That a thing is successful merely means that it is; a
millionaire is successful in being a millionaire and a donkey in being a
donkey. Any live man has succeeded in living; any dead man may have
succeeded in committing suicide. But, passing over the bad logic and bad
philosophy in the phrase, we may take it, as these writers do, in the
ordinary sense of success in obtaining money or worldly position. These
writers profess to tell the ordinary man how he may succeed in his trade
or speculation--how, if he is a builder, he may succeed as a builder;
how, if he is a stockbroker, he may succeed as a stockbroker. They
profess to show him how, if he is a grocer, he may become a sporting
yachtsman; how, if he is a tenth-rate journalist, he may become a peer;
and how, if he is a German Jew, he may become an Anglo-Saxon. This is a
definite and business-like proposal, and I really think that the people
who buy these books (if any people do buy them) have a moral, if not a
legal, right to ask for their money back. Nobody would dare to publish
a book about electricity which literally told one nothing about
electricity; no one would dare to publish an article on botany which
showed that the writer did not know which end of a plant grew in the
earth.
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