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 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 92401 3891 670 
 
The Philosophy of Business 
 
 A LITTLE BOOK FOR BIG MEN 
 
 h9 
 A. B. FRANCISCO 
 
Copsriihtea, 1916. hv 
 
 A. B. FRANCISCO 
 
 Chicago 
 
 o 1 . 
 
 oni 
 
 WM. H. POOL PRINTING A BINDING CO. 
 036 S. CLARK ST. CHICAGO, U. S. A. 
 
TO MT SON 
 
 MERCER, 
 
 AND ALL BUSINESS MEN WHO DESIRE TO 
 WIN LIFERS BATTLES THROUGH THE DE- 
 VELOPMENT OF THEIR VIRTUES, AND 
 WHO ALSO BELIEVE THAT NATURE'S 
 LAWS ARE DIVINE. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 I. , 
 The Business World's Awakening . . . 13 
 
 II. 
 The Business Man's Service .... .18 
 
 III. 
 
 Salesmanship — the Measure of Service ... 23 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Business Man's Education 28 
 
 V. 
 
 The Business Man as a Student and 
 
 as a Teacher 36 
 
 VI. 
 Business and Property 42 
 
 VII. 
 
 Business, Religion and Government .... 47 
 
 VIII. 
 Nature — the Image op the Perfect Man ... 53 
 
 IX. 
 The Ideal World Is One of Scientific 
 
 Business Relations 63 
 
 X. 
 
 Thinking 68 
 
 XL 
 Memory and Imagination 76 
 
 XII. 
 The Will . . 81 
 
 XIII. 
 The Secret of Success ... . . 85 
 
 XIV. 
 The Keystone Philosophy . . . .89 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THE business world is fast awakening to the 
 fact that business is a science. Indeed, many 
 minds have presented business as a science in 
 such able and praiseworthy ways that the idea is now 
 becoming universally accepted. But as far as the 
 author knows, the philosophy underlying this new and 
 dynamic science has not been written. In the inter- 
 est of individual and co-operative success, he has 
 attempted, in this little book for big men, to give the 
 true philosophy of business. He considers business in 
 the sense of a world-wide form of busy-ness, involving 
 service as the fundamental principle. 
 
 He sees in business a melting-pot, or crucible, into 
 which men and women are forced by the laws of 
 nature and submitted to the acid test of merit, the 
 survival of the serviceable. Success results from the 
 development of the virtues in obedience to natural 
 laws as written in the constitutions of both nature and 
 human nature. He relies upon the innate selfishness 
 of the individual to counteract and restrain organized 
 greed, that fair play may eventually be given to all. 
 Finally, a perfect society will be evolved which will 
 reflect the sovereignty of God in an industrial democ- 
 racy. Thus business is seen to be the dynamic science 
 which will regenerate the race. 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 Chicago, May 13, 1916. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE BUSINESS WORLD'S AWAKENING 
 
 The times do change and we should change with them. 
 
 — Shakespeare. 
 
 '/T-YO UNDERSTAND our relation to the history of 
 J humanity and to test our hopes for the future," 
 -*- let us imagine with Professor Heinrich Schmidt, a 
 pupil of Haeckel, "a gigantic clock that records, not 
 minutes but centuries, and that the whole history of 
 mankind is crowded into twenty-four hours. Let us 
 assume that we are living in the noon hour of this long 
 human day, and accordingly measure the progress of the 
 human race." 
 
 Professor James Harvey Robinson, of Columbia Uni- 
 versity, has made the reckoning suggested, and states 
 that "Man has been standing upright and seeking out 
 inventions for approximately two hundred forty thou- 
 sand years. Each hour on the history clock, thus repre- 
 sents twenty thousand years, each minute three centuries, 
 and each second five years. In this long human day noth- 
 ing is recorded up to half past eleven. At twenty min- 
 utes to twelve the earliest Babylonian and Greek culture 
 began to appear ; Greek philosophy was born ten minutes 
 before twelve. It is only three minutes since we began 
 to make the steam engine do our work. It was only two 
 minutes before twelve when the idea of conscious prog- 
 ress entered the mind of man. We have been awake, 
 figuratively speaking, scarcely more than a minute." 
 
 This is a graphic and forceful illustration of how 
 slowly the race-mind unfolds itself; but now that it is 
 
 13 
 
The Philosophy of Business 
 
 awakened, it progresses with such incredible rapidity 
 that the twentieth century shines with greater light 
 than all the two thousand four hundred centuries pre- 
 ceding. "Witness the marvelous and rapid advance in 
 the sciences of geology, botany, chemistry, mathematics, 
 physics, et cetera. The development of each science is 
 like the discovery of a new world, and its applied knowl- 
 edges are like the peopling of that world, and the filling 
 of it with new life and love and joy. 
 
 Looking back over the long and devious road that 
 lies between the barbarism of the past and the civiliza- 
 tion of the present, thinking of the centuries that roll 
 like ocean waves between these distant shores, we can 
 form some idea of what our fathers suffered and be led 
 to appreciate the blessed privileges we, their children, 
 should enjoy. It is a long way from the savage to the 
 scientist ; from the cliff den to the brown stone mansion ; 
 from leaves to garments; from the flickering pine knot 
 to the tungsten light; from the stone hammer to the 
 modern factory; from the dugout log to the Lusitania; 
 from the sickle to the self-binder; from hieroglyphics 
 to the library; from the courier to the telegram; from 
 the echo to the phonograph; from the trumpet to the 
 telephone ; from the fallen tree to the suspension bridge ; 
 from the sling to the Krupp gun ; from revenge to law ; 
 from the club to the court ; from despotism to democracy ; 
 from superstition to science; from might to right; from 
 hate to love. 
 
 So much for man's intellectual, scientific, political, 
 economical and ethical development, and his progress in 
 business relations has been equally marvelous and in 
 every way as extraordinary. It is a wide difference be- 
 
 14 
 
The Business World's Awakening 
 
 tween the slogan of the fifteenth century, which was, 
 "Caveat emptor" (Let the buyer beware), and the 
 slogan of the twentieth century which is, "He profits 
 most who serves best." The awakening may not be 
 observed by the common mind ; the business man himself 
 may not clearly discern the evolution which has been 
 going on for many years, transforming and eventually 
 transfiguring the sordid and servile business world into 
 a form of beauty, and filling it with the spirit of joy. 
 
 The sun which lights the way of all human progress 
 is science. Not until very recently have its fair rays 
 shone with enough effulgence in the business mind to 
 separate its firmament of greed from the firmament of 
 use. When we reflect how the sciences of astronomy, 
 navigation and engineering have transformed the mate- 
 rial world from a chaos of darkness, superstition and 
 dread, into an order of light, knowledge and joy, in the 
 movements of men in their interests over land and sea, 
 then we see in comparison what is possible to the business 
 world when it, too, will be illuminated by the light of 
 science. Indeed, the search-light of analysis has already 
 been focused upon it, and it is responding to revelation 
 after revelation that is being made. Its mighty forces 
 are being reduced to order, and its wonderful activities 
 directed toward human betterment. Its doubts, fears 
 and cruelties are being transformed into certainties, 
 hopes and blessings. In the realm of business, too, nat- 
 ural laws are seen to reign with the fixedness of gravita- 
 tion, and their mighty powers, directed with the accur- 
 acy of the planets' movements, are as beneficent as the 
 healing dew. 
 
 15 
 
The Philosophy of Business 
 
 Business is defined by Webster as that which occu- 
 pies the time, attention and labor of one as his chief, 
 concern. Science is organized knowledge, and therefore, 
 the science of business is that organized knowledge which 
 directs one in occupying his time, devoting his attention 
 and expending his labor upon the particular thing which 
 is his chief concern. 
 
 From creation's dawn men have been in business, 
 or at least they have been busy, — not about business, but 
 rather busy in avoiding giving their time, attention and 
 labor to any concern. Instead of making a study of how 
 to apply their time, attention and labor to some use 
 per se, they have spent their energies in avoiding uses; 
 they have sought to obtain the maximum of return from 
 a minimum of expenditure, to get something for nothing. 
 Exploitation and conquest have been the methods, not 
 only of pirates and warriors but of commercial men, 
 statesmen and ministers. 
 
 The light of the twentieth century has revealed to 
 us that those who have enjoyed success have obeyed nat- 
 ural laws and reaped the results thereof. They have 
 observed the fundamental truths: the science of business 
 is the science of service ; he profits most who serves best ; 
 human welfare is the true basis of prosperity ; true com- 
 petition is creative and not destructive; true salesman- 
 ship is not conquest but co-operation. Men who recog- 
 nize these truths and understand that business is a 
 science, no longer sit idly by the road of commerce with 
 outstretched hands and hats, nor seek gifts and bonuses 
 from city, state or national governments. 
 
 16 
 
The Business World's Awakening 
 
 The scientific business man is in training to serve. 
 He is studious of an opportunity to supply some need of 
 an ever-growing and perfecting society ; he is ever watch- 
 ful to cut down waste and to take up slack, to reduce 
 lost motion and otherwise to gather up the fragments 
 of preceding centuries of incompetency and sloth. He 
 purposes to attain success by the development of his vir- 
 tues, rather than to profit by his vices. 
 
 17 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE BUSINESS MAN'S SERVICE 
 
 Over and over the task was set; 
 
 Over and over I slighted the work; 
 But ever and always I know that yet 
 
 I must face and finish the thing I shirk. 
 
 — Ellu WheHer Wilcox. 
 
 THE great awakening that the business world is 
 experiencing is due to a vital principle working 
 at the root of human thought and activity, uncon- 
 sciously, possibly, but producing the results, neverthe- 
 less, that we witness. This vital principle is service. 
 Mankind in general, and each individual in particular 
 demands that not only things but other persons serve 
 him. Thus, the universal desire to enjoy life that can 
 come only through things and persons serving him leads 
 to the discovery of the law of the survival of the service- 
 able working out its perfect ends. 
 
 Nature does not finish her work, as has been observed, 
 "Nature unaided fails." That is, she fails of complete 
 and perfect ends. This is due to the fact of her rela- 
 tion to man, who is her complement and whose perfec- 
 tion is the end she has in view. She means that man 
 shall become a partner with her and share the respon- 
 sibility, honor, and glory of completed acts. His selec- 
 tion must perfect her selection and his law must perfect 
 her law. The book of man's life is the record of the laws 
 of cause and effect. He is bound by the cords he weaves 
 out of the woof-thoughts and -feelings as they are en- 
 meshed in the warp of circumstances. 
 
 18 
 
The Business Man's Service 
 
 Every created thing is its own peculiar form of serv- 
 ice. The mineral kingdom serves the vegetable: the 
 vegetable serves the animal and the animal serves man. 
 Thus, everything serves and in turn is served, by every 
 other thing. ' ' See all things for my use ! " " See man 
 for mine ! ' ' replies a pampered goose : Since it is true 
 that he profits most who serves best, it is important 
 that we consider the nature of service. 
 
 We cannot look to our educational institutions for 
 much information on the subject of service in business. 
 The schools teach a great deal about the natural sciences, 
 but little about business. This is because heretofore 
 business has not been looked upon as a science; it has 
 been generally believed that its truths were to be learned 
 only through experience. This belief is being recognized 
 as erroneous, for men have analyzed business and have 
 found that success in it is governed by definite laws, and 
 that men can learn to obey them by other means than 
 experience. 
 
 There are three requisites of service that the aspirant 
 for business success must have, the desire, the how, and 
 the capacity to serve. As a wrestler who aspires to vic- 
 tory develops the muscles of his body, one who wishes 
 to win life 's battles must develop these elements of serv- 
 ice, for they are his holds upon the. things with which 
 he is to wrestle. 
 
 Why should one develop his desire to serve? For 
 three reasons : First, because it is his duty to society. A 
 man is a social being and is related directly and indi- 
 rectly with all other men, who are under the same laws 
 and are mutually interdependent. He owes a great 
 deal to those who have gone before him, for he inherits 
 
 19 
 
The Philosophy of Business 
 
 the blessings of the past. He owes a great deal to those 
 who succeed him, for he is expected to contribute his 
 share to mankind's progress and at the same time hold 
 in trust the inheritance he receives that he may bequeath 
 it to his successors. He is indebted to his contempo- 
 raries, who supply him with the comforts of life and 
 share their portion with him. A deep sense of gratitude 
 should, therefore, inspire him with an insatiable desire 
 to serve. 
 
 Second, one should develop the desire to serve be- 
 cause it is human to do so, and is his duty to himself. 
 Service is the only road to perfect manhood, and by the 
 faithful application of his mind to some form of service, 
 a man is raised up out of the pit of his animal nature 
 to the height of his human nature. Animals serve, it is 
 true, but they do not have the desire ; they are compelled 
 to by a power outside and above themselves. A man has 
 the power within him to compel himself to serve. This 
 compulsion is not slavery, but true freedom, for the 
 greatest conquest that man has ever made over his brute 
 nature is the development of his desire to serve. 
 
 Beside the compelling motive of duty to society and 
 to himself, there is a third reason for a man's acquir- 
 ing the desire to serve, and that is found in the relation 
 of reward to service. The appeal is to his cupidity, for 
 service will bring him rewards in the form of money 
 and honor, and will secure for him the comforts of mind 
 and body. Service is the only honorable means to obtain 
 wealth, and with it come honor and esteem. 
 
 The desire to serve then, is of first importance, 
 although oftimes the last to be fully appreciated. Sec- 
 ond to it is the how to serve. One should develop his 
 
 20 
 
The Business Man's Service 
 
 how to serve faculty for the same reasons that he de- 
 velops his desire to serve. Further, the desire must 
 clothe itself in knowledge in order that it may be prop- 
 erly directed. The how involves the giving direction. 
 The desire remains inert until direction is given to it and 
 then it takes the very form of the knowledge that directs 
 it. Therefore, the understanding of man should be de- 
 veloped in order that his desire to serve may not prove 
 barren. 
 
