And this is the discovery:  Resolve before going to sleep that if there be anything whatever for you to do which requires Will or Resolution, be it to undertake repulsive or hard work or duty, to face a disagreeable person, to fast, or make a speech, to say “No” to anything; in short, to keep up to the mark or make any kind of effort that you WILL do it—­as calmly and unthinkingly as may be.  Do not desire to do it sternly or forcibly, or in spite of obstacles—­but simply and coolly make up your mind to do it—­and it will much more likely be done.  And it is absolutely true—­crede experto—­that if persevered in, this willing yourself to will by easy impulse unto impulse given, will lead to marvelous and most satisfactory results.

There is one thing of which the young or oversanguine or heedless should be warned.  Do not expect from self-suggestion, nor anything else in this life, prompt perfection, or the maximum of success.  You may pre-determine to be cheerful, but if you are very susceptible to bad weather, and the day should be dismal, or you should hear of the death of a friend, or a great disaster of any kind, some depression of spirits must ensue.  On the other hand, note well that forming habit by frequent repetition of willing yourself to equanimity and cheerfulness, and also to the banishing of repulsive images when they come, will infallibly result in a very much happier state of mind.  As soon as you actually begin to realize that you are acquiring such control remember that is the golden hour—­and redouble your efforts. Perseverando vinces.

I have, I trust, thus far in a few words explained to the reader the rationale of a system of mental discipline based on the will, and how by a very easy process the latter may, like Attention and Interest, be gradually awakened.  As I have before declared, everyone would like to have a strong or vigorous will, and there is a library of books or sermons in some form, exhorting the weak to awaken and fortify their wills or characters, but all represent it as a hard and vigorous process, akin to “storm and stress,” battle and victory, and none really tell us how to go about it.  I have indeed only indicated that it is by self-suggestion that the first steps are taken.  Let us now consider the early beginning of the art or science ere discussing further developments.

CHAPTER III.

WILL DEVELOPMENT.

“Ce domaine de la Suggestion est immense.  Il n’y a pas un seul fait de notre vie mentale qui ne puisse etre reproduit et exagere artificiellement par ce moyen.”—­Binet et Frere, Le Magnetisme Animal.

Omitting the many vague indications in earlier writers, as well as those drawn from ancient Oriental sources, we may note that POMPONATIUS or POMPONAZZO, an Italian, born in 1462, declared in a work entitled De naturalium