The Relation of Will Power, Nerve Power and Emotion (Feeling)

It is very interesting to note that the intensity of emotion depends on the strength of the reflex action set up within the mind of a person. A man of nervous temperament, without strong will power, is highly exposed to external impressions. His heart feels them instantaneously.

Human body is similar to an electric conductor. Just like heat or any other form of energy travels through a conductor, external impressions travel to his heart or mind through nerve substance. A person with a soft nerve or heart shows immediate response to emotions of joy, love, pity, kindness, anger, hatred, etc., since he is very easily carried away by the stimulus. Similarly the sound of a musical creation can move a person of this type and give him immense or other feeling, relative to the mood of the musical composition.

When a person is equipoised with emotion and will, he tends to be well balanced from external impressions. When the nervous substance is a poor conductor of emotion, it absorbs the emotion, and reflex action is very slow and not positive. Similarly when his will power is very strong and the nerve substance is a non-conductor of emotion, he tends to be a mechanical decision-maker without much feeling or reflex action.

It is useful to understand the struggle between the will power and the nerve power or the reflex action and the reaction. This can be seen in the following figure.

Let O be the origin and X horizontally represents the line of increase of the power. OY vertically represents the line of increase of will power. The XOY quadrant is one which can show various values of a person's emotions with various constitutions and temperaments. When the will power and the nerve power are equal, the line OZ bisects the right angle (90 degrees) XOY, OZ represents a well balanced mind. The more the line OZ moves towards OY, will power becomes stronger and the nerve power becomes weaker and, as a result, soft feelings disappear. A person of this nature will normally be hard-hearted and can take strong decisions. People of this nature tend to be cruel, wicked and murderous too. They cannot be moved by a fine art form such as music. When OZ moves towards OX, the will power of a person becomes weaker and the nerve power increases. As a result, he becomes a very emotional person. A person of this nature tend to be very kind and softhearted. Hence we can say that the angle XOZ is musical and YOZ is non-musical. Also we see that qualities of people such as good, bad, capacity to appreciate music or any other form of fine art depends on the positions they occupy in the quadrant.

Some unmerciful dictators or rulers in world history would have been in the YOZ quadrant, according to the philosophy explained. Religious leaders fall into the category of equilibrium line OZ. Their kindness or the degree of softness made them resort to charitable deeds, help people in need and work for their salvation. At the same time, they were 100% strict in taking decisions without favouring any body. This happens probably due to the emotional line O moving either to OX or OY respectively.