Article May 6, 1950 Issue

Signs of the Times

with contributions from Norman G. Shidle, George W. A. Laws, J. Rahe-Hughes, James Reid

Norman G. Shidle in the Society of Automotive Engineers' Journal
New York, New York

It is easy to be misled by too firm adherence to the idea that "seeming is believing." The great spiritual leaders have always recognized and preached the relative unreality of what the everyday senses reveal. Science tends to back up their philosophies, the further it goes in development of modern theories of matter.

And ..., the American Institute of Physics reports, .. Ralph M. Evans said categorically: "What we see depends as much on ourselves and our experiences as on the external reality which light present to our eyes, ... The mind must contribute an idea of the object and what it contributes depends largely on background and attitude." To see beauty, in other words, it would seem that we must have some idea of beauty in our background or attitude. To see friendliness or attitude, our own thinking needs to be friendly. To see decency, cheerfulness, honesty, or willingness, we must have mental activity of our own which is receptive to such "ojects." More than light bounces back to our mind's eye when we look at something or somebody. We are as much responsible for what we see as is the object or personality seen.

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