New Thought Wisdom

Power of Will

by Frank Channing Haddock

Originally Published: 1907

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-------CONTENTS-------

PART I--THE WILL AND SUCCESS

Chapter I. The Will and Its Action

Chapter II. Tests of Will

Chapter III. The Conduct of Life

Chapter IV. Diseases of the Will

Chapter V. Training of the Will

Chapter VI. Training of the Will, Continued: A Study of Moods

Chapter VII. Some General Rules

PART II--THE WILL AND SENSE-CULTURE

Chapter VIII. Suggestions for Practice

Chapter IX. Exercises for the Eye

Chapter X. Exercises for the Ear

Chapter XI. Exercises in Taste

Chapter XII. Exercises in Smell

Chapter XIII. Exercises in Touch

Chapter XIV. Exercises for the Nerves

Chapter XV. Exercises for the Hands

Chapter XVI. Exercises in Steadiness

CHAPTER XVII. General Health

PART III---MENTAL REGIME

Chapter XVIII. Exercises is Attention

CHAPTER XIX. Attention in Reading

Chapter XX. Attention in Thinking

Chapter XXI. Exercises in Memory

Chapter XXII. Exercises in Imagination

Chapter XXIII. Some Diseases of the Imagination

PART IV--DESTRUCTION OF HABIT

Chapter XXIV. Destruction of Immoral Habit

Chapter XXV. Correction of Other Habits

PART V--CONTACT WITH OTHER PEOPLE

Chapter XXVI. The Will in Public Speaking

Chapter XXVII. Control of Others

Chapter XXVII. The Child's Will

Chapter XXIX. Conclusion: The Symmetrical Existence

THIS book comes to you as a Well-wisher, a Teacher, and a Prophet. It will become a Teacher if you will honestly try to secure mental reaction upon it; that is, if you will resolve to THINK— to Think with it and to Think into it.

It will be Prophet of a higher and more successful living if you will persistently and intelligently follow its requirements, for this will make yourself a completer Manual of the Perfected Will.

But remember! This book cannot think for you; That is the task of your mind.

This book cannot give you greater power of Will; That is for yourself to acquire by the right

USE OF ITS CONTENTS.

This book cannot hold you to persistence in self-culture; That is the test of your will.

This book is not magical. It promises nothing occult or mysterious. It is simply a call to practical and scientific work.

If you will steadfastly go on through the requirements marked out, this book will develop within you highest wishes of welfare for self, it will make you a teacher of self, it will inspire you as a prophet of self brought to largest efficiency.

ALL NOW RESTS WITH YOU!! ---Power of Will by Frank Channing Haddock, Ph.D.

1. — The goal of evolution is psychic person. Person acts behind the mask of body.

The basic idea of person is self-determined unfoldment.

The central factor in such unfoldment is Will.

Will is a way person has of being and doing.

A certain complex of our ways of being and doing constitutes mind.

Mind operates on two levels: one on that of awareness, the other on that of the subconscious.

In the subconscious realm of person the evolutionary phases of heredity, habit, established processes, exhibit.

In the field of awareness the phase of variation, both by reason of external stimulus and by reason of psychic freedom, appears.

But organized person is inherently restless. The Will exhibits the law of discontent. Restlessness of organism develops Will.

Person unfolds by control and use of Will.

The Will must take itself in hand for greatest personal completeness.


2. — Personal life is a play between powers without and powers within the central function of Will.

Personal life ends in subjection to such external powers, or rises to mastery over them,


3. — The Will grows by directed exercise.

Exercise involves the use of its own instruments — body, mind, the world.

The only method which can strengthen and ennoble Will is that which puts into action itself in conjunction with its furniture.

This method, persistently followed, is certain to give to the Will mighty power, and to enlarge and enrich person.


THE SCIENCE OF OUR PRESENT IDEAL

THE goal of the book before you may be presented by the following quotations from "Brain and Personality", by William Hanna Thomson, M.D.:

'A stimulus to nervous matter effects a change in the matter by calling forth a reaction in it. This change may be exceedingly slight after the first stimulus, but each repetition of the stimulus increases the change, with its following specific reaction, until by constant repetition a permanent alteration in the nervous matter stimulated occurs, which produces a fixed habitual way of working in it. In other words, the nervous matter acquires a special way of working, that is, of function, by habit.

