Confluence

“ So much and so plainly do I realise it that I even attribute everything done in the world to ‘influence.’ Each one of us is ‘influenced’ by something or some one. Even you, my dearest brother, share the common lot, though I dare say you do not quite perceive where your ruling force is generated, your own powers being so extraordinary. ”

“ There comes to you an acquisition of power. Your influence, by a process which escapes any human analysis, reaches out over your associates, and, in proportion to the magnitude of your character, over humanity. ”

“ I have had experience, of a constant series of antecedents and consequents, in the life of man; generation, birth, childhood, and so on; as I have had of pain from putting my finger in the flame. A corresponding association is formed. If the sight of a stranger calls up the idea of his origin and progress to manhood, the ordinary train of antecedents and consequents is called up; nor is it possible for me to prevent it. The association is indissoluble, and is one of the cases classed under the name of Belief. ”

“ The Threefold Form of the Conviction.—Sustained, now, by all these movements in natural science, psychology, philosophy, and Christianity, this thought of the mutual influence of men has taken three forms: that mutual influence is inevitable, isolation impossible; that mutual influence is desirable, isolation to be shunned; that mutual influence is indispensable, isolation blighting. ”

“ The inspirations or revelations of the common sense, in and through which the Almighty Power gives us an understanding of the life and world in which we find ourselves, inspirations in which all men are believed more or less to participate, require us to distinguish the solid and extended pin, as something public or outward, in contrast to the private feeling of pain, of which no one except the person who feels it is conscious. ”

“ Whence, then, our feelings, our sensible intuitions, our discursive laws of thought, on all which is founded the external world which we behold, in which we believe that we exert an influence on each other? ”

“ Then we turn to the friends of ideas: to them we say, 'You distinguish becoming from being?' 'Yes,' they will reply. 'And in becoming you participate through the bodily senses, and in being, by thought and the mind?' 'Yes.' And you mean by the word 'participation' a power of doing or suffering? ”

“ The other side of “the divide,” evolution had been physical,—body, and body function had been the goal. This side “the divide,” it was spiritual and social, and the goal was the evolution of the man within man. The things which mattered now were love, sacrifice, service, goodwill rather than “tooth and claw.” Before, nature’s goal had been along the line of least resistance. Now, the line of march set straight against instinct and along the line of greatest resistance. There could be advance on [30] this side “the divide,” only as the ideal became clearer and its sway more coercive. ”

“ Thus, every act we do or word we utter, as well as every act we witness or word we hear, carries with it an influence which extends over, and gives a colour, not only to the whole of our future life, but makes itself felt upon the whole frame of society. We may not, and indeed cannot, possibly, trace the influence working itself into action in its various ramifications amongst our children, our friends, or associates ”

“ Let the same power and influence be exerted upon different individuals, no matter how nearly they may resemble each other, different results will flow from each, the character of which will be absolutely determined by the status of the development of, and the relations between the material, and spiritual elements represented in the individuals acted upon. ”

“ But the question may be asked, "Do we not admit a similar principle when we speak of a man's influence as something that survives him?" We answer, "No." Influence is a simple radiation of impressions. ”

“ In the first place, then, we have this abstract case: the power of representation and will are present, a sphere of action is present, and a free way opened from the soul to the world, from the world to the soul. ”

“ SOCRATES: My answer is, that all things instrumental, remedial, material, are given to us with a view to generation, and that each generation is relative to, or for the sake of, some being or essence, and that the whole of generation is relative to the whole of essence.
PROTARCHUS: Assuredly.
SOCRATES: Then pleasure, being a generation, must surely be for the sake of some essence? ”

“ Or, if some should persist in importuning and teazing you in regard to it, you would be sustained by the consciousness of exerting all your influence for the elevation of society in their views, and conversation, on the most holy of human connections. ”

“ The important influence which this power of endurance or self-control will have upon your later life, you can not as yet fully estimate, though you may perhaps have some idea of it. Important, indeed, will its influence prove in the family circle, in your intercourse with your neighbors, in the community, in business, and in public life when you are called upon to take an active share in political affairs. ”

“ By this mutual transfusion an equilibrium is preserved, like that which similar processes maintain in the natural world, and while a healthy, popular feeling circulates through the Aristocracy, a sense of their own station in the scale elevates the People. ”

“ It is to study the succession of events, not as separate units, but as links of one vast chain, on every one of which is inscribed a phrase discoursing of the progress of the human race, and showing the growth of man in the complex, from infancy to adolescence. ”

“ Physical influences thus following one another, and bearing to each other the inter-relation of cause and effect, stand in their totality to the whole organic world as causes, it representing the effect, and the order of succession existing among them is perpetuated or embodied in it. ”

“ And we see, it may be with some wonder, that as they become more and more absorbed in their special work, they become more and more centres of influence. Without at all willing it they draw people about them, become centres of influences, arouse interest, become widely known. ”

“ Again, we are with the philosopher in his recognition of the force of an idea, and especially of those ideas which are, as we phrase it, in the air at any given moment. “Both the circle of the family and that of social intercourse are subjected to forces that are active in the entire social body, and that penetrate the entire atmosphere of human life in invisible channels. ”

“ Relation, then, to our topic or interest is constantly felt in the fringe, and particularly the relation of harmony and discord, of furtherance or hindrance of the topic. When the sense of furtherance is there, we are 'all right;' with the sense of hindrance we are dissatisfied and perplexed, and cast about us for other thoughts. ”

“ In this way all lower and undesirable influences from both the seen and the unseen side of life are closed out, while all higher influences are invited, and in the degree that they are invited will they enter. ”

