Positive charge

“ The form gives the quality to the energy. On the other side, mere form without energy is also indifferent. Therefore in order to bring about a positive value, on the one hand energy is necessary, and upon the other a valuable [397] form. ”

“ Nor must we forget to take into account both the negative and the positive functions of the will. Many there are who think of the will chiefly in its negative use, as a kind of a check or barrier to save us from doing certain things. That this is an important function cannot be denied. But the positive is the higher function. ”

“ How are you to know who is positive and who is negative, or who is a maiden lady in equilibrium, if it be true, as scientists affirm, that the genus old maid is one in whom the positive currents neutralize the negative currents? ”

“ First let it be said, that the very fact of one's holding the thought of perfect health sets into operation vital forces which will in time be more or less productive of the effect,—perfect health. Then speaking more directly in regard to the great principle itself, from its very nature, it is clear that more can be accomplished through the process of realization than through the process of affirmation, though for some affirmation may be a help, an aid to realization. ”

“ It is thus that we measure men's fortunes and felicity by the numerical amount of certain agents, as money, and by the absence or low degree of certain other agents, the causes of pain and the depressors of vitality. And, although the estimate is somewhat rough, this is not owing to the indefiniteness of the sensational equivalent, but to the complications of the human system, and chiefly to the narrowness of the line that everywhere divides the wholesome from the unwholesome degrees of all stimulants. ”

“ 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 [pg 256] experience, that we have the power of causing effects. Volition, therefore, it is asserted, is something more than an unconditional antecedent; it is a cause, in a different sense from that in which physical phenomena are said to cause one another: it is an Efficient Cause. ”

“ Chemistry teaches us that matter, as a cause, has matter for its effect; but we may say with equal justification that to force as a cause corresponds force as effect. Since c = e, and e = c, it is natural to call one term of an equation a force, and the other an effect of force, or phenomenon, and to attach different notions to the expression force and phenomenon. In brief, then, if the cause is matter, the effect is matter; if the cause is a force, the effect is also a force. ”

“ For instance, if we are comparing five different actions, one of which comes higher in the scale than any of the rest, it has been customary to say that, among the five, this is the one which causes a maximum of pleasure, or a maximum balance of pleasure over pain. To speak in this way is obviously extremely inaccurate, for many different reasons. It is obvious, for instance, that an action which comes lower in the scale may actually produce much more pleasure than one which comes higher, provided this effect is counteracted by its also causing a much greater quantity of pain. ”

“ Every particle of matter within the body obeys implicitly the laws of the chemical and physical 51attractions. No overpowering or supernatural agency comes in to complicate their action, which is modified only by the action of the others. Vitality, therefore, is the sum of the energies of a living body, both potential and actual. ”

“ We may, therefore, define an instrumental cause as one which, when acting as an instrument, produces the effect not by virtue of its inherent power alone, but by virtue of a power communicated to it by some principal cause which acts through it. A principal cause, on the other hand, is one which produces its effect by virtue of an active power permanently inherent in itself. ”

“ It is impossible to tabulate in so many words the effect which this habit has on efficiency and temperament. We read and hear a great deal to-day about efficiency. Now, an individual's efficiency is an expression of that individual's health standard or capacity. To be 100 per cent. efficient one must enjoy good health. ”

“ The potential for each of the component substances must have a constant value in all parts of the given mass of which that substance is an actual component, and have a value not less than this in all parts of which it is a possible component. ”

“ That the human will is a definite physical energy, which can be registered by means of a scale or balance, may appear so incredible that the bare statement of the case would seem to carry with it its own refutation! Yet I firmly believe that this is a fact; that the energy of the will may be registered by means of an instrument I am about to describe; and that any one can prove this,—any one, i.e., who cares to take the time to repeat these experiments, and to try a sufficient number of subjects until the right ones be found—who are capable of affecting the balance in the manner described. ”

“ What is required for this application of the principle is, to ascertain the comparative cost, in the physical point of view, of the different functions of the mind.
The great divisions of the mind are—feeling, will, and thought; feeling, seen in our pleasures and pains; will, in our labors to attain the one and avoid the other; thought, in our sensations, ideas, recollections, reasonings, imaginings, and so on. Now, the forces of the mind, with their physical supports, may be evenly or unevenly distributed over the three functions. ”

“ This is the solution of all these problems of accumulated force, for this force is the raw material of usefulness, and should be increased and cherished, not by separating it from the body by death, but by raising it to higher channels. ”

“ We find in ourselves this painful head of energy—to me often painful. The sense of an animal caged, of a dog in leash, is the figure that most often comes to me as I am aware of what has been given to me and of how little I have paid it back. The extra flood of physical energy which any healthy human being or animal has, is paralleled in this tension of gratitude for all the gifts which we have not properly handed back, have not passed on, and never shall. ”

“ The fourth principal division of names, is into positive and negative. Positive, as man, tree, good; negative, as not-man, not-tree, not-good. To every positive concrete name, a corresponding negative one might be framed. ”

“ Power being the source from whence all action proceeds, the substances wherein these powers are, when they exert this power into act, are called causes, and the substances which thereupon are produced, or the simple ideas which are introduced into any subject by the exerting of that power, are called effects. The efficacy whereby the new substance or idea is produced is called, in the subject exerting that power, action ”

