The power of will which sustains those who wish to acquire the habit of poise is, then, the capacity to accomplish acts solely because one has the ardent desire to achieve them. We are now speaking, understand, neither of extreme heroism or of impossibilities. Another point presents itself here. Willpower, in order to preserve its energy, must be sustained and fixt. At this price alone can we achieve poise. We must, therefore, thoroughly saturate ourselves with this principle: Reasoning-power is an essential element in the upbuilding of poise. It is reasoning-power which teaches us to distinguish between those things that we must be careful to avoid and those which are part and parcel of the domain of exaggeration and fantasy. It is also by means of reasoning that we arrive at the proper appreciation of the just mean that we must observe. It is by its aid that we are enabled to disentangle those impulses that will prove profitable from a chaos of useless risks. It is always by virtue of deductions depending upon reason that we are able to adopt a resolution or to maintain an attitude that we believe to be correct, while preserving our self-possession under circumstances in which persons of a timorous disposition would certainly lose their heads. Those who know how to reason never expose themselves to the possibility of being unhorsed by fate for lack of good reasons for strengthening themselves in their chosen course. They adhere, in the very heat of discussion and in spite of the onslaughts of destiny, to the line of conduct that sage reflection has taught them to adopt and are more than careful never to abandon it except for the most valid reasons. They never stray into the byways in which the timid and the shrinking constantly wander without sufficient thought of the goal toward which they are journeying. They know where they are going, and if, now and again, they ask for information about the road that remains to be traveled, it is with no intention of changing their course, but simply so as not to miss the short cuts and to lose nothing of the pleasures of the scenes through which they may pass. Reasoning-power is the trade-mark of superior minds. Mediocre natures take no interest in it and, as we have seen, the timid are incapable of it, except in so far as it follows the beaten path. True poise never is guided by anything but reason. Certain risks can never be undertaken save after ripe deliberation. Confusion is never the fate of those who are resolved on a definite line of conduct. Such people are careful to plumb the questions with which they have to grapple and to weigh the inconveniences and the advantages of the acts they have the desire to accomplish. When their decision is once made, however, nothing will prevent the completion of the work they have begun. Such people are ripe for success.