Our muscles we share with everything that lives—with the oyster clinging to his rock, the whale ploughing through cold seas, and our monkey kinsman swinging from his tropical branch.
These muscles, useful only to cart us around, help us to do slave work or pound our fellows, we cultivate with care.
We run, fence, ride, walk hard, weary our poor lungs and gather pains in our backs building the muscles that we do not need.
Alone among animals, we possess a potentiality of mind development unlimited.
And for that, with few exceptions, we care nothing. ——
Most of us, sitting in Newton's place and seeing the apple fall, would merely have debated the advisability of getting the apple to eat it—just the process that any monkey mind would pass through.
A Newton, a BRAIN TRAINED TO THINK, sees the apple drop, asks himself why the moon does not drop also. And he discovers the law of gravitation which governs the existence of every material atom in the universe. ——
Young men who read this, start in NOW to use your brains. Take nothing for granted, not even the fact that the moon stays in her appointed place or that the poor starve and freeze amid plenty.
Think of the things which are wrong and of the possibilities of righting them. Study your own weaknesses and imperfections. There is power in your brain to correct them, if you will develop that power.
As surely as you can train your arm to hold fifty pounds out straight, just so surely can you train your brain to deal with problems that now would find you a gaping incompetent.