Section 1

CORNELL
UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY
Date Due
Dl
impa ir J***^
Wt9 iy/t)Ttnr —
fXB'fi
1 3»\«t 19 ■»
ITJERU
RY LO
:*• Q
PRINTED IN
Of
NO. 23233
BF639 .A42 ne " Un ' VerSi ' y Library As a man thinketh.
3 1924 029 124 308
The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library.
There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text.
http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 9240291 24308
* AS A MAN THINKETH
BY JAMES ALLEN
AUTHOR OF "FROM PASSION TO PEACE"
AUTHORIZED EDITION
NEW YORK THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY
A
PRINTED IN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Qs\rVl~~
COKTCHTS
Thought and Character 7
Effect of Thought on Circumstances . .11
Effect of Thought on Health and the
Body 26
Thought and Purpose 30
The Thought-Factor in Achievement . . 34
Visions and Ideals 39
Serenity 45
FOT(eWO%T>
This little volume (the result of meditation and experience) is not intended as an exhaustive treatise on the much-written-upon subject of the power of thought. It is suggestive rather than explanatory, its object being to stimulate men and women to the discovery and percep- tion of the truth that —
"They themselves are makers of themselves"
by virtue of the thoughts which they choose and encourage; that mind is the master-weaver, both of the inner garment of character and the outer garment of circumstance, and that, as they may have hitherto woven in ignorance and pain they may now weave in enlightenment and happiness.
James Allen Broad Var\ Avenue, Ilfracombe, England.
As a Man Thinketh
=a®»
IHOUQHi: tAHT> CHA%ACT€%
The aphorism, "As a man thinketh in his heart so is he," not only embraces the whole of a man's being, but is so comprehensive as to reach out to every condition and circumstance o£ his life. A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts.
As the plant springs from, and could not be without, the seed, so every act of a man springs from the hidden seeds of thought, and could not have appeared without them. This applies equally to those acts called "spontaneous" and "unpremeditated" as to those which are delib- erately executed.
Act is the blossom of thought, and joy and suffering are its fruits; thus does a man gar- ner in the sweet and bitter fruitage of his own husbandry.
[/]
As a Man Thinketh
THOUQHi: ^AHT> CH4-T(ACT£X
The aphorism, "As a man thinketh in his heart so is he," not only embraces the whole of a man's being, but is so comprehensive as to reach out to every condition and circumstance of his life. A man is literally what he thinks, -his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts.
As the plant springs from, and could not be without, the seed, so every act of a man springs from the hidden seeds of' thought, and could not have appeared without them. This applies equally to those acts called "spontaneous" and "unpremeditated" as to those which are delib- erately executed.
Act is the blossom of thought, and joy and suffering are its fruits; thus does a man gar- ner in the sweet and bitter fruitage of his own husbandry.
[7]
^4S
"Thought in the mind hath made us. What we are By thought was wrought and built. If a man's
mind Hath evil thoughts, pain comes on him as comes The wheel the ox behind. . . .
. . If one endure In purity of thought, joy follows him As his own shadow — sure."
Man is a growth by law, and noc a creation by artifice, and cause and effect is as absolute and undeviating in the hidden realm o£ thought as in the world of visible and material things. A noble and Godlike character is not a thing of favour or chance, but is the natural result of con- tinued effort in right thinking, the effect of long- cherished association with Godlike thoughts. An ignoble and bestial character, by the same process, is the result of the continued harbour- ing of grovelling thoughts.
Man is made or unmade by himself; in the armoury of thought he forges the weapons by which he destroys himself; he also fashions the tools with which he builds for himself heavenly mansions of joy and strength and peace. By the right choice and true application of thought, man ascends to the Divine Perfection; by the abuse and wrong application of thought, he de-

scends below the level of the beast. Between these two extremes are all the grades of char- acter, and man is their maker and master.
Of all the beautiful truths pertaining to the soul which have been restored and brought to light in this age, none is more gladdening or fruitful of divine promise and confidence than this — that man is the master of thought, the moulder of character, and the maker and shaper of condition, environment, and destiny.
As a being of Power, Intelligence, and Love, and the lord of his own thoughts, man holds the key to every situation, and contains within himself that transforming and regenerative agency by which he may make himself what he wills.
Man is always the master, even in his weak- est and most abandoned state; but in his weakness and degradation he is the foolish mas- ter who misgoverns his "household." When he begins to reflect upon his condition, and to search diligently for the Law upon which his being is established, he then becomes the wise master, directing his energies with intelligence, and fashioning his thoughts to fruitful issues. Such is the conscious master, and man can only •■hus become by discovering within himself the
[9]

