Secrets Of Mental Supremacy
	How To Concentrate The Attention <  Previous Contents Next  >

Attention makes the genius.--Willmot.

Genius is merely continued attention.--Helvetius.

Attention is a sure mark of the superior genius.--Lord Chesterfield.

Attention is the stuff that memory is made of.--James Russell Lowell.

If I have made any improvement in the sciences it is owing more to patient attention than to anything else.—Sir Isaac Newton.

CONCENTRATION of the attention is one of the master keys of power.

Without it one can accomplish nothing great or significant. The most perfect perceptions, the most retentive memory, the most daring and picturesque imagination--without concentration they can effect nothing. The principle of concentration may be well illustrated by a physical comparison. Suppose we take a football weighing four ounces and propel it through the air by means of the charge of powder generally used for a projectile of four ounces' weight.

What effect will the impact of the football have? None whatever. But suppose we concentrate the four ounces' weight into a sphere of lead less than half an inch in diameter and put behind it the same propulsive force--what then will happen? Now the difference between the football and the leaden bullet is the difference between diffusion and concentration--the difference between the impingement that is harmless and that which is deadly.

And so it is in the world of thought. The thoughts of some people are like a football--big, expanded by wordy wind, slow moving, ineffective; the thoughts of others are like bullets-- concentrated, swift, direct, going straight to the center, without pause or hindrance.

"This one thing I do," said that profound philosopher, Paul of Tarsus. And if we study the history of the world's master spirits we shall find that this has been their policy. The uncouth butcher who pushed Charles I. from the throne and established a form of government based on moral principle instead of special right; the pallid, undersized French advocate who, in the hope of establishing his wild dream of democracy, sent the flower of French aristocracy walking up Dr. Guillotine's stairway; the ignorant tinker who gave to the world what is perhaps the greatest allegory in profane literature; the undersized plebeian Corsican adventurer, who made himself master of the world--all these had for their motto the idea of concentration--"This one thing I do."

Now what is meant by concentration of the attention, or, as it is some- times called, the power of attention? You see, in the kind of language which I am using to you, we do not attempt to express things with scientific precision; for that means the use not only of many, many words, but the introduction of many new, and to us, unnecessary words. So for our purpose we may use the terms, concentration, power of attention, concentration of attention, as if they meant the same thing--as they actually do.

What is Concentration?

Now what is concentration? In a word, concentration may be defined as being that state of mind in which the total and entire energies of the individual, physical as well as mental, are focused upon the thing he is doing or thinking. All actions and all thoughts not connected with what he is doing or thinking are kept out of the mind; and all his forces are bent upon the task in hand. He who can do this has concentration, has the power of attention. He who has not this power must acquire it before he can hope to do or be anything admirable or worthy in the world.

Any one who has performed any difficult feat of strength, such as lifting a heavy weight, "muscling" him- self up on the horizontal bar or trying to make a track record at the "hundred yard dash" or the "two-twenty," will realize how large a factor in these muscular performances is the mere fact of concentration. In these, as well as in a great many other so-called physical feats, such as jumping, marksmanship, shot putting and so on, the slightest wandering of the mind from the work in hand is absolutely destructive of success. In acrobatic work, such as flying trapeze and flying rings, as well as in juggling and balancing, the same is true. Acrobatic jugglers and gymnasts are always masters of the art of attention--of concentration as applied to their special feats.