O.M.Your dreaming mind originates the scheme, consistently and artistically develops it, and carries the little drama creditably through--all without help or suggestion from you?
Y.M.Yes.
O.M.It is argument that it could do the like awake without help or suggestion from you--and I think it does.It is argument that it is the same old mind in both cases, and never needs your help.
I think the mind is purely a machine, a thoroughly independent machine, an automatic machine.Have you tried the other experiment which I suggested to you?
Y.M.Which one?
O.M.The one which was to determine how much influence you have over your mind--if any.
Y.M.Yes, and got more or less entertainment out of it.Idid as you ordered: I placed two texts before my eyes--one a dull one and barren of interest, the other one full of interest, inflamed with it, white-hot with it.I commanded my mind to busy itself solely with the dull one.
O.M.Did it obey?
Y.M.Well, no, it didn't.It busied itself with the other one.
O.M.Did you try hard to make it obey?
Y.M.Yes, I did my honest best.
O.M.What was the text which it refused to be interested in or think about?
Y.M.It was this question: If A owes B a dollar and a half, and B owes C two and three-quarter, and C owes A thirty-five cents, and D and A together owe E and B three-sixteenths of --of--I don't remember the rest, now, but anyway it was wholly uninteresting, and I could not force my mind to stick to it even half a minute at a time; it kept flying off to the other text.
O.M.What was the other text?
Y.M.It is no matter about that.
O.M.But what was it?
Y.M.A photograph.
O.M.Your own?
Y.M.No.It was hers.
O.M.You really made an honest good test.Did you make a second trial?
Y.M.Yes.I commanded my mind to interest itself in the morning paper's report of the pork-market, and at the same time Ireminded it of an experience of mine of sixteen years ago.It refused to consider the pork and gave its whole blazing interest to that ancient incident.
O.M.What was the incident?
Y.M.An armed desperado slapped my face in the presence of twenty spectators.It makes me wild and murderous every time Ithink of it.
O.M.Good tests, both; very good tests.Did you try my other suggestion?
Y.M.The one which was to prove to me that if I would leave my mind to its own devices it would find things to think about without any of my help, and thus convince me that it was a machine, an automatic machine, set in motion by exterior influences, and as independent of me as it could be if it were in some one else's skull.Is that the one?
O.M.Yes.
Y.M.I tried it.I was shaving.I had slept well, and my mind was very lively, even gay and frisky.It was reveling in a fantastic and joyful episode of my remote boyhood which had suddenly flashed up in my memory--moved to this by the spectacle of a yellow cat picking its way carefully along the top of the garden wall.The color of this cat brought the bygone cat before me, and I saw her walking along the side-step of the pulpit; saw her walk on to a large sheet of sticky fly-paper and get all her feet involved; saw her struggle and fall down, helpless and dissatisfied, more and more urgent, more and more unreconciled, more and more mutely profane; saw the silent congregation quivering like jelly, and the tears running down their faces.Isaw it all.The sight of the tears whisked my mind to a far distant and a sadder scene--in Terra del Fuego--and with Darwin's eyes I saw a naked great savage hurl his little boy against the rocks for a trifling fault; saw the poor mother gather up her dying child and hug it to her breast and weep, uttering no word.
Did my mind stop to mourn with that nude black sister of mine?
No--it was far away from that scene in an instant, and was busying itself with an ever-recurring and disagreeable dream of mine.In this dream I always find myself, stripped to my shirt, cringing and dodging about in the midst of a great drawing-room throng of finely dressed ladies and gentlemen, and wondering how I got there.And so on and so on, picture after picture, incident after incident, a drifting panorama of ever-changing, ever-dissolving views manufactured by my mind without any help from me--why, it would take me two hours to merely name the multitude of things my mind tallied off and photographed in fifteen minutes, let alone describe them to you.
O.M.A man's mind, left free, has no use for his help.But there is one way whereby he can get its help when he desires it.
Y.M.What is that way?
O.M.When your mind is racing along from subject to subject and strikes an inspiring one, open your mouth and begin talking upon that matter--or--take your pen and use that.It will interest your mind and concentrate it, and it will pursue the subject with satisfaction.It will take full charge, and furnish the words itself.
Y.M.But don't I tell it what to say?
O.M.There are certainly occasions when you haven't time.
The words leap out before you know what is coming.
Y.M.For instance?