Success | Page 9

and compels man to use them. Man is as much the slave as the
master of the machine, as he turns to the telephone or the telegram. In
this fierce turmoil of the modern world he can only keep his judgment
intact, his nerves sound, and his mind secure by the process of
self-discipline, which may be equally defined as restraint, control, or
moderation. This is the price which must be paid for the gifts the gods
confer.

V
MONEY
Many serious letters and a half-humorous criticism in Punch suggest
that I am to be regarded as the apostle of a pure materialism. That is not
so. I quite recognise the existence of other ambitions in the walks of
Art, Religion, or Literature. But at the very outset I confined the scope
of my advice to those who wish to triumph in practical affairs. I am
talking to the young men who want to succeed in business and to build
up a new nation. Criticism based on any other conception of my
purpose is a spent shaft.
Money--the word has a magical sound. It conjures up before the vision
some kind of enchanted paradise where to wish is to have--Aladdin's
lamp brought down to earth.
Yet in reality money carries with it only two qualities of value: the
character it creates in the making; the self-expression of the
individuality in the use of it, when once it has been made. The art of
making money implies all those qualities--resolution, concentration,
economy, self-control--which make for success and happiness. The
power of using it makes a man who has become the captain of his own
soul in the process of its acquirement also the master of the
circumstances which surround him. He can shape his immediate world
to his own liking. Apart from these two faculties, character in

acquirement, power in use, money has little value, and is just as likely
to be a curse as a blessing. For this reason the money master will care
little for leaving vast wealth to his descendants. He knows that they
would be better men for going down stripped into the struggle, with no
inheritance but that of brains and character. Wealth without either the
wish, the brains, or the power to use it is too often the medium through
which men pamper the flesh with good living, and the mind with
inanity, until death, operating through the liver, hurries the fortunate
youth into an early grave. The inheritance tax should have no terrors for
the millionaire.
The value of money is, therefore, first in the striving for it and then in
the use of it. The ambition itself is a fine one--but how is it to be
achieved?
I would lay down certain definite rules for the guidance of the young
man who, starting with small things, is determined to go on to great
ones:--
1. The first key which opens the door of success is the trading instinct,
the knowledge and sense of the real value of any article. Without it a
man need not trouble to enter business at all, but if he possesses it even
in a rudimentary form he can cultivate it in the early days when the
mind is still plastic, until it develops beyond all recognition. When I
was a boy I knew the value in exchange of every marble in my village,
and this practice of valuing became a subconscious habit until, so long
as I remained in business, I always had an intuitive perception of the
real and not the face value of any article.
The young man who will walk through life developing the capacity for
determining values, and then correcting his judgments by his
information, is the man who will succeed in business.
2. But supposing that a young man has acquired this sense of values, he
may yet ruin himself before he comes to the fruition of his talent if he
will not practise economy. By economy I mean the economic conduct
of his business. Examine your profit and loss account before you go out
to conquer the financial world, and then go out for conquest--if the
account justifies the enterprise. Too many men spend their time in
laying down "pipe-lines" for future profits which may not arrive or only
arrive for some newcomer who has taken over the business. There is
nothing like sticking to one line of business until you have mastered it.

A man who has learned how to conduct a single industry at a profit has
conquered the obstacles which stand in the way of success in the larger
world of enterprise.
3. Do not try to cut with too wide a swath. This last rule is the most
important of all. Many promising young men have fallen into ruin