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THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN
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A Man Without Ambition—
Is a Watch Without
a Mainspring
X X. X!
But Don't. Re Like the Toad That Swelled Up Until He Burst.
A reader sends in this letter, which we answer:
Editor The Georgian:
Dear Sir —You praise work and ambition 1n a man. Yet, Is a man not
happier and more contented if he remains In the humble place and station of
hts birth’’ We are told a man should make the most of himself and ba
successful and ambitious Wouldn't our promint nt mon be far happier If they
chose to be poor and unknown? Anyhow, after they are dead, what differ
ence does It make whether they were prominent or rustics? Kln<Uy give your
views as to a man's attitude, toward a mldtion and content ment and happi
ness Is it a man's duty to advance In the world instead of remaining In the
humblest station ? Yours sincerely, INTERESTED.
That interefrtinxr two-legged animal in charge of this earth,
called man. is wound up in a complicated fashion. Twelve pas
gions. or instincts, or attractions—name them as you please
animate and control firm.
Os these twelve passions, NINE are actual moving forces,
THREE direct and control the other nine.
Among the nine MOVING forces in man there are three
that dominate—we will ignore the others for the present.
First, and most necessary, is THE INSTINCT OF SELF
PRESERVATION. That instinct kept men alive, forced them to
continue living on this earth under horrible conditions of cold
and hunger and brutality. Nature’s wisdom made the instinct of
self-preservation very powerful in primitive man to keep him on
this earth to do his work here. Tn the savage man of thirty thou
sand years ago. and of today, the instinct of self preservation is
all-powerful. Yon see that in a burning theater, a sinking ship
or elwwdiere, when the real nature of man comes out.
The second great moving force in mankind is the PATER
NAL INSTINCT, the instinct of reproduction. This guarantees
that there shall be no other human beings on earth to follow’ each
generation as it passes away. In the savage, brutal man the in
stinct of reproduction is the strongest, next to the instinct of
self-preservation.
The third great passion of the human mind is AMBITION,
our desire for change, for improvement.
As we have told yon before and shall often repeat., the in
stinct of SELF-PRESERVATION keeps us on this earth, the
PATERNAL INSTINCT provides others to carry on our work
after death. AMBITION PREVENTS STAGNATION. BRINGS
ABOUT PROGRESS.
The friend whose letter we quote is one of many that ask
whether ambition is really worth while, what sort of ambition a
man ought to have, etc.
The first question may be disregarded. If you have ambition,
YOU’VE GOT IT. It's like the measles, and it doesn't make any
difference whether it is worth while or not- it must run its
course.
Every human being has ambition in youth. The young man
or woman without ambition is a creature almost unthinkable.
As we advance in years, however, our forces diminish in in
tensity—for we have not yet reached the real stage of develop
ment which will bring about, constant increase of intellectual force
and interest, at least for the first hundred years of life.
Ambition is the human emotion that dies most quickly. It is
attacked and devoured by just such questions as our friend puts
in his letter.
The stomach says: “Why not feed me well and enjoy my
digestive delights, instead of wasting your energies trying to do
something you never can do?”
Vanity says: “Why don’t you give up your foolish ideas of
duty’? Pile one dollar on another, dress well, cultivate the good
opinion of your neighbors, he liked and approved by little minds,
di* fat and happy.”
The mind gets tired of repeated failures, it wants rest and
begs for it
Every little opportunity in Fife, every little comfort, fights
against man’s ambition, if his ambition be really high.
The average man at thirty begins already to put aside his
dreams of eighteen and twenty.
At fortv he has settled down into a little rut that moans no
more growth.
At fifty he has reached a stage where he looks pityingly
down upon the men who possess the ambitious force that lie has
lost, and that he now calls “foolish dreamings.”
Our Mend asks: “ Anyhow, after they are dead what differ
ence does it make whether they were prominent or rustics'’ - '
In onr opinion, it makes a groat deal of difference. It can
not be possible that the self-conscious soul doing the work of
cosmic wisdom in the care of this globe should be perishable.
It is not believable that, in a universe where we know
MATTER and FORCE to be indestructible, the one thing to be de
stroyed should be that higher compound force which we call the
human soul, which has within itself the power to apply and to
distribute the force and the matter attached to this globe.
