784 THE PRINCIPLES OF SELF-CREATION
after many years of careful research, for I believe that one may just
as easily go a step further and "tune in" on the universal mind in which
all knowledge is stored.
To a highly orthodox mind, these statements may seem very
irrational. But to the student who has studied this subject, these
hypotheses seem not only possible but also absolutely probable.
COMMENTARY
As was noted in Lesson One, Introduction to the Master Mind, when Napoleon
Hill was writing this book in 1927, the two founders of modern psychology,
Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, were still developing their theories of how the
human mind worked.
In the time since, much of Freudian psychology has been supplanted by
other theories and techniques. But this is not true of Jung. If anything, Jungian
psychology has gained greater acceptance. It is interesting to note that one of
the cornerstones of Jung's theory is what he called the collective unconscious,
a concept that is not dissimilar to what Hill is proposing here as well as in his
explanations of the Master Mind.How did we acquire the knowledge that we possess concerning the
physical laws of this earth? How did we learn what has taken place
before our time, and during the uncivilized period? We gathered
this knowledge by turning back the pages of Nature's bible and
there viewing the unimpeachable evidence of millions of years of
struggle among animals of a lower intelligence. By turning back the
great stone pages, we have uncovered the bones, skeletons, footprints,
and other unmistakable evidence that Mother Nature has held for
our inspection throughout unbelievable periods of time.
Now we are turning our attention to another section of Nature's
bible-a history of the great mental struggle that has taken place in