This is the second of a series of excerpts from Napoleon Hill’s Golden Rules.
THE LAW OF RETALIATION
by Napoleon Hill (March 1919)
This lesson brings us to a discussion of one of the most important major principles of psychology, the law of retaliation, as follows:
The human mind resembles mother earth in that it will reproduce, in kind, that which is planted in it through the five physical senses. The preponderance of tendency upon the part of the mind is to ‘‘retaliate in kind,’’ reciprocating all acts of kindness and resenting all acts of injustice and unkindness. Whether acting through the principle of suggestion or auto-suggestion, the mind directs muscular action that harmonizes with the sensory impressions it receives; therefore, if you would have me ‘‘retaliate in kind,’’ you can do so by placing in my mind the sensory impressions or suggestions out of which you wish me to create the necessary appropriate muscular action. Injure or displease me, and like a flash, my mind will direct appropriate muscular action, ‘‘retaliating in kind.’’
In studying the law of retaliation, we are carried, to an extent, into what we might call the field of unknown mental phenomena—the field of physics. The phenomena discovered in this great field have not been reduced to a science, but again, let us bear in mind the fact that this shall not hinder us from making practical use of certain principles which we have discovered in this field, even though we cannot trace these principles back to first cause. One of these principles is that which we have stated above as our fourth general principle of psychology, namely, ‘‘like attracts like.’’
No scientist has ever satisfactorily explained this principle, but the fact still remains that it is a known principle; therefore, just as we make intelligent use of electricity without knowing what it is, let us also make intelligent use of the principles of retaliation.
It is an encouraging sign to see that modern writers are giving their attention more and more to the study of the law of retaliation. Some of them call it one thing, and some call it another, but all of them seem to agree on the chief fundamental of the principle as follows: ‘‘Like attracts like!’’
The latest writer to turn her attention to this subject is Mrs. Woodrow Wilson. Her article follows:
‘‘There seems to be a mental law to the effect that whatever generally occupies the mind is almost certain to take form in the objective. Each of us proves that in his own experience dozens of times. ‘‘For instance, you may come across a word you are not familiar with. To the best of your knowledge, you have never heard it nor seen it before, and yet after your discovery of it, you will encounter it again and again.
‘‘This fact has recently come to me in an odd sort of a way. I have been doing a great deal of reading and research on a subject which has interested me and, yet, which would certainly never be classed as live news matter. I do not remember ever having seen it mentioned in any current publication, but since I have been familiarizing myself with it, I have clipped a large number of articles treating of one phase or another of it from various magazines and newspapers.
‘‘You can easily follow the workings of this law, whatever it is, down to the smallest details.
‘‘A friend came to see me a day or two ago and stood transfixed upon the threshold of my sitting room.
‘‘‘Flowers!’ she exclaimed. ‘Roses?’
‘‘There was such horror in her tones that I thought she was reproving me for buying anything but thrift stamps. She explained, however, that she was suffering from rose cold, which afflicts those who are subject to it at the same time each year, just as hay fever does.
‘‘‘It comes in June,’ she said, ‘when the roses are blooming, and even a whiff of their fragrance will set me sneezing for twenty minutes.’ ‘‘‘It’s rather a rare disease, isn’t it?’ I asked after I had whisked my flowers out of sight. ‘‘‘Not at all,’ she replied. ‘Very common. Every other person I meet has it.’
“Now, I meet just as many people as she does during the day, perhaps more, and yet with the exception of herself, I know no one who suffers from this malady. “Again, why is it that, if we find our thoughts turning persistently to some particular person, we are very apt to hear from him or meet him within a short time? We may not have given him a thought for months or years, and yet ‘behold his shadow on the floor.’
“I know there are various explanations for these phenomena, but none of them is entirely satisfactory. The effect, however, is as if we, unconsciously to ourselves, sent out wireless messages into the universe and received the responses. Like seeks like. “May not this account for the fact that people with grievances are always well supplied with material for fresh ones, that the mournful people have plenty to mourn about, that the most dreadful of pests, the man or woman with a chip on their shoulder, invariably arouses a burning desire in the breast of the meek and innocent bystander to knock it off?
“We all know people who are just naturally lucky. “Everything seems to come their way. They don’t have to climb trees and laboriously pick the fruit off the branches. They merely stretch out a hand, and the plums fall into it. “I heard a woman complaining of the inequalities of fate recently and comparing her lot with that of an acquaintance.
“‘Just look at her,’ she said. ‘Here I have worked and worried and schemed and contrived for years. Anything that I get comes by the hardest kind of effort and usually after a thousand disappointments. But she, while not half so clever as I, nor so diligent a worker, is yet a sort of a magnet attracting to herself the good things which fly past me. There’s no such thing as justice.’ “But she affirmed the justice of the law even while she denied it. I know the lucky woman as well as I knew the unlucky one. The difference between the two was that one was always expecting the worst and preparing for it, and the other looked forward to agreeable and pleasant things. She took them as a matter of course and made them welcome. It was always the top o’ the morning to her.
“There are days which are well known to all of us when everything goes wrong. There is certainly no malign power that is trying to thwart us and make us miserable, although it is often easier to believe so than to understand why one disturbing circumstance should follow another from early morn to dewy.”
One does not have to be a master of psychology to accept the truth of Mrs. Woodrow Wilson’s article—it is a truth which we have all experienced, yet it is a truth to which most of us have attached little or no significance.
It is in no spirit of irreverence that I place prayer, that mighty worker of miracles, in the great field of unknown phenomena. I am a firm believer in prayer! It has worked wonders for me, yet I know nothing whatsoever as to the first cause to which we appeal through prayer. I know this, however: that through consistent, persistent effort, prayer will break down all obstacles and force the seemingly unfathomable problems to give up their secrets!
You know what retaliate means!
In the sense that we are using it here, it means to ‘‘return like for like,’’ and not merely to avenge or to seek revenge, as is commonly meant by the use of this word.
If I do you an injury, you retaliate at first opportunity. If I say unjust things about you, you will retaliate in kind, even in greater measure! On the other hand, if I do you a favor, you will reciprocate even in greater measure if possible.
Thus, we are following the impulse of our nature, through the ‘‘law of retaliation’’!
Through the proper use of this law, I can get you to do whatever I wish you to do. If I wish you to dislike me and to lend your influence toward damaging me, I can accomplish this result by inflicting upon you the sort of treatment that I want you to inflict upon me through retaliation.
The first, and probably the most important, step to be taken in mastering this law is to cultivate complete self-control. You must learn to take all sorts of punishment and abuse without retaliating in kind. This self-control is a part of the price you must pay for mastery of the law of retaliation.
When an angry person starts in to vilify and abuse you, justly or unjustly, just remember that if you retaliate in a like manner, you are being drawn down to that person’s mental level; therefore, that person is dominating you!
On the other hand, if you refuse to become angry, if you retain your self-composure and remain calm and serene, you retain all your ordinary faculties through which to reason. You take the other fellow by surprise. You retaliate with a weapon with the use of which he is unfamiliar; consequently, you easily dominate him.
Like attracts like! There’s no denying this!
Source: Napoleon Hill’s Golden Rules. Pages 3 – 6. |
January 11, 2019 
