essay on human mind

April 1, 2006

10 min read

Essay: The New Science of Mind

A forecast of the major problems scientists need to solve

By Eric R. Kandel

Understanding the human mind in biological terms has emerged as the central challenge for science in the 21st century. We want to understand the biological nature of perception, learning, memory, thought, consciousness and the limits of free will. That biologists would be in a position to explore these mental processes was unthinkable even a few decades ago. Until the middle of the 20th century, when I began my career as a neuroscientist, the idea that mind, the most complex set of processes in the universe, might yield its deepest secrets to biological analysis and perhaps do this on the molecular level could not be entertained seriously.

The dramatic achievements of biology during the past 50 years have now made this possible. The discovery of the structure of DNA by James Watson and Francis Crick in 1953 revolutionized biology, giving it an intellectual framework for understanding how information from the genes controls the functioning of the cell. That discovery led to a basic understanding of how genes are regulated, how they give rise to the proteins that determine the functioning of cells, and how development turns genes and proteins on and off to establish the body plan of an organism. With these extraordinary accomplishments behind it, biology assumed a central position in the constellation of sciences, in parallel with physics and chemistry.

Imbued with new knowledge and confidence, biology turned its attention to its loftiest goal: understanding the biological nature of the human mind. This effort, long considered to be prescientific, is already in full swing. Indeed, when intellectual historians look back on the last two decades of the 20th century, they are likely to comment on the surprising fact that the most valuable insights into the human mind to emerge during this period did not come from the disciplines traditionally concerned with mind--philosophy, psychology or psychoanalysis. Instead they came from a merger of these disciplines with the biology of the brain, a new synthesis energized recently by dramatic achievements in molecular biology.

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Mind Is Brain The result has been a new science of mind, a science that uses the power of molecular biology to examine the great remaining mysteries of life. This new science is based on five principles. First, mind and brain are inseparable. The brain is a complex biological organ of great computational capability that constructs our sensory experiences, regulates our thoughts and emotions, and controls our actions. The brain is responsible not only for relatively simple motor behaviors, such as running and eating, but also for the complex acts that we consider quintessentially human, such as thinking, speaking and creating works of art. Looked at from this perspective, mind is a set of operations carried out by the brain, much as walking is a set of operations carried out by the legs, except dramatically more complex.

Second, each mental function in the brain--from the simplest reflex to the most creative acts in language, music and art--is carried out by specialized neural circuits in different regions of the brain. This is why it is preferable to use the term "biology of mind" to refer to the set of mental operations carried out by these specialized neural circuits rather than "biology of the mind," which connotes a place and implies a single brain location that carries out all mental operations.

Third, all of these circuits are made up of the same elementary signaling units, the nerve cells. Fourth, the neural circuits use specific molecules to generate signals within and between nerve cells. Finally, these specific signaling molecules have been conserved--retained, as it were--through millions of years of evolution. Some of them were present in the cells of our most ancient ancestors and can be found today in our most distant and primitive evolutionary relatives: single-celled organisms such as bacteria and yeast and simple multicellular organisms such as worms, flies and snails. These creatures use the same molecules to organize maneuvering through their environment that we use to govern our daily lives and adjust to our environment.

Thus, we gain from the new science of mind not only insights into ourselves--how we perceive, learn, remember, feel and act--but also a new perspective of ourselves in the context of biological evolution. It makes us appreciate that the human mind evolved from molecules used by our ancestors and that the extraordinary conservation of the molecular mechanisms that regulate lifes various processes also applies to our mental life.

Because of its broad implications for individual and social well-being, there is now a general consensus in the scientific community that the biology of mind will be to the 21st century what the biology of the gene was to the 20th century.

A Systems Approach As we enter the 21st century, the new science of mind faces remarkable challenges. Researchers of memory storage, including my colleagues and me, are only standing at the foothills of a great mountain range. We have learned about the cellular and molecular mechanisms of memory storage, but now we must progress to the systems properties of memory. For example, which neural circuits are critical for which kinds of memory? How does the brain encode internal representations of a face, scene, melody or experience?

