function is to keep the imagination centred in the right direction. We are
aiming at consciously controlling our mental powers instead of letting them
hurry us hither and thither in a purposeless manner, and we must therefore
understand the relation of these powers to each other for the production of
external results. First the whole train of causation is started by some
emotion which gives rise to a desire; next the judgment determines whether
we shall externalize this desire or not; then the desire having been
approved by the judgment, the will comes forward and directs the
imagination to form the necessary spiritual prototype; and the imagination
thus centred on a particular object creates the spiritual nucleus, which in
its turn acts as a centre round which the forces of attraction begin to
work, and continue to operate until, by the law of growth, the concrete
result becomes perceptible to our external senses.

The business of the will, then, is to retain the various faculties of our
mind in that position where they are really doing the work we wish, and
this position may be generalized into the three following attitudes; either
we wish to act upon something, or be acted on by it, or to maintain a
neutral position; in other words we either intend to project a force, or
receive a force or keep a position of inactivity relatively to some
particular object. Now the judgment determines which of these three
positions we shall take up, the consciously active, the consciously
receptive, or the consciously neutral; and then the function of the will is
simply to maintain the position we have determined upon; and if we maintain
any given mental attitude we may reckon with all certainty on the law of
attraction drawing us to those correspondences which exteriorly symbolize
the attitude in question. This is very different from the semi-animal
screwing-up of the nervous forces which, with some people, stands for
will-power. It implies no strain on the nervous system and is consequently
not followed by any sense of exhaustion. The will-power, when transferred