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 influence. You will grow accustomed to the idea, at
first strange in its novelty, of the brain being external to the supreme
force which is _you_, and in subjection to that force. You will, as a
not very distant possibility, see yourself in possession of the power to
switch your brain on and off in a particular subject as you switch
electricity on and off in a particular room. The brain will get used to
the straight paths of obedience. And--a remarkable phenomenon--it will,
by the mere practice of obedience, become less forgetful and more
effective. It will not so frequently give way to an instinct that takes
it by surprise. In a word, it will have received a general tonic. With a
brain that is improving every day you can set about the perfecting of
the machine in a scientific manner.




V