Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1909 edition. Excerpt: ... BOOK III THE INTERNAL MEASURES These internal means whose efficacy is infallible in creating, strengthening or destroying certain emotional states, and which ought necessarily to be used before the employment of the external measures include: (I) Meditative reflection; (II) Action. We shall consider in the appendix the subject of bodily hygiene in its relation to the special kind of energy which we have taken as a subject of study; that is to say, to intellectual work. THE PART OF MEDITATIVE REFLECTION IN THE EDUCATION OF THE WILL We say meditative reflection in order sharply to distinguish this intellectual opera-' tion from others which are similar. It goes without saying that we do not mean by these words revery and certainly not that sentimental revery which is, as we have seen, one of the enemies against which we must energetically wage war in this work of self-mastery. While in revery or day-dreams the attention sleeps, allowing a troop of ideas and sentiments to dance lightly in and out of consciousness, permitting the whimsical and unforeseen combinations according to chance associations of ideas, meditative reflection leaves nothing to chance. Nevertheless, it differs wholly from study which aims to acquire exact knowledge, in that its tendency is not to stock the mind with facts, but to make it glow with creative energy, or as Montaigne has said, "to forge the mind, not furnish it."1 In study knowledge is what we pursue; in meditative reflection it is quite otherwise. Our object is to inspire emotions of hatred or ldve in the soul. In study we are governed by a desire to find out the truth; in meditative reflection the truth is not the thing that most concerns us. We prefer a useful illusion to a harmful truth: our entire...
