"The Secrets of Mental Supremacy.."

Now let us understand at once that what is commonly called "education"--that is, a mere knowledge of facts--no matter how extensive it may be, does not necessarily confer the power of associating or grouping ideas in such a manner that they are readily avail- able for purposes of speaking, writing, or thinking. Indeed I have known men of vast learning who could not talk well, who could not write well, who could not even think well. A well stored mind--that is, mere erudition, while it can be acquired only by a per- son with a good memory, does not by any means necessarily imply the power of association.

One who possesses unusual power of associating ideas is always interesting; often brilliant. His ideas are, as I have said, like threads knotted together. Each idea suggested to him calls up in his mind many related ideas. In the mind of the merely erudite man, for instance, the mention of the word "horse" will arouse few, if any, other mental pictures. In the mind, however, of the person who has the power of association the idea "horse" awakens a large number of interesting thoughts. There is the horse so superbly described in the biblical poem, Job.

There is the famous horse Bucephalus, the war charger of Alexander the Great, whom only he could ride. The person with strong power of association remembers, too, the wonderful horse, Kantara, ridden by Gautama, the Buddha. Then he thinks of the horse of Darius which, by neighing at the critical moment, caused his master to be elected king of Persia Darius the Great.

He recalls to mind the story of the great wooden horse, inside of which the Greek soldiers were smuggled into Troy, to the downfall of that city. And lastly, the man with trained powers of association will be able to tell you something about the interesting history of the horse, both before and since it was first tamed and ridden many thousands of years ago by Melizeus, King of Thessaly.

And so with any other subject you might suggest to him. In the mind of such a person every idea is intimately associated with many other more or less related ideas; and, even though his actual stock of information may be small, his mental images are so closely connected and so quickly recalled that the practical power and usefulness of his mind is greater than in the case of another person with a larger stock of knowledge and inferior power of association.

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