After a few years, compare the two violins again.  You will find that the one used by the tyros in music has deteriorated in its musical qualities, while the one in the hands of the artist has greatly improved in quality and purity of tone.  What is the reason?  The atoms and molecules in the wood of the two instruments have grouped themselves according to the discords or the harmonies that have been produced from them.

If this rearrangement of atoms is possible in dead wood, how much easier must be this adjustment of atoms, molecules and cells to discordant or harmonious vibratory influence in the living, plastic and fluidic human organism!

What harmony is to music, hope, faith, cheerfulness, happiness, sympathy, love and altruism are to the vibratory conditions of the human entity.  These emotions are in alignment with the constructive principle in Nature.  They harmonize the physical vibrations, relax the tissues and open them wide to the inflow of the life force.

Swedenborg truly says:  “The warmth of life is the heat of the divine love permeating and animating the universe.”  The more we possess of hope, faith, love and their kindred emotions, the more we open ourselves to the inflow and action of the vital energies.  The good-natured, cheerful, sympathetic person is more alive than the crabbed, morose or selfish individual.

It has been proved over and over again by everyday experience that mental and emotional conditions positively affect the chemical composition of the tissues and secretions of the body.  The destructive emotions of fear, worry, anger, jealousy, revengefulness, envy, etc., actually poison the fluids and tissues of the body.  The bite of an angry man may cause blood-poisoning and prove as fatal as the bite of a mad dog.  Sudden fear, anger or any other destructive emotion in the nursing mother may cause illness or even death of the infant.

In psychological laboratories it has been found by scientifically conducted experiments that under the influence of destructive mental and emotional conditions, the secretions and excretions of the body show an increase of morbid and poisonous elements.

Selfishness, fear and worry contract and congeal the blood vessels, the nerve fibers, and the other channels through which the life forces are conveyed from the innermost source of life to different parts and organs of the physical body.  The flow of the life currents is impeded and diminished.  Such are the actual physiological effects of fear, anxiety and egotism on the physical organism.

A man under the influence of great fear and one exposed to freezing present the same outward appearance.  In both cases death may result through the congealing of the tissues and the shutting out of the life currents.  The person afflicted with the worry habit may not die suddenly like the one overcome by great and sudden fear.  Nevertheless, the fear and worry vibrations maintained constantly will surely obstruct and diminish the inflow of the life force, lower the vitality and therewith the resistance to the encroachment of influences inimical to the health of the organism.