le value.

The idea is gaining ground that a great deal of what is called
hereditary disease is transmitted from parent to child, not physically
but mentally--that is to say, by means of adverse suggestions
continually renewed in the child's mind. Thus if one of the parents
has a tendency to tuberculosis, the child often lives in an atmosphere
laden with tuberculous thoughts. The little one is continually advised
to take care of its lungs, to keep its chest warm, to beware of colds,
etc., etc. In other words, the idea is repeatedly presented to its
mind that it possesses second-rate lungs. The realisation of these
ideas, the actual production of pulmonary tuberculosis is thus almost
assured.

But all this is no more than crystallised common-sense. Everyone knows
that a cheerful mind suffuses health, while a gloomy one produces
conditions favourable to disease. "A merry heart doeth good like a
medicine," says the writer of the Book of Proverbs, "but a broken
spirit drieth the bones." But this knowledge, since it lacked a
scientific basis, has never been systematically applied. We have
regarded our feelings far too much as _effects_ and not sufficiently as
_causes_. We are happy because we are well; we do not recognise that
the process will work equally well in the reverse direction--that we
shall be well because we are happy. Happiness is not only the result
of our conditions of life; it is also the creator of those conditions.
Autosuggestion lays weight upon this latter view. Happiness must come
first. It is only when the mind is ordered, balanced, filled with the
light of sweet and joyous thought, that it can work with its maximum
efficiency. When we are habitually happy our powers and capabilities
come to their full blossom, and we are able to work with the utmost
effect on the shaping of what lies without.

Happiness, you say, cannot be ordered like a chop in a restaurant.
Like love, its very essence is freedom. This is true; but like love,
it can be wooed and won. It is a condition which everyone experiences
at some time in life. It is native to the mind. By the systematic
practice of Induced Autosuggestion we can make it, not a fleeting
visitant, but a regular tenant of the mind, which storms and stresses
from without cannot dislodge. This idea of the indwelling happiness,
inwardly conditioned, is as ancient as thought. By autosuggestion we
can realise it in our own lives.

CHAPTER VII