The Influence of the Tattvas 8$ 



which explains the high average of conservatism 

 in the human race. People are prone to follow 

 ruts; it is harder to make new roads, which is 

 evidenced in our idiomatic expression, " to break 

 a road." The fewer channels there have been in 

 a brain the less yielding is the substance " dark- 

 ness " well describes it and the more difficult it 

 is to penetrate it with new ideas which must thread 

 their way through. Swami Vivekananda ex- 

 pressed this in a graphic figure of speech : 



" The more thoughtful the man the more com- 

 plicated will be the streets in his brain, and the 

 more easily he will take to new ideas, and under- 

 stand them." It is not the mere bulk of a brain 

 but the character of its cells, its atomic structure, 

 that makes the intellectual giant. 



This follows the law of the whole physical 

 economy, that parts or organs which are kept in 

 a state of activity are more pliable and respond to 

 unusual demands upon their strength or endurance 

 exactly in the measure that they have been exer- 

 cised. Nothing in the universe is in a state of per- 

 manence or stands still as it were. Everything is 

 either improving, building up, or disintegrating; 

 and the atoms in our bodies follow the Tattvic 

 laws of universal motion. 



But, never forget, you are free to choose what 

 the motion shall be; whether harmonious, build- 

 ing up, or discordant, which is disintegrating. 



