Right And Wrong Thinking And Their Results
	Thought Control Is The True Self-Control <  Previous Contents Next  >

Self-control has been lauded by philosophers, moralists, and teachers ever since the earliest dawn of civilization. Solomon is reported to have said thousands of years ago: "He that ruleth his spirit is greater than he that taketh a city." Perhaps this saying was old even in his day, and was only a repetition or an echo of what some other sage had long before expressed. Certainly the greatest ruler of men is the man who rules himself, for a man cannot successfully rule others unless he also rules himself. "Self-mastery is the greatest task to which man has ever set his hand." Every earnest, sincere soul has attempted it and has experienced both success and defeat.

The first step toward accomplishing any object is to know how. The principles under consideration point clearly to the only method of attaining complete self-control. Its secret lies in control of the thinking, because mental actions originate and control all others. In the words," Control the mind," is condensed all the wisdom, all the philosophy, and all the counsel which has ever been given in any effort to help mankind to acquire self-control. Therein is the root of the whole matter, because mind is the supreme power in man, and if the mind is controlled, it will control all the rest.

Any course which does not include mental control does not constitute full self-control, because in that case the most important factor in human life is ignored. This fact is not widely recognized, or if recognized, it is not appreciated, for if men under- stood the importance of thinking as the source of all other actions, they would perceive this great secret of all true self-control.

Few ethical teachers pay much attention to this point, overlooking it almost entirely in the care given to the control of external actions. They counsel the avoidance of erroneous acts and immoral deeds and call that self-control; as, when one is angry they advise that he should not hit his adversary with his fist nor abuse him with his tongue. Of course in this there is a fragment of self-control which is vastly better than to let the passions have full sway in the actions.

The angry man who does not do the wrong deed which his thoughts prompt is acting in a praise worthy manner; but that is neither the best nor the most efficient method, for it leaves undone the most important part of the work. It is control of only the physical part of the self, while the mental goes on without attention; this is repression, but repression is not true control. The thoughts and impulses of such a man have to be restrained, kept back, and resisted, even in their violence.

To have cast these thoughts out of the mind or to have destroyed them at once would have been to go to the fountain head of all activity and withdraw the poison that was polluting the stream. It would have been to remove the obstructions which had changed the direction of the stream, and which had turned it into wrong channels. This would have been true self-control, because control of the whole, and it would have left the stream to go freely on its own right way.

True self-control does not consist in restraining or resisting the action which is wrong, but it does consist in doing that which removes all appearance of necessity for resistance or restraint. It is not muscular control, nor control of the will; but it is control of that thinking which is anterior to will, and which creates both choice and will. In this method the will is not busied strenuously holding something in check; but choice discards discordant thoughts -- drops them out of mind – and the whole work is accomplished. One method is merely the act of choice; the other requires the vigorous, perhaps strenuous, exercise of will power. One soon releases the attention and becomes restful; the other demands constant attention and exhausts the energy. One is effective without weariness; the other is exhaustive and always results in some sort of failure, often in disaster.

If discordant thinking is given free course without more or less resistance or repression, control of the actions sooner or later becomes impossible, for such thoughts will ultimately do their work is one way or another. The boiler which does not furnish opportunity for escape of the steam must burst if the fire is kept up, but it does not need a skilled engineer to pull the fire out of the fire-box, and then explosion is impossible. Any man can do that; neither is the learning of the schools necessary to enable a man to stop his discordant thinking and thus save himself from its disastrous consequences. The simplest and humblest man in all the world can accomplish that if he chooses to do so.

Self-control in its completeness is really emancipation from the control of all other things than self; that is, it is emancipation from the domination of all those things which provoke discordant thinking. The man who allows himself to be mentally disturbed is really, to the extent of that disturbance, under the control of whatever suggested it, however entirely he may fail to recognize his condition. To practice the principle herein discussed releases him from the control of circumstances, conditions, and all those tendencies within and without which have before held him in thralldom. It frees him from everything except the necessity of controlling himself.

As already shown, this mental training will establish such habits that no attention need be given even to this control of self, because when the habit of any class of mental actions is once set up, they move on automatically, at least without any conscious care or attention, as those thoughts do which direct the pen in forming the letters when one is writing. That would be freedom from all control, even from self-control. The whole of this essay only shows that, when it is complete, "self-control," at last analysis, is a misnomer, because when one has accomplished it, he is released from even the control of himself.

But the question may be asked, would not such freedom result in wrong actions? The answer is that under the conditions which are necessary for the attainment of such freedom wrong actions would be impossible, because when one has reached this freedom he would have arrived at such an under- standing, and would have set up such mental habits based on that understanding, that there would no longer be any inclination toward wrong. Then error would no longer disturb the mind, because all of it would have been cast out with the erroneous or discordant thinking. Thus perfect self-control would result in the absence of all control whatever, because of the absence from the mind of every- thing that would need to be controlled.

This is the freedom of untrammeled childhood. It is the freedom of heaven. As a man approximates toward this ideal he departs from error and approaches truth, right, and perfect freedom.