To develop an approach that relates neural systems to complex cognitive functions, we must focus on neural circuits, discerning how patterns of activity in different circuits merge to form a coherent representation. To learn how we perceive and recall complex experiences, we must determine how neural networks are organized and how attention and awareness shape and reconfigure neural activity in those networks. To accomplish these goals, biology must focus more on human beings and on nonhuman primates using imaging techniques that can resolve the activity of individual neurons and neuronal networks.

What Is Attention? These reflections have led me to wonder what scientific questions I would pursue were I to start anew. I have two requirements for selecting such a research problem. First, it must allow me to participate in opening a new area of research that will occupy me for a long time. (I like long-term commitments, not brief romances.) Second, the problem must lie at the intersection of two or more disciplines. Based on these criteria, three sets of questions appeal to me.

What is this spotlight of attention? How does it trigger the neural circuitry of spatial memory to encode information? Moreover, what modulatory brain systems turn on when an animal pays attention, and how are they activated? How does attention enable me to embark on "mental time travel" to the little apartment in Vienna where I grew up? To investigate these matters, we ought to extend our studies of memory beyond laboratory animals to human beings.

The second question is, How do unconscious and conscious mental processes relate to one another in people? The notion that we are unaware of much of our mental life--an idea that German physician and physicist Hermann von Helmholtz proposed in 1860--lies at the core of psychoanalysis. Only through understanding such issues can we address, in biologically meaningful terms, Sigmund Freuds theories proposed in 1899 about conscious and unconscious conflicts and memory. To Helmholtzs notion, Freud added the important observation that by paying attention, we can access some of our unconscious mental processes--ones that would otherwise go unnoticed.

Unconscious Mechanisms Seen from this perspective--a view that most neural scientists now hold--most of our mental life is unconscious. And we become aware of many otherwise inaccessible brain processes only through words and images. So, in principle, we should be able to use brain-imaging techniques to connect psychoanalytic processes with brain anatomy and neural functioning. Such a bridge might enable us to learn how disease states alter unconscious processes and how psychotherapy might help reconfigure them. Unconscious psychic processes play such a large role in our lives; perhaps biology can help us learn about them.

Another example involves male courtship in the fruit fly Drosophila. A key protein, called Fruitless, governs this instinctive behavior, and Fruitless is expressed differently in male and female flies. Ebru Demir and Barry J. Dickson, neuroscientists at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna, have made the remarkable discovery that when female flies express the male form of this protein, they mount and direct courtship toward other female flies--or toward males genetically engineered to produce a characteristic female odor, or pheromone. Dickson also found that for Drosophila to grow the neural circuitry for courtship and sexual preference, the Fruitless gene must be present and active during the flys early development. (If scientists add this gene later, instead, then it does not have the same effect.)

Still a third example comes from Giacomo Rizzolatti, a neuroscientist at the University of Parma in Italy. He discovered that certain neurons in the premotor cortex become active when a monkey carries out a specific action with its hand, such as putting a peanut in its mouth. Remarkably, the same neurons respond when a monkey watches another monkey (or even a person) put food in its mouth. Rizzolatti calls these cells "mirror neurons," suggesting that they offer insight into imitation, identification, empathy and possibly the ability to mime vocalization--all unconscious mental processes intrinsic to human interaction. Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, a neuroscientist at the University of California, San Diego, has found evidence of comparable neurons in the premotor cortex of humans.

Mental States Are Brain States Reflecting on just these three research strands, I can see whole new areas of biology opening up, providing a sense of what makes us social, communicative beings. An ambitious undertaking of this kind might not only reveal what enables members of a cohesive group to recognize one another but also give us insight into tribalism, which so often promotes fear, hatred and intolerance of outsiders.

Since the 1980s the path toward merging mind and brain research has become clearer. As a result, psychiatry has taken on a new role, both stimulating and benefiting from biological thought. During the past few years, even members of the psychoanalytic community have taken on a keen interest in the biology of mind, acknowledging that every mental state is a brain state, that all mental disorders involve disorders of brain function. Treatments work when they alter the brains structure and functioning.

