from the standpoint of practical utility and for the establishment of a scientific concept of the mind capable of everyday use.

The elucidation of every principle of mental operation will be accompanied by illustrative material pointing out just how that particular law may be employed for the attainment of specific practical ends. There will be numerous illustrative instances and methods that can be at once made use of by the merchant, the musician, the salesman, the advertiser, the employer of labor, the business executive.

In this way this Basic Course of Reading will lay a firm and broad foundation, first, for an understanding of the methods and devices whereby any man may acquire full control and direction of his mental energies and may develop his resources to the last degree; second, for an understanding of the psychological methods for success in any specific professional pursuit in which he may be particularly interested; and third, for an understanding of the methods of applying psychological knowledge to the industrial problems of office, store and factory.

The first of these—that is to say, instruction in methods for the attainment of any goal consistent with native ability—will follow right along as part of this Basic Course of Reading. The second and third—that is to say, the study of special commercial and industrial topics—are made the subject of special courses supplemental to this Basic Course and for which it can serve only as an introduction.

The conclusion which our minds are forced to draw from the facts presented in this chapter is not doubtful, nor is it difficult to state. Matter is not now being brought into existence by any means that we call "natural." And yet the facts of radioactivity very positively forbid the past eternity of matter. Hence, the conclusion is syllogistic: matter must have originated at some time in the past by methods or means which are equivalent to a real Creation.

In this Basic Course of Reading we shall show you how you may acquire perfect individual efficiency. And, most remarkable of all, we shall show you how you may acquire it without that effort to obtain it, that straining of the will, that struggling with wasteful inclinations and desires, that is itself the essence of inefficiency.

The facts and principles set forth in this Basic Course are new and wonderful and inspiring. They have been established and attested by world-wide and exhaustive scientific research and experiment.

You may be a college graduate. You may have had the advantage of a college course in psychology. But you have probably had no instruction in the practical application of your knowledge of mental operations. So far as we are aware, there are few universities in the world that embrace in their curricula a course in "applied" psychology. For the average college man this Basic Course of Reading will be, therefore, in the nature of a post-graduate course, teaching him how to make practical use of the psychology he learned at college, and in addition giving him facts about the mind unknown to the college psychology of a few years ago.

In these books you will probe deeply into the normal human mind.

You will see also the fantastic and distorted shape of its manifestations in disease.

You will learn the Eternal Laws of Individual Achievement.

And you will be taught how to apply them to your own business or profession.

But mark this word of warning. To comprehend the teachings of this Basic Course well enough to put them into practice demands from you careful study and reflection. It requires persistent application. Do not attempt to browse through the pages that follow. They are worth all the time that you can put upon them.

The mind is a complex mechanism. Each element is alone a fitting subject for a lifetime's study. Do not lose sight of the whole in the study of the parts.

All the books bear upon a central theme. They will lead you on step by step. Gradually your conception of your relations to the world will change. A new realization of power will come upon you. You will learn that you are in a new sense the master of your fate. You will find these books, like the petals of a flower, unfolding one by one until a great and vital truth stands revealed in full-blown beauty.

To derive full benefit from the Course it is necessary that you should do more than merely understand each sentence as you go along. You must grasp the underlying train of thought. You must perceive the continuity of the argument.

It is necessary, therefore, that you do but a limited amount of reading each day, taking ample time to reflect on what you have read.

If any book is not entirely clear to you at first, go over it again. Persistence will enable any man to acquire a thorough comprehension of our teachings and a profound mastery of our methods.

TWO LAWS OF SUCCESS-ACHIEVEMENT

CHAPTER II
TWO LAWS OF SUCCESS-ACHIEVEMENT

As a working unit you are a kind of one-man business corporation made up of two departments, the mental and the physical.

Your mind is the executive office of this personal corporation, its directing "head." Your body is the corporation's "plant." Eyes and ears, sight and smell and touch, hands and feet—these are the implements, the equipment.

We have undertaken to teach you how to acquire a perfect mastery of your own powers and meet the practical problems of your life in such a way that success will be swift and certain.

First of all it is necessary that you should accept and believe two well-settled and fundamental laws.

I. All human achievement comes about through bodily activity.

II. All bodily activity is caused, controlled and directed by the mind.

Give the first of these propositions but a moment's thought. You can conceive of no form of accomplishment which is not the result of some kind of bodily activity. One would say that the master works of poetry, art, philosophy, religion, are products of human effort furthest removed from the material side of life, yet even these would have perished still-born in the minds conceiving them had they not found transmission and expression through some form of bodily activity. You will agree, therefore, that the first of these propositions is so self-evident, so axiomatic, as neither to require nor to admit of formal proof.

The second proposition is not so easily disposed of. It is in fact so difficult of acceptance by some persons that we must make very plain its absolute validity. Furthermore, its elucidation will bring forth many illuminating facts that will give you an entirely new conception of the mind and its scope and influence.

Remember, when we say "mind," we are not thinking of the brain. The brain is but one of the organs of the body, and, by the terms of our proposition as stated, is as much the slave of the mind as is any other organ of the body. To say that the mind controls the body presupposes that mind and body are distinct entities, the one