experience--these were only the reaction. In that way, he said, he
removed the amount of fear from the mind of the patient which
otherwise might have been enough to cause the extra exertion to the
heart which would have proved fatal at the critical moment. The power
of thought, you see, and nothing else, then saved them.

To continue this line of reasoning in mental, not physical, things.
Supposing you feel angry and resentful towards some one, and you send
out thoughts of hate and ill-will. The pole in tune to such feelings
in that person will answer and return them to you, and a condition of
evil will be created. But supposing that, when perhaps the justly
angry and resentful thoughts present themselves, you replace them
instantly with kind and loving ones. You will have disconnected
yourself with the evil thoughts of the other person, they can no
longer reach you, and if he has any good in him you will have
connected yourself with that good, and so peace can be established.

All this is common sense, which is the only attitude of mind with
which to approach any new suggestion that we may get benefit from it,
and not through our arrogant ignorance dismiss it as nonsense, until
we have proved it to be such. A hundred years ago the telephone would
have been considered either as magic or the vapourings of a madman if
an individual had tried to explain it. We say that "France is
developing a new spirit," we say "A wave of discontent seems to be
passing over such and such a community," we are thus unconsciously
admitting the power of forces beyond the perceptible. Why cannot we
instantly grasp, then, what the power of our everyday thought is doing
for us, and how careful we should be in its direction to avoid
augmenting the current of foolish and harmful ones--because unity is
strength. There are many grains of good to be got out of all new
ethical teachings, if only they can be sifted by common sense. The
unfortunate part is, that very often it is only the faddists who
expound them, and they go off at a tangent. One reads several pages of
illuminating matter, and then, perhaps, one comes upon a chapter
devoted to proving that mankind must train itself to live upon nuts or
uncooked vegetables! Or that the only way to learn concentration is
for the pupil to school himself mentally to stare for so many minutes
at an imaginary spot in the solar plexus!

Common sense revolts, although many may not be sufficiently trained t