But the man with the most refreshingly eager mind toward new ideas, I know, the mind the most brilliantly open—which fairly glistens inside with eagerness, glistens outside, too.
The only thing there is to go by, in telling a man with a non-porous mind, is to try gently—changing it, and see what happens.
XXIV
MACHINE-MINDEDNESS
The various forms I have mentioned of the malady of being fooled by oneself, all practically boil down to one in the end—one cause which we have to recognize and avoid—automatism, the lack of conscious control of the mind—letting oneself be rolled under the little wheels in one's head.
The main central cause operating with people when they are being fooled about themselves, is machine-mindedness.
A man's body being a great storehouse of psycho-mechanical processes and habits makes his mind react automatically, and when some one calls him a fool or acts with him as if possibly he might have moments of being fooled about himself, the man's whole nature like a spring snaps his mind back into self-defense, and instead of being grateful and thoughtful as a rational or second-thought person always is, he lets his subconscious self take hold of him, tumtum him along into showing everybody how perfect he is.
Everybody knows how it is.