Power of will : a practical companion book for unfoldment of the powers of mind / by Frank Channing Haddock.

  • Frank Channing Haddock
Date:
1919, [©1907]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Power of will : a practical companion book for unfoldment of the powers of mind / by Frank Channing Haddock. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    41/438 (page 19)
    Mastery of the body is frequently seen in remark¬ able instances of physical control. All voluntarily ac¬ quired habits are examples. Though a given habit becomes automatic, it yet represents a long and per¬ sistent application of Will, and, as often, perhaps, the present exercise of Volition directing and maintaining actions that are apparently unconscious. The singer’s use of his voice exhibits trained impulse; the musician’s manipulation of his fingers, habituated movements; the skilled rider’s mastery of his limbs in most diffi¬ cult feats and unexpected situations, spontaneous re¬ sponse to mind; the eloquent orator, celerity of muscular obedience to feeling. In all these and similar cases the Will must act, co-ordinating particu¬ lar movements with general details of Volition with the ultimate purpose in view. Indeed, the specific activities that make up the complex physical uses of the human body in all trades of skill demand super¬ vision of the Will as an adequate explanation. The person may not be conscious of its sovereign acts, but it is the power upon the throne. Underlying those states of the soul of which it is immediately aware are conditions not formulated in consciousness, which nevertheless constitute its highest powers. If these exhibitions of “ second nature ” in¬ volved no immediate action of Will, the very exercise and training of Will which look to their attainment would, so far forth, defeat the end in view; — they would weaken rather than develop Will. The Unconscious or Subconscious Mind plays a vast role in human life. The reader is referred to the author’s work “ Practical Psychology ” for further study of that important subject. The mind, again, has the power to summon, as it