Power of Will by Frank Channing Haddock, Ph.D. 7 "From the facts which we have been reviewing, we arrive at one of the most important of all conclusions, namely, that the gray matter of our brains is actually plastic and capable of being fashioned. It need not be left with only the slender equipment of functions which Nature gives it at birth. Instead, it can be fashioned artificially, that is, by education, so that it may acquire very many new functions or capacities which never come by birth nor by inheritance, but which can be stamped upon it as so many physical alterations in its proplasmic substance. "This well-demonstrated truth is of far-reaching significance, because it gives an entirely new aspect to the momentous subject of Education." It would seem to be perfectly evident that the more direct the efforts of education become, that is to say, the more surely attention is concentrated upon the alteration for improvement of nervous matter and the development of mental powers rather than to the mastering of objective studies, many of which must prove of little benefit in actual life, the more nearly will education approach its true goal — power in self and ability for successful handling of self with all its powers. This is the method of The Power-Book Library, the ideal of which is — not mastery of books, but sovereign use of the growing self. "Most persons conceive of education vaguely as only mental, a training of the mind as such, with small thought that it involves physical changes in the brain itself ere it can become real and permanent. But as perfect examples of education as can be named are ultimately dependent upon the sound condition of certain portions of the gray matter which have been 'educated' for each work." "The brain must be modified by every process of true special education.


"We can make our own brains, so far as special mental functions or aptitudes are concerned, if only we have Wills strong enough to take the trouble. By practice, practice, practice, the Will stimulus will not only organize brain centers to perform new functions, but will project new connecting, or, as they are technically called, association fibers, which will make nerve centers work together as they could not without being thus associated. Each such self-created brain center requires great labor to make it, because nothing but the prolonged exertion of the personal Will can fashion anything of the kind." And, since the use of any human power tends to its growth, such labor as that suggested in the pages of this book cannot fail both to develop brain centers and also to unfold mind's power in Will.


"It is the masterful personal Will which makes the brain human. By a human brain we mean one which has been slowly fashioned into an instrument by which the personality can recognize and know all things physical, from the composition of a pebble to the elements of a fixed star. It is the Will alone which can make material seats for mind, and when made they are the most personal things in the body.


"In thus making an instrument for the mind to use, the Will is higher than the Mind, and hence its rightful prerogative is to govern and direct the mind, just as it is the prerogative of the mind to govern and direct the body.


"It is the Will, as the ranking official of all in man, who should now step forward to take the command. We cannot over-estimate the priceless value of such direction, when completely effective, for the life of the individual in this world. A mind always broken in to the sway of the Will, and therefore thinking according to Will, and not according to reflex action,


Power of Will by Frank Channing Haddock, Ph.D. 8 constitutes a purposive life. A man who habitually thinks according to purpose, will then speak according to purpose; and who will care to measure strength with such a man? "In short, the world has yet to learn, once for all, that men are not to be justified nor condemned by such superficial things about them as their opinions. Set the will right first, and men's opinions will follow suit, as soon as they have opportunities for knowing better; but the will remaining perverted, not the opportunities for knowing of an eternity will avail.


"In fact man reigns here below only because he is responsible, and it is his will alone which makes him responsible.


"Not a few of those whom they have known started out apparently well equipped, so far as mental gifts and opportunities for education and of social position could enable them to go far and ascend high. But one by one they lagged and suffered themselves to be outstripped by others, whom perhaps few suspected at the start would reach the first rank before them, because they appeared so much inferior in mental powers to the men whom ultimately they outdistanced wholly. Will direction explains it all. What is the finest mental machine in this life without will power!


"That majestic endowment (the Will) constitutes the high privilege granted to each man apparently to test how much the man will make of himself. It is clothed with powers which will enable him to obtain the greatest of all possessions — self-possession. Self-possession implies the capacity for self-restraint, self-compulsion and self-direction; and he who has these, if he live long enough, can have any other possessions that he wants." And so — in the foregoing — you discover the reason and need for training your power to will. "It is the will that makes the man." Your brain matter is your sole workshop for success in this world — and possibly the next too. What you do with this mysterious substance — the lines of action which you open up in it — the freedom with which thought processes are allowed to operate — the skill and swiftness with which you transform the mind's energy into visible reality — all rests with your will. You have in your brain an inexhaustible wealth. You can so develop your power of will that it will command the luxuries, the accomplishments, the marked successes, which potentially lie dormant in every human being. Well spake the philosopher who said: "You are the architect of your own career." But the real wonder-worker that builds your life structure in this world is — POWER OF WILL.


Power of Will by Frank Channing Haddock, Ph.D. 9