 A certain young lady with a genuine desire to serve 
 has recently graduated from college and is thrust upon 
 the world without the knowledge of how to put her desire 
 into effect. She is asked by each prospective employer, 
 What can you do ? and her negative answer has failed to 
 secure for her a satisfactory position. Another woman, 
 a young widow, left with but a moderate income, feels 
 the necessity of increasing it as well as employing her 
 time in some gainful occupation. She, too, is asked, 
 What can you do? and her answer has not yet secured 
 a position for her. Both of these estimable young ladies 
 have the desire to serve faculty developed to a high 
 degree, but they lack the wisdom or the how to attain 
 their ends. 
 
 Now one may be very anxious to serve and also pos- 
 sess the knowledge to give direction to the desire, yet be 
 unable to put into successful practice these two facul- 
 ties because he lacks the third, capacity to serve. The 
 capacity to do what one desires and knows is the last 
 and perfect measure of manhood. It is the ultimate 
 manifestation of the will and understanding in actual 
 words and deeds. We are what we do. The capacity 
 for sustained effort, the power to render obedience to 
 
 21 
 
The Philosophy of Business 
 
 the last detail, the ability to make the infinitesimal mark 
 the magic touch that completes a chain of actions, is 
 the last and best evidence of service. 
 
 Service in itself, is composed of three elements, which 
 enter into the disposition of all goods whether they be 
 ideas, labor or commodities, and these elements are, 
 quality, quantity and manner. Obviously, the quality 
 of the goods must be on a par with competitors, else the 
 inferiority will ruin the sales. The quantity must be 
 just or people will refuse to buy. In the third element 
 is found the greatest latitude of difference in the service 
 rendered by different individuals. There are so many 
 ways in which service can be rendered that every man 
 has an opportunity or gateway opened to him which will 
 lead him to success. In the manner in which they serve 
 their customers lies the secret of many successes. Thus 
 we see that service is the all important thing in business, 
 in fact, in all of man's relations with his fellows, for 
 it enters into every activity in which men engage. 
 
 22 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 SALESMANSHIP— THE MEASURE OP 
 SERVICE 
 
 Let no thing be done except by the perfect laws governing its 
 kind - — Anon. 
 
 SALESMANSHIP is often thought of in the narrow 
 sense of commercial barter and trade, whereas, in 
 its broad sense, it is concerned in all human rela- 
 tionships, and a knowledge of it is of vital importance 
 to everyone who wishes to succeed in life. All things are 
 forms of uses, but lie inert until touched by the hand 
 of man. When man sees in them their potential uses 
 and commands them to become active in performing 
 those uses, he thereby renders them into forms of serv- 
 ice. The service he commands them to perform are at 
 first such service as has its beginning and end in him- 
 self ; but when he sees that he may become an instru- 
 ment to carry these uses over to another, he becomes a 
 salesman, for salesmanship is the application of service 
 to another, or in other words, the measure of a man's 
 service. 
 
 The power of salesmanship is tremendous. It gives 
 direction and puts into execution the desires and ambi- 
 tions of every human being. Even love, without it is an 
 idle dream, but coupled with it, it sends the knight errant 
 on his quest. Ambition, without salesmanship, is only 
 a flaccid wish ; with it, an Alexander conquers the world, 
 or the diplomat obtains a concession from a miscreant 
 nation. In the business world it is the power that keeps 
 in motion the wheels of commerce. 
 
 23 
 
The Philosophy op Business 
 
 Salesmanship is the agent that brings about reactions 
 between minds. Its analogy in the physical world is pre- 
 sented in the agent in chemical and physical reactions. 
 It unites opposing or indifferent forces. Water can be 
 cooled to a temperature below 32° F. without freezing, 
 but when jarred or a piece of ice is dipped into it, it 
 immediately crystallizes and becomes ice. A spark of 
 fire applied to a drop of gasoline produces an explosion 
 whose force may drive an engine. A piece of iron sub- 
 merged in acid soon goes into solution. Likewise, sales- 
 manship is the force that makes one mind react on 
 another to the extent that it changes its course ; it bends 
 the one in agreement to the other. Salesmanship trans- 
 forms the static world into a dynamic one; it is the 
 means of elevating man from a state of savagery to one 
 of civilization, wherein he has the desire, ability and 
 power to make application of the things about him to 
 the practical affairs of life. 
 
 There are three elements in this application, the 
 things, the motion, and the time required. By things 
 are meant all minerals, vegetables or animals which na- 
 ture puts at man's disposal, and whatsoever he has 
 manufactured or produced from them. The elements 
 of motion and time are intimately connected, as we know 
 from the study of physics. Motion and moments are 
 derived from the same root word ; indeed, the efficacy of 
 a motion is measured by the time it requires for com- 
 pletion. The work day is as fixed a unit in the move- 
 ments of service as the solar day in the movements of 
 the planet. "Day" is derived from two Hebrew words 
 meaning to make a noise and to be hot. We can see 
 how the hum of the busy day may be heard and the 
 
 24 
 
Salesmanship — the Measure op Seevice 
 
 heat of the busy life be seen aglow in the movements of 
 service. 
 
 There are three kinds of things that can be sold, 
 commodities, labor and ideas. It is generally consid- 
 ered that the merchant sells commodities, the wage- 
 earner sells his labor and the minister sells ideas, but it 
 is more broadly true that everyone sells something of 
 each in a limited degree. Mr. Edison has sold all in a 
 marked degree. Few other men have furnished the 
 world with such an abundance of ideas. It is said that 
 he frequently labors eighteen hours a day, and his com- 
 modities illuminate the high and low places from the 
 Statue of Liberty to private pantries, drive innumerable 
 conveyances and mighty wheels of industry; and are 
 heard in private drawing-rooms and public halls. He 
 who possesses no ideas has little to offer in the way of 
 labor or commodities, but he who is possessed of ideas 
 may have much of both labor and commodities. 
 
 In making a sale of anything, there are four factors 
 involved: the salesman, the goods, the patron, and the 
 sale. The salesman should qualify himself to handle 
 the other three, by knowing his goods and his patron, 
 and how to bring about an agreement of the patron's 
 mind with his own on the goods, which is the sale. 
 
 The sale is brought about in four steps, and the 
 salesman leads the patron in taking these mental steps. 
 He must first secure the patron's favorable attention, 
 and then arouse his interest in the goods. He must 
 quicken the interest into a desire to buy, and finally in- 
 duce this desire to action. Attention is gained through 
 the ordinary avenues of approach to the mind, the five 
 senses. Interest is obtained by an appeal to the feel- 
 
 25 
 
The Philosophy of Business 
 
 ings, and desire and action are aroused by an appeal 
 to the will. 
 
 The method of approach to the patron's attention 
 varies with the goods for sale. The minister, in selling 
 his text to the congregation for its every day use, 
 secures its attention in a widely different way from that 
 which the newsboy with an "Extra" employs in gain- 
 ing the attention of his patrons. Were they to reverse 
 their methods it would be fatal to the sales in both cases. 
 To secure interest we might find the key in the word 
 "personal," because naturally every man is interested 
 in himself, and anything that appeals to self-interest 
 usually gets a response. Interest belongs to the feel- 
 ings, as said before, and is an internal sensation which 
 leads toward desire, and desire is of the will, which is 
 the ego of the man and inspires to action. 
 
 A notable example of salesmanship, illustrative of 
 all its elements and factors involved, is presented by that 
 master salesman, William Shakespeare. Consider for 
 a moment the great speech which Mark Antony made 
 to the Romans over Caesar's body: "I come to bury 
 Caesar, not to praise him." Strange! the populace 
 expected Antony to do the ordinary thing, cry for ven- 
 geance or weep over his slain friend. This singular 
 opening remark gained their attention. Prejudiced as 
 he knew the rabble to be, he did not immediately defy 
 nor antagonize them. Rather, he tactfully consented to 
 their attitude, as made by Brutus (an honorable man), 
 and sustained their interest by persuasive suggestions. 
 He appealed to their patriotism by citing the occasions 
 on which Caesar led many captives into Rome and did 
 the general coffers fill. He resorted to specific examples 
 
 26 
 
Salesmanship — the Measure of Service 
 
 of Caesar's virtues to refute the accusation of Brutus 
 that Caesar was ambitious. Next, he excited their cupid- 
 ity by mentioning Caesar's will whereby property was 
 left to "the commons." With interest now at white 
 heat, he inspired action by convincing arguments and 
 persuasive words which touched their feelings and stirred 
 them to mutiny. He successfully sold them on the 
 proposition of Caesar's revenge, and the minds of "the 
 commons" were brought into agreement with his at 
 the point where they exclaimed: 
 
 We'll burn his body in the holy place, 
 
 And with the brands Are the traitor's houses! 
 
 When Antony saw he had made the sale, he ex- 
 pressed his content and satisfaction in 
 
 Now let it work! Mischief, thou art afoot, 
 Take thou what course thou wilt! 
 
 Thus we see that service can be applied only by and 
 through salesmanship, and thati salesmanship is the 
 measure of the capacity to superinduce in the mind of 
 the patron the four mental states of attention, interest, 
 desire and action, before he is able to serve him. 
 
 27. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE BUSINESS MAN'S EDUCATION 
 
 Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that 
 needeth not be ashamed. // Tim. ii • 15. 
 
 IT IS a great change of the mental state from the old 
 motto of the business world, "Let the buyer be- 
 ware," to the modern maxim, "He profits most who 
 serves best." However, compared with the long period 
 of man's residence upon the earth during which he was 
 in a state of intellectual darkness, the step was taken in 
 an almost infinitesimally short time, after his mind be- 
 came conscious of its own possibilities and his latent 
 energies were drawn out. 
 
 Indeed, in the drawing out, educting or educating 
 of man's faculties lies the cause of his rapid intellectual 
 advance. It was the appreciation of the far-reaching 
 effects of education that inspired President Wilson to 
 say, "Education is a thing of infinite usury; money 
 invested in it yields a singular increase to which there 
 is no calculable end, an increase in perpetuity, increase 
 of knowledge, and therefore of intelligence, touching 
 generation after generation with new impulses, adding 
 to the sum total of the world's fitness for affairs — an 
 invisible but intensely real spiritual usury beyond reck- 
 oning, because compounded in an unknown ratio from 
 age to age." 
 
 Education is the development of the power to serve, 
 and whatsoever contributes to the individual's power 
 to serve is a part of his education. One must add some- 
 thing to the world's prosperity in order to merit its 
 
 28 
 
The Business Man's Education 
 
 special esteem. Society tolerates a man who simply pulls 
 his own weight, but it despises the man who gets from 
 it more than he gives. It demands that every man de- 
 velop his virtues and become positively industrious, posi- 
 tively efficient, and positively moral. It makes this de- 
 mand in the face of the fact that "man is born artless 
 in all industries, lawless in all institutions, speechless 
 in all languages, opinionless in all philosophies, and 
 thoughtless in all reasons." 
 
 It is not so much the capacity as it is the necessity 
 for education that differentiates man from the animals. 
 Human society vies with nature in demanding that man ' 
 live up to his creative necessity of educating himself. 
 "Education means the acquiring of experiences that 
 will serve to modify inherited adjustments. Capability 
 of education is the ability to profit by those experiences, 
 and therefore only those experiences are valuable which 
 render one more efficient for future action." 
 
 In the kingdom of education all roads lead to service. 
 A great seer once said, "God is the complex of all uses, 
 in essence love, in form a man ; ' ' and He who was great- 
 est among men stated that He attained to that greatness 
 wholly on the ground that He was servant of all. If 
 this is true, man, who is made in the image and likeness 
 of his Creator, partakes of this image and likeness inso- 
 far as he performs uses. All forms of uses are forms of 
 service, and therefore, the kingdom of business is a king- 
 dom of service, wherein each individual takes his posi- 
 tion according to the degree in which he is able to serve. 
 
 There are three essential conditions to the perform- 
 ance of the best service. First, there must be a desire 
 to serve ; second, a knowledge of how to serve ; and third, 
 
 29 
 
The Philosophy of Business 
 
 the capacity to render the service. Education, then, has 
 to do with the development, drawing out and application 
 of these three powers in man. Desire, inasmuch as it 
 is of the love or will, belongs to the heart; knowledge 
 or understanding belongs to the head; and capacity is 
 of the body or hand. Hence, true education applies it- 
 self definitely to these three human powers. 
 
 The word educate is derived from the two Latin 
 words, e, meaning out, and ducere, meaning to draw. 
 The athlete educts or educates his muscles by drawing 
 out their inherent power. He does this by a twofold 
 process. First, he gives his muscles proper nourish- 
 ment; second, proper exercise, and the muscles are edu- 
 cated to the degree in which their power is drawn out. 
 Man's mental education is analogous to the drawing out 
 of his physical muscles. His mental muscles are divided 
 into three groups, so entirely distinct as to be discrete. 
 In the first group are the muscles of his heart, which 
 give him the desire to serve; in the second group are 
 the muscles of his head, which give him the knowledge 
 of how to serve ; and in the third group are the muscles 
 Of his body which give him the capacity to serve. 
 
 These groups differ as degrees of altitude rather than 
 as degrees of latitude; they are related as first, second 
 and third; higher, mediate and lower; inmost, middle 
 and outmost. They are like end, cause and effect, and 
 may be thought of as a column (Figure 1), or as three 
 concentric circles (Figure 2), or the first may be thought 
 of as a line, the second as a plane, and the third as a 
 cube (Figure 3). These qualities are the three essen- 
 tials to anything, whether it be mental or material, and 
 combined they make the complete unit. 
 
 30 
 
The Business Man's Education 
 
 The task of every business man is to develop and 
 realize his three mental dimensions, the desire to serve, 
 the knowledge of how to serve, and the capacity to 
 serve. His business education, therefore, requires that 
 mental food and exercise which will educt or draw out 
 these three compages of his intellectual muscles. True 
 education will give priority to the muscles of the heart, 
 training them to desire, love, and feel those things 
 which make for the very esse, or being, the ego or I am, 
 or the character of the man, as the highest in the column 
 of manhood, the inmost circle of life, the line in the cube 
 of personality. 
 
 ZZ7 
 
 hi 
 
 Fig. I Fig.E Ftg.3 
 
 True education will give secondary training to the 
 muscles of the head by nourishing and exercising them 
 in the things that make for wisdom or ability, which is 
 the sum of the powers to think, remember and imagine, 
 thus forging the mediate band in the column of man- 
 hood, the middle circle of life, the breadth of personality. 
 
