feel we ought to care for them, then we should say to ourselves: "I will pay attention to them, will observe them accurately, and will think carefully and steadily on them." Doing this, we shall find our memory improve. For, as said above, memory is really dependent on attention, accurate observation, and clear thought; the element of attraction is valuable as fixing the attention, but if that be not present, its place must be taken by the will.

Now, it is just here that a very definite and widely-felt difficulty arises. How can "the will" take the place of the attraction? What is to move the will itself? Attraction arouses desire, and desire impels the moving towards the attractive object. This is, in the case supposed, absent. How is this absence of desire to be made good by the will? The will is the force prompting action when that force is determined in its direction by the deliberate Reason, and not by the influence of external objects felt as attractive. When the

impulse to action, that which I have often called the outgoing energy of the Self, is motived by external objects, is drawn forth, we call the impulse desire; when it is motived by the Pure Reason, is sent forth, we call it will. What is needed then, in the absence of felt attraction from

without, is illumination from within, and the motive for the will must be obtained by an intellectual survey of the field, and an exercise of the judgment as to the highest good, the goal of effort. That which the Reason selects as the thing most conducive to the good of the Self, serves as motive to the will. And when this has once been definitely done, then in moments of lassitude, of weakness, the recalling of the train of thought which led to the choice, again stimulates the will. Such a thing, deliberately chosen, may then be rendered attractive, i.e., an object of desire, by setting the imagination to picture its pleasing qualities, the beneficial-happiness-giving-effects of its possession. But as he who wills an object wills the means, we become able to overcome the natural shrinking from effort and unpleasant discipline, by an exercise, thus motived, of the will. In the case under consideration, having determined that certain objects are eminently desirable as conducive to prolonged happiness, we set the will to work to carry out the activities which will lead to their obtaining.

In cultivating the power of observation, as in everything else, a little practice repeated daily is much more effective than a great effort followed by a period of inaction. We should set ourselves

a little daily task of observing a thing carefully, imaging it in the mind in all its details, keeping the mind fixed on it for a short time, as the physical eye might be fixed on an object. On the following day we should call up the image, reproducing it as accurately as we can, and should then compare it with the object, and observe any inaccuracies. If we gave five minutes a day to this practice, alternately observing an object and picturing it in the mind, and recalling the previous day's image, and comparing our picture with the object, we should "improve our memory" very rapidly, and we should really be improving our powers of observation, of attention, of imagination, of concentration; in fact, we should be organising the mental body, and fitting it, far more rapidly than nature will fit it without assistance, to discharge its functions effectively and usefully. No man can take up such a practice as this, and remain unaffected by it; and he will soon have the satisfaction of knowing that his powers have increased, and that they have come much more under the control of the will.

The artificial ways of improving the memory present things to the mind in an attractive form, or associate with such a form the things to be remembered. If a person visualises easily, he will

aid a bad memory by constructing a picture, and attaching to points in that picture the things he wants to remember; then the calling up of the picture brings up also the things that were to be remembered. Other people, in whom the auditory power is dominant, remember by the jingle of rhymes, and, for instance, weave a series of dates, or other unattractive facts, into verses that "stick in the mind." But far better than any of these ways is the rational method detailed above, by the use of which the mind-body becomes better organised, more coherent as to its materials.

MEMORY AND ANTICIPATION.

Let us return to our undeveloped Knower. When memory begins to function anticipation quickly follows, for anticipation is only memory thrown forwards. When memory gives the retasting of a pleasure experienced in the past, desire seeks to again grasp the object which gave the pleasure, and when this retasting is thought of as the result of finding that object in the outer world and enjoying it, we have anticipation. The image of the object and the image of the pleasure are dwelt on by the Knower in relation to each other; if he adds to this contemplation the element

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of time, of past and future, two names are given to such contemplation: the contemplation plus the idea of the past is memory, plus the idea of the future it is anticipation.

As we study these images, we begin to understand the full force of the aphorism of Patanjali, that for the practice of Yoga a man must stop the "modifications of the thinking principle." Looked at from the standpoint of occult science, every contact with the Not-Self modifies the mental body. Part of the stuff of which that body is composed is re-arranged as a picture or image of the external object. When relations are established between these images, that is thinking, as seen on the form-side. Correspondent with this are vibrations in the Knower himself, and these modifications within himself are thinking as seen on the life-side. It must not be forgotten that the establishing of these relations is the peculiar work of the Knower, his addition to the images, and that this addition changes the images into thoughts. The pictures in the mental body very much resemble in their character the impressions made on a sensitive plate by the etheric waves which lie beyond the light spectrum and which act chemically on the silver salts, re-arranging the matter on the sensitive