slow and expensive coach. Minds in sympathy—be the bodies those minds use far apart as they may—can send thought, ideas, and news to each other; and when more is found out how to use, keep, and train such minds, there will be unseen wires flashing intelligence across continents which no monopoly can grasp. The air also will be navigated by man, and with more speed than the railway train; for every need, every longing, every desire of human mind, is a thing, a power, a force, a thought, ever drawing to itself the means and power for material accomplishment.
The force which through countless ages has made man what he is, is to make him far more than he is.
Monopoly of iron rails and locomotives which owns states, and controls legislatures; monopoly of wires and telegraph-poles; monopoly of every thing,—is in time to be outflanked, not by the destructive force of violence, but by the stronger, the peaceful, the constructive force of new invention, which shall find out, by the so-called trivial, despised things of to-day, new powers in nature and new powers in man, which every man shall find it possible to use; and the wonder then will be that we did not find it out before.
To get force, talk your business, plan, or project over with those who are in full sympathy with you.
The successful business world constantly acts up to this law. Monopolies and powerful corporations are begotten through the originators putting their heads together, and talking the thing over. They so come together day after day, and talk. As the talk goes on, new ideas suggest themselves as to methods of action. The leading idea may seem to come from one man or mind. But it would never have so soon occurred to him, had it not been for the previous combination of the thoughts talked out, and put out, by different minds. The thought-elements from those different minds mingle; and out of such mingling, the new element, thought, idea, is born, and eventually expressed by some one of the group,—possibly by the man or woman who says least of all.
The greatest force, the clearest idea, will be developed where woman is a factor in such group.
If two persons combine in harmony their force of muscle to lift a heavy weight, they will lift it easier than one. If four persons so combine, they will lift it easier than two. The same law and result applies to mental force. Each one of us, consciously or unconsciously, sends out daily and hourly this silent mental force,—this invisible element we call thought, which affects favorably or unfavorably the persons of whom we think. It is the same force which may lift a box, a bag, a trunk. Only it may be differently applied.
If you have in view any enterprise or business, and you can meet at regular times two, four, six, or as many persons as heartily wish you success, and they hear your plan, and talk it over with you, always in earnest sympathy and good-will, you are having their co-operation in making for you a silent force which will aid you more than can any thing else. You will then the quicker find persons who are in sympathy with your purpose. People will come to you, or you will be led to people, who will-wish to aid you. They will be the persons who will need what you have to give. If you have a new knowledge, or a new truth, or a new invention, or a new device in art, or an improved wagon, or a chimney, or any thing in any way making life more comfortable and more happy, you will, through the power of co-operative demand or prayer, be the sooner brought in contact with the people who can aid you,—the people whom you need, and who need you. Your co-operative ill-wish is a co-operative curse,—there is power to harm in a curse. A curse is an ill-wish,—a prayer for evil. Prayer is simply thought sent out to a certain end or purpose. A curse or ill-wish is a force for evil. It works through a law which is merciless in its operation.
If three or four persons commence ill-natured gossip about another who is absent, and comment sarcastically concerning that person’s character or acts, they send them through the air an actual force or element which does the person of whom they talk harm. The person of whom they talk will feel the power so generated in some way. He will be made either despondent or captious, angry or irritable. All such states of mind in some way injure the body, unless the person talked of sends out constantly toward his enemies the thought of good-will. His good-will is the stronger force, and will turn aside the weaker force of their ill-will. That is the reason that the Christ advocated loving your enemies. The thought of good-will is the stronger power. We want power. We lose power when we send out to another any kind of ugly thought.
It is the peaceful non-combative thought in Quakerism that made the Quakers prosperous. Peaceful thought is constructive power. Ugly thought is always destructive power.
Christ discouraged all resort to blows or weapons, because he knew there was in the elements a more powerful force which could conquer, and that this power could be generated and used by the mind.
If you wish that your success in any business should involve an equal success for others, your thought or prayer has then the greater power for a real success than if you desire success for yourself alone, with little regard for others. A real success in life means, besides money enough for our needs and tastes, health, and the capacity to enjoy what money wisely expended may bring. A wise selfishness or self-interest will desire or pray heartily that all associated with us shall be equally as fortunate as ourselves. We do not want that our friends shall remain poor while we get rich. You do not want to see your friend obliged to reside in a hovel while you live in a palace. You do not want to see your friends in rags while you are decently attired. Neither do you want that your friends shall be dependants on you,—pensioners on your bounty. You want them equals with yourselves—equals with you in ability to hold their own—to “hoe their own row.”
We are, as members of society, all members of one body. If any member of that body is diseased in mind, or diseased in body, all the other members must in some way suffer. The more health of mind and body or relative perfection around us and near us, the more healthy and perfect shall we become.
There is a certain fascination in watching the working of a powerful steam-engine,—in seeing tons of iron, that a hundred men could with their hands barely lift, rise and fall with the elasticity of a rubber-ball, or in watching the never-ceasing pour of the waters of a Niagara. That is because it is in human nature to love force. Our spirits, in so contemplating such exhibitions of force, connect themselves closer with the element of force and draw then and add eternally to themselves more of this element; and this fascination and admiration of power is, at the same time, your prayer or desire for power, which is immediately answered. And there is great profit in watching for an hour the heave and roll and wash of the ocean-billows against the rocks. And that certain repose and quiet and dreaminess you may feel when in the ocean’s company, is because you are then actually absorbing of its element of force; you are then taking in a spiritual quality—force; and when you go away, you have gained more force to use in any way you choose,—in business, in some form of art, or the management of a family. And when at night, if but for a moment, you lift your eyes toward the countless stars, and try to realize that these are all suns with other earths wheeling around them; and that all the combined force of all the rivers, Niagaras, and oceans on our own little earth is, as compared with the force going on in what we see above us, but as the feeble might of a fly’s wing,—then you have spent another profitable moment in the actual absorption of that much-needed element—force. That is one way of getting force. You are then praying for force; for all intense admiration is true worship, and all true worship is prayer or demand for the quality admired in that which is worshipped.
VI.
THE DOCTOR WITHIN.
Thoughts are Things.
“Faith is the substance of things hoped for.” If you keep-in your mind an image, or imagination, of yourself in perfect health, and full of strength and activity, you keep the forces working to make you so. You are constructing