 True education will apply itself lastly to the nourish- 
 ment and exercise of the muscles of the body, giving 
 them the capacity to do the things desired by the heart 
 and thought by the head, and thus form the base in the 
 column of manhood, the outermost circle of life and the 
 depth of personality. 
 
 31 
 
The Philosophy of Business 
 
 As yet our educational institutions hold themselves 
 aloof from the business world as they did in the begin- 
 ning. The origin of the word school is from the Greek 
 word, <rxp\i), meaning leisure. The leisure class of the 
 old world, born of the nobility, enjoying governmental 
 privileges, came together in a loafers' club for the pur- 
 pose of amusing themselves in speculative thought and 
 subtle philosophies. This idle gentry had their meeting 
 places dubbed as schoU. No one was admitted to the 
 leisure club who was under the least necessity to put 
 forth an effort to make a living. Service was despised 
 and all forms of labor were held in contempt. Merchants 
 were looked upon as pirates (which indeed they were), 
 and the marketplace was to be avoided except under 
 dire necessity, in which event menials* did the purchas- 
 ing for their masters. 
 
 The leisure clubs builded better than they knew. 
 Their speculative philosophies resulted in experiments 
 and application, and gradually the natural sciences ab- 
 sorbed and embodied the soul of this mentality, and 
 science replaced mystery, astrology became astronomy, 
 and the secret things of alchemy shaped themselves into 
 the truths of chemistry. Similar transformations oc- 
 curred in every department of thought, and thus was 
 laid, too, unconsciously, the foundation on which was 
 built the dynamic science of business. 
 
 *The menials were often whipped and robbed if they could 
 not be otherwise forced into buying the vendors' wares. Indeed, 
 the word market had its origin in the fact that an actual mark 
 was made in the sand of the open court to separate the buyers 
 from the vendors. In Rome over the line on the side of the 
 latter was written the warning, "Caveat Emptor" (let the buyer 
 beware). 
 
 32 
 
The Business Man's Education 
 
 Had the members of the Greek leisure clubs any con- 
 cept of the great service they were rendering unborn 
 generations, their antipathy for useful labor would have 
 put them on the defensive, as most persons who despise 
 uses are, and they would have opposed rather than 
 abetted the function and work of the educator, and 
 would have joined that great number of men whom 
 President Wilson had in mind when he said, "I have 
 undertaken the work of teaching a great many years 
 and have found that the human mind has great resources 
 for resisting the introduction of knowledge." 
 
 A man's education is acquired in four distinct pe- 
 riods, the prenatal, the parental, the scholastic, and the 
 postgraduate. 
 
 His prenatal period reaches back to the misty shores 
 of the "Beginning." The past pours its accumulated 
 stores into the organic structure of his mind and body, 
 which give him an "aptitude," "predisposition" or 
 "talent." While the past contributes to his education 
 in this unseen and unconscious way, it doubly blesses 
 him by using the earth as a great storehouse in which it 
 lays up visible treasures in the form of organized gov- 
 ernments, and the infinite forms of uses wrought by the 
 hands of the countless dead and held in trust for him 
 by all the living, securely locked in the treasury of ap- 
 plied science, the key to which is handed to him upon 
 his advent into the world. 
 
 The parental period of his education is that in which 
 he is under his parents' care and is the acknowledged 
 lord and master in the house. All about him await his 
 wishes and more than fairy hands extend toward him 
 with every gift he is capable of receiving, and willing 
 
 33 
 
The Philosophy of Business 
 
 feet stand ready to run to any service he is capable of 
 enjoying. As fast as he can receive and appropriate 
 these gifts, the willing servants pass from props with- 
 out to factors within, and led by precept and example, 
 he enters upon the third period in his education, the 
 scholastic. 
 
 In the scholastic period he enjoys the privilege of a 
 larger parental form in the educational institution 
 wherein the state is his parent. He is given that mental 
 and physical training which should prepare him for his 
 life's activities, and when he leaves his Alma Mater, 
 the boundless shore of the business world awaits him 
 with the question, "Do you desire to serve?" 
 
 The fourth or postgraduate is the dynamic period 
 in a man's education. In it he gives direction, point and 
 action to what has been gathered in preceding periods. 
 His success depends more upon the proper application 
 of his mental and physical powers, and the wise invest- 
 ment of his mental and physical stores, than the develop- 
 ment of these powers and the gathering of these stores. 
 Study is not the end, but the means or preparation for 
 his entry into the great whirlpool of human activity, in 
 the midst of which his soul is tried and his personality 
 is developed. He might delve into the sciences in their 
 quiet abodes, dissociated largely from his fellows, and 
 isolated from society without ever partaking of the 
 sweets of human communion and fellowship, which are 
 life's best sauce. 
 
 It has been well said that nature makes an occupation 
 a necessity, society makes it a duty, but every man should 
 make it his joy. The business world is the last, best 
 and highest field for drawing out the divinely implanted 
 
 34 
 
The Business Man's Education 
 
 capacity in man to conjoin himself with the entire race 
 by the free and righteous exchange of the product of 
 his own brain and hand. The dynamic force thus let 
 loose from its static power, constitutes that magnetic 
 personality developed in business intercourse, and the 
 man is truly educated in the degree that he possesses 
 the power to serve. 
 
 35 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE BUSINESS MAN AS A STUDENT AND AS A 
 TEACHER 
 
 "The most beneficent and, indeed, I might say, the most 
 sacred labor in which man can engage is the search for Truth 
 in the understanding of the laws that govern life; and the best 
 that man can do for his fellows is to teach them to live in con- 
 formity with these laws." Anon. 
 
 AN ANIMAL is born into the knowledge of the 
 science of its life. It need not and it cannot 
 *• study. Its mind is like a garden capable of 
 growing only a certain kind of seed, and it cannot be 
 improved by planting any other. Its perfection is its 
 imperfection. For instance, a bee is born into the 
 knowledge of making honey, and it cannot be taught 
 to spin silk. The making of honey is its sole accom- 
 plishment — its specialty — and it achieves a wonderful 
 perfection in its function. 
 
 Man, however, is born into the ignorance of the 
 science of his life, but with the capacity to learn and 
 apply any or all knowledge pertaining to his welfare. 
 His mind is like a fertile garden in which any kind of 
 seed may be planted and made to grow by proper cul- 
 ture. Man's imperfection is his perfection. His mind 
 is his inheritance; if he will invest his talent it will 
 render immeasurable and manifold results. He must, 
 therefore, become a student if he wishes to realize on 
 his inherited capability. If he would show himself a 
 man he must become a student, for there is little dif- 
 ference between the man who will not study and the 
 animal that cannot study. 
 
 36 
 
The Business Man as a Student 
 
 Because of the common idea that only those who 
 attend school and are provided with supervisors or 
 instructors are students, we may imagine it impossible 
 for all to become students. However, we should not 
 be thus deterred, for there have been a great many 
 men who never had the advantage of academic train- 
 ing but were excellent students. There have also been 
 a great many men graduated from colleges who were 
 never students. President Garfield said that his idea 
 of a school was a log with a boy on one end who 
 wanted to learn something and a man on the other end 
 who was willing to teach that something. Neither the 
 log nor the teacher is necessary for the boy to become a 
 student. 
 
 Bacon tells us that "reading maketh a full man," 
 but a man may be profoundly and widely read in litera- 
 ture and a master of many books, but if he cannot prac- 
 tice that which they contain, then he is like a thermos 
 bottle and his learning of little use. A case is on rec- 
 ord of a man whose wife taught him to read and he 
 afterward studied law in his carpenter shop and be- 
 came a successful lawyer and a good legislator. "In- 
 formation gained from books," said Herbert Spencer, 
 "is second-hand knowledge." That is, one may sim- 
 ply memorize what is written in a book without under- 
 standing and studying. Franklin, Burbank, Edison 
 and many others gained knowledge at first hand which 
 they have passed on to us in books. 
 
 The business man must not only read books, and 
 many of them, but he must study to understand what 
 he reads and see that it accords with its prototype, 
 the book of nature. Nature has no secrets she will not 
 
 37 
 
The Philosophy of Business 
 
 readily tell her students; she tells but few to others. 
 Every man is capable of learning' if he will study. 
 Note the marvelous case of Helen Keller, who should 
 be classed as the eighth wonder of the world, greater 
 than the other seven. She was born deaf and dumb 
 and blind, and seemed thus to have been shut out for- 
 ever from the field of knowledge. By faithful study 
 and continual application she has acquired accomplish- 
 ments surpassing those of many elegant society dames. 
 She has learned to read and write and she even gives 
 lectures and sings. 
 
 It is not the man who simply does what he is di- 
 rected to do that renders the greatest service. It 
 is not enough that he be attentive to his duties during 
 the business hours of the day ; he must give an account 
 of that greater portion of his time spent in the absence 
 of his supervisor and away from his business which, 
 if devoted to study, will make him a master. A man's 
 mind is double, somewhat like a cow's stomach. He 
 gathers food for thought while at work or play, trav- 
 eling abroad or at home, but he best studies when he 
 quietly ruminates over the information gathered. 
 
 The function of the business man does not end with 
 his study of those sciences and arts concerned in his 
 daily conduct. He must also pass on his knowledge 
 of them to his fellows in order that he maftr know 
 them better. In short, the business man must be a 
 teacher. 
 
 In the kingdom of the wise knowledge is the coin 
 of the realm that should be dispensed widely and with 
 lavish hand ; extravagance is economy and hoarding a 
 crime, for "that which a man hoardeth perisheth, but 
 
 38 
 
The Business Man as a Student 
 
 that which he spendeth is increased within him. ' ' To 
 be a teacher means something more than to be a peda- 
 gogue. Some of the greatest teachers whose instruc- 
 tion has reached around the globe were not known to 
 themselves or by others as such. 
 
 Newton taught the world the law of gravitation 
 and its lesson will never be lost. Columbus, in a sin- 
 gle demonstration, taught the sphericity of the globe. 
 Fulton, Watt, McCormick and Howe are to be classed 
 as teachers. Bell and Watson taught people to talk 
 at a long distance; Edison taught new sounds and 
 visions. Harriman and Hill have given lessons in 
 great achievement for the advancement of the world's 
 transportation systems. Rockefeller and Morgan have 
 taught with a genius hitherto unknown, the construc- 
 tive laws of economy in business organization and ad- 
 ministration, and thousands of other brainy and clever 
 teachers in the world of industry have given guidance 
 to the development of natural resources and the organi- 
 zation of gigantic enterprises and are carrying the light 
 of commerce into every quarter of the globe. Business 
 is carrying its lighted torch into all the dark recesses 
 of barter and trade. Every form of human service 
 has been illuminated by knowledge communicated by 
 men who have been students filled with the instinct of 
 true missionaries. Zealous and capable instructors are 
 carrying light into the bowels of the earth, revealing 
 its dark corners and giving to mankind the rich treas- 
 ures stored therein since the day of creation. Noisy 
 factories, hot smelters, clanking shops, thronged marts 
 of trade and busy counters of exchange bear evidence 
 of great industrial teachers. 
 
 39 
 
The Philosophy of Business 
 
 Every human being is a teacher for everyone pos- 
 sesses some knowledge, born of experience, that he 
 can communicate to the enlightenment of even a king. 
 As the poet says: 
 
 "You are better than I; 
 
 You are wiser 'tis true; 
 
 But some small thing is mine 
 
 That is lacking in you." 
 
 While everyone engaged in useful service may have 
 some knowledge of nature's laws discovered at first 
 hand by experience, yet there are degrees of knowl- 
 edge ever widening and ascending like a spiral. He 
 who presides over an association of workers should 
 remember that his function of teaching increases di- 
 rectly with the number under his supervision. "The 
 fierce light that beats about the throne" is lost unless 
 the king mediates it down to and through his entire 
 citizenship. 
 
 The relation of employer to employee is no longer 
 that of master to slave, but is rather that of teacher 
 to pupil. Hence it is with pride and hope that we 
 witness now and then employers who take a deep and 
 heartfelt interest in their employees. Many institu- 
 tions are establishing schools for formal instruction 
 where their employees are brought together at stated 
 times and are taught how best to serve and to agree. 
 The results have been more than were expected (as is 
 always the case where good is the end), for many have 
 found that the teacher was as greatly benefited as the 
 taught, as an ancient philosopher once said, "I have 
 learned much from all my teachers but more from my 
 pupils. ' ' 
 
 40 
 
The Business Man as a Student 
 
 Plagiarism as a crime is losing its terror and will 
 continue to diminish to the zero point when men learn 
 that no one possesses connate knowledge, but that 
 everyone learns from those who have gone before him 
 or are associated with him. It may be said that he 
 who appropriates another's ideas is a plagiarist, but it 
 should be said with greater force, that who does not 
 is a fool and will ever remain one. 
 
 Ignorance and poverty never accomplished any- 
 thing ; wealth and wisdom are the handmaids of prog- 
 ress, and he who endeavors to help his brother to 
 attain the latter will also help him to attain the former 
 in the only natural and true way. The scientific busi- 
 ness man has discovered that his greatest profit, real 
 pleasure and true prosperity is based chiefly upon his 
 wise guidance and the instruction he gives to others. 
 He, then, who is most industrious in obeying this law 
 will reap most certainly the benefits flowing therefrom, 
 for "It is more blessed to give than to receive." 
 
 41 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 BUSINESS AND PROPERTY 
 
 Show me a penny. Whose image and superscription has it? 
 
 — Luke %ac:2Jf. 
 
 THE modern business axiom, "He profits most 
 who serves best," leads us to inquire into the 
 nature or form of the "profits," and the answer 
 immediately presents itself, property, for business is 
 based upon the ownership of property. 
 
 The desire for property is the peculiar badge of 
 mankind, because man alone possesses it. No mineral, 
 vegetable or animal possesses any property other than 
 that of its own organic structure. Water possesses 
 hydrogen and oxygen, but these elements combined 
 in the proper proportion, are water; the lilies of the 
 valley neither toil nor spin, nor do they acquire any 
 property except that which is incorporated into their 
 organization and becomes identical with them. The 
 cow lies in the pasture with a full stomach, chewing her 
 cud, content with her lot and envious of no other 
 creature 's. 
 
