If, therefore, one has the feeblest
contribution to make to the defeat of such a foe it becomes difficult to
withhold it.
II
But even with a view to conquering fear I should not presume to offer to
others ideas worked out purely for myself had I not been so invited. I
do not affirm that I have conquered fear, but only that in self-defence
I have been obliged to do something in that direction. I take it for
granted that what goes in that direction will go all the way if pursued
with perseverance and good will. Having thus made some simple
experiments--chiefly mental--with what to me are effective results, I
can hardly refuse to tell what they have been when others are so good as
to ask me.
And in making this attempt I must write from my own experience. No other
method would be worth while. The mere exposition of a thesis would have
little or no value. It is a case in which nothing can be helpful to
others which has not been demonstrated for oneself, even though the
demonstration be but partial.
In writing from my own experience I must ask the reader's pardon if I
seem egoistic or autobiographical. Without taking oneself too smugly or
too seriously one finds it the only way of reproducing the thing that
has happened in one's own life and which one actually knows.
And when I speak above of ideas worked out purely for myself I do not,
of course, mean that these ideas are original with me.
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