We modify it. We direct
something, mean something. No longer idle drifters on the tide,
through our desires we bring that tide our way. And in the sense of
self-directed power we find a satisfaction, great or small according
to the magnitude of our undertaking.
In such a catalogue of the elements of action as has just been given
there is something uncanny. Can we not pick up a pin without going
through all six stages? Should we ever do anything, if to do even the
simplest we were obliged to do six things? Have I not made matters
needlessly elaborate? No, I have not unduly elaborated. We are made
just so complex. Yet as a good teacher I have falsified. For the sake
of clearness I have been treating separately matters which go
together. There are not six operations, there is but one. In this one
there are six stages; that is, there are six points of view from which
the single operation may advantageously be surveyed. But these do not
exist apart. They are all intimately blended, each affecting all the
rest. Because of our dull faculties we cannot understand, though we
can work, them _en bloc_. He who would render them comprehensible
must commit the violence of plucking them asunder, holding them up
detachedly, and saying, "Of such diverse stuff is our active life
composed." But in reality each gets its meaning through connection
with all the others.
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