The Power of Thought.
1. Thought is the distinctive mark of man. " On earth there's nothing great but man ; in man there's nothing great but mind " ; and the great function of mind is to think. The ability to think is man's great distinction. If other creatures think, it is not for their thought that they are distinguished ; but, man without thought is destitute of the great human characteristic. By the exercise of thought — transferring what is without within — we can carry the " world in our hearts." And by thought we can also outwardly embody the creations of our minds, and thus give a soul to the material, and a body to things spiritual ; by thought we can recall the past and live in it again, anticipate the future, and inhabit it as our home ; by thought we can walk as seeing the invisible, and dwell in a world which transcends the senses ; by thought we can ascend to heaven and God, and also descend to him who, as anti- theos, sets himself against God.
^ In the human world, we find thought expressing itself in a thousand ways, visible and invisible — in stone and wood and iron, in colours and sounds, in laws and institutions. It is the thought of the constructor that makes the iron vessel float upon the water ; it is the thought of the general that wins the battle. In all these cases, too, the thought precedes the expression, the materialization, as well as giving to the latter its value. Just as the human world, with its roads and cultivated fields, its streets and buildings, its machines and engines, its pictures and statuary, its colleges and hospitals, its libraries, and orchestras, is the expression of the thought of man, so the vast universe, with its
1 H. P. Liddon.
2 COR. X. 5 275
numberless worlds obedient to one law, and its countless forms of life, is the expression of the thought of God ; and, just as in every case where human thought has expressed itself, the conception preceded the embodiment — as, for instance, the plan preceded the building, or the battle — so the thought of God must have preceded the creation of the universe. Thought is, in fact, necessarily the prius of a universe which is permeated, penetrated, by thought — which is built up on thought. And that the universe we know is built up on thought is proved every day by the discovery of new laws of nature. It is because the universe is permeated by thought that man can hope to understand it, to interpret it, by the light of reason ; were it not intelligible, the work of the scientist — of the astronomer, the chemist, the geologist — would be idle.^
(1) Thought is in a sense the material with which we work. — All work is the working out and working up of thought. The actual amount of this material present in the world, at any given time, defies calculation. Yet, that which exists is as nothing in comparison with what, at any moment, might be called into existence. Thought is capable of indefinite multiplication. To what extent is it not multiplied in seasons of excitement and hours of inspiration ? What is the amount of thought produced in a community impassioned by some event which awakens their depths ? The critical periods of history discover mines of in- exhaustible wealth, unsuspected in ordinary times, and reveal in men powers of vast and indefinite expansion. If we sometimes hear men talk of being used-up, of the need of travel, of fresh scenes to replenish their exhausted resources, is it not because they forget to use themselves ? " He who would bring home the Indies must carry them out." Some of those whose thoughts continue to sow the world with ceaseless harvests never wandered from the site that gave them birth. He alone can be used-up who has not learnt to use himself.
^ Which of us feels, or knows, that he wants peace ? There are two ways of getting it, if you do want it. The first is wholly in your own power ; to make yourselves nests of pleasant thoughts. Those are nests on the sea indeed, but safe beyond all others ; only they need much art in the building. None of us yet know, for none of us have yet been taught in early youth, what fairy palaces we may build of beautiful thought—proof against all
^ James Hutchison Stirling, 163.
2^6 THE CAPTIVITY OF THOUGHT
adversity. Bright fancies, satisfied memories, noble histories, faithful sayings, treasure-houses of precious and restful thoughts, which care cannot disturb, uor pain make gloomy, nor poverty take away from us — houses built without hands, for our souls to live in.i
(2) Our thoughts are the raw material out of which character is formed. — What a man thinks determines not only what he says, does and sees, but also what he is. " As a man thinketh, so is he." Our whole character gradually takes on the hue and complexion of our inward thinking. Naturalists affirm that the size of the fish found in Central Africa is subtly influenced by the dimensions of the lake in which they live, the same species being larger or smaller in proportion to the scale of their habitat. Whether that is a fact or not, it is certainly true that if we live in the en- vironment of sordid, petty, and grovelling thoughts, our character becomes correspondingly small, shrivelled and emaciated ; whereas, if we rise up into the region of noble and spacious conceptions of life and truth, our character will inevitably expand in propor- tion to the dimensions of its mental environment. Character derives its substance and form from the influence distilled from the mental processes. Noble thinking, then, ought by rights to result in noble living. This is what is in St. Peter's mind when he bids us arm ourselves with the mind of Christ. He knew very well that the shortest and safest way for a man to reproduce Christ's character was to try to put on His mind.