h.-p. which is so precious to us. And the\nnet effect is naught.\n\nNow, if one of us two had understood the elementary principles of human\nengineering, that one would have said (privately): 'Truth is\nindestructible. Truth will out. Truth is never in a hurry. If it doesn't\ncome out to-day it will come out to-morrow or next year. It can take\ncare of itself. Ultimately my wife (or my husband) will learn the\nessential cosmic truth about the rent of the Joneses' new flat. I\nalready know it, and the moment when she (or he) knows it also will be\nthe moment of my triumph. She (or he) will not celebrate my triumph\nopenly, but it will be none the less real. And my reputation for\naccuracy and calm restraint will be consolidated. If, by a rare\nmischance, I am in error, it will be vastly better for me in the day of\nmy undoing that I have not been too positive now. Besides, nobody has\nappointed me sole custodian of the great truth concerning the rent of\nthe Joneses' new flat. I was not brought into the world to be a\nsafe-deposit, and more urgent matters summon me to effort.' If one of us\nhad meditated thus, much needless friction would have been avoided and\npower saved; _amour-propre_ would not have been exposed to risks; the\nsacred cause of truth would not in the least have suffered; and the rent\nof the Joneses' new flat would anyhow have remained exactly what it is.\n\nIn addition to straining the machine by our excessive anxiety for the\nspread of truth, we give a very great deal too much attention to the\nstate of other people's machines. I cannot too strongly, too\nsarcastically, deprecate this astonishing habit. It will be found to be\nrife in nearly every household and in nearly every office. We are most\nof us endeavouring to rearrange the mechanism in other heads than our\nown. This is always dangerous and generally futile. Considering the\ndifficulty we have in our own brains, where our efforts are sure of\nbeing accepted as well-meant, and where we have at any rate a rough\nnotion of the machine's construction, our intrepidity in adventuring\namong the delicate adjustments of other brains is remarkable. We are\ncursed by too much of the missionary spirit. We must needs voyage into\nthe China of our brother's brain, and explain there that things are\nseriously wrong in that heathen land, and make ourselves unpleasant in\nthe hope of getting them put right. We have all our own brain and body\non which to wreak our personality, but this is not enough; we must\nextend our personality further, just as though we were a colonising\nworld-power intoxicated by the idea of the 'white man's burden.'\n\nOne of the central secrets of efficient daily living is to leave our\ndaily companions alone a great deal more than we do, and attend to\nourselves. If a daily companion is conducting his life upon principles\nwhich you know to be false, and with results which you feel to be\nunpleasant, the safe rule is to keep your mouth shut. Or if, out of your\nsingular conceit, you are compelled to open it, open it with all\nprecautions, and with the formal politeness you would use to a stranger.\nIntimacy is no excuse for rough manners, though the majority of us seem\nto think it is. You are not in charge of the universe; you are in charge\nof yourself. You cannot hope to manage the universe in your spare time,\nand if you try you will probably make a mess of such part of the\nuniverse as you touch, while gravely neglecting yourself. In every\nfamily there is generally some one whose meddlesome interest in other\nmachines leads to serious friction in his own. Criticise less, even in\nthe secrecy of your chamber. And do not blame at all. Accept your\nenvironment and adapt yourself to it in silence, instead of noisily\nattempting to adapt your environment to yourself. Here is true wisdom.\nYou have no business trespassing beyond the confines of your own\nindividuality. In so trespassing you are guilty of impertinence. This is\nobvious. And yet one of the chief activities of home-life consists in\nprancing about at random on other people's private lawns. What I say\napplies even to the relation between parents and children. And though my\nprecept is exaggerated, it is purposely exaggerated in order effectively\nto balance the exaggeration in the opposite direction.\n\nAll individualities, other than one's own, are part of one's\nenvironment. The evolutionary process is going on all right, and they\nare a portion of it. Treat them as inevitable. To assert that they are\ninevitable is not to assert that they are unalterable. Only the\nalteration of them is not primarily your affair; it is theirs. Your\naffair is to use them, as they are, without self-righteousness, blame,\nor complaint, for the smooth furtherance of your own ends. There is no\nintention here to rob them of responsibility by depriving them of\nfree-will while saddling _you_ with responsibility as a free agent. As\nyour environment they must be accepted as inevitable, because they _are_\ninevitable. But as centres themselves they have their own\nresponsibility: which is not yours. The historic question: 'Have we\nfree-will, or are we the puppets of determinism?' enters now. As a\nquestion it is fascinating and futile. It has never been, and it never\nwill be, settled. The theory of determinism cannot be demolished by\nargument. But in his heart every man, including the most obstinate\nsupporter of the theory, demolishes it every hour of every day. On the\nother hand, the theory of free-will can be demolished by ratiocination!\nSo much the worse for ratiocination! _If we regard ourselves as free\nagents, and the personalities surrounding us as the puppets of\ndeterminism_, we shall have arrived at the working compromise from which\nthe finest results of living can be obtained. The philosophic experience\nof centuries, if it has proved anything, has proved this. And the man\nwho acts upon it in the common, banal contracts and collisions of the\ndifficult experiment which we call daily life, will speedily become\nconvinced of its practical worth.\n\n\n\n\nXI\n\nAN INTERLUDE\n\n\nFor ten chapters you have stood it, but not without protest. I know the\nfeeling which is in your minds, and which has manifested itself in\nnumerous criticisms of my ideas. That feeling may be briefly translated,\nperhaps, thus: 'This is all very well, but it isn't true, not a bit!\nIt's only a fairy-tale that you have been telling us. Miracles don't\nhappen,' etc. I, on my part, have a feeling that unless I take your\nfeeling in hand at once, and firmly deal with it, I had better put my\nshutters up, for you will have got into the way of regarding me simply\nas a source of idle amusement. Already I can perceive, from the\nexpressions of some critics, that, so far as they are concerned, I\nmight just as well not have written a word. Therefore at this point I\npause, in order to insist once more upon what I began by saying.