POWER FOR SUCCESS E-Book

Frank Channing Haddock

• Herausgeber: Stargatebook
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

THIS BOOK instructs in the training of the personality in certain definite respects. Its methods are direct and practical. They follow closely everyday experience, and involve simply yourself, your powers and your environment.
In a certain sense, every soul is a BATTERY . To care for this, to develop its capacity, to adjust it to its surroundings, by it to receive and discharge EFFECTIVE FORCE for practical undertakings, these are the most important factors in the high art of right living.
The lessons that follow these introductory pages deal with one aim, the best handling of the BATTERY in Success-Magnetism, which is at once a goal, a means, and a POWER.

Success-Magnetism is governed by LAW. It can only be developed by single-hearted obedience to the principles of psychic and physical reality and adjustment.

Leseprobe

POWER FOR SUCCESS

HOW TO INCREASE PERSONAL MAGNETISM AND ETHERIC POWER

FOR UNLIMITED SUCCESS

FRANK CHANNING HADDOCK

Edition 2024 by Stargatebook

All rights are reserved

Contents

I - THE FIRST DIVISION - Psychic Magnetism

II - THE SECOND DIVISION - Physical Rationale

III - THE THIRD DIVISION Prevention of Waste

IV - THE FOURTH DIVISION - The Body Magnetic

Preliminary.

I.

THIS BOOK instructs in the training of the personality in certain definite respects. Its methods are direct and practical. They follow closely everyday experience, and involve simply yourself, your powers and your environment.

In a certain sense, every soul is a battery. To care for this, to develop its capacity, to adjust it to its surroundings, by it to receive and discharge effective force for practical undertakings, these are the most important factors in the high art of right living.

The lessons that follow these introductory pages deal with one aim, the best handling of the battery in Success-Magnetism, which is at once a goal, a means, and a power.

II.

Success-Magnetism is governed by law. It can only be developed by single-hearted obedience to the principles of psychic and physical reality and adjustment.

Let us take a preliminary survey of this arena of law.

You are neither a body nor a mind. You are a spiritual, that is, a non-material, self, which is possessed of a body and of emotional, intellectual and moral faculties. You dwell within the body, and you own the powers named, and these you employ in the conduct of life.

This deepest entity the personal YOU-is a spiritual unit, but in its unity the self exhibits consciousness, and also hides below consciousness, making report thereto. The deeper self-possesses all those primal powers of human nature which are now referred to as occult, in addition to the ordinary objective faculties.

Among these powers, such as are exhibited in telepathy, clairaudience, clairvoyance, psychic healing, hypnotism, and the like, personal magnetism stands supreme and most important.

Every human being who is normal possesses a capacity for magnetic development, although not all persons are equally endowed therefor.

Some individuals are greatly magnetic by nature, but with others processes of culture are more particularly necessary for the unfoldment of latent powers.

Whether native or cultivated, real and permanent magnetism resides in the subjective self and manifests in the objective self, just as power obtains in the boiler (the steam) and exhibits in the engine.

Cultivation of magnetism, then, has to do with unfolding the latent subjective forces so that they shall dominate the objective self and magnetically handle all the personal possessions - body, senses, emotional, mental and moral faculties.

III

Now, the deeper self may be regarded as the center of several outlying spheres. It centers the body, the personal atmosphere (explained below), the objective arena (the sphere of one's general influence), the universal ether, the All. Beginning with the last and returning to the first, we see that each sphere includes all other spheres preceding it.

The All vibrates into existence the universal ether, which pervades all material realms and realities, continually vibrating them into form and action. It is, therefore, immanent in, and it embraces, the objective arena. At this point the self as a vibrating power emerges. The self-vibrates the universal ether within the body, and around the person, and coextensively with the objective arena. A certain region within the objective arena, and centering in the deepest vibrant self, is distinctively individualized, so that it may be called the personal atmosphere. The personal atmosphere extends beyond, but pervades, the body, yet is not coextensive with the objective arena.

IV.

The body is composed of molecules and atoms the smallest divisible parts of matter. "An atom, embedded in the ether, is vibrating and sending out waves in all directions." So declares science to-day. The brain is made up of countless multitudes of such embedded atoms. "Every human being is a dynamic focus. Thought itself is a dynamic act. There is no thought without a correlative vibration of the brain. Is it extraordinary that this movement should be transmitted to a certain extent?" In the case of thought transmission or etheric influence, it is altogether probable that the wave-lengths and vibrations are vastly smaller and more rapid, and that the connecting medium is such refined ether or some reality still further removed from "gross matter," as commonly known, for "action at a distance" without some medium is, in our present sphere and in a scientific material world, now held to be impossible.

