The Llano colonist. [volume] (Llano, Calif.) 191?-1937, 1922-06-03

4Ad1l4St Luella WlcNoiiunl, IN the MAY
number Of Napoleon Hills Magazine.
speaking Of Meditative Concentration,
says; If you take up any one thing
and investigate every phase Of natural
law in relation TO it that it is humanity
possible for you to investigate, you will
automatically learn SO many phases of
natural law that you will finally break
through into the subconscious realm.
If you do your level best in the
practice Of meditative concentration,
you will clean out the underbrush and
the debris Of personality preiudices,
sectarian and class bias] called the
subjective mind, thus opening the door
into the subconscious mind, for this is
also the law"
The difference between scientific
thinking and so-called ordinary com
mon sense is clearly distinguished BY
Prof. Irwin Edman in his Human
Traits, when he writes:
The scientific spirit is a spirit of
iemancipated inquiry as contrasted with
blind acceptance of belief upon au-s
ithority Lin the sense of social prestigel !.
The phenomenal development of mod
/! ern science began when men ceased
ito accept authoritatively their beliefs
about man and nature, and undertook
10 examine phenomena in their own
terms. The phenomenal rise Of mod
Tern science is coincidentJ with the coli
Flapse of unquestioning faith as the
leading ingredient Of Intellectual life.
Common sense renders men peculi-
arly insensitive to the possibilities Of
the novel, peculiarly susceptible to the
influence Of tradition. 1t was com
mon sense that credited the influence
of the position of the stars upon mems |
welfare, the power Of old women as
witches. and the uahcalthiness of night |
air. 1t YVES common sense also that |
ridiculed Fulton's steamboat, laughed |
at the earl y attempts of telegraphy and
telephony, and dismissed the airplane
as an interesting toy. The Characters
tic feature of common sense or empir-
ical thinking is its excess of tradition
alism, its wholesale acceptance of Ear
bitrary) authority. its reliance upon
precedent Where beliefs are not sub
jected to critical revision and examin-
alton, to the constant surveillance Of
the inquiring intelligence, there will Be
no criterion by which to- estimate the
true and the false, the important and
the trivial.
"AlI beliefs that have wide social
sanction, or that chime in with imme-
diate sense impressions, established in ,
1ividual or social sustoms, will be ac-
cepted with the same indiscriminate
hospitality. To common sense the sun
DOES appear to go around the earth; !
he stick DOES appear broken in wa
.er. Thus totally false opinions may
appear to the holder of them to possess
al the character Of nationally verifi- :
able truth. The dangers and falsities
If common-sense judgments are condi-
toned not only by expectations and :
standards fixed by the social environ
nent, but by ones own personal pre- ,
elections and diversions. "
Recent developments in psychology :
how that many supposed reasoned
judgments are mere plausible justifica-
ion of assumptions based on superb :
;ial observation.
The scientific method of thinking
aises person above the plane Of de-
;eptive impiricism. 1t does not rely
Ipon chance conjunctions of phenom-
ma for its decisions, but experiment
lily arranges conditions SO as to dis
over what is necessary to produce
given effect. p
A logical deduction inferred from an i
lea may intimate that it is a probable .
olution Of a sertain problem. But no &
latter how plausible suggestion may Il
ppear, until it is verified and demon
rated by experiment or observation, q
1e thinking process has not exhaus- 4
vely and accurately been completed. i
PROVE ALL THINGS and hold fast i
that which is good Wholesome. use S
il and beneficial" m
Lord Bacon Of England, over two
undred years ago, recommended this II
ethod Of inductive reasoning based a
pom observation. experimentation and ~
gperience, and all dependable actual i,
has been gained in that very il
amer. so the students of the mental
fence class at NewIIano were told on II,
lnday night. May 28. knowledge Of az
lrselves and of the world in general III