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--an inner world of great variability, the world of whims, moods, and opinions, some aspects of which we considered in Chapter V.

Having reflectively made the transition to the centre of mental life, we have found that all conscious experience is co-operative. We are not isolated individuals. We do not know of the   experience of the simplest perception apart from that which is in a sense the not-self. Perception relates the mind to the world of nature. Through the exercise of will we also learn that life is a co-operative experience. It is only our wildest fancies that are to any degree removed from the world of reality. To attempt to carry out a plan of action is to discover that at best the realisation of will must be matter of adjustment. The mental act known as volition involves a sense of effort, and through this effort we learn that we are immediately environed by powers that exist quite independently of our wills. It is through activity rather than through thought that we come into rough and convincing contact with the world. Hence, in the preceding chapter we have found it necessary sharply to distinguish between the qualities which our activity-experiences reveal and the realm of mere thought, caprice, mood.
 
As long ago as Buddha's time it was said that "all that we are is the result of what we have thought; it is founded on our thoughts, it is