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There is in Nature a great Law – the Law of Attraction – by the operations of which all things – from atoms to men – are attracted toward each other in the degree of the common affinity of common use. The reverse of this law – which is merely another manifestation of its power – is what is called Repulsion, which is but the other pole of Attraction, and by the operations of which things tend to repel each other in the degree that they are unlike, opposing, and of no use to each other. The Law of Attraction is Universal, on all the planes of life, from the physical to the spiritual. Its operations are uniform and constant, and we may take the phenomena of one plane and thereby study the phenomena of another plane, for the same rule applies in each case – the same Law is in operation in the same way.

Beginning with the tiny corpuscles, electrons, or ions, of which the atoms are formed, we find manifested the Law of Attraction – certain electrons attract each other, and repel others still, thereby causing to spring into existing groups, combinations and colonies of electrons which being in agreement and harmony manifest and constitute what are called atoms, which until recently were supposed to be the primal form of matter. Passing on the atoms themselves, we find many degrees of affinity and attraction existing between them which cause them to combine and form into molecules of which all masses of matter consists. For instance, every drop of water is composed of countless molecules of water. And each molecule is composed of two atoms of Hydrogen and one atom of Oxygen – the combination always being the same in every molecule of water. Now, why these atoms combine in just this way – the same invariable grouping and proportion? Not by chance, surely, for there is no such thing in Nature – there is a natural law back of every phenomenon. And in this case it is the Law of Attraction manifesting in the case of these atoms. And it is so in all chemical combinations – it is called Chemical Affinity. Sometimes an attached atom will come in contact with, or in proximity to, another atom, and then bang goes the explosion of the molecule as the atom flies away from its partners and into the arms of the other atom for which it has a greater affinity. There are marriages and divorces in the world of atoms, you will notice. And in the cases of the molecules, it is found that certain molecules are attracted to others of the same kind, under what is called Cohesion, and thus masses of matter are composed. A piece of gold, silver, tin, glass, or other form of matter is composed of countless molecules held together tightly by Cohesion – and this Cohesion is merely another form of the Law of Attraction – the same that draws all things together. And, underlying the Law of Attraction is to be found our old Principle of Desire and Will. You may shrug your shoulders at this mention of desire and Will in connection with electrons, atoms, molecules – all forms of matter, but just wait a bit and see what the leading scientific authorities have to say on the subject.

Prof. Hakel, one of the world’s greatest scientists – a materialist who would sneer at the teachings of Mental Science – even this man, naturally prejudiced against mentalist theories, finds himself compelled to say: "The idea of chemical affinity consists in the fact that the various chemical elements perceive the qualitative differences in other elements – experience pleasure of revulsion at contact with them, and execute specific movements on this ground. "He also positively and distinctly states that in the atoms there must be something corresponding to Desire for contact and association with other atoms, and Will to enable the atom to respond to the Desire Law is constant throughout Nature, from atom to man – physical, mental and spiritual.

But what has all this to do with the Secret of Success you may ask? Simply, that the Law of Attraction is an important part in the Secret of Success, inasmuch as it tends to bring to us the things, persons and circumstances in accordance with our earnest Desire, Demand, and Will, just as it brings together the atoms and other particles of matter. Make yourself an atom of Living Desire and you will attract to yourself the person, things and circumstances fitting in with the accomplishment of your Desire. You will also get into rapport with those who are working along the same lines of thought, and will be attracted them and they to you, and you will be brought into relations with persons, things and environments likely to work out the problem of your Desires – you will get "next to" the right persons and things – all by the operation of this great natural Law of Attraction. No Necromancy or Magic about it at all – nothing supernatural or mysterious – just the operations of a great Natural Law.

You can do little by yourself in Life, be you ever so strong and able. Life is a complex thing, and individuals are interdependent upon each other for the doings of things. One Individual, segregated from all the other Individuals, could accomplish little or nothing along the lines of outer activity. He must form combinations, arrangements, harmonies and agreements with others, and in accordance with environments and things, that is, he must create and use the proper environments and things, and draw to himself others with whom he must form combinations, in order to do things. And these persons, things and environments come to him – and he to them – by reason of this great Law of Attraction. And the way he sets into operation this great Law of Attraction is by the operation of his Desire, and along the lines of Mental Imagery. Do you see the connection now? So be careful to form, cultivate and manifest the right Desires – hold to them firmly, strongly and constantly, and you will set into operation this great Law, which forms an important part of the Secret of Success.

