"The Secrets of Mental Supremacy.."

And how shall this tendency be overcome? By what means may we gain the power of bringing every faculty of the mind to bear upon the task of the moment, without allowing any of our thought or attention to wander into other directions.

It is very simple--simple, but not at first easy. Merely refuse to let the mind wander. Be the master of your mind--of yourself. Remember what Milton says: "He who is master of himself is king of men." But of course you want more specific directions than this. It is easy to say, "concentrate"; but you need to know exactly how to concentrate.

Remembering that attention is merely the act of applying the mind, the entire mind, to the task in hand, you will understand that the faithful practice of the various exercises advised in previous chapters of this series cannot but be of the greatest value as aids to the development of the power of attention.

Every effort of the mind, whether to perceive, to recollect, to associate, to imagine, or to judge, must necessarily involve a concentration of the faculties of the mind upon that particular act, whatever it may be. So, first of all, I may assure you that the practices I have advised, if you have faithfully followed them, will have by this time notably increased your power of attention. As a matter of fact, such assurance on my part is superfluous; for if you have exercised as I have directed, you, yourself, will already have noted a marked change in this direction as well as in others.

Do not allow yourself to overlook the fact that whatever may be the mental act in which you are engaged, the act of attention is necessarily involved. There is no faculty of the mind in which you have so many opportunities of exercise.

So the first exercise I shall advise is that you go over carefully all the methods which I have detailed in the chapters on perception, memory, association, imagination, and judgment, making a special effort while doing them not to allow the mind to wander for a moment from the task in hand. This alone, if persistently and conscientiously done, would insure you a high degree of this splendid intellectual accomplishment.

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