The self-vibrates outward toward the All. The All vibrates inward toward the self. When the personal life is right, the outgoing vibrations harmonize within the personal atmosphere with the incoming vibrations, and the individual has power.

But the self is constantly receiving wave-movements from other persons, so that, if the harmony just mentioned obtains, it (the self) is capable of repelling adverse vibrations, and it attracts those that are favorable to its purpose.

V.

Advancing a step further, we see that throughout the universal ether exist and incessantly act the Universal Forces, all those forces which operate to give any individual his reality or being, such as chemical, electrical, magnetic, vital, psychic, and so on.

An authority on chemistry, after describing the general structure of the body, has said: "The energies of the universe are then gathered and poured through it for the accomplishment of the purposes to which it is destined." Another authority on the mind has declared: "Every material substance is what it is by the productive or sustaining force of all other beings and forces in the universe." A third authority has written: "An animal is in reality only a form through which a stream of matter is incessantly flowing. It receives its supplies and dismisses its wastes. In this it resembles a cataract, a river, a flame." It is also now held: "We are to conceive of the brain, less as a stable organ than as a torrent of change, mind being linked not properly with matter, but with matter in motion."

The reception of our needed physical supplies cannot altogether be limited to the ordinary channels. The inner self possesses a power, latent or developed, of appropriating from the ocean of life in which it exists, in addition to the usual methods, those elements which it requires for psychic and physical purposes.

It is now known that injurious as well as healthful material influences act upon individuals, or are rejected by them, very largely according to psychic and physical conditions.

"It would seem that one object can hardly touch or approach another without impressing a change upon it, which is more or less lasting. If we lay a wafer or small coin upon a piece of clean cold glass, or polished metal, and breathe upon the surface, upon tossing off the object, after the moisture has evaporated, not a trace of it remains. But if we breathe upon it again, a spectral image of the coin or wafer comes forth, which, as it fades away, may be again and again recalled by a breath, even months afterward." "A shadow never falls upon a wall without leaving there - upon a permanent trace, a trace which might be made visible by resorting to proper processes. Upon the walls of our most private apartments, where we think the eye of intrusion is altogether shut out and our retirement can never be profaned, there exist the vestiges of all our acts, silhouettes of whatever we have done."

If these statements are true, how much more sensitive must be the human body to external etheric influences.

An English medical authority avouches that a woman, early disappointed in love, became insane and lost account of time, and that, at seventy-four years of age, she was believed by strangers to be under twenty.

She had successfully coerced the Universal Forces -for this is the meaning of psychic health-power for fifty years.

A medical writer of to-day asks, "why a child loses vitality, or an aged person gains vitality, by sleeping together." This is a popular tradition, and numerous cases are cited in support. "We have sufficient evidence to prove that nervous forces are transferred from one individual to another." A medical editor has also said: "Some persons of low vitality benefit by sleeping with others of robust health and vigor. The loser is the other person, of course."

The effects of a glorious morning in June or December cannot be wholly due to a mechanical tonic action on the nervous system. We absorb force as truly as we quicken under vital influences. "Man shall not live by bread alone."

"And the ethereal atmosphere, so light, so mobile, so attenuated, that it seems almost to connect the worlds of matter and of spirit, is the grand theatre of these mighty reactions." This is the field of those deific forces which are here referred to as universal.

VI.

The Universal Forces are governed by law. They act according to the intention of the System (the universe). They seek always to flow in from the universal ether, through your objective arena, your personal atmosphere, your body, to your inmost self. They are always vibrating toward you, and are always at your disposal, so far as your past career and present attitude decide. If you are in harmony with them, they build or furnish the material for every department of your personality for good. If you are out of harmony, they go on assisting you to build, just as certainly, for your injury.

But you are always vibrating the ether outward through body, personal atmosphere, objective arena, toward other people and toward the Universal Forces. If your personal atmosphere is made repellent or discordant to the Universal Forces, you defeat their effort in your behalf, you confuse their action, and you thus induce movements in the ether which carry good influences and powers away from you and cause antagonism in people around you. If your personal atmosphere harmonizes with the natural movements of the universal ether, in which the All vibrates toward you, the Universal Forces are attracted, and currents are induced in other personal atmospheres which run magnetically into your deeper self.

We thus perceive that the cultivation of personal magnetism does not involve merely learning how to do any one thing but has also to do with the great principles related to the entire best psychic life, to the "art of arts," the development of the inner soul in the beauty and power of harmony with the Universal Forces of the infinite All.

