Potential

“ According to the doctrine of potentiality and actuality, this is to say that all possible stages of the higher and highest phenomena are semper et ubique potentially present in universal being, and that they become actual wherever the physical processes are far enough advanced to afford the necessary conditions. ”

“ The instant field of the present is at all times what I call the 'pure' experience. It is only virtually or potentially either object or subject as yet. For the time being, it is plain, unqualified actuality, or existence, a simple that. ”

“ If at that point of space we have to consider any physical quantity whose value depends on the position of the point, that quantity is treated as a function of the vector drawn from the origin. The function may be itself either scalar or vector. The density of a body, its temperature, its hydrostatic pressure, the potential at a point, are examples of scalar functions. The resultant force at the point, the velocity of a fluid at that point, the velocity of rotation of an element of the fluid, and the couple producing rotation, are examples of vector functions. ”

“ We have supposed the solid to be homogeneous. But it is evident that in any case the above conditions must hold for every separate point where the solid meets the fluid. Hence, the temperature and pressure and the potentials for all the actual components of the solid must have a constant value in the solid at the surface where it meets the fluid. Now, these quantities are determined by the nature and state of the solid, and exceed in number the independent variations of which its nature and state are capable. ”

“ All active energy tends to produce certain results. Then the question is what those results are to be. Are they to be favourable or detrimental, superior or inferior, for you or against you? This you can determine by thinking according to design—by thinking for a definite purpose—by placing in action energies that will act for your advantage—by training all the powers of your mind to work for your purpose, to build you up and promote your advancement—by thinking for results—for the results that you are determined to secure.
Every thought you think is a power. ”

“ If we refer to phenomena of sense perception as forces of matter in general, then this generalized matter is nothing but an abstract conception. But if we mean by the term sense perception the various concrete substances, then the general element which embraces the differences of things and pervades and controls them is force producing concrete effects. And whether we say matter or force, the mental which science is studying, not with its hands, but with its brain, the so-called essence, nature, cause, ideal, superior or spiritual, is the generality comprising the special things. ”

“ In our very laboratory experiments we are demonstrating the great fact that thoughts are forces. They have form, and quality, and substance, and power, and we are beginning to find that there is what we may term a science of thought. We are beginning also to find that through the instrumentality of our thought forces we have creative power, not merely in a figurative sense, but creative power in reality.
Everything in the material universe about us, everything the universe has ever known, had its origin first in thought. ”

“ It follows that Thought and Discourse, in furnishing us with Knowledge, must themselves be active, and must in some way or other reproduce the activity of Nature. Thought, in short, is an Activity which reproduces the activity of things, the activity in which the phenomena of Nature arise.
But how do we arrive at any apprehension of Natural Action? What informs us that Nature is a potency ever operative? What suggests to us [61] the conception of potency at all? We reply that we arrive at the idea of potent action because we are ourselves active beings. ”

“ But just as we draw from the stores of our own consciousness this idea of "Power," of force, of muscular or mental energy, precisely in the same way we are justified in drawing the idea of "purpose" in the direction of that energy. ”

“ But there is implied in the conception of such a theory such a location of the process of thought in the process of reality as will222 give it an import both in the meaning of things and in the individual's thinking. We have the beginning of such a doctrine in the conception of a functional value of consciousness in the conduct of living forms, and the development of reflective thought out of such a consciousness which puts it within the act and gives it the function of preparation where adjustment is necessary. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Little as we know of the intrinsic nature of this Omnipresent Power, which, in our poor human talk, we call God, we do at least know, by daily and hourly experience, what is the character of its working. The whole experience of our lives teaches us that this Power works after a method which, in our scholastic expression, we call the method of cause and effect, or the method of natural law. ”

“ When we realize this on the one hand, and on the other that all external conditions, including the body, are produced by thought, we find ourselves standing between two infinites, the infinite of Mind and the infinite of Substance—from both of which we can draw what we will, and mould specific conditions out of the Universal Substance by the Creative Power which we draw in from the Universal Mind. ”

“ In fact, the power of what may be termed analytic synthesis,—the mental power which first resolves words or things into their elements, and then puts them together in new forms,—is a creative or co-ordinating force, indicative of a higher natural capacity than the act of mere analysis. ”

“ Interest passed from mechanism to biology. And, with this change of interest, a wholly new scientific ideal began to dominate our intellectual imagination. It was the ideal of growth. Life was in movement. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The seventh, and final, "quality" is body or figure, by which he means the fundamental tendency or energy toward expression in actuality and concrete form. The final goal of intelligent purpose is the realization of wisdom, of idea, in actual Nature-forms and life-forms—the incarnation of the spirit. ”

“ The Order of our Ideas.—After discrimination, association! It is obvious that all advance in knowledge must consist of both operations; for in the course of our education, objects at first appearing as wholes are analyzed into parts, and objects appearing separately are brought together and appear as new compound wholes to the mind. Analysis and synthesis are thus the incessantly alternating mental activities, a stroke of the one preparing the way for a stroke of the other, much as, in walking, a man's two legs are alternately brought into use, both being indispensable for any orderly advance. ”

