PREFACE

THIS book comes to you as a Well-wisher, a Teacher, and a Prophet.

It will become a Teacher if you will honestly try to secure mental reaction upon it; that is, if you will resolve to THINK, to Think with it and to Think into it.

It will be Prophet of a higher and more successful living if you will persistently and intelligently follow its requirements, for this will make yourself a more complete “Manual of the Perfected Will”.

But remember! This book cannot think for you; THAT IS THE TASK OF YOUR MIND.

This book cannot give you greater power of Will;

THAT IS FOR YOURSELF TO ACQUIRE BY THE RIGHT USE OF ITS CONTENTS.

This book cannot hold you to persistence in self culture; THAT IS THE TEST OF YOUR WILL.

This book is not magical. It promises nothing occult or mysterious. It is simply a call to practical and scientific work.

If you will steadfastly go on through the requirements marked out, this book will develop within you highest wishes of welfare for self, it will make you a teacher of self, it will inspire you as a prophet of self brought to largest efficiency.

ALL NOW RESTS WITH YOU

PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION

“P OWER OF WILL” has been a pioneer in its chosen field -- the only book of its kind, the only kind of its class, the only class in the world. A number of writers, literary and otherwise, have since followed the pathway thus pointed out, some of them exhibiting scant regard for magnanimity, that virtue which, seemingly demanded by the much exploited "New Thought," is without spiritual littleness and is ever fair in acknowledgments. The author bids all such, take and confess if they are true knights of the larger age, but, an' they cannot stand so high, take for their own that which birth forbids creating, since our world life is so great, and in its abundance every mind may claim to live, even that of the humblest parasite. "Many a frog masquerades in the costume of a bird."

The kindness with which the book has been received, its literary deficiencies being overlooked in view of its practical purpose, and the evidences given by students that the work has helped many to a larger growth and a better self handling, have inspired the present revision.

The volumes of the Power-Book Library have sought always to be clear, plain, practical, sane and helpful, and neither chicanery nor suspicious "occultism" has to the author been conscious in mind or mood or work. The study of these books will vastly multiply the power of the man or woman, with or without a school education. Scholarship does not necessarily mean power, but the Library promises personal power whether the student be educated or uneducated, provided he is of average intelligence.

To all who follow the instructions, there will unfold, in the measure of effort and capacity, the four great fundamentals: Will Power, Mind Power, Magnetism and Practical Ability. This is a positive assurance.

As the present edition goes to press there is an army of over 100,000 students of "Power of Will." This is a record unequaled by any other book of a similar nature in the history of literature. With thousands of warm letters of praise from people in all walks of life who are being helped to a quick realization of their most cherished ambitions, the author feels that his long labor in preparing the following lessons has not been in vain.

And so, good fortune attend both the book and the student.

Statement of General Principles

1. The goal of evolution is psychic person. Person acts behind the mask of body. The basic idea of person is self determined unfoldment. The central factor in such unfoldment is Will. Will is a way person has of being and doing. A certain complex of our ways of being and doing constitutes mind.

Mind operates on two levels: one on that of awareness, the other on that of the subconscious. In the subconscious realm of person the evolutionary phases of heredity, habit, established processes, exhibit. In the field of awareness the phase of variation, both by reason of external stimulus and by reason of psychic freedom, appears.

But organized person is inherently restless. The Will exhibits the law of discontent. Restlessness of organism develops Will. Person unfolds by control and use of Will. The Will must take itself in hand for greatest personal completeness.

2. Personal life is a play between powers without and powers within the central function of Will. Personal life ends in subjection to such external powers, or rises to mastery over them.

3. The Will grows by directed exercise. Exercise involves the use of its own instruments; body, mind, the world. The only method which can strengthen and ennoble Will is that which puts into action itself in conjunction with its furniture. This method, persistently followed, is certain to give to the Will mighty power, and to enlarge and enrich person.

The Science of Our Present Ideal

The goal of the book before you may be presented by the following quotations from "Brain and Personality," by William Hanna Thomson, M.D.:

"A stimulus to nervous matter effects a change in the matter by calling forth a reaction in it. This change may be exceedingly slight after the first stimulus, but each repetition of the stimulus increases the change, with its following specific reaction, until by constant repetition a permanent alteration in the nervous matter stimulated occurs, which produces a fixed habitual way of working in it. In other words, the nervous matter acquires a special way of working, that is, of function, by habit.