\n\nThe burden of your criticism is: 'Human nature is always the same. I\nknow my faults. But it is useless to tell me about them. I can't alter\nthem. I was born like that.' The fatal weakness of this argument is,\nfirst, that it is based on a complete falsity; and second, that it puts\nyou in an untenable position. Human nature _does_ change. Nothing can be\nmore unscientific, more hopelessly medi\u00e6val, than to imagine that it\ndoes not. It changes like everything else. You can't see it change.\nTrue! But then you can't see the grass growing--not unless you arise\nvery early.\n\nIs human nature the same now as in the days of Babylonian civilisation,\nwhen the social machine was oiled by drenchings of blood? Is it the same\nnow as in the days of Greek civilisation, when there was no such thing\nas romantic love between the sexes? Is it the same now as it was during\nthe centuries when constant friction had to provide its own cure in the\nshape of constant war? Is it the same now as it was on 2nd March 1819,\nwhen the British Government officially opposed a motion to consider the\nseverity of the criminal laws (which included capital punishment for\ncutting down a tree, and other sensible dodges against friction), and\nwere defeated by a majority of only nineteen votes? Is it the same now\nas in the year 1883, when the first S.P.C.C. was formed in England?\n\nIf you consider that human nature is still the same you should instantly\ngo out and make a bonfire of the works of Spencer, Darwin, and Wallace,\nand then return to enjoy the purely jocular side of the present volume.\nIf you admit that it has changed, let me ask you how it has changed,\nunless by the continual infinitesimal efforts, _upon themselves_, of\nindividual men, like you and me. Did you suppose it was changed by\nmagic, or by Acts of Parliament, or by the action of groups on persons,\nand not of persons on groups? Let me tell you that human nature has\nchanged since yesterday. Let me tell you that to-day reason has a more\npowerful voice in the directing of instinct than it had yesterday. Let\nme tell you that to-day the friction of the machines is less screechy\nand grinding than it was yesterday.\n\n'You were born like that, and you can't alter yourself, and so it's no\nuse talking.' If you really believe this, why make any effort at all?\nWhy not let the whole business beautifully slide and yield to your\ninstincts? What object can there be in trying to control yourself in any\nmanner whatever if you are unalterable? Assert yourself to be\nunalterable, and you assert yourself a fatalist. Assert yourself a\nfatalist, and you free yourself from all moral responsibility--and other\npeople, too. Well, then, act up to your convictions, if convictions they\nare. If you can't alter yourself, I can't alter myself, and supposing\nthat I come along and bash you on the head and steal your purse, you\ncan't blame me. You can only, on recovering consciousness,\naffectionately grasp my hand and murmur: 'Don't apologise, my dear\nfellow; we can't alter ourselves.'\n\nThis, you say, is absurd. It is. That is one of my innumerable points.\nThe truth is, you do not really believe that you cannot alter yourself.\nWhat is the matter with you is just what is the matter with me--sheer\nidleness. You hate getting up in the morning, and to excuse your\ninexcusable indolence you talk big about Fate. Just as 'patriotism is\nthe last refuge of a scoundrel,' so fatalism is the last refuge of a\nshirker. But you deceive no one, least of all yourself. You have not,\nrationally, a leg to stand on. At this juncture, because I have made you\nlaugh, you consent to say: 'I do try, all I can. But I can only alter\nmyself a very little. By constitution I am mentally idle. I can't help\nthat, can I?' Well, so long as you are not the only absolutely\nunchangeable thing in a universe of change, I don't mind. It is\nsomething for you to admit that you can alter yourself even a very\nlittle. The difference between our philosophies is now only a question\nof degree.\n\nIn the application of any system of perfecting the machine, no two\npersons will succeed equally. From the disappointed tone of some of your\ncriticisms it might be fancied that I had advertised a system for making\narchangels out of tailors' dummies. Such was not my hope. I have no\nbelief in miracles. But I know that when a thing is thoroughly well\ndone it often has the air of being a miracle. My sole aim is to insist\nthat every man shall perfect his machine to the best of _his_ powers,\nnot to the best of somebody else's powers. I do not indulge in any hope\nthat a man can be better than his best self. I am, however, convinced\nthat every man fails to be his best self a great deal oftener than he\nneed fail--for the reason that his will-power, be it great or small, is\nnot directed according to the principles of common sense.\n\nCommon sense will surely lead a man to ask the question: 'Why did my\nactions yesterday contradict my reason?' The reply to this question will\nnearly always be: 'Because at the critical moment I forgot.' The supreme\nexplanation of the abortive results of so many efforts at\nself-alteration, the supreme explanation of our frequent miserable\nscurrying into a doctrine of fatalism, is simple forgetfulness. It is\nnot force that we lack, but the skill to remember exactly what our\nreason would have us do or think at the moment itself. How is this skill\nto be acquired? It can only be acquired, as skill at games is acquired,\nby practice; by the training of the organ involved to such a point that\nthe organ acts rightly by instinct instead of wrongly by instinct. There\nare degrees of success in this procedure, but there is no such\nphenomenon as complete failure.\n\nHabits which increase friction can be replaced by habits which lessen\nfriction. Habits which arrest development can be replaced by habits\nwhich encourage development. And as a habit is formed naturally, so it\ncan be formed artificially, by imitation of the unconscious process, by\naccustoming the brain to the new idea. Let me, as an example, refer\nagain to the minor subject of daily friction, and, within that subject,\nto the influence of tone. A man employs a frictional tone through\nhabit. The frictional tone is an instinct with him. But if he had a\nquarter of an hour to reflect before speaking, and if during that\nquarter of an hour he could always listen to arguments against the\nfrictional tone, his use of the frictional tone would rapidly diminish;\nhis reason would conquer his instinct. As things are, his instinct\nconquers his reason by a surprise attack, by taking it unawares. Regular\ndaily concentration of the brain, for a certain period, upon the\nnon-frictional tone, and the immense advantages of its use, will\ngradually set up in the brain a new habit of thinking about the\nnon-frictional tone; until at length the brain, disciplined, turns to\nthe correct act before the old, silly instinct can capture it; and\nultimately a new sagacious instinct will supplant the old one.