 Man is ever desirous of expanding his domain, and 
 is ever seeking to better his condition through the 
 acquisition of property. It is due to the fact that man 
 has the desire for property that gives evidence of per- 
 sonality and his capacity to rise above environment. 
 Minerals, vegetables and animals lack personality and 
 the desire to express it, and consequently they are 
 victims of their environment. The twentieth century 
 man's difference from the cave dweller is measured 
 
 42 
 
Business and Property 
 
 by the property with which he has surrounded him- 
 self, and he has organized government largely for the 
 protection and preservation of his property. 
 
 Man is possessed of a cupidity that urges him from 
 within and gives him no rest; it matters not what he 
 possesses, he still longs for more. His cupidity is born 
 with him, for the first conscious act of the child is a 
 reaching forth for things outside himself, and his first 
 emphatic word is "Mine!" The desire for property 
 grows with his growth and expands with his mind until 
 the last act of the dying man is to reverently dispose 
 of his property. 
 
 Cupidity is the banner under which the race 
 marches to conquest and triumphs over its environ- 
 ment. Property is the symbol of man's infinite per- 
 sonality ; it is prophetic of his final victory over every 
 vice that separates him from his fellows and the de- 
 velopment of his every virtue which will unite him in 
 one grand solidarity of fellowship and communion with 
 all his kind. It is the decoy which will lead him sur- 
 reptitiously out of his entanglement in the wilderness 
 of his brute nature, purged of its dross and tares, 
 into the garden of his human nature. 
 
 It is the function of business to discipline and edu- 
 cate men into the kingdom of service, to lure them 
 by reward to enter into the army of those who serve. 
 The first reward for service that was given the ser- 
 vant was a negative one, freedom from the lash or 
 whip. The horse serves, but he is driven by the whip 
 and held in by the bit; lay down the whip and he 
 stops; take off the bridle and he is gone. For a long 
 time man served for similar reasons. However, as the 
 
 43 
 
The Philosophy of Business 
 
 race progressed, man's reward grew from a negative 
 one, freedom from the whip, to a positive one, property, 
 prompted by his innate cupidity. 
 
 When we think of property we invariably have in 
 mind its commercial equivalent, money. Money is one 
 of the most powerful elements in the business world. 
 The Encyclopedia Brittannica refuses to define it, stat- 
 ing that every definition partakes of the prejudice of 
 those who attempt it. It merely calls attention to its 
 uses as that of "a medium of exchange," "a measure 
 or standard of value." 
 
 Money has taken the place of the slave driver's 
 whip; it has displaced the tyrant's lash and the king's 
 sceptre. It is money that lures men into performing 
 uses that enrich society, embellish civilization and 
 glorify the state. It is the life blood of business, its 
 circulating medium, the common denominator of all 
 values, the reward of service, and a short method of 
 bookkeeping to show at nightfall how much the com- 
 munity is indebted to its servant. 
 
 Despite its useful functions, money has its abuses. 
 It is a commingling of a natural substance with human 
 power, and as such, participates in that power's errors. 
 He who will look at a penny will see that it is a mate- 
 rial thing onto which is stamped the inscription of 
 organized authority, and bears the imprinted emblems 
 of the state. Money fails to distinguish between the 
 natural and legal rights of men. Stoughton Cooley said, 
 "It is a blessed thing for those who deny the natural 
 rights of man that there are sufficient number who 
 believe in them to preserve the natural rights for those 
 who disbelieve in them." 
 
 44 
 
Business and Property 
 
 To erase the superscription and blot out the image 
 on the coin would be the destruction of government. 
 As long as man seeks to encroach upon his neighbors ' 
 rights, and as long as one individual seeks to exploit 
 a power or virtue that does not belong to him, or to 
 assume an authority over another, just as long will 
 this shadow or image remain upon the coin, and men 
 will be forced to render unto Caesar those things which 
 are Caesar's. Men are not yet able to give back to 
 Caesar his image, nor to acknowledge nature's gifts to 
 be those of God. The selfhood of man deflects God's 
 given rights to the undeserving, and "man's inhuman- 
 ity to man makes countless thousands mourn." 
 
 Money, bearing upon its face the image and super- 
 scription of proprietary rights, and being in itself one 
 of nature's substances, has always been, is now and 
 will continue to be the mediator between natural rights 
 and coveted rights, the common denominator of value, 
 the medium of exchange and evidence of deferred pay- 
 ments, until business will have reached its fruition 
 and man has restored to himself his natural rights. 
 Then, but not until then, will Caesar, the "lion," and 
 the Romans, the "hinds," all become willing servants 
 devoted to the common good. 
 
 It is the task of business to lead men from the 
 chaos and darkness of conflicting interests into an 
 order and light of mutual interests and service to one 
 another. As an incentive to develop the desire to 
 serve, God implanted in man the love of property. The 
 horse knows nothing about the reward for services, 
 for he is not a reasoning animal, but man, through his 
 reason, sees the relation between service and reward. 
 
 45 
 
The Philosophy of Business 
 
 As fire is the cause of the effect heat, service is the 
 cause of the effect reward. To get heat reason directs 
 man to gather the tinder and build the fire. A little 
 fire generates a little heat, and more fire generates 
 more heat. As patent as this relation is, few seem to 
 see its perfect analogy in the relationships of reward 
 and service. They fail to sense that a little service 
 creates little reward, but more service more reward. 
 Those who see the truth of this relation are busy serv- 
 ing and happy in the enjoyment of the resultant re- 
 ward. Those who do not see it are complaining of the 
 lack of sufficient reward, and oftimes are envious of 
 their wiser fellows and distrustful of the Providence 
 which presides over both. 
 
 For life is the mirror of king and slave, 
 
 'Tis just what we are and do; 
 Then give to the world the best that you have, 
 
 And the best will come back to you. 
 
 46 
 
CHAPTER Vn. 
 
 BUSINESS, RELIGION AND GOVERNMENT 
 
 For modes of faith, let graceless zealots fight; 
 His can't be wrong, whose life is in the right; 
 In faith and hope the world will disagree, 
 But all mankind's concern is charity: 
 All must be false that thwart this one great end, 
 And all of God, that bless mankind or mend. 
 
 — Pope. 
 
 SINCE nature makes an occupation a necessity and 
 society makes it a duty, let us investigate the re- 
 lations a man's business bears to himself and to 
 his fellows. Nature, in accordance with her immutable 
 laws, decrees that a man follow an occupation or busi- 
 ness in order to provide himself with the requisites 
 of life. In his business, or in "that which occupies 
 his time, attention and labor as his chief concern," a 
 man finds his place, and his successful occupancy of 
 it is his chief aim and duty. 
 
 Everything in the world occupies a place and every 
 place is occupied by some thing. Nature knows no 
 vacuum. The sun occupies a very high and exalted 
 place in the center of the solar system ; the earth 
 occupies a place within that system, and within the 
 earth each mineral, vegetable and animal has its place. 
 The laws of occupancy are honored and glorified 
 throughout all nature. The sea occupies its place and 
 recognizes the bounds of the land. There is no desire 
 among the fishes in the water for the place of the birds 
 in the air, nor do the birds desire to dispossess the 
 fish. Every entity has its being in obedience of the 
 
 47 
 
The Philosophy of Business 
 
 laws of order, for "the heavens declare the glory of 
 God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork." 
 
 Only among men is there any restlessness and dis- 
 content with their positions. In the human world all 
 are playing at the game of pussy- wants-a-corner ; all 
 are clamoring for places they are not qualified to fill; 
 all are falling down to be trampled on by others pos- 
 sessed of the same ignoble ambition. Each is wholly 
 disregardful of the others' rights; each seeks the 
 emoluments, honor and reward that should belong to 
 an intelligent and industrious service, without quali- 
 fying to render that service, thus dispossessing both 
 the service and him who serves. 
 
 In the kingdom of greed there is no room, but dis- 
 order, contention and chaos. Its chambers are crowded 
 and its walls are bulging under the pressure of the 
 lust for gain ; its doorways are jammed with the enter- 
 ing throng ; its oxygen is consumed and stifling atmos- 
 phere suffocates and poisons. Poor houses, peniten- 
 tiaries and asylums receive its victims — those who 
 know not the way to service. 
 
 In the kingdom of service there is ample room, with 
 order, peace and contentment. It is unbelievable that 
 nature would give to the bee a talent to make honey, 
 or to the silkworm the ability to spin silk, but leave 
 man without the capacity to earn his livelihood. It 
 is preposterous to think that the lilies of the valley 
 are clothed and the birds of the air are fed, but man 
 is given no power to provide for himself. Every man 
 is born for some form of use and created for some par- 
 ticular service. Every man has a talent given him at 
 birth, which, if he will discover and use, will give him 
 
 48 
 
Business, Religion and Government 
 
 a place among his fellows that will so employ and 
 delight his every faculty he will desire no other man 's 
 place nor envy another man's reward any more than 
 a silkworm covete the honey or the bee desires the 
 silk. Therefore, it is man's duty to discover and per- 
 form those uses for which he was designed. 
 
 When we speak of duty we encroach upon the field 
 of ethics wherein religion finds its subjects. Religion, 
 literally, means "to bind again," and we find true 
 religion in the binding together of men to God by 
 their intelligent and faithful performance of those 
 particular uses into which they are called. The 
 business man, therefore, should regard the perform- 
 ance of the work of his calling zealously, intelli- 
 gently and faithfully as his religion. His office, counter 
 or shop is the altar at which he pours out his devotions 
 in service to his fellow man to whom he looks for 
 reward. The quantity and quality of his goods and the 
 excellency of his manner of disposing of them are the 
 sacrifices which he offers and which should be without 
 spot or blemish as far as it lies within his power. 
 His patrons, or the buying public, is the judge to whom 
 he must look for approval and commendation, and his 
 heaven is the success to be attained by faith and loy- 
 alty to the truths of his calling. His resurrection is 
 the continual promotion he merits by faithful service. 
 These are the cardinal doctrines of the business 
 man. By obeying them he earns a seat among the 
 elect, select and sanctified of the business world, and 
 when he lays down bis life, be it long or short, he 
 earns the right to be canonized as one of the patrons of 
 business. Inasmuch as the science of business treats 
 
 49 
 
The Philosophy of Business 
 
 of the infinite forms of uses, it takes on a universal 
 form that gives no offense to the worshippers of any 
 god, desecrates no temples, but instead, directs the 
 attention of the devotees to the service of each to the 
 other. 
 
 If business binds a man so closely to his fellows as 
 we have seen, it is evident that business must be sub- 
 ject to those laws or codes of conventional conduct 
 which are regulated by society in the form of govern- 
 ments. There are five kinds of governments which are 
 related in a causal way, since each grew out of the 
 one before it. The first form of government descended 
 from the deity in the form of austere commandments, 
 and was called theocratic. From the theocratic there 
 was born the patriarchal form, wherein divinely ap- 
 pointed supervisors directed and judged human con- 
 duct. Then in further descent the people were made 
 the electors for the selection of a ruler from their 
 number, and such a government was called monarchi- 
 cal. By broadening the function and enlarging the 
 number of rulers and multiplying the legislators, lim- 
 iting and defining their powers by constitutional bar- 
 riers, the monarchical government became a republic. 
 Finally, there is the fifth form of government, not yet 
 perfected, which is known as an industrial democracy. 
 In it, men will have reached the point of self-govern- 
 ment, based upon the natural relation of man to man, 
 with equal rights, equal power and equal voice inso- 
 far as this equality is guaged by the mental and indus- 
 trial efficiency of the individual. 
 
 That government which is truly human is based 
 upon the wisdom and virtue of its people, which are 
 
 50 
 
Business, Religion and Government 
 
 determined by the three necessary attributes of the 
 human in the individual, namely, the desire to serve, 
 the knowledge of how to serve and the capacity to 
 serve. Such a government is an industrial democracy, 
 and in the vestige of the austere and superstitious 
 things of theocracy are found the primary, revealed, 
 infallible and just laws of nature; the blind dictates 
 of the patriarch become the clearly perceived and 
 formulated laws known as business science; the king 
 represents the fundamental principles upon which 
 business is built, and his scepter is efficiency; the re- 
 public is the grouping together, classification and 
 application of the general principles in the different 
 fields of labor. 
 
 Industrial democracy is the government of those 
 people in whom all these things are concentered, of 
 the individual who has found himself and is expending 
 his energies in useful service and who thus becomes a 
 true soldier of the common good, distinguishing him- 
 self only by the dignity and nobility of the service 
 he performs. 
 
 The fundamental and basic principles of the indus- 
 trial democracy is service, and its slogan is, "The 
 tools to those who can use them." Its declaration 
 of independence is, ' ' Give to the public that which the 
 public creates and to the individual that which the 
 individual creates." The first article of its constitu- 
 tion is, "The earth, including all natural resources, 
 is the common heritage of all the people, and shall 
 be held sacred as the gift of the Creator to those liv- 
 ing upon it. ' ' The second article of its constitution is 
 "Each individual shall enjoy the full product of his 
 
 51 
 
The Philosophy of Business 
 
 own efforts." All other articles are but corallaries 
 of these two. 
 
 When the people will have reached that degree of 
 morality, mentality and efficiency that they will ratify 
 this constitution and endorse its articles, then they 
 will have become sovereign citizens of an industrial 
 democracy, and justice will have become a reality, 
 independence an actuality and equity a realization. 
 And much, if not all, of the public scandal of crime, 
 poverty and insanity will be banished from the earth. 
 
 Thus we see that government should concern itself 
 about something more than the keeping of the peace 
 of its citizens, waging war on its enemies and collect- 
 ing taxes at home and revenues abroad. Business, too, 
 should concern itself about something greater than 
 wages, profits and enlarged trade, and religion should 
 look more to the character of the man than to his punc- 
 tilious performance of traditional ceremonies. Gov- 
 ernment, business and religion should bend their efforts 
 to develop each individual as a unit in the mass of 
 humanity. Human welfare should be made the true 
 basis for the development of each unit so as to enable 
 him to render the greatest service possible, and for 
 the subordination of the individual's selfish ambition 
 to co-ordination with the efforts of his fellows for the 
 enrichment of society. This would bestow upon the 
 individual the greatest blessing possible, and at the 
 same time cause him to contribute his full share to- 
 ward blessing his kind. This is but another, and the 
 true way of enlarging manhood and building charac- 
 ter, which is, after all, the true end of business, govern- 
 ment and religion. 
 
