sun on the face of the sea; ask about the origin of the strange word that has come your way, and about its history, and so on.

It is well known that many people, as they advance in age, gradually lose interest in what is around them and take to chewing over distant memories, contenting themselves with what they have and welcoming the same thoughts that take their turns in their imagination. This is the condition that every one of us must fight, for it is not inevitable: many older people have ripe ideas such as the young are incapable of producing; indeed, some of them possess mighty mental gifts that have never once flagged in supplying humanity with the best opinions and the newest inventions.

Therefore, if life itself has not equipped you with the motives or impulses of curiosity and inquiry, then make it your purpose to respond to all the opinions you encounter — those you favor and those that run counter to your view — for thereby you sharpen your mental powers and develop within yourself the powers of inquiry. Try, indeed, to debate with the man who opposes your opinion, however slight the sub-ject. It is useful, too, for a person to make friends with those for-eign to him in race and country, for his knowledge thereby gains in breadth and polish.

Fifth: trust your subconscious mind and do not neglect its intimations. Experiments have proved that the subconscious mind holds sway over the solving of our difficulties while we sleep. Many people try in vain to solve a difficulty that has confronted them in their daily lives, and are forced, against their will, to leave it because of their inability to reach the desired solution. But it is truly astonishing that they find the solution ready in their minds upon waking, as though a hidden hand had paved the way to it. From this it has come to

be known that a part of man's mind — that is, the subconscious mind — is equipped with powers of which the conscious mind knows nothing. Yet psychology has shown that man does know one thing about the relation of the conscious mind to the subconscious: the more the con-scious mind works, the more the subconscious mind is sharpened and refined. If a man has not strained his conscious mind over the solving of his difficulty, his subconscious mind will not be affected by that difficulty, nor help in solving it.

Sixth: set no limits to your think-ing — leave it free. Beware of

fleeing from the mental problems you find hard to solve. Always sharpen your wits to understand the things that ordinary people fail to understand; perhaps you possess a capacity you never discovered in yourself before, which will help you to understand what others have not grasped. For how many thousands of years was electric power among us while we did not use it? — and that was because we did not perceive its existence. Our mental powers are counted, to this day, among the secrets whose details have not yet been discovered; hence our understanding of even the simplest of them may bring us the amplest benefit.