Thinking and learning to think by Nathan C. Schaeffer (ebooks that read to you .txt) 📖

There are successive stages in the growth of the will as clearly defined as the activities of memory and imagination. In the first or lowest stage the aim is some form of happiness. In the second stage the will acts under the influence of some ethical idea, commonly finding expression in a maxim like the command, Thou shalt not steal, or in some fixed occupation like a trade or farm work. In the third the will acts under the inspiration of the good or its opposite, and from motives grounded in right or wrong. In all these stages of growth thinking is a most important factor. Let us go into details for purposes of illustration. The human will in its process of development starts on a physical rather than a spiritual basis. On the one hand a want is felt and on the other an impulse towards the satisfaction of that want. In course of time this impulse or appetence assumes the form of intelligent or conscious purpose looking towards the gratification of felt wants, and then the will begins to show itself in the form of clear, definite volitions and actions. The strength of the will depends largely upon these impulses or appetences; and their strength in turn depends upon the health, the temperament, the organization (physical and psychical) of the individual. If by careful diet, exercise, or otherwise, we invigorate these, we thereby furnish capital that will in after years bear compound interest in the form of strong will-power. If the diet, exercise, play, sleep, and work are not properly regulated, first by the parent, the nurse, and the teacher, and later by the individual himself, the appetences develop into appetites that enslave the will and seriously interfere with its further growth. As the power to think is developed, the will passes over into a higher stage of activity. The very longing for happiness leads the child to impose restrictions upon itself. It feels happy if it can secure the approbation of those with whom it associates. If we show our displeasure at something it has done, the little philosopher begins to practise self-denial in certain directions for the purpose of regaining and retaining our good will. The second stage is now reached in which self-gratification gives place to self-denial, the will acting under the influence of one or more ethical ideas. The child at school is lifted upon this loftier plane by the circumstances which surround him; it must practise the school virtues,—punctuality, industry, obedience, and the like; it accepts certain forms of self-restraint in keeping quiet, in abstaining from play, in observing the rules of the school. Where the discipline is rigid and the instruction lacks interest, it may even conceive of the school as a mere place of self-denial and self-restraint. “Why do you come here?” asked a director. The little boy replied, “We come here to sit and wait for school to let out.” The hours at school can be sweetened by exercises in thinking and expressing thought to such an extent that the school becomes the place to which children best like to go. Some full-grown men have not advanced very far beyond this second stage in the growth of the will. They follow some regular occupation as the boy does in going to school; they practise certain forms of virtue,—say honesty, so that you could intrust to them your pocket-book with perfect safety,—but they break the Sabbath, use God’s name in vain, and commit daily many other sins and transgressions. Occasionally one finds a school in which no pupil would dare to be caught telling a lie, and yet the moral tone is low, there being vices which, like a cankerworm, eat out the moral life of the school. The teacher should not feel satisfied until he has raised the pupil to the third stage, where the will is brought under the inspiration of the good, and right becomes the law of life.

Upon this highest plane different phases of development can be detected. The law of right may brandish the avenging rod of conscience and drive the individual into paths of rectitude. The idea of duty thus operating alone may reduce him to the subservience of a slave and prevent him from reaching the high stature of perfect human freedom. This kind of slavery is apt to be followed by a struggle in which the lower nature seeks to assert itself against the higher, and if the latter conquers, the person is apt to be elated with the feeling of victory. Whenever you hear a man boast of the sacrifices he has made in his devotion to duty, you can rest assured he has not yet reached that lofty elevation in will-culture upon which the person does right spontaneously and without effort, and never dreams of having made a sacrifice in the performance of the hardest duties.