CHAPTER 11

Courage

I believe that, more than anything else, the race is lacking in courage. By courage I do not mean that element which enables men to march to battle in unbroken ranks or to face a bayonet charge without blanching. I mean that reliance on self which proves the absence of fear both of what others may think or say and of inability from any cause to accomplish what is desired.

Not one person in ten, no, not one in a hundred, either man or woman, does that which he likes to do, even if he has the courage to do it.

People are afraid of what their friends or the public or society will say, and most of all are afraid of failure if they attempt anything other than that which, in some accidental way, they find themselves to be already engaged in doing.

They lack faith in themselves, they have no true courage.

The truly courageous man is afraid of nothing, and least of all is he afraid of himself. He believes in himself and believing in himself believes in the perfection of the Law. He may not put this in words, may not say to himself, “I believe in the Law of Opulence,” but he nevertheless acts upon such belief. He says, “I will succeed,” he takes the Law into partnership, he plans, and he executes because he has courage.

It may not even have occurred to such a man to think of himself as being courageous. His courage is so much a part of him that he does not give it a name separate from himself. He says, “I,” I will do so and so, and goes and does it without once thinking there is any reason why he should not succeed, whereas a man of less courage would approach the purpose of his desires haltingly, wondering if, possibly, he was wise in undertaking it, and how he ever had the courage to undertake it. And the difference in the way in which each approached the object of his desires is often the difference between success and failure.

The timid man is ever at a disadvantage both before his fellows and before the Law through which success is attained.

Confidence in self breeds confidence in others, and fear weakens both the brain that plans and the hand that executes.

It has been said that all the world loves a lover. It is also true that all the world falls into step with the man who walks, careless of who follows, with the air of one who knows that he is master. The mass of people have no opinions of their own, except such as they have inherited or received from others. To such as they have they cling tenaciously until some one arises whose strong individuality impresses them with a sense of his power, when lo! they drop their old beliefs to accept those of the one whose bearing proclaims him leader. Thus to his strength is added that of the masses by whom he is surrounded and a new set of ideas takes the place of the old.

The new may be little nearer the truth than were the old, but of this the Law of Opulence takes no account; it has served him who had the courage to command it and to make a co-partnership with it for the attainment of his ends.

Why should men be afraid of the opinions of other men; what harm can it do me that some, or that all men and women fail to see as I see? Am I not I? and am I not sufficient unto myself?

Why should the fact that others do not believe as I believe or think as I think distress me, or constrain me to believe with them?

A skilled performer upon the piano or other stringed instrument will receive applause from the audience, but who ever heard of an audience applauding a music box? It is genius that commands respect, not mechanical execution unaccompanied by a personality. But even genius without courage is valueless to its possessor, for distrusting itself it makes no use of itself, fails to accept the tender of co-partnership made to it by the Law, and so fails to accomplish its desires.

The world is full of geniuses; of men and women who would be really great if only they were not afraid to be themselves. Parrot-like they talk the language of their own babyhood and of that of the race, lacking the courage to speak the language of full grown men and women. Like sheep following each other where their leader jumped over a bar, they jump regardless of the fact that the bar had been removed before they reached the place where it had been. Lacking the courage which would enable them to apply their own knowledge or powers of observation and reason they make no demand upon the Law of Opulence, and for them, it has, therefore, no existence. Neither have they any personal existence before the Law, and of that which they create the Law’s share goes not to them but to the few who, recognizing the Law are recognized by it.

If men dared to be their own selves, to think their own thoughts, and to accept the consequences of acting in accordance with their ambition, the world of society would scarce recognize itself in a week’s time and the present unjust system for the distribution of wealth would pass in a day, giving place to one infinitely better for everybody. There are very few men or women to-day who are contented with things as they are, or who do not believe a better condition attainable if only everybody would consent to make the change. But each is afraid of suggesting such a thing lest others disapprove, and so the juggernaut rolls on, crushing the life out of new victims with every turn of its monster wheels. Courage to exercise their opinions wherever opportunity occurs is all that is lacking to remove half the obstacles that obstruct the road to happiness for the race, and if these were removed the other half would, as I verily believe, remove themselves.

Each soul must do its own thinking, and must be saved by its own power to (in consonance with the Law) think itself from its present negative condition in life to that high and positive condition where it perceives its own creativeness, and recognizes the fact that inherited beliefs do not save; but that the unrestrained power to create new thought, or new ideals, and to project them into the world of effects, alone can build each distinct individuality as it desires to be built.

Doubt is a giant, who with his club, pulverizes things, and dissolves them to their original elements. But in all his dissolving he has never dissolved Faith. Faith is the soul of all life; that mighty but intangible growth principle still stretching unseen tentacles upward, and taking hold of all that lies above the ordinary life plane. Not only taking hold of things above, but lifting up things below. It is the vine in human lives that climbs and climbs. Think how long Jack’s wonderful bean stalk has been considered a fable. But it is the truth of all truths. It illustrates the faith of a world that grew and grew until some one brave enough to climb its dizzy heights went up and slew the giant Doubt, and redeemed the race forever from his paralyzing influence by making the impossible possible to every one of us.

There is nothing that ever says “no” to a man but himself. When he hears the word “no” spoken in opposition to his will, if he does but listen carefully he will find that it was but the non-recognition of the intellect that spoke it. In any and every enterprise the royal will asks for nothing but the brain’s consent. To know this is to pass at once from the minor to the major chords of life. The gradually approaching knowledge of it is even now sending a stronger impulse through all the avenues of life. The people hear it and do not know what it is; but they are alert and listening. They are holding themselves in an attitude of intense expectancy. Something is coming; they are sure of it; they are ignorant of its character, and they will probably reject my suggestion that it is they themselves on the way from dead conditions to living ones, and that it is the rush of their own strong pinions that is filling the world with the strange, strong undercurrent of power whose swelling volume is momentarily increasing in strength.