“ The three faculties which, as I have said, distinguish each of the three human modifications are: sense perception for the body, sentiment for the soul, and assent for the spirit. These three faculties develop instinct, understanding, and intelligence, which produce by a common reaction, common sense, reason, and sagacity.
Instinct, placed at the lowest degree of the ontological hierarchy, is absolutely passive; intelligence, raised to the summit, is entirely active, and understanding placed in the centre, is neuter. ”

“ But to take our present fact as an example, how important a foundation does it offer upon which to build a series of thoughts, capable of lifting the human mind above the materialities by which it is surrounded,—of exalting each common nature by the refinement of its fresh ideas to a point higher in the scale of intelligence,—of quickening every impulse of the soul,—and of giving to mankind the most holy longings. ”

“ Mind, mode of thinking, mode of thinking and feeling, moral and intellectual constitution, that mystic transparency full of pulses and motions, this thinking apparatus,—whichever phrase or image we adopt, there are certain appertaining considerations which we have to take along with us.
(1.) There is the consideration of differences of degree, quality, and worth. Mind may be great or small, noble or mean, strong or weak; the mode of thinking of one person or one time may be higher, finer, grander than that of another ”

“ The seemingly fixed character of such a world is found in the generally fixed conditions which underlie the type of problems which we find. We determine the important conditions incident to the working out of the great problems which face us. Our conception of a224 given universe is formed in the effort to mobilize all the material about us in relation to these problems—the structure of the self, the structure of matter, the physical process of life, the laws of change and the interrelation of changes. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We want a word to express the adaptation of means to an end, whether involving consciousness or not; the word purpose will do very well, and the adjective purposive has already been used in this sense. But if the use is admitted, we must distinguish two kinds of purpose. There is the unconscious purpose which is attained by natural selection, in which no consciousness need be concerned; and there is the conscious purpose of an intelligence which designs a thing that it may serve to do something which he desires to be done. ”

“ All our development consists in the increasing consciousness of this connection, which enables us to apply the higher power to whatever purpose we may have in hand, not merely in the hope that it may respond, but with the certain knowledge that by the law of its own nature it [203] is bound to do so, and likewise with the knowledge that by the same law it is bound also to guide us to the selection of right objects and right methods. ”

“ This imagery and representation of the qualities of the things without, is that which we call our conception, imagination, ideas, notice, or knowledge of them; and the faculty, or power by which we are capable of such knowledge, is that I here call cognitive power, or conceptive, the power of knowing or conceiving.” “All the qualities called sensible are, in the object that causeth them, but so many several motions of the matter by which it presseth on our organs diversely. Neither in us that are pressed are they anything else but divers motions; for motion produceth nothing but motion. ”

“ That is, although "the works were finished from the foundation of the world," and second causes are now largely operative in nature all around us, still there is everywhere manifest an active energy, a presence, an Intelligence, "in Whom we live, and move, and have our being." ”

“ Hence, the external world is but an assemblage of causes, corresponding to our sensations real and possible. Now, in the analysis of Will, the personal force or the activity was a cause; and as the other force or matter is also a source of causes," so nature is sister to man—animated, active, and alive, like him."—p. ”

“ It is at all times agreeable to a philosophical mind, and an understanding which busies itself, not only with the surface and present state of things, but also with their substance and remote tendencies, to contemplate the exercise of human power, and the triumphs of human ingenuity, whether developed in physical or mental efforts, in the pursuit of objects which comprehend a mixture of both. ”

“ There is no more marvelous provision in all life than this power of sublimation of one form of energy into another, a provision shadowing forth almost limitless possibilities for higher adaptations and for growth in character. ”

“ The object of the sensuous instinct, expressed in a universal conception, is named Life in the widest acceptation; a conception that expresses all material existence and all that is immediately present in the senses. The object of the formal instinct, expressed in a universal conception, is called shape or form, as well in an exact as in an inexact acceptation; a conception that embraces all formal qualities of things and all relations of the same to the thinking powers. ”

“ At bottom the process is one of conception, and is everywhere, even in the sphere of simple sensible qualities, the same as that by which we are usually understood to attain to the notions of abstract goodness, perfect felicity, absolute power, and the like: the direct perception of a difference between compounds, and the imaginary prolongation of the direction of the difference to an ideal terminus, the notion of which we fix and keep as one of our permanent subjects of discourse. ”

“ How in the concrete it takes place, in what special ways our consciousness is at once transcended, and included in a wider experience, it is the purpose of our whole present series of discussions to make clearer; and not until the end of the undertaking can one judge the degree of our success.
We proceed next to the characterization of certain more special principles that consciously determine us, at any moment, to acknowledge as real one rather than another fact or system of concrete facts, such as the existence of our fellows, or of Nature, or our own past lives. ”

“ It is clear upon reflexion, that in such a case, his own mind supplies the conception of extraneous impulse and pressure, by which he thus interprets the motions observed, and the distinction of different kinds of trees, according to which he thus names the one under his notice. The Idea of Force, and the idea of definite Resemblances and Differences, are thus combined with the impressions on our senses, and form an undistinguished portion of that which we consider as the Fact. ”