\n\nThis is the rationale. It applies to all habits. Any person can test its\nefficiency in any habit. I care not whether he be of strong or weak\nwill--he can test it. He will soon see the tremendous difference between\nmerely 'making a good resolution'--(he has been doing that all his life\nwithout any very brilliant consequences)--and concentrating the brain\nfor a given time exclusively upon a good resolution. Concentration, the\nefficient mastery of the brain--all is there!\n\n\n\n\nXII\n\nAN INTEREST IN LIFE\n\n\nAfter a certain period of mental discipline, of deliberate habit-forming\nand habit-breaking, such as I have been indicating, a man will begin to\nacquire at any rate a superficial knowledge, a nodding acquaintance,\nwith that wonderful and mysterious affair, his brain, and he will also\nbegin to perceive how important a factor in daily life is the control of\nhis brain. He will assuredly be surprised at the miracles which lie\nbetween his collar and his hat, in that queer box that he calls his\nhead. For the effects that can be accomplished by mere steady,\npersistent thinking must appear to be miracles to apprentices in the\npractice of thought. When once a man, having passed an unhappy day\nbecause his clumsy, negligent brain forgot to control his instincts at a\ncritical moment, has said to his brain: 'I will force you, by\nconcentrating you on that particular point, to act efficiently the next\ntime similar circumstances arise,' and when he has carried out his\nintention, and when the awkward circumstances have recurred, and his\nbrain, disciplined, has done its work, and so prevented\nunhappiness--then that man will regard his brain with a new eye. 'By\nJove!' he will say; 'I've stopped one source of unhappiness, anyway.\nThere was a time when I should have made a fool of myself in a little\ndomestic crisis such as to-day's. But I have gone safely through it. I\nam all right. She is all right. The atmosphere is not dangerous with\nundischarged electricity! And all because my brain, being in proper\ncondition, watched firmly over my instincts! I must keep this up.' He\nwill peer into that brain more and more. He will see more and more of\nits possibilities. He will have a new and a supreme interest in _life_.\nA garden is a fairly interesting thing. But the cultivation of a garden\nis as dull as cold mutton compared to the cultivation of a brain; and\nwet weather won't interfere with digging, planting, and pruning in the\nbox.\n\nIn due season the man whose hobby is his brain will gradually settle\ndown into a daily routine, with which routine he will start the day. The\nidea at the back of the mind of the ordinary man (by the ordinary man I\nmean the man whose brain is not his hobby) is almost always this: 'There\nare several things at present hanging over me--worries, unfulfilled\nambitions, unrealised desires. As soon as these things are definitely\nsettled, then I shall begin to live and enjoy myself.' That is the\nordinary man's usual idea. He has it from his youth to his old age. He\nis invariably waiting for something to happen before he really begins to\nlive. I am sure that if you are an ordinary man (of course, you aren't,\nI know) you will admit that this is true of you; you exist in the hope\nthat one day things will be sufficiently smoothed out for you to begin\nto live. That is just where you differ from the man whose brain is his\nhobby. His daily routine consists in a meditation in the following vein:\n'This day is before me. The circumstances of this day are my\nenvironment; they are the material out of which, by means of my brain, I\nhave to live and be happy and to refrain from causing unhappiness in\nother people. It is the business of my brain to make use of _this_\nmaterial. My brain is in its box for that sole purpose. Not to-morrow!\nNot next year! Not when I have made my fortune! Not when my sick child\nis out of danger! Not when my wife has returned to her senses! Not when\nmy salary is raised! Not when I have passed that examination! Not when\nmy indigestion is better! But _now!_ To-day, exactly as to-day is! The\nfacts of to-day, which in my unregeneracy I regarded primarily as\nanxieties, nuisances, impediments, I now regard as so much raw material\nfrom which my brain has to weave a tissue of life that is comely.'\n\nAnd then he foresees the day as well as he can. His experience teaches\nhim where he will have difficulty, and he administers to his brain the\nlessons of which it will have most need. He carefully looks the machine\nover, and arranges it specially for the sort of road which he knows that\nit will have to traverse. And especially he readjusts his point of view,\nfor his point of view is continually getting wrong. He is continually\nseeing worries where he ought to see material. He may notice, for\ninstance, a patch on the back of his head, and he wonders whether it is\nthe result of age or of disease, or whether it has always been there.\nAnd his wife tells him he must call at the chemist's and satisfy himself\nat once. Frightful nuisance! Age! The endless trouble of a capillary\ncomplaint! Calling at the chemist's will make him late at the office!\netc. etc. But then his skilled, efficient brain intervenes: 'What\npeculiarly interesting material this mean and petty circumstance yields\nfor the practice of philosophy and right living!' And again: 'Is _this_\nto ruffle you, O my soul? Will it serve any end whatever that I should\nbuzz nervously round this circumstance instead of attending to my usual\nbusiness?'\n\nI give this as an example of the necessity of adjusting the point of\nview, and of the manner in which a brain habituated by suitable\nconcentration to correct thinking will come to the rescue in unexpected\ncontingencies. Naturally it will work with greater certainty in the\nmanipulation of difficulties that are expected, that can be 'seen coming\n'; and preparation for the expected is, fortunately, preparation for the\nunexpected. The man who commences his day by a steady contemplation of\nthe dangers which the next sixteen hours are likely to furnish, and by\narming himself specially against those dangers, has thereby armed\nhimself, though to a less extent, against dangers which he did not dream\nof. But the routine must be fairly elastic. It may be necessary to\ncommence several days in succession--for a week or for months,\neven--with disciplining the brain in one particular detail, to the\ntemporary neglect of other matters. It is astonishing how you can weed\nevery inch of a garden path and keep it in the most meticulous order,\nand then one morning find in the very middle of it a lusty, full-grown\nplant whose roots are positively mortised in granite! All gardeners are\nfamiliar with such discoveries.