MAN AND HIS MIND

Thinking Capacity

By space the universe encompasses and swallows me as an atom; by thought I encompass it.

In all his apparent greatness, man must acknowledge how humble his condition is. This is man’s severest test.

—Blaise Pascal, (1623-1662)

French philosopher and scientist

MAN has been created by God with two opposing yet complementary qualities: the spiritual and the physical. On the one hand is his mind, in respect of which he finds himself limitless. He can think anything he wishes; there are simply no boundaries to his thinking.

Yet, in his physical existence, man is extremely limited. He is bound by innumerable kinds of constraints. The greatest limiting factor which man faces is death. Death nullifies all greatness in man.

This is man’s severest test. In all his apparent greatness, he must acknowledge how humble is his condition. Passing from a limitless to a limited environment, he must acknowledge the confines within which he lives. He must accept restrictions in an atmosphere of freedom.

Man is constantly under trial in this world. To pass all tests, he must learn his practical limitations vis-à-vis his intellectual limitlessness. By doing so, he can save himself from all misapprehensions, and can exercise his free will in the sphere of reality.

So far as animals are concerned, their thinking capacity barely goes beyond the immediate needs of survival. They are, in this sense, like living machines. By contrast, the area of man’s thinking is vast. The greatest test of humanity is to discover a balance between thinking and action.