d have formed no opinion but that
one?

O.M. Spontaneously? No. And YOU DID NOT FORM THAT ONE; your machinery
did it for you--automatically and instantly, without reflection or the
need of it.

Y.M. Suppose I had reflected? How then?

O.M. Suppose you try?

Y.M. (AFTER A QUARTER OF AN HOUR.) I have reflected.

O.M. You mean you have tried to change your opinion--as an experiment?

Y.M. Yes.

O.M. With success?

Y.M. No. It remains the same; it is impossible to change it.

O.M. I am sorry, but you see, yourself, that your mind is merely a
machine, nothing more. You have no command over it, it has no command
over itself--it is worked SOLELY FROM THE OUTSIDE. That is the law of
its make; it is the law of all machines.

Y.M. Can't I EVER change one of these automatic opinions?

O.M. No. You can't yourself, but EXTERIOR INFLUENCES can do it.

Y.M. And exterior ones ONLY?

O.M. Yes--exterior ones only.

Y.M. That position is untenable--I may say ludicrously untenable.

O.M. What makes you think so?

Y.M. I don't merely think it, I know it. Suppose I resolve to enter upon
a course of thought, and study, and reading, with the deliberate purpose
of changing that opinion; and suppose I succeed. THAT is not the work
of an exterior impulse, the whole of it is mine and personal; for I
originated the project.

O.M. Not a shred of it. IT GREW OUT OF THIS TALK WITH ME. But for that
it would not have occurred to you. No man ever originates anything. All
his thoughts, all his impulses, come FROM THE OUTSIDE.

Y.M. It's an exasperating subject. The FIRST man had original thoughts,
anyway; there was nobody to draw from.

O.M. It is a mistake. Adam's thoughts came to him from the outside. YOU
have a fear of death. You did not invent that--you got it from outside,
from talking and teaching. Adam had no fear of death--none in the world.

Y.M. Yes, he had.

O.M. When he was created?

Y.M. No.

O.M. When, then?

Y.M. When he was threatened with it.

O.M. Then it came from OUTSIDE. Adam is quite big enough; let us not try
to make a god of him. NONE BUT GODS HAVE EVER HAD A THOUGHT WHICH DID
NOT COME FROM THE OUTSIDE. Adam probably had a good head, but it was of
no sort of use to him until it was filled up FROM THE OUTSIDE. He was
not able to invent the triflingest little thing with it. He had not a
shadow of a notion of the difference between good and evil--he had to
get the idea FROM THE OUTSIDE. Neither he nor