The soul MUST be immortal, for all through the govern
ment of the universe we see justice and kindness. It is not be
lievable that men should be allowed to suffer as they have suf
fered without recompense hereafter. It is not believable, espec
ially. ihat the passionate desire for immortality should be placed
in men only to be disappointed.
If we are immortal and we MUST be—there is surelv a re
ward for the soul that tries. The soul in which ambition per
sists must be a higher soul than that which gives in: and its
state must be higher when it leaves this body.
Various religions reward deserving men in various wavs
wilh happy hunting grounds, with well stocked seraglios, with
the peaceful nonentity that the worn-out Hindoo craves, with the
golden crown and Ihe home of solid gold and precious stones
which seemed desirable to the primitive civilization of the East.
Rewarded we SHALL be---presumably along lines of natu
ral growth; along the lines of our own desert.
But taking the gloomiest possible view of the question that
is asked, and assuming that it doos NOT make any difference to
a man hereafter whether he did well or ill on earth, we ask in
turn :
How about the man that lives selfishly, tills the little stom
ach. decorates the foolish bod) fancifully- lives onlv for him
self?
What good will that do HIM after he is dead
What good will it do him. after lie is dead, to have eaten ami
drunk so much?
Lite [>asses as a second, ami even the dull unimaginative
who believes that this life end* it all might veil determine
V Continued in Last Column
The Atlanta Georgian
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28, 1912.
The Use of a Great Man
One Has Recently Died in France, and People Are Inquiring What He Was Good For
By GARRETT P SERVISS.
A GRAND funeral was given in
Paris some weeks ago to
Henri Poincare, of whom,
probably, many readers of these
lines have never heard. The pro
cession to tin* grave was imposing.
There marched, bareheaded,
through the streets, between side
walk-' crowded with spectators,
most of whom also respectfully re
moved their hats, a long double line
of the most distinguished living
Frenchmen. When the grave was
reached Impressive discourses were
pronounced by M. Guist’hau, who
Spoke for the government and the
university; by M. t'laretle. who rep
resented the famous Aeademle
Francaise; by M. Painleve, who was
the mouthpiece of the Academy of
Sciences, and by many otiters whose
natn's are better known to the
public than was that of the subject
of their discourses.
All the newspapers were filled
with praise of tile dead it.an, and
all the illustrated journals printed
portraits of him. Everybody was
assured, and the assurance was re
peated front mouth to mouth, that
France had lost one of her great
est lights whose renown would il
lustrate the pages of her history.
Everybody felt proud because his
country had produced so mighty a
genius.
But a singular fact soon became
evident, viz... that among the hun
dreds of thousands who repeated
the praise of this Immense genius
hardly atty one had a definite Idea
of what he was or of what he had
done. They only knew that, some
how, he had been A GREAT MAN.
During bls lifetime It was said
that there were only two or three
men In all Europe who could com
prehend him.
It Is almost certain that among
those who pronounced eulogiutns at
his tomb there was none who could
follow his work with complete un
derstanding. Most of them did not
know even the A-B-C of It
Who He Was.
For Henri Poincare was a very
great mathematician, perhaps the
greatest since Laplace and La
grange, whom Napoleon, with his
vast practical genius, could not un
derstand. For most people mathe
matics. in Its higher forms, is a
closed book.
Naturally, then, after the first
sensation caused by the departure
of this great genius had died away,
the question began to be asked:
"What was he good for, after all?”
The question has been asked, and
rather Indefinitely answered, In
■many newspapers. It can not be
answered by giving a list of his
1,500 works, for even the most pop
ular of them, like the book on "Sci
ence and Hypothesis,” are full of
things which only the expert can
read understandingly, while most
of them are addressed to the ELITE
of science, the narrow inner circle.
< Courtesy in Business &
By ELBERT HUBBARD
Copyright, 1912, by international News Service.
\ x r E are ruled by our habit?
\l\i First we form our habits,-
and then our habits form us.
