on a particular
topic which I will give you.' Now, it doesn't matter what this topic
is--the point is to control and invigorate the brain by exercise--but
you may just as well give it a useful topic to think over as a futile
one. You might give it this: 'My brain is my servant. I am not the
play-thing of my brain.' Let it concentrate on these statements for
thirty minutes. 'What?' you cry. 'Is this the way to an efficient life?
Why, there's nothing in it!' Simple as it may appear, this _is_ the way,
and it is the only way. As for there being nothing in it, try it. I
guarantee that you will fail to keep your brain concentrated on the
given idea for thirty seconds--let alone thirty minutes. You will find
your brain conducting itself in a manner which would be comic were it
not tragic. Your first experiments will result in disheartening failure,
for to exact from the brain, at will and by will, concentration on a
given idea for even so short a period as half an hour is an exceedingly
difficult feat--and a fatiguing! It needs perseverance. It needs a
terrible obstinacy on the part of the will. That brain of yours will be
hopping about all over the place, and every time it hops you must bring
it back by force to its original position. You must absolutely compel it
to ignore every idea except the one which you have selected for its
attention. You cannot hope to triumph all at once. But you can hope to
triumph. There is no royal road to the control of the brain. There is no
patent dodge about it, and no complicated function which a plain person
may not comprehend. It is simply a question of: 'I will, _I_ will, and I
_will_.' (Italics here are indispensable.)

Let me resume. Efficient living, living up to one's best standard,
getting the last ounce of power out of the machine with the minimum of
friction: these things depend on the disciplined and vigorous condition
of the brain. The brain can be disciplined by learning the habit of
obedience. And it can learn the habit of obedience by the practice of
concentration. Disciplinary concentration, though nothing could have
the air of being simpler, is the basis of the whole structure. This fact
must be grasped imaginatively; it must be seen and felt. The more
regularly concentration is practised, the more firmly will the
imagination grasp the effects of it, both direct and indirect. After but
a few days of honest trying in the exercise which I have indicated, you
will perceive its