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- Herausgeber: Charles River Editors
- Kategorie: Ratgeber
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018
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THE SCIENCE OF BEING GREAT
Wallace D. Wattles
CHIOS CLASSICS
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This book is a work of nonfiction and is intended to be factually accurate.
All rights reserved. Aside from brief quotations for media coverage and reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form without the author’s permission. Thank you for supporting authors and a diverse, creative culture by purchasing this book and complying with copyright laws.
Copyright © 2015 by Wallace D. Wattles
Interior design by Pronoun
Distribution by Pronoun
TABLE OF CONTENTS
The Science of Being Great
Chapter 1: Any Person MAY Become Great
Chapter 2: Heredity And Opportunity
Chapter 3: The Source Of Power
Chapter 4: The Mind Of God
Chapter 5: Preparation
Chapter 6: The Social Point Of View
Chapter 7: The Individual Point Of View
Chapter 8: Consecration
Chapter 9: Indentification
Chapter 10: Idealization
Chapter 11: Realization
Chapter 12: Hurry and Habit
Chapter 13: Thought
Chapter 14: Action At Home
Chapter 15: Action Abroad
Chapter 16: Some Further Explanations
Chapter 17: More About Thought
Chapter 18: Jesus’ Idea Of Greatness
Chapter 19: A View Of Evolution
Chapter 20: Serving God
Chapter 21: A Mental Exercise
Chapter 22: A Summary Of The Science Of Being Great
THE SCIENCE OF BEING GREAT
CHAPTER 1: ANY PERSON MAY BECOME GREAT
1. THERE IS A PRINCIPLE of Power in every Human Being. By the intelligent use and direction of this principle, a human can develop our own mental faculties. Humans have an inherent power by which we may grow in whatsoever direction we please, and there does not appear to be any limit to the possibilities of our growth. No Human has yet become so great in any faculty but that it is possible for some one else to become greater. The possibility is in the Original Substance from which Human Beings are made. Genius is Omniscience flowing into Humans. Genius is more than talent. Talent may merely be one faculty developed out of proportion to other faculties, but genius is the union of a Human and God in the acts of the soul. Great Humans are always greater than our deeds. We are in connection with a reserve of power that is without limit. We do not know where the boundary of the mental powers of Humans is; we do not even know that there is a boundary.
2. The power of conscious growth is not given to the lower animals; it is Humans alone and may be developed and increased by each Human. The lower animals can, to a great extent, be trained and developed by Humans; but Human Beings can train and develop ourselves. Humans alone have this power, and we have it to an apparently unlimited extent.
3. The purpose of life for Humans is growth, just as the purpose of life for trees and plants is growth. Trees and plants grow automatically and along fixed lines; Humans can grow, as he and she Will. Trees and plants can only develop certain possibilities and characteristics; Humans can develop any power, which is or has been shown by any person, anywhere. Nothing that is possible in spirit is impossible in flesh and blood. Nothing that Humans can think is impossible in action. Nothing that Humans can imagine is impossible of realization.
4. A Human Being is formed for growth, and is under the necessity of growing. It is essential to our happiness that we each should continuously advance.
5. Life without progress becomes unendurable, and the person who ceases from growth must either become imbecile or insane. The greater and more harmonious and well rounded a person’s growth, the happier that person will be.
6. There is no possibility in any Human that is not in every Human; but if we proceed naturally, no two Humans will grow into the same thing, or be alike. Every Human comes into the world with a predisposition to grow along certain lines, and growth is easier for a person along those innate lines than in any other way. This is a wise provision, for it gives endless variety. It is as if a gardener should throw all their bulbs into one basket; to the superficial observer they would look alike, but growth reveals a tremendous difference. So of men and women, they are like a basket of bulbs. One may be a rose and add brightness and color to some dark corner of the world; one may be a lily and teach a lesson of love and purity to every eye that sees; one may be a climbing vine and hide the rugged outlines of some dark rock; one may be a great oak among whose boughs the birds shall nest and sing, and beneath whose shade the flocks shall rest at noon, but every one will be something worthwhile, something rare, something perfect.
7. There are undreamed of possibilities in the common lives all around us in a large sense, there are no “common” people. In times of national stress and peril the cracker-box loafer of the corner store and the village drunkard become heroes and statespersons through the quickening of the Principle of Power within them. There is a genius in every man and woman, waiting to be brought forth. Every village has its great man or woman; someone to whom all go for advice in time of trouble; some one who is instinctively recognized as being great in wisdom and insight. To such a one the minds of the whole community turn in times of local crisis; he or she is tacitly recognized as being great. The person does small things in a great way. He or she could do great things as well if such are undertaken; so can any person; so can you and I. The Principle of Power gives us just what we ask of it; if we only undertake little things, it only gives us power for little things; but if we try to do great things in a great way it gives us all the power there is.