laws o£ thought; which discover is totally a matter of application, self-analysis, and expe- rience.
Only by much searching and mining are gold and diamonds obtained, and man can find every truth connected with his being if he will dig deep into_ the mine of his soul; and that he is the maker of his character, the moulder of his life, and the builder of his destiny, he may unerr- ingly prove, if he will watch, control, and alter his thoughts, tracing their effects upon himself, upon jarhers, and upon his life and circum- stances, linking cause and effect by patient prac- tice" and investigation, and utilizing his every experience, even to the most trivial, every-day occurrence, as a means of obtaining that knowl- edge of himself which is Understanding, Wis- dom, Power. In this direction, as in no other, is the law absolute that "He that seeketh find- est; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened"; for only by patience, practice, and ceaseless importunity can a man enter the Door of the Temple of Knowledge.
['«]
£FF£CT OF THOU'gHf OH C^CUMSTAHCeS
A man's mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether cukiyated. or ne- glected, it must, and will, bring forth. If no useful seeds are put into it, then an abundance of useless weed-seeds will fall therein, and will continue to produce their kind.
Just as a gardener cultivates his plot, keeping it free from weeds, and growing the flowers and fruits which he requires, so may a man tend the garden of his mind, weeding out all the wrong, useless, and Impure thoughts, and cultivating toward perfection the flowers and fruits of right, useful, and pure thoughts. By pursuing this proc- ess, a man sooner or later, discovers that he is the master-gardener of his soul, the director of his life. He also reveals, within himself, the laws of thought, and understands, with ever-increas- ing accuracy, how the thought-forces and mind- elements operate in the shaping of his character, circumstances, and destiny.
[»]

Thought and character are one, and as char- acter can only manifest and discover itself through environment and circumstance, the outer conditions of a person's life will always be found to be harmoniously related to his inner state. This does not mean that a man's circum- stances at any given time are an indication of his entire character, but that those circumstances are so intimately connected with some vital thought- element within himself that, for the time being, they are indispensable to his development.
Every man is where he is by the law of his being; the thoughts which he has built into his character have brought him there, and in the ar- rangement of his life there is no element of chance, but all is the result of a law which can- not err. This is just as true of those who feel "out of harmony" with their surroundings as of those who are contented with them.
As a progressive and evolving being, man is where he is that he may learn that he may grow; and as he learns the spiritual lesson which any circumstance contains for him, it passes away and gives place to other circumstances.
Man is buffeted by circumstances so long as he believes himself to be the creature of outside conditions, but when he realizes that he is a
[»]

creative power, and that he may command the hidden soil and seeds o£ his being out of which circumstances grow, he then becomes the right- ful master of himself.
That circumstances grow out of thought every man knows who has for any length of time practised self-control jmd self-purification, for he will have noticed that the alteration in his cir- cumstances has been in exact ratio with his al- tered mental condition. So true is this that when a man earnesdy applies himself to remedy the defects in his character, and makes swift and marked progress, he passes rapidly through a succession of vicissitudes.
The soul_attracts that which it secretly har- bours; that which it_lpv.es* and also that which it fears; it reaches the height of its cherished as- pirations; it falls to the level of its unchastened desires, — and circumstances are the means by which the soul receives its own.
Every thought-seed sown or allowed to fall into the mind, and to take root there, produces its own, blossoming sooner or later into act, and bearing its own fruitage of opportunity and cir- cumstance. Good thoughts bear good fruit, bad thoughts bad fruit.
The outer world of circumstance shapes itself
['3]

