BUILDING BRAINS.
When you were born you were, as all babies are, deaf, dumb, blind, and
helpless, but immediately the external world began to act upon you.
Then began the process of mind-building. You began to experience
sensations of heat and cold, of hunger, of pain. The eyes began at
once to recognize the light, the ears to become aware of sounds. After
a time, objects were made clear to your sight and certain sounds were
recognized. You learned your mother's face and voice, and, little by
little, became acquainted with all the objects in the world of home.
You began to use your limbs, and in this also you were at work
building your mind. We do not sufficiently realize that every aimless
movement of the baby has in reality a great purpose--that of creating
brainpower sufficient to enable the baby to control itself in all its
voluntary movements. We do not think that the fluttering hands and
little kicking feet are really building brains, but this is so. And
all of life's experiences have been building brain for you ever since.
Professor Elmer Gates tells us that only about ten per cent. of our
brains are cultivated, that there is a vast field of brain
possibilities lying undeveloped in each one of us, and that these
possibilities are to be developed through cultivation of the senses.
So while I have been talking to you of the care of your body, I have
been advocating that which will in reality develop mind.
We have learned that certain areas of brain govern certain movements
of body. For example, anatomists know not only where the general motor
area is located, but they can indicate the very spot where any special
motor-force is generated.
In the case of a mill girl who was subject to epilepsy and had pain in
her right thumb at each attack, it was decided to remove the part of
the brain which governed the motions of that thumb. This they could do
because they knew just where that motor-center lies, and yet they were
able to take out no more than that, for when the wound was healed she
had full use of all of her hand except the thumb.
We may know that by exercising a certain organ we are building up a
certain part of the brain. For example, the man who has cultivated his
hearing until he can hear sounds inaudible to ordinary men, has made
for himself more brain-cells in the hearing area. If he has cultivated
his sight assiduously, he has created more visual cells. If his touch
has been cultivated, his brain has received new touch
sensation-cells. And Professor Gates asserts that his mental ability
has been thereby increased. You will be interested in hearing of his
experiments with animals and what he has learned therefrom.
He says he has demonstrated that it is possible to give to an animal
or a human being more brains, and consequently a better use of the
mental faculties. During twelve months, for five or six hours a day,
he trained dogs to discriminate colors. He placed several hundred tin
pans, painted different tints, in the yard with the dogs. At one time
he put their food under pans of a certain tint. When they had learned
to go at once to these pans for their food, he changed the color.
Again he arranged it so that they would receive an electric shock if
they touched pans of any color save the particular one. They soon
learned to avoid all the pans except those of this tint. So, by many
different methods, he trained them to recognize shades and tints until
they could discriminate between seven shades of red and as many shades
of green, and in many ways they manifested more mental ability than
any untrained dog. While these dogs were being trained, another group
of dogs were being deprived of the use of sight by being kept in a
darkened room.
At the end of the year both groups of dogs were killed and their
brains dissected. He found that the dogs kept in the darkness had
less than the usual number of cells in the seeing areas, and the cells
were smaller, while the dogs which had been trained to discriminate
between tints and shades of color many times a day had a far greater
number of larger and more complex brain-cells in the seeing areas than
any dog of that age and species ever had before. "Therefore," says
Professor Gates, "mind activity creates organic structure."
Prof. Gates discovered other things of equal importance. He carried
his observations to successive generations, and found that the fifth
generation was born with a far greater number of brain-cells than
could be found in animals not descended from trained ancestors.
This is not only interesting, but of value. You will remember, in our
talk concerning your value, we spoke of your value to the race, and
learned that in cultivating yourself in any direction you were adding
to the welfare of future generations. That was only a general
statement, and now you can see how it can be. You see that if you can
make more brains for yourself you are also making more brains for your
posterity. Or if you fail to make brains for yourself, posterity will
in like degree be defrauded.
Many people have the idea that we are obliged to be satisfied with our
dower of mental ability, and so are excusable for failing to reach as
high a level as some others. If we really believed that we could
create brains we would not sit down and sigh over small mental
capacity, but go to work at once in building minds for ourselves.
And first, we must learn to control our thoughts and make them go
where we send them. In too many cases thoughts wander here and there,
with no power governing and guiding them.
When we are sauntering in the wood we sometimes come upon pathways,
and we know at once that many, many footsteps of men or animals have
been needed to make the paths. If those who walked here had wandered
each in his own way, no path would have been made. One pair of feet
going often over the same ground will make a path. So the thoughts,
traversing the same areas of brain, will make records on the
brain-cells which we may call paths. Every time a thought follows the
same line it creates a deeper impression, and makes it easier to go
over the same territory again. In this way habits are formed. If the
thoughts are good, the habits will be good; if evil, the habits will
be bad.
It is not hard to understand how much easier it is to form a habit
than to overcome it. The emotions, like the thoughts, create habits;
but, more than this, they create actual physical conditions.
It was my pleasure and profit once to have a conversation with
Professor Gates in his laboratory, and he showed me an instrument
wherein he condenses the breath. He then subjects it to a chemical
reagent, and by the precipitate formed he knows what was the mental
condition of the individual, whether he were angry, sorrowful or
remorseful. In five minutes after a fit of anger he finds the
excretory organs beginning to throw out the poison which anger has
created. Only five minutes suffice to create the poison, but half an
hour is none too much to eliminate it.
Think what must be the bodily state of one who is constantly irritated
or angry, who feels jealousy, hatred, or revenge. With body poisoned
by these malevolent passions he cannot feel well, for his physical
organs cannot do good work unless fed by pure blood. Professor Gates
finds that the benevolent emotions create life-giving germs in the
body; so, to love others is not only helpful to them, but it also
gives us new life.
Anger, worry, hatred, jealousy, are suicidal emotions. We cannot for
our own sakes afford to indulge in them, while from selfish reasons
alone we should be incited to kindness, generosity, sympathy, and
love.