with his lot, for him to attempt to raise himself to a higher level, was tantamount to tempting Providence. The gates of Hell yawned wide for such scatterbrains, who were lucky if in this life they incurred nothing worse than the ribald scorn of their associates.
That is the system that produced aristocracy and feudalism. That is the system that feudalism and aristocracy strove to perpetuate.
The new idea — the basis of all democracies — is that man is not bound by any system, that he need not accept the world as he finds it. He can remake the world to his own ideas. It is merely the raw material. He can make what he wills of it.
It is this new idea that is responsible for all our inventions, all our progress. Man is satisfied with nothing. He is constantly remaking his world. And now more than ever will this be true, for psychology teaches us that each one has within himself the power to become what he wills.
Learn to control your thought. Learn to image upon your mind only the things you want to see reflected there.
You will never improve yourself by dwelling upon the drawbacks of your neighbors. You will never attain perfect health and strength by thinking of weak-ness or disease. No man ever made a perfect score by watching his rival’s target. You have got to think strength, think health, think riches. To paraphrase Pascal — “Our achievements today are but the sum of our thoughts of yesterday.”
For thought is energy. Mental images are concentrated energy. And energy concentrated on any definite purpose becomes power. To those who perceive the nature and transcendency of force, all physical power sinks into insignificance.
What is imagination but a form of thought? Yet it is the instrument by which all the inventors and discoverers have opened the way to new worlds. Those who grasp this force, be their state ever so humble, their natural gifts ever so insignificant, becomes our leading men. They are our governors and supreme lawgivers, the guides of the drifting host, which follows them as by an irrevocable decree. To quote Glenn Clark in the Atlantic Monthly, “Whatever we have of civilization is their work, theirs alone. If progress was made they made it. If spiritual facts were discerned, they discerned them. If justice and order were put in place of insolence and chaos, they wrought the change. Never is progress achieved by the masses. Creation ever remains the task of the individual.”
Our railroads, our telephones, our automobiles, our libraries, our newspapers, our thousands of other conveniences, comforts and necessities are due to the creative genius of but two per cent of our population.
And the same two per cent own a great percentage of the wealth of the country. The question arises, who are they? What are they? The sons of the rich? College men? No — few of them had any early advantages. Many of them have never seen the inside of a college. It was grim necessity that drove them, and somehow, some way, they found a method of drawing upon their Genie-of -the-Mind, and through that inner force they have reached success.
You don’t need to stumble and grope. You can call upon your inner forces at will. There are three steps necessary:
First, to realize that you have the power;
Second, to know what you want.
Third, to center your thought upon it with singleness of purpose.
To accomplish these steps takes only a fuller understanding of the Power-that-is-within-you.
But what is this power? Where should you go to locate it? Is it a thing, a place, an object? Has it bounds, form or material shape? No! Then how shall you go about finding it?
If you have begun to realize that there is a power within you, if you have begun to arouse in your conscious mind the ambition and desire to use this power — you have started in the pathway of wisdom. If you are willing to go forward, to endure the mental discipline of mastering this method, nothing in the world can hinder you or keep you from overcoming every obstacle.
Begin at once, today, to use what you have learned. All growth comes from practice. All the forces of life are active — peace — joy — power. The unused talent decays. Open the door —
“Behold I stand at the door and knock; if ANY MAN hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him and he with me.”
So let us make use of this dynamo, which is you. What is going to start it working? Your Faith, the faith that is begotten of understanding. Faith is the impulsion, the propulsion of this power within. Faith is the confidence, the assurance, the enforcing truth, the knowing that the right idea of life will bring you into the reality of existence and the manifestation of the All power.
All cause is in Mind — and Mind is everywhere. All the knowledge there is, all the wisdom there is, all the power there is, is all about you — no matter where you may be. Your Mind is part of it. You have access to it. If you fail to avail yourself of it, you have no one to blame but yourself. For, as the drop of water in the ocean shares in all the properties of the rest of the ocean water so you share in that all-power, all-wisdom of Mind. If you have been sick and ailing, if poverty and hardship have been your lot, don’t blame it on “fate.” Blame yourself. “Yours is the earth and everything that’s in it.” But you’ve got to take it. The power is there — but you must use it. It is round about you like the air you breathe. You don’t expect others to do your breathing for you. Neither can you expect them to use your Mind for you. Universal Intelligence is not only the mind of the Creator of the universe, but it is also the mind of MAN, your intelligence, your mind. “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus!”
So start today by KNOWING that you can do anything you wish to do, have anything you wish to have, be anything you wish to be. The rest will follow.
“Ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you.”
Chapter 4 — Desire; The First Law of Gain
If you had a fairy-wishing ring, what one thing would you wish for? Wealth? Honor? Fame? Love? What one thing do you desire above everything else in life? Whatever it is, you can have it.
Whatever you desire wholeheartedly, with singleness of purpose — you can have. But the first and all-important essential is to know what this one thing is. Before you can win your heart’s desire, you’ve got to get clearly fixed in your mind’s eye what it is that you want.
It may sound paradoxical, but few people do know what they want. Most of them struggle along in a vague sort of way, hoping — like Micawber — for something to turn up. They are so taken up with the struggle that they have forgotten — if they ever knew — what it is they are struggling for. They are like a drowning man — they use up many times the energy it would take to get them somewhere, but they fritter it away in aimless struggles — without thought, without direction, exhausting themselves, while getting nowhere.
You’ve got to know what you want before you stand much chance of getting it. You have an unfailing “Messenger to Garcia” in that Genie-of-your Mind — but YOU have got to formulate the message. Aladdin would have stood a poor chance of getting anything from his Genie if he had not had clearly in mind the things he wanted the Genie to get.
In the realm of mind, the realm in which is all practical power, you can possess what you want at once. You have but to claim it, to visualize it, to bring it into actuality — and it is yours for the taking. For the Genie-of-your-Mind can give you power over circumstances. Health, happiness and prosperity. And all you need to put it to work is an earnest, intense desire.
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