Thinking, Our Greatest Propensity
Excerpt from Schizophrenia, Alfred J. Parker
Thinking is our greatest propensity. To be logical and consistent with our scientific development, our thinking should be upon a universal plane, despite our finite existence; we should attempt to realize the vastness and profundity of life and time, and should pattern our concept and theory or religious dogma upon a profound, universal, and eternal scale—not limited to a few hundred years' existence, for so doing would place religious theory as equal to that of a flyspeck upon the Pacific Ocean.
For time immemorial humanity has personalized and symbolized life in all is phases; each person is a microcosm of the macrocosm, i.e., an individualized universe unto oneself, composed of the finite and infinite planes, a body and a mind, the latter being the channel of consciousness to the brain cells. This channel called mind must steadily grow and unfold the channel of consciousness or wisdom, or become submerged in the throes of emotion. If this occurs, we feel rather than think, and all our thoughts and actions are illogical and confused; we fail to distinguish good from evil, and fail to find balance. It is quite apparent that there is a lack of basic thinking in this world of ours, because there is no basic plan of life showing our relationship and responsibility to our source of being and our physical existence.
It seems strange that science has not learned to connect the alphabet and mathematics with human mind and thinking. How could we create conscious thinking without having symbols through which to think? Not that the letters of the alphabet are Consciousness in its greatest essence, but how can a musician produce harmony on a piano without a keyboard of language and mathematical tension through the strings?