Desire -Force is the motive power leading the activities of Life. It is the basic vital power, which animates the minds of living things and urges them forth to action. Without strong Desire no one accomplishes anything worthy of the name – and the greater the desire the greater will be the amount of energy generated and manifested, everything else being equal. That is to say, that given a dozen men of equal intellect, physical health and mental activity – equal in everything else except Desire, in short, the ones in whom the greatest Desire resides and is manifested will outstrip the others in attainment – and of these winners the one in who Desire burns like an unquenchable flame will be the one who will Master the others by the force of his primitive elementary power.

Not only does Desire give to the man that inward motive which leads to the enfoldment of the power within himself, but it does more than this; it causes to radiate from him the finer and more subtle mental and vital forces of his nature, which, flowing forth in all directions like the magnetic waves from the magnet, or the electric waves from the dynamo, influencing all who come within the field of force. Desire-Force is a real, active, effective force of Nature, and serves to attract, draw and bring to a center that which is in line with the nature of the Desire. The much talked of Law of Attraction, of which so much is heard in Mental Science and the New Thought, depends largely upon the force and power of Desire. Desire-Force is at the center of the Law of Attraction. There is a tendency in Nature to attract and draw to the center of a Desire the things, which are needed to fulfill that Desire. One’s "own will come to him" by reason of his natural force, which lies behind and underneath the entire phenomena of Mental Influence. This being so, does it not become at once apparent why one who wishes to accomplish anything should be sure to create a strong Desire for it, and at the same time be sure to acquire the art of Visualization so as to form a clear Mental Picture of the thing Desired – a clear mold in which the materialized reality may manifest?

Have you ever come in contact with any of the great men of modern business life? If you have seen these people in action, you will have become conscious of a subtle, mysterious something about them – a something that you could actually feel – a something that seemed to draw you to fit in to their schemes, planes, and desires almost by an irresistible force. These people are all people of the strongest kind of Desire – their Desire–Force manifests strongly and affects those with whom they come in contact. Not only this, but their Desire-Force flows from them in great waves, which occultists inform us soon manifests a circular, or whirlpool-like motion, swing around and around the center of the Desire – these men become actual cyclones of Desire into which nearly everything that comes within its sweep is affected and swept into the vortex. Have we not evidences of this in the cases of all the great leaders of men – can we not see the operation of that mighty law of attraction which brings to them their own? We are apt to call this Will Power, and so it is in a way, back and under the Will in such cases is to be found the ardent, burning Desire that is the motive force of the attractive power.

This Desire-Force is a primitive, elemental thing. It is found in the animal kingdom, and among the lower races of men, perhaps more clearly than among the higher types of men, but only because in such instances it is seen stripped of the covering, sheaths, disguises and masks that surround the more civilized forms and planes of life. But remember this well, the same principle is manifested under and beneath the polished veneer of civilized life – the Desire-Force of the cultured leader of men is as elemental as that animating the fierce and shaggy caveman or the wild Berserker who, naked and half-mad, rushed upon overwhelming hordes of his enemy, brushing them aside like flies – that is, if you will but look beneath the polished surface. In the old wild days Desire manifested its force on the physical plane – now it manifests on the Mental Plane – that is the only difference, the Force is the same in both cases.

While we write, there has just been produced on stage a new play that illustrates this principle. The heroine, the daughter of an old New York family of high social standing and wealth, has a dream of her life in a former incarnation, in which she sees herself torn from the arms of her cave-dweller father by the mighty arms of a fierce savage chief, whose desire is manifested through the physical. She awakens from her dream, and to her horror soon discovers the face of her dream-captor on a man who comes into her father’s life in New York. This man comes from the West, forceful, resourceful and desirous, beating down all before him in the game of finance. As of old, he places his foot not on the neck of his enemies – but on the mental-plane, this time, instead of the physical. The same old Desire for power is strong within him – the same old masterfulness manifests itself. This man says:"I have never quit; I have never been afraid. "The same old Desire then flamed up in the savage now manifests in the Master of Wall Street, and between the force of its Attraction and the coupled and allied force of his Will, he repeats the performances of his previous incarnation – but on the plane of mental forces and achievement this time – mind, not muscle, being the instrument through which the Desire manifests.

