PHYSICAL AND NERVOUS Leakages have been discussed in the two last lessons, and we come now to the third part of human existence and find losses flowing out of the magnetic fund of the mind as freely as in the other divisions of life. These are not so easily mended although they do great harm in lessening a person's influence in the world. Physicians say that more vitality is lost, and more injury is done to the system by means of mental waste than in any other manner. This waste takes place in a number of ways, and has two results:

1. It lessens the energy of every part of the body—mind, nerves, the functions of the organs, the power of digestion, the power of accurate thinking, the respiration and the circulation. It can be seen that it invades the duties of the Third Brain as well as its own. This result is called self-injury.

2. By its various exhibitions of weakness and defects, it invites the ill opinion of all persons who meet or associate with those who suffer such losses. This is called the inability to gain or hold the confidence of others; a quality that is absolutely necessary in any kind of effort to succeed in life.

Mental losses are double-acting, a danger that is charged at both ends and that weakens the person who is the victim of them, and repels others.

These losses are caused by some form of mental exhaustion, or a set of influences that lead to such wear and tear on the mind that it becomes a difficult task to control self or others.

The most, dangerous and at the same time the most prolific causeof mental exhaustion is WORRY. There are two kinds:

1. WORRY from causes that arise in the activities of life.

2. WORRY that is a mental disease.

The subject is almost unlimited, and all we can do is to suggest the methods that have been employed successfully in the pastto combat this trouble. A small library of books might be written about it.

It is not at all difficult to ascertain what are the causes that arise inthe activities of life. These can be learned by the careful plan of listing them as they become evident. From reports sent usin the past forty years, we found the average number to be in the neighborhood of six; the least to be one, and the greatest to be twelve; that is there were that many causes at work to cause worry. Half the victory is attained when you know what these causes are and can put them down in writing to be seen and studied. We have found that they all disappear under the training of this book taken as a whole; for that is one of its great purposes.

But worry that is a mental disease, is like cancer in the blood; it is there to stay for a while, and can be eradicated only by a strong uphill fight that, if waged in the right and by the right weapons, will bring victory. As that subject is not a part of the proper study of personal magnetism, but is a disease, all we can do is to express a willingness to make suggestions by written correspondence if the student cares to send a letter of inquiry to the publishers whose address is on the title page of this book.

Melancholy is a mental waste that not only destroys the person's vitality but deprives him of the good opinion and confidence of others without which there can be no successful association with them. For this and the next trouble, a perfect remedy is found in the Regime of Mental Magnitude which was presented in an earlier lesson of this volume. The next trouble referred to is known as

Pessimism.—This is the opposite of optimism. We have known of many men and women who have built up very successful systems of personal magnetism instinctively by employing optimism in combination with some method similar to that set forth in the Regime of Mental Magnitude. Optimism without the steering hand of good judgment and common sense, is mere gush; and there are men and women who pour out this kind of pap in the presence of their friends and acquaintances with no gains whatever unless some of these persons are themselves weak-minded. This effervescence is generally followed by periods of reaction in which melancholy prevails.

However the misuse of a good thing does not put the latter in disgrace.

The quickest way to accumulate personal magnetism, if a person wishes to secure results the very first day after this book has been read through in the manner we have stated, is to turn your mind into that of an optimist; but to be sure to harness it to the Regime of Mental Magnitude so that its work may be successful from the very start.

Do not go to the other extreme and slop over. Do not gush. Do not be flowery, as Scrooge said to Marley's ghost. Remember that optimism not given magnetic power by the Regime of Mental Magnitude, is a mere veneer, and can be seen through by any keen mind. Your mind should be keener than the keenest mind you meet in the battle of life.

Discouragement is another waster of magnetic energy. It is always traced to the inability to see opportunities for advancement in one's progress through the world; or, if seen, to be made to recognize the state of unpreparedness to take advantage of them. Such persons suffer the most acute mental reactions Youth is the time for making preparations for success; not for wasting the valuable hours. And the same law applies to middle life and any age in one's career. The man who when in middle life was not able to read or write and who afterwards employed every spare moment in educating himself and rose to the office of Vice President of the United States, might have lived and died a devotee to idle pleasures and frivolities. To conquer discouragement, it is necessary to move on in life. This means to spend less than you earn, to add every day something of real value to your stored knowledge, and to fit yourself for contact with, people who are worth knowing. Five minutes a day will in time give you control over those awful errors in speech that keep you down to the very dregs of existence. Five minutes a day will in time make you a decent speller and decent grammarian; yet bad spelling and bad grammar are the greatest barriers to progress in the business and social world. These are examples selected at random of some of the ways in which you can move on.

Surface Thinking.—Magnetism is the power of purpose intensely willed and carried to execution by the faculties. It is of necessity an act of the mind, as well as of the heart and nervous forces. Its enactment is planned in the brain and the method of accomplishing the end sought is built in the thinking powers.