To give a sense of how attitudes among researchers have changed in recent years, when in 1962 I turned from studying the hippocampus in the mammalian brain to studying simple forms of learning in the sea slug Aplysia , I encountered many negative reactions. At the time, there was a strong sense among brain scientists that mammalian brains differed radically from those of lower vertebrates, such as fish and frogs--and were incomparably more complex than invertebrate brains. The fact that Nobel Prizewinning neuroscientists, such as the late Alan Hodgkin, Andrew F. Huxley of the University of Cambridge and the late Bernard Katz, discovered the fundamental principles of signaling in the human nervous system by probing the neural axons of squids and the synapses joining nerves and muscles in frogs seemed to these mammalian chauvinists an exception. Of course all nerve cells are similar, they conceded, but neural circuitry and behavior differ markedly in vertebrates and invertebrates.

Of Flies and Men This schism persisted until molecular biologists revealed the amazing continuity--throughout evolution, from lower to higher organisms--of the genes and proteins governing all neural systems. Even then, disputes arose as to whether the cellular and molecular mechanisms of learning and memory revealed in simple animal studies would generalize to more complex animals. Neuroscientists argued about whether elementary forms of learning such as sensitization and habituation gave rise to forms of memory that would be useful to study. The ethologists, who study animal behavior in natural settings, emphasized the generality of these simple forms of memory, whereas the behaviorists highlighted associative forms of learning, such as classical and operant conditioning, which are clearly more complex.

The disagreements were eventually resolved in two ways. First, Seymour Benzer, a biologist at Caltech, proved that cyclic AMP, which is important for short-term sensitization in Aplysia , plays a critical role in more complex forms of learning, such as classical conditioning, in a more complex animal--namely, Drosophila . Second, the regulatory protein CREB, first identified in my laboratory in Aplysia , proved to be a key molecular component in switching from short- to long-term memory in many forms of learning and types of organisms, ranging from snails to flies, to mice and to people. Evidently, learning and memory, as well as synaptic and neuronal plasticity, or ability to change, involve a family of processes that vary in molecular subtleties but share various components and a common logic. In most cases, these discussions proved beneficial for science, sharpening questions and moving research forward. To me, the most important facet of the debates was the sense that we were progressing in the right direction.

These debates influenced my views, as did my psychiatric training and psychoanalytic interests, which lie at the very core of my scientific thinking. Together they shaped my perspective on mind and behavior, establishing overarching ideas that influenced nearly every aspect of my research and fueled my interest in conscious and unconscious memory.

Passion and Bold Discoveries Few experiences excite and stimulate the imagination more than discovering something new, no matter how modest. A new finding allows someone to see for the first time a small piece of natures puzzle. Becoming absorbed in a problem, I find it helpful to develop a comprehensive perspective by learning what previous scientists thought about it. I want to know not only which lines of thought proved productive but also where and why other lines proved unproductive. And so Freud, as well as other early researchers in learning and memory--such as the classic psychologists William James, Edward Thorndike, Ivan Pavlov, B. F. Skinner and Ulric Neisser of Cornell University--all strongly influenced my thought. Their thinking, and even the unproductive paths they followed, provided a rich cultural background for my later work. Thus, my initial aspirations in psychoanalysis were hardly a detour. Rather they became the educational bedrock of all that I have tried to learn.

It is important to be bold. One should tackle difficult problems, especially those that initially appear messy and unstructured. One should not fear trying new things, such as moving from one field to another or working at the boundaries of disciplines--where the most interesting problems often emerge. Most good scientists never hesitate to ask questions, explore unfamiliar terrain, follow their instincts or learn new science along the way. Nothing stimulates self-education more than pursuing a new area of research.

Defining a problem, or a set of interrelated problems, with a long trajectory is also critical for success. Early on I stumbled fortunately onto an interesting problem while studying the hippocampus and memory and then switched decisively to investigate learning in a simple animal. Both problems had enough intellectual sweep and scope to carry me through many experimental failures and disappointments.

As a result, I did not share the midcareer malaise of some colleagues who grew bored with their science and turned to other things. Rather I thrived on testing new ideas. My friend and colleague Richard Axel, a fellow neuroscientist at Columbia University who received the Nobel Prize in 2004 for his remarkable discovery that there are 1,000 different receptors for smell, often speaks about the addictive quality of reviewing in ones mind new and interesting findings. Unless Richard sees new data coming along, he becomes despondent--a feeling many of us share. Such is the constructive side of addiction, one that I have experienced in pursuit of my own lifelong passion--namely, to understand the cellular and molecular basis of mind.

