The Human Machine | Page 8

air of being simpler, is the basis of the whole structure. This fact

must be grasped imaginatively; it must be seen and felt. The more
regularly concentration is practised, the more firmly will the
imagination grasp the effects of it, both direct and indirect. After but a
few days of honest trying in the exercise which I have indicated, you
will perceive its influence. You will grow accustomed to the idea, at
first strange in its novelty, of the brain being external to the supreme
force which is you, and in subjection to that force. You will, as a not
very distant possibility, see yourself in possession of the power to
switch your brain on and off in a particular subject as you switch
electricity on and off in a particular room. The brain will get used to the
straight paths of obedience. And--a remarkable phenomenon--it will, by
the mere practice of obedience, become less forgetful and more
effective. It will not so frequently give way to an instinct that takes it
by surprise. In a word, it will have received a general tonic. With a
brain that is improving every day you can set about the perfecting of
the machine in a scientific manner.

V
HABIT-FORMING BY CONCENTRATION
As soon as the will has got the upper hand of the brain--as soon as it
can say to the brain, with a fair certainty of being obeyed: 'Do this.
Think along these lines, and continue to do so without wandering until
I give you leave to stop'--then is the time arrived when the perfecting of
the human machine may be undertaken in a large and comprehensive
spirit, as a city council undertakes the purification and reconstruction of
a city. The tremendous possibilities of an obedient brain will be
perceived immediately we begin to reflect upon what we mean by our
'character.' Now, a person's character is, and can be, nothing else but
the total result of his habits of thought. A person is benevolent because
he habitually thinks benevolently. A person is idle because his thoughts
dwell habitually on the instant pleasures of idleness. It is true that
everybody is born with certain predispositions, and that these
predispositions influence very strongly the early formation of habits of
thought. But the fact remains that the character is built by

long-continued habits of thought. If the mature edifice of character
usually shows in an exaggerated form the peculiarities of the original
predisposition, this merely indicates a probability that the slow erection
of the edifice has proceeded at haphazard, and that reason has not
presided over it. A child may be born with a tendency to bent shoulders.
If nothing is done, if on the contrary he becomes a clerk and abhors
gymnastics, his shoulders will develop an excessive roundness, entirely
through habit. Whereas, if his will, guided by his reason, had
compelled the formation of a corrective physical habit, his shoulders
might have been, if not quite straight, nearly so. Thus a physical habit!
The same with a mental habit.
The more closely we examine the development of original
predispositions, the more clearly we shall see that this development is
not inevitable, is not a process which works itself out independently
according to mysterious, ruthless laws which we cannot understand.
For instance, the effect of an original predisposition may be destroyed
by an accidental shock. A young man with an inherited tendency to
alcohol may develop into a stern teetotaller through the shock caused
by seeing his drunken father strike his mother; whereas, if his father
had chanced to be affectionate in drink, the son might have ended in the
gutter. No ruthless law here! It is notorious, also, that natures are
sometimes completely changed in their development by chance
momentary contact with natures stronger than themselves. 'From that
day I resolved--' etc. You know the phrase. Often the resolve is not kept;
but often it is kept. A spark has inflamed the will. The burning will has
tyrannised over the brain. New habits have been formed. And the result
looks just like a miracle.
Now, if these great transformations can be brought about by accident,
cannot similar transformations be brought about by a reasonable design?
At any rate, if one starts to bring them about, one starts with the
assurance that transformations are not impossible, since they have
occurred. One starts also in the full knowledge of the influence of habit
on life. Take any one of your own habits, mental or physical. You will
be able to recall the time when that habit did not exist, or if it did exist
it was scarcely perceptible. And you will discover that nearly all your

habits have been formed unconsciously, by daily repetitions which bore
no relation to a general plan, and which you