some mysterious influence that we
do not fully comprehend which makes sleep at night more restful than
sleep during the daylight. Those who go to bed at midnight or
thereafter use several hours of daylight in the early morning for
sleeping. I realize that there are nocturnal animals and that the human
race has developed nocturnal habits to a certain extent, but the human
race and the animal life of the world generally have followed the habit
through the ages of sleeping at night. Without doubt a revolutionary
change in this habit has more or less effect upon the restful character
of our sleep. Perhaps the mere question of light has much to do with
it. Daylight is stimulating. Light has a chemical action and tends
to stimulate animal metabolism. Darkness, or the lack of light, tends
to a restful condition. Without doubt this question of light has much to
do with the supposed benefits of sleep before midnight. The old saying
that "early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and
wise" may not hold true in the matter of wisdom and wealth in all
cases, but there is no doubt it has much to do with the development of
health and vitality.

CHAPTER XX: Mind-The Master-force for Health or Disease

We hear of many miraculous achievements in the building of health and
the cure of disease through mental influence. The mind is unquestionably
a master-force. I will not go so far as to say it is limitless, for
certainly a hungry man cannot imagine he is eating a dinner and
secure the same benefits that he would from the meal itself. Nor can a
man who is passing away into the other world, through a definite vital
defect, bring back life through mental force.

But we should remember that many diseases are to a great extent
imaginary. And some of those not actually imaginary may at least be
brought about through fears that are the results of abnormal delusions.
And where such diseases are combated by mental forces of the right sort,
a cure can be effected in many instances. In numerous cases, also, it
is well to remember that the mental state is the actual cause of
disease. You become blue, hopeless and to a certain extent helpless.
You see nothing in the future. Life is dull. Ambition, enthusiasm, have
all disappeared. It would not be at all difficult for this state of mind
to bring about disease in some form.

Health, strength, vitality of the right sort, should radiate all the