\n\nBut a similar discovery, though it entails hard labour on him, will not\ndisgust the man whose hobby is his brain. For the discovery in itself is\npart of the material out of which he has to live. If a man is to turn\neverything whatsoever into his own calm, dignity, and happiness, he must\nmake this use even of his own failures. He must look at them as\nphenomena of the brain in that box, and cheerfully set about taking\nmeasures to prevent their repetition. All that happens to him, success\nor check, will but serve to increase his interest in the contents of\nthat box. I seem to hear you saying: 'And a fine egotist he'll be!'\nWell, he'll be the right sort of egotist. The average man is not half\nenough of an egotist. If egotism means a terrific interest in one's\nself, egotism is absolutely essential to efficient living. There is no\ngetting away from that. But if egotism means selfishness, the serious\nstudent of the craft of daily living will not be an egotist for more\nthan about a year. In a year he will have proved the ineptitude of\negotism.\n\n\n\n\nXIII\n\nSUCCESS AND FAILURE\n\n\nI am sadly aware that these brief chapters will be apt to convey,\nespecially to the trustful and enthusiastic reader, a false impression;\nthe impression of simplicity; and that when experience has roughly\ncorrected this impression, the said reader, unless he is most solemnly\nwarned, may abandon the entire enterprise in a fit of disgust, and for\never afterwards maintain a cynical and impolite attitude towards all\ntheories of controlling the human machine. Now, the enterprise is not a\nsimple one. It is based on one simple principle--the conscious\ndiscipline of the brain by selected habits of thought--but it is just\nabout as complicated as anything well could be. Advanced golf is child's\nplay compared to it. The man who briefly says to himself: 'I will get\nup at 8, and from 8.30 to 9 I will examine and control my brain, and so\nmy life will at once be instantly improved out of recognition'--that man\nis destined to unpleasant surprises. Progress will be slow. Progress may\nappear to be quite rapid at first, and then a period of futility may set\nin, and the would-be vanquisher of his brain may suffer a series of the\nmost deadly defeats. And in his pessimism he may imagine that all his\npains have gone for nothing, and that the unserious loungers in\nexhibition gardens and readers of novels in parlours are in the right of\nit after all. He may even feel rather ashamed of himself for having\nbeen, as he thinks, taken in by specious promises, like the purchaser of\na quack medicine.\n\nThe conviction that great effort has been made and no progress achieved\nis the chief of the dangers that affront the beginner in\nmachine-tending. It is, I will assert positively, in every case a\nconviction unjustified by the facts, and usually it is the mere result\nof reaction after fatigue, encouraged by the instinct for laziness. I do\nnot think it will survive an impartial examination; but I know that a\nman, in order to find an excuse for abandoning further effort, is\ncapable of convincing himself that past effort has yielded no fruit at\nall. So curious is the human machine. I beg every student of himself to\nconsider this remark with all the intellectual honesty at his disposal.\nIt is a grave warning.\n\nWhen the machine-tender observes that he is frequently changing his\npoint of view; when he notices that what he regarded as the kernel of\nthe difficulty yesterday has sunk to a triviality to-day, being replaced\nby a fresh phenomenon; when he arises one morning and by means of a\nnew, unexpected glimpse into the recesses of the machine perceives that\nhitherto he has been quite wrong and must begin again; when he wonders\nhow on earth he could have been so blind and so stupid as not to see\nwhat now he sees; when the new vision is veiled by new disappointments\nand narrowed by continual reservations; when he is overwhelmed by the\ncomplexity of his undertaking--then let him unhearten himself, for he is\nsucceeding. The history of success in any art--and machine-tending is an\nart--is a history of recommencements, of the dispersal and reforming of\ndoubts, of an ever-increasing conception of the extent of the territory\nunconquered, and an ever-decreasing conception of the extent of the\nterritory conquered.\n\nIt is remarkable that, though no enterprise could possibly present more\ndiverse and changeful excitements than the mastering of the brain, the\nsecond great danger which threatens its ultimate success is nothing but\na mere drying-up of enthusiasm for it! One would have thought that in an\naffair which concerned him so nearly, in an affair whose results might\nbe in a very strict sense vital to him, in an affair upon which his\nhappiness and misery might certainly turn, a man would not weary from\nsheer tedium. Nevertheless, it is so. Again and again I have noticed the\nabandonment, temporary or permanent, of this mighty and thrilling\nenterprise from simple lack of interest. And I imagine that, in\npractically all cases save those in which an exceptional original force\nof will renders the enterprise scarcely necessary, the interest in it\nwill languish unless it is regularly nourished from without. Now, the\ninterest in it cannot be nourished from without by means of conversation\nwith other brain-tamers. There are certain things which may not be\ndiscussed by sanely organised people; and this is one. The affair is\ntoo intimate, and it is also too moral. Even after only a few minutes'\nvocalisation on this subject a deadly infection seems to creep into the\nair--the infection of priggishness. (Or am I mistaken, and do I fancy\nthis horror? No; I cannot believe that I am mistaken.)\n\nHence the nourishment must be obtained by reading; a little reading\nevery day. I suppose there are some thousands of authors who have\nwritten with more or less sincerity on the management of the human\nmachine. But the two which, for me, stand out easily above all the rest\nare Marcus Aurelius Antoninus and Epictetus. Not much has been\ndiscovered since their time. 