icial 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
brain, disciplined, has done its work, and so prevented
unhappiness--then that man will regard his brain with a new eye. 'By
Jove!' he will say; 'I've stopped one source of unhappiness, anyway.
There was a time when I should have made a fool of myself in a little
domestic crisis such as to-day's. But I have gone safely through it. I
am all right. She is all right. The atmosphere is not dangerous with
undischarged electricity! And all because my brain, being in proper
condition, watched firmly over my instincts! I must keep this up.' He
will peer into that brain more and more. He will see more and more of
its possibilities. He will have a new and a supreme interest in _life_.
A garden is a fairly interesting thing. But the cultivation of a garden
is as dull as cold mutton compared to the cultivation of a brain; and
wet weather won't interfere with digging, planting, and pruning in the
box.

In due season the man whose hobby is his brain will gradually settle
down into a daily routine, with which routine he will start the day. The
idea at the back of the mind of the ordinary man (by the ordinary man I
mean the man whose brain is not his hobby) is almost always this: 'There
are several things at present hanging over me--worries, unfulfilled
ambitions, unrealised desires. As soon as these things are definitely
settled, then I shall begin to live and enjoy myself.' That is the
ordinary man's usual idea. He has it from his youth to his old age. He
is invariably waiting for something to happen before he really begins to
live. I am sure that if you are an ordinary man (of course, y