ng merely sermons in books and only stones in running
brooks. Sir Philip Sidney had a saying, 'Look in thy heart and write;'
Massillon explained his astute knowledge of the human heart by saying,
'I learned it by studying myself;' Byron says of John Locke that 'all
his knowledge of the human understanding was derived from studying his
own mind.' Since multiform nature is all about us, originality ought not
to be so rare."[8]

_The Thinking Mind_

Thinking is doing mental arithmetic with facts. Add this fact to that
and you reach a certain conclusion. Subtract this truth from another and
you have a definite result. Multiply this fact by another and have a
precise product. See how many times this occurrence happens in that
space of time and you have reached a calculable dividend. In
thought-processes you perform every known problem of arithmetic and
algebra. That is why mathematics are such excellent mental gymnastics.
But by the same token, thinking is work. Thinking takes energy. Thinking
requires time, and patience, and broad information, and clearheadedness.
Beyond a miserable little surface-scratching, few people really think at
all--only one in a thousand, according to the pundit already quoted. So
long as the present system of education prevails and children are taught
through the ear rather than through the eye, so long as they are
expected to remember thoughts of others rather than think for
themselves, this proportion will continue--one man in a million will be
able to see, and one in a thousand to think.

But, however thought-less a mind has been, there is promise of better
things so soon as the mind detects its own lack of thought-power. The
first step is to stop regarding thought as "the magic of the mind," to
use Byron's expression, and see it as thought truly is--_a weighing of
ideas and a placing of them in relationships to each other_. Ponder this
definition and see if you have learned to think efficiently.

Habitual thinking is just that--a habit. Habit comes of doing a thing
repeatedly. The lower habits are acquired easily, the higher ones
require deeper grooves if they are to persist. So we find that the
thought-habit comes only with resolute practise; yet no effort will
yield richer dividends. Persist in practise, and whereas you have been
able to think only an inch-deep into a subject, you will soon find that
you can penetrate it a foot.

Perhaps this homely metaphor will suggest how to begin