ildren
without panic.

Think for a moment what would have happened if the passengers of all
classes had been aware, from the first moment of the collision, that
all were bound to go down who could not find places in the boats. The
power of thought would then have created a mad panic of fear which no
officers' pistols could have kept in check, and which might have
produced a rush upon the lifeboats which would have swamped them all.
But as it was, the power of thought in the few individuals who
realised the general peril, was used by them in a godlike suppression
of their own emotion, which produced an answering vibration of calm in
the majority under their care.

I do not want to refer to the awful story except in so far as it is a
concrete illustration of what I wish to write about--the power of
thought examined with common sense in its relation to the happiness of
each individual, and the responsibility of its employment by each
individual for the benefit of the community--not from the desire to
use this opportunity to circulate propaganda for any of the new
ethical teachings, but simply from a common-sense point of view to see
what good we can get out of a belief that is, I suppose, common to
them all.

Now let us consider what most of us do actually know about this power
of thought. We all are aware that no picture can be painted, no
machinery invented, before a clear vision of it has been realised in
the creator's brain. Not a single conscious action can be put into
motion and force without its having first occurred to the imagination.
The painter's hand and brush would be of no avail undirected by his
brain or mind, which has first mentally visualised what it wishes to
create in fact. Draw the analogy from this, and you will see that what
you think about must have an enormous bearing upon your life. If
thought, when inspired by desire, is strong enough to cause the hand
to reproduce the vision of the imagination of the artist, this is an
incontestable proof that thought is a very strong force indeed. You
will agree with this if you--each individual who is reading these
words--begin to examine yourself with truth.

Admitted, then, that you perceive the force of thought. Now consider
what miserable thinking is likely to bring you. It, according to the
analogy above, can only eventually attract for you _in fact_ the
miserable conditions that you have dwelt upon in imagination. If, on
the contrary, you think con