YOU are
not barred from attaining greatness by heredity. No matter who or what your
ancestors may have been or how unlearned or lowly their station, the upward way
is open for you. There is no such thing as inheriting a fixed mental position;
no matter how small the mental capital we receive from our parents, it may be
increased; no man is born incapable of growth.
Heredity
counts for something. We are born with subconscious mental tendencies; as, for
instance, a tendency to melancholy, or cowardice, or to ill temper; but all
these subconscious tendencies may be overcome. When the real man awakens and
comes forth he can throw them off very easily. Nothing of this kind need keep
you down; if you have inherited undesirable mental tendencies, you can
eliminate them and put desirable tendencies in their places. An inherited
mental trait is a habit of thought of your father or mother impressed upon your
subconscious mind; you can substitute the opposite impression by forming the
opposite habit of thought. You can substitute a habit of cheerfulness for a
tendency to despondency; you can overcome cowardice or ill temper.
Heredity
may count for something, too, in an inherited conformation of the skull. There
is something in phrenology, if not as much as its exponents claim; it is true
that the different faculties are localized in the brain, and that the power of
a faculty depends upon the number of active brain cells in its area. A faculty
whose brain area is large is likely to act with more power than one whose
cranial section is small; hence persons with certain conformations of the skull
show talent as musicians, orators, mechanics, and so on. It has been argued
from this that a man’s cranial formation must, to a great extent, decide his
station in life, but this is an error. It has been found that a small brain
section, with many fine and active cells, gives as powerful expression to
faculty as a larger brain with coarser cells; and it has been found that by
turning the Principle of Power into any section of the brain, with the will and
purpose to develop a particular talent, the brain cells may be multiplied
indefinitely.
Any
faculty, power, or talent you possess, no matter how small or rudimentary, may
be increased; you can multiply the brain cells in this particular area until it
acts as powerfully as you wish. It is true that you can act most easily through
those faculties that are now most largely developed; you can do, with the least
effort, the things which “come naturally”; but it is also true that if you will
make the necessary effort you can develop any talent. You can do what you
desire to do and become what you want to be. When you fix upon some ideal and
proceed as hereinafter directed, all the power of your being is turned into the
faculties required in the realization of that ideal; more blood and nerve force
go to the corresponding sections of the brain, and the cells are quickened,
increased, and multiplied in number. The proper use of the mind of man will
build a brain capable of doing what the mind wants to do.
The brain
does not make the man; the man makes the brain. Your place in life is not fixed
by heredity. Nor are you condemned to the lower levels by circumstances or lack
of opportunity. The Principle of Power in man is sufficient for all the
requirements of his soul. No possible combination of circumstances can keep him
down, if he makes his personal attitude right and determines to rise. The
power, which formed man and purposed him for growth, also controls the
circumstances of society, industry, and government; and this power is never
divided against itself. The power which is in you is in the things around you,
and when you begin to move forward, the things will arrange themselves for your
advantage, as described in later chapters of this book.
Man was
formed for growth, and all things external were designed to promote his growth.
No sooner does a man awaken his soul and enter on the advancing way than he
finds that not only is God for him, but nature, society, and his fellow men are
for him also; and all things work together for his good if he obeys the law.
Poverty is no bar to greatness, for poverty can always be removed. Martin
Luther, as a child, sang in the streets for bread. Linnaeus the naturalist had
only forty dollars with which to educate himself; he mended his own shoes and
often had to beg meals from his friends. Hugh Miller, apprenticed to a
stonemason, began to study geology in a quarry. George Stephenson, inventor of
the locomotive engine, and one of the greatest of civil engineers, was a coal
miner, working in a mine, when he awakened and began to think. James Watt was a
sickly child, and was not strong enough to be sent to school. Abraham Lincoln
was a poor boy. In each of these cases we see a Principle of Power in the man
that lifts him above all opposition and adversity.