VII.

More specifically stated, we thus discover the transcendent importance:

Of cultivating the deepest self to its best estate.

Of vibrating the personal atmosphere into the objective arena - the general sphere of personal influence - in such a way as to maintain physical, mental and moral harmony with the great intention of the System.

Of harmonizing all outgoing vibrations with the natural movements of the universal ether, so as to attract the Universal Forces.

Of so regulating the personal atmosphere as to induce attracting currents to other personalities and to repel all adverse etheric assaults.

Balzac's father remonstrated against the son's choice of literature as a profession. "In literature," said the elder man, "one must be either beggar or king." "Then I will be king," replied the son. Similarly, a great Captain of Industry writes: "Be king in your dreams."

In such a spirit this book should be studied. If you merely glance through its pages, you will prove nothing. If you merely read it, you will certainly derive some benefit from the act. If you study it faithfully once through, you will largely demonstrate its values. But you will come to know its full practical worth only as you study and carry out its teachings, and thereafter make of it a permanent friend and guide.

The time to be given to any régime depends upon your personal need and should be determined by your own best judgment. In work of this kind, persistent effort to get out of a régime or exercise its whole value is far better than conforming to an arbitrary time-limit. If you do not see the end of the book for a year, all the more profitable will be its study in the meantime and at the close of the work required.

VIII.

You are now emphatically urged to observe the following suggestions:

Do not permit yourself to "skim through" the pages. That method will infallibly dull the edge of your interest and lessen your inspiration.

Do not read any portion of the book in advance of your working study. If you have begun a right, you have read several times every word to the present paragraph, and, in correct proceeding, you will study and practice each lesson as you come to it, and so only.

Do not try to select such lessons as you may believe you need, thus breaking the order of the work. When, after a year of faithful effort, you shall have finished the book, you will truly have discovered the parts which are really most valuable to you, and selection should be deferred to that time.

Do not permit discouragement, or doubt, or changing moods, or any circumstance, to induce you to relax your labors, or to drop the great art of Success-Magnetism.

Do not undertake too much at any one time. Better the little thoroughly mastered than the much apparently covered. You have paid well for this book; little by little you can demonstrate its value ten-fold above the price.

Do not throw your money away on cheap works on magnetism. Success-Magnetism is the "art of arts;" you want the best, and once for all.

You are invited to absorb the inspiration which the full-page lines or verses seek to convey. They are an important part of the work in hand. That work is more than hard "grind;" it is uplift and gradual saturation with the spirit of hope and courageous willpower.

Above all, do not forget that this is not a work on general success, nor on hypnotism, clairaudience, telepathy, psychometry, healing, and the like; it treats Success-Magnetism exclusively. Your goal now is psychic and physical power, sanely developed, sanely used, to make the most and the best of your real self and your actual but improving conditions. You are invited to adhere to this one purpose. It is enough. But it will surely realize if you work the present volume into your life for all it is worth.

But observe:

Magnetism is jealous of its tools.

As this book is intended for your personal study and permanent companionship, you should yourself own a copy, neither borrowing nor lending.

Individuality stamps property and gives it chief value. The personal atmosphere is the soul's kingdom. When you work with another's implements, if he is your inferior, you deprive that kingdom of its full opportunity; if he is your superior, you derive a benefit which cannot last; if he is your equal in other respects, he is yet above you in this: he owns what you are using.

An expert in violins, to whom a very old instrument was shown, insisted that it indicated deterioration in value because of inferior music long played upon its strings. The fibers of the wood betrayed maladjustment.

You are now urged to fix deeply and consciously in mind our first great principle:

The growth of Success-Magnetism cannot be hurried, cannot be forced, at any stage of your career, beyond your then condition of preparedness.

"Oh, well for him whose will is strong."

I - THE FIRST DIVISION - Psychic Magnetism

THE FIRST LESSON - The Vibrant Ether.

PRINCIPLE: In the ether is life, and through it soul speaks with soul.

THE ETHER is "a supposed medium filling all space, through which the vibrations of light, radiant heat and electric action are propagated. This medium, whose existence most modern authorities consider to be established, is thought to be more elastic than any ordinary form of matter, and to exist throughout all known space, even within the densest bodies. Electric and magnetic phenomena can be explained as due to strains and pulsations in the ether."

This lesson presents certain facts merely for the purpose of introduction, other suggestions being reserved for succeeding pages as called for by the leading elements of success.

