How to Become Rich Part 3

The quality of the man determines the quality of the work he should do.

The strong, coa.r.s.e, sluggish organization is adapted to occupations requiring power and momentum. The refined, delicate, responsive character will succeed best in positions calling for agility, dexterity and sensitiveness. The blacksmith may ruin a watch if he attempts to mend it, while the jeweler would not be a safe man to shoe a valuable horse. There is an eternal fitness of things.

The occupation of an individual should be in harmony with his temperament. The brilliant versatility of the magnetic permits a greater variety of selection to the individual than the positive and concentrative energies of the electric temperament. The latter is dignified, sombre and severe, with a ready inclination to forego comfort and convenience to carry out a cherished object.

It works, not better than the magnetic but more willingly. Men of the magnetic temperament succeed best in the cultivation of the social graces, the fine arts, and in those departments of literature that call for brilliancy of imagination, versatility of talent and variety of accomplishment. The leaders of great and successful armies, the powerful statesmen and the literary men of the world, distinguished by fervid genius and concentrative application, have been on the other hand strongly endowed with the electric temperament.

When the motive temperament is in the ascendency, the character is marked by an almost uncontrollable desire for physical exercise. This temperament demands activity of body as well as brain, and the occupation should be such as will combine both. The vital temperament on the other hand is more inclined to sedentary habits, and is capable of doing an immense amount of mental work without breaking down. It seems to thrive best when loaded with responsibilities of a mental character.

The mental temperament on the other hand will display great brilliancy of intellect and versatility of talent, but is in constant danger of a physical collapse unless constantly subjected to conditions favorable to recuperation.

To subject a person of the delicately organized and sensitive mental temperament, for a long period of time, to the hards.h.i.+ps and privations of an occupation requiring exposure and severe muscular exertion is the height of cruelty and folly. A person of the extreme vital temperament, under the same conditions, would find life a weary burden, though a limited experience in muscular exercise, under conditions favorable to health, would be beneficial to both. On the other hand, the motive temperament, confined in an office or room to books and study, with insufficient exercise, is in much the same condition of misery as a caged bird.

Temperament, quality, and capacity having been duly considered, the ability of an individual in any given direction, depends upon the special development of the organs of the brain. The special sense of each individual is determined by an examination of the special organs of the brain. And it is upon this special development, in the case of every man, that his prerequisites for success depend, namely, the ability to do much good work, the remuneration for his services, and the pleasure derived from the occupation.

I desire to call your attention to some examples of special ability, which are familiar enough to the experience of most of you to be accepted without argument.

There are those who are gifted in the sense of touch above their fellows, who can judge of the quality of goods in the dark. There are others blest with penetrating eyesight. Others with a sense of hearing most acute. Also those with nice discriminating sense of taste and smell. These distinctions for a long time were regarded as the five senses of man, and he was believed to have only those five avenues of perception. Phrenology, however, subdivides these and adds others, vastly increasing the number of the sources of knowledge and the springs of human action.

A great many cases of defective eyesight, so called, are in reality defective brain. The mechanism of the eye may be perfect, the retina and the optic nerve may faithfully perform their duties, but if the brain behind the eye be defective, the comprehension of the object or some of its properties is lost to the intelligence of the individual. Some people are "color blind." Their eyes are good enough, but they don't see colors; they comprehend no difference in the shades of different colored objects exhibited to the view. At the same time they fully comprehend the size, form, distance, etc., of the object. An examination discloses the fact that they are deficient in a portion of the brain just behind the middle of the eyebrow. Give such a man every material and brush of the painter and request him to paint a landscape and the result will be a daub. He has no sense of colors, he has no fitness for that kind of work. At the same time he may be entirely capable of a very creditable performance in drawing a picture with a pencil in white and black because that does not involve his weakness. This particular element of sense may, like all others, be only partially defective, but an examination by a competent phrenologist will disclose its exact state, whatever it may be. I once examined a man and remarked to him that he was thoroughly endowed with the qualities essential to a good locomotive engineer, except that the organ of color was slightly deficient. I remarked, "You will never experience the slightest inconvenience in distinguis.h.i.+ng switch-lights and signals when you are in good health and sober, but a slight indigestion, or a gla.s.s of liquor, decreasing the power of your brain, would render your vision of colors unreliable and might cause a wreck, hence I advise you to keep out of the business."

The man was a railroad engineer, and admitted that he could generally distinguish colors without difficulty, but that his color sense was lost, under the conditions I described.

