O.M.Spontaneously? No.And YOU DID NOT FORM THAT ONE;your machinery did it for you--automatically and instantly, without reflection or the need of it.
Y.M.Suppose I had reflected? How then?
O.M.Suppose you try?
Y.M.(AFTER A QUARTER OF AN HOUR.) I have reflected.
O.M.You mean you have tried to change your opinion--as an experiment?
Y.M.Yes.
O.M.With success?
Y.M.No.It remains the same; it is impossible to change it.
O.M.I am sorry, but you see, yourself, that your mind is merely a machine, nothing more.You have no command over it, it has no command over itself--it is worked SOLELY FROM THE OUTSIDE.
That is the law of its make; it is the law of all machines.
Y.M.Can't I EVER change one of these automatic opinions?
O.M.No.You can't yourself, but EXTERIOR INFLUENCES can do it.
Y.M.And exterior ones ONLY?
O.M.Yes--exterior ones only.
Y.M.That position is untenable--I may say ludicrously untenable.
O.M.What makes you think so?
Y.M.I don't merely think it, I know it.Suppose I resolve to enter upon a course of thought, and study, and reading, with the deliberate purpose of changing that opinion; and suppose Isucceed.THAT is not the work of an exterior impulse, the whole of it is mine and personal; for I originated the project.
O.M.Not a shred of it.IT GREW OUT OF THIS TALK WITH ME.
But for that it would not have occurred to you.No man ever originates anything.All his thoughts, all his impulses, come FROM THE OUTSIDE.
Y.M.It's an exasperating subject.The FIRST man had original thoughts, anyway; there was nobody to draw from.
O.M.It is a mistake.Adam's thoughts came to him from the outside.YOU have a fear of death.You did not invent that--you got it from outside, from talking and teaching.Adam had no fear of death--none in the world.
Y.M.Yes, he had.
O.M.When he was created?
Y.M.No.
O.M.When, then?
Y.M.When he was threatened with it.
O.M.Then it came from OUTSIDE.Adam is quite big enough;let us not try to make a god of him.NONE BUT GODS HAVE EVER HADA THOUGHT WHICH DID NOT COME FROM THE OUTSIDE.Adam probably had a good head, but it was of no sort of use to him until it was filled up FROM THE OUTSIDE.He was not able to invent the triflingest little thing with it.He had not a shadow of a notion of the difference between good and evil--he had to get the idea FROM THE OUTSIDE.Neither he nor Eve was able to originate the idea that it was immodest to go naked; the knowledge came in with the apple FROM THE OUTSIDE.A man's brain is so constructed that IT CAN ORIGINATE NOTHING WHATSOEVER.It can only use material obtained OUTSIDE.It is merely a machine; and it works automatically, not by will-power.IT HAS NO COMMAND OVER ITSELF, ITS OWNER HAS NO COMMAND OVER IT.
Y.M.Well, never mind Adam: but certainly Shakespeare's creations--O.M.No, you mean Shakespeare's IMITATIONS.Shakespeare created nothing.He correctly observed, and he marvelously painted.He exactly portrayed people whom GOD had created; but he created none himself.Let us spare him the slander of charging him with trying.Shakespeare could not create.HE WASA MACHINE, AND MACHINES DO NOT CREATE.
Y.M.Where WAS his excellence, then?
O.M.In this.He was not a sewing-machine, like you and me; he was a Gobelin loom.The threads and the colors came into him FROM THE OUTSIDE; outside influences, suggestions, EXPERIENCES (reading, seeing plays, playing plays, borrowing ideas, and so on), framed the patterns in his mind and started up his complex and admirable machinery, and IT AUTOMATICALLY turned out that pictured and gorgeous fabric which still compels the astonishment of the world.If Shakespeare had been born and bred on a barren and unvisited rock in the ocean his mighty intellect would have had no OUTSIDE MATERIAL to work with, and could have invented none; and NO OUTSIDE INFLUENCES, teachings, moldings, persuasions, inspirations, of a valuable sort, and could have invented none; and so Shakespeare would have produced nothing.
In Turkey he would have produced something--something up to the highest limit of Turkish influences, associations, and training.
In France he would have produced something better--something up to the highest limit of the French influences and training.In England he rose to the highest limit attainable through the OUTSIDE HELPS AFFORDED BY THAT LAND'S IDEALS, INFLUENCES, ANDTRAINING.You and I are but sewing-machines.We must turn out what we can; we must do our endeavor and care nothing at all when the unthinking reproach us for not turning out Gobelins.
Y.M.And so we are mere machines! And machines may not boast, nor feel proud of their performance, nor claim personal merit for it, nor applause and praise.It is an infamous doctrine.
O.M.It isn't a doctrine, it is merely a fact.
Y.M.I suppose, then, there is no more merit in being brave than in being a coward?