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Search the internet for “the power of the mind,” and you’ll find some strange things: a program that promises to show you how to attract success simply by focusing on it, a great many nutritional supplements and a video purporting to show a Shaolin monk breaking things with his head. But beyond the hucksters and the hype, the mind actually can do some remarkable things, including shaping our health and well-being.

“Our minds aren’t passive observers, simply perceiving reality as it is. Our minds actually change reality,” said Alia Crum , an assistant professor of psychology and director of the Stanford Mind and Body Lab . Crum and other Stanford researchers – including many who recently took part in a World Economic Forum IdeasLab panel and Worldview Stanford’s Power of Minds meeting, both sponsored in part by the Stanford Neurosciences Institute – are bridging medicine, psychology, education, business and more to understand not just what our minds can do, but also how they do it.

Shaping health

Probably the best known way the mind shapes reality is the placebo effect, where people get better if they simply believe they are being treated for a disease. For ages, that was viewed as just an experimental hassle – something to take into account when testing the effectiveness of a new drug, for example.

It’s essential to recognize that mindsets are not peripheral, but central to health and behavior. —Alia Crum Assistant Professor of Psychology

Yet doctors are starting to rethink placebos not as a hassle but as an actual path to better health. After all, placebo effects and the underlying mindsets and social contexts that create them have real effects on health, from reducing anxiety and blood pressure to easing pain and boosting immune systems.

Crum and colleagues have shown that those effects extend beyond medicine per se. People who believe doing physical work in a job counts as exercise live longer lives , independent of how much exercise they actually get. Likewise, telling people a milkshake they drank was “indulgent” made them feel more full . Telling them a drink they were consuming had caffeine raised their blood pressure .

“It’s essential to recognize that mindsets are not peripheral, but central to health and behavior,” Crum said. “If we truly want to tackle the diseases and crises of our time, we need to more effectively acknowledge and leverage the power of mindset.”

Self-perceptions linked to shorter lifespans

Stanford researchers found that U.S. adults who believed that they were less active than their peers died younger than those who believed they were more active – even if their actual activity levels were similar.

Decadent-sounding labeling may lead people to eat more vegetables

Stanford psychology scholars applied indulgent labeling – flavorful, exciting descriptions usually used for decadent foods – to vegetables.

Experts urge more research on people’s mindsets

Stanford scholars, including psychology professor Alia Crum, encourage more healthcare professionals to place emphasis on the importance of people’s mindsets and social context in healing.

Embracing stress is more important than reducing stress, Stanford psychologist says

Kelly McGonigal says new research indicates that stress can make us stronger, smarter and happier.

Easing pain

Among the most important health care issues today is chronic pain. Although estimates vary widely, somewhere between 10 and 30 percent of all adults deal with ongoing pain of some kind, making pain more prevalent and costly than heart disease, diabetes and cancer combined, said Beth Darnall , a clinical professor of anesthesiology, perioperative and pain medicine.

Pain is highly responsive to each person’s psychology and mindset. —Beth Darnall Clinical Professor of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine

“Pain is highly responsive to each person’s psychology and mindset,” Darnall said. Those who expect worse pain, ruminate on it and feel helpless about it – what’s called pain catastrophizing – feel more intense pain, stay longer in hospitals after surgery and often require more painkillers. On the other hand, those who shift to a positive mindset feel less pain, spend less time in hospitals and require fewer pain medications.

“That presents an opportunity,” Darnall said. Over the last decade, she and her team have been working on relatively brief mindset interventions to help people train their brains away from pain, with lasting results. The interventions can help people with chronic pain suffer less, she said, and they can be used before or after surgery to aid in recovery. Darnall and Sean Mackey , the Redlich Professor and professor of anesthesiology, perioperative and pain medicine, recently received $4 million from the National Institutes of Health to study a similar intervention for patients with chronic back pain.

More recently, Darnall and colleagues turned their attention to opioid use.

“Many patients would like to reduce their opioid use but they believe and fear their pain will worsen if they do,” Darnall said. But with careful planning and support, she and colleagues showed , many patients could substantially reduce their doses without experiencing any more pain. Darnall is continuing to investigate that approach with help from a $9 million research award from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute.

