Fearthought is the last relic of animal suspicion to be located, analyzed and dispelled. When it is entirely killed; then, and only then, will man become free--free to grow, free to appreciate his divine inheritance and free to enjoy it as ordained. As in agriculture and in horticulture, so in menticulture, and its contingent, physiculture, will it be found that deterrents to perfect growth can be eradicated, and that if attention to the germ-eradication of the deterrents is intelligent and persistent, God will surely develop perfect growth and the perfect fruit of happiness.
Fearthought is the result of ignorance or perversity.
Fearthought which is perverse is criminal.
Fearing for others is criminal, because it not only depresses and weakens them, but because it robs them of some part of the strength that encouragement and hopeful thought would give them.
Parents who do not wish to poison the natural energy of their children by depression and weakness, should learn the effect of telepathic influence for good or for evil, and thereby know that all of the expressions of fearthought are rank poisons.
Whenever parents allow or teach their children to have fearthought, they foster in them the temptation to lie and steal.
Ignorance can no longer be accepted as an excuse for the toleration of fear.
Thought precedes every emotion and every act of life. It must have no element of fear in it, if it is to lead up and on.
_Habit-of-thought_ asserts itself on all occasions. _Habit-of-feeling_ is the truer description, for the reason that it is the emotional self and not the thought-self that first responds to surprise.
Habit-of-thought or habit-of-feeling can be trained to respond to surprise with "I _must not be_ afraid," as easily as it is permitted to respond with the cowardly dictum, "I _am_ afraid."
If one have the habit-of-fearthought in any form or degree, surprise may cause it to inspire rash action which may end in disaster. More lives are lost through jumping _into_ danger under the impulse of fearthought, than are ever saved by it. Calm forethought is the better friend in a case of peril than quaking fearthought.
Fearthought is a very dangerous enemy, because it habitually masquerades in the garb of forethought.