“ And in general, the pure associationist's account of our mental life is almost as bewildering as that of the pure spiritualist. This multitude of ideas, existing absolutely, yet clinging together, and weaving an endless carpet of themselves, like dominoes in ceaseless change, or the bits of glass in a kaleidoscope,—whence do they get their fantastic laws of clinging, and why do they cling in just the shapes they do? ”

“ They are, for the same purpose, enabled to profit by experience in powers of association, of reasoning by analogy, and of willing according to their judgments; and they are governed by an habitual desire to associate in species, accompanied by moral feelings, resulting from obligations of mutual deference and convenience. Here again, humanly speaking, we have a series of natural miracles—a permanent connexion between external objects and the sensations, reasoning, and conduct of the organized being. ”

“ And then we are told that the aggregate of the faint is what we call the mind, the subject, the ego; the aggregate of the vivid is what we call the external world, the object, the non-ego. [69] It would seem, then, that the aggregate of vivid subjective affections is the objective world so far as knowable. ”

“ The ordinary natural flow of rejoinder and repartee, the swirling of talk around one obstacle and another, its winding and rippling here and there as individual whim suggests, will not be allowed, but all will be improving, and tend to that general culture of which we have been speaking. ”

“ To advance from one person to another, from one society to another, from one kingdom or heaven to another, interior changes of state must occur in the mind, which changes are accompanied by corresponding progressions of the spiritual body in the apparent space of the spiritual world. ”

“ In contrast to this view, there is the allocentric outlook which is marked by an 'open encounter of the total person with the world.' Growth, spontaneity and expression are the goals of such an existence. ”

“ Sympathy and understanding, supplemented by communication, and backed up by the enormous mass of common feelings and ideas, find expression in those common and usual ways of doing things, those norms and elements of custom which Professor Sumner has so admirably named "the folkways." ”

“ If we admit the power of association, and can also shew, that associations, sufficient in kind and degree, concur, in fact, in the several instances of our intellectual pleasures and pains, this will of itself exclude all other causes for these pleasures and pains, such as instinct, for instance. ”

“ Each step toward an orderly social state makes larger accumulations possible, and the pleasures achievable by them more sure; while the resulting encouragement to accumulate leads to increase of capital and further progress. This action and reaction of the sentiment and the social state, should be in every case observed.
6. The Altruistic Sentiments.—Coming last, these are also highest. The evolution of them in the course of civilization shows us very clearly the reciprocal influences of the social unit and the social organism. ”

“ The connections of feelings and actions, are determined in the same way as the connections of ideas: just as repeating the association of two ideas, facilitates the excitement of the one by the other; so does each discharge of feeling into action, render the subsequent discharge of such feeling into such action more easy. ”

“ The law of influence.—If you want to arouse a desirable feeling, sentiment, emotion or conviction in another, you must be controlled by that mental and moral state and allow it to emanate from you. If you are controlled, by an undesirable thought or feeling, others must have self-control enough to resist your influence, or soon they will be controlled by a similar mental state. ”

“ It hath therefore been made evident and proved that interaction, co-operation and interrelation amongst beings are under the direction and will of a motive Power which is the origin, the motive force and the pivot of all interactions in the universe. ”

“ The field of influence was great and infinitely varied—once one had conquered a name. ”

“ If we are to attribute to man the possession of a governing attribute not possessed by other parts of the animal creation, where are we to draw the boundary line, and say "here the ego— the will—the reason—emerges"? ”

“ The fixation of belief proceeds under the influence both of general and of special forces; the formation of a belief is at once a personal and a social reaction—a reaction to the evidence which recorded and personal experiences present, and to the current beliefs of our environment. To an equal extent is the reaction determined by the temperament of the reagent. ”

“ Conditions of the Growth of Association, or of the Retentiveness of the Mind.—A practical, as well as a theoretical, interest attaches to the precise statement of the conditions or circumstances that regulate the growth of our associations, in other words our mental culture generally. ”

“ Sympathetic influence enters into our system of thought as a matter of course, and affects our conduct as surely as water affects the growth of a plant. The kindred spirit can turn on a system of lights, to recur to the image of the last chapter, and so transform the mental illumination. This is the nature of all authority and leadership, as I shall try to explain more fully in another chapter. ”

“ There is no formal taking of one’s “place” or [64] “position,” no ceremonious “assigning” of “duty” or “work,” but in groups and larger companies, as well as in personal ministrations, a mutual understanding of purpose, according to adaptation. If a united or concerted action upon earth-minds for any given purpose is needed it is readily perceived and entered upon by all who are in accord, and is performed by such methods as enlightened spirits readily understand. ”

“ These events over which we have no control, these thoughts of the Master above, shape us not less than the thoughts that build from within. It seems that not one, but two are working upon the soul's structure. ”

“ The one fuses or crystallises external objects and circumstances in the medium of human feeling and passion; the other is concerned with the relations of objects and circumstances among themselves, including in them all the facts of human consciousness, and with the discovery and classification of these relations. ”

“ The groups and single figures on their own bases, abstracted from the general composition, and considered without attention to the plan, frequently exhibit those genuine and unaffected attitudes, those simple graces which Nature and the heart alone can dictate, and only an eye inspired by both, discover. ”

“ And then there are the respective mental traits produced by daily exercise of power, and by daily submission to power. The ideas, and sentiments, and modes of behavior, perpetually repeated, generate on one side an inherited fitness for command, and on the other side an inherited fitness for obedience; with the result that, in course of time, there arises on both sides the belief that the established relations of classes are the natural ones. ”