all of the mental power obtained as a result of long years of absorption and education would be lost.

This consideration of brain hemispheres and duality of organs does not, as has been claimed, affect the law of brain size in relation to mental power. All that has been said in regard to the brain, size, weight, surface, extent of gray matter, texture and organization refers to the used and active hemisphere just as completely as to the entire brain, and no one during life can tell with scientific exactness which half of his brain he is using. As the cranium is symmetrical in dimensions and in its proportions in relation to vertical central axes, it is fitting that we should continue to speak of the brain as a whole, and all arguments presented in regard to use and disuse are driven home with augmented force when we ponder on the thought that one-half of our brain is developed and educated and the other half is not and yet both halves occupy similar space. As before stated, it is not brain size, even with uniform texture and quality of organization, that determines the brain power of an individual, but it is the relative degree of development and the use that he is making of his brain. Brain size tells us what his inherent powers and original endowments were, but it fails to tell us what he is doing with his mental equipment.

The human brain is a plastic, receptive organ, capable of being fashioned and educated, which process produces modifications and changes in the physical brain matter. As is well known, this plasticity or power of educability generally diminishes progressively with age, especially in regard to the

acquirement of languages and kindred mental activities. What is easily acquired, however, is usually easily lost, and as the plasticity of the brain is increased, its elasticity or tendency to return to its original condition is conspicuously noticeable. The brain is like a plastic, moldable, receiving surface upon which is impressed the record of what the will decrees it shall receive. It operates in a manner very similar to the production of talking-machine records and the brain receives the master and original impressions. In some cases, however, exercise and frequent identical impressions are necessary before the brain records the impression so that it can be later used with definiteness and accuracy; in other cases one impression, one experience, or one thought seems to be so indelibly registered that it apparently defies the obliterating onslaught of time.

The clearness and lasting properties of a brain impression are influenced by attention, concentration and purpose. Interest, intensity of vibration and mental (not physical) nearness, appreciation of worth and importance, association, also violence of impression or mental shock are all factors influencing the thoroughness and accuracy of its impressions and the retention of the record when once its vibrations are embedded in the plastic gray matter of the brain. The will not only can command the receiving and recording of impressions, but it has the power to place any record, which may have been catalogued and filed in the cerebral archives, how and when it desires, upon the instrument of thoughtproduction, and the needle that plays in its grooves

will bring back to the mind the thought, the word, the tune or the picture as it was originally impressed or photographed upon the plastic or sensitized brain. To be educated, the human mind must be exercised and disciplined. Knowledge is acquired by learning, and learning by effort. by effort. Attention plus work is a formula for success when attention consists of an awakened desire for knowledge, analytical reflectiveness and the concentration of mental forces; and work signifies actual, efficient application and the intelligent utilization of energy. Activity is synonymous with life, indolent inertia with death. Discipline has been defined by Webster as "subjection to rule, submission to order and control by severe systematic training." Discipline does not repress activity but encourages and directs it; the disciplined mind is one that expends its efforts in the right direction; that can concentrate on a task and acquire knowledge by digging for truth and fact and persevere in the task until success is attained, instead of skipping lightly over the high points as a butterfly flits among the flowers.

The human mind, if it is to learn any new subject or branch of knowledge, must be willing to go through a long, laborious process and build from the bottom up. As one advances in years, one is not usually willing to commence with learning the alphabet of a subject but desires to form words and sentences with letters unlearned. We cannot learn by proxy nor travel by royal roads or reliable shortcuts to knowledge. The road as charted by the great Cosmic Mind must be traveled and it is invariably up grade and rocky, but to the enthusiastic

seeker for truth, the outlook is not only satisfying but appealing, and the time consumed, well and happily spent. To the true seeker for knowledge, the soul expands as truths are acquired; the mind is nurtured, developed and strengthened by mental food as the body is by physical food. The thinker will keep his feet upon the solid earth and his heart in touch with his fellow man, but his soul soars beyond the sordidness of physical existence and, as Huxley said, "He stands as on a mountain top transfigured from his lower nature, by reflecting here and there a ray from the infinite source of truth."

Brains are bequeathed to man at birth. A chamber filled with relatively highly organized nerve matter is presented to him with all its inherent possibilities, to fashion as he himself elects. It is true that he is limited in regard to the development of certain characteristics, and the plasticity, sensitiveness and texture of his brain may be very different from those of his fellows. The amount of brain with which he is endowed may be more or less than that bequeathed to his neighbor, but after all man must develop his own mental power and, we might say, make his own brain.

It is not the hereditary limitation of our brain matter and mental processes that should interest us, for no man ever achieves the absolute limit of his possibilities in any direction, but we should be concerned in what we are accomplishing with all of the gray matter entrusted to our care. With, say,

one hundred zones of opportunity, how many are we using, and of the zones or areas of gray matter

actually being used, what efficiency is being realized with each and what would be our aggregate mental efficiency if it could be scientifically determined and revealed to us? The finest brain mechanism in the world, lying dormant and fallow, is impotent and useless; only a human will functioning in harmony with Cosmic Law can dominate such a nervous mass and by concentrated and persistent effort, attune it so that it can speak its message to the world as an important instrument in the great orchestra of life.