1. The etheric medium is said to be material, that is, composed of inconceivably minute particles of matter.

2. The particles, whether in free space (if such exists) or in dense bodies, are apparently in a state of constant agitation or vibratory undulations. The particles of a body vibrate; the ether undulates. Sound is transmitted by direct vibrations in the atmosphere; light travels by etheric undulations, the particles of the ether, it has been suggested, contracting and expanding perpendicularly to the path of the ray.

3. Obviously each particle of the ether has its own free space, in the air or in bodies, though the density of the latter must more or less interfere with their action.

4. A vibration is a movement of a particle of matter in its free space, back and forth, to and from, the passing from equilibrium to limit and return constituting one vibration.

5. An undulation is a forward movement of impact among the etheric particles caused by their contraction and expansion. Billiard balls in a row, touching, would all receive a forward impulse if one at either end were perpendicularly contracted. As the word "vibration" is commonly used to represent the facts, it will hereafter be used.

6. In vibrations the particles strike against one another and thus produce a movement of forward impulses. The rate of vibrations and the nature of the general movement of the particles determine heat, light, electricity, magnetism, etc.

7. The human body is pervaded by the incessantly active ether.

8. Every physiological movement sets up etheric vibrations within the body and into the surrounding space.

9. Every emotion causes etheric disturbance.

10. Every intellection vibrates the ether within the brain and nervous organism, and more or less beyond the body.

11. Every act of perception-seeing, hearing, etc.-results from incoming vibrations.

12. The force and kind of such vibrations emanating from the personality constitute the personal atmosphere.

13. When such vibrations harmonize with those of other personalities, a degree of magnetism obtains.

14. The nature of this magnetism depends upon its source; in the body or in the mind, speaking generally; in the emotions, in the reason, in the will, in the moral centers, speaking more specifically.

15. The etheric particles are each negative at one end, positive at the other end. If two particles present to each other like ends they are repelled, if unlike ends they are attracted.

16. When negative particles in one space are presented toward positive particles in another space, if vibrations are set up in either space of sufficient intensity, that is, rapidity of to-and-fro movement, an effort occurs to pass the motion on through the intervening space until these space-atoms are vibrated and a wave-movement ensues. The process secures equilibrium.

17. When the etheric vibrations between two persons harmonize, such a process has occurred; the one has attracted a current to himself, or has discharged a current to the other person.

18. This is magnetism, which may be psychic only, or physical only, or psycho physical.

19. When psycho-etheric waves, coming from opposite directions, meet each other, whether "head on" or at any angle, they do not destroy one another, but transfuse and pass on in their original directions, although, if of different power, the stronger may change somewhat the direction of the weaker, and temporarily retard its progress.

20. When psycho-etheric waves overtake one another, they tend to coalesce, and the stronger, if it does not destroy, determines the influence felt by the receiving person.

21. In the psycho-etheric field, or personal atmosphere, an incessant activity of the particles may present a barrier, more or less impenetrable to incoming waves, because the latter may become so confused as to lose their identity. The effect of incoming waves, the, depends upon the weakness or strength of the personal atmosphere.

22. A magnetic field as resisting as well as attracting power, and the study of this book is designed to instruct the reader to so adjust the etheric filed to all incoming vibrations, as to secure ultimately his own ends and repel the unwelcome influences of others.

In pursuing the work of this book, therefore, the student should always think of himself as an instrument to receive, and a battery to originate etheric impulses.

The problem of Success-Magnetis is thus the problem of etheric harmony.

It should be remembered, however, that above numbered statements are inferential, not demonstrated in science; but inferences suffice tentatively to explain the facts connected with them.

THE SECOND LESSON-The Mood of Success.

Desires breed but accidents, or good or ill, at best; Build thou on reason's muniments: Fate is thy will's behest.

PRINCIPLE Life runs in the line of least resistance.

REAL SUCCESS is the outcome of its own mood. The word "mood" is defined as " temper of mind; state of mind as affected by any passion; disposition; ""temporary or capricious state or condition of the mind in regard to passion or feeling; especially, inclination toward some particular act or occupation; a state of mind with reference to something to be done or omitted; a more or less capricious feeling disposing one to action; commonly in the phrase, in the mood: as many artists work only when they are in the mood."

The word roots back into Gothic, Old Saxon, Middle English, Danish, Swedish, and finally into the Greek maiesthai (to search or seek eagerly), and finds "mind," "heart," "soul," "courage," "pride," "haughtiness," " magnificence," "zeal," " wrath," " grief," " endeavor."

