The Golden Rule

It is amazing to the more advanced student of accurate thought, how many people there are who are honest when it is profitable to them, but find myriads of facts (?) to justify themselves in following a dishonest course when that course seems to be more profitable or advantageous. No doubt you know people who are like that. The accurate thinker adopts a standard by which he guides himself, and he follows that standard at all times, whether it works always to his immediate advantage, or carries him, now and then, through the fields of disadvantage (as it undoubtedly will).

The accurate thinker deals with facts, regardless of how they affect his own interests, for he knows that ultimately this policy will bring him out on top, in full possession of the object of his definite chief aim in life.

He understands the soundness of the philosophy that the old philosopher, Croesus, had in mind when he said: There is a wheel on which the affairs of men revolve, and its mechanism is such that it prevents any man from being always fortunate. The accurate thinker has but one standard by which he conducts himself, in his intercourse with his fellow men, and that standard is observed by him as faithfully when it brings him temporary disadvantage as it is when it brings him outstanding advantage; for, being an accurate thinker, he knows that, by the law of averages, he will more than regain at some future time that which he loses by applying his standard to his own temporary detriment.

You might as well begin to prepare yourself to understand that it requires the staunchest and most unshakable character to become an accurate thinker, for you can see that this is where the reasoning of this lesson is leading. There is a certain amount of temporary penalty attached to accurate thinking; there is no denying this fact; but, while this is true, it is also true that the compensating reward, in the aggregate, is so overwhelmingly greater that you will gladly pay this penalty.

In searching for facts it is often necessary to gather them through the sole source of knowledge and experience of others.