the same way the tusks, teeth, fangs, and claws of animals—the stings of insects—and all the wonderful offensive and defensive equipment of living things, have been evolved in response to Need and Desire. The hard shells of the crustaceans, the turtles, the armadillos—the spines of the porcupine and the hedgehog—the keen eye and powerful wings of the eagle—the swiftness of the hawk—the bill of the woodpecker—all have been evolved under the same law.
The story of the evolution of the horse from its original form of the Eohippus to its present form gives us a striking illustration of the principle. In response to the law of Need and Desire, manifesting along the lines of evolution, the Eohippus—a small animal no larger than a domestic cat, with several toes on each foot, with teeth resembling those of the monkey or the pig, with short neck, arched back, and rather short legs—has developed by eleven or more distinct stages to the horse of today—with its long legs, long neck, straight back, complex and long grinding teeth, hoofs, and large size. This almost incredible development has been due to the Need of the animal arising from its changing environment, and the Desire proceeding from that Need.
Man, today, has evolved into the conscious and selfconscious plane of life; but his Desire Power still is latent within him, awaiting his call upon it. Just as it has built up the bodies and brain of the animals through the slow stages of evolution, so it will build for man the mental and physical characteristics indicated by his Need—provided that he will only “want it hard enough,” and will arouse and stir into activity the great store of elemental, primitive Desire Power within himself. He may set it to work for himself along conscious lines, just as Nature set it to work for herself along subconscious lines in the past. That which has performed such great creative work in the past, can and will perform equally wonderful creative work now, provided that it is called upon properly, and is set to work under the direction of Intellect and Will, definitely and purposively employed.
VI
ATTRACTION OF DESIRE POWER
NOT ONLY does the principle of Desire Power manifest itself in the direction of unfolding, evolving and developing new attributes and powers in living things, so as to supply the demand created in them by Need, as we have explained in the preceding section of this book, but it also proceeds to accomplish similar purposes and ends by means of another important phase of power possessed by it, i. e., the power of Attraction.
“Attraction” is defined as, “an invisible power in a body by which it draws anything to itself; the power in Nature acting mutually between bodies or ultimate particles, tending to draw them together, or to produce their cohesion of combination, and conversely resisting separation.” The term, “Attraction,” is derived from two Latin terms, viz., “ad,” meaning “to”; and “trahere,” meaning “to draw”; the two being combined in the derivative Latin term, “attractus,” meaning “a drawing together.” In physical science, the principal forms of Attraction are gravitational attraction, the chemical affinity of the atoms, the cohesive attraction of the molecules, the attraction of electrified bodies, and the attraction of the magnet exerted upon iron or steel. In psychology, the principal forms of attraction are those arising between living beings by reason of their mutual “likes”—the force called “Repulsion” (being the negative form of Attraction) acting in the same manner but in an opposite direction, and resulting from mutual “dislikes.”
While freely admitting that the Attraction and Repulsion existing in and manifested between living things is the result of the action of “inforces” rather than of outside forces, physical science has usually held that the Attraction and Repulsion existing in and manifested between nonliving objects and things is the result of some outside stress or strain operating on the objects or things, though the nature of such outside forces is admitted to be unknown and mysterious.
Of late years, however, there has been a decided tendency toward the acceptance of the hypothesis that even nonliving objects and things (as, for instance, the chemical elements and particles of matter) possess the property of “like or dislike” for certain other objects and things, and the power to respond to such inner states. This hypothesis attributes Attraction and Repulsion in inanimate things to “inforces” rather than to outer forces,—thus bringing inanimate and animate objects under the same general Law of Attraction.
While this new hypothesis throws a most interesting light upon the subject of “chemical affinity” and other forms of physical Attraction and Repulsion—showing that even the atoms have their “loves and hates” and their response thereto—we shall not consider this aspect of the subject, inasmuch as it lies outside of the field of our present work. Instead, we shall consider that phase of the new knowledge which has an important bearing upon the subject of the nature and power of the Attraction of Desire in living things. If “chemical affinity,” magnetism, etc., are really manifestations of the power of “like and dislike”—in short, of Desire—then the Attraction of Desire in living things is seen possibly to possess a power of “drawing” which is but little suspected by the average person.
The “mental scientists,” and the other schools of practical metaphysics, for the last quartercentury or more have been teaching “the attractive power of thought,” i. e., the doctrine that thoughts have an attractive power tending to attract or to draw toward a person the things and conditions corresponding to the character of his general thought. The new knowledge concerning Desire Power in inanimate things serves to explain scientifically the undoubted facts advanced by the metaphysicians to support their own theories. Here, however, it is seen that Desire rather than Thought is the chief mental attracting power. Inasmuch, however, as the “attractive thought” of the metaphysicians is usually inspired and energized by the Desire Power of the person exercising it, it is seen that the two teachings incline to blend and harmonize with each other rather than to oppose and contradict each other.
The many instances of the coordination between different living things—between plant and insect, for instance—by means of which each supplies to the combination that which the other lacks, which has long puzzled the scientific observer, is now explainable under this new hypothesis of the Attraction of Desire. The plant requires the services of the insect in order to perpetuate its species. It attracts the insect by reason of its Desire Power having evolved the honey which the insect requires for food; and by means of advertising the presence of the honey through the colors of the flowers. There is a correlation between flower and insect which has arisen by reason of Desire Power. The curious adaptations of the food requirements of certain plants, and the apparently instinctive response of certain chemicals to these, furnish us with other striking examples. Different things “need” each other in order to express their respective natures and to manifest their respective destinies—and so they “attract” each other. Science furnishes us with many examples of this reciprocal service and correlation.
Passing by the more general aspects and phases of this important and wonderful operation of Nature’s Finer Forces, and proceeding directly to those phases of the general process which are immediately concerned with the human individual, we would say that the essential spirit of this particular operation may be stated in the following aphorism: “The strongest and most persistent desires of the individual tend to attract to him (or him to) that which is closely related to or correlated with those desires.” That is to say: the strong insistent desires of a person tend to attract to him those things which are closely related to such desires; and, at the same time, tend to attract him toward those related things. The Attractive Power of Desire operates in two general ways, viz., (1) to attract to the individual the things closely related to his desires; and (2) to attract the individual to such related things.
It is as yet not known exactly how Nature proceeds in this important process of Attractive
