 16. Some cautions and concluding observations. Many people will scoff at the idea that there is an exact science of getting rich, holding the impression that the supply of wealth is limited. They will insist that social and governmental constitutions must be changed before even any considerable number of people can acquire competence. But this is not true. It is true that existing governments keep the masses in poverty, but this is because the masses do not think and act in a certain way. If the masses begin to move forward as suggested in this book, neither governments nor industrial systems can check them. All systems must be modified to accommodate the forward movement. If the people have the advancing mind, have the faith that they can become rich and move forward with the fixed purpose to become rich, nothing can possibly keep them in poverty. Individuals may enter upon the certain way at any time and under any government and make themselves rich, and when any considerable number of individuals do so under any government, they will cause the system to be so modified as to open the way for others. The more men who get rich on the competitive plane, the worse for others, and more who get rich in the creative plane, the better for others. The economic salvation of the masses can only be accomplished by getting a large number of people to practice the scientific method set down in this book and become rich. These will show others the way and inspire them with the desire for real life, with the faith that can be attained and with the purpose to attain it. For the present, however, it is enough to know that neither the government under which you live nor the capitalistic or competitive system of industry can keep you from getting rich. When you enter upon the creative plane of thought, you will rise above all these things and become a citizen of another kingdom. But remember that your thought must be held upon the creative plane. You are never for an instant to be betrayed into regarding the supply as limited or into acting on the moral level of competition. Whenever you do fall into old ways of thought, correct yourself instantly. For when you are in the competitive mind, you have lost the cooperation of the mind of the whole. Do not spend any time in planning as to how you will meet possible emergencies in the future except as the necessary policies may affect your actions today. You are concerned with doing today's work in a perfectly successful manner and not with emergencies which may arise tomorrow. You can attend to them as they come. Do not concern yourself with questions as to how you shall surmount obstacles which may loom upon your business horizon, unless you see plainly that your course must be altered today in order to avoid them. No matter how tremendous an obstruction may appear at the distance, you will find that if you go in a certain way, it will disappear as you approach it, or that a way over, through, or around it will appear. No possible combination of circumstances can defeat a man or woman who is proceeding to get rich along strictly scientific lines. No man or woman who obeys the law can fail to get rich, any more than one can multiply two by two and fail to get four. Give no anxious thought to possible disasters, obstacles, panics, or unfavorable combinations of circumstances. It is time enough to meet such things as they present themselves before you in the immediate present, and you will find that every difficulty carries with it the wherewithal for its overcoming. Guard your speech. Never speak of yourself, your affairs, or of anything else in a discouraged or discouraging way. Never admit the possibility of failure or speak in a way that infers failure as a possibility. Never speak of the times as being hard, or of business conditions as being doubtful. Times may be hard and business doubtful for those who are on the competitive plane, but they can never be so for you. You can create what you want, and you are above fear. When others are having hard times and poor business, you will find your greatest opportunities. Train yourself to think of and to look upon the world as something which is becoming, which is growing, and to regard something evil as being only that which is undeveloped. Always speak in terms of advancement. To do otherwise is to deny your faith, and to deny your faith is to lose it. Never allow yourself to feel disappointed. You may expect to have a certain thing at a certain time, and not get it at that time, and this will appear to you like failure. But if you hold to your faith, you will find that the failure is only apparent. Go on in the certain way, and if you do not receive that thing, you will receive something so much better that you will see that the seeming failure was really a great success. A student in this science had set his mind on making a certain business combination which seemed to him at the time to be very desirable, and he worked for some weeks to bring it about. When the crucial time came, the thing failed in a perfectly inexplicable way. It was as if some unseen influence had been working secretly against him. He was not disappointed, on the contrary. He thanked God that his desire had been overruled, and went steadily on with a grateful mind. In a few weeks an opportunity so much better came his way that he would not have made the first deal on any account, and he saw that a mind which knew more than he knew had prevented him from losing the greater good by entangling himself with the lesser. That is the way every seeming failure will work out for you. If you keep your faith, hold to your purpose, have gratitude, and do every day all that can be done that day, doing each separate act in a successful manner. When you make a failure it is because you have not asked for enough. Keep on, and the larger thing than you were asking will certainly come to you. Remember this. You will not fail because you lack the necessary talent to do what you wish to do. If you go on as I have directed, you will develop all that talent that is necessary for the doing of your work. It is not within the scope of this book to deal with the science of cultivating talent, but it is as certain and simple as the process of getting rich. However, do not hesitate or waver for fear when you come to any certain place you will fail for lack of ability. Keep right on, and when you come to that place the ability will be furnished for you. The same source of ability which enabled the untaught Lincoln to do the greatest work in government ever accomplished by a single man is open to you. You may draw upon all the mind there is for wisdom to use in meeting the responsibilities which are laid upon you. Go on in full faith. Study this book. Make it your constant companion until you have mastered all the ideas contained in it. While you are getting firmly established in this faith you will do well to give up most recreations and pleasure and to stay away from places where ideas conflicting with these are advanced in lectures or sermons. Do not read pessimistic or conflicting literature or get into your arguments upon the matter. Do very little reading outside of the writers mentioned in the preface. Spend most of your leisure time in contemplating your vision and in cultivating gratitude and in reading this book. It contains all you need to know of the science of getting rich and you will find all the essentials summed up in the following chapter. CHAPTER 17 Summary of the Science of Getting Rich There is a thinking stuff from which all things are made and which in its original state permits, penetrates and fills the interspaces of the universe. A thought in this substance produces the thing that is imaged by the thought. Man can form things in his thought and by impressing his thought upon formless substance can cause the thing he thinks about to be created. In order to do this man must pass from the competitive to the creative mind, otherwise he cannot be in harmony with the formless intelligence which is always creative and never competitive in spirit. Man may come into full harmony with the formless substance by entertaining a lively and sincere gratitude for the blessings it bestows upon him. Gratitude unifies the mind of man with the intelligence of substance so that man's thoughts are received by the formless. Man can remain upon the creative mind only by uniting himself with the formless intelligence through a deep and continuous feeling of gratitude. Man must form a clear and definite mental image of the things he wishes to have, to do or to become and he must hold this mental image in his thought while being deeply grateful to the Supreme that all he desires are granted to him. The man who wishes to get rich must spend his leisure hours in contemplating his vision and in earnest thanksgiving that the reality is being given to him. Too much stress cannot be laid on the importance of frequent contemplation of the mental image coupled with unwavering faith and devout gratitude. This is the process by which the impression is given to the formless and the creative forces set in motion. The creative energy works through the established channels of natural growth and of the industrial and social order. All that is included in his mental image will surely be brought to the man who follows the instructions given above and whose faith does not waver. What he wants will come to him through the ways of established trade and commerce. In order to receive his own when it shall come to him man must be active and this activity can only consist in more than filling his present place. He must keep in mind the purpose to get rich through the realization of his mental image and he must do every day all that can be done that day taking care to do each act in a successful manner. He must give to every man a use value in excess of the cash value he receives so that each transaction makes for more life and he must so hold the advancing thought that the impression of increase will be communicated to all with whom he comes in contact. The men and women who practice the foregoing instructions will certainly get rich and the riches they receive will be in exact proportion to the definiteness of their vision, the fixity of their purpose, the saddeness of their faith and the depth of their gratitude. End of Chapter 17 The Science of Getting Rich by Balanced Day Wattles