It is no exaggeration to say that not one person in a thousand fully appreciates the marvelous power that exists in thought to aid in building up a strong, healthy, enduring body. Within the last ten years, however, a few people (comparatively speaking) have awakened to a realization of the unlimited power lying dormant in this mental force. These people are reaping the grand benefits resulting from the use of the knowledge they possess. Many of them are teaching humanity to use this power in living healthier, happier lives.

The power of thought has been recognized by the world's great thinkers in all ages, and the marvelous results they accomplished were believed by the uninitiated to have a supernatural origin. The constructive power of thought is simplicity itself to those who give the matter a little serious consideration.

My purpose in this lesson is to explain the influence our thoughts have on our health and life, and to give you instructions that you can apply so as to enable you to live one hundred years and retain youthful powers and attractiveness.

You must first realize that thought is a real force infinitely more powerful, though of a finer and more subtle character, than electricity. Also that the brain as the medium of thought is in sympathetic communication, by means of the nervous system, with every cell in your body. When you understand that, you will realize to some extent the power of thought to affect the body for good or ill.

From a scientific standpoint, it has been demonstrated conclusively that every thought and emotion produces a definite change in the physical organism. An instrument has been invented and patented which accurately records the effect of certain emotions. By breathing through a tube into a specially prepared fluid, a chemical change in color is produced, corresponding to the varying emotions of the subject - joy, grief, anger, fear, etc. - each having a specific color.

From a practical standpoint, the experience of thousands of people demonstrates that the physical condition always corresponds with the mental condition, or, in other words, that "as is the mind so is the form." You desire to prolong your life and retain health and strength. Then you must govern your actions and thoughts. You must form the habit of entertaining the quality of thought, which will add to your vitality and enable you to gain renewed health and power. You must remember that thoughts are actual forces; in fact, are literal magnets, and attract to you the condition of body and environment that corresponds with the thought. You will, therefore, encourage every thought, idea or emotion that is cheerful, inspiring, confident, courageous, generous and beautiful. When this class of thoughts take possession of the brain, they are instantly communicated by vibratory power over the system of nerves to every part of the body, even to the most remote cell, and act as a natural tonic, giving life to every organ, thus aiding them to do their best work.

You must carefully avoid all thoughts of a pessimistic, fearful, discordant, revengeful, discouraging and fretful nature, for the influence generated by these negative attitudes is always of a devitalizing character. They produce a poisonous secretion that enters the blood and destroys health, happiness, beauty of form and feature and shortens life.

Many people through fear delude themselves into thinking that they are ill or have some terrible form of disease, and thus make themselves ill, when in reality they were perfectly well. Thousands of people in every large city are constantly controlled by some evil anticipation. One is afraid of losing his fortune, another of being discharged from his position, another makes himself unhappy because he thinks one of his children may die, and the great majority suffer agonies because of a fixed idea that a fatal illness is lurking in their body. Fear or moral cowardice, grief, anger, worry, etc., create a chemical change in blood and poison the system. The person who is constantly thinking of and lamenting on his liability to palpitations and giddiness is very likely to die of apoplexy because his perpetual fear of the symptoms creates them and increases their force and perniciousness. Thousands of people with sound and stout hearts make themselves unhappy by insisting that some local or nervous affection of that organ is a warning of early death. Newspaper talk of degeneration and hereditary disease has done incalculable harm by leading people to believe that as they were born they must always remain. Hereditary conditions can be easily eradicated by a proper mode of living.

You may ask, "How can I help thinking unhealthful thoughts, if it is my nature to do so?" This is where you reveal a wrong conception of yourself and your powers. It is not your real nature to think such thoughts. Through indulging in unwholesome thoughts and emotions, you have built up a habit, and, as a result, attract to yourself only thoughts of a similar kind. Remember, "Like attracts like." Your true nature is to think strong, noble, uplifting thoughts. Within you, but possibly lying dormant, is the power to rise supremely above all the negative conditions that are now binding you and making you a slave. Assert yourself, rise up and throw off the influence of depressing thoughts and you will soon behold sunshine and happiness all around you.

When you suggest to yourself, as a result of igno rance and doubt, that you cannot improve your health, or lengthen your years on earth, you at once limit your powers to correspond with your mental estimate of your ability. For you cannot do more than you think you can. Does not Shakespeare say, "Our doubts are traitors that make us lose that which we might have won by fearing to attempt"? We can do nothing if we fear to try.

On the other hand, if you suggest that you can and will express the mental attitude that will have a healthful influence on your body, you will quickly begin to form the habit of constructive thought. Consider the term "constructive thought." Do you know what it means? It means that thought is a building power. That by it you can build up or tear down the physical body. Thought is the architect as well as the builder for our physical structure is fashioned after the pattern of our mental ideals. The degree of health and vitality we manifest depends upon our application of thought energy.