If there be dismay and confusion in the mind, this condition is telegraphically conveyed over the nerve trunks and filaments to every cell in the body, and as a result these little workers and soldiers become panic-stricken and incapable of rightly performing their manifold duties.

The cell system of the body resembles a vast army.  The mind is the general at the head of it.  The cells are the soldiers, divided into groups for special work.

Much of the work of an army is carried on through different well-established departments, as the commissariat, the hospital service, the scouts and pickets, etc.  Though the life and the activities of the army are so well regulated that they seem automatic, nevertheless much depends upon the commander.

The vital processes of the human organism, digestion, assimilation, elimination, respiration, the circulation of the blood, etc., are going on without our volition, whether we be awake or asleep.  These involuntary activities are impelled by the sympathetic nervous system, while the voluntary functions of the body are controlled through the motor [voluntary] nervous system.  This division, however, is not a sharp one, and the two departments frequently overlap one another.

The sympathetic nervous system resembles the commissarial department of the army, which attends to the material welfare of the soldiers, while the motor nervous system, with headquarters in the brain, corresponds to the commander with his executive staff, the nerve centers in the spinal cord and other parts of the body being the subordinate officers in the field.

While the physical well-being of the army depends upon the almost automatic work of its different departments, its mind and soul is the man commanding it.  He determines the spirit, the energy and the efficiency of the vast organization.

If the commander-in-chief lacks insight, force and determination, the discipline of the army will be lax and its efficiency greatly impaired.  If he is a craven, without faith in himself and in the cause he represents, his lack of courage, his doubt and indecision will communicate themselves to the whole army, resulting in discouragement and defeat.

The most successful commanders have been those who were possessed of absolute confidence in themselves and in the efficiency of their army, who in the face of gravest danger and discouraging situations pressed on to the predetermined goal with dogged courage and resolution.  Determination and pertinacity of this kind create the magnetic power which imparts itself to every individual soldier in the army and makes him a willing subject, even unto death, to the will of his commander.

When the plague was invading Napoleon’s army, that great general entered the hospitals where the victims of the plague were lying, took them by the hand and conversed with them.  He did this to overcome the fear in the hearts of his soldiers, and thus to protect them against the dread disease.  He said:  “A man whose will can conquer the world, can conquer the plague.”