An excerpt from the beginning of the book:

THE SECRET OF BRAIN ENERGY



I saw a man at work in a quarry. He thrust the end of a crowbar under a huge rock and threw into the effort to move the obstacle his most strength. He had enthusiasm for fierce endeavor. Energy leaped up within him and rushed to the strain of a Hercules.

My friend, the railway builder, said to me that the greater the obstacles that confronted him, the more determined he became to overcome them.

The one instance illustrates physical energy, the other shows us psychic or mental energy. The energy of success consists of both phases, together with an unyielding mood of confidence in self, one's effort, and the outcome. It is not merely ~ physical, for Sampson was no great success. It is not mental alone, for that may be passive. It is not simply a sense of ability, for that may exhibit in a mild and negative form.

But when a man has in him the day-after-day and year-in-and-year-out mood, "I can and I will," controlled, restrained, used, exactly as he will, yet never surrendering, then he has it—the secret of brain energy.

§ 1. The energy of success is a compound of two general factors: a continuance-feeling of great confidence and a sense of driving and practical ability.

§ 2. It is not only for every one to possess this quality, but as well to know that he has it. All persons are endowed with a measure of the quality, at least among average classes, but comparatively few seem to be conscious of its possession. One who flames out in a rage may be aware of his passion yet totally unconscious of the central energy which has thus become manifest. His consciousness in the case might be called objective. A person may be aware of intense determination to achieve some difficult task, yet give no thought to the focusing energy of his mind. He is aware of a particular fact in experience, but his self-knowledge does not necessarily embrace the inner psychic state. A measure of success worth trying for demands not only that one should possess some energy, but that • one should recognize the quality within himself, and intelligently control and use it with reference to a goal that is capable of engaging his utmost interest. These considerations suggest the present chapter.



FORCE AND ENERGY.

§ 3. Force and energy do not represent the same thing. Modern chemistry and physics make a distinction between the facts and define differently the corresponding words. "Force is any agency which can cause a motion, arrest a motion, or change the direction of a motion, while energy expresses in motion or the capacity to become motion."

§ 4. "There are two kinds of energy— kinetic or moving energy, and potential or energy of position." (Like the dynamic self and the static.)

Let us suppose a cannon, loaded and ready for discharge. The explosive behind the ball contains molecular energy—capacity for motion, for work. When the charge is fired, the explosive generates gases which are confined but seek to expand and in that effort start the ball and the cause of that start is the force of the explosion, while the moving ball represents energy capable of performing work the moment it is stopped. If the ball is projected perpendicularly into the air, it has the energy of motion—kinetic—until it ceases to mount higher, when, for a theoretical instant, it has no kinetic energy (as it will in a moment on its descent), but does at that instant of mid-air "rest" possess potential energy, the energy of position, because it may now fall to the ground from its present height and regain all the energy of motion which it had when it left the gun.





MAN A FUND OF ENERGY.

§ 5. Now, man is a store-house of various forces capable of causing the energy of motion. Inasmuch as the forces are, broadly speaking, always discharging and inducing all sorts of motions, we may say that man is himself a great unit system of stored energy. Not only does he incessantly release energy, but he also constantly stores up force essential to the required energy of life and action. Taking man as an animal alone, he is more wonderful as a force-storing and an energy-releasing machine than any mechanism his inventive genius can produce. He is exceedingly complex and he is exceedingly economical in the transformation of his fuel into energy. He may be regarded as a self-contained 'prime mover,' including its furnace, its mechanism of work and energy-development, and possessing mechanism for transformation of power peculiarly and exactly adapted to its purpose."

§ 6. Referring a moment to the teachings of science, it is to be observed that the attractive force which the earth exerts on a body at its surface is called the force of gravity...

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