The Psychology of the Business Man 291 



ability is solely bent on the gain. While the inventor's ab- 

 sorption in his ideas and their execution leads over from the 

 business world into the art region of the creative architect, 

 writer, poet and composer. 



Along with the business man's pleasure in activity is usu- 

 ally associated, however, its companion pleasure of success ; 

 for it is not merely the doing, but also the succeeding, which 

 is the aim and satisfaction of the business man. This pleasure 

 in success is also an- inherited mental instinct showing itself 

 among the earliest mental signs of the child, having proved 

 its serviceability in the long struggle for existence. For be- 

 yond the spontaneous activity of play there lies some goal 

 which must be gained or the action is not successful. Imagine 

 what a paralysis of the business world would happen if its 

 workers suddenly lost the satisfaction of succeeding in their 

 enterprises and merely did "busy work" like primary scholars 

 in order to be kept occupied ! A petty German harness dealer 

 in an obscure street resisted a concert subscription with the 

 reason that, having gained one business goal in the purchase 

 of his own home and its adjacent lot, he was now aiming to- 

 take the special opportunity of buying his store building and 

 lot. A veteran book-keeper, on the other hand, justified his 

 taking a subscription by his satisfaction that his years of faith- 

 ful service had at last succeeded in giving him the enjoyment 

 of his highest needs. The son of an Irish school janitor shows 

 a most commendable pride as he tips back in his present brok- 

 er's chair and loves to recount how he has striven to be decent 

 and respectable all thru his advancing stages of flour packer, 

 proprietor of "241 Main St." (which he never calls a saloon), 

 chattel mortgage loaner, flat owner, and timber land dealer. 

 A hard working young corporation manager apologizes for his 

 apparent luxury of a motor launch by the modest explanation 

 that, having successively gained his business rewards of an 

 unmortgaged home and country place, a safe life insurance pro- 

 vision for his large family, and one of the finest private libra- 

 ries in his city, he can now reasonably begin to go in for some 

 outward luxuries. AA'hen a reputed millionaire could not bor- 

 row a bank dollar in 1893, he proved himself a high Stoic phil- 

 osopher in those straightened times by his satisfaction that at 

 least he had accomplished something worth doing in his bus- 

 iness evolution from a frontier store keeper thru a hardware 



