The object of study is to get a knowledge of the laws which phenomena obey. We study astronomy, for example, to discover the laws which control the movements Of the planets in the heavens. We study chemistry in order that we may know the lai,vs govern ing the combinations of material elements. As was explained in the Introduction, we understand no phe nomenon until we know the laws to which it is sub ject. To study yourself, therefore, means that you must think of yourself impersonally and endeavor to find out what you are capable of doing and what motives impel you to action. Many a man knows less about himself than he does about his horse or his dog. A spirited horse cannot be safely driven by a man who does not know him. Most of us study our friends more than we do ourselves and could pass a better examination on their qualities than we could on our own. A man is too prone to think that he can accept himself as a highly finished product and that this world would be a paradise if only other peo ple were better.
You are a very complicated machine, and you are the only person that can drive it, or in any way im prove it. Your friends may know a great deal about your powers, mental and physical, and about your de ficiencies and efficiencies, but they cannot make you over. If you want your machine to be in the best possible running order and to do the work for which it is best fitted, you must know it more thoroly than you do your horse and dog. Once knowing your powers and their limitations, you will then be able to set for yourself a goal which you can reach.
3. Be thyself.—Ambitious young writers are al ways advised against imitating the style of their fav orite author, and they usually do not follow the ad vice. They want to write like Stevenson, like Dickens, like Thackeray, like George Eliot, or like Thomas Carlyle, and they cannot understand why they should not strive to write like their mddel or ideal ; yet no writer ever achieved distinction who did not put himself into his books and create his own style.
In all our human relations a certain degree of hu mility of the right kind is a,n asset of value. Even when a man knows that lie is unfit for a high position that is offered him by chance or thru friendship, his pride or love of approbation may impel him to accept the coveted honor or position. If so, he lacks that true and honorable humility which makes a man frankly decline positions of honor for which lie knows himself to be unfitted, whether his unfitness be due to temperamental weaknesses or to his lack of expe rience and knowledge. True humility perrnits a man
to strive only for that for which be is prepared. The humility of Uriah Heep was an odious counterfeit of the real quality.
No man lacks humility because he believes he is destined to do things worth while in this world. That is exactly what every young man should believe about himself. But if he wants his faith in himself to be vindicated by events he must be content to be him self and to develop to the utmost those faculties in which he specially excels. If he seeks to make him self like somebody else, like some man whom be hap pens to know and admire, or whose position in the world he regards with envy, he will fail to make the most of his own powers and will be a second-rater. A man who has studied himself knows best what he can do and will achieve most if his constant aim is self-development and self-expression. That is true whether he writes poetry, builds railroads, or sells newspapers.
I do not mean by the foregoing that a man can learn. nothing from a study of the achievements and characters of other men. That would be manifestly untrue. The great generals of today have learned much from their studies of the campaigns of Napoleon and Julius CTsar. Every young American today can find encouragement and positive help in the auto biography of Benjamin Franklin and in the lives of such men as Andrew Carnegie, James J. Hill and Philip D. Armour. But there will never be a sec ond Napoleon or a second James J. Hill. When the name of a great general does suggest to us that of Napoleon, we find him to be, not an imitator of Na poleon, but a man who has learned from a study of Napoleon's campaigns some of the fundamental prin ciples in accordance with which a battle should be fought. Our next great railroad builder may make us recall the work of James J. Hill, but that next builder will not be an imitator of Hill or of any other man.
"But," some reader will say, "I have not the brains, nor the opportunity, nor the necessary capital. I am just an ordinary man and must be content with ordinary success." No man has a right to talk or feel that way. There is in every man the power to do something worth while. In. each man's breast, so to speak, there is a hidden diamond. It is his busi ness to find it, for nobody else can. That diamond is his best self, the self that he is capable of being. If he finally becomes that best self he will successfully do the work he aspires to do and receive a satisfactory reward.