<SPAN name="VI"></SPAN>
<h2>VI</h2>
<h2>LORD OVER THE NODDLE</h2>
<br/>
<p>Having proved by personal experiment
the truth of the first of the two great
principles which concern the human
machine—namely, that the brain is a
servant, not a master, and can be controlled—we
may now come to the second.
The second is more fundamental than the
first, but it can be of no use until the
first is understood and put into practice.
The human machine is an apparatus of
brain and muscle for enabling the Ego to
develop freely in the universe by which
it is surrounded, without friction. Its
function is to convert the facts of the
universe to the best advantage of the
Ego. The facts of the universe are the
material with which it is its business to
deal—not the facts of an ideal universe,
but the facts of this universe. Hence,
when friction occurs, when the facts of
the universe cease to be of advantage to
the Ego, the fault is in the machine.
It is not the solar system that has gone
wrong, but the human machine. Second
great principle, therefore: '<i>In case of
friction, the machine is always at fault</i>.'</p>
<p>You can control nothing but your own
mind. Even your two-year-old babe may
defy you by the instinctive force of its
personality. But your own mind you can
control. Your own mind is a sacred
enclosure into which nothing harmful can
enter except by your permission. Your
own mind has the power to transmute
every external phenomenon to its own
purposes. If happiness arises from cheerfulness,
kindliness, and rectitude (and
who will deny it?), what possible combination
of circumstances is going to make
you unhappy so long as the machine
remains in order? If self-development
consists in the utilisation of one's environment
(not utilisation of somebody else's
environment), how can your environment
prevent you from developing? You
would look rather foolish without it, anyway.
In that noddle of yours is everything
necessary for development, for the
maintaining of dignity, for the achieving
of happiness, and you are absolute lord
over the noddle, will you but exercise the
powers of lordship. Why worry about the
contents of somebody else's noddle, in
which you can be nothing but an intruder,
when you may arrive at a better result,
with absolute certainty, by confining your
activities to your own? 'Look within.'
'The Kingdom of Heaven is within
you.' 'Oh, yes!' you protest. 'All
that's old. Epictetus said that. Marcus
Aurelius said that. Christ said that.'
They did. I admit it readily. But if
you were ruffled this morning because
your motor-omnibus broke down, and
you had to take a cab, then so far as you
are concerned these great teachers lived
in vain. You, calling yourself a reasonable
man, are going about dependent for
your happiness, dignity, and growth, upon
a thousand things over which you have no
control, and the most exquisitely organised
machine for ensuring happiness, dignity,
and growth, is rusting away inside you.
And all because you have a sort of notion
that a saying said two thousand years
ago cannot be practical.</p>
<p>You remark sagely to your child: 'No,
my child, you cannot have that moon,
and you will accomplish nothing by crying
for it. Now, here is this beautiful box
of bricks, by means of which you may
amuse yourself while learning many
wonderful matters and improving your
mind. You must try to be content with
what you have, and to make the best of
it. If you had the moon you wouldn't
be any happier.' Then you lie awake
half the night repining because the last
post has brought a letter to the effect
that 'the Board cannot entertain your
application for,' etc. You say the two
cases are not alike. They are not. Your
child has never heard of Epictetus. On
the other hand, justice <i>is</i> the moon. At
your age you surely know that. 'But
the Directors <i>ought</i> to have granted my
application,' you insist. Exactly! I
agree. But we are not in a universe of
<i>oughts</i>. You have a special apparatus
within you for dealing with a universe
where <i>oughts</i> are flagrantly disregarded.
And you are not using it. You are lying
awake, keeping your wife awake, injuring
your health, injuring hers, losing your
dignity and your cheerfulness. Why?
Because you think that these antics and
performances will influence the Board?
Because you think that they will put you
into a better condition for dealing with
your environment to-morrow? Not a
bit. Simply because the machine is at
fault.</p>
<p>In certain cases we do make use of our
machines (as well as their sad condition of
neglect will allow), but in other cases we
behave in an extraordinarily irrational
manner. Thus if we sally out and get
caught in a heavy shower we do not,
unless very far gone in foolishness, sit
down and curse the weather. We put up
our umbrella, if we have one, and if not
we hurry home. We may grumble, but
it is not serious grumbling; we accept
the shower as a fact of the universe, and
control ourselves. Thus also, if by a
sudden catastrophe we lose somebody
who is important to us, we grieve, but we
control ourselves, recognising one of those
hazards of destiny from which not even
millionaires are exempt. And the result
on our Ego is usually to improve it in
essential respects. But there are other
strokes of destiny, other facts of the
universe, against which we protest as a
child protests when deprived of the moon.</p>
<p>Take the case of an individual with an
imperfect idea of honesty. Now, that individual
is the consequence of his father
and mother and his environment, and
his father and mother of theirs, and so
backwards to the single-celled protoplasm.
That individual is a result of the cosmic
order, the inevitable product of cause and
effect. We know that. We must admit
that he is just as much a fact of the
universe as a shower of rain or a storm
at sea that swallows a ship. We freely
grant in the abstract that there must be,
at the present stage of evolution, a certain
number of persons with unfair minds.
We are quite ready to contemplate such
an individual with philosophy—until it
happens that, in the course of the progress
of the solar system, he runs up against
ourselves. Then listen to the outcry!
Listen to the continual explosions of a
righteous man aggrieved! The individual
may be our clerk, cashier, son, father,
brother, partner, wife, employer. We are
ill-used! We are being treated unfairly!
We kick; we scream. We nourish the
inward sense of grievance that eats the
core out of content. We sit down in the
rain. We decline to think of umbrellas,
or to run to shelter.</p>
<p>We care not that that individual is a
fact which the universe has been slowly
manufacturing for millions of years. Our
attitude implies that we want eternity
to roll back and begin again, in such wise
that we at any rate shall not be disturbed.
Though we have a machine for the transmutation
of facts into food for our growth,
we do not dream of using it. But, we
say, he is doing us harm! Where? In
our minds. He has robbed us of our
peace, our comfort, our happiness, our
good temper. Even if he has, we might
just as well inveigh against a shower.
But has he? What was our brain doing
while this naughty person stepped in and
robbed us of the only possessions worth
having? No, no! It is not that he has
done us harm—the one cheerful item in
a universe of stony facts is that no one
can harm anybody except himself—it is
merely that we have been silly, precisely
as silly as if we had taken a seat in the
rain with a folded umbrella by our side....
The machine is at fault. I fancy
we are now obtaining glimpses of what
that phrase really means.</p>
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