imple forgetfulness. It is
not force that we lack, but the skill to remember exactly what our
reason would have us do or think at the moment itself. How is this skill
to be acquired? It can only be acquired, as skill at games is acquired,
by practice; by the training of the organ involved to such a point that
the organ acts rightly by instinct instead of wrongly by instinct. There
are degrees of success in this procedure, but there is no such
phenomenon as complete failure.

Habits which increase friction can be replaced by habits which lessen
friction. Habits which arrest development can be replaced by habits
which encourage development. And as a habit is formed naturally, so it
can be formed artificially, by imitation of the unconscious process, by
accustoming the brain to the new idea. Let me, as an example, refer
again to the minor subject of daily friction, and, within that subject,
to the influence of tone. A man employs a frictional tone through
habit. The frictional tone is an instinct with him. But if he had a
quarter of an hour to reflect before speaking, and if during that
quarter of an hour he could always listen to arguments against the
frictional tone, his use of the frictional tone would rapidly diminish;
his reason would conquer his instinct. As things are, his instinct
conquers his reason by a surprise attack, by taking it unawares. Regular
daily concentration of the brain, for a certain period, upon the
non-frictional tone, and the immense advantages of its use, will
gradually set up in the brain a new habit of thinking about the
non-frictional tone; until at length the brain, disciplined, turns to
the correct act before the old, silly instinct can capture it; and
ultimately a new sagacious instinct will supplant the old one.

This is the rationale. It applies to all habits. Any person can test its
efficiency in any habit. I care not whether he be of strong or weak
will--he can test it. He will soon see the tremendous difference between
merely 'making a good resolution'--(he has been doing that all his life
without any very brilliant consequences)--and concentrating the brain
for a given time exclusively upon a good resolution. Concentration, the
efficient mastery of the brain--all is there!

XII

AN INTEREST IN LIFE

After a certain period of mental discipline, of deliberate habit-forming
and habit-breaking, such as I have been indicating, a man will begin to
acquire at any rate a superf