'The perfecting of life is a power residing\nin the soul,' wrote Marcus Aurelius in the ninth book of _To Himself_,\nover seventeen hundred years ago. Marcus Aurelius is assuredly regarded\nas the greatest of writers in the human machine school, and not to read\nhim daily is considered by many to be a bad habit. As a confession his\nwork stands alone. But as a practical 'Bradshaw' of existence, I would\nput the discourses of Epictetus before M. Aurelius. Epictetus is\ngrosser; he will call you a blockhead as soon as look at you; he is\nwitty, he is even humorous, and he never wanders far away from the\nincidents of daily life. He is brimming over with actuality for readers\nof the year 1908. He was a freed slave. M. Aurelius was an emperor, and\nhe had the morbidity from which all emperors must suffer. A finer soul\nthan Epictetus, he is not, in my view, so useful a companion. Not all of\nus can breathe freely in his atmosphere. Nevertheless, he is of course\nto be read, and re-read continually. When you have gone through\nEpictetus--a single page or paragraph per day, well masticated and\ndigested, suffices--you can go through M. Aurelius, and then you can\nreturn to Epictetus, and so on, morning by morning, or night by night,\ntill your life's end. And they will conserve your interest in yourself.\n\nIn the matter of concentration, I hesitate to recommend Mrs. Annie\nBesant's _Thought Power_, and yet I should be possibly unjust if I did\nnot recommend it, having regard to its immense influence on myself. It\nis not one of the best books of this astounding woman. It is addressed\nto theosophists, and can only be completely understood in the light of\ntheosophistic doctrines. (To grasp it all I found myself obliged to\nstudy a much larger work dealing with theosophy as a whole.) It contains\nan appreciable quantity of what strikes me as feeble sentimentalism, and\nalso a lot of sheer dogma. But it is the least unsatisfactory manual of\nthe brain that I have met with. And if the profane reader ignores all\nthat is either Greek or twaddle to him, there will yet remain for his\nadvantage a vast amount of very sound information and advice. All these\nthree books are cheap.\n\n\n\n\nXIV\n\nA MAN AND HIS ENVIRONMENT\n\n\nI now come to an entirely different aspect of the whole subject.\nHitherto I have dealt with the human machine as a contrivance for\nadapting the man to his environment. My aim has been to show how much\ndepends on the machine and how little depends on the environment, and\nthat the essential business of the machine is to utilise, for making the\nstuff of life, the particular environment in which it happens to find\nitself--and no other! All this, however, does not imply that one must\naccept, fatalistically and permanently and passively, any preposterous\nenvironment into which destiny has chanced to throw us. If we carry far\nenough the discipline of our brains, we can, no doubt, arrive at\nsurprisingly good results in no matter what environment. But it would\nnot be 'right reason' to expend an excessive amount of will-power on\nbrain-discipline when a slighter effort in a different direction would\nproduce consequences more felicitous. A man whom fate had pitched into a\ncanal might accomplish miracles in the way of rendering himself\namphibian; he might stagger the world by the spectacle of his philosophy\nunder amazing difficulties; people might pay sixpence a head to come and\nsee him; but he would be less of a nincompoop if he climbed out and\narranged to live definitely on the bank.\n\nThe advantage of an adequate study of the control of the machine, such\nas I have outlined, is that it enables the student to judge, with some\ncertainty, whether the unsatisfactoriness of his life is caused by a\ndisordered machine or by an environment for which the machine is, in\nits fundamental construction, unsuitable. It does help him to decide\njustly whether, in the case of a grave difference between them, he, or\nthe rest of the universe, is in the wrong. And also, if he decides that\nhe is not in the wrong, it helps him to choose a new environment, or to\nmodify the old, upon some scientific principle. The vast majority of\npeople never know, with any precision, why they are dissatisfied with\ntheir sojourn on this planet. They make long and fatiguing excursions in\nsearch of precious materials which all the while are concealed in their\nown breasts. They don't know what they want; they only know that they\nwant something. Or, if they contrive to settle in their own minds what\nthey do want, a hundred to one the obtaining of it will leave them just\nas far off contentment as they were at the beginning! This is a matter\nof daily observation: that people are frantically engaged in attempting\nto get hold of things which, by universal experience, are hideously\ndisappointing to those who have obtained possession of them. And still\nthe struggle goes on, and probably will go on. All because brains are\nlying idle! 'It is no trifle that is at stake,' said Epictetus as to the\nquestion of control of instinct by reason. '_It means, Are you in your\nsenses or are you not_?' In this significance, indubitably the vast\nmajority of people are not in their senses; otherwise they would not\nbehave as they do, so vaguely, so happy-go-luckily, so blindly. But the\nman whose brain is in working order emphatically _is_ in his senses.\n\nAnd when a man, by means of the efficiency of his brain, has put his\nreason in definite command over his instincts, he at once sees things in\na truer perspective than was before possible, and therefore he is able\nto set a just value upon the various parts which go to make up his\nenvironment. If, for instance, he lives in London, and is aware of\nconstant friction, he will be led to examine the claims of London as a\nMecca for intelligent persons. He may say to himself: 'There is\nsomething wrong, and the seat of trouble is not in the machine. London\ncompels me to tolerate dirt, darkness, ugliness, strain, tedious daily\njourneyings, and general expensiveness. What does London give me in\nexchange?' And he may decide that, as London offers him nothing special\nin exchange except the glamour of London and an occasional seat at a\ngood concert or a bad play, he may get a better return for his\nexpenditure of brains, nerves, and money in the provinces. He may\nperceive, with a certain French novelist, that 'most people of truly\ndistinguished mind prefer the provinces.' And he may then actually, in\nobedience to reason, quit the deceptions of London with a tranquil\nheart, sure of his diagnosis. Whereas a man who had not devoted much\ntime to the care of his mental machinery could not screw himself up to\nthe step, partly from lack of resolution, and partly because he had\nnever examined the sources of his unhappiness. A man who, not having\nfull control of his machine, is consistently dissatisfied with his\nexistence, is like a man who is being secretly poisoned and cannot\ndecide with what or by whom. And so he has no middle course between\nabsolute starvation and a continuance of poisoning.