A mood, then, is a state of mind which may be capricious, but has more or less power.

A mood may be inspired or depressed, worthy or ignoble, its character depending upon the attendant feeling or bent of mind. Thus: the "sorrowful mood," the "buoyant mood," the "destructive mood," the "creative mood," and so on.

The artist works when he is "in the mood." He is then creative. Everyone achieves more and better when in the mood than otherwise.

Such a mood may last thirty minutes, one day, six months, the best part of a lifetime. Moods, whether injurious or beneficial, tend to become permanent. The permanency of a mood is a matter of endowment and will. The will may suppress evil moods and establish beneficial moods. The true method of suppressing injurious moods consists in replacing them by helpful moods. The true method of establishing the latter class consists in will-effort and

incessant suggestion. The mood of success should be held constantly in mind in all the work of this book, and in all the affairs of life. This may be done by affirming, until it is a permanent belief and expectation of the soul, "I am resolved on success. I shall certainly

achieve success."

If you analyze the careers of successful people, you will find that they have thought of themselves as successful until success has become an abiding mood of the soul: so, the inventive success-mood, the mercantile success-mood, the artistic success-mood, the scientific success-mood, the reforming success-mood, the social success-mood, the political success-mood, and so on.

If you will analyze the success-mood as exemplified in any life, you will also find that it is a composite product of the success-elements of this book, particularly Will, Alertness, Fidelity, Honor, Hopefulness, Courage, Confidence, Brainpower, Faith in the Universal System and Physical Magnetism.

The present is not a work on general success, but a specialization in magnetism, and is therefore confined to the lines above indicated. But magnetism is a combination of certain psychic and physical qualities, which obtain in every eminently successful career, and this fact obviates the necessity of any larger treatment of success.

With the following enormously dynamic advice, this lesson closes:

TREAT YOURSELF AS A LIVE AND A SURELY SUCCESSFUL PROPOSITION.

In so doing, you establish certain rhythmic, aggressive, compelling etheric vibrations, which ultimately transform both yourself and your environment.

Write the above advice on a pocket-book card, and frequently during the day absorb its meaning. Write or print it also on larger cards, and hang these cards in your sleeping-room, your kitchen, your shop or store.

The accomplishment of the task now before you is a long process in which the soul is engaged in building, it may be, unwontedly and with difficulty, a work which is opposed by most of the feelings and conditions of your life. Nevertheless, if you will pay a reasonable price of effort, beginning with the following directions of this lesson and going on with the twenty-six remaining lessons of this book, the mood of success will infallibly form within you, clear, brilliant, indestructible.

The immediate directions are now before you:

First. Keep out of the backyards of your life, those environments or soul-states where the refuse of existence and injurious or useless growths are favored.

Second. Rise as frequently as may be to the highest level of your endowments and maintain that altitude as permanently as possible.

Third. Insist upon the unwearied vision of yourself as splendidly successful.

Fourth. Whenever a contrary thought or opposing mood appears, treat it as absolutely false and certainly temporary. You can in this way discount and disorganize any depressing mood in life.

Fifth. Whenever you seem to suffer defeat, or so suffer in reality, proceed instantly to recover the success-mood as follows:

1. Go into the silence and secure mental quiet.

2. Divert the mind, by any agreeable occupation, into moods that cheer and encourage, striving always to come round, by cross-lot, as it were, never by direct approach, to that state of the soul in which you can again picture yourself as successful.

Sixth. Resolve to banish wholly out of your life all brooding over misfortune, all worry about the future, and all depressing comparison with others.

Seventh. Maintain unyieldingly the great affirmation of human welfare,

Whatever betides, I, the true self of me, am coming out in the end a free and royal soul.

You are building a permanent mood, and the time and effort involved will depend wholly upon yourself, but it is as certain as law that, if you will companion with these suggestions, you will in time realize the splendid value of the rule here given:

TREAT YOURSELF AS A LIVE AND A SURELY SUCCESSFUL PROPOSITION.

This is our first Preliminary Intention.

"A Living Soul."

There's a stir in planet-spaces, A breath moves out of the sky; Lo, a nerve is born and a dull clod wakens To thoughts that are deep and high; - For the nostrils of God have dilated, And the clod was standing nigh.

THIRD LESSON: Personal Possibilities.

Now no man knows why thou wert born. Nor yet what gifts are thine. But look you, grubs shall fly this morn; Who kens thy soul's design? Fare thou a Will-Defeat give scorn: Believe thyself divine.

PRINCIPLE The truest success is but development of self.

