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If you had more money than time, more millions than you knew how to spend, what would be your pet philanthropy? Libraries? Hospitals? Churches? Homes for the Blind, Crippled or Aged? Mine would be “Homes”—but not for the aged or infirm. For young married couples!

I have often thought that, if ever I got into the “Philanthropic Billionaire” class, I’d like to start an Endowment Fund for helping young married couples over the rough spots in those first and second years of married life—especially the second year, when the real troubles come. Take a boy and a girl and a cozy little nest— add a cunning, healthy baby—and there’s nothing happier on God’s green footstool. But instead of a healthy babe, fill in a fretful, sickly baby—a wan, tired, worn-out little mother—a worried, dejected, heartsick father—and, there’s nothing more pitiful.

A nurse for a month, a few weeks at the shore or mountains, a “lift” on that heavy doctor’s bill—-any one of these things would spell H-E-A-V-E-N to that tiny family. But do they get it? Not often! And the reason? Because they are not poor enough for charity. They are not rich enough to afford it themselves. They belong to that great “Middle Class” which has to bear the burdens of both the poor and the rich— and take what is left for itself.

It is to them that I should like to dedicate this book. If I cannot endow libraries or colleges for them, perhaps I can point the way to get all good gifts for them.

For men and women like them do not need “charity” — or even sympathy. What they do need is inspiration—and opportunity—the kind of inspiration that makes a man go out and create his own opportunity. And that, after all, is the greatest good one can do anyone. Few people appreciate free gifts. They are like the man whom admiring townsfolk presented with a watch. He looked it over critically for a minute. Then—”Where’s the chain?” he asked.

But a way to win for themselves the full measure of success they’ve dreamed of but almost stopped hoping for—that is something every young couple would welcome with open arms. And it is something that, if I can do it justice, will make the “Eternal Triangle” as rare as it is today common, for it will enable husband and wife to work together—not merely for domestic happiness, but for business success as well.

ROBERT COLLIER.

The World’s Greatest Discovery
“You can do as much as you think you can, But you’ll never accomplish more;
If you’re afraid of yourself, young man, There’s little for you in store.
For failure comes from the inside first, It’s there if we only knew it,
And you can win, though you face the worst, If you feel that you’re going to do it.”
—EDGAR A. GUEST.*

What, in your opinion, is the most significant discovery of this modern age?

The finding of dinosaur eggs on the plains of Mongolia, laid—so scientists assert— some 10,000,000 years ago?

The unearthing of the Tomb of Tutankh-Amen, with its matchless specimens of a bygone civilization?

The radioactive time clock by which Professor Lane of Tufts College estimates the age of the earth at 1,250,000,000 years?

Wireless? The Aeroplane? Man-made thunderbolts?

No—not any of these. The really significant thing about them is that from all this vast research, from the study of all these bygone ages, men are for the first time beginning to get an understanding of that “Life Principle” which—somehow, some way—was brought to this earth thousands or millions of years ago. They are beginning to get an inkling of the infinite power it puts in their hands—to glimpse the untold possibilities it opens up.

This is the greatest discovery of modern times—that every man can call upon this “Life Principle” at will, that it is as much the servant of his mind as was ever Aladdin’s fabled “genie-of-the-lamp” of old; that he has but to understand it and

work in harmony with it to get from it anything he may need— health or happiness, riches or success.

To realize the truth of this, you have but to go back for a moment to the beginning of things.

You’ve often heard it said that a man is worth $2 a day from the neck down. How much he’s worth from the neck up depends upon how much he is able to SEE.

“Without vision the people perish” did not refer to good eyesight. It was the eyes of the mind that counted in days of old just as they do today. Without them you are just so much power “on the hoof,” to be driven as a horse or an ox is driven. And you are worth only a little more than they.

But given vision—imagination—the ability to visualize conditions and things a month or a year ahead; given the eyes of the mind—there’s no limit to your value or to your capabilities.

*From “It Can Be Done.” Copyright 1921, George Sully

The locomotive, the steamboat, the automobile, the aeroplane—all existed complete in the imagination of some man before ever they became facts. The wealthy men, the big men, the successful men, envisioned their successes in their minds’ eyes before ever they won them from the world. From the beginning of time, nothing has ever taken on material shape without first being visualized in mind. The only difference between the sculptor and the mason is in the mental image behind their work. Rodin employed masons to hew his blocks of marble into the general shape of the figure he was about to form. That was mere Thinker & mechanical labor. Then Rodin took it in hand and from that rough-hewn piece of stone there sprang the wondrous figure of “The Company.