\n\nAs with the environment of place, so with the environment of\nindividuals. Most friction between individuals is avoidable friction;\nsometimes, however, friction springs from such deep causes that no skill\nin the machine can do away with it. But how is the man whose brain is\nnot in command of his existence to judge whether the unpleasantness can\nbe cured or not, whether it arises in himself or in the other? He simply\ncannot judge. Whereas a man who keeps his brain for use and not for idle\namusement will, when he sees that friction persists in spite of his\nbrain, be so clearly impressed by the advisability of separation as the\nsole cure that he will steel himself to the effort necessary for a\nseparation. One of the chief advantages of an efficient brain is that an\nefficient brain is capable of acting with firmness and resolution,\npartly, of course, because it has been toned up, but more because its\noperations are not confused by the interference of mere instincts.\n\nThirdly, there is the environment of one's general purpose in life,\nwhich is, I feel convinced, far more often hopelessly wrong and futile\nthan either the environment of situation or the environment of\nindividuals. I will be bold enough to say that quite seventy per cent.\nof ambition is never realised at all, and that ninety-nine per cent. of\nall realised ambition is fruitless. In other words, that a gigantic\nsacrifice of the present to the future is always going on. And here\nagain the utility of brain-discipline is most strikingly shown. A man\nwhose first business it is every day to concentrate his mind on the\nproper performance of that particular day, must necessarily conserve his\ninterest in the present. It is impossible that his perspective should\nbecome so warped that he will devote, say, fifty-five years of his\ncareer to problematical preparations for his comfort and his glory\nduring the final ten years. A man whose brain is his servant, and not\nhis lady-help or his pet dog, will be in receipt of such daily content\nand satisfaction that he will early ask himself the question: 'As for\nthis ambition that is eating away my hours, what will it give me that I\nhave not already got?' Further, the steady development of interest in\nthe hobby (call it!) of common-sense daily living will act as an\nautomatic test of any ambition. If an ambition survives and flourishes\non the top of that daily cultivation of the machine, then the owner of\nthe ambition may be sure that it is a genuine and an invincible\nambition, and he may pursue it in full faith; his developed care for the\npresent will prevent him from making his ambition an altar on which the\nwhole of the present is to be offered up.\n\nI shall be told that I want to do away with ambition, and that ambition\nis the great motive-power of existence, and that therefore I am an enemy\nof society and the truth is not in me. But I do not want to do away with\nambition. What I say is that current ambitions usually result in\ndisappointment, that they usually mean the complete distortion of a\nlife. This is an incontestable fact, and the reason of it is that\nambitions are chosen either without knowledge of their real value or\nwithout knowledge of what they will cost. A disciplined brain will at\nonce show the unnecessariness of most ambitions, and will ensure that\nthe remainder shall be conducted with reason. It will also convince its\npossessor that the ambition to live strictly according to the highest\ncommon sense during the next twenty-four hours is an ambition that needs\na lot of beating.\n\n\n\n\nXV\n\nL.S.D.\n\n\nAnybody who really wishes to talk simple truth about money at the\npresent time is confronted by a very serious practical difficulty. He\nmust put himself in opposition to the overwhelming body of public\nopinion, and resign himself to being regarded either as a _poseur_, a\ncrank, or a fool. The public is in search of happiness now, as it was a\nmillion years ago. Money is not the principal factor in happiness. It\nmay be argued whether, as a factor in happiness, money is of\ntwentieth-rate importance or fiftieth-rate importance. But it cannot be\nargued whether money, in point of fact, does or does not of itself bring\nhappiness. There can be no doubt whatever that money does not bring\nhappiness. Yet, in face of this incontrovertible and universal truth,\nthe whole public behaves exactly as if money were the sole or the\nprincipal preliminary to happiness. The public does not reason, and it\nwill not listen to reason; its blood is up in the money-hunt, and the\nphilosopher might as well expostulate with an earthquake as try to take\nthat public by the button-hole and explain. If a man sacrifices his\ninterest under the will of some dead social tyrant in order to marry\nwhom he wishes, if an English minister of religion declines twenty-five\nthousand dollars a year to go into exile and preach to New York\nmillionaires, the phenomenon is genuinely held to be so astounding that\nit at once flies right round the world in the form of exclamatory\nnewspaper articles! In an age when such an attitude towards money is\nsincere, it is positively dangerous--I doubt if it may not be\nharmful--to persist with loud obstinacy that money, instead of being\nthe greatest, is the least thing in the world. In times of high military\nexcitement a man may be ostracised if not lynched for uttering opinions\nwhich everybody will accept as truisms a couple of years later, and thus\nthe wise philosopher holds his tongue--lest it should be cut out. So at\nthe zenith of a period when the possession of money in absurd masses is\nan infallible means to the general respect, I have no intention either\nof preaching or of practising quite all that I privately in the matter\nof riches.\n\nIt was not always thus. Though there have been previous ages as lustful\nfor wealth and ostentation as our own, there have also been ages when\nmoney-getting and millionaire-envying were not the sole preoccupations\nof the average man. And such an age will undoubtedly succeed to ours.\nFew things would surprise me less, in social life, than the upspringing\nof some anti-luxury movement, the formation of some league or guild\namong the middling classes (where alone intellect is to be found in\nquantity), the members of which would bind themselves to stand aloof\nfrom all the great, silly, banal, ugly, and tedious _luxe_-activities of\nthe time and not to spend more than a certain sum per annum on eating,\ndrinking, covering their bodies, and being moved about like parcels from\none spot of the earth's surface to another. Such a movement would, and\nwill, help towards the formation of an opinion which would condemn\nlavish expenditure on personal satisfactions as bad form. However, the\nshareholders of grand hotels, restaurants, and race-courses of all\nsorts, together with popular singers and barristers, etc., need feel no\nimmediate alarm. The movement is not yet.