 52 
 
CHAPTEK VIII. 
 
 NATURE— THE IMAGE OP THE PERFECT MAN 
 
 The invisible things of Him from the creation of the world 
 are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made. 
 
 — Romans I; 20. 
 
 CARLYLE said that there are only two books, 
 nature and human nature. The first is written 
 in the language of the natural sciences ; the sec- 
 ond has not been written, or at best only in part. We 
 have been so engrossed in our study of the book of 
 nature, that we have neglected the other and more im- 
 portant book of human nature. For this reason, let 
 us turn our attention toward the truths of this latter 
 book, for we shall find it broad and large, interesting, 
 pleasurable and profitable. The proper distinction be- 
 tween the two fields is that the knowledges of nature 
 are the static sciences, and of human nature, the dynam- 
 ic sciences. Knowledges of the static sciences may 
 and do advance, but their subjects are stationary, fixed 
 and always remain the same. Knowledges of human 
 nature increase daily, but so do their subjects. In 
 no sense is human nature fixed, either in the race or 
 the individual, and therefore its study is rightly called 
 dynamic. Mineral, vegetable and animal are always 
 the same in both subject and object, and they await 
 their time for the magic touch of the human hand to 
 change them. Human nature undergoes constant 
 change from birth until death of the individual or the 
 nation. Man is like a chameleon in that he changes in 
 thought, feeling or expression by everything that 
 touches him. He is never the same for any continuous 
 
 53 
 
The Philosophy of Business 
 
 period of time, but constantly fluctuates more or less 
 according to his changing environment. That does not 
 say, however, that he is not governed by laws, prin- 
 ciples, and powers that may be discovered, organized 
 and taught as the study of human nature ; on the con- 
 trary, it accentuates the necessity for the study of 
 human nature if we would intelligently interpret man 
 and follow him through all his changes and account for 
 them. 
 
 So important is Human nature that nature has 
 no other mission than to serve as the fixed symbols by 
 which it may be interpreted, and the manifold uses 
 it subserves in perfecting man. The book of nature 
 is little more than the alphabet, mathematical charac- 
 ters or musical notes to be learned for the one great 
 purpose of reading human nature, solving her problems 
 and singing her songs. It is the book of man's life to 
 be opened and read only by the help of the natural 
 sciences. Natural truths are but the "dust of the 
 ground" out of which the mind is formed and made, 
 'but it awaits the breath of life to be breathed into 
 these dry things before it becomes a living soul. 
 
 Let no man think he is educated when he has mas- 
 tered even every natural science, but rather let him 
 think that he has only learned the alphabet and is 
 merely ready to begin its use in reading man or human 
 nature. "When you have learned all there is to know 
 about business," John Graham says in substance to 
 Pierrepont in "Letters of a Self -Made Merchant to His 
 Son," "you have learned only one-eighth of the sub- 
 ject, the other seven-eighths consist of knowing human 
 nature. ' ' 
 
 54 
 
Nature — the Image of the Perfect Man 
 
 When Columbus first sighted land after his long, 
 perilous voyage, imagine his thrill of excitement and 
 anxiety of mind as to what else he would soon behold 
 when safely landed on its shores. He thought he had 
 reached India, and his experienced mind had already 
 drawn a picture of those things he expected to behold. 
 He was so filled with his prejudgments that he failed 
 to recognize the strange people and things he saw as 
 being far moved from India. The people whom he 
 beheld, having less experienced minds, were incapable 
 of comprehending the significance of his advent. To 
 them Columbus was a wonder: his white face seemed 
 to glow with the light of the sun, and they associated 
 him with their gods. His sail boats were as phantom 
 sea crafts; his dress, guns and other trifling accoutre- 
 ments confirmed their fears that he was some super- 
 natural being. 
 
 These "children of nature" whose minds "proud 
 science had never taught to stray so far as the solar 
 walk or milky way," were gullible to the fullest ex- 
 tent. Yes, they were the children of nature, and like 
 children, were subject to her every caprice. Her smile, 
 gentleness, spontaneous production, salubrious weather 
 and pacific breezes were indeed her caresses and bless- 
 ings. Her excessive heat, cold, drought, inundation 
 and fierce storms and still fiercer beasts and reptiles 
 were evidences of her anger which scared, tortured 
 and murdered them. 
 
 As nature's children grow up in the knowledge of 
 her laws, nurtured and admonished by them, these 
 things pass away as many have passed away now, and 
 as man becomes an adult Human, that is, truly Human, 
 
 55 
 
The Philosophy op Business 
 
 he will see nature in an altogether different light. 
 When he directs the rays of natural science upon her 
 phenomena, he will find that the hitherto sealed book 
 will begin to open and unfold her mystical truths, for 
 nature, as said above, is symbolic and significant of 
 human nature, as the shadow is to the substance. Man 
 is just now entering a period wherein nature is seen 
 to be a secondary thing, a mere instrument for human 
 betterment, and he promises to enter into his true 
 estate as lord of nature; he is now learning to com- 
 mand nature by mastery of her laws and this is why 
 the twentieth century witnesses greater progress than 
 all the two hundred forty thousand preceding cen- 
 turies. Strip from nature all that man has put on 
 her and she would be naked indeed. There would be 
 left no evidence of business, science, schools, inven- 
 tions, government or society. Reclothe her again, and 
 behold a vision of what has come out of man and a 
 prophecy of what is yet in him. Great, glorious and 
 eternal as nature is, she is but the tool of human na- 
 ture and when man comes into his potential knowledge, 
 power and use, he will recognize her as such. 
 
 However, let us not dwell upon the subjugation of 
 nature to man at too great length, for it should not be 
 looked upon as a subjugation of an opposing force, 
 but rather as the harmonizing with a co-operating 
 force. The perfect man will be one who has incorpo- 
 rated nature into himself and henceforth sees it within 
 him, as a mirror incorporates the image which is seen 
 within it. Nature is the image of the perfect man and 
 she holds herself before him as the perfect represen- 
 tation of what is in him. 
 
 56 
 
Nature — the Image op the Perfect Man 
 
 Columbus and his newly found friends were alike 
 in that both were the children of nature, for nature 
 was everywhere without to both of them. They dif- 
 fered only in that Columbus had more knowledge of 
 nature and her laws, and hence more of nature had 
 come into him, making him a larger and better man. 
 We have already begun to discern that nature's light 
 and darkness are symbolical of the instructed and unin- 
 structed mind, a mind luminous with truth or dark 
 with ignorance. Nature's ups and downs are sensibly 
 seen to prefigure man's mental exaltation or abase- 
 ment; her electric and magnetic forces are symbolic 
 of the driving and drawing power in man; her acids 
 and alkalis are evident in the active and passive dispo- 
 sitions of people; and her mineral, vegetable and 
 animal qualities are in evidence in all their varieties 
 in all men. So universal is this truth that human na- 
 ture affords a field for the application of every scien- 
 tific truth, and in addition, opens a new vista of inex- 
 haustible and superior truths to the student. 
 
 Shakespeare was a master student of human nature 
 and his plays are mostly expositions of it. Indeed, 
 nearly all dramas, both comedies and tragedies, are 
 illustrative lessons of human nature. There have been 
 many other eminent students of human nature, Dante, 
 Milton, Swedenborg, et cetera, but none ever organized 
 his knowledge and as yet an exposition of the science 
 remains unwritten. It is possible that the Bible may 
 be found to reveal more of its secrets than can be found 
 elsewhere outside of its subject, man. It is said of 
 Jesus, that "He knew what was in man." He doubt- 
 did know, but he did not teach his knowledge 
 
 57 
 
The Philosophy op Business 
 
 openly, but by parables and it may be that when these 
 parables are opened and explained by a true human 
 science we shall obtain the knowledge we covet. And 
 it may be that the whole Bible, which contains many 
 parables, and allegories, some of which we all admit 
 are yet sealed to our eyes, will, when opened, reveal 
 the knowledge for which we search. He who writes 
 the science of human nature will render a greater 
 service to mankind than has ever yet been rendered by 
 any writer. "The proper study of mankind is man" 
 was not an idle remark of a jester, but the serious and 
 solemn conclusion of one of the world's greatest poets 
 and students. 
 
 Man and his knowledge are two distinct things : he 
 would not be what he is without his knowledge, nor 
 could there be a receptacle for knowledge without man. 
 The source of knowledge is not within man, but beyond 
 and above him. It makes him what he is by operating 
 in and upon his responsive organs. At every lifting 
 up of a faculty prompted by a desire to know, there 
 is instantly a sense of touch with a creative life and 
 consciousness is born within. Knowledge is higher 
 than man, and its influence and effect is creative of 
 him and instrumental in making, shaping and form- 
 ing his character and life. When a man has "found 
 himself" in the midst of a mighty universe he has made 
 a very important find ; when he knows nothing beyond 
 what he calls his own knowing, he is then in the mini- 
 mum degree of his being. To find himself in fullness, 
 he must ally himself with laws and forces that are 
 not his own and to which he must bow in reverence 
 
 58 
 
Nature — the Image of the Perfect Man 
 
 and hope that he may come out and expand himself 
 until he becomes one with these larger things. 
 
 It is nature reflected in man that elevates, broadens 
 and gives just and true proportions to his manhood. 
 If we could imagine a man who was perfectly familiar 
 with all of nature and master of her laws, we would 
 image a perfect man. Probably there will never be 
 such a man, nor need there be, for man does not find 
 his strength and wisdom in himself alone, but shares 
 it with his fellows and they share theirs with him. 
 
 One is impressed when visiting the many and well 
 organized industrial and mercantile establishments of 
 today, with the efficiency of the workers as a whole 
 and the power of their aggregate knowledge. For 
 instance, visit a shoe factory and consider the men 
 making shoes. Think of the excellency of the product 
 issuing from the plant and it seems nothing short of 
 a miracle that from the sum of the wisdom of the mul- 
 titude of men, each of whom seems to know but little 
 yet knows that little well, a product could come forth 
 the faultless and perfect child of corporate wisdom 
 without bearing upon its features some birthmark of 
 the individual ignorance of the great number of work- 
 ers in and about the plant. Probably not a single man 
 in the factory ever drove an ox or fed a steer. 
 An invoice of the ignorance of the men in the plant 
 would seem to be enough to darken and hide the face 
 of the sun that illuminates them in their work from the 
 reception of the raw hide to the addressing of a box 
 of goods sent to some far-away merchant. 
 
 Inasmuch as man becomes man by progressively 
 learning of nature, he also becomes more a man by 
 
 59 
 
The Philosophy of Business 
 
 union with his fellows, thus forming a compact more 
 truly human in the development of a new relation or 
 association, a kind of corporation, or one body, includ- 
 ing many men. In this corporation in which several 
 individuals fuse and melt into one mass, adding the 
 mental acquirements and sharing the one with the all, 
 and the all with the one, wisdom and strength is mul- 
 tiplied and a greater power and fuller life is enjoyed 
 by all. In the natural laws, "In union there is 
 strength," and "The injury of one is the concern of 
 all," it is easy to see the perfect fellowship or society 
 which on a larger scale will reflect nature; and the 
 individualities of the many may be seen in the larger 
 and grander man. 
 
 Creation prepares man in its own image and he 
 may see himself mirrored and reflected in boundless 
 nature. Before the image can be of true proportion, 
 he must be developed in every faculty that goes to 
 make the complete organism of man. He must pos- 
 sess an all around sensitiveness, and discernment of 
 the uses of the infinite things of nature before he can 
 become the conscious embodiment of the things in him 
 which nature holds forth before him as in a mirror. 
 When every organ in man is responsive to every par- 
 ticular thing in nature, he is like a harp whose strings 
 vibrate at the touch of the musician, and he is the 
 complete, the perfect man. Science, art and philoso- 
 phy, must each sound their cords in order that man 
 may come into his perfect estate. 
 
 There is an unearned increment, a residue and 
 usury resulting from the co-operation of several which 
 does not accrue, nor is possible, to the several working 
 
 60 
 
Nature — the Image op the Perfect Man 
 
 separately. It is this residue, unearned increment or 
 usury which enriches corporations, societies, and the 
 world. This truth is patent to every business man. 
 It is the business man to whom we look with confidence 
 to organize fragmentary truths of nature, found a lit- 
 tle here and a little there, a little in this man and a 
 little in that man, into one grand whole or great 
 corporation and thus cash in on the accumulated truths 
 exploited from nature, plus the accumulated experi- 
 ences exploited from men in every field of work, lead- 
 ing to the perfection of man. 
 
 One of the world's foremost business men, a multi- 
 millionaire, who made his millions because he has 
 obeyed the laws of nature, acknowledged his gratitude 
 to his employees, developed the efficiency of his work- 
 ers and restored the degenerate to honest producers, 
 recently sought to restore mad Europe to sanity by per- 
 suading the Avarring nations to stop violating nature's 
 laws in the interest of their own welfare. He sought 
 to re-enlist the nations in the world's work and to 
 hasten the coming of the day when all shall be freed 
 from the beast in man wherein the human is planted 
 and is struggling to come into its own. 
 
 When men are drawn together by nature's laws 
 into a union, every advantage flows to all within it, 
 and as "in a multiude of council there is much wis- 
 dom" so more of nature is reflected in this greater 
 man, and he is able to rise above her caprice, harness 
 her forces and compel her to render a greater service 
 and a surer sustenance. Should all the people of this 
 globe pool their knowledge of nature and her laws 
 and work together for mutual ends, nature would be 
 
 61 
 
The Philosophy of Business 
 
 well nigh conquered and mankind delivered from her 
 tyranny. When nature has unfolded all her secrets 
 and taken man into her confidence, they will be one, 
 for nature is the image of the perfect man, who re- 
 flects her perfection. Nature is human law in the nat- 
 ural world and man is natural law in the human world. 
 