Those who are large in the organ of color, are artists in its appreciation, for the simple reason that they have more sense in this particular direction. On the other hand, color may be large, but appreciation of form, size, etc., may be deficient. The individual may try to paint a picture and get the colors all right, but if form is deficient his figures will be grotesque in their absurdity; or he may have good sense as to form and color, and get the sizes of his objects all wrong. Mechanical skill depends in a great measure upon these "Perceptive Faculties," as they are called: that is, those portions of the brain that comprehend and give the ideas pertaining to the properties of material objects, such as individuality, form, size, weight, color, etc. The trained eye and hand of the blacksmith are alike directed by these faculties of the mind acting through these organs of the brain, as he moulds a piece of iron to the proper size and form to fit the horse's foot. What folly then to expect good work, in a blacksmith shop, of a man deficient in these special senses requisite in that department of work; and as we study all trades and professions we shall find that apt.i.tude in any line depends on the possession of superior development of the organs of the brain representing the faculties of intelligence most used and depended upon in that business.

There are those who are wonderfully gifted in the organ of calculation, the seat of the special sense of the number of things. One who has this organ large will be able to count rapidly and correctly, to add, subtract or multiply, and he understands the relation of numbers to each other, their properties, and because of his superior sense in this direction he becomes a "lightning calculator" and is regarded as a mathematical prodigy. There are others who have this sense deficient, but they may be superior in development to the mathematical prodigy in a dozen other faculties.

One may be developed in those organs which contribute to talent for music. He may have a sensitive organization, highly responsive in quality, a fair intellect, such an exquisite sense of time and tune, aided by good Constructiveness, Imitation and executive ability that he is able to produce music which charms the listening ear of thousands. If this talent is discovered in time, and he has adequate instruction and advantages, he becomes a magnificent success. Place him in the counting room, the work-shop, or on the farm and he is not in harmony with his surroundings, he is awkward and inefficient, he does poor work and but little of it, and he is regarded by his a.s.sociates as an inferior person.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Musician.]

Some men are wonderful in their ability to comprehend machinery, and in dexterity in the use of tools, the special sense represented by the organ of Constructiveness. They seem to be perfectly at home with a piece of new and complicated machinery in five minutes, while others will work on the same thing for hours, growing more and more bewildered, and exhibiting little or no mechanical genius whatever, literally making a botch of everything they undertake. When I was lecturing in Austin, Texas, in 1887, several gentlemen came to see me and asked if I would be willing to submit to a test. They said, "We have a man in this city who is unquestionably a genius in a certain direction, and we would like to call him out for a public examination and see if you can locate him." I urged them to do so, at the same time remarking that that was the kind of a man I liked to get hold of. That night when I called for nominations, Mr. Geo. P. a.s.sman was immediately elected. He came forward, and as I measured his head I said, "This man is a genius as a machinist. He has only ordinary ability in other directions, but as a machinist he is a marvel. He has thoughts on machinery far beyond the comprehension of other men, and especially in the practical handling of complicated work." Somebody in the audience sung out at this point "You've got him," and the audience broke into applause. They then informed me that he was a most celebrated locksmith and machinist whose specialty was opening combination locks on valuable safes when the combination was lost by the owners, or when the works were injured by the blasts of burglars. On one occasion he had opened a safe in New Orleans in a few minutes when the trained locksmiths of the safe factory had worked for hours and failed. He was in the right business, was regarded as a genius, and was respected and admired by a whole section of the United States simply because he employed his best element of sense.

Some men have wonderful intellectual development and are specially gifted with the ability to acquire knowledge, but they may be most wonderfully deficient in that kind of executive force which makes use of it. They are largely developed in the frontal lobe of the brain where the intellectual organs reside, but are deficient in the regions of moral and physical energy; while others are largely endowed with ambition, physical and moral energy,--the parietal lobes are large and the head rises high in the crown, and they are able to use all the knowledge they acquire. Their intellectual capacity may be limited, but they are able to put their knowledge to account, and what gems of information they possess are made to glitter by constant use. Men of the first cla.s.s are always rated at less than their true value of intellectual ability; those of the second cla.s.s at a greatly over-estimated premium. The first may be compared to capacious barns where knowledge is stored like hay to become musty because it is never used. I have seen hundreds of boys of this character, graduate with great honor in college (where the only criterion applied was the capacity to absorb knowledge as a sponge does water), only to be eclipsed in after years by the boys who graduated at the foot of the cla.s.s, who were practically in disgrace on Commencement day. In our popular public school and collegiate system, there is too much stuffing of knowledge, and too little attention given to developing the practical sense of the student.