We are what we are on account
of what we have thought, said or
done. After having done a thing
once, there is a tendency in the
brain to do it again. If continued,
we get tile habit: that is. we do the
thing without thinking, just as a
matter of course. Thus does habit
become second nature.
"What kind of people will we be
In Elysium?” they asked Socrates •
four hundred years before Christ.
And his answer was, "You will be
the same kind of people you are to
day. because this life is a prepara
tion for the next just as today is a
preparation for tomorrow."
Any man with the grouch habit,
the “piker” habit, the frown habit,
the cigarette habit, the. dope habit,
the booze habit, is on the greased
chute, and he himself is swabbirig
the slide. Also, there Is a sort of
general disposition on the part of
everybody to give him a push down
tile road to Davy Jones' locker.
All Good Things Are Catching.
In the heart of all of us is the
tendency to pass back everything
that is handed to us.
Once there was a man who said.
If I had been around that day
when the Creator was making the
world I would have made a few sug
gestions."
And one of the auditors said,
"What'would you have proposed?"
"I would have made good health
catching instead of bad."
That is just where the critic
lapsed. The fact is. good health is
catching All good things are catch
ing
If a man smiles, waves his hand
at you as you walk down the street
in the morning, you wave your hand
back and smile in return uncon
sciously and often one little expe
rience like this will key for you
the day joyously.
Courtesy. kindness, good-will,
generosity, liberality are all catch
ing.
Nothing Is so contagious as a
smll< Trv it on t lie first man you
tat th} bread upon the waters
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to enter which requires extraor
dinary tai'nt and years of applica
tion.
Rut it does not follow that some
answer can not be given. The best
answer is twofold. In the first
place, one great use of such a man
as Poincare is the stimulation
which he imparts to the average
human being. He awakes the am
bition of the race bv showing of
what it is capable. He is the tnan
on the top of the apparently inac
cessible mountain, who, by his
mere presence there, shows to
others the possibility of ascending
it. He Is like the late Edward
Whymper. waving his cap from the
summit of the terrible Matterhorn.
Anybody with good wind and
strong muscles can ascend the
Matterhorn now, because the way
is known.
But Poincare would never have
given an impetus to his fellow be
ings if he had not, like Newton
before him, and like all great men,
disclaimed the possession of any
superhuman power. Newton said
that all he had done seemed to him
but aS the picking up of a pebble
on the shore of the boundless ocean
of knowledge, and Poincare de
clared that the mind of tnan !•
only a flash of lightning. Illuminat
ing for a moment a part of th*
illimitable expanse around.
But these flashes succeed on I
another, and the race, as a whole,
retains a little of what each re
veals and adds to it that which has
already been acquired. What was
revealed to the genius of the great
French mathematician was not al-
and It shall return after many days
buttered, and sometimes with jam
on It.
The advantage and benefit of tel
ephone courtesy is beyond compu
tation.
But the use of the telephone re
quires a certain amount of pa
tience. You must have faith that
the man tit the other end of the
line has something to tell you that
is worth saying.
In the big central telephone of
fices operators are selected with es
pecial care as to their voices. A
girl may have brains all right, but
if she has a voice that screams,
screeches or purrs, to that degree
she is incompetent either as a tele-
Ballade of Bugs
By JACOB J. LEIBSON.
TIT HEN. seeking joys of solitude.
y/ y/ I stretch myself beneath a
tree,
A fussy insect, rough and rude.
With buzzing wings, alights on me,
I drive him off. and then a bee.
Upon my Adam’s apple sings.
A beetle bites where I can't see
I hate these bees and hugs and
things.
1 quickly change my attitude
And hide my face within the grass.
A joyous jigger, seeking food,
Across my nose attempts to pass,
A most ingenious bug. alas!
Now beats my eardrum with his
wings
1 wonder where they get the brass.
These most obtrusive bugs and
things.
Then speedily my patient mood
And spirits gay depart from me
1 w ill not be an insect's food,
A centipede’s collation free
A hornet spies me from a tree
And all his fond relations brings.
I can not bide their company.
They bore me so. these bugs with
stings.
I.'Envol.
