stem we are examining. Why regret a philosophy of evil, a mind-curer
would ask us, if I can put you in possession of a life of good?

After all, it is the life that tells; and mind-cure has developed a
living system of mental hygiene which may well claim to have thrown all
previous literature of the Diatetit der Seele into the shade. This
system is wholly and exclusively compacted of optimism: "Pessimism
leads to weakness. Optimism leads to power." "Thoughts are things,"
as one of the most vigorous mind-cure writers prints in bold type at
the bottom of each of his pages; and if your thoughts are of health,
youth, vigor, and success, before you know it these things will also be
your outward portion. No one can fail of the regenerative influence of
optimistic thinking, pertinaciously pursued. Every man owns
indefeasibly this inlet to the divine. Fear, on the contrary, and all
the contracted and egoistic modes of thought, are inlets to
destruction. Most mind-curers here bring in a doctrine that thoughts
are "forces," and that, by virtue of a law that like attracts like, one
man's thoughts draw to themselves as allies all the thoughts of the
same character that exist the world over. Thus one gets, by one's
thinking, reinforcements from elsewhere for the realization of one's
desires; and the great point in the conduct of life is to get the
heavenly forces on one's side by opening one's own mind to their influx.

On the whole, one is struck by a psychological similarity between the
mind-cure movement and the Lutheran and Wesleyan movements. To the
believer in moralism and works, with his anxious query, "What shall I
do to be saved?" Luther and Wesley replied: "You are saved now, if
you would but believe it." And the mind-curers come with precisely
similar words of emancipation. They speak, it is true, to persons for
whom the conception of salvation has lost its ancient theological
meaning, but who labor nevertheless with the same eternal human
difficulty. THINGS ARE WRONG WITH THEM; and "What shall I do to be
clear, right, sound, whole, well?" is the form of their question. And
the answer is: "You ARE well, sound, and clear already, if you did but
know it." "The whole matter may be summed up in one sentence," says one
of the authors whom I have already quoted, "GOD IS WELL, AND SO ARE
YOU. You must awaken to the knowledge of your real being."

The adequacy of their message to the mental needs of a large f