do better than refer the reader to some striking examples. In so doing we shall not emulate Samuel Smiles—whose work is even now greatly misunderstood—but we shall try to fathom the mental operations of a few variously successful men, with a view to ascertain the origin of their energetic policy, and of the qualities of mind they displayed in accomplishing their aims.
1.Descartes, the great philosopher, began life as a soldier.
2.Faraday, the great physicist, began life as a bookseller’s assistant.
3.Pasteur, the great bacteriologist, began life as a country schoolmaster.
Here are three names standing as representatives of those whose careers were dramatically changed from their original purpose. What kind of influence was it that caused Faraday, for instance, to cease bookselling and begin experimenting in physics?
There is only one answer and that is intense interest in the subject.
And how did that interest arise?
It was born in him.
The same conclusion applies to Descartes and Pasteur.
III. WHAT IS YOUR WORK?
5. Now if we were to take instances of successful merchants or leading professional men who never changed their calling, we should find the same phenomenon: i.e., an intense interest in their work, and consequently a fitness of their minds for the duties to be discharged. In this sense, there are born grocers, just as there are born poets; provision dealing may be an object of such ardent zeal that it almost rises to the level of a love of writing sonnets; the spirit of romance enters into buying and selling, thereby surrounding it with a glamour that makes the merchant something more than a dull trader. Ribot, the great French psychologist, has proved that imagination can be as glowing and as active in material matters as in those that are more spiritual.
Interest Power.
6. Interest power, the strong tendency propelling us in one specific direction, is a natural gift. Thus, one man may be a clerk but his whole soul is in painting, or he may have been fortunate enough to have his tendency recognised early, and by being sent to an art school, he avoided years of unhappiness at an office desk. Another man is a stockbroker, but the “House” is only a means to an end, and that end is literature—in which he puts his whole soul, and at which he works with his fullest energy, as in the case of the late E. C. Stedman, the American critic. Such instances could be multiplied by the score, but those we have quoted are sufficient to indicate more clearly the fact we are trying to emphasize: that human energy has its primary origin in a desire born in us for some kind of special work. We can see it in the boy—sometimes before he has left school. He is always buying or selling something; he wants to be an engineer, and is never happy unless he is hanging about the locomotive shops; he is perhaps a sailor—and builds ships by day and dreams of voyages by night. We are not speaking of the stages through which every boy passes with more or less enthusiasm, but of the deep down instinct to live for a certain kind of work. Doubtless some boys show no predilection for any particular occupation; they just fall in with parental suggestion—or with necessity; for unfortunately in many instances choice is out of the question, and more’s the pity.
Presumably, however, you have already arrived at years of responsibility, and if your daily duties are such as appeal strongly to you, there can be no doubt you are already provided with the first basis of human energy: you are engaged in work you like. If you study the biography of achievement, you will find this fact in the foreground of every success. Men of might in any calling have been men who loved their work, whatever its nature, and this deep interest is in the main responsible for excellence: indeed some authorities regard it as the first mark of genius.
IV. THE IMPORTANCE OF ENVIRONMENT.
7. The next stage is that of suitable surroundings—in other words opportunities of exercising your desire to do the work on which you have set your heart. Some men are fortunate in getting into the right atmosphere early on in life; others have to fight their way through many obstacles before they secure the proper environment. It was no easy thing for Pasteur to forsake schoolmastering and get into laboratory work – but he did it. Edison found it no light task to leave newspaper selling and become an inventor—and yet he managed it somehow. And smaller men—men of whom you have never heard, and whose names never appear in the newspapers—have had to go through similar experiences.
Now it may be that, as already suggested, you have found the work you like, and therefore the environment is suited to your requirements. Even so, there are many hindrances; and the speed with which you overcome them depends, first on the strength and depth of your liking for your work; next, on the industry and intelligence with which you apply yourself to it. Experience proves, however, that if we take to our daily duties as we take to our tennis, our golf, our baseball, our football, or our cricket—i.e., with zest, we shall soon find our proper sphere of labour.
8. A word now to those who are round pegs in square holes. Don’t change your work until you can see your way clearly to do so. Never let go with one hand until you have gripped with the other. But move steadily in the desired direction; leave no stone unturned, no opportunity unappropriated. Even though you never succeed fully, you will respect yourself the more for having made the attempt.
Let us now see how far we have gone. We began with the fact that human energy is a combination of physical health and mental vigour; and we discovered that this mental vigour was, partly, a thing born in us, by reason of our liking for a special kind of work, and partly a matter of the right environment.
Is there a third factor?
Yes: the physical and mental factors should work together.
This may seem too obvious at first to need statement, but a little reflection will show that a man may have interest in his work and yet suffer from some defect in his physical or mental machinery.
V. ILLUSTRATIONS OF DEFECTIVE ENERGY.
9. Let us examine two instances:—
CASE No. 1. J. M.—an engineer. Has been abroad where he had a bad attack of fever. Suffers from weak concentration and poor memory. Is anxious to prosper but feels a want of enthusiasm, and his mental failings go against him.
Here the physical element is at fault—and the cause is a serious illness that depleted the nervous system. His mind is all right, in that he likes his profession, and he is ambitious; but mind depends upon body to a large extent, and until he can, by physical culture, attain a higher standard of health he will suffer a serious handicap. It is the same with every man who knowingly runs health risks and suffers accordingly. Weak or ailing bodies are seldom found in conjunction with minds characterised by great energy; and the only safe rule is this: to obtain mental efficiency begin with physical efficiency.
CASE No. 2. L. B. G.—a solicitor’s managing clerk. Healthy. Master of his work—even likes it to the extent of always doing his best for the firm. Keeps this ideal before him. Sometimes desires to become a Solicitor. Has once or twice begun to prepare for the Preliminary Exam. but gate up after a month’s work.
Here the mental element is defective. L.B.G. lacks will-power, and he lacks that because his ability to feel deeply—his emotive force—is faulty. He has interest in his work, the discharge of his duties being