That was art!

The difference was all in the imagination behind the hands that wielded mallet and chisel. After Rodin had formed his masterpiece, ordinary workmen copied it by the thousands. Rodin’s work brought fabulous sums. The copies brought day wages. Conceiving ideas—creating something—is what pays, in sculpture as in all else. Mere handwork is worth only hand wages.

“The imagination,” says Glenn Clark in “The Soul’s Sincere Desire,” “is of all qualities in man the most God-like— that which associates him most closely with God. The first mention we read of man in the Bible is where he is spoken of as an ‘image.’ ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.’ The only place where an image can be conceived is in the imagination. Thus man, the highest creation of God, was a creation of God’s imagination.

“The source and center of all man’s creative power—the power that above all others lifts him above the level of brute creation, and that gives him dominion, is his power of making images, or the power of the imagination. There are some who have always thought that the imagination was something, which makes-believe that which is not. This is fancy—not imagination. Fancy would convert that which is real into pretense and sham; imagination enables one to see through the appearance of a thing to what it really is.”

There is a very real law of cause and effect, which makes the dream of the dreamer come true. It is the law of visualization—the law that calls into being in this outer material world everything that is real in the inner world. Imagination pictures the thing you desire. VISION idealizes it. It reaches beyond the thing that is, into the conception of what can be. Imagination gives you the picture. Vision gives you the impulse to make the picture your own.

Make your mental image clear enough, picture it vividly in every detail, and the Genie-of-your-Mind will speedily bring it into being as an everyday reality.

That law holds true of everything in life. There is nothing you can rightfully desire that cannot be brought into being through visualization.

Suppose there’s a position you want— the general manager-ship of your company. See yourself—just as you are now—sitting in the general manager’s chair. See your name on his door. See yourself handling his affairs as you would handle them. Get that picture impressed upon your subconscious mind. See it! Believe it! The Genie-of-your-Mind will find the way to make it come true.

The keynote of successful visualization is this: See things, as you would have them be instead of as they are. Close your eyes and make clear mental pictures. Make them look and act just as they would in real life. In short, daydream— but day dream with a purpose. Concentrate on the one idea to the exclusion of all others, and continue to concentrate on that one idea until it has been accomplished.

Do you want an automobile? A home? A factory? They can all be won in the same way. They are in their essence all of them ideas of mind, and if you will but build them up in your own mind first, stone by stone, complete in every detail, you will find that the Genie-of-your- Mind can build them up similarly in the material world.

“The building of a trans-continental railroad from a mental picture,” says C. W. Chamberlain in “The Uncommon Sense of Applied Psychology,” “gives the average individual an idea that it is a big job. The fact of the matter is, the achievement, as well as the perfect mental picture, is made up of millions of little jobs, each fitting in its proper place and helping to make up the whole.

“A skyscraper is built from individual bricks, the laying of each brick being a single job which must be completed before the next brick can be laid.”

It is the same with any work, any study. To quote Professor James:

“As we become permanent drunkards by so many separate drinks, so we become saints in the moral, and authorities and experts in the practical and scientific spheres, by so many separate acts and hours of working. Let no youth have any anxiety about the upshot of his education whatever the line of it may be. If he keeps faithfully busy each hour of the working day he may safely leave the final result to itself. He can with perfect certainty count on waking some fine morning, to find himself one of the competent ones of his generation, in whatever pursuit he may have singled out. . . . Young people should know this truth in advance. The ignorance of it has probably engendered more discouragement and faintheartedness in youths embarking on arduous careers than all other causes taken together.”

Remember that the only limit to your capabilities is the one you place upon them. There is no law of limitation. The only law is of supply. Through your subconscious mind you can draw upon universal supply for anything you wish. The ideas of Universal Mind are as countless as the sands on the seashore. Use them. And use them lavishly, just as they are given. There is a little poem by Jessie B. Rittenhouse* that so well describes the limitations that most of us put upon ourselves that I quote it here:

“I bargained with Life for a penny, And Life would pay no more, however I begged at evening when I counted my scanty store.

“For Life is a just employer; He gives you what you ask, but once you have set the wages, why, you must bear the task.

“I worked for a menial’s hire, Only to learn, dismayed, That any wage I had asked of Life, Life would have paid.”

Aim high! If you miss the moon, you may hit a star. Everyone admits that this world and all the vast firmament must have been thought into shape from the formless void by some Universal Mind. That same Universal Mind rules today, and it has given to each form of life power to attract to itself whatever it needs for its perfect growth. The tree, the plant, and the animal—each one finds its need.