Overview

Thoroughly worldly people never understand even the world; they rely altogether on a few cynicalmaxims which are not true. Once I remember walking with a prosperous publisher, who made aremark which I had often heard before; it is, indeed, almost a motto of the modern world. Yet I hadheard it once too often, and I saw suddenly that there was nothing in it. The publisher said ofsomebody, That man will get on; he believes in himself. And I remember that as I lifted my headto listen, my eye caught an omnibus on which was written Hanwell. I said to him, Shall I tell youwhere the men are who believe most in themselves? For I can tell you. I know of men who believein themselves more colossally than Napoleon or Caesar. I know where flames the fixed star ofcertainty and success. I can guide you to the thrones of the Super-men. The men who really believein themselves are all in lunatic asylums. He said mildly that there were a good many men after allwho believed in themselves and who were not in lunatic asylums. Yes, there are, I retorted, andyou of all men ought to know them. That drunken poet from whom you would not take a drearytragedy, he believed in himself. That elderly minister with an epic from whom you were hiding in aback room, he believed in himself. If you consulted your business experience instead of your uglyindividualistic philosophy, you would know that believing in himself is one of the commonest signsof a rotter. Actors who can't act believe in themselves; and debtors who won't pay. It would bemuch truer to say that a man will certainly fail, because he believes in himself. Complete selfconfidence is not merely a sin; complete self-confidence is a weakness. Believing utterly in one's selfis a hysterical and superstitious belief like believing in Joanna Southcote: the man who has it has`Hanwell' written on his face as plain as it is written on that omnibus. And to all this my friend thepublisher made this very deep and effective reply, Well, if a man is not to believe in himself, in whatis he to believe? After a long pause I replied, I will go home and write a book in answer to thatquestion. This is the book that I have written in answer to it.

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