"From the facts which we have been reviewing, we arrive at one of the most important of all conclusions, namely, that the gray matter of our brains is actually plastic and capable of being fashioned. It need not be left with only the slender equipment of functions which Nature gives it at birth. Instead, it can be fashioned artificially, that is, by education, so that it may acquire very many new functions or capacities which never come by birth nor by inheritance, but which can be stamped upon it as so many physical alterations in its protoplasmic substance.

"This well demonstrated truth is of far reaching significance, because it gives an entirely new aspect to the momentous subject of Education."It would seem to be perfectly evident that the more direct the efforts of education become, that is to say, the more surely attention is concentrated upon the alteration for improvement of nervous matter and the development of mental powers rather than to the mastering of objective studies, many of which must prove of little benefit in actual life, the more nearly will education approach its true goal, power in self and ability for successful handling of self with all its powers. This is the method of The Power-Book Library, the ideal of which is, not mastery of books, but sovereign use of the growing self. Most persons conceive of education vaguely as only mental, a training of the mind as such, with small thought that it involves physical changes in the brain itself ere it can become real and permanent. But as perfect examples of education as can be named are ultimately dependent upon the sound condition of certain portions of the gray matter which have been educated for each work. The brain must be modified by every process of true special education.

We can make our own brains, so far as special mental functions or aptitudes are concerned, if only we have Wills strong enough to take the trouble. By practice, practice, practice, the Will stimulus will not only organize brain centers to perform new functions, but will project new connecting, or, as they are technically called, association fibres, which will make nerve centers work together as they could not without being thus associated. Each such self created brain center requires great labor to make it, because nothing but the prolonged exertion of the personal Will can fashion anything of the kind." And, since the use of any human power tends to its growth, such labor as that suggested in the pages of this book cannot fail both to develop brain centers and also to unfold mind's power in Will.

THE POWER OF WILL

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The Science of Our Present Ideal

It is the masterful personal Will which makes the brain human. By a human brain we mean one which has been slowly fashioned into an instrument by which the personality can recognize and know all things physical, from the composition of a pebble to the elements of a fixed star. It is the Will alone which can make material seats for mind, and when made they are the most personal things in the body.

In thus making an instrument for the mind to use, the Will is higher than the Mind, and hence its rightful prerogative is to govern and direct the mind, just as it is the prerogative of the mind to govern and direct the body.

It is the Will, as the ranking official of all in man, who should now step forward to take the command. We cannot overestimate the priceless value of such direction, when completely effective, for the life of the individual in this world. A mind always broken in to the sway of the Will, and therefore thinking according to Will, and not according to reflex action, constitutes a purposive life. A man who habitually thinks according to purpose, will then speak according to purpose; and who will care to measure strength with such a man?

In short, the world has yet to learn, once for all, that men are not to be justified nor condemned by such superficial things about them as their opinions. Set the will right first, and men's opinions will follow suit, as soon as they have opportunities for knowing better; but the will remaining perverted, not the opportunities for knowing of an eternity will avail.

In fact man reigns here below only because he is responsible, and it is his will alone which makes him responsible.

Not a few of those whom they have known started out apparently well equipped, so far as mental gifts and opportunities for education and of social position could enable them to go far and ascend But one by one they lagged and suffered themselves to be outstripped by others, whom perhaps few suspected at the start would reach the first rank before them, because they appeared so much inferior in mental powers to the men whom ultimately they outdistanced wholly. Will direction explains it all. What is the finest mental machine in this life without will power?

The Science of Our Present Ideal

That majestic endowment (the Will) constitutes the high privilege granted to each man apparently to test how much the man will make of himself. It is clothed with ‘powers’ which will enable him to obtain the greatest of all possessions; self possession. Self possession implies the capacity for self restraint, self compulsion and self direction; and he who has these, if he live long enough, can have any other possessions that he wants.

And so, in the foregoing, you discover the reason and need for training your power to will. "It is the will that makes the man."

Your brain matter is your sole workshop for success in this world, and possibly the next too. What you do with this mysterious substance, the lines of action which you open up in it , the freedom with which thought processes are allowed to operate, the skill and swiftness with which you transform the mind's energy into visible reality, all rests with your will. You have in your brain an inexhaustible wealth. You can so develop your power of will that it will command the luxuries, the accomplishments, the marked successes, which potentially lie dormant in every human being.

Well spake the philosopher who said: "You are the architect of your own career." But the real wonder worker that builds your life structure in this world is: POWER OF WILL.