Part 15

Impulse, on the contrary, only admits instinct as its source of existence.

It is the avowed enemy of common sense, which counsels the escape from exterior insinuations that one may concentrate, in order to listen to the voice which dictates to us the abstinence from doing anything until after making a complete analysis of the cause which agitates us.

Some philosophers have sought to rank inspiration under the flag of impulse, which they thought to defend; yes, even to recover esteem under this new form.

"We should know how to stand on guard," says Yoritomo, "against this fatal error."

"Inspiration," says he, "is rarely immobilized under the traits which characterized its first appearance.

"Before expressing itself in a work of art or of utility, it was the embryo of that which it must afterward personify.

"The ancients when relating that a certain divinity sprang, fully armed, from the head of a god, accredited this belief to instantaneous creation.

"If musicians, painters, poets, and inventors want to be sincere, they will agree that, between the thought which they qualify as inspiration, and its tangible realization, a ladder of transformations has been constructed, and that it is only by progressive steps that they have attained what seemed to them the nearest to perfection."

Impulse, then, is only distantly related to inspiration and intuition.

Let us add that these gifts are very often only the fruit of an unconscious mental effort, and that, most of the time, the thoughts, which in good faith one accepts as inspiration or intuition, are only nameless reminiscences, whose apparition coincides with an emotional state of being, which existed at the time of the first perception.

There, again, the presence of reasoning is visible, and also the presence of common sense, which tries to convert into a work of lasting results those impressions which would probably remain unproductive without the aid of these two faculties.

Impulses are, most of the time, the vassals of material sensations.

Definite reasoning and impartial judgment, inspired by common sense, are rarely the possession of a sick man.

Sufferings, in exposing him to melancholy, make him see things in a defective light; the effort of thinking fatigues his weak brain, and the fear of a resolution which would force him to get out of his inactivity has enormous influence upon the deductions which dictate his judgment.

Before discussing the advantages of conflict, he will instinctively resign himself to inertia.

If, on the contrary, his temperament disposes him to anger, he will compromise an undertaking by a spontaneous violence, which patience and reflection would otherwise have made successful. It is possible also that a valiant soul is unable to obey a weak body, and that instinct, awakened by fear, leads one on to the impulsive desires of activity.

Inadequate food or excessive nourishment can produce impulses of a different nature, but these differences are wholly and completely distinct as to character.

The most evident danger of impulses lies in the scattering of mental forces, which, being too frequently called upon, use themselves up without benefiting either reason or common sense.

The habit of indulging in movements dictated only by instinct, in suppressing all the phases of judgment leaves infinitely more latitude to caprice, which exists at the expense of solid judgment.

Perception, being related to that which interests our passions, by getting in direct contact with the action which should simply be derived from a deduction, inspired by common sense, multiplies the unreflected manifestations and produces waste of the forces, which should be concentrated on a central point, after having passed through all the phases of which we have spoken.

In addition, the permanency of resolutions is unknown to impulsive people.

Their tendency, by leading them on toward instantaneous solutions, allows them to ignore the benefits of consistency.

"They are like unto a peasant," said the old Nippon, "who owned a field in the country of Tokio. Scarcely had he begun to sow a part of the field when, under the influence of an unhappy impulse, he plowed up the earth again in order to sow the ground with a new seed.

"If he heard any one speak of any special new method of cultivation, he only tried it for a short while, and then abandoned it, to try another way.

"He tried to cultivate rice; then, before the time for harvesting it, he became enthusiastic for the cultivation of chrysanthemums, which he abandoned very soon in order to plant trees, whose slow development incited him to change his nursery into a field of wheat.

"He died in misery, a victim of his having scorned the power of consistency and common sense."

Now Yoritomo, after having put us on our guard against impulses, shows us the way to conquer these causes of disorder.

"To control unguarded movements, which place us on a level with inferior beings. That is," said he "in making us dependent on one instinct alone. This is," said he, "to take the first step toward the will to think, which is one of the forms of common sense.