Mabch 1, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



329 



friend's regeneration — relatively, at any 

 rate. The second letter, written six months 

 later than the first (ten months after be- 

 ginning Toga practise, therefore), says the 

 improvement holds good. He has under- 

 gone material trials with indifference, 

 traveled third-class on Mediterranean 

 steamers, and fourth-class on African 

 trains, living with the poorest Arabs and 

 sharing their unaccustomed food, all with 

 equanimity. His devotion to certain in- 

 terests has been put to heavy strain, and 

 nothing is more remarkable to me than the 

 changed moral tone with which he reports 

 the situation. Compared with certain 

 earlier letters, these read as if written by 

 a different man, patient and reasonable in- 

 stead of vehement, self-subordinating in- 

 stead of imperious. The new tone persists 

 in a communication received only a fort- 

 night ago (fourteen months after begin- 

 ning training) —there is, in fact, no doubt 

 that profound modification has occurred in 

 the running of his mental machinery. The 

 gearing has changed, and his will is avail- 

 able otherwise than it was. Available with- 

 out any new ideas, beliefs, or emotions, so 

 far as I can make out, having been im- 

 planted in him. He is simply more bal- 

 anced where he was more unbalanced. 



You will remember that he speaks of 

 faith, calling it a 'manometer' of the will. 

 It sounds more natural to call our will the 

 manometer of our faiths. Ideas set free 

 beliefs, and the beliefs set free our wills 

 (I use these terms with no pretension to be 

 'psychological'), so the will-acts register 

 the faith-pressure within. Therefore, hav- 

 ing considered the liberation of our stored- 

 up energy by emotional excitements and by 

 efforts, whether methodical or unmethod- 

 ical, I must now say a word about ideas 

 as our third great dynamogenic agent. 

 Ideas contradict other ideas and keep us 

 from believing them. An idea that thus 



negates a first idea may itself in turn be 

 negated by a third idea, and the first idea 

 may thus regain its natural influence over 

 our belief and determine our behavior. 

 Our philosophic and religious development 

 proceeds thus by credulities, negations and 

 the negating of negations. 



But whether for arousing or for stopping 

 belief, ideas may fail to be efficacious, just 

 as a wire at one time alive with electricity, 

 may at another time be dead. Here our 

 insight into causes fails us, and we can 

 only note results in general terms. In 

 general, whether a given idea shall be a 

 live idea, depends more on the person into 

 whose mind it is injected than on the idea 

 itself. The whole history of 'suggestion' 

 opens out here. Which are the suggestive 

 ideas for this person, and which for that? 

 Beside the susceptibilities determined by 

 one's education and by one's original 

 peculiarities of character, there are lines 

 along which men simply as men tend to 

 be inflammable by ideas. As certain ob- 

 jects naturally awaken love, anger, or 

 cupidity, so certain ideas naturally awaken 

 the energies of loyalty, courage, endurance, 

 or devotion. When these ideas are effect- 

 ive in an individual's life, their effect is 

 often very great indeed. They may trans- 

 figure it, unlocking innumerable powers 

 which, but for the idea, would never 

 have come into play. 'Fatherland,' 'The 

 Union,' 'Holy Church,' the 'Monroe Doc- 

 trine,' 'Truth,' 'Science,' 'Liberty,' Gari- 

 baldi's phrase 'Rome or Death,' etc., are 

 so many examples of energy-releasing ab- 

 stract ideas. The social nature of all such 

 phrases is an essential factor of their 

 dynamic power. They are forces of detent 

 in situations in which no other force pro- 

 duces equivalent effects, and each is a force 

 of detent only in a specific group of men. 



The memory that an oath or vow has 

 been made will nerve one to abstinences 

 and efforts otherwise impossible: witness 