 62 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE IDEAL WORLD IS ONE OF SCIENTIFIC 
 BUSINESS RELATIONS 
 
 America asks nothing for herself but what she has a right 
 to ask for humanity itself. —Woodrow Wilson. 
 
 THIS is a mixed world of many men with many 
 minds. Under present conditions it is too much 
 to expect universal peace, harmony and happiness 
 to reign. We have been too long following expediency 
 rather than truth. Dr. Frank Crane said, "Every ani- 
 mal has its parasite, every living organism has its pecu- 
 liar destructive microbe. The name of that particular 
 bacillus which eats the life out of truth is expediency. 
 The minute one asks, 'What's the use?' he ceases to 
 be a scientist, an artist or a moral person. For ages 
 the world's highest thinking, or rather its thinking 
 upon highest themes, was conducted along immoral 
 lines. For men have asked not, 'Is it so?' but 'Is it 
 advisable to say that it is so?' It is modern science 
 that has laid the world under an everlasting debt, by 
 standing out for the theory that what is true must 
 always and absolutely be best for us to know and to 
 follow. Few realize that intellectual honesty is a mod- 
 ern discovery. Any system built on non-facts becomes 
 a breeding ground for tyrannies and morbidities. ' ' In 
 the interest of the science of business, let us ignore 
 expediency and proceed by making a proper analysis 
 and see what facts, forces and conditions we have to 
 deal with, then we can estimate them approximately 
 and outline a "budget," which will make proper allow- 
 
 63 
 
The Philosophy of Business 
 
 ance for the action of each factor. In this way we 
 will come nearer attaining the goal than if we go it 
 blindly, depending upon fate to take care of mis- 
 takes. Progress is possible only by the faithful fol- 
 lowing of the ideal. 
 
 Men are beginning to be interested in this problem 
 for the first time in the world's history, because they 
 are forced to its consideration by the growth of busi- 
 ness which is becoming universal in extent. Business 
 has so overgrown mere individual, local, state or even 
 national rights that these are made secondary to what 
 may be termed world rights, or human rights. 
 
 The world needs a new Magna Charta or Bill of 
 Rights that will give assurance of success to any man 
 or organization of men that proposes to carry out a 
 scientific program based on natural law, without being 
 in danger of being pronounced an outlaw. He should 
 be encouraged to do good by following nature's laws 
 regardless of organized efforts of ignorance to hinder. 
 Nor does this mean empirical dominion, but tried, true, 
 philosophical and scientific dominion recognizing the 
 right of natural law to run and be glorified on all 
 planes wherever it may appear. Such a dominion 
 would make a near, if not an exact approach to a 
 theocracy (not as in the beginning when God was sup- 
 posed to govern the world in person by his arbitrary 
 authority), wherein God governs through the agency 
 of man qualifying in knowledge of nature's laws — a 
 kind of vox populi est vox Dei in an industrial democ- 
 racy. The common good is put above every form of 
 private good and the earth taken as the boundary of 
 
 64 
 
The Ideal World 
 
 the kingdom, scientific business is the form of govern- 
 ment and individual efficiency the official badge. 
 
 The end our ideal leads us to is the good of all and 
 must be kept constantly in mind. In consideration of 
 the problem from whatever angle, the common good 
 must be put above every form of private good. Our 
 ideal reaches beyond the narrow limits of family, tribe 
 or nation and extends until it includes no less a field 
 than the planet. We must enlarge our faith and ex- 
 tend our charity with confidence until we know not 
 only that two and two are four, but that nature 's laws 
 are inviolable. There are two factors underlying the 
 largest success of men co-ordinating their efforts on 
 any and all planes for any purpose. The first is uni- 
 versal and social and is the spirit of co-operation. The 
 second is particular and individual and is the efficiency 
 of those who co-operate. The former broods over the 
 latter to give it birth; men may come and men may 
 go, but society goes on forever. The latter glorifies 
 the former in the degree in which it does honor to 
 the spirit from which it is born. The development of 
 the efficiency of the individual is a factor that must 
 be attended to, for the perfection of the whole stands 
 upon the perfection of each part. Let us now address 
 our attention to the tools we must use in our attain- 
 ment of the ideal. 
 
 The raw materials which nature has abundantly 
 given us in the form of natural resources, should be 
 free at all times for the use of the present inhabitants 
 of the planet and not kept as an heirloom or withheld 
 from use. The only title to them is occupancy or use, 
 an inalienable title that nature has decreed cannot be 
 
 65 
 
The Philosophy op Business 
 
 passed to another under any condition without dis- 
 turbing the natural rights of man and dividing society 
 into two parts, the House of Have and the House of 
 Want, thus poisoning the waters at the fountain head 
 and creating universal sickness. The only deed one 
 needs to sunlight is a pair of good eyes ; if he has these, 
 all the sun is his. A hint to the wise is sufficient. By 
 the same reason, he should be left in freedom to make 
 use of any and all natural resources with which man 
 is supplied. 
 
 Natural resources are multiplied and made available 
 by mechanical laws. For instance, eye-glasses, the 
 product of the thought and labor of man, when assist- 
 ing nature, magnify her powers. The man who made 
 the glasses is entitled to wear them in preference to 
 any and all other men. Now, if one man finds he can 
 produce eyeglasses more easily and with greater de- 
 light than he can grow a bushel of potatoes, and an- 
 other man finds his pleasure and use producing pota- 
 toes, they can exchange their product on their own 
 terms without injury to either and to the betterment 
 of both. In a general sense and on a grander scale, 
 the knowledge and application of mechanical laws is 
 a tool to be used in working for the ideal. 
 
 When mechanical laws operate and enlarge upon 
 natural resources and men exchange their products, 
 the problem of a proper unit of value presents itself. 
 No individual has the right to make any standard of 
 value, weight or volume. That is a purely social or 
 governmental function. A scientific judgment would 
 take no notice of the value of the standard itself. A 
 standard simply makes for accuracy, convenience and 
 
 66 
 
The Ideal World 
 
 justice, and as man's relations become more universal, 
 his standards must be recognized by all nations and 
 languages alike. Science knows no such limitations as 
 bind the commercial world. Scientists speak and think 
 in a universal tongue, understood by all, and if the 
 commercial world wishes to progress, it must follow 
 a similar course and become a world of scientific busi- 
 ness relations. The unit, let it be whatever it may, 
 will be called simply one measure, one weight, or one 
 value. 
 
 When man has effectively used the tools of natural 
 resources, mechanical laws and universal standard of 
 exchange, he will have attained the ideal. The com- 
 plex problems of individuals, corporations and govern- 
 ments will have been solved, and much, if not all mis- 
 understandings, contentions and disputes will have 
 passed away; the chief cause of theft and crime will 
 have been removed and the dark and dismal clouds of 
 subtle advantage, covetousness and legal wrongs will 
 have passed away, and the bright light of open and 
 fair dealing will shine with a greater force ; and hon- 
 esty and good intentions will beam from the face of all 
 men. Education will mean qualification for efficient 
 service and religion will mean living well. The philoso- 
 phy of business concerns itself only about those matters 
 which make for universal peace, happiness and content. 
 Its contention is for nothing less than the rights of 
 humanity and no individual, corporation or nation can 
 come into greater honor than by rendering obedience 
 to those laws inspired by this ideal. 
 
 67 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THINKING 
 
 Thy wish was father to that thought. 
 
 — Shakespeare. 
 
 BUSINESS is constructive, progressive, and produc- 
 tive, and to pursue it successfully one must have 
 initiative and originality. The source of all action 
 is in thought, and therefore the business man must be 
 a thinker. Let us examine the process of thinking, 
 and seek to understand, if possible, its operation, so 
 that we may know where we are. 
 
 The copy books we used in the penmanship class 
 in school had us write the legend, "The wish is the 
 father of the thought, ' ' until every letter was indelibly 
 impressed upon our minds. It is in this old adage that 
 we find the key to thought — in the wish, or more ex- 
 plicitly in love. Love is the father of thought, nature 
 is the mother, and all knowledges are the children of 
 the union. 
 
 The word philosopher literally means a "lover of 
 wisdom. ' ' Burbank, a natural philosopher, loved flow- 
 ers and by close communion with them and study of 
 them, he has understood the "language of the flowers" 
 and they have told him many secrets, which they have 
 told no other man. He has loved them, believed in 
 them ; he has been patient, gentle, kind and tender with 
 them, and has proved that he is their friend and com- 
 panion. They have responded by opening their dumb 
 mouths and telling him of their desires, ambitions, 
 capabilities, loves, passions, and potency, how they 
 longed for nuptial relations to propagate their kind 
 
 68 
 
Thinking 
 
 and improve their species. They revealed to him the 
 commandments and laws written in their organic struc- 
 ture to increase and multiply and fill the earth with 
 beauty, fragrance and loveliness. The flowers told all 
 this to Mr. Burbank, their lover, and they made a 
 thinker of him. 
 
 The same thing has taken place with every other 
 thinker who has given to the world anything worth 
 while. And it is what every man must do if he, too, 
 would contribute to the world wealth that can never 
 be destroyed, and in so doing he will live forever in 
 the affection of his fellows. Columbus wooed from the 
 earth, by a life of passionate devotion, the secret of 
 her shape ; Newton wooed the most subtle secrets from 
 the boundless universe and she, in answer to his ardent 
 love, unfolded all nature's laws. Franklin was enam- 
 ored with a thunder cloud and she stooped and kissed 
 his lips. Thus we see the love of wisdom as the 
 father, nature as the mother and knowledge as the 
 child. 
 
 When one comes into the world his mind is a blank 
 without form or content. Surrounded by all the things 
 the material world puts at his disposal, he is unaware 
 of their existence; he does not recognize their forms 
 nor their uses. He is passive, receptive, and awaits 
 to react to their actions. They are the teacher and he 
 is the learner. They must open their dumb mouths 
 and speak, introduce themselves, be conveyed into his 
 mind. Their purpose is to instruct, inform and con- 
 struct his mind. Things teach man; man does not 
 teach things. The shining sun taught man to see : vi- 
 brating things taught him to hear; odoriferous things 
 
 69 
 
The Philosophy op Business 
 
 taught him to smell ; things with resistance taught him 
 to feel and savory things taught him to taste. 
 
 How do things teach man? How do they introduce 
 themselves into his mind, leaving their images until 
 his whole mind is a mental photograph of the whole 
 world, there to remain and grow forever? Surely no 
 material thing can enter through the mystic doorways 
 of the mind, for there is not room if man's mind is 
 within him to contain the things of time and space. 
 Instead, they undergo a reconstruction, a transmuta- 
 tion and are drawn into the mind by the powerful suc- 
 tion it puts forth in its thirsting for knowledge, which 
 is insatiable, and which demands more the more it is 
 fed. 
 
 The mind is far removed from the material world, 
 bearing a relation as "in" to "out." Thought is 
 within man, things are without. The distance between 
 the mind within and the body without is bridged over 
 by a subtle fluid which partakes of a mental substance 
 and a material form, and which is called the amimal 
 spirit for lack of a better name. This animal spirit is 
 clothed with a very fine and pure substance called the 
 brain, a more familiar and acceptable term. The 
 brain extends itself to every part of the body and 
 terminates in little mouths called nerve ends. There 
 are an infinite number of nerve ends, but most of them 
 are gathered and congregated into four large mouths, 
 or centers, while the rest are distributed over the 
 body and come to the surface in openings too small 
 to be seen by the unaided eye. The four large open- 
 ings are known as the mouth (taste), ear, eye and nose. 
 
 70 
 
Thinking 
 
 The scattered openings collectively give us the sense 
 of touch. 
 
 Everything that gets into the mind must come into 
 it through these doorways. Material things, of course, 
 are too crass to enter the mind, but as said before, they 
 undergo a transmutation, owing to the strong suction 
 that the mind puts forth to draw them into itself. They 
 leave their bodies behind them and enter only as to 
 their souls, so to speak, and then they assume new 
 bodies and arise to a newness of life and become im- 
 mortal, and live forever as spirits in the mind. In 
 short, they undergo a sort of death and resurrection. 
 Let us examine this extraordinary process by taking 
 a specific example. 
 
 Here is a piece of crayon. You see it, and when it 
 drops onto the table you hear it. You feel it with 
 your fingers as smooth, and round, and it crumbles 
 with little pressure. It has an alkaline taste in the 
 mouth and it smells dusty. If the crayon is hidden, 
 you can still see it, hear it, feel, taste and smell it. 
 Why? Because its photograph or image is in your 
 mind, a mental replica of the material crayon, but 
 not actually the crayon itself, although possibly, near- 
 ly as distinct. This mental crayon is your property 
 and cannot be taken from you. You made it through 
 the agency of your five senses which bridged the gulf 
 between the material crayon and your brain. If the 
 attention be fixed upon a single object for a given 
 time, a clear impression of the object will be made 
 on the mind. An after effort to think of that object 
 will result in a reproduction of its qualities, such as, 
 size, color, weight, substance, etc. Through the five 
 
 71 
 
The Philosophy of Business 
 
 senses not only this crayon, but everything may pass 
 from out of the world of matter into the world of 
 mind, producing what we may call images. Thinking, 
 is the process of division and relation of parts, quali- 
 ties and functions. Discrimination is peculiarly the 
 function of thinking, and thinking is based upon sen- 
 sations. 
 
 Here is another crayon, differing in size, color and 
 form from the first. It forms into another image, a 
 third does the same thing, and so on until you have 
 several images of like things differing only in details. 
 With these images in mind, you are able to distinguish 
 a crayon from other objects and to classify it as such. 
 Your group of images is in itself a unit, defining pretty 
 definitely your conception of a crayon, and for this rea- 
 son, we shall call the group of images a concept. 
 
 A concept is the unit of thought, for concepts are 
 the things from which thought is made. We have 
 just seen how the concept crayon was formed in the 
 mind. All concepts are formed in the same manner. 
 Now when several concepts are combined as were the 
 images, we have an idea. An idea is a thought on the 
 lowest or outermost plane, a thought of the first degree. 
 It is usually composed of three or more concepts, as for 
 instance, "Crayon is white." The three concepts, 
 crayon, is and white enter into this idea. If we pursue 
 this subject further we find that there are three kinds 
 of concepts, concrete, verbal and abstract. The idea 
 above contains a representative of each kind. 
 
