A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

THE REAL AND THE APPARENT MAN. 205the energy. There is a great modern discussion goingon as to whethe^ this aggregate of materials we call thebody is the cause of manifestation of the force we callthe soul and thought, etc., or whether it is the thoughtthat manifests this body. The religions of the world, ofcourse, hold that the force called thought manifests thebody, and not the reverse. There are schools of modernpeople who hold that what we callthought is simplythe outcome of the adjustment of the parts of themachine which we call body. Taking the second position, that the soul of the mass of the thought, or however you may call it, is the outcome of this machine fthe outcome of the chemical and physical combinations ofmatter making up the body and brain, the question remains unanswered. What makes the body? What forcecombines all these molecules into the body form ? Whatforce is there which takes up from the mass of matteraround and forms my body one way, another bodyanother way, and so on ? What makes these infinitedistinctions ? To say that the force called soul is theoutcome of the combinations of the molecules of thebody is putting the cart before the horse. How did thecombinations come : where was the force to make them ?If you say some other force was the cause of thesecombinations and that soul was the outcome of that matter, and that soul, which combined a certain mass ofmatter, was itself the result of the combinations, itis no answer. That theory ought to be taken whichexplains most of the facts, if not all, and without contradicting other existing theories. The force which takesup the matter and forms the bodyis the same whichmanifests through that body, and this is more logical.To say therefore that the thought-forces manifested by the