may be a giant in strength today, but if you get into your mind the thought of sickness it will bring you down as surely as if you were a weakling. So with every thought that finds lodgment and at the same time credence in your mind; it will produce fruit of its kind just as surely as will the material seed planted in the earth. It goes through a similar process of growth also. It does not always spring forth at once and rapidly come to fruition, but it goes through a methodical series of changes, from inertness to tiny sprout, away deep down in the consciousness, where it is not observed by the external thinking mind. In due course it sends out a shoot in the direction of external consciousness, which finally comes to the surface in some discord or some harmony. The time of planting is usually so remote that even he who knows the law of growth from thought to thing cannot remember when he sowed the seeds that are manifest in his consciousness as thistles. When told that certain thoughts have produced certain effects in his case, the patient will invariably respond, "But I was not thinking those thoughts."

One of the first lessons to be learned by the student of metaphysics is that the "seed is the word." The next is that this kind of seed is hid in the darkness of the mind, where it germinates, sprouts, and comes into visibility with all the scientific accuracy of detail of the ordinary plant. The fruit is a living organism too and has the power to throw off seeds