ven officers I could only muster fifteen for the operations
of the attack. However, it was done,--and after it was done came the
collapse.

[Sidenote: _Enduring Power of Mind_]

"Don't be horrified when I tell you that for the whole of the actual
siege, and in truth for some little time before, I almost lived on
brandy. Appetite for food I had none, but I forced myself to eat just
sufficient to sustain life, and I had an incessant craving for brandy,
as the strongest stimulant I could get. Strange to say, I was quite
unconscious of its affecting me in the slightest degree.

"_The excitement of the work was so great that no lesser one seemed to
have any chance against it, and I certainly never found my intellect
clearer or my nerves stronger in my life._"

Such is the profound resourcefulness and enduring power of the human
mind.

CHAPTER II

RESERVES OF POWER

[Sidenote: _Man's Potential and Kinetic Energies_]

Stored-up energy not in use has been given a name by scientific men.
They call it _potential energy_. In this way it is distinguished from
_kinetic_ or circulating energy by which is meant energy that is at
work. For example, a ton of coal in the bin contains a certain amount
of potential energy, which is capable of being converted into kinetic
energy by combustion.

[Sidenote: _Holding the Top Pace_]

You have a vast amount of potential energy over and above what you
actually use. You have formed the habit of giving up trying a thing as
soon as you have spent the usual amount of effort on it, and this
without regard to whether or not you have accomplished anything.

While we all have the power of sustained mental activity, not one in
ten thousand of us holds to the top pace.

Worse still, even such mental energy as we do consume is dispersed and
scattered over a multitude of trivial interests instead of being
focused upon some one possessing aim.

_We intend to show you how you can lose yourself in your work with an
absorbing passion and how you can at any time make special requisition
upon your hidden stores of potential energy and draw new supplies of
power that will sweep you on to your goal._

[Sidenote: _Genius and the Master Man_]

More than anything else, it is the ability to do this that lifts the
great men of the race above the common run of mortals.

It is this that distinguishes genius from mediocrity. The master man
transforms his vast stores of reserve or potential energ