THE SCIENCE OF HAPPINESS 



yourself day-dreaming, focalise your attention on the 

 idea that is pictured in your mind at the moment, and 

 then, reversing the mental process, follow back, ask- 

 ing yourself what idea preceded and suggested the pres- 

 ent one, and again, what was the one a link farther re- 

 moved, and so on and on until the chain breaks. You 

 will find that you have come to your thought of the 

 moment by a tortuous path. In retracing your steps, 

 you will gain a lesson in the association of ideas. You 

 will strengthen your memory and add to the potential 

 thinking capacities of your mind. You will learn 

 presently that no process of thinking is worth while that 

 does not lead to some precise goal; and you will be 

 amazed to find to what extent you are able, through 

 precisely "intending" your mind, to add to the range 

 of your mental vision. 



Newton expressly declared that he made his discover- 

 ies by thus "intending" his mind toward a desired goal; 

 and it is self-evident that such discoveries as those of 

 Harvey, of Jenner, of Darwin, could not possibly have 

 been made in any other way. Even in such alien fields 

 as the domain of the poet, quite the same thing holds 

 true. Not many verse-makers have taken the world 

 into their confidence as Poe did, laying bare the mere 

 mechanical process of literary construction; but you 

 have only to read even the most "inspired" imaginings 

 of a Keats, a Shelley, or a Tennyson, to see that wide 

 reading and calm analytical thinking made possible 

 their work, whatever the "fine frenzy" with which it may 

 at last have bodied forth. That classical poems give 

 such scope for editorial annotation is evidence of the 



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