THE WORD "success" is defined as a "happy issue; a favorable or prosperous termination of anything attempted; a termination which answers the purpose intended-a prosperous or advantageous issue."

An issue, to be truly prosperous, must be favorable to the individual who succeeds. Apparent success may, therefore, be false because it is not so favorable. It is a question whether you will magnify incidental successes in your life-work or the complete success of your life.

A fundamental axiom now appears: NOTHING IS SUCCESS WHICH DOES NOT DEVELOP SELFHOOD TOWARD ITS BEST.

It is thus evident that success may be incidental or permanent, and that, in either case, it may be physical, mental, moral.

If it is merely incidental, it may result from the operation of selfishness, self-interest or altruism.

If it is permanent, it must result from the operation of self-interest and altruism.

Moreover, one may be successful in securing and maintaining physical health, mental power and scholarship, moral character and usefulness. In the first two cases, success may result either from selfishness or from self-interest. In the last case, it must result from self-interest and altruism.

We now take a step further.

Success which follows selfishness is limited by reaction of self upon self.

Success which follows self-interest and altruism, secures the reaction for good upon self of the Universal System.

But success which follows efforts toward self-interest is always altruistic, because one cannot possibly attain best interests of self without benefiting, or seeking to benefit, others. It is so ordered in the nature of things.

And success which follows efforts for others, invariably results in best self-interest, because the effort to help others constitutes an effort to help the best self. This also is law.

It is now evident that success, which is the result of selfishness, is no true success. Good health, mental power and scholarship, and moral character, sought indifferently to the welfare of others, end inevitably in defeat. Proof: the whole structure of society considered with reference to hygiene, education and public righteousness. The bedrock of human life is mutuality.

Success, then, may be tentatively defined as achievement of best interests of self and of others.

Such success may be physical, intellectual, financial, social, political, moral, and so on through a long list of the fields of effort.

When we make self-interest plus other interest the test of success, we begin to discover certain facts which are usually obscured by bad thinking. This obscuring thought causes a vast amount of perplexity and trouble. The facts will now be uncovered.

A man's success engages, and is limited by, his endowments, his opportunities, his environments, his relations to life and his future. These factors are involved in any measure of success.

It is also true that one cannot transcend these factors. They constitute limits.

One may achieve that degree of success which engages, partly or fully, the above factors, some or all of them, yet, at the same time, seem to be unsuccessful, in his own opinion, so far as concerns his own ambition, in the judgment of others, regarded from the point of view of various possible but non-existing relations in life, or that of a misconceived present.

Success must be determined by the consciousness of the fully awakened individual considered with reference to conditions as they now are, not as they might be, and never with reference to the judgment of others. This insistence of the living consciousness may involve mistakes, but it is wholly indispensable.

A right conception of success, then, becomes clear:

If one is using his personal powers to the very best advantage for him, so far as he knows, that is success.

If one is seizing his opportunities in the best possible way for him, so far as he knows, that is success.

If one is endeavoring to fill his life-relations as well as he consciously can for him, that is success.

If one is honestly striving to adjust himself to his environment, and so striving to improve that environment in the completest measure possible to him, so far as he knows, that is success.

If one is industriously and intelligently endeavoring to make his present prophetic of a better future, doing as well as he can, so far as he knows, that is success.

These attainments or efforts constitute success, no matter what one's mental depression, self-expectation, fanciful dreams, or the opinions of others, may be.

We thus discover a broad ground of encouragement.

The effort to secure health may fail in the ideal yet prove successful as a "good fight."

The struggle for brainpower and scholarship may fail in the ideal, yet become success by developing the personality so far forth.

The battle for moral character and usefulness may fail in the ideal, yet demonstrate enormous success because the forces put into it have been invariably multiplied.

Out of every honest undertaking man always pulls the product of himself multiplied into the effort.

He alone is unsuccessful who fails to attempt the best use of his powers, his opportunities and his environment, ignores his right relations to life, and lives his present regardless of his future.

Even financial success, which is the lowest known form, considered solely in itself, endures the tests of these statements.

Financial success which costs the smallest particle of best self-interest or intentionally jeopardizes in the least the real interest of others, is a failure.

Financial effort which conserves best self-interest and adds to the welfare of others, though it prolongs the agony of poverty through a lifetime, is a success. Standing on the above ground of encouragement, let us write the Golden Legend of Success:

There is no absolute success, because, if such were achievable, it would instantly discover a possible higher form, and would thus cease to be absolute.