Prince, peasant, de k. whoe'et vou he,
Though nature's joys the poet sings,
lust take this humble tip from me
j ou 1 find no joy in bugs and things
HENRI POINCARE IN HIS STUDY.
ways perfectly clear, even to him
self, while for the majority of men
it was but a flash in the night
w'hich showed them nothing. His
successors, guided by the glimpses
he had, will make it all clear, and
thus the domain of knowledge will
he extended.
Additions to Knowledge.
In the second place, the useful
ness of such a man as Poincare
consists in the actual additions
that he made to knowledge. These
additions were purely mathemati
cal and incapable of popular ex
planation. but there are men who
can understand them, and who,
with THEIR successors, will, upon
the basis which he left, erect a new
edifice of science which all can en
ter and admire. There was a time
when Newton’s "Principia” was as
far beyond the intellectual reach of
the average man as Poincare’s
most abstruse work Is today, but
now. thanks to the advance which
it, itself, inspired, any boy.in col
lege. with a mathematical gift and
proper application, can read the
whole "Principia” understandingly.
In fact, it has been displaced by
more recent work, just as Poin
care's achievements will be super
seded in the future.
Great men of this stamp are the
pioneers of the human intellect, and
happy Is the country that can pro
duce one in a century. It is the
Napoleons, whose work is easily
understood, that get the great
monuments; it is these other gen
iuses, whose own times hardly
know them, that uplift the race.
phone operator or as a salesman.
To speak distinctly and pleasant
ly is a fine art. A good speaking
voice is not so much a matter of
training as it is of right thinking. A
person who thinks well of himself
and of other people has a voice that
assures. People who are anxious,
nervous. Irritable, harassed, tired,
reveal impatience in their tones.
Any one who uses the telephone,
be he operator or patron, aristocrat
or plebeian, should practice tele
phone courtesy. He should speak
neither too loud nor too low, but
should endeavor to put a smile Into
his voice, and not tears, doubt or
accusation.
Many people, on taking down the
receiver, will shout. "Who's this?"
Then, not getting an answer, will
say, “Who are you, anyway?” This
is followed up with "What do you
want?" All of which is quite dis
courteous. absurd and inoppor
tune.
Any one taking down the re
ceiver should announce who he is.
If you were a salesman, on enter
ing an office you would not shout
at the fibst man you met, "Who Is
. this?” or "Who are you?"
W hen you call on a person you
have never before met, you cer
tainly do not demand that he should
reveal his identity until you have
first revealed yours.
You moderate your voice, and you
speak pleasantly.
On Good Terms With Public.
On taking down the receiver,
either to answer a call or to put
one in. when you get your party,
say. "This is Mr. Brown who is
speaking." Just assume a pleas
ant attitude of mind, and your voice
will follow.
1 have noticed that trainmen on
certain railroads for the most part
have pleasant voices. They call
the stations in away so they are
understood, and they do not appear
to be bawling bad names at their
enemies. They are the voices of
men who are well nourished, who
get eight hours sleep, who think
well of themselves, who are proud
of their jobs and proud of the road
for which they work
Thus are they placed on good
terms with their colleagues and
w ith the public.
THE HOME PAPER
Thomas Tapper
Writes on
How To Build a For
tune
No. 6.-—Getting Rich in a
Hurry
THE statement has recently
been made that in one year
the American people con
tributed about seventy-seven mil
lions of dollars to various fake in
vestment schemes. This means
that they dropped the money down
a hole, expecting it to rush up
again in a golden shower. Instead
of that, there was a group of busy ‘
men at the other end of the hole
carrying away the precious stuff in
baskets—for they, too, have fami
lies to support.
The seventy-seven millions of the
preceding paragraph was not the
entire annual crop. This sum was
paid over to the get-rich-quick
concerns that were closed up by the
postoflice department There were
many others t+iat did business
without using the mails and were
undisturbed.
Why Is It so easy to sell worth
less paper?
Answer No. I—People want to
get rich in a hurry.
Answer No. 2 —Golden promises
make golden dreams. The thing is
so bright we actually are fasci
nated by it. So we put real money
into a golden dream, and then we
wake up.
11.
A promoter was talking one day
to an humble individual who did
not seem to know much.
“How do you invest your sav
ings?" asked the promoter.
