Thousands of examples of the power of imagination may be found in every-day life.

There is the one given by Pascal, and so often cited, which I cannot help repeating here, because it is such a perfect illustration.

No one would have the slightest difficulty in walking along a foot-wide plank placed on the ground, but put the same plank across a street at the height of one of your American skyscrapers. Blondel himself would not have dared trust himself on it. Anyone who did would assuredly fall to death. No clearer proof of the power of an idea could be desired.

There is, however, another striking example in the impunity with which sleep-walkers perform the most perilous feats, such as wandering about on a roof, hugging the extreme edge of it, to the terror of their friends who may happen to perceive them. If awakened suddenly a sleep-walker in such a position would inevitably fall.

Here is another. Doctor Pinaud in his book “De la Philosophie et de la Longevite” relates that in the middle of a large dinner party the cook rushed in to announce that she had made a mistake and mixed arsenic with the food instead of some other ingredient! Several persons were immediately seized with pains and sickness, which only ceased when the cook came back to say that it was a false alarm: there had been no such dreadful error!

I have said enough to prove the irresistible influence of the idea, or imagination, over the physical organism. It determines pain, movement, emotions, sensations. Its effect is both moral and physical. We may logically conclude, therefore, that human ailments, which are nothing but disturbances of the natural equilibrium of all the elements of our being, can be cured by the right kind of idea or suggestion.

The moral factor in all disease. To begin with, there is in every disease, of no matter what nature, a moral factor which no doctor can afford to ignore. Some medical authorities in France estimate this moral factor as representing from 40 to 50 per cent of the chances of recovery. A patient who says to himself “I am getting better” vastly increases his vital forces and hastens his recovery.

By gently putting our imagination on the right track we are sure of aiding Nature, who manifests herself through the medium of our subconscious self. The instinct of self-preservation is but a manifestation of Nature. At the first sound of alarm she hastens to the rescue.

A cut finger or other wound is followed by a rush of red globules to the injured part. That wonderful subconscious self of ours does it. For it knows and commands every movement of our being, every contraction of our heart, the minutest vibration of every cell in our organism. It is the sublime instrument which we are so apt to misuse by allowing bad, disturbing, or discouraging thoughts to interfere with its work, instead of allowing it to function smoothly and harmoniously.