The surface brain is a natural condition that allows the individual to enjoy much thinking without carrying the burden of thought.

The magnetic brain is deeper, and it becomes mightier as the depth is sounded.

Surface Thinking includes: Light reading, novel reading, newspaper reading, games, play, puzzles, cards, social intercourse, and many kinds of activities that do not come under the class of work or study.

These are mental desserts. The purpose of any dessert is to balance and give variety to the serious, the useful and the heavier duties of life, no matter what department is included. It is true of the stomach. It is true of the mind. A rich man can afford more desserts than the poor man, but the latter is blessed with his limited purse, for desserts weaken when they are out of balance.

It is arranged by nature that the mental desserts shall affect only the surface brain, as we call it in popular language. The purpose is to call the blood and activity from the deeper portions of the mind, and such relief is often a blessing. But there are useful ways of establishing the balance between the two brains.

A person whose duties are mostly muscular, is relieved by mental efforts of any kind.

A person whose duties are mostly mental is relieved by muscular toil or exercise.

In other words the sedentary person may seek variety in any use of the muscles, and the toiler may seek change in any use of the mind.

For the toiler to seek his relief in mental desserts, is to throw away the greatest opportunities he has of becoming a successful power in the world. He needs relief, but he will get it even in the hardest study. Why, then, should he use only the surface of his mind? History is full of instances where men who have worked with their muscles have also carried on the heaviest studies in the intervals, with the result that when their faculties were ripe, they leaped into power almost at a bound. But there is not a single instance in all history where the toiler has become useful in life, when he has turned from his labor to seek relief in mental desserts. This one fact speaks volumes.

It should find deep root in the lives of those who wish to rise from their humble stations. Let it be remembered that the greatest men and women of the past have come from the humblest ranks; but they have obeyed this instinctive law of life,

Personal magnetism is not an empty acquisition. It is based on something real; not on sham and pretence. The more you acquire in the mind, the more accomplishments you cultivate in the faculties, the greater will you become when these qualities are harnessed to the power of controlling your fellow beings.

By another law of balance, the realm of mental desserts is also the only realm of worry, apprehension, fear of the future, and gloomy forebodings of all kinds.

The woman who deems life made for mental desserts is the most wretched of all creatures; despite the effort she makes to establish the contrary belief in her friends. Her smiles are forced. She is burying under a mountain all those better gifts that God has placed in her charge, and she repays the trust by reading novels, playing cards, devoting her time to play or amusement and much worrying, with an ever-growing dislike for the sweeter and more serious things of life. It is surface thinking and the use of only the outer layer of the mind. Like the stomach that feeds on nothing but desserts, there comes a weakening and breakdown, a nervous unrest, or a tendency to hysterics, or other cloud upon her existence. She sees all the weakness of others, even in her own family, and they make her unhappy, all the while longing for some excitement and some form of stimulant in her pleasures, until at last her soul passes over to the morbid chasm.

Mental desserts have their time and place, but nobody can afford to make them the chief meal of the brain.

The millions of young men, and the countless thousands of grown men in this country who hate any form of mental action except desserts, are playing into the hands of those who pursue the laws of nature for more useful ends. That vitality which is magnetic and which gives to each person the power to rule self and others, springs from, the deeper usesof the mind than the surface. It is for this reason that few persons have any real mastery over themselves. In fact it is so hard to put down temptation that few care to essay it. The cravings for each and every kind of harm are so supreme in these weak lives, that vices are always on the increase. Surface thinking is a petty matter. The sensations of the press, the love for gossip, the criticism of neighbors, the reading ofmagazines, the perusal of novels, the study of puzzles, the playing of cards and other games, the idled hours in social affairs, the worship of fine attires, the fascination for races, for gambling and for games of chance: all these call into action the surface brain and weary the deeper mind by their effervescence. Most of them are harmless as far as actual injury is concerned; but they deprive the better faculties of their part in the plan of existence.

There can be no magnetism where there are only mental desserts to base it upon.

The athletes that win the great contests are not fed on pie or cake or pastry or ice cream or soda water or candy. Such a diet would at once place them beyond all hope of even entering the tournament. In fact, the rule is the opposite, for all desserts are denied them during the long period of their preparation.

We have often been asked to outline for the ambitious young man and woman, and the adult as well,—for no person is too old to study, and student life makes all young again—some studies that are most useful and that arouse the powers of the deeper brain; and we append our usual list at this place:

As thought lives in words, and as the great people of the world have been masters of words, we advise every ambitious person to learn the synonyms of English, the shades of meaning in English words, and their representative words in some other language, notably Latin. This is an interesting line of study, and soon becomes quite fascinating.

The greater the number of words that, a person is able to use intelligently and with shades of meaning, the greater the power of mind and thought that will be developed.