efficiency in any habit. I care not whether he be of strong or weak
will--he can test it. He will soon see the tremendous difference between
merely 'making a good resolution'--(he has been doing that all his life
without any very brilliant consequences)--and concentrating the brain
for a given time exclusively upon a good resolution. Concentration, the
efficient mastery of the brain--all is there!




XII

AN INTEREST IN LIFE


After a certain period of mental discipline, of deliberate habit-forming
and habit-breaking, such as I have been indicating, a man will begin to
acquire at any rate a superficial knowledge, a nodding acquaintance,
with that wonderful and mysterious affair, his brain, and he will also
begin to perceive how important a factor in daily life is the control of
his brain. He will assuredly be surprised at the miracles which lie
between his collar and his hat, in that queer box that he calls his
head. For the effects that can be accomplished by mere steady,
persistent thinking must appear to be miracles to apprentices in the
practice of thought. When once a man, having passed an unhappy day
because his clumsy, negligent brain forgot to control his instincts at a
critical moment, has said to his brain: 'I will force you, by
concentrating you on that particular point, to act efficiently the next
time similar circumstances arise,' and when he has carried out his
intention, and when the awkward circumstances have recurred, and his