To Think as He Ought…

Further as to the thoughts we think, and our responsibility for all our actions and words: This subject seems somehow to be summarized in a single sentence from Pascal, who said: “Man is obviously made to think. It is his whole dignity and his whole merit; and his whole duty is to think as he ought.”

It follows, of course, that if he thinks as he ought he will do as he ought, for thought is the forerunner of all action and utterance.

It is the power to think, to reason, to choose, that sets man apart, that gives him his high destiny if he uses well what the Lord God has given. It is with our thoughts, and the physical fulfillment of our thoughts, that we are all writing our own record⎯a record which one eminent scientist has said “is written in indelible script in space and time.”

Of course we should not always think the same things. (Obsessions can be as undesirable as too much trivia.) We all need diversity of thought, some relaxation, some change of pace, some leisure, but not so much that idle and evil thoughts are invited to enter in.

What we need, all of us, always, is control: self-control, self-discipline, control of thought, appetite, utterance, action; the control to turn our attention to what we want to turn it to, to what we ought to turn it to, with an awareness that we are making of ourselves what we shall be, that “what we are to be, we are becoming”⎯which fact would plead the importance of controlling self; of turning to the positive and purposeful use of life, of mind, time talent; of directing to right ways the whole intent of the heart⎯of thinking what we ought to think, and refusing to succumb wrong ways.

“Man is obviously made to think. It is his whole dignity and his whole merit; and his whole duty is to think as he ought.”