There are special senses which give physical and moral energy, ambition and industry. One man is splendidly equipped with knowledge and is thoroughly posted in regard to how a business should be conducted in all of its practical and theoretical details, but he is afflicted with inertia, he does not move. The unscientific observer says he is lazy, and that is true, but Phrenology a.n.a.lyzes even laziness and finds that it is caused by a lack of sense. Develop the organs of physical and moral energy, which can be easily done, and the character of the man becomes transformed, and he becomes a cyclone of business push and executive ability. Another man may be gifted with energy, but deficient in knowledge and business tact, and he wastes his force in tremendous efforts at the accomplishment of small matters. He puts as much mental force into opening a can of oysters as would suffice to destroy a building. Figuratively speaking he loads a cannon to kill a mosquito, the result is a great waste of energy and vitality. By proper cultivation of knowledge, and adaptation to pursuits employing his splendid energies with large enterprise, a character of this description is brought into harmony with the eternal fitness of things.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Physical Energy.]

There are men endowed with the sense which gives appreciation of values and the knowledge of property to such an extent that they are artists in the manipulation of finances. They acc.u.mulate fortunes, and the world admires their accomplishments; and one who has less of this world's goods is accustomed to wish that he had as much sense as Vanderbilt or Gould. The fact may be, that he has more sense in the aggregate than either, but it is not the same kind of sense. Other things being equal, the man with large Acquisitiveness will exhibit more sense in acquiring property, and the man with large Caution and Secretiveness more sense in economizing, than those having these organs small. It is curious to observe the different phases of financial sense in different individuals. One man will be a miser, eager to get and anxious to hold property; another will be close and cautious in taking care of the property he inherits, but will exhibit no special ability in increasing his riches; another displays great ability in making money, but spends it lavishly; while still another may show indifference to the acquisition of property or the care of it. All of these various combinations I have delineated correctly with utter strangers, in thousands of instances. They all depend on the development of the various organs of special sense, and a man may be educated at any period of life, so as to correct his financial sense and make him more successful in acc.u.mulating and holding property.

Some men are good collectors, while others fail to exact their just dues. One man will dun his debtors with a persistence and regularity, and with a force and dignity which compels payment even from those who wish to avoid it; while another will be diffident, and often suffer the most humiliating emotions in presenting his demands--in fact, often failing to exact payment from those who are perfectly able and willing to meet the account. Others are careless about paying their debts, and lose financial standing in the community by neglecting their dues, without any desire whatever to avoid payment, while others are punctilious in financial matters to the greatest degree. All of which variety of financial dispositions are the result of development of special combinations of brain organs, and susceptible to material modification by proper influences.

It is as absolutely essential to the success of the man of commerce that he should be well developed in the organs which give the financial instincts, as it is that the artist should be developed in those which give a sense of artistic effect. Hundreds of men go into bankruptcy every year because of deficient development in this respect, being crowded to the wall by the superior strength of men of greater business sagacity. It cannot be too strongly impressed upon the young business men of this country that the true road to fortune is in a correct knowledge of adaptation in business and in constantly educating the financial senses.

In my written delineations of character I furnish every applicant with a careful a.n.a.lysis of his business adaptation, showing the exact condition of his financial instincts, as well as all others. I have also composed directions whereby deficient organs may be strengthened by special mental exercises, and I claim that the financial sense can be developed and strengthened as well as any other part of man's nature; and in no part of my professional work have I met with more satisfactory results.

I once examined an utter stranger, and as I proceeded, I said, "You should never enter mercantile life, sir, with your present development.

You would be bankrupt within a year, because you would trust everybody, and you cannot collect your small accounts." The gentleman, in great surprise, asked me if I knew anything of his past history personally.

"No, sir, I never saw you nor heard of you until you entered my room a moment ago." He then informed me that he had failed in business three times, because he could not collect his small accounts, and that he had over $1500 due him in the city--small items against respectable customers that he had not succeeded in collecting. "Now, sir," he continued excitedly, "I want to know why that is and how you can tell it." I explained to him his deficient organs, and gave him my special rules for the cultivation of financial ability; and after instructing him, I told him to try some of his most collectable accounts according to my rules. I remained in his town a few days longer, and before I left he called on me with a list of over six hundred dollars'

worth of claims he had collected, and he was jubilant. "There!" said he, "that is what your examination and chart has been worth to me." And by persistently following my instructions he developed into a very good collector.