We give the above example merely as an illustration of the fact that Desire is the motivating force that moves the Will into action, and which cause the varied activity of life, men and things. Desire-Force is a real power in life, and influences not only tracts, influences and compels other persons and things to swing in toward the center of the Desire sending forth the currents. In the Secret of Success, Desire plays a prominent part. Without a Desire for Success, there is no Success, none. The Law of Attraction is set into motion by Desire. The majority of the principles advanced in this book have been in the nature of Positive injunctions – that is, you have been urged to do certain things rather than to not do the opposite or contrary. But here we come to a place in which the advice must be given along the negative lines – we must urge you not to do a certain thing. We allude to that great poison of the mind and Will known as Fear. We do not allude to physical fear – important though physical courage may be, and as regrettable as physical cowardice may be considered, still it is not a part of the purpose of this book to preach against the latter and advise a cultivation of the former quality – you will find much of that elsewhere. Our purpose here is to combat that subtle, insidious enemy of true Self-Expression which appears in the shape and guise of mental fear, forebodings which may be considered as Negative Thought just as the other principles mentioned in this work may be considered as Positive Thought.

Fear thoughts is that condition of the mind in which everything is seen through blue glasses – in which everything seems to bring a sense of the futility of endeavor – the "I Can’t" principle of mentality, as contrasted with the "I Can and I Will" mental attitude. It is the noxious weed in the mental garden, which tends to kill the valuable plants to be found therein. It is the fly in the ointment – the spider in the cup of the Wine of Life. So far as we know the first person to use the word "Fear-Thought" – which has now passed into common use – was Horace Fletcher, the well-known writer, who coined it to supplant the use of the word "Worry" in a certain sense. He had pointed out that Anger and Worry were the two great hindrances to a well-balanced, advanced and progressive mentality, but many misunderstood him and urged that to abolish Worry meant to cease taking any consideration of the morrow – a lack of common prudence and forethought. And so Fletcher coined the word "Fear-Thought" to express a phase of his idea of "Forethought without Worry," and he entitled his second book on the subject, "Happiness, as found in Forethought minus Fear-Thought," a very happy expression of a very happy idea. Fletcher also was the first to advance the idea that Fear was not a thing-in-itself, but merely an expression of Fear-Thought – a manifestation of the state of mind known as Fear-Thought. He and others who have written on the subject, have taught that Fear might be abolished by the practice of abolishing Fear-Thought from the mind – by driving it out of the mental chamber – and the best teachers have taught that the best way to drive out Fear (or any other undesirable mental state) was by cultivating the thought of the opposite quality of mind by compelling the mind to dwell upon the mental picture of the desirable quality, and by the appropriate auto-suggestions. The illustration has often been stated that the way to drive darkness from a room is not to shovel it out, but to throw open the shutters and let the sunlight stream in, and that is the best way to neutralize Fear-Thought.

The mental process has aptly been spoken of as "vibrations," a figure that has a full warrant in modern science. Then, by raising the vibration to the Positive pitch, the negative vibrations may be counteracted. By cultivating the qualities recommended in the other lessons of this book. Fear-Thought may be neutralized. The poison of Fear-Thought is insidious and subtle, but it slowly creeps through the veins until it paralyzes all useful efforts and action, until the heart and brain are affected and find it difficult to throw it off. Fear-Thought is at the bottom of the majority of failures and "going down" in life. As long as a man keeps his nerve and confidence in himself, he is able to rise to his feet after each stumble, and face the enemy resolutely – but let him feel the effects of Fear-Thought to such an extent that he cannot throw it off and he will fail to rise and will perish miserable. "There is nothing to fear except Fear," has well been said.

We have spoken elsewhere about the Law of Attraction, which operates in the direction of attracting to us, that which we Desire. But there is a reverse side to this – it is a poor rule that will not work both ways. Fear will set into motion the Law of Attraction just as well as Desire. Just as Desire draws to one the things he pictures in his mind as the Desired Thing, so will Fear draw to him the thing pictured in his mind as the Thing Feared. "The thing that I feared hath befallen me. "And the reason is very simple, and the apparent contradiction vanishes when we examine the matter. What is the pattern upon which the Law of Attraction builds under the force of Desire? The Mental Image, of course. And so it is in the case of Fear – the person carries about the Mental Image or haunting picture of the Feared Thing, and the Law of Attraction brings it to him just as it brings the Desired Thing. Did you ever stop to thing that Fear was the negative pole of Desire? The same laws work in both cases.

So avoid Fear-Thought as you would the poisonous draught that you know would cause your blood to become black and thick, and your breathing labored and difficult. It is a vile thing, and you should not rest content until you have expelled it from your mental system. You can get rid of it by Desire and Will, coupled with the holding of the Mental Image of Fearlessness. Drive it up by cultivating its opposite. Change your polarity. Raise your mental vibrations. Someone has said, "There is no Devil but Fear" – then send that Devil back to the place where he properly belongs, for if you entertain him hospitably he will make your heaven a hell in order that he may feel at home. Use the mental Big Stick on him.