out a particle of outside authority_!

He rose and paced the floor. A tremendous idea seemed to be knocking
at the portal of his mentality.

What can the mind know? Assuredly nothing but the contents of itself.
But the contents of mind are thoughts, ideas, mental things. Do solid
material objects enter the mind? Certainly not! Then the mind knows
not things, but its _thoughts of things_. And instead of seeing,
hearing, smelling, tasting, and feeling solid material objects, the
mind sees, hears, smells, tastes, and feels--what? The contents of
itself! Its own thoughts and ideas! And the outer world? Is only what
the mind _believes_ it to be. But surely his mind saw an outer world
through the medium of his eye! No. His mind saw only its own concepts
of an outer world--and these concepts, being mental, might take on
whatever hue and tinge his mind decreed. In other words, instead of
seeing a world of matter, he was seeing only a mental picture of a
world. And that picture was in his own mind, _and formed by that
mind_!

The man seized his hat and hurried out into the night. He walked
rapidly the full length of the town. His mind was wrestling with
stupendous thoughts.

An hour later he returned to his house, and seizing a pencil, wrote
rapidly: Matter is mental. We do not see or feel matter, but we
_think_ it. It is formed and held as a mental concept in every human
mind. The material universe is but the human mind's concept of a
universe, and can only be this mentality's translation to itself of
infinite Mind's purely mental Creation.

"And so," he commented aloud, sitting back and regarding his writing,
"all my miserable life I have been seeing only my own thoughts! And I
have let them use me and color my whole outlook!"

He extinguished the candle and threw himself, fully dressed, upon his
bed.

CHAPTER 10

Momentous changes, of far-reaching effect, had come swiftly upon Jose
de Rincon during the last few days, changes which were destined after
much vacillation and great mental struggle to leave a reversed
outlook. But let no one think these changes fortuitous or casual, the
chance result of a new throw of Fate's dice. Jose, seeing them dimly
outlined, did not so regard them, but rather looked upon them as the
working of great mental laws, still unknown, whose cumulative effect
had begun a transformation in his soul. How often in his seminary days
he had pondered the scripture, "He left not Himself wi