"I put them in a savings bank,”
said the man.
Never Get Poor, Either.
"Well, you will never get rich
that way,” thg promoter said
“No,” answered the humble Indi
vidual, “probably not, but I’ll never
get poor that way either.”
In view' of the countless ways of
investing money which promise
nothing less than "marvellous re
turns,” it takes a good type of mind
to stick to simple, direct ways of
saving. The seventy-seven millions,
of which we have been speaking,
was not the money of rich men. It
belonged to those who could not af
ford to lose it—to widows, and to
wage earners of all classes.
A Man Without Ambition—
Is a Watch Without
a Mainspring
Continued from First Column.
to do at least the best work possible during bis little moment on
the stage.
There are two strange hours for each human being
The painful hour of his birth, when he conies into this
world, all unfitted for it.
The responsible hour of his death, when the man who is
conscious looks back over that which he has done.
Be sure that the man who has wasted his time, thought
only of himself, neglected his duty and pushed aside his ambi
tion. can suffer enough self-reproach in that last hour to maky
up for many days of eating and drinking and of empty self-in
dulgence.
The only man worth while is the ambitious man. The onlv
child or woman worth while is the ambitious child or woman.
Ambition moves the world, as the mainspring moves the
watch hands.
And the human being without ambition is like the watch
without a mainspring.
Such a watch and such a human being, looked at from the
outside, arc quite satisfactory—smooth and pleasing BUT THERE
IS NO USE IN THEM. b
The business of every human being is to cherish the spring of
ambition within him. and do what little he can to move forward
the world m general—if he be big enough—or. at least that little
corner of it in which his life is passed.
The thing io do is to have THE RIGHT AMBITION. Don't
mistake foolish egotism for ambition.
The frog in La Fontaine's fable was ambitious in the wrong
wav. He wanted to be as big as the ox, and he swelled himself
up until he burst \ amty-not ambition-was Ins mainspring.
We should like to write to the friend whose letter we publish a
tew words as to the proper character and direction of ambition.
pditnXl Ti ein ’ rha • however ' must reserved for anotner
editorial, this one is long enough.
There is a hackneyed quotation which savs: “I charge thee
throw away am upon The wise man w.li'do just the reverse
wLld I i keep .. al, \ e . thp s l ,ark °l' ambition as a shipwrecked crew
Hould keep alive their smouldering fire. Once that spark mes
U'" •
makts room ti* ■—-»iner, the better
B\ THOM.XS TAPPER.
When any one wants you to put
your money into a proposition that
will make you wealthy in a few
weeks, refuse to have anything to
do with it. as a matter of princi
ple. It can not be done. Rosy as
the dream is, it is still a rosy dream
and nothing more.
One of the fundamental rules of
investment is, the higher the inter
est yield, the greater the risk.
Bonds of the most conservative
character, with the highest guaran
tee as to safety of principal, yield
in the neighborhood of four per
cent; sometimes a fraction less or
more.
When some one quietly slips you
I n for ma t ion that you can come in
on the inside, and get 30 per cent,
or thereabouts—don't go in. All
the doors are locked, and when
they throw the victims out of ’the
back window their pockets are
turned Inside out.
ni.
The banker puts it this way:
Judicious investment is the art of
making the most of your monev
WITHOUT EXPOSING IT TO
THE RISK OF LOSS.
Be Patient,” the Great Rule.
That kind of safety has to be
paid for in small interest returns.
You may feel that at the rate
your surplus funds get into the
bank you will never get rich. R P .
member the remark of the humble
individual—you will never get poor,
either. The great rule is "he pa
tient.”
In an interview recently. Mr. An
drew Carnegie Is reported to have
said this:
"The trouble with many men of
small means is that they will never
make a beginning, and keep putting
off the time when they have a nu
cleus for Investing. The goal of
the wage-earner in saving should
be to acquire SI,OOO. PRUDENT
INVESTING OF SMALL SUMS
will help him to obtain this first
SI,OOO. Money grows surprisingly,
and if you have none now try the
experiment I suggest of getting
SI,OOO and see if I am not right.”
Notice that Mr. Carnegie speaks
of PRUDENT investing—of what?
Os small turns.