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 workpeople.  Such a man is altogether unfitted for prosperity, and when he finds himself bankrupt, both as regards reputation and riches, he blames circumstances, not 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 is unconsciously) of his circumstances, and that, whilst aiming at a good end, he is continually frustrating its accomplishment by encouraging thoughts and desires which cannot possibly harmonize with that end.  Such cases could be multiplied and varied almost 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 cannot 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 directions, yet suffer privations; a man may be dishonest 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 judgment, which assumes that the dishonest man is almost totally corrupt, and the honest man almost entirely virtuous.  In the light of a deeper knowledge and wider experience such judgment 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 of 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.