by here every evening of his life.” That
outside influence—that remark—was
enough for George, but it was not the one that
made him ambush the man and rob him, it merely represented
the eleven years’ accumulation of such influences,
and gave birth to the act for which their long gestation
had made preparation. It had never entered the
head of Henry to rob the man—his ingot had
been subjected to clean steam only; but George’s
had been subjected to vaporized quicksilver.
More About the Machine
Note.—When Mrs. W. asks how can a millionaire
give a single dollar to colleges and museums while
one human being is destitute of bread, she has answered
her question herself. Her feeling for the poor
shows that she has a standard of benevolence; there
she has conceded the millionaire’s privilege
of having a standard; since she evidently requires
him to adopt her standard, she is by that act requiring
herself to adopt his. The human being always
looks down when he is examining another person’s
standard; he never find one that he has to examine
by looking up.
Young Man. You really think man is a mere machine?
Old Man. I do.
Y.M. And that his mind works automatically and
is independent of his control—carries on
thought on its own hook?
O.M. Yes. It is diligently at work, unceasingly
at work, during every waking moment. Have you
never tossed about all night, imploring, beseeching,
commanding your mind to stop work and let you go to
sleep?—you who perhaps imagine that your
mind is your servant and must obey your orders, think
what you tell it to think, and stop when you tell
it to stop. When it chooses to work, there is
no way to keep it still for an instant. The
brightest man would not be able to supply it with
subjects if he had to hunt them up. If it needed
the man’s help it would wait for him to give
it work when he wakes in the morning.
Y.M. Maybe it does.
O.M. No, it begins right away, before the man
gets wide enough awake to give it a suggestion.
He may go to sleep saying, “The moment I wake
I will think upon such and such a subject,”
but he will fail. His mind will be too quick
for him; by the time he has become nearly enough awake
to be half conscious, he will find that it is already
at work upon another subject. Make the experiment
and see.
Y.M. At any rate, he can make it stick to a
subject if he wants to.
O.M. Not if it find another that suits it better.
As a rule it will listen to neither a dull speaker
nor a bright one. It refuses all persuasion.
The dull speaker wearies it and sends it far away
in idle dreams; the bright speaker throws out stimulating
ideas which it goes chasing after and is at once unconscious
of him and his talk. You cannot keep your mind
from wandering, if it wants to; it is master, not you.
