Success is what the world pays a man for discovering and developing himself.

   During the process of self-certifying, Providence kindly withholds this fact from him. Because if he knew it, he would be forever trying to sell the gold-mine unworked instead of exploring it with his own pick-axe. Indeed he might he tempted to salt it into the bargain.

   I have not as yet developed myself--I have discovered myself. I know what's there. And I am quite willing for the world not to know, until my title be clearly established and my treasures safely stored. Because the world would certainly fetch its clumsy tools and attempt to dig. The world is always waiting to work the other fellow's mine. You see it hasn't found its own.

   For Self-discovery I know nothing to take the place of the Conquest Fast. As an initial motive for self-development and a swift means thereto, it is also unequalled. We cannot know ourselves until we get away from our surroundings. Because most of us are but bits of polished wood reflecting faintly the sallow lights about us; instead of glowing firebrands kindled direct from the sun-glass of Truth above us.

   Only the summit-vision can reveal the smallness of the world and the greatness of a human soul.

   We are not, as a noted editor would always remind us, mere ants on the seashore or corals in the reef. We are partakers of Omnipotence. Undreamed-of powers are within us, possibilities around us. But sloth and fear, precedent and custom, ignorance and inertia, envy and interference crowd as terrifying phantoms between us and our opportunities.

   Indeed most men fail to see their larger possibilities while watching too anxiously their smaller possessions. The Infinite is the realm of the potential. And you must look skyward to discern your own greatness.

   To be powerful is to be in perfect command of all your faculties, at a given time, in a given place, under a given condition, for a given purpose.

   Let us begin with strength of body.

   We observe in the first place that fat and force are mutually exclusive. Louis Kuhne, the German Naturist, has shown convincingly that a fat man is a sick man. His excessively vital temperament may make him appear stronger than the man of nerve and sinew. But he can't do the work of his lithe brother, nor stand the strain, nor combat the disease that always threatens a successful man. Now nothing but a long Fast will prove to you how little food you require for the actual needs of the body. Not more than a third of what most men eat. With an increased enjoyment moreover and a constant feeling of buoyancy as delightful as it is unusual.

   Every ounce of food taken in excess of hunger means so much dissipated energy. Take that same force from your stomach and put it into your business--both stomach and business will improve. A brain-worker is seldom really hungry unless he takes regular exercise at a gymnasium. He can eat a lot if he exercises a lot. But what's the use? To eat less and also exercise less comes to the same end. With a saving of time, money, thought and vitality.

   A gymnasium is almost as unnatural as a church or a drugstore. All three are needless if the life-habits be right; eating, clothing, sleeping, bathing, working, resting, playing, thinking and loving, I know prominent systems of Physical Culture whose chief excuse for violent exercise is to create an equally violent appetite. Hunger can't be created--it comes of itself. All it asks of you is to wait for it--then satisfy it--then stop. You lose power if you treat it any other way.

   Fatigue, or lack of endurance, is a common besetment of the business man. Weariness never indicates food--but always sleep. On the twenty-fourth day of my long Fast I took a tramp through the West Virginia Hills with a party of friends. Every one had eaten at least fifty meals since I had tasted food. And at the close of the day I was as fresh as any. 1 found repeatedly that what seemed to be fatigue was only some remnant of undigested food still lurking in my system. A few eliminative measures quite refreshed me.

   If every brain-worker were to spend half the noon-hour--or all of it in case he takes breakfast--in a quiet room apart, with eyes closed, body in repose, mentality suspended, breath rhythmic and regular; that afternoon ennui would all disappear.

   Power is not generated in the stomach. You can never eat to get strong. A man's ability to do comes through his heart, his lungs, his brain and his soul. The soul needs no material nourishment, the brain next to none, and the heart and lungs so little as scarcely to be reckoned. Physical strength lies all in the breath, mental strength all in the brain, spiritual strength all in the soul.

   Physiologists have always likened the human machine to an engine. They have told us we must stoke the stomach about so often with a generous assortment of fuel--else the boiler would lose its enthusiasm. The human machine is in reality a giant dynamo. And you don't need much of a wood-pile or coal-yard to keep electricity going.

   Before considering the brain phase, let us define power in its human application.

   Power is the dynamic perception of possibilities.

   He alone is powerful who can first see what to do--then do it. Alertness of brain, steadiness of nerve, vigor of body, courage of soul; not one of these elements may be lacking. Now no man can think and digest at the same time; notwithstanding the fact that many business deals are arranged over a specially elaborate luncheon. And every day of a long Fast you will find your brain growing clearer. Keenness of discernment, depth of insight, quickness of decision, breadth of vision, finality of judgment ; all this you possess as never before.

   Personally, a single morsel of food inhibits my creative work for the rest of the day. I can do executive work in the afternoon. But only before the late breakfast at eleven or twelve, can I focus on a point or think to a hair-line.

   The Conquest Fast removes from your brain your own faulty judgments and the still faultier opinions of your friends. It helps you see over, under, through and beyond a subject, with the power of an X-ray and the accuracy of a Goerz lens. Confusion of ideas is a condition of the past. You grasp all of one idea instead of pieces of many. And on the breadth of this basis you can act with confidence.

   Progress is a combination of judicial attitude with intuitive action. You must be able to see all sides of the question at once-- then act with the freedom of spontaneity and the courage of conviction. This means both brilliancy of brain and illumination of soul. Few people have either. Almost nobody has both together. But if it's possible for you to realize this double boon, the Conquest Fast will give it to you.

   The initiation of originality is a basic element in human power. This also the Fast will enhance--perhaps awaken for the first. Great ideas are born in souls not content to adopt small imitations. And a soul strong enough to take an extreme Fast in defiance of race-belief voluntarily puts itself in touch with Creativity.

   God is more dreamer than thinker, more lover than both. And when God sees in one individual a soul that dare dream for itself, with a brain that dare think for itself and a will that dare act for itself--God loves that being peculiarly, blessing it in some special sense.

   There is no enduring power save transcendence of soul. Money tarnishes, fame withers, friendship wanes, beauty fades, success palls and worlds end in dust. But to the soul that can leave the mortal when it chooses, sustaining itself on air, water, light, faith and love--there are no limitations, no disappointments, no doubts, no fears, no disabilities, no misunderstandings, no tremors whatsoever.

   Truth is as clear as the sky above, destiny as bright as the noonday sun, and life as sweet as the nurturing breast of the Universal Mother.

   Crowning all comes a consciousness of Omnipotence; that makes of this world a little play-room, of mortal possessions a box of toys, of the human race a handful of tin soldiers; and of you owner of the nursery, disposer of the toys, Commander of the host.