earnestness as one would give to a game of cards; for in such a
half-way effort time will be lost and nothing come of it. Unless
entered on with the most serious resolve to persevere, and make
greater effort and more earnestly at every step, it had better be let
alone.

All who will persevere with calm determination cannot fail ere long to
gain a certain success, and this achieved, the second step is much
easier. However, there are many people who after doing all in their
power to get to the gold or diamond mines, hasten away even when in
the full tide of success, because they are fickle--and it is precisely
such people who easily tire who are most easily attracted, be it to
mesmerism, hypnotism, or any other wonder. And they are more wearisome
and greater foes to true Science than the utterly indifferent or the
ignorant.

This work will not have been written in vain should it induce the
reader to reflect on what is implied by patient repetition or
perseverance, and what an incredible and varied _power_ that man
acquires who masters it. He who can lead himself, or others, into a
_habit_ can do anything. Even Religion is, in fact, nothing else.
"Religion," said the reviewer of "The Evolution of the Idea of God,"
by GRANT ALLEN, "he defines as Custom or Practice--not theory, not
theology, not ethics, not spiritual aspirations, but a certain set of
more or less similar observances: propitiation, prayer, praise,
offerings, the request for Divine favors, the deprecation of Divine
anger, or other misfortunes"--in short, Ritual. That is to say, it is
the aggregate of the different parts of religion, of which many take
one for the whole. But this aggregation was the result of earnest
patience and had good results. And it is by the careful analysis and