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CHAPTER VIII

THE PURPOSE OF LIFE

"Nothing succeeds like success."

Perhaps the true meaning of this old French proverb is that once we
have a measure of success we are the more likely to achieve still more
victories. The discovery that our strength, perseverance and
determination have been capable of bending circumstances to our will
and bringing to fulfillment the end for which we have wished and
worked, gives us renewed courage and inspiration for the undertaking
of new and larger duties.

We learn to do by doing. Achievement leads to still greater
achievement. Orison Swett Marden, one of the world's wisest of
observers and deepest of philosophers, says, "The world makes way for
the determined man." And so it does for the determined woman, or the
determined girl or boy.

Regarding this thing called "Success," too many of us are apt to think
that it means some one, isolated, remarkable achievement, that comes
at the end of a long period of striving in some particular field of
endeavor. This is not entirely true. Every great success is made of
very many lesser successes that have preceded it. Just as the cap-stone
at the top of the tallest building is held in its lofty position
by every stone beneath it even down to the ones deep in the earth at
the very foundation of the structure, which are indeed perhaps the
most important of all.

So the thing which the world is pleased to call "Success" is built up
by a thousand little successes on which it must finally rest. The
building of a life success begins with the earliest dawn of being and
must be carried on with as much care as a mason would give to the
laying of the walls of a structure designed to stand for years. The
mason knows that if he does not lay his foundations deep and firm,
that if the walls are not kept straight and plumb, that if he puts
faulty bricks or stones in the walls, the building will not be a
success. The work at every stage must be a success or the completed
structure must be a failure.

So it is in life. If our moments are not successful, the hours can
never be so, and the days and years can but enlarge upon and emphasize
their failure. "Every day is a fresh beginning, every morn is a world
made new," says Susan Coolidge. There is a chance for attaining
success every hour and day of our lives.

Success is not alone for the great men of the world who find new
continents, explore t