All beginnings are easy, and
only as we leave the early stages of proficiency behind and press on
in either physical or mental culture and encounter difficulties, do
individual differences and the tendency of weak will, to change and
turn to something else increase. Perhaps the greatest disparity
between men is the power to make a long concentrative, persevering
effort, for _In der Beschraenkung zeigt sich der Meister_ [The master
shows himself in limitation]. Now no kind or line of culture is
complete till it issues in motor habits, and makes a well-knit soul
texture that admits concentration series in many directions and that
can bring all its resources to bear at any point. The brain
unorganized by training has, to recur to Richter's well-worn aphorism,
saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal, or all the ingredients of gunpowder,
but never makes a grain of it because they never get together. Thus
willed action is the language of complete men and the goal of
education. When things are mechanized by right habituation, there is
still further gain; for not only is the mind freed for further and
higher work, but this deepest stratum of motor association is a plexus
that determines not only conduct and character, but even beliefs.
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