5 Questions: Beth Darnall on opioids and pain management

A Stanford Medicine psychologist is helping patients reduce pain without opioids and prescription drugs. She offers practical steps for people to harness the power of their mind-body connection to reduce symptoms of pain and increase their quality of life.

Stanford study identifies brain areas altered during hypnotic trances

By scanning the brains of subjects while they were hypnotized, researchers at the School of Medicine were able to see the neural changes associated with hypnosis.

Surgeries found to increase risk of chronic opioid use

A new study reinforces the need for surgeons and physicians to monitor patients’ use of painkillers following surgery and use alternative methods of pain control whenever possible.

Virtual reality alleviates pain, anxiety for pediatric patients

Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford is one of the first hospitals in the country to begin implementing distraction-based VR therapy within every patient unit.

Growing smarter

Mindset matters for more than health, of course. How people think about themselves – in particular, whether they think traits like intelligence are malleable – can have a powerful effect on their success in school and beyond.

When people are in more of a growth mindset, they believe their qualities can be developed. —Carol Dweck Professor of Psychology

“When people are in a fixed mindset, they believe that their basic qualities – their intelligence, talents, abilities – are just fixed traits,” said Carol Dweck , the Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor and a professor of psychology. “But when people are in more of a growth mindset, they believe these qualities can be developed through effort, perseverance, good strategies, lots of great input from others.”

That idea has been applied most famously to education, where Dweck and colleagues have shown that children with a growth mindset do better in math and other subjects . But the same basic concepts apply to recovering from romantic breakups and even easing the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians .

Most important, even whether people have a growth mindset is subject to change. In 2015, for example, Dweck and colleagues demonstrated that 45-minute online interventions could raise grades and reduce dropout risk among underperforming high school students.

Stanford research explains why some people have more difficulty recovering from romantic breakups

Stanford psychologists found that rejection’s impact lingers as “heavy baggage” when people who tend to see personality as fixed respond to the rejection by questioning their true self.

Jewish, Palestinian-Israeli teens cooperate better after learning people can change

After teaching Jewish-Israeli and Palestinian-Israeli middle school students in Israel that groups of people are capable of change, Stanford researchers saw significant improvements in the teens’ cooperation.

Research shows how children can enjoy and succeed in math, Stanford expert says

Stanford Professor Jo Boaler says that research findings show how all students can learn to enjoy math and achieve at high levels without suffering from fear or failure.

Willpower is in your mind, not in a sugar cube, say Stanford scholars

The research challenges the popular view that willpower is a limited resource that depends on a consistent supply of glucose.

A sense of belonging

To Gregory Walton , an associate professor of psychology, belonging may be the most interesting mindset. When students question whether they belong in school, especially a school they value, Walton said, their classroom performance and health can suffer.

The most proximate determinant of how people behave is how they understand things, and you can change that. —Gregory Walton Associate Professor of Psychology

Part of the reason lies in how students explain setbacks to themselves. If students are already wondering whether they belong and then get criticized, excluded or left behind, it’s easy for them to interpret that as proof they don’t belong, leading them to withdraw. That exacerbates inequality, Walton said, since the burden of those worries falls most heavily on minority students and students from low socioeconomic status backgrounds.

Fortunately, there’s something to be done about it: Change the narrative. In 2011, Walton and Geoffrey Cohen , the James G. March Professor in Organizational Studies in Education and Business and a professor of psychology and of education, tested that idea by presenting a series of older students’ thoughts about college life to 92 first-year students. Those thoughts conveyed a sense that everyone has difficulty adjusting to college at first and that everyone can succeed.

The exercise lasted just an hour, but it worked. Especially for African American students, grades and even overall health improved throughout their college years – all, Walton said, because they had been given an alternate way to understand the struggles they encounter. Walton, Cohen and colleagues have since shown that even short online programs, designed to show that challenges with belonging are normal and get better with time, can help reduce social inequalities.

“The most proximate determinant of how people behave is how they understand things,” Walton said. “And you can change that.”

Online ‘mindset’ interventions help students do better in school, Stanford research shows

Stanford researchers found that brief internet-based interventions that instill a “growth mindset” and a sense of purpose can improve learning, especially for struggling students. These interventions could potentially reach vast numbers of students at low cost.

