Thus we find that the human organism consists of two distinct parts or departments, the one acting independently of the ego and deriving its motive force from an unknown source and the other under the conscious and voluntary control of the ego.
This two-fold nature of the human entity justifies the two-fold attitude of mind and soul, on the one hand the prayerful and faithful dependence upon that mysterious power which flows into us and controls us through the sympathetic nervous system and on the other hand the conscious and voluntary dominion over the various faculties, capacities and powers with which Nature has endowed us.
It is our privilege and our duty to maintain both attitudes, the dependent as well as the independent. The desire and the will to plan, to choose and to perform are ours, but for the power to execute we are dependent upon a Higher Source.
Chapter XXXVI
The Symphony of Life
Human life appears to me as a great orchestra in which we are the players. The great composition to be performed is the "Symphony of Life," its infinitude of dissonances and melodies blending into one colossal tone picture of harmony and grandeur. We players must study the laws of music and the score of the Great Symphony and we must practice diligently and persistently, until we can play our part unerringly in harmony with the concepts of the Great Composer. At the same time we must learn to keep our instrument, the body, in the best possible condition; for the greatest artist, endowed with a profound knowledge of the laws of music and possessed of the most perfect technique, cannot produce musical and harmonious sounds from an instrument with strings relaxed or overtense, or with its body filled with rubbish.
The artist must learn that the instrument, its material, its construction and its care are just as subject to law as the harmonics of the score.
In the final analysis, everything is vibration acting in and on the universal ethers, which are held to be the primordial substance. Possibly the ethers themselves are modes of vibration.
That which is constructive is harmonious vibration. That which is destructive is inharmonious or discordant vibration.
Against this it may be urged that devolution has its harmonics as well as evolution, that every symphony is made up of dissonances as well as of harmonies. To this I answer: "Unadulterated harmony may, solely for lack of change, become monotonous; but discords alone never create melody, harmony, health or happiness."