"Mental Efficiency And Other Hints to Men and Women"

I feel that it is as dangerous to tell the truth about success as it is to tell the truth about the United States; but being thoroughly accustomed to the whistle of bullets round my head, I will nevertheless try.

Most writers on success are, through sheer goodness of heart, wickedly disingenuous. For the basis of their argument is that nearly any one who gives his mind to it can achieve success. This is, to put it briefly, untrue.

The very central idea of success is separation from the multitude of plain men; it is perhaps the only idea common to all the various sorts of success -- differentiation from the crowd.

To address the population at large, and tell it how to separate itself from itself, is merely silly. I am now, of course, using the word success in its ordinary sense.

If human nature were more perfect than it is, success in life would mean an intimate knowledge of one's self and the achievement of a philosophic inward calm, and such a goal might well be reached by the majority of mortals. But to us success signifies something else. It may be divided into four branches:

(1) Distinction in pure or applied science. This is the least gross of all forms of success as we regard it, for it frequently implies poverty, and it does not by any means always imply fame.

(2) Distinction in the arts. Fame and adulation are usually implied in this, though they do not commonly bring riches with them.

(3) Direct influence and power over the material lives of other men; that is to say, distinction in politics, national or local.

(4) Success in amassing money. This last is the commonest and easiest. Most forms of success will fall under one of these heads.

Are they possible to that renowned and much- flattered person, the man in the street? They are not, and well you know it, all you professors of the science of success! Only a small minority of us can even become rich.

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