The press recently contained an account of a motorcycle race in Newark, New Jersey. The scene was a great bowl-shaped motor-drome. In the midst of cheering thousands, when riding at the blinding speed of ninety-two miles an hour, the motorcycle of one of the contestants went wrong. It climbed the twenty-eight-foot incline, hurled its rider to instant death and crashed into the packed grandstand. Before the whirling mass of steel was halted by a deep-set iron pillar four men lay dead and twenty-two others unconscious and severely injured. Then the twisted engine of death rebounded from the post and rolled down the saucer-rim of the track. Around the circular path, his speed scarcely less than that of his ill-fated rival, knowing nothing of the tragedy, hearing nothing of the screams of warning from the crowd, came another racer. The frightened throng saw the coming of a second tragedy. The sound that came from the crowd was a low moaning, a sighing, impotent, unconscious prayer of the thousands for the mercy that could not come. The second motorcycle struck the wreck, leaped into the air, and the body of its rider shot fifty feet over the handlebars and fell at the bottom of the track unconscious. Two hours later he was dead. What was the effect of this dreadful spectacle upon the onlookers? Confusion, cries of fright and panic, while throughout the grandstand women fainted and lay here and there unconscious. Many were afflicted with nausea. With others the muscles of speech contracted convulsively, knees gave way, hearts "stopped beating." Observe that these were wholly the effects of _mental_ action, effects of _sight_ and _sound sensations_. [Sidenote: The Fundamental Law of Expression] Why multiply instances? All that you need to do to be satisfied that the mind is directly responsible for any and every kind of bodily activity is to examine your own experiences and those of your friends. They will afford you innumerable illustrations. You will find that not only is your body constantly doing things because your mind wills that it should do them, but that your body is incessantly doing things simply because they are the expression of a passing thought. The law that _Every idea tends to express itself in some form of bodily activity_, is one of the most obviously demonstrable principles of human life. Bear in mind that this is but another way of expressing the second of our first two fundamental principles of mental efficiency, and that we are engaged in a scientific demonstration of its truth so that you will not confuse it with mere theory or speculation. To recall these fundamental principles to your mind and further impress them upon you, we will restate them: I. _All human achievement comes about through some form of bodily activity_. II. _All bodily activity is caused, controlled and directed by the mind._ PHYSIOLOGICAL EVIDENCE OF MENTAL MASTERY CHAPTER V PHYSIOLOGICAL EVIDENCE OF MENTAL MASTERY