Success is always relative: -

To individual endowment;

To actual opportunity;

To existing, but improvable, environment;

To personal relations in life;

To the attitude of the present toward the

future.

Whoever strives earnestly to exhaust these factors has achieved relative success, no matter what the product may seem to be to others or to himself.

If you will now read three times, very slowly and thoughtfully, the sentences above between the definition of success and the Golden Legend, you will begin to absorb the full meaning of relative success.

This will yield the second Preliminary Intention of the present book:

Treat yourself as a live and a surely successful proposition, deriving ENCOURAGEMENT from the Golden Legend of Relative Success.

Thus, you develop the mood of success.

But encouragement should never be taken too easily. This suggests the third Preliminary Intention of these pages: Inspiration. You are now confronted by certain questions, which are designed to put you severely to test.

First Test-Question: Are you actually using your personal powers to the best advantage known to yourself?

Throw the spirit of reform into your mood of success.

Second Test-Question: Are you seizing your opportunities in the best possible way, so far as you know?

Throw the spirit of reform into your mood of success.

Third Test-Question: Are you honestly trying to fill your relations to life as well as you know how? To wife, husband, parents, children, neighbor, employer, club, church, party, etc.?

Throw the spirit of reform into your mood of success.

Fourth Test-Question: Are you really endeavoring to adjust yourself in the best manner to your environment, so far as you can discover?

Is it mean and unfortunate? Multiply yourself into it for its improvement. The pioneer's first environment is a wilderness. He multiplies him. self into it, and his last environment is the product-a magnificent farm.

How does one know that he would achieve greater success in any different environment until he wins success out of the present?

Throw the spirit of reform into your mood of success.

You are invited to study until you master its significance the following Iron Law:

The only sure test of one's ability to achieve greater success under improved conditions is the measure of success one now achieves under poor conditions.

Fifth Test-Question: Are you making each day, so far as you know, a sure prophecy of a better tomorrow?

Throw the spirit of reform into your mood of success.

If you will companion with these test-questions until you have thoroughly absorbed their meaning, the inevitable outcome will be a growing sense of inspiration.

Success may now be given its final definition:

"Achievement, considered relatively to endowments, opportunities, environment, life-relations and the future, which demonstrates itself in the best interest of the individual and, therefore, of others, whether such achievement be much or less according to personal ideals or friendly or hostile judgment.

We are thus prepared to work out the fourth Preliminary Intention: the inalienable Right to Success as above defined. This is deduced from the following propositions, which you are invited to make a part of your permanent mental furniture:

Proposition One: Your highest success demands that you find, occupy and fill that place in life for which you are best fitted.

Proposition Two: The infallible method, therefore, consists in full, persistent efforts to discover such place, coupled with full, persistent determination to make the utmost best of present conditions.

Proposition Three: Every human being is entitled, by the nature of things, to a certain measure of success. Success is not a gift nor a concession to favorites of the Universe. It is a universal right. On no other basis could the Universe exist.

Some of the rights of success may be indicated, and in every case a limitation will be discovered. Thus, every human being has an inalienable right - to good health, 80 far as it is independent of hereditary weakness, accidents, contagious diseases and unavoidable exposure; and no more. This right carries the privilege and duty of restricting the above elements to the smallest possible limits.

To mental power, - so far as it is independent of hereditary influences, unimprovable environment and disabling conditions of health; and no more.

To moral character, up to the point where responsibility is balanced by effort; and no more.

To financial gain, so far as endowment makes capable of earning, accumulating and investing money, with or without favorable opportunities and conditions; and no more.

To friendships, - so far as power and willingness to reciprocate with others renders them possible; and no more.

To position, so far as talent and fidelity fit there for; and no more.

To honor, so far as work and worth in justice demand; and no more.

To happiness, so far as the real inner self and outward relations legitimately secure it; and no more.

To a prosperous future, so far as the present prepares for the same; and no more.

These sentences illustrate the limits of all success-rights.

Proposition Four: As between capacity and industry, on the one hand, and opportunity and environment, on the other hand, the preponderance of responsibility rests with capacity and industry with the man's self, not with the world or sphere in which he lives. Setting aside a vast tangle of possible and incidental cases, because such cannot be decisive, capacity and industry, in the long run and in the overwhelming majority of histories, determine success as against small opportunity and unfortunate environment. The overcoming of obstacles seems almost an essential element in the definition of success.

Proposition Five: With average endowments, it is always possible, in the long run, to improve the quality and number of opportunities by greater fidelity and by watchful manipulation of circumstances.

