that his attention,
naturally centered chiefly on the things at hand, largely determines
what he is. But we recognize that a man of trained mind can choose and
will to substitute for his present surroundings thoughts upon more
constructive things from past experience, or from future possibilities,
or from within the mind's own storehouse. His ability to largely modify
his life by his will, we recognize as man's greatest power.
_Adaptability_, emotional response, _suggestibility_, _attention_,
_thought-substitution_, _habit-formation_, and _will_ can minister
vitally to health, or can prove damaging avenues of disease.

NECESSITY OF ADAPTABILITY

Adaptability is as essential to life of mind as to life of body; and
health of mind as well as health of body is determined by the individual
ability to adjust himself to environment.

There are dreamers who have lived in their ideal world so long that they
cannot meet the stern realities of life when they come. The shock is too
great for the mind that has accepted only the fantastic, the real as the
dreamer would have it; and he lets go altogether his hold on the actual,
accepting the would-be world as present fact. And we call him insane.
Other visionaries wakened rudely to life as it is, accept it as
unchangeable fate, lose all their true ideals and become cynical, or
victims of utter depression for whom life holds nothing that matters.
Still others go on through the years self-satisfied and serene because
they simply refuse to believe unpleasant truths; they "pretend" that
their wishes are realities, and acknowledge as facts only the pleasant
things of existence. The first two groups have failed to adapt self to
life as it is, and the mind is lost or so damaged as to no longer serve
its body properly. The "pretenders" have adjusted themselves, and so
long as they can remain happily self-deceived all goes well for them,
though they complicate living for others. However, they have made an
adaptation, a defective one, it is true, but one through which the mind
may survive. Some of this class, however, finally build up a more and
more elaborate system of self-deception until they, too, are insane.

The practically adaptable man can dream dreams, but always recognizes
them as dreams, and can stop at will; can vision a beautiful ideal, but
comprehends that it is not yet reality, though it may some time become
so if he learns and fulfils the laws leading to its realization. T