 All things, both natural and mental, are concrete con- 
 cepts, as crayon, rock, wood, plant, animal, etc. A ver- 
 bal concept is one concerning the state of, action, or 
 
 72 
 
Thinking 
 
 being, and is expressed by words such as walking, do, is, 
 etc. An abstract concept qualifies and modifies and is 
 expressed by words such as white, sour, rough, loud, 
 pungent, etc. The last named are called abstract con- 
 cepts, because, aside from the things they qualify, they 
 have no existence. There are no such things as white, 
 sour, rough, etc., but things may be white, sour, and 
 rough. 
 
 When two or more ideas are presented and two or 
 more of the concepts in them differ, or agree, we contrast 
 or compare them and discern the difference or agree- 
 ment, and from our observations draw a conclusion 
 called a judgment, a thought of the second degree. Let 
 us take the two ideas "Crayon is white" and "Crayon 
 is black." Suppose we ask the question, which is bet- 
 ter? The answer calls for a new mental process, the 
 formation of a judgment. If it is for the purpose of 
 writing on a blackboard, we say that the white crayon 
 is the better. That is a judgment, like which we form 
 many in the course of a day, and the quality of the 
 judgments we make measures our success. Nothing is 
 so valuable to the man of business as good judgment, 
 the ability to form thoughts of the second degree. 
 
 "Why is white crayon better for writing on a black- 
 board? To answer this question we must go further 
 than a judgment, and find a law: "The greater the 
 contrast, the greater the distinction." If the business 
 man forms sound judgments he should be able to deduce 
 the laws on which they are founded. A law is a thought 
 of the third degree. 
 
 "When we have discovered that similar actions or 
 events always produce the same result, we recognize a 
 
 73 
 
The Philosophy op Business 
 
 law as governing the situation. If we go further and 
 aeek the why or reason for the law, we find a principle 
 underlying, and that principle is use. Use is the prin- 
 ciple behind creation. The whole natural world is noth- 
 ing but infinite forms of uses. The whole business world 
 is nothing but an infinite form of use or service, and 
 buying and selling are nothing more than the exchange 
 of service in one form for another. There is no such 
 thing as a useless thing in nature; some things we can 
 define only in terms of the uses they perform, as for 
 instance, electricity. This principle of use is the pin- 
 nacle of thought, and in considering it many able minds 
 have stumbled and great has been their fall. It is the 
 Shekinah of the mind, the inmost of being. Angels can 
 do no more than think in terms of the principle of 
 use, and God Himself can be no more than that prin- 
 ciple. In the language of another, "God is the com- 
 plex of all uses, in essence love, in form a man. ' ' 
 
 Fig. 4 
 
 Figure 4 is a diagram of the degrees of thought 
 showing how from many sensations the mind forms 
 
 74 
 
Thinking 
 
 images, which it combines into concepts, and by combin- 
 ing two or more concepts it gets an idea, several of 
 which warrant the conclusion of judgments, from which 
 laws can be deduced, and behind the laws are found 
 the underlying principles. 
 
 L 
 
 75 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 MEMORY AND IMAGINATION 
 
 From nature's chain whatever link you strike, 
 Tenth or ten thousandth breaks the chain alike. 
 
 — Pope. 
 
 THINKING involves something more than the re- 
 ceiving of sensations and converting them by de- 
 grees into images, concepts, ideas, judgments', laws 
 and principles. It also involves the recording of these 
 stages of thought in what we know as the memory, so 
 that they may be used over and over again as occasions 
 arise. They form a subsoil, base or foothold for future 
 mental activity, and from them arise the "children of 
 the brain," in what is known as the imagination. The 
 memory is a history of the past; the imagination is a 
 prediction of the future. Together, they enable man 
 to rise above his environment, for without them, he 
 would be as obedient to fate as the animals, and sub- 
 missive to the dictates of nature instead of her master. • 
 The memory is the storeroom of the mind where a 
 record of all sensations, images, concepts, judgments, 
 laws and principles is kept in safe and secure reserve 
 for instant use. If one could only think in the sense of 
 gathering thought material and transforming it into 
 thought, he would have no past nor future. Present 
 thought would be of no use for future thinking, for the 
 temple of thought might grow mountain high in a day, 
 like Jonah's gourd, only to be cut down at night by the 
 worm of forgetfulness. The memory is like a filing cabi- 
 net which will receive and record anything that is put 
 into it ; and the things recorded are subject to recall by 
 
 76 
 
Memory and Imagination 
 
 the mind which recognizes them as the record of the 
 things originally thought. Thus man has a past as well 
 as a present, and it can he Drought into the living pres- 
 ent and made a part of it. Experiment and experience 
 are thereby rendered valuable and wisdom increases 
 with age. 
 
 If one will train the memory to increase its capacity, 
 his power of thinking will also increase and he will be 
 able to serve better. The memory should be educated, 
 given proper nourishment and exercise. It should not 
 be treated as a waste basket nor overburdened with un- 
 necessary tasks. It should be trained according to cer- 
 tain laws which will lead it in the way that it should 
 go. The first is the law of attention. If one wishes to 
 remember a particular thing he should give the closest 
 attention to it so that the memory can form an accu- 
 rate and well defined impression. If it is a thing of or 
 pertaining to a substance, an apple say, the five senses 
 should do their part in making a clear mental image. 
 If it is a thing of or pertaining to a state of being or 
 action, as an historical event, the feelings or one's men- 
 tal reaction (interest) to the thing should impress it 
 upon the memory. 
 
 Sometimes the closest attention is hard to give, or 
 one's interest is negative in the thing to be remembered. 
 In such a case one should resort to the law of repetition 
 and use in order to assist the memory. We all learned 
 the multiplication table in this way, and possibly our 
 history dates and Sunday School golden texts. 
 
 The third law is the most common and for most 
 minds the best way for remembering, the law of asso- 
 ciation. Things are easily remembered when they are 
 
 77 
 
The Philosophy op Business 
 
 associated with other things already recorded: (a) as 
 to cause and effect, (b) as to contents, (c) as to contrast, 
 (d) as to contiguity, (e) as to correspondence. An ex- 
 ample of each will suffice for an explanation. 
 
 We remember vividly the shock that we once received 
 when we picked up a very ordinary looking wire, and 
 since then, we have avoided careless handling of loose 
 wires. In fact, if some one mentions live wire, we even 
 recall the room in which we had our shocking experi- 
 ence, remembering the room from its contents. By con- 
 trasting two wires, one insulated and the other bare, it 
 is easy for us to distinguish the dangerous one. Every 
 time we see a switch we remember our live wire disaster, 
 owing to the close contiguity of a switch to that wire. 
 We are cautious to avoid entirely, or at least to inves- 
 tigate all other wires before grasping them, because they 
 are likely to be live, corresponding to the one of our first 
 experience. 
 
 Aside from the law of association there is the law 
 of suggestion which is useful to the memory. A thing 
 "that reminds us" usually recalls for us some other 
 thing of a similar nature. Prompters behind the scenes 
 in an amateur theatrical furnish suggestions to the 
 embryo thespians. 
 
 Memory, of course, has its enemies, the greatest of 
 which are time, disuse and diversion. Too long an in- 
 terval between the recording of a thing and its recall 
 may obliterate it from the memory. Desuetude, also, 
 robs us of many things we should like to retain. How 
 many college graduates in business remember La Place's 
 Theorem? Then, too, if the mind is diverted while at- 
 tending to one thing it is greatly handicapped in remem- 
 
 78 
 
Memory and Imagination 
 
 bering that thing. In our young days did not all of 
 us often forget what our mothers sent us to the store 
 for when we met an organ grinder with his monkey that 
 diverted our attention? But let us not dwell upon the 
 negative side of the subject of memory, but rather turn 
 our thought toward the product of memory, the home 
 of the "children of the brain," the imagination. 
 
 Imagination is future thinking. It is that which 
 gives life to all things. The child's imagination enables 
 it to feel the breath of life in potato pigs in a corn-cob 
 pen, or by it the child perceives volition and action in 
 its sawdust doll. The imagination takes no account of 
 the body of things ; it confuses the dead with the living, 
 the body with the soul, the apparent with the real, the 
 conscious with the unconscious. If it is not disciplined 
 by the other faculties it leads to exaggeration, deception, 
 fanaticism and insanity. Great and powerful as the 
 imagination is, it is the best of servants and the worst 
 of masters. 
 
 The imagination is the mind 's designer and architect. 
 It builds upon the things of the memory and the pres- 
 ent, the things to be. It projects the ideal and the 
 other faculties verify or disprove. It plans and designs ; 
 the other faculties furnish the material and execution. 
 It is the pathfinder, the others follow. It seizes 
 hold of the things sensed, read, recited, thought 
 or dreamed and claims them as its own. Mr. Edison 
 says, "Science is mostly imagination. It is by conceiv- 
 ing what might be before one has seen the way to real- 
 ize it practically that scientists have been buoyed dur- 
 ing the period of experiment. The imagination . . . 
 is the missing link between what we know and what we 
 hope to know." 
 
The Philosophy of Business 
 
 If we call thinking our mental factory and memory 
 our mental storeroom, we may call imagination our 
 mental laboratory or assembly room. In it we design, 
 decide, plan, project, and experiment, bring together all 
 mental things and fit, shape, select and assemble the 
 several parts ; we try new combinations of concepts ; we 
 rebuild, alter, test and invent. The imagination, there- 
 fore is an instrument of progress. 
 
 There are two kinds of imagination, reconstructive 
 and constructive. The reconstructive enables us to 
 build again in the mind that which has been built out- 
 side of it by nature or some other mind. It is the 
 power that enables one to imitate and to reproduce in 
 words or deeds the words or deeds of other persons or 
 things. The constructive imagination is that power 
 of the mind which enables it to combine into new forms, 
 hitherto not in existence, the material gathered by the 
 mind. Although both kinds of imagination are useful, 
 the constructive is particularly valuable to the business 
 man, for it renders him progressive, encourages him to 
 work for his ideals and helps him build, by new ideas, 
 his own power. 
 
 A man equipped with a good and reliable memory 
 and a healthy imagination is in a fair way to success, 
 providing he uses them properly, fights off the enemies 
 of the memory and holds his imagination in check by 
 his other faculties, but does not stunt it. 
 
 80 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE WILL 
 
 The cause is in my will. 
 
 Shakespeare, 
 
 MINERALS grow by accretion ; they are wholly 
 passive to and unconscious of the action of out- 
 side laws and forces which cement atom to 
 atom. The whole mineral kingdom has been constructed 
 by powers unf elt during aeons of time. Vegetables grow 
 as unconsciously as do minerals, in obedience to environ- 
 ment, but they have an internal life principle which 
 receives and organizes dead substances into their own 
 particular form of life. Animals grow in a like man- 
 ner, but they possess an additional power, choice, and 
 they receive or reject, to a limited degree, the food that 
 is presented to them, or they go in search for what they 
 do not find on the spot where they come into life. 
 
 Man's growth, besides taking place in the same man- 
 ner as does a mineral's, a vegetable's and an animal's, 
 is governed by his reason, which is adjoined to his will, 
 which transfers him from the passive state to one of 
 action. The crown and glory of manhood is not in man's 
 passive powers and virtues, but in his conscious, rational 
 choice, born of his will and ultimating in words and 
 deeds which reveal the human in him as master of the 
 mineral, vegetable and animal without as well as within 
 himself. 
 
 Man's growth is by a dual process. The first is 
 the process of formation or making ; the second of refor- 
 mation or creation. The first of course, must precede 
 
 81 
 
The Philosophy of Business 
 
 the second, but this precedence is not universal, but 
 particular: i. e., the whole work of the latter is not 
 suspended until the whole work of the former is finished 
 and complete. But when the former has worked how- 
 soever little, the latter begins to work with more or less 
 vigor. Thus these two forces conspire to work together 
 for the perfecting of man's development. 
 
 Heretofore, we have conceived of nature as the active 
 power and man as the passive. "We now wish to reverse 
 the emphasis and call attention to man as the active and 
 nature as the passive; not that this is absolutely true 
 as we represent it, for we cannot present these truths 
 simultaneously although they act together. 
 
 The human in man is due to the development of his 
 will, that which makes him aware of an act involving 
 choice. The feelings alone are infantile. A child is 
 governed entirely by them as far as his own acts are 
 concerned ; but as he grows older the knowledge he gains 
 is his pride, and he is ashamed to display his feelings. 
 The boy boasts of his wisdom but scorns emotions or 
 feelings as childish. When he becomes a man, it is deeds 
 that count more than knowledge, and he measures other 
 men more by what they have done than by what they 
 know. The truly manly function is not merely to feel 
 nor seek after knowledge, but from the possession of 
 both, to perform some useful act. When this act is one 
 of service to his fellow men from an intentional motive, 
 we attribute to him the distinctive quality of human, 
 which places him in a class to himself and elevates him 
 above his mineral, vegetable and animal nature to that 
 of homo. Environment alone, or the first process, for- 
 mation, does its work to make man an ego. The second 
 
 82 
 
The Will 
 
 process, reformation, begins to reform or create him into 
 a cosmo. Let us illustrate these processes by a potter 
 and his clay. Although the vessel may be marred be- 
 fore it leaves his hands, the potter can remould and re- 
 shape the clay into a new or another vessel. Man's mind 
 is the clay and his will is the potter. Nature fixes the 
 vessel by fire into a hard and fast form, but the mind 
 never becomes so fixed. Man can at all times remould, 
 reform and reorganize his mind into more desirable 
 forms. The will is the mental power that enables him 
 to do it. 
 
 The forming or making process produces individual- 
 ity. The reforming or creating process produces per- 
 sonality. There is a wide difference between the two. 
 A horse has individuality, but not personality. A man 
 has individuality and personality; he forever retains 
 the former, but his personality may undergo a continued 
 change. 
 
