Your mind is merely a machine, nothing more. You have no command over it, it has no command over itself--it is worked solely from the outside. That is the law of its make; it is the law of all machines.
"What is Man?"

I like to see my mind perform according to the law which I have laid down in "What Is Man"; the law that the mind works automatically, & plans & perfects many a project without its owner suspecting what it is about; the mind being merely a machine, & not in even the slightest degree under the control of its owner or subject to his influence.
- Letter to W. D. Howells, 4/17/1909