The Law of Financial Success
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THE title of this chapter may appear strange to some of those who find it in a book entitled "The Law of Financial Success," and such people may wonder what in the world "Creation" has to do with the subject of Financial Success. I ask such persons to wait patiently until the chapter is finished, and I promise to do my best to convince these doubters that Creation has very much to do with the attainment of Financial Success, and that, in fact, there can be little or no Financial Success without the operation of the creative energy of the mind.

Did you ever stop to think that in the case of some of the mighty bridges spanning the rivers surrounding New York City, each span, each strand of steel, each support, each bit of construction—and the whole bridge in its entirety—existed and was created in the mind of the designer before it was manifested or materialized?

Did you ever think that the great buildings which rear their imposing forms and shapes along our business streets were created in the minds of their architects, and actually existed in their minds before the buildings could be erected?

Did you ever think that the delicate mechanism of the watch you are carrying in your pocket existed in the mind of its designer long before the material watch was evolved from the parts? The watch would not be, and could not be, unless the designer had seen it all in his mind's eye, down to the smallest detail, before he materialized it.

The above statements are more or less common-place, but the majority of people overlook these important facts in the contemplation of material things. They ignore the fact that anything and everything that has ever been created in material form must of necessity have been created in mental form previously. There is no exception to this rule. Everything that is materialized must have existed previously in the mind of the person creating it. The house, the bridge, the watch, the suit of clothes, the hat, the pen-knife, the shoes, the buttons on the clothes—everything that you can see, or think of, that has been made, has first been created mentally, in its every part and as a whole.

When we materialize a thing by creating or building it, we simply build the material around the mental picture of the thing that we have first created. The primal building is in the mind. And this is true of Financial Success just as it is true of everything else. Some build little by little, seeing only just a little in advance of their building, and thus do their mental creation by piece-meal. Others see the whole thing in general outline and then fill in the details as they go along. The principle is the same in both cases.

It is told of Thomas Lawson, of Boston—he of Frenzied Finance" fame—that when he was a youth he painted a mental picture of a large estate on which there was the finest breed of horses, and the choicest cattle in the world; a beautiful home furnished and filled with objects of artistic value; and everything else necessary for the completion of his conception of an ideal home. He has said that his successive steps toward the acquirement of that home—the gaining of the wealth necessary for its purchase, was like the filling in of the details of the picture, the image of which never faded away from his mind.

And so it if with Financial Success. You must form a mental picture of what you want, and then bend every effort to fill in the picture. Every person should have a purpose in life. To win anything one should have a definite goal for which to strive. We should have a picture in our mind of what we want to own or attain. If we want money, we should create a mental picture of money—we ourselves using it, handling it, spending it, acquiring more, and in short going through all the motions of the man of money. One should paint a great mental picture of wealth, and then start to work to fill in the picture, and to materialize it.

What do you suppose would happen if the architect of the bridge, or building, or the designer of the watch should fail to see in his mind that which he was about to create? Can you not see that there would be no building worthwhile, and that the result of the attempt to build watch, bridge, or skyscraper in this way would result in a mere throwing together of material, without regard to beauty, liability or proper use?

And so it is with the majority of people, they sit down and say "Oh, I want money—I want money," and that is all there is to it. They do not use their imaginations sufficiently to mentally create money, and then proceed to materialize it. They are like a man who would sit down crying out "Oh, I want a wood-pile, high and big with good wood." The man who gets the wood-pile, glances around the place where he wants the pile, and then he forms a mental picture of how that wood-pile will look when completed—just about how high and broad it should be, and then he starts to work to fill in the picture with the wood, working away sawing and piling until at last the picture in materialized.

Oh, I tell you friends, you must first know just what you want, before you will be able to materialize it. Unless you know what you want, you will never get anything. The great successful men of the world have used their imaginations, instead of despising them. They think ahead and create their mental picture, and then go to work materializing that picture in all its details, filling in here, adding a little there, altering this a bit and that a bit, but steadily building—steadily building.

If you would attain Financial Success, you must become a mental creator and designer of that which you long for as well as a material builder. The two go hand in hand and work for Financial Success.