Key of Knowledge

SR No.: 006702
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown
Publication Year: 1919
Total Pages: 1204
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 25 MB

Page 101

80
THE KEY OF KNOWLEDGE.
with all our knowledge of natural forces and natural laws. But it cannot be contended that the physiological balance-sheet has ever been so accurately struck, that we are entitled to say, not one thousandth part of a grain more of force has been exerted by any organised body, or in any part of it than has been derived from the known primary forces of the material world. If that were so, it would absolutely negative the existence of will; for if will is any thing, it is a power that directs the action of the forces stored up in the body, and it is not conceivable that this direction can take place, without the exercise of some force in some part of the organism. However delicately a machine may be constructed, with the most exquisitely contrived detents to release a weight or spring by the exertion of the smallest possible amount of force, some external force will always be required: so, in the animal machine, however minute may be the changes required in the cells or fibres of the brain, to set in motion the nerve currents which loosen or excite the pent-up forces of certain muscles, some force must be required to effect those changes. If it is said, 'those changes are automatic, and are set in motion by external causes,' then one essential part of our consciousness, a certain amount of freedom in willing, is annihilated : and it is inconceivable how or why there should have arisen any consciousness or any apparent will, in such purely automatic organisms. If this were so, our apparent Will would be an illusion, and Professor Huxley's belief that our volition counts for something as condition of the course of events,' would be fallacious, since our volition would then be but one link in the chain of events counting for neither more nor less than any other link whatever."-(Natural Selection and Tropical Nature, p. 211).
That will is a kind of force has been recently demonstrated by a neat little invention, with a delicately poised needle which shifts its position when subjected to the action of will. But one hardly requires a mechanical device to prove the potency of will as a force ; just stand up for a moment, and think what force it was which lifted up your fourteen stones of bodily weight, if not your will alone.