Action and reaction

“ Action and reaction are equal: so the doctrine of eternal rewards and punishments is true in principle, though we look for heaven and hell in the wrong places. Be sure that Nature always restores the equilibrium. ”

“ For the mind moves by instincts, associations, premonitions and not by fixed dates or completed processes. Action and reaction will occur simultaneously: or the cause actually be found after the effect. Errors will be resisted before they have been properly promulgated: notions will be first defined long after they are dead. ”

“ Thus the only activity which we know intuitively is that of consciousness; for we have only indeterminate ideas of corporeal activity. The words action, reaction, force, resistance, impulse, express only indeterminate relations, and represent something fixed and determinate, only in their effects. ”

“ To every action there is equal reaction.... If a man strikes me and wounds me it is that man's actions and my body's reaction. ... Suppose I have so much power over the body that I can resist even that automatic action. ”

“ There was the lightning-like co-respondence and mutual reaction between thought and execution, which has been explained by some to be the simultaneous action of two minds in man, the subjective and the objective. ”

“ An act of volition, whether followed by an effect or not, is accompanied by a consciousness of effort, "of force exerted, of power in action, which is necessarily causal, or causative." This feeling of energy or force, inherent in an act of will, is knowledge a priori; assurance, prior to experience, that we have the power of causing effects. ”

“ A recent able author speaks of "that congeries of organs whose union forms the brain and whose action constitutes the mind." 10 The mind, then, is an action! Can an action love and hate, choose and resolve, rejoice and grieve, remember, repent, and pray? Is not an agent necessary for an action? ”

“ Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not. ”

“ They are constituent parts of human nature. How we are actuated, when we feel them, is matter of experience, which every one knows within himself. Their action is what it is, whether they are simple or compound. ”

“ The power to survey the act, when united with the power to act, sets mind infinitely above matter, and places the action of instinct, wonderful as it is, infinitely below the action of self-consciousness. ”

“ Our volitional habits depend, then, first, on what the stock of ideas is which we have; and, second, on the habitual coupling of the several ideas with action or inaction respectively. How is it when an alternative is presented to you for choice, and you are uncertain what you ought to do? ”

“ The action is the point of juncture between bodily change, visible and otherwise sensible, and mental change which is invisible except as revealed through action. So that action is the material symbol of certain states of mind. ”

“ In the world of sense, which proceeds on a chain of material causes and effects, and in which whatever happens depends merely on that which preceded it, it is never of any moment how, and with what motives and intentions, an action is performed, but only what the action is. ”

“ There is, no doubt, one constant element in the reckoning, namely, human nature, and perhaps another in human nature itself,—the tendency to reaction from all extremes; but the way in which these shall operate, and the force they shall exert, are dependent on a multitude of new and impredicable circumstances. ”

“ That we may know whether this be the case with the actions of the mind, we shall begin with examining matter, and considering on what the idea of a necessity in its operations are founded, and why we conclude one body or action to be the infallible cause of another. ”

“ It is in accordance with modern scientific knowledge, to view the mind, not as a collection of distinct faculties, but rather as a single kind of power, like each of the physical forces, having several different modes of action ”

“ Action is but one aspect or manifestation of that which, in another aspect or manifestation, is knowledge. But the aspect of self-consciousness we call knowledge and that we call action are different from one another. ”

“ But action, in such a character, far from being paralyzed, will succeed in energetically keeping on its way, sometimes overpowering the resistances, sometimes steering along the line where they lie thinnest. ”

“ The activity is itself the substantial fact of the process, and the desires under whose guidance the action takes place are circumstances of temperament which determine the specific direction in which the activity will unfold itself in the given case. ”

“ The art of her conduct, the consummate calculation, and the skillful adaptation of means to ends in dealing with others, implicate the whole intellectual sphere of action which was at the same time exempt from the control of conscience. ”

“ We shall next advert to a rather more intricate operation of the same principle, namely, when the cause does not merely continue in action, but undergoes, during the same time, a progressive change in those of its circumstances which contribute to determine the effect. ”

“ It is learning the meaning of what we are about and employing that meaning in action. The good, satisfaction, "end," of growth of present action in shades and scope of meaning is the only good within our control, and the only one, accordingly, for which [pg 281] responsibility exists. ”

“ By action thought is rendered more masculine, attains to greater breadth, and acquires a certain nobleness and dignity. Thanks to thought, action may become more definite, more precise, more fruitful. ”

“ Let us accordingly turn for a moment to animal behaviour with the intention of determining what ideas of power, or of agency, are involved in their modes of action, and thus take a preliminary step towards the solution of our problem. ”

“ The observing of life, with the exercise of instinct, taste, sense, above all of honest purpose—these, with of course the help of competent criticism, will serve as sufficient practical guides in the cultivation of expressive action. ”