A man may be entirely idiotic in the sense which gives the desire for property and the impulse to acquire it (Acquisitiveness), while he exhibits excellent sense in other directions. I once examined a gentleman of high intellectual development who was entirely dest.i.tute of this sense, and I remarked to him that he was financially worthless, that he had no sense of value, was indifferent to the acquisition of property and utterly unable to make a living, as he would not be able to ask for money that was due him from a friend who was perfectly willing to pay him. He replied, "All you say is true, sir; my wife supports the family by sewing and was.h.i.+ng, and I am unable to command any financial resources whatever."

Subsequently I employed this man, as a matter of charity, to do some work for me, and returning to the city from a brief absence, I found that I owed him five dollars. I met him on the street that night and he informed me that his family were suffering for the necessities of life.

Said he, "It was a scramble at our house this morning to get anything for breakfast, and I don't know where the next meal is coming from." My first impulse was, of course, to pay him the money I owed him, but I restrained it and waited to see if he would ask for it. He poured his tale of woe into my sympathizing ear for twenty minutes, and finally turned away and left me without his dues. As he walked away, I called him back and said, "Look here, my friend, do you know you are a fool?"

"Oh, yes, Professor, I found that out long ago. But on what particular point do you find me a fool to-night?"

"Don't you know that I owe you five dollars?"

"Yes, sir."

"Why didn't you ask for it?"

"I don't know," he said in a dazed sort of way, "I simply couldn't; I came to you for it; I told you my circ.u.mstances hoping you would pay me, but I couldn't ask you for it."

And he could not. His case was an extreme one; but there are many in the same position. The simple fact is, he did not have financial sense enough to ask for it. I gave him his money and told him if he needed more to come to me and I would help him further, and I did; but the best thing I did for him was to instruct him in the development of financial sense, and I got him far enough along, to enable him to ask for money when due him; but it would be a hopeless task to undertake to make a financier out of such a man. I also examined his oldest boy, and finding that he had inherited his father's weakness, I gave him and his mother special instruction for the development of financial ability. Two years later, when I visited the same city, I found him supporting his mother and the younger children from his own wages; and his mother brought her entire family to me for written examinations, and I found them well dressed and well fed; and the mother, with an expression of grat.i.tude I shall never forget, informed me that the splendid financial energies of her son, were entirely due to the faithful performance of my instructions. And as she paid me a handsome fee for my services, and I looked upon her happy family, I felt that the gratuitous examination I had given the boy two years before had borne good fruit.

I could multiply instances to prove the existence and working of each of the various special senses of the individual, represented by the phrenological organs, but I a.s.sume that the foregoing are sufficient for the purposes of the present lecture.

It is a common mistake of parents to suppose that if a child has a special endowment of sense in any particular direction, it will manifest such strong inclinations in that direction, that these natural inclinations may be taken for a guide. Sometimes this is true, but oftener it is not the case, so that the natural inclinations of children are by no means safe guides in the choice of a profession, occupation or trade.

When the circus is in town, the natural inclination of every healthy boy is to be a clown or bareback rider, but it does not follow, that if his inclinations are gratified, it is the best course he can pursue. Some of the most magnificent talents, on the other hand, lie dormant until they are carefully called out and trained by the teacher. There are also periods in the life of every boy and girl when new faculties seem to be awakened, and for a time engage the entire attention; and the watchful parent is apt to mistake one of these periodical outbreaks for the manifestation of a talent deciding the destiny of a child. At one period of a boy's existence he may manifest great fondness for tools and working in machinery; at another, for music; at another, for trading and merchandizing; while comparatively dormant may lie a masterly ability to grapple with the problems of philosophy and science, which in later years marks him as a genius in literature and scientific investigation.

Sometimes a talent manifests itself at an early age, but the parent does not realize its scope and value, or the full character of the child, and he is placed in an occupation far inferior to his actual merit, or the measure of his capacity.

A father brought his son to me exclaiming with pride, "This boy is a genius, and I am going to make a first-cla.s.s carpenter of him, unless you can suggest something better, and prove that he has talent for it.

He can take a pen-knife and a board, and carve out anything he may desire to make. He certainly has a genius for mechanical work."