“ That, physiologically considered, we may suppose pleasure to be experienced whenever the physical activity coincident with the psychic state to which the pleasure is attached involves the use of surplus stored force, — the resolution of surplus potential into actual energy, — or, in other words, whenever the energy involved in the reaction to the stimulus is greater in amount than the energy which the stimulus habitually calls forth. ”

“ As we should expect, his general description of the process begins always with the broad notion of Agent and Patient, or Efficient and Material Cause. [34] And the problem takes this form: How is any natural phenomenon brought into being? The answer in simple terms is this: When an Efficient Cause acts upon a Material Principle, the “virtue” of the former works the change in the latter—the Virtue of the Agent is infused into the Matter of the Patient, and transforms it until the Effect is produced. ”

“ Hence different effects may proceed from one and the same cause, and equal effects from different causes, acting under different conditions.
IV. The exertion of power is called action, and its intensity, in the material world, depends on the distance of the agent from the patient.
V. The amount of the exertion, or the quantity of the action, is measured by its true effect, which is the only true exponent or representative of the degree of the exertion; for, all matter being equally indifferent to receive motion, the amount of its passion must always agree with the amount of the action received ”

“ We know that courage, assurance, and conscious power are necessary for the fulfillment of purpose, because intention precedes action. Will-power is an indication of HEALTH, and the constant exercise of these mental faculties exerts a steady, regular, and strengthening influence over the bodily functions. We translate mental energies into physiological industry. These faculties impart tone to the system, sustain the processes of nutrition, circulation, assimilation, secretion and excretion, and their distinguishing characteristics are vigor, tension, and elasticity. ”

“ What may be termed the balance of power or just distribution of force in the various parts of our physical and mental nature—according to each individual type—is essential to the perfection of the organization—it is, indeed, the measure of health. It is attained and preserved by the due exercise of all the functions of our nature. ”

“ If I will to watch for stars, or to measure places of heavenly bodies, or to be guided in the determination of my will by the appearance of certain chemical precipitates in test-tubes, or to stake my fortune in the stock-market, or to be determined in my acts by the empirical outcome of this patient’s disease, — well, in all such cases, it is an experience that I first am to accept as the determination of my purpose. ”

“ But many others have regarded the will’s actual Effectiveness, our third element, as belonging, in a measure, to the essence, rather than to the accidents, of the voluntary process. Those countless writers who have regarded our voluntary bodily acts as the primal instances, in our experience, of the true relation of cause and effect, seem to regard the will as primarily a phenomenon of Efficacious Effort. ”

“ What is the use of giving, for instance, an unestablished, and perhaps preposterous, notion of corporeal quantity to him who has as yet to learn what is the essential composition of bodies? Is a student prepared to realize the true nature of the quantity of mass, or of the quantity of volume, who has never yet explored either the mysterious attributes of formal continuity or the intimate constitution of material substance? ”

“ The effects are all always existent, but some of them are sometimes in an unmanifested state. What the causal operation, viz. the energy of the agent and the suitable collocating instruments and conditions, does is to set up an activity by which the effect may be manifested at the present moment. ”

“ Accordingly, the connexions here in question, independently of any influence they may have on a man's pecuniary circumstances, have an influence on the effect of any exciting causes whatsoever. The tendency of them is to increase a man's general sensibility; to increase, on the one hand, the pleasure produced by all pleasurable causes; on the other, the pain produced by all afflictive ones. ”

“ And so the balance sways and the story runs—here a gain, there a loss, and Nature’s great average struck across the two, whereof the sum total forms one of the factors in that mighty equation in which the result will equal the unknown quantity of her purpose. ”

“ Adjust a balance, and a single weight removed from one of the scales gives preponderance to the opposite one; so with body and mind; what you cast into the scale of matter to weigh for or against health, you take away from Intelligence, and its power to hold the balance against matter. ”

“ But note the analogy : it has been demonstrated that all bodies possess electricity in a greater or less degree ; and that some are positive when compared with others, and some are negative. They are usually at rest ”

“ It is requisite, therefore, that the circumstances leading to the concentration of the mind should be well understood. We assume that there is power available for the occasion, and we seek to turn it into the proper channel. Now, there is no doubt that the will is the chief intervening influence, and the chief stimulants of the will are, as we know, pleasure and pain. This is the rough view of the case. A little more precision is attainable through our psychological knowledge. ”

“ I use my physical energy to serve every ounce of me, brain, nerves and organs. A man in health is a man in happiness, whether he be dining at Voisin’s, or on ripe figs on the hot rocks of les Baux. And I am a man in health ”

“ Of the value of each pain which appears to be produced by it after the first. This constitutes the fecundity of the first pain, and the impurity of the first pleasure. Sum up all the values of all the pleasures on the one side, and those of all the pains on the other. The balance, if it be on the side of pleasure, will give the good tendency of the act upon the whole, with respect to the interests of that individual person; if on the side of pain, the bad tendency of it upon the whole. Take an account of the number of persons whose interests appear to be concerned ”

“ The only debatable question is that concerning the limits of the validity of the doctrine of the specific energy of living substances. This question will involve our attention when we have analyzed somewhat more closely the happenings in the living substance taking place under the influence of stimuli. ”

“ The more chemistry, and electrology, and life, are searched into by the keenest and most remorseless experiment, the more do we find ourselves admitting that motive power and force, as manifested to us, is derived, is in its essence immaterial, is direct from Him in whom we live and move, and to whom, in a sense quite peculiar, belongeth power. ”