The Thinker

Back of the beating hammer, / By which the steel is wrought, / Back of the workshop’s clamor, / The seeker may find the Thought; / The thought that is ever master / Of iron and steam and steel, / That rises above disaster / And tramples it under heel! — Berton Braley

Consider well the poet’s testimony, for it states in the language of verse what we intend to demonstrate in the language of law. Behind every wrought thing stands the wrought thought; behind the hammer, the will that guides it; behind the steel, the mind that conceived its purpose. The material world clamors loudly with its engines and its industries, yet the seeker who looks patiently beneath the clamor finds always the same silent, sovereign agent—Thought itself, the true master of iron and steam and steel.

We have proceeded through these pages as the scientist proceeds in his laboratory, moving step by orderly step from the known toward the less known, from the chemistry of the crucible to the biology of the living cell, and from thence toward those finer forces which the older philosophies named metaphysical. At no point have we asked the reader to abandon reason or to accept upon authority what he might verify by trial. We have asked only that he test, as the chemist tests his reagents, the proposition that thought is a real and measurable force operating under immutable law.

And now we arrive at the thinker himself—the one who wields the force we have so long described. It is a curious circumstance that men will study with great diligence the properties of electricity, the composition of the stars, and the migrations of the humblest insect, yet neglect entirely the study of that very faculty by which all such study is accomplished. The astronomer turns his instrument upon the heavens but seldom upon the mind that reads the instrument. This is as though a man should polish his lens with infinite care and forget that it is the eye behind the lens that sees.

Let us establish first this principle, which the reader may confirm by his own observation: that thought is creative. This is not a poetic ornament but a statement of demonstrable fact. Every structure raised by human hands existed first as a thought within a human mind. The cathedral, the bridge, the printed page, the symphony—each was a thing of the mind before it became a thing of the world. The thinker thinks, and the material universe is thereby altered. If this be true of the outer works of man, it is no less true, and far more intimately true, of the inner conditions of his own being.

Observe the man who habitually dwells upon failure. He surrounds himself, moment by moment, with the mental images of defeat, and in due season these images clothe themselves in circumstance, for the mind moves always toward that upon which it is fixed. Observe, by contrast, the man who holds steadily before him the image of the thing he means to accomplish. His thought becomes a kind of magnet, drawing toward him the persons, the opportunities, and the energies that serve his purpose. This is no marvel and no superstition; it is law, as reliable in its operation as the law by which water seeks its level.

The thinker, then, is not the passive spectator of his own life. He is its author. The world he inhabits is in large measure the projection of the world he carries within. Two men may stand upon the same corner of the same street, in the same hour of the same day, and yet inhabit worlds so different that they scarcely share a common language. The one sees squalor and menace; the other sees material and opportunity. The difference lies not in the street but in the thinker who beholds it.

Here we must guard against a common error. To affirm that thought is creative is not to affirm that thought is idle wishing. The daydreamer who longs for great things while sowing no seed and lifting no hand mistakes reverie for creation. True thought is directed, sustained, and disciplined. It gathers itself as the sun’s rays are gathered by the burning-glass, until the diffuse warmth becomes a point of fire capable of kindling flame. The scattered thinker warms nothing; the concentrated thinker sets his world alight.

Let the reader make the experiment for himself, as he would make any experiment whose result he wished to know with certainty. Let him select some single quality he desires—courage, let us say, or serenity, or the confidence that begets success—and let him hold that quality steadily in mind for a period of days, affirming it, picturing it, refusing entrance to its opposite. He will discover, if he is faithful, that the quality begins to appear in his outward conduct and in the responses of those about him. He has proved the law upon himself, which is the only proof that finally satisfies.

Nor should we suppose that this science of the thinker stands opposed to religion, as some have feared. It is rather the natural threshold of religion, its scientific vestibule. For when a man has learned that his thought is a force, and that this force is governed by law, he is but one step removed from the recognition that he himself partakes of a creative principle older and greater than himself. The laws of the mind, patiently traced, lead the honest investigator upward, as a river traced to its source leads at last to the heights. What the laboratory begins, the temple completes.

Therefore let each reader resolve to become, in the fullest sense, a thinker—not one merely who possesses thoughts, but one who commands them; not the servant of every stray suggestion that drifts across the mind, but the sovereign of his own inner household. For the thought is ever master of iron and steam and steel, and the thinker who has mastered his thought has laid his hand upon the master-force of the universe.

In this spirit, and as a fitting discipline for the aspiring thinker, let the following resolutions be taken and daily renewed. They are not sentiment merely, but a program of mental engineering, each clause a lever set against the inertia of the lower self.

PROMISE YOURSELF: To be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind. To talk health, happiness and prosperity to every person you meet. To make all your friends feel that there is something in them. To look on the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true.

To think only of the best, to work only for the best, and to expect only the best. To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own. To forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.

To wear a cheerful countenance at all times and to have a smile ready for every living creature you meet. To give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticise others. To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.

To think well of yourself and to proclaim this fact to the world—not in loud words, but in great deeds. To live in the faith that the world is on your side so long as you are true to the best that is in you. — Christian D. Larson