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    The Mastery of Destiny
    The Mastery of Destiny
    The Mastery of Destiny
    Ebook63 pages1 hour

    The Mastery of Destiny

    By James Allen

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    About this ebook

    The Mastery of Destiny, written in 1909 by James Allen, is one of the best self-help books in History.

    Contents :

    Deeds, Character, and Destiny
    The Science of Self-Control
    Cause and Effect in Human Conduct
    Training of the Will
    Thoroughness
    Mind-Building and Life-Building
    Cultivation of Concentration
    Practice of Meditation
    The Power of Purpose
    The Joy of Accomplishment
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherFV Éditions
    Release dateFeb 10, 2017
    ISBN9791029903533
    Author

    James Allen

    Born in 1864 in England, James Allen took his first job at fifteen to support his family. Allen worked as a factory knitter and later a private secretary before writing his first book, From Poverty to Power, in 1901. In 1903 he completed his best-known work: As a Man Thinketh. Allen wrote nineteen books, including his spiritual journal, The Light of Reason, before he died at age forty-seven in 1912. While not widely known during his lifetime, Allen later came to be seen as a pioneer of contemporary inspirational literature.

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      Book preview

      The Mastery of Destiny - James Allen

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      Copyright

      Copyright © 2017 / FV Éditions

      Graphic Element on cover : Pixabay.com

      ISBN 979-10-299-0353-3

      All Rights Reserved

      The Mastery of Destiny

      James Allen

      — 1909 —

      « Mind is the Master power that moulds and makes,

      And Man is Mind, and evermore he takes

      The tool of Thought, and, shaping what he wills,

      Brings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills:—

      He thinks in secret, and it comes to pass:

      Environment is but his looking-glass »¹

      Deeds, Character, and Destiny

      THERE is, and always has been, a widespread belief in Fate, or Destiny, that is, in an eternal and inscrutable Power which apportions definite ends to both individuals and nations. This belief has arisen from long observation of the facts of life.

      Men are conscious that there are certain occurrences which they cannot control, and are powerless to avert. Birth and death, for instance, are inevitable, and many of the incidents of life appear equally inevitable.

      Men strain every nerve for the attainment of certain ends, and gradually they become conscious of a Power which seems to be not of themselves, which frustrates their puny efforts, and laughs, as it were, at their fruitless striving and struggle.

      As men advance in life, they learn to submit, more or less, to this overruling Power which they do not understand, perceiving only its effects in themselves and the world around them, and they call it by various names, such as God, Providence, Fate, Destiny, etc.

      Men of contemplation, such as poets and philosophers, step aside, as it were, to watch the movements of this mysterious Power as it seems to elevate its favorites on the one hand, and strike down its victims on the other, without reference to merit or demerit.

      The greatest poets, especially the dramatic poets, represent this Power in their works, as they have observed it in Nature. The Greek and Roman dramatists usually depict their heroes as having foreknowledge of their fate, and taking means to escape it; but by so doing they blindly involve themselves in a series of consequences which bring about the doom which they are trying to avert. Shakespeare’s characters, on the other hand, are represented, as in Nature, with no foreknowledge (except in the form of presentiment) of their particular destiny. Thus, according to the poets, whether the man knows his fate or not, he cannot avert it, and every conscious or unconscious act of his is a step towards it.

      Omar Khayyam’s Moving Finger is a vivid expression of this idea of Fate:

      "The Moving Finger writes, and having writ,

      Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit

      Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,

      Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it."

      Thus, men in all nations and times have experienced in their lives the action of this invincible Power or Law, and in our nation today this experience has been crystallized in the terse proverb, Man proposes, God disposes.

      But, contradictory as it may appear, there is an equally widespread belief in man’s responsibility as a free agent.

      All moral teaching is an affirmation of man’s freedom to choose his course and mold his destiny: and man’s patient and untiring efforts in achieving his ends are declarations of consciousness of freedom and power.

      This dual experience of fate on the one hand, and freedom on the other, has given rise to the interminable controversy between the believers in Fatalism and the upholders of free will —a controversy which was recently revived under the term "Determinism versus Freewill."

      Between apparently conflicting extremes there is always a middle way of balance, justice, or compensation which, while it includes both extremes, cannot be said to be either one or the other, and which brings both into harmony; and this middle way is the point of contact between two extremes.

      Truth cannot be a partisan, but, by its nature, is the Reconciler of extremes; and so, in the matter which we are considering, there is a golden mean which brings Fate and Free will into close relationship, wherein, indeed, it is seen that these two indisputable facts in human life, for such they are, are but two aspects of one central law, one unifying and all-embracing principle, namely, the law of causation in its moral aspect.

      Moral causation necessitates both Fate and Free will, both individual responsibility and individual predestination, for the law of causes must also be the law of effects, and cause and effect

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