Divine Library is a free online public library that includes free eBook downloads and free audio books.

We work with New Thought Seekers and Sharers around the world insuring that all New Thought Texts in the Public Domain are available for you to read on the web for free, forever!

"Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit."
~ 2 Corinthians 2:17

Navigate through this book by clicking Next Page or Previous Page below the text of the page & jump directly to chapters using the chapter numbers above the text.

John Bascom - Creator of Science of Mind - progenitor of New Thought

NewThought.net/work
Serving New Thought is pleased to present

John Bascom's

Science of Mind

"Evolution is better than Revolution. New Thought Library's New Thought Archives encompass a full range of New Thought from Abrahamic to Vedic. New Thought literature reflects the ongoing evolution of human thought. New Thought's unique inclusion of science, art and philosophy presents a dramatic contrast with the magical thinking of decadent religions that promulgate supersticions standing in the way of progress to shared peace and prosperity." ~ Avalon de Rossett

Your PayPal contributions insure this gift lasts forever. Please consider an ongoing PayPal subscription.


Introduction - Intellect - Mental Science's Divisions - Intellect's Divisions and Perceptions - The Understanding - The Reason - The Dynamics of the Intellect - Physical Feelings - Intellectual Feelings - Spiritual Feelings - Dynamics of Feelings - The Will - The Nervous System - Nervous System of Man - Executive Volition - Primary Volition, or Choice - Dynamics of the Will and the Mind - The Relations of the Systems Here Offered to Prevalent Forms of Philosophy - Index - Contents -


task of explaining, instead of overthrowing, the universal facts of mind, we must needs believe that the world, wise and ignorant, have not whistled to the wind in talking about freedom, choice, responsibility, and in constructing the frame-work of private, social and religious life upon them. In the above theory, there is the entire transformation of the very familiar facts of hourly life that seek our explanation. The language we apply to them is found to be all wrong. There is no proper guilt or punishment, virtue or reward. There is no law, as we use the word in social and ethical discussions; all is ultimately resolvable into physical force. The man indeed, like the brute, can be reached on two sides instead of one. He can be pushed, guided from behind, and, through the mirror of the mind, can be invited, influenced by things yet before him. As, by ingenious reflection, rays that do not directly fall upon the object are thrown, upon it, so forces not yet realized are flung by anticipation on the mind, and become present powers working vital results in the brain. To lay a command, therefore, as conscience does, and furnish, for its execution, no forces, promise no pleasures, threaten no pains, as the immediate results of obedience or disobedience, is, according to the above view, absurd, is to furnish the plan of a noble edifice, and provide no workmen to put it up. There is, on this theory, no other moral law than when I flourish a whip in the face of a restive ox, or apply it to his tough hide. The actions are essentially one; the first brings the anticipation of pain, and the second, actual pain.

In the passages quoted, there is an undersigned confession that the author can make nothing of the true moral phenomena of moral law, and has, therefore, put in their place a gross caricature, at war with the form and language of our daily life. We do treat the brute and the man very differently, and the more diversely, as we are the more intelligent.

page scan

415


PREVIOUS PAGE - NEXT PAGE

Support New Thought Library so that we can continue our work 
of putting all public domain New Thought texts at your fingertips for free!