\n\nAs touching the effect of money on the efficient ordering of the human\nmachine, there is happily no necessity to inform those who have begun\nto interest themselves in the conduct of their own brains that money\ncounts for very little in that paramount affair. Nothing that really\nhelps towards perfection costs more than is within the means of every\nperson who reads these pages. The expenses connected with daily\nmeditation, with the building-up of mental habits, with the practice of\nself-control and of cheerfulness, with the enthronement of reason over\nthe rabble of primeval instincts--these expenses are really, you know,\ntrifling. And whether you get that well-deserved rise of a pound a week\nor whether you don't, you may anyhow go ahead with the machine; it isn't\na motor-car, though I started by comparing it to one. And even when,\nhaving to a certain extent mastered, through sensible management of the\nmachine, the art of achieving a daily content and dignity, you come to\nthe embroidery of life--even the best embroidery of life is not\nabsolutely ruinous. Meat may go up in price--it has done--but books\nwon't. Admission to picture galleries and concerts and so forth will\nremain quite low. The views from Richmond Hill or Hindhead, or along\nPall Mall at sunset, the smell of the earth, the taste of fruit and of\nkisses--these things are unaffected by the machinations of trusts and\nthe hysteria of stock exchanges. Travel, which after books is the finest\nof all embroideries (and which is not to be valued by the mile but by\nthe quality), is decidedly cheaper than ever it was. All that is\nrequired is ingenuity in one's expenditure. And much ingenuity with a\nlittle money is vastly more profitable and amusing than much money\nwithout ingenuity.\n\nAnd all the while as you read this you are saying, with your impatient\nsneer: 'It's all very well; it's all very fine talking, _but_ ...' In\nbrief, you are not convinced. You cannot deracinate that wide-rooted\ndogma within your soul that more money means more joy. I regret it. But\nlet me put one question, and let me ask you to answer it honestly. Your\nfinancial means are greater now than they used to be. Are you happier or\nless discontented than you used to be? Taking your existence day by day,\nhour by hour, judging it by the mysterious _feel_ (in the chest) of\nresponsibilities, worries, positive joys and satisfactions, are you\ngenuinely happier than you used to be?\n\nI do not wish to be misunderstood. The financial question cannot be\nignored. If it is true that money does not bring happiness, it is no\nless true that the lack of money induces a state of affairs in which\nefficient living becomes doubly difficult. These two propositions,\nsuperficially perhaps self-contradictory, are not really so. A modest\nincome suffices for the fullest realisation of the Ego in terms of\ncontent and dignity; but you must live within it. You cannot righteously\nignore money. A man, for instance, who cultivates himself and instructs\na family of daughters in everything except the ability to earn their own\nlivelihood, and then has the impudence to die suddenly without leaving a\npenny--that man is a scoundrel. Ninety--or should I say\nninety-nine?--per cent. of all those anxieties which render proper\nliving almost impossible are caused by the habit of walking on the edge\nof one's income as one might walk on the edge of a precipice. The\nmajority of Englishmen have some financial worry or other continually,\neverlastingly at the back of their minds. The sacrifice necessary to\nabolish this condition of things is more apparent than real. All\nspending is a matter of habit.\n\nSpeaking generally, a man can contrive, out of an extremely modest\nincome, to have all that he needs--unless he needs the esteem of snobs.\nHabit may, and habit usually does, make it just as difficult to keep a\nfamily on two thousand a year as on two hundred. I suppose that for the\nmajority of men the suspension of income for a single month would mean\neither bankruptcy, the usurer, or acute inconvenience. Impossible, under\nsuch circumstances, to be in full and independent possession of one's\nimmortal soul! Hence I should be inclined to say that the first\npreliminary to a proper control of the machine is the habit of spending\ndecidedly less than one earns or receives. The veriest automaton of a\nclerk ought to have the wherewithal of a whole year as a shield against\nthe caprices of his employer. It would be as reasonable to expect the\ninhabitants of an unfortified city in the midst of a plain occupied by a\nhostile army to apply themselves successfully to the study of\nlogarithms or metaphysics, as to expect a man without a year's income in\nhis safe to apply himself successfully to the true art of living.\n\nAnd the whole secret of relative freedom from financial anxiety lies not\nin income, but in expenditure. I am ashamed to utter this antique\nplatitude. But, like most aphorisms of unassailable wisdom, it is\ncompletely ignored. You say, of course, that it is not easy to leave a\nmargin between your expenditure and your present income. I know it. I\nfraternally shake your hand. Still it is, in most cases, far easier to\nlessen one's expenditure than to increase one's income without\nincreasing one's expenditure. The alternative is before you. However you\ndecide, be assured that the foundation of philosophy is a margin, and\nthat the margin can always be had.\n\n\n\n\nXVI\n\nREASON, REASON!\n\n\nIn conclusion, I must insist upon several results of what I may call the\n'intensive culture' of the reason. The brain will not only grow more\neffectively powerful in the departments of life where the brain is\nsupposed specially to work, but it will also enlarge the circle of its\nactivities. It will assuredly interfere in everything. The student of\nhimself must necessarily conduct his existence more and more according\nto the views of his brain. This will be most salutary and agreeable both\nfor himself and for the rest of the world. You object. You say it will\nbe a pity when mankind refers everything to reason. You talk about the\nheart. You envisage an entirely reasonable existence as a harsh and\ncallous existence. Not so. When the reason and the heart come into\nconflict the heart is invariably wrong. I do not say that the reason is\nalways entirely right, but I do say that it is always less wrong than\nthe heart. The empire of the reason is not universal, but within its\nempire reason is supreme, and if other forces challenge it on its own\nsoil they must take the consequences. Nearly always, when the heart\nopposes the brain, the heart is merely a pretty name which we give to\nour idleness and our egotism.