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Horatio Dresser was a major early New Thought author

Serving New Thought is pleased to present

Horatio W. Dresser's

Education and the Philosophical Ideal

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Preface - Introduction - The New Point of View - Educational Ideals - Equanimity - The Subconscious Mind - The Spiritual Ideal in Childhood - An Experiment in Education - The Expression of the Spirit - An Ideal Summer Conference - The Ministry of the Spirit - The Mystery of Pain and Evil - The Philosophical Ideal - The Criteria of Truth - Organic Perfection - Immortality - Index - p. 247


to be the centre of thought, feeling, and activity. The brain is the organ of perception and transmission.1 It is the soul that perceives, wills, and acts.

For example, the brain cannot learn to walk or to talk. It is the soul of the child which conceives the idea of walking or talking. The brain is acted upon, and made to acquire the habits which thereafter subconsciously regulate the child's walking and talking.

As a wise man has said, it is almost as difficult to conceive the existence of the soul in possession of a physical brain as to understand how it can live without it.2 In any case, it is in part a mystery. In view of this fact, that we do not fully know what thought is, would it not be a tremendous assumption to affirm that, when the physical brain dies, all thinking most cease?

Our future thinking may possess different characteristics, it is true. When the soul leaves the body, it may lose its physical habits, and the feelings associated with their performance through the physical brain, yet carry with it the power to acquire new habits in the spiritual life. Thinking, perceiving, and acting are less physical in proportion as they are separated from physical movements, and the faculties of the soul become active. The physical man may think largely with his brain; but the

(1) See Professor James, Human Immortality, p. 15. Houghton,& Co., 1898
(2) Martineau, Endeavors After the Christian Life, p. 110. A. U. A. edition, Boston, 1888.

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