“ We can recover the genuine import of ideals and idealism only by disentangling this unreal mixture of thought and emotion. The action of deliberation, as we have seen, consists in selecting some foreseen consequence to serve as a stimulus to present action. ”

“ The old-fashioned psychology which, ignoring instinct and impulse, explained all action as the result of a kind of calculation of future pleasure and pain, has accustomed us to account for all fruitful human activity, whatever we call work, by a wish for some benefit or fear of some disadvantage. ”

“ It is obvious that in everyday life when by arguments, persuasion, suggestion, punishment, exhortation, or prayer we change the viewpoint of a person, we do so by building up complexes which shall act as settings and give new meanings to his ideas. I 369may add, if we wish to sway him to carry this new viewpoint to fulfilment through action we introduce into the complex an emotion which by the driving force of its impulses shall carry the ideas to practical fruition. ”

“ As we begin to comprehend vaguely the laws of events, and the importance of action as an element of modifying power—as we stand back and include a great number of incidents in our generalization—we see more relation between action and result. ”

“ Superficially action seems a form of relation ; but it is really radically different. Relation is static ; action dynamic. Relation is the constancy of rest, or the variant of motion ; but action is that which changes relation, which moves or arrests movement.
The “spirit" of relation is accuracy, justice or right. The “spirit” of action is power, whether force or energy, or forces or energies. ”

“ Under [Pg 132] this heading will be found the large group of articles that answer the question why?, as for example, "Why the Quebec Bridge Collapsed," "Causes of the Strike among the Garment Workers," "Popular Opinion as Affecting Government Action," and other such subjects. In the following analysis of the relation existing between human action as result, and impulse and desire as causes, you will find such an informal presentation of material.
All human activity springs from two sources: impulse and desire. The part played by desire has always been sufficiently recognized. ”

“ Their minds seek wholes, varied through episode, enlivened with action and defined in salient features—there must be go, movement, the sense of use and operation—inspection of things separated from the idea by which they are carried. ”

“ What moves to action, whether that action be merely voluntary or also volitional, whether it does or does not involve a formal act of choice or resolve, is, in all and every case, the desire or the desires: and the real stimulus in desire, the direct and actual mover (whether it be pleasant or painful) , is and must be always felt, and can never be thought. ”

“ That man seeth, who seeth that the speculative and the practical doctrines are one." For great action must draw on the spiritual nature. The measure of action is the sentiment from which it proceeds. The greatest action may easily be one of the most private circumstance. ”

“ But for the realisation of these instinctive ends, whether in their crude or acquired forms, the finding and the establishment of systems of means in every case is necessary, and in order that they may be realised man must acquire the requisite capacities for action. ”

“ Mental forces, like molecular, have their opposite poles or modes of action, and where the negative pole is, there also is the positive. Where ignorance is, wisdom is possible; where passion abounds, peace awaits; where there is much suffering, much bliss is near. ”

“ The perception of our action upon other bodies must have first induced us to suppose that their action upon us was effected in like manner. Thus man began by thinking that all things whose action affected him were alive. ”

“ Authoritative principles of action, such as self-love and conscience, are no more psychologically on a par with appetites and desires than thought and reason are on a par with the association of ideas.
Relation of Body and Mind.
47. The question of subjective initiative leads us naturally to that concerning the connexion of mind and organism, to which Parallelism. we now proceed. In development and efficiency, in the intensity and complexity of their processes, mind and brain keep invariably and exactly in line together. ”

“ But in this actual world of ours, as it is given, a part at least of the activity comes with definite direction; it comes with desire and sense of goal; it comes complicated with resistances which it overcomes or succumbs to, and with the efforts which the feeling of resistance so often provokes; and it is in complex experiences like these that the notions of distinct agents, and of passivity as opposed to activity arise. ”

“ It thus appears, that when a man, having certain consequences of an act in view, proceeds to the performance of the act, the having in view, or anticipating, receives, in these circumstances, the name of intention. ”

“ The human operations mentioned in the last few paragraphs, therefore, do act in the ways ascribed to them, though our limited faculties are at present, perhaps forever, incapable of weighing their immediate, still more their ultimate consequences. ”

“ A motive is something which moves—moves to what? To action. But all action, as Aristotle says, (and all mankind agree with him) is for an end. Actions are essentially means. The question, then, is, what is the end of action? Actions, taken in detail, have ends in detail. But actions, taken in classes, have ends which may be taken in classes. Thus the ends of the actions which are subservient to the pleasures of sense, are combined in a class, to which, in abstract, we give the name sensuality. ”

“ As it is experience only that discovers these connections between natural causes and their effects; without inquiring further, we attribute to the cause some vague and indistinct notion of power or virtue to produce the effect. ”

“ Our conduct is capable, irrespective of what we can ourselves certainly answer for, of almost infinitely different degrees of force and energy in the performance of it, of lucidity and vididness in the perception of it, of fulness in the satisfaction from it ”