It is tied up
with grief. We regard what is precious as stable; and yet we are
obliged to confess that nothing on earth is stable--nothing among
physical things, and just as little among mental and spiritual things.
But there are many kinds of change. We are apt to confuse them with
one another, and in so doing to carry over to the nobler sorts
thoughts applicable only to the lower. In beginning, then, the
discussion of self-development, I think it will conduce to clearness
if I offer a conspectus of all imaginable changes. I will set them in
groups and show their different kinds, exhibiting first those which
are most elementary, then those more complex, and finally those so
dark and important that they pass over into a region of mystery and
paradox.
III
Probably all will agree that the simplest possible change is the
accidental sort, that where only relations of space are altered. My
watch, now lying in the middle of the desk, is shifted to the right
side, is laid in its case, or is lost in the street. I call these
changes accidental, because they in no way affect the nature of the
watch. They are not really changes in it, but in its surroundings. The
watch still remains what it was before. To the same group we might
refer a large number of other changes where no inner alteration is
wrought.
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