 Individuality is defined, limited and finite; person- 
 ality is undefined, unlimited and infinite. The man 
 proper as distinguished from his animal form is the 
 product of his personality working in and through his 
 individuality. He is a dual being, sometimes governed 
 by his outer and sometimes by his inner self. As an 
 individual he is e pliuribus unum (one among many) ; 
 as a personality he is plus in uno (many in one). That 
 is, there is but one personality, but myriads of indi- 
 vidualities. For instance, Mr. Ford is one among the 
 many Americans that go to make up Uncle Sam. David 
 Lloyd George is one among many Englishmen that go to 
 make up John Bull. In a similar but higher degree 
 there is only one personality — man. John Smith is an 
 
 83 
 
The Philosophy of Business 
 
 individual as distinct from Bill Jones, but John Smith 
 and Bill Jones are one inasmuch as each is included in 
 the word man. Each man, insofar as he is a homo (i. e., 
 insofar as he lives above his mineral, vegetable and 
 animal nature) is one with every other man. He is but 
 a sector of a sphere having a common center with all 
 other sectors; or he is but one of an infinite number of 
 rays of light radiating from a common source. 
 
 As a man's body is a receptacle for heat, his mind 
 is a receptacle for love. Man does not create heat; he 
 only receives and directs it. Neither does he create love, 
 for it flows into him and is received and directed by his 
 will. "Whatsoever a man loves he wills and, if left in 
 freedom, says and does. Every man is happy in his own 
 loves, and that is the same as having his own will, pro- 
 vided his love and will are human. 
 
 A man truly human puts his family, country and 
 race above himself, and no man is truly human who 
 does otherwise. The human in a man is measured by 
 the degree in which he prefers others to himself. To 
 desire the common good is to become one with others. 
 Those who love the common good come into the will to 
 serve, for "No man is of sound mind unless use he his 
 occupation." The greatest is he who wills to serve all. 
 He who has not the will to serve cannot be educated, for 
 true education has relation to service, and men attain 
 manhood by and through service. 
 
 84 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS 
 
 In all vital action the manifest object and purpose of nature 
 is that we be unconscious of it. Carlyle. 
 
 SUCCESSFUL men and women cannot tell the secret 
 of their success. Many have attempted it but in 
 every case their efforts have been in vain, not be- 
 cause they wish to deceive us, but because they are 
 unable to tell us. That it is a secret deeply hidden 
 from those who fail is to be expected, but it tests our 
 credulity to say that it remains unknown to those who 
 succeed. 
 
 Ask the first ten successful men you meet the secret 
 of their success, and instead of acknowledging that they 
 do not know, they will fabricate some pretty maxim 
 they imagine responsible for it. If the first man you 
 question was naturally lazy but made a great effort to 
 make himself industrious, he will say, "Industry, my 
 boy, will put you where I am." If the second man is 
 proud of his blood and boasts of his ancestry, he will 
 attribute his success to the sterling character and talents 
 he inherited from his forbears. If the third is without 
 pride of ancestry and is self-made, he will tell you that 
 his own acumen won him laurels. Thus every success- 
 ful man will attribute his success to those virtues of 
 which he is most conscious, that cost him the greatest 
 effort to acquire, while he will overlook many other quali- 
 ties, which were, more than likely, greater factors in 
 his success. J. P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, "William 
 L. Douglas, John W. Gates, G. W. Cable, Henry Clews, 
 Rev. C. H. Parkhurst, President Benjamin Ide Wheeler 
 
 85 
 
The Philosophy of Business 
 
 and Charles W. Elliott are among those who have en- 
 deavored to tell the secret of their success for the bene- 
 fit of the experts and the public. Their answers are all 
 inane and puerile. 
 
 "We cannot rely upon the introspection of success- 
 ful men for reliable information concerning the secret 
 of success for the same reason that we cannot examine 
 our own hearts. The heart is the most vital of all bodily 
 organs, and thoughts about it influence its action. The 
 skilled physician endeavors to catch the patient off his 
 guard to ' ' feel his pulse ' ' for the conscious knowledge of 
 the patient modifies the action of his heart. The brain, 
 too, is a vital organ whose action is only perfect in the 
 degree that the mind is unconscious of the process of 
 thinking while thinking. Every physician refuses to 
 take his own medicine. It is seldom that a lawyer tries 
 his own case; and a business man is a poor analyst of 
 his own success. The virtues of which they are con- 
 scious so overshadow those of which they are uncon- 
 scious that they are certain to be deceived. Others 
 must analyze them, as observing students have done, 
 and the result is more than satisfactory. 
 
 Obedience to the natural laws in the rendering of 
 service underlies the secret of success. Every success- 
 ful man has had a passion for service, and he has ren- 
 dered it by consciously or unconsciously obeying its laws. 
 Every law has a reward as well as a penalty for its 
 observance or disobedience. One may obey a great 
 many of nature's laws without receiving the reward of 
 success, and he may disobey a great many others with- 
 out meriting failure. In the business world the success- 
 ful man is he who has obeyed and kept inviolate as 
 
 86 
 
The Secret op Success 
 
 many natural laws as possible and disobeyed as few as 
 possible. 
 
 Nature's laws are homogeneous and co-operate with 
 each other. Even two laws as diametrically opposed as 
 centripetal and centrifugal forces unite in maintaining 
 the equilibrium of a planet and holding it to its orbit. 
 The close interrelation of natural laws leads us to dis- 
 cover one from another. Ideas cannot grow in an empty 
 mind; a man cannot make use of knowledge he does 
 not possess; but he builds more knowledge upon that 
 which he already knows, although he may not be con- 
 scious of it. Some attribute this to the subsconeious 
 mind, but for a better term, let us call it influx. It is 
 very difficult for one to understand a foreign language 
 unless he already knows its vocabulary, for new words 
 bewilder him. However, with a given knowledge of its 
 words, new words can be more easily understood because 
 the old furnish a foundation on which to build the 
 knowledge of the new. 
 
 Great ideas take hold of men ; a great passion seizes 
 them and carries them along to a success they seem un- 
 able to account for. It is generally true that the men 
 who have won applause had hidden deeply within them 
 a passion for service which bore them along in a cur- 
 rent of natural laws underlying the service they ren- 
 dered. It is in recognition of this fact that the old 
 Arena had for its motto, "We do not take possession of 
 our ideas, but they take possession of us and force us 
 into the arena, where like gladiators, we contend for 
 
 them." 
 
 The man who becomes a student of the natural laws 
 of success, until they become implanted in his nnnd 
 
 87 
 
The Philosophy of Business 
 
 gives freedom to the law of influx to operate when he 
 is the least conscious of the inflow; or as some say, he 
 must first plant them in his subconscious mind and from 
 its depths there will arise a passion and a power carry- 
 ing him along as by a flood to success. The secret of 
 success, then, is due to the presence of a passion for 
 service which is moved and guided by natural laws. 
 This is "the tide in the affairs of men which taken at 
 its flood, leads on to fortune." 
 
 8H 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE KEYSTONE PHILOSOPHY 
 
 There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, 
 Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. 
 
 — Shakespeare. 
 
 IT IS the business of science to exploit facts and to 
 state them with authority. Science states unequivo- 
 cally that two and two are four. We pity the man who 
 cannot or will not lend his assent to that statement. 
 Philosophy, on the other hand, is dedicated to the ex- 
 ploitation of truth concerning phenomena as resolved 
 into or explained by causes and reasons, powers and 
 laws. Every man, even the fool, has his philosophy, his 
 mental angle of vision or interpretation of events. If 
 his philosophy is true, he is a seer, a prophet and a 
 leader ; if his philosophy is false, he is deflected from the 
 true course according to the degree of falsity of his men- 
 tal angle of vision. 
 
 A wolf looking over a map of the country cannot 
 distinguish a railroad from a river, for it cannot form 
 a concept or think. For the same reason the wolf is 
 the victim of its environment, which it cannot change. 
 Its mind is full of one kind of seed and no other can 
 be planted. It has no history, nor can it make one. 
 Its love, wisdom and use is inscribed on its form; its 
 zone of life is fixed ; its comings and goings are with the 
 seasons, and it never changes, for it is born a wolf, lives 
 and dies a wolf. It has its being on one plane ; there are 
 no ascending and descending currents to its life, no 
 spiral movements, nor any "winding about still up- 
 ward"; no degeneracy or regeneracy; no civil, moral, 
 
The Philosophy of Business 
 
 social or spiritual power hidden within it. If any 
 changes come to it, they come from without and not 
 within; by force, not by consent. The same thing is 
 true with all animals, whereas with man, none of it is 
 true, for man is an animal plus. It is the plus element 
 in man that we propose to deal with, for it is this ele- 
 ment that makes him capable of forming concepts and 
 thinking. 
 
 Philosophy, as stated before, is the knowledge of 
 phenomena as resolved into or explained by causes and 
 reasons, powers and laws. There is a mental philoso- 
 phy and a natural philosophy. The former can be pre- 
 sented or illustrated only by things in the natural world. 
 The things in the world of mind differ from things in the 
 world of matter only in substance. The subjects of 
 mental philosophy are things, but are not material as 
 are the subjects of natural philosophy. It is as if the 
 former were within and the latter without; one of the 
 mind, the other of the body. 
 
 The two books, nature and human nature, are only 
 the outer and inner of the same thing. The subjects in 
 the book of nature are dead, fixed and material; those 
 of human nature are alive, changing and immortal. They 
 may be represented by two globes, one we call the world 
 of matter, the other the world of mind. (Figure 5.) 
 
The Keystone Philosophy 
 
 The ancient philosophers called the natural world 
 a "macrocosm," or big world and the mental world a 
 "microcosm," or little world. They taught that there 
 was a perfect correspondence between the two, — that all 
 things in the natural world were signs, symbols and 
 representatives of the things in the mental world. The 
 ancient mythologies were based upon this doctrine, and 
 when it was lost, their sacred books became meaningless 
 and their teachings grotesque, absurd and ridiculous. 
 
 In the microcosm, or mental world, they called the 
 individual unit, a man, ' * minimus homo, ' ' and the aggre- 
 gate, or society, "maximus homo." The result of this 
 idea we find in our modern expressions as Uncle Sam, 
 John Bull, and other phrases which present the concep- 
 tion of an aggregation of individuals as a unit. Sup- 
 pose we let the maximus homo, or largest man, be repre- 
 sented by a globe. The portions of the lines between 
 the intersection of two parallels with two meridians 
 bound a square, and if we imagine plumb lines dropped 
 from the intersections to the center of the globe, a 
 pyramid will be cut out. (Figure 6.) 
 
 Rg6 
 
 The sector of the globe thus formed is representative 
 of the individual, while the globe itself represents man- 
 kind in general, society. Obviously, there are as many 
 
 91 
 
The Philosophy op Business 
 
 sectors in the globe as there are individuals composing 
 society, and as the apex of each points to the center 
 of the globe, so is the central aim of each individual 
 common to all the rest, namely, service to the whole. 
 
 The plumb lines dropped from the intersections on 
 the surface to the center, limit or bound the activity of 
 the individual included between them. Therefore, in 
 the world of humanity, each man is a keystone that sup- 
 ports, and at the same time is supported by every other 
 individual. Thus we see the interdependence of men. 
 
 Suppose we carry the figure farther, and draw a 
 cross section of the globe half way between the two 
 meridians bounding the base of the pyramid. (Figure 7. ) 
 
 Fl e .7 
 
 Here we see the keystone as a triangle, one side of 
 which is the arc of a circle. It represents the indi- 
 vidual, a man, resting on the base of his five senses and 
 surrounded by the boundless universe, and these senses 
 gather sensations which unite in his brain to form images 
 and subsequent degrees of thought.* 
 
 The geometrical simile likening society to a globe 
 and the individual to a sector is an old idea, taught 
 by ancient philosophers who called geometry the king 
 
 ♦Page 74. 
 
 92 
 
The Keystone Philosophy 
 
 of sciences. In fact other sciences are but the geometry 
 of their respective things. Chemistry is the geometry 
 of the molecules, or things in minimum; astronomy is 
 the geometry of the planets, or things in maximum; 
 psychology is the geometry of the mind, botany is the 
 geometry of the seed, etc. The Greeks were the world 's 
 great philosophers. Even their alphabet has true 
 philosophy between its first and last letters, A and fl. 
 These letters are slight departures from the forms in 
 Pig. 7, the Alpha being comparable to the individual, 
 or sector, and the Omega becoming the symbol of 
 society. Thus we see the individual as the unit, the 
 Alpha, first, beginning, initiative, etc., and society as 
 the whole, Omega, last, and referendum, etc. 
 
 This in brief, is the Keystone Philosophy, a philoso- 
 phy which includes the first and the last, the A and Z, 
 the Alpha and Omega, the individual and the whole, 
 the beginning and the end, the least and the greatest. 
 There is no subject, mental or moral, political or social, 
 spiritual or natural, that this philosophy does not en- 
 compass, and its alphabet spells the words of truth on 
 every subject. It applies with geometrical accuracy its 
 geometrical principles and solves its geometrical prob- 
 lems. Therefore, it is the keystone philosophy because 
 it will unlock any and all doors that open into the 
 kingdom of knowledge. The keystone philosophy anx- 
 iously awaits the demonstration of the teaching that "the 
 kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchantman," and 
 it looks to the business man to solve all problems, and 
 establish a kingdom of service that will restore man 
 to his first estate. 
 
 93 
 
The Philosophy of Business 
 
 The keystone is that white 1 stone, which every man 
 is, and in which is written that ' ' which no man knoweth 
 saving he that receiveth it." It is the "foundation 2 
 stone which the builders rejected" and was made the 
 last, top or arch stone, instead of the first, "tried" 3 
 stone, or model of perfect manhood. All other stones 
 should be like it in the building of the temple of the 
 perfect humanity. Let society see to it that all indi- 
 viduals are born tinder just and equal conditions; that 
 each is educated to find his proper place and then to 
 perform the services which his occupation demands of 
 him, thereby fitting him as a keystone in an ideal world. 
 The result will be a society perfect in all its parts, for 
 if the individual is made right, the family, the city, 
 the state and the world will be right. By faithfully 
 following the ideal, guided by the light of science as 
 applied to business there will be developed a perfect 
 society, which will reflect the sovereignty of God in an 
 industrial democracy. 
 
 1 Rev. 11:17. 
 
 2 Matt. XXI: 42; Psa. CXVIII:22. 
 
 "Isa. XXVIII: 16-17. 
 

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 HHIl 
 
 
 
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