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Self-Development and the Way To Power
L. W. Rogers
Written in 1922. The
electronic version is courtesy of
Project Gutenberg
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What is the law of soul growth? Through adherence to
what principle may we reach spiritual illumination?
There are certain well established facts about the laws
of growth that we should not overlook when seeking the
way forward. Nothing whatever can grow without use,
without activity. Inaction causes atrophy. Physiologists
tell us that if the arm be tied to the body so that it
cannot be used it will in time become so enfeebled, that
it is of no further service. It will wither away. That
is nature's law of economy. She never gives life where
it is useless, where it can not, or will not, be
utilized. On the other hand, exercise increases power.
To increase the size and strength of muscles we must use
them. This is just as true of mental and moral faculties
as it is of the physical body. The only way to make the
brain keen and powerful is to exercise it by original
thinking.
One way to gain soul powers is to give free play to the
loftiest aspirations of which we are capable, and to do
it systematically instead of at random. We grow to be
like the things we think about. Now, the reverse of all
this must be equally true. To give no thought to higher
things, to become completely absorbed in material
affairs, is to stifle the soul, to invite spiritual
atrophy.
Turning our attention
to nature we shall find in the parasite convincing proof
of all this. The parasite, whether plant or animal, is
living evidence that to refuse or neglect to use an
organ or
faculty results in being deprived of it. The dodder,
says Drummond, has roots like other plants, but when it
fixes sucker discs on the branches of neighboring plants
and begins to get its food through them, its roots
perish. When it fails to use them it loses them. He also
points to the hermit-crab as an illustration of this
great fact in nature, that disuse means loss, and that
to shirk responsibility is the road to degeneration.
The hermit-crab was
once equipped with a hard shell and with as good means
of locomotion as other crabs. But instead of
courageously following the hardy life of other
crustaceans it formed the bad habit of taking up its
residence in the cast-off shells of mollusks. This made
life easy and indolent. But it paid the price of all
shirking. In time it lost four legs, while the shell
over the vital portion of its body degenerated to a thin
membrane which leaves it practically helpless when it is
out of its captured home. And this is the certain result
of all shirking of responsibility.
There may be an
apparent temporary gain, but it always means greater
loss, either immediate or remote. So nature punishes
inaction with atrophy. Whatever is not used finally
ceases to be. In plain language, apathy, inaction,
idleness, uselessness, is the road to degeneration. On
the other hand, aspiration and activity mean growth,
development, power.
So we grow, physically, mentally and morally, by
activity, by exercise of the organs or the faculties we
desire to possess. It is only by the constant exercise
of these things that we can grow at all. When this great
law of nature is understood we see at once how it is
that life is full of trouble; why it is that the whole
visible world seems to be designed to keep us constantly
at work physically and mentally, to challenge our
resourcefulness in improving our physical, social and
political conditions, to continually try our patience
and to forever test our courage. It is the way of
development. It is the price of progress.
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