\n\nWe pass along the Strand and see a respectable young widow standing in\nthe gutter, with a baby in her arms and a couple of boxes of matches in\none hand. We know she is a widow because of her weeds, and we know she\nis respectable by her clothes. We know she is not begging because she is\nselling matches. The sight of her in the gutter pains our heart. Our\nheart weeps and gives the woman a penny in exchange for a halfpenny box\nof matches, and the pain of our heart is thereby assuaged. Our heart has\nperformed a good action. But later on our reason (unfortunately asleep\nat the moment) wakes up and says: 'That baby was hired; the weeds and\nmatches merely a dodge. The whole affair was a spectacle got up to\nextract money from a fool like you. It is as mechanical as a penny in\nthe slot. Instead of relieving distress you have simply helped to\nperpetuate an infamous system. You ought to know that you can't do good\nin that offhand way.' The heart gives pennies in the street. The brain\nruns the Charity Organisation Society. Of course, to give pennies in the\nstreet is much less trouble than to run the C.O.S. As a method of\nproducing a quick, inexpensive, and pleasing effect on one's egotism the\nC.O.S. is simply not in it with this dodge of giving pennies at random,\nwithout inquiry. Only--which of the two devices ought to be accused of\nharshness and callousness? Which of them is truly kind? I bring forward\nthe respectable young widow as a sample case of the Heart _v_. Brain\nconflict. All other cases are the same. The brain is always more kind\nthan the heart; the brain is always more willing than the heart to put\nitself to a great deal of trouble for a very little reward; the brain\nalways does the difficult, unselfish thing, and the heart always does\nthe facile, showy thing. Naturally the result of the brain's activity on\nsociety is always more advantageous than the result of the heart's\nactivity.\n\nAnother point. I have tried to show that, if the reason is put in\ncommand of the feelings, it is impossible to assume an attitude of blame\ntowards any person whatsoever for any act whatsoever. The habit of\nblaming must depart absolutely. It is no argument against this statement\nthat it involves anarchy and the demolition of society. Even if it did\n(which emphatically it does not), that would not affect its truth. All\ngreat truths have been assailed on the ground that to accept them meant\nthe end of everything. As if that mattered! As I make no claim to be the\ndiscoverer of this truth I have no hesitation in announcing it to be one\nof the most important truths that the world has yet to learn. However,\nthe real reason why many people object to this truth is not because they\nthink it involves the utter demolition of society (fear of the utter\ndemolition of society never stopped any one from doing or believing\nanything, and never will), but because they say to themselves that if\nthey can't blame they can't praise. And they do so like praising! If\nthey are so desperately fond of praising, it is a pity that they don't\npraise a little more! There can be no doubt that the average man blames\nmuch more than he praises. His instinct is to blame. If he is satisfied\nhe says nothing; if he is not, he most illogically kicks up a row. So\nthat even if the suppression of blame involved the suppression of praise\nthe change would certainly be a change for the better. But I can\nperceive no reason why the suppression of blame should involve the\nsuppression of praise. On the contrary, I think that the habit of\npraising should be\nfostered.\n(I do not suggest the occasional use of trowels, but the regular use of\nsalt-spoons.) Anyhow, the triumph of the brain over the natural\ninstincts (in an ideally organised man the brain and the natural\ninstincts will never have even a tiff) always means the ultimate triumph\nof kindness.\n\nAnd, further, the culture of the brain, the constant disciplinary\nexercise of the reasoning faculty, means the diminution of misdeeds. (Do\nnot imagine I am hinting that you are on the verge of murdering your\nwife or breaking into your neighbour's house. Although you personally\nare guiltless, there is a good deal of sin still committed in your\nimmediate vicinity.) Said Balzac in _La Cousine Bette_, 'A crime is in\nthe first instance a defect of reasoning powers.' In the appreciation of\nthis truth, Marcus Aurelius was, as usual, a bit beforehand with Balzac.\nM. Aurelius said, 'No soul wilfully misses truth.' And Epictetus had\ncome to the same conclusion before M. Aurelius, and Plato before\nEpictetus. All wrong-doing is done in the sincere belief that it is the\nbest thing to do. Whatever sin a man does he does either for his own\nbenefit or for the benefit of society. At the moment of doing it he is\nconvinced that it is the only thing to do. He is mistaken. And he is\nmistaken because his brain has been unequal to the task of reasoning the\nmatter out. Passion (the heart) is responsible for all crimes. Indeed,\ncrime is simply a convenient monosyllable which we apply to what happens\nwhen the brain and the heart come into conflict and the brain is\ndefeated. That transaction of the matches was a crime, you know.\n\nLastly, the culture of the brain must result in the habit of originally\nexamining all the phenomena of life and conduct, to see what they really\nare, and to what they lead. The heart hates progress, because the dear\nold thing always wants to do as has always been done. The heart is\nconvinced that custom is a virtue. The heart of the dirty working man\nrebels when the State insists that he shall be clean, for no other\nreason than that it is his custom to be dirty. Useless to tell his heart\nthat, clean, he will live longer! He has been dirty and he will be. The\nbrain alone is the enemy of prejudice and precedent, which alone are the\nenemies of progress. And this habit of originally examining phenomena\nis perhaps the greatest factor that goes to the making of personal\ndignity; for it fosters reliance on one's self and courage to accept the\nconsequences of the act of reasoning. Reason is the basis of personal\ndignity.\n\nI finish. I have said nothing of the modifications which the constant\nuse of the brain will bring about in the _general value of existence_.\nModifications slow and subtle, but tremendous! The persevering will\ndiscover them. It will happen to the persevering that their whole lives\nare changed--texture and colour, too! Naught will happen to those who do\nnot persevere.\n\nTHE END","title":"The Human Machine","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":22472}