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FRAGMENTS OF A PRISONER'S DIARY
is a physical process, response to stimuli from outside. It is a matter of common observation that animals react to stimuli similarly as human beings do. The stimuli are transformed into ideas and emotions by physico-chemical processes taking place in the body. Anatomically and physiologically, human body differs only quantitatively from the bodies of animals next lower in the stages of organic evolution. The human nervous system is more complicated. Even this much cannot be stated with scientific accuracy. There is only one reliable way to the knowledge of mental activity. It is the observation of bodily behaviour. The only bodily behaviour that distinguishes man from lower animals is speech, and speech is thinking aloud. But scrious thinking is done silently. Chatter-boxes are generally light-hearted and emptyheaded. As the wise old saying goes, silence is golden. When a man sits with his legs crossed in a very uncomfortable posture, his eyes shut or turned towards the navel, he is believed to be merged in deep meditation of the most cxalting significance. How do you know that I am not engaged in some sort of revealing spiritual exercise when I sit with all fours drawn under my belly, my eyes shut, not in slecp, but in a meditative mood? If you have the patience and power of observation; and (this is of more importance) if you can for a moment get over human egocentrism, you may find in my countenance signs of sublima
