Success but Seldom Accidental : Part 1

How to Get on in the World: A Ladder to Practical Success
by Major A.R. Calhoon

(Page 17 of 28)

A man may leap into sudden fortune at a bound, and without effort or foresight, but it is doubtful if any great permanent success ever was the outcome of blind chance.

The old adage, "Trust to luck," like many other adages that time has kept in unmerited circulation, is a bad one. The man who trusts to luck for his clothing is apt to wear rags, and he who depends on it for food is sure to go hungry.

We hear a great deal about the wonderful things that have been done by chance, but we seldom take the time to examine them. We read that sir Isaac Newton, sitting in his garden one day, "Chanced to see an apple fall to the ground," and this set him to thinking, and he discovered the laws of gravitation. New, ever since the first apple fell from the first tree in Eden, men have been watching that very commonplace occurrence. We might extend the field so as to embrace oranges, coconuts and all the fruits and nuts which, in every land and through all the long centuries of man's existence, have been falling to the ground - not by chance, however, yet they set no men to thinking, simply because not one of the millions of men who "chanced" to see the incident, "chanced" to have the reasoning powers of the great English scientist. If the apple, instead of falling to the ground, had shot up, without visible cause, to the sky, then the dullest observer would have wondered, even if he did not attempt to find an explanation. The falling of the apple in Newton's garden was not a chance, but an ordinary incident, which was made much of in the mind of an extraordinary man.

Watt "chanced" to see the lid of the kettle in his mother's kitchen lifted by the steam within, and this incident we are asked to believe was the origin of the engine invented by that great man. If no one else had ever witnessed a like phenomenon, then we might give some consideration to the element of chance. It was in the brain of Watt, and not in the lifting of the kettle lid, that the steam engine was born. There are no accidents in the progress of science.

In the same way, we are asked to believe that Galileo discovered the telescope, Whitney the cotton gin, and Howe the sewing machine.

But there have been some curious cases of chance fortune. A man out hunting in California made a misstep and was plunged into a deep gulch in the Sierra Nevada. His gun was broken and he was sorely bruised, but he was more that repaid for the accident by the discovery of a rich gold mine at the bottom.

What would you think of the man, who, because of this, should shoulder a gun and go into the mountains, hoping to be precipitated into a gulch full of gold. If he started out for this purpose, of course, the element of chance would be eliminated, and yet that man would show just as much good sense as do the thousands who go through life - trusting to luck, and hoping for a miracle that never comes.

Success may be unforeseen, but it is a rare thing for it to come to the man who has not been preparing for it.

Lord Bacon well says: "Neither the naked hand nor the understanding, left to itself, can do much; the work is accomplished by instruments and helps, of which the need is not less for the understanding than the hand."

The Romans had a saying which is as true today as when first uttered: "Opportunity has hair in front, behind she is bald; if you seize her by the forelock, you may hold her, but if suffered to escape, not Jupiter himself can catch her again."

Accident does very little toward the production of any great result in life. Though sometimes what is called "a happy hit" may be made by a bold venture, the common highway of steady industry and application is the only safe road to travel. It is said of the landscape painter, Wilson, that when he had nearly finished a picture in a tame, correct manner, he would step back from it, his pencil fixed at the end of a long stick, and after gazing earnestly on the work, he would suddenly walk up and by a few bold touches give a brilliant finish to the painting. But it will not do for everyone who would produce an effect, to throw his brush at the canvas in the hope of producing a picture. The capability of putting in these last vital touches is acquired only by the labor of a life; and the probability is, that the artist who has not carefully trained himself beforehand, in attempting to produce a brilliant effect at a dash, will only produce a blotch.

Sedulous attention and painstaking industry always mark the true worker. The greatest men are not those who "despise the day of small things," but those who improve them the most carefully. Michael Angelo was one day explaining to a visitor at his studio what he had been doing to a statue since a previous visit. "I have retouched this part - polished that - softened this feature - brought out that muscle - given some expression to this lip, and more energy to that limb." "But these are trifles," remarked the visitor. "It may be so," replied the sculptor, "but recollect that trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle." So it was said of Nicolas Poussin, the painter, that the rule of his conduct was, that "whatever was worth doing at all was worth doing well;" and when asked, late in life, by his friend Vigneul de Marville, by what means he had gained so high a reputation among the painters of Italy, Poussin emphatically answered, "Because I have neglected nothing."

Although there are discoveries which are said to have been made by accident, if carefully inquired into it will be found that there has really been very little that was accidental about them. For the most part, these so-called accidents, have only been opportunities, carefully improved by genius. The brilliantly colored soap-bubbles blown through a common tobacco-pipe - though "trifles light as air" in most eyes - suggested to Dr. Young his beautiful theory of "interferences," and led to his discovery relating to the diffraction of light. Although great men are popularly supposed only to deal with great things, men such as Newton and Young were ready to detect the significance of the most familiar and simple facts; their greatness consisting mainly in their wise interpretation of them.

Published by the Christian Herald, Louis Klopsch, Proprietor, Bible House, New York.
Copyright 1895 by Louis Klopsch.