Proposition Six: On the same basis, it is always possible, in the long run, to make the best of any existing environment, and thus, but only thus, to create new and better environment. Environment is merely the soul's workshop.

Proposition Seven: Every human right is a solemn obligation.

The above propositions represent success-rights- they are therefore duties.

We have now discovered several broad grounds of encouragement:

First, all success is relative;

Second, he who does his best, so far as he knows, succeeds;

Third, the majority of people have it within their power to achieve larger success by fully submitting to the above test-questions of reform;

Fourth, every human being is entitled to all the success he is fitted to achieve, and no more. This establishes a right and limits a responsibility;

Fifth, every human right is also an obligation;

Sixth, with every genuine human obligation goes a possible corresponding ability, and will arise a certain corresponding opportunity, provided the individual honestly endeavors to do his best;

Seventh, the Universe, on the whole, in the wide sweep of its forces, is kindly disposed toward all, and exacts nothing without guaranteeing equivalent power.

This brings out the fifth Preliminary Intention of these pages: Unbiased Judgment as to Personal Rights.

It is quite probable that you have erred in mistaking your desires for your rights. The following will illustrate these errors:

You have supposed it your right to be well, however your ancestors may have lived.

Not so. It is merely your right to be as well as possible in view of ancestral living, and by your own intelligent efforts.

You have supposed it your right to possess mental power, of one sort or another, whatever the transmissions of heredity.

Not so. It is simply your right to make the most of the mind you were born with.

You have supposed it your right to be born morally sound.

Not so. It is your right alone to build grandeur on the sins and mistakes of your forefathers.

You have supposed it your right to accumulate financial wealth equal to that of others.

Not so. It is only your right to achieve all the financial success you are fitted for.

You have supposed friendships and position and happiness and a prosperous future, equal in measure and quality to those of others, to be your personal rights.

Not so. These are your rights only so far as you earn them, industriously, courageously, honorably, and not an atom beyond.

You are invited to apply this general conception to all your supposed rights. The process will clear away many misconceptions.

Nevertheless, these statements do not belittle human rights. They rather make them definite and practicable.

It is surely every man's individual, social and ethical right to be well-born. But that is a right, not from the standpoint of self-interest, but from the standpoint of altruism. One may battle for it in the case of the unborn but can give it no value in the case of the living. So far as you are now concerned, the right is purely abstract.

So far as regards the rights conceded in the second parts of the preceding paragraphs, they are all the rights any person requires in order to achieve the greatest success in life.

Many are dissatisfied because they have not achieved the success of others. The logical implication is alternative:

Either they have not striven to the utmost, or they rest under an unjust responsibility.

If they have not so striven, the complaint is groundless.

If they have so striven, yet a larger success than the present is somehow possible, they are responsible for accomplishing beyond their ability. For every right is an obligation.

The duty-right of success never transcends the individual's powers. The secret of failure, if failure be the fact, lies in the self alone.

The sixth Preliminary Intention now appears: Every Right constitutes an Obligation.

You have probably erred in mistaking rights for mere privileges.

It is stated by the nature of things that it is no one's mere privilege to realize a right. A right is an intention of the world-system in which we live. The world-system is striving to realize itself, and a right is an expression of the intention of ultimate development. The individual is no mere accident. He is a design-more or less warped and confused by the present tangle of things, but assigned certain rights in the general intention which, if he will but try to possess them, will clear up his own case and contribute toward the universal success.

Let us be coldly definite in these matters.

It is no one's mere privilege to acquire and maintain good health, or to dissipate its forces, according to choice. Good health is a right, and therefore a duty, subject to the preceding limitations.

It is not an elective privilege to acquire mental power and culture. It is a universal duty to make the most of the individual mind.

Moral character is not a matter of choice. It is an obligation imposed by existence.

It is not a privilege alone to succeed financially. This also is a duty, limited only by personal ability.

Equally true is this conception when applied to friendships, position, honor, happiness, a prosperous future.

Endowment, opportunity, environment and life. relations offer no mere privileges; they confer inalienable rights and raise the whole duty of ultimate best estate.

The seventh Preliminary Intention of these pages emerges at this point: Faith in the Universal System, Unless the Universe is chaos, it will furnish, in some way, at some time, entirely adequate power to every soul who is sincerely endeavoring to fulfil the obligations which nature imposes.

For the Universal Intention must be possible, as a whole, and therefore in each individual case.

If you, the individual, bring to your lifework the required elements, the Universe guarantees the measure of success for which you are fitted.

These required elements will now be stated.