to the inner world of thought, and both pleas- ant and unpleasant external conditions are fac- tors which make for the ultimate good of the individual. As the reaper of his own harvest, man learns both by suffering and bliss.
Following the inmost desires, aspirations, thoughts, by which he allows himself to be dominated (pursuing the will-o'-the-wisps of impure imaginings or steadfastly walking the highway of strong and high endeavour), a man at last arrives at their fruition and fulfilment in the outer conditions of his life. The laws of growth and adjustment everywhere obtain.
A man does not come to the almshouse or the jail by the tyranny of fate or circumstance, but by the pathway of grovelling thoughts and base desires. Nor does a pure-minded man fall sud- denly into crime by stress of any mere external force; the criminal thought had long been se- credy fostered in the heart, and the hour of opportunity revealed its gathered power. Cir- cumstance does not make the man; it reveals him to himself. No such conditions can exist as descending into vice and its attendant sufferings apart from vicious inclinations, or ascending into virtue and its pure happiness without the
cAS tA JAAH. THIKKeTH
continued cultivation of virtuous aspirations; and man, therefore, as the lord and master of thought, is the maker of himself, the shaper and author of, environment. Even at birth the soul comes to its own, and through every step of its earthly pilgrimage it attracts those com- binations of conditions which reveal itself, which are the reflections of its own purity and impurity, its strength and weakness.
Men do not attract that which they, want, but that which they are. Their whims, fancies, and ambitions are thwarted at every step, but their inmost thoughts and desires are fed with their own food, be it foul or clean. The "divin- ity that shapes our ends"' is in ourselves; it is our very self. Man is manacled only by him- self: thought and action are the jailers of Fate — they imprison, being base; they are also the angels of Freedom — they liberate, being noble. Not what he wishes and prays for does a man get, but what he justly earns. His wishes and prayers are only gratified and answered when they harmonize with his thoughts and actions.
In the light of this truth, what, then, is the meaning of "fighting against circumstances"? It means that a man is continually revolting
[>5]
^LS
against an effect without, while all the time he is nourishing and preserving its cause in his heart. That cause may take the form of a con- scious vice or an unconscious weakness; but whatever it is, it stubbornly retards the efforts of its possessor, and thus calls aloud for remedy.
Men are anxious to improve their circum- stances, but are unwilling to improve them- selves; they therefore remain bound. The man who does not shrink from self-crucifixion can never fail to accomplish the object upon which his heart is set. This is as true of earthly as of heavenly things. Even the man whose sole ob- ject is to acquire wealth must be prepared to make great personal sacrifices before he can ac- complish his object; and how much more so he who would realize a strong and well-poised life?
Here is a man who is wretchedly poor. He is extremely anxious that his surroundings and home comforts should be improved, yet all the time he shirks his work, and considers he is jus- tified in trying to deceive his employer on the ground of the insufficiency of his wages. Such a man does not understand the simplest rudi- ments of those principles which are the basis of true prosperity, and is not only totally unfitted to rise out of his wretchedness, but is actually
[,6]
*AS *A JidAK THIKKCTH
attracting to himself a still deeper wretchedness by dwelling in, and acting out, indolent, de- ceptive, and unmanly thoughts.
Here is a rich man who is the victim of a painful and persistent disease as the result of gluttony. He is willing to give large sums of money to get rid of it, but he will not sacrifice his gluttonous desires. He wants to gratify his taste for rich and unnatural viands and have his health as well. Such a man is totally unfit to have health, because he has not yet learned the first principles of a healthy life.
Here is an employer of labour who adopts crooked measures to avoid paying the regulation wage, and, in the hope of making larger profits, reduces the wages of his work-people. Such a man is altogether unfitted for prosperity, and when he finds himself bankrupt, both as re- gards reputation and riches, he blames circum- stances, npt knowing that he is the sole author of his condition.
I have introduced these three cases merely as illustrative of the truth that man is the causer (though nearly always unconsciously) of his cir- cumstances, and that, whilst aiming at a good end, he is continually frustrating its accomplish- ment by encouraging thoughts and desires
['7l

which cannot possibly harmonize with that end. Such cases could be multiplied and' varied al- most indefinitely, but this is not necessary, as the reader can, if he so resolves, trace the action of the laws of thought in his own mind and life, and until this is done, mere external facts can- not serve as a ground of reasoning.
Circumstances, however, are so complicated, thought is so deeply rooted, and the conditions of happiness vary so vastly with individuals, that a man's entire soul-condition (although it may be known to himself) cannot be judged by another from the external aspect of his life alone. A man may be honest in certain direc- tions, yet suffer privations; a man may be dis- honest in certain directions, yet acquire wealth; but the conclusion usually formed that the one man fails because of his particular honesty, and that the other prospers because of his particular dishonesty , is the result of a superficial judg- ment, which assumes that the dishonest man is almost totally corrupt, and the honest man al- most entirely virtuous. In the light of a deeper knowledge and wider experience, such judg- ment is found to be erroneous. The dishonest man may have some admirable virtues which

the other does not possess; and the honest man obnoxious vices which are absent in the other. The honest man reaps the good results o£ his honest thoughts and acts; he also brings upon himself the sufferings which his vices produce. The dishonest man likewise garners his own suffering and happiness.
It is pleasing to human vanity to believe that one suffers because of one's virtue; but not until a man has extirpated every sickly, bitter, and impure thought Eom liis mind, and washed every sinful stain from his soul, can he be in a position to know and declare that his sufferings are the result of his good, and not of his bad qualities; and on the way to, yet long before he has reached, that supreme perfection, he will have found, working in his mind and life, the Great Law which is absolutely just, and which cannot, therefore, give good for evil, evil for good. Possessed of such knowledge, he will then know, looking back upon his past ignor- ance and blindness, that his life is, and always was, jusdy ordered, and that all his past expe- riences, good and bad, were the equitable out- working of his evolving, yet unevolved self.