Now I have found that by suggesting to oneself before sleep, or inducing self by Will or Forethought to work gladly and unweariedly the next day, we do not think about self or the quality of what we do to any degree like what we would in working under ordinary conditions.  Truly it is not thoroughgoing or infallible in all cases, but then it must be helped by a little wide-awake self-conscious will.  But this is certainly true, that we can turn out better work when we urge our creative power to awake in the morn and act or aid, than if we do not.

    “For there are many angels at our call,
    And many blessed spirits who are bound
    To lend their aid in every strait and turn;
    And elves to fly the errands of the soul,
    And fairies all too glad to give us help,
    If we but know how to pronounce the spell
    Which calls them unto us in every need.”

That spell I have shown or explained clearly enough.

And, finally, to recapitulate, Instinct in its earlier or simpler form is the following laws of Nature which are themselves formed by motive laws.  In Man the living according to Tradition is instinct of a higher order, and the one or the other is merely being ruled by Suggestion.  The more free Will is developed and guided by reflection, or varied tradition and experience, the less instinct and the more intellect will there be.

CHAPTER VII.

MEMORY CULTURE.

    ’Twas wisely said by Plato, when he called
    Memory “the mother of the Intellect,”
    For knowledge is to wisdom what his realm
    Is to a monarch—­that o’er which he rules;
    And he who hath the Will can ever win
    Such empire to himself—­Will can do all.

There is nothing in which the might of the Will can be so clearly set forth as in the making of memory.  By means of it, as is fully proved by millions of examples, man can render his power of recollection almost infinite.  And lest the reader may think that I here exaggerate, I distinctly assert that I never knew a man of science, familiar with certain facts which I shall repeat, who ever denied its literal truth.

As I have already stated, there are two methods, and only two, by means of which we can retain images, facts or ideas.  One of these is that which in many varied forms, which are all the same in fact, is described in the old Artes Memorandi, or Arts of Memory.  There are several hundreds of these, and to the present day there are professors who give instructions according to systems of the same kind.  These are all extremely plausible, being based on Association of ideas, and in most cases the pupil makes great progress for a short time.  Thus, we can remember the French for bread, pain, Italian Pane, by thinking of the pan in which bread is baked, or the difficult name of the inventor, SSCZEPANIK (pronounced nearly she-panic) by thinking of a crowd of frightened women, and which I remembered by the fact that pane is the Slavonian for Mr. or Sir.  For there is such a tendency of ideas to agglutinate, and so become more prominent, as we can see two bubbles together in a pool more readily than one that we can very soon learn to recall many images in this way.