“It doesn’t. You just think it does. The forces of construction are
always eager to come in. The thing you call nervous exhaustion generally
comes from yielding to forces of disintegration. A person yields to one
or more of them, and then is sorry for himself because some doctor
doesn’t rout them. What he needs is to buck up and kick them out
himself.” Evidently he referred here to the nervous disorders arising
from mental disturbances, for the next day he emphasized the government
of physical forces by physical laws.
It was suggested that while many nervous disorders might be controlled
in their incipiency by the person suffering from them, they eventually
get beyond his control, and Frederick replied: “You think so; but there’s
always force where there’s personality, and if it can just be put up to
you, by yourself or another, that the choice in the end is yours and
nobody’s else, you can help yourself. In the end, you help yourself,
anyhow, unless you slide back to protoplasm of purpose. Get busy and buck
up, or backslide and slump. It’s up to every fellow for himself, and
every one who slips back impedes the way for somebody else.”
In the talk following this, some one spoke of the constant teaching of
brotherhood and regard for one’s neighbor as a vicarious gospel.
“Not vicarious,” Frederick corrected. “It is not vicarious to give the
other fellow a chance. No man is his brother’s keeper. No man has a
right to impede construction, unless he’s destructive. But it’s every
personality developed to its highest that makes the strong constructive
army. The weak should have a chance to develop, but no strong force
should yield its purpose. Nothing vicarious about that. Just common sense
and good organization.”
Mr. Gaylord—the successful head of a large manufacturing concern—asked,
with a twinkle: “Can you successfully run a business in accordance with
the principles laid down in these Lessons? Before you answer, I want to
say that I believe it can be done.”
“You’re right, Dad. It can’t be done easily, nor quite consistently, at
present, because of the complexity of modern business conditions. You are
all bound to some extent by association with some one else, whether by a
man, a directors’ board, an association, or a contributing concern. These
all limit, to a certain extent, your freedom of action; but fundamentally
the principle is practicable, and can gradually be put into consistent
practice by uniting with those of your own purpose, instead of with those
who seem expedient.”
That evening, Mrs. Wylie said that the repeated assertions of invisible
forces of construction and of destruction, alertly striving to influence
us, reminded her of the old theories of guardian angels and possessing
devils.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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