The power of realistic expectations

While many students experience difficulty acclimating to college, first-generation, low-income, and minority students are the hardest hit and most at risk of dropping out. Reading short narratives from upperclassmen detailing how they felt out of place at first, but gained a sense of belonging over time, could help change that.

Shielding a few students from stereotypes benefits everyone’s grades, Stanford research shows

Students received higher grades just from being in classrooms with African Americans who participated in a psychological experiment aimed at reducing the impact of negative stereotypes.

Self-affirmation plays role in minority students’ college success

African American and Latino students who completed self-affirming writing exercises in middle school took more challenging courses and were more likely to enroll in college, among other positive outcomes.

Crum is also a member of the Child Health Research Institute . Mackey is a member of Stanford Bio‑X , the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute , the Stanford Cancer Institute and the Stanford Neurosciences Institute .

Psychology Discussion

Essay on the human mind.

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Here is an essay on the human mind.

All the human beings have structurally the same brain but its functioning varies. The functioning determines success or failure, reward or punishment, rejection or honour of an individual.

Human mind in physiological terms is called brain which weighs approximately three pounds in an average adult human being. Mind controls, governs and guides the activities of the entire body system which in turn controls the heart beats, rate of respiration, the generative parts, the various glands and their secretions.

A person is what his mind is. Human mind is restless by nature and it creates a restless world around itself. The more it gets, the more it craves for. The vicious circle of endless desires intoxicates it and gradually it gives way to feelings of jealousy, pride and ambition and other demonic traits like enmity and egoism.

Human Mind is a multi-level phenomenon and there are certain areas of mind which cannot be reached by conscious ego of the individual. It may not be an exaggeration to say that each person is a mystery unto himself. Tension in mind affects temperament of a person and ungoverned temper affects the whole system of a human being including all organs, limbs and senses.

The Sankhya School of Indian Philosophy believes that the entire world including human being is a manifestation of male prakriti, which is constitute of:

(a) Sattwa,

(b) Rajas and

(c) Tamas Gunas.

Human body is a synthesis of Sattwa, Rajas and Tamas. Sattwa is indicator of happiness, virtue and knowledge. Rajas leads to action which rouses attachment and vision of multiplicity. Tamas casts a veil of ignorance over one’s mind and one falls asleep spiritually.

The combinations of these gunas determine the quality of a person in terms of sukh, dukh and moha. Sukh in terms of sincerity, respect, forbearance, kindness are sattwa qualities. Dukh in terms of spite, anger and other immoral emotions Eire Rajas qualities.

Moha in terms of fear, scepticism, and crookedness represent Tamas qualities. These three gunas are, therefore, regarded primarily as feelings which hold within themselves the germs of differences and diversities.

The identical nature of human mind is explained well by Yogic concept of Sahasra and Muladhara. In yoga, the, human brain is a mass of tissues, whose structure, composition, shape and form resemble the shape and form of a lotus flower.

The lotus has thousands of petals which are symbolized in the brain by a series of folds of ridges called a convolution of gunas. Like the lotus flower the brain is attached to its stem which is called the Spinal cord.

Further as lotus stem is rooted in the ground from which it receives nourishment, energy or life, so also the brain-stem (the spinal cord) is rooted in the Muladhara which is physiologically termed as Sacrum. According to the Yogic concept the source of all energy is Muladhara which acts like the root by serving as the source of energy, power and life to the lotus flower.

The other similarity of the brain and lotus flower is as follows:

Lotus grows in water and its stem is vertical in shape from the root upto the surface of water where it holds the flower. The spinal cord is also vertical from Muladhara upto the base of the brain. As lotus flower is on the top of its stem so is the Sahasra (the brain) on the top its stem (the spine) and they are surrounded by a fluid known as cerebrospinal fluid.

Muladhara is a Sanskrit word consisting of Mula which means the root and Adhara which means the foundation or the base. Muladhara is that part of porenium, where the anus and the genitals meet. In yogic concepts reproductive glands have been regarded as sources of energy.

The mental level disparity exists from a person to person because of differences of knowledge motivation values, interests, training disciplinary habits, way of life and inherent power. The composition and qualities of the mind at the time of birth are the same in all persons, but they start differentiating and varying due to the environment in which they are brought up.

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