"Yes," I said, "this boy will make a first-cla.s.s carpenter; he will succeed well in carving boards and in doing delicate joining, and as a foreman, or as the owner of a planing mill, he will make a good living; his wages may run up to five or ten dollars per day; but such an occupation is beneath his capacity. This boy has, in addition to his mechanical genius, a wonderful endowment of intellectual ability and scientific proclivities; and if you will send him to a first-cla.s.s medical college and make a surgeon of him, his mechanical skill will have a higher field to display itself and he will _carve men_ at fifty dollars per day."

The old gentleman hadn't thought of that, but he wisely acted on my suggestion, and his boy is to-day one of the brightest young surgeons in the state in which he lives, and he carves men, instead of boards, at higher prices.

The ability to command a high grade of compensation for labor of any kind depends largely upon a man's own confidence in his skill, and his ability to perform work rapidly, as well as skillfully. A factory which can turn out double the quant.i.ty of work of its compet.i.tor, will secure the best contracts and give the greatest satisfaction. In the same way, a man who can do double the quant.i.ty of work done by a fellow-workman will, if his labor be equally skillful, be regarded as worth three or four times as much as his slower compet.i.tor. The pride and dignity attached to superior accomplishments doubles the value of the service.

The best man in any department of work commands his own price, and people are willing to give him the full margin of profits. The _best_ surgeon is always demanded when human life is at stake; the best lawyer when property of great value is involved in litigation. And when a man knows that he is the best in his department of work, whatever it may be, he has that confidence in himself which will enable him to exact good wages. As long as a man realizes that he is inferior, his work is at a discount and he himself deficient in dignity and self-confidence.

An old darkey, who was famed for his skill as a butcher, was employed by a stranger to slaughter a hog. The service being well performed, Pompey demanded five dollars in payment.

"Five dollars!" gasped the astonished owner of the pork, "for slaughtering one hog! outrageous!"

"No, sah," said Pompey with dignity, "I'se only charged you one dollar for de work, sah. De balance am for de _know how_."

It is absolutely essential, in order that one may rise to eminence in a profession, trade or occupation, that he should select one where he can use his best faculties; because he will be rated as a successful man, a man of mediocre talents, or a complete failure, according to the amount of sense displayed by the faculties he uses in his business. If a young man has an excellent talent for music, an ordinary degree of ability in mathematics, and none in regard to art, he will be a success in the orchestra; he may make a precarious living as a book-keeper; but if he starts a photograph gallery, he will disgust his customers and prove a dismal failure. In the first, he will be respected and admired; in the second, tolerated; in the third, despised.

In my professional experience I have met thousands of men who were admired and respected as master-minds, because they were using strong faculties, the best they had, and the world gave them more than their dues, because they were ranked in mentality at the grade of their strongest faculties, and their weaknesses were overlooked, hidden in fact by the brightness of the few talents they did possess and use to advantage.

I have examined thousands of men of equal ability who were regarded as very ordinary, because they were in walks of life which called forth only the inferior elements of their characters. I have examined thousands of others of equal ability, and many of magnificent endowment, who were limping, staggering and blindly groping down the dismal path of despair, because they were depending on their weakest elements, and the world despised and judged them unjustly, because they were ranked in mentality at the grade of their weakest faculties--their virtues and talents hidden by the fact that they were never used. It has been my happy privilege to place them, for the first time, in possession of the true estimate of their elements of strength and weakness, and to direct them with the absolute certainty of success into paths of usefulness, prosperity and enjoyment.

I might confer a favor upon you, by giving you a letter of introduction to some rich and powerful friend of mine who could aid you in your business, but I confer a greater favor upon you when I give you my written delineation of character. It is an introduction to yourself. For the first time you are made acquainted with your own character. There it stands in bold relief; your talents and how to make the most of them; your faults and how to correct them; your adaptation in business, a.n.a.lyzed in such a manner that every business qualification is described and the reasons given why you will succeed. You are not left in the dark concerning the matter. The business is stated and the reasons given, and the reasons you can test _seriatim_ before you go to any expense in making a change, or in qualifying yourself for the business.

The enjoyment that a man gets from his business is a legitimate part of the profits. It is also one proper criterion of success. A man may acc.u.mulate a bank account, but if it is done at the expense of the enjoyment of life, if every task is a burden, and every day's work a monotonous round of dreary duties, he is no better than a slave.