William Atkinson - The Essential Works of William Walker Atkinson - 50+ Books in One Edition

A well-known American psychologist says: "You are obliged to say that the mind is one of three things: It is either (1) all of our thoughts and feelings, or (2) part of them, or (3) the thing that has thoughts and feelings—the thing that thinks and feels and wills. If you say that the mind is all or part of our thoughts and feelings, mental facts, it would be much plainer to say that psychology is the science of mental facts ." This gives us a very good illustration of the relations between SPIRIT and its Creation.

"THAT WHICH THINKS."

The same authority also says: "What do we know about that which thinks, feels, and wills, and what can we find out about it? Where is it? You will probably say, in the brain. But if you are speaking literally, if you say that it is in the brain, as a pencil is in the pocket, then you must mean that it takes up room, that it occupies space, and that would make it very much like a material thing. In truth, the more carefully you consider it, the more plainly you will see what thinking men have known for a long time,—that we do not know and cannot learn anything about that which thinks and feels and wills . It is beyond the range of human knowledge.…It seems to me, therefore, that it would be better to define psychology as the science of the experiences, phenomena, or facts of the mind or self—of mental facts, in a word." Again, the figure or illustration holds good. The study of the Universe—Physical Science—is but the study of the Creation of Spirit, and Spirit itself is not to be perceived through sense-impressions, although its presence is recognized and it is seen necessary as a background of "fact."

UNKNOWABLE MIND.

Psychology, the science of mental facts or manifestations, informs us that Mind, in its essence, nature, substance, and very being, is Unknowable. We can know it only through its activities. And this is what might have been expected, for no thing can be both subject and object in itself. No thing, as subject, can perceive itself as object. The eye sees everything else, but cannot see itself. The mind cannot be both ends of the stick at once. It cannot peer into the microscope and see itself therein. It cannot gaze into the telescope and see itself at the other end thereof. The mind can examine and analyze everything else, even its own states, thoughts, and activities, but it can never examine or analyze itself . It can never perceive itself in consciousness. Its consciousness can be only of things other than itself, including its own mental states. Consciousness without an object of consciousness is identical with unconsciousness . Therefore, Mind-in-Itself can never be known in consciousness by Mind itself. To itself it must always remain the Unknowable; by itself it must always remain the Unknown. Herbert Spencer uttered an irrefragable truth when he said that Ultimate REALITY in itself is Unknowable. For Ultimate REALITY, or Spirit, is identical with Infinite Mind and therefore must ever remain Unknowable even to itself. Mind in itself is beyond the range of mental knowledge. Efforts so to know it intellectually are akin to lifting one's self by one's boot straps.

KNOWABLE MENTAL STATES.

But Thought may be known, for thoughts are mental states, manifestations, and activities. Man knows five forms of mental states or activities, viz.: (1) Sensation, (2) Feeling or Emotion, (3) Intellect, (4) Ideation, and (5) Will. Let us now consider these in detail and at the same time consider whether or not Spirit, or Universal and Infinite Mind, may be thought to manifest each or any of these.

(1). SENSATION.

In this class of mental states or activities are found all impressions, or consciousness of impression, made upon the mind through the medium of a nerve or one of the organs of sense. "Sense" is "a faculty possessed by animals of perceiving external objects by moons of impressions made upon certain organs of the body, or of perceiving changes in the condition of the body." All sensation is held to have evolved and developed from the original sense of "feeling" or "touch." Spirit, or Universal Mind, cannot be conceived of as having sense organs or nerves whereby it might receive impressions of external objects or perceive changes in the condition of its body. There are no external objects to be sensed, no sense organs or nerves to sense them if they did exist, and no body to give rise to sensation of its change of condition. Therefore Spirit, or Universal Mind, cannot be thought of as manifesting or experiencing Sensation. This plane of mental activity belongs solely to the phenomenal world.

(2). FEELING OR EMOTION.

In this class are comprised the feelings, emotions, desires, inclinations, etc., all of which are accounted for by psychology as results of the past experience of the individual or of the race continued in individual memory or race memory (instinct), and which may be traced step by step from their origin along the pathway of evolution. Every feeling, emotion, desire, or inclination has its origin and evolution, its natural history. Certain experiences of the race or of the individual, continued in individual memory or racial instinct, result in the feelings, emotions, desires, or inclinations of the moment, which are awakened by the proper associations or environment or by physical and psychical reflexes. Feeling and Emotion have their origin in sense experience of the individual and of the race. This class of mental activities are seen to be purely phenomenal in their origin and nature; and reason reports that they have no place in actual being or SPIRIT.

SPIRIT cannot be thought of as experiencing feelings, emotions, desires, or inclinations. The mere idea of Spirit having emotions, feelings, desires, and inclinations is ludicrous, and yet the naive thought of the race is fond of attributing the emotions of love or hate, jealousy or love of praise, like and dislike, etc., to Deity or even to Abstract Principle of Being. The error arises from the natural tendency of the naive thinker to form anthropomorphic conceptions of Deity and Being, to make gods and principles from the materials of himself. Hence arises the popular conceptions of "personal gods," the number and variety of which are countless. Reason reports the fact that Spirit, or Universal Mind, must be without feeling, emotion, desire, or inclination, as we understand these terms. This plane of mental activity belongs solely to the phenomenal world.

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(3). INTELLECT.

IN THIS class of mental states or activities we find the processes of reasoning and understanding. Reasoning consists in "the application of the primary and fundamental truths or principles which are the conditions of all real and scientific knowledge, and which control the mind in all its processes of investigation and deduction." Understanding consists of "the logical faculty or power of apprehending under general conceptions, or the power of classifying, arranging, and making deductions." It will be seen that the entire and whole process of Intellect depends entirely upon the existence of phenomenal objects of sense, past or present. Sensation and perception are unactive in absence of objects of sense, for they arise by reason of these objects. The higher intellectual faculties depend upon sensation and perception for their materials of thought, and are seen to have developed from them by evolution. From simple sensation to the highest intellectual processes is seen to be but a series of steps of evolutionary development.

Reason and Understanding, the intellectual faculties, are seen to consist of but a process of comparing previously perceived impressions of sense objects, classifying and arranging them according to their perceived relations to other perceived objects, and making inferences or drawing deductions therefrom. From first to last Intellect is seen to be but a development of Sensation. The objects of Intellectual consideration are phenomenal objects; the highest forms of Intellectual activity are manifested in discovering the relations between these objects and drawing conclusions therefrom. The Intellect, like the Emotion-Feeling plane of mind, is seen to originate from Sensation and to be purely phenomenal in nature and scope. It has no place in actual being, and Spirit, or Universal Mind, cannot be thought of as depending upon Intellect. Intellect has been evolved by Spirit or Universal Mind in order that certain of its created forms might exercise reason in their life and phenomenal existence. Intellect is born and perishes. That which begins in time must end in time.