| Summary: | This book considers the true mechanical relations of the thinking principle and adds a few hints as to the false mechanical relations which have intruded themselves into the sphere of moral self-determination. The author defines that part of mental and bodily life mechanical which is independent of volition. The flow of thought is, like breathing, essentially mechanical and necessary, but incidentally capable of being modified to a greater or less extent by conscious effort. The more we examine the mechanism of thought, the more we shall see that the automatic, unconscious action of the mind enters largely into all its processes. However, it is in the moral world that materialism has worked the strangest confusion. In various forms, under imposing names and aspects, it has thrust itself into the moral relations, until one hardly knows where to look for any first principles without upsetting every thing in searching for them. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).
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