The Master Mind

THE MASTER MIND

nature of the mind, or "what the mind really is." We can and do know much about how the mind works, We know how, not what. but we know little or nothing about what the mind actually is. But, as far as practical purposes are concerned, it makes very little difference what the mind is, provided we know Knowledge of function is sufficient. how it works and how it may be controlled and managed.

What the Mind Is.

A well-known psychologist has aptly said: "It used to be the fashion to begin psychology texts with a discussion concerning the material or immaterial nature of the mind. It has been well said that psychology is no more bound to begin by telling what the mind is than physics is obliged to start by settling the vexed question of what matter is. Psychology studies phenomena. Psychology studies the phenomena of mind, just as physics investigates those of matter. Fortunately, phenomena do not change with our varying views as to what things really are. The phenomena of electricity remain the same whether we consider it a fluid, a repulsion of molecules, or vibrations of the ether. If a man held the strange theory that electricity was a flock of invisible molecular goats that pranced along a wire with inconceivable rapidity, he would still have to insulate the wires and generate the current in the same way. A strong discharge would kill him just as quickly as if he held a different theory. In short, his views of the ultimate substance of electricity would in no way change its phenomena. If any materialist should argue that the mind was nothing but the brain, and that the brain was a vast aggregation of molecular sheep herding together in various ways, his hypothesis would not change the fact that sensation must precede perception,"