But beware of undertaking great things in a small way: of that we shall speak farther on.
9. There are two mental attitudes a Human may take. One makes us like a football having resilience and reacting strongly when force is applied to it, but it originates nothing; it never acts of itself. There is no power within it. Humans of this type are controlled by circumstances and environment; their destinies are decided by things external to themselves. The Principle of Power within them is never really active at all. They never speak or act from within. The other attitude makes a Human like a flowing spring. Power comes out from the center of their being. These have within the self a well of water springing up into everlasting life, they radiate force; they are felt by their environment. The Principle of Power in him or her is in constant action. The person is self-active. “He hath life in himself.” - (Jesus spoke in a Parable at St John 10:10 “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly")
10. No greater good can come to any man or woman than to become self-active. All the experiences of life are designed by Providence to force men and women into self-activity; to compel us to cease being creatures of circumstances and master our environment. In the lowest stage, a human is the child of chance and circumstance and the slave of fear. His or her acts are all reactions resulting from the impingement upon the being of forces in their environment. That level person acts only as acted upon and originates nothing. But even the lowest savage has within the self a Principle of Power sufficient to master all that is feared; and if the Being learns this and becomes self-active, he or she becomes as one of the gods.
11. The awakening of the Principle of Power in a Human Being is the real conversion; the passing from death to life. It is when the dead hear the voice of the Son of Man and come forth and live. It is the resurrection and the life. When it is awakened, that Human Being becomes a child of the Highest and all power is given to this person in heaven and on earth.
12. Nothing was ever in any Human that is not in you and me; no Human ever had more spiritual or mental power than you and I can attain, or did greater things than you and I can accomplish. We can become what each of us desire to be.
CHAPTER 2: HEREDITY AND OPPORTUNITY
1. HUMAN BEINGS ARE NOT barred from attaining greatness by heredity. No matter who or what our ancestors may have been or how unlearned or lowly their station, the upward way is open for each of us. There is no such thing as inheriting a fixed mental position; no matter how small the mental capital we receive from our parents, it may be increased; no Human is born incapable of growth.
2. Heredity counts for something. We are born with subconscious mental tendencies; as, for instance, a tendency to melancholy, or cowardice, or to ill temper; but all these subconscious tendencies may be overcome. When the real Human awakens and comes forth he and she can throw them off very easily. Nothing of this kind need keep anybody down; if anyone inherited undesirable mental tendencies, they can be eliminated and put desirable tendencies in their places. An inherited mental trait is a habit of thought of the father or mother impressed upon a child’s subconscious mind; and that child can substitute the opposite impression by forming the opposite habit of thought. We can substitute a habit of cheerfulness for a tendency to despondency. We can overcome cowardice or ill temper.
3. Heredity may count for something, too, in an inherited conformation of the skull. There is something in phrenology (the theory that the shape of the skull shows what sort of mind and character a person has) if not as much as its exponents claim; it is true that the different faculties are localized in the brain, and that the power of a faculty depends upon the number of active brain cells in its area. A faculty whose brain area is large is likely to act with more power than one whose cranial section is small; hence Human Beings with certain conformations of the skull show talent as musicians, orators, mechanics, and so on. It has been argued from this, that a Human’s cranial formation must, to a great extent, decide his and her station in life, but this is an error. It has been found that a small brain section, with many fine and active cells, gives as powerful expression to faculty as a larger brain with coarser cells; and it has been found that by turning the Principle of Power into any section of the brain, with the Will and Purpose to develop a particular talent, the brain cells may be multiplied indefinitely. Any faculty, power, or talent possessed, no matter how small or rudimentary, may be increased. A Human Being can multiply the brain cells in this particular area until it acts as powerfully as is desired. It is true that a person can act most easily and with the least effort, through those faculties that are NOW MOST largely developed and the things which “come naturally”. And it is also true that if a person will make the necessary effort that person can develop any talent. You and I can do what we each desire to do, and become what we each desire to be. When the attention is fixed upon some ideal and action proceeds as hereinafter directed, all the power of our being is turned into the faculties required in the realization of that ideal; more blood and nerve force go to the corresponding sections of the brain, and the cells are quickened, increased, and multiplied in number. The proper use of the mind of human beings will build a brain capable of doing what the mind desires to do.
4. The brain does not make the Human Being; the Human Being makes the brain.
5. Our place in life is not fixed by heredity.
