There is no human action, in any direction except along the line of least resistance, without effort; there is no human effort without volition; and there is no perfect volition without a thorough-going earnestness. A desire or volition which is vacillating, half-hearted, intermittent or pusillanimous can never avail to bring about the desired results. But any right and reasonable object which is seriously and earnestly willed shall be attained, for from the volition will follow strenuous, persistent and tireless effort and strong and effective action.

It is a profound earnestness that has in all ages and lands enabled men to triumph over obstacles that others have considered insurmountable, and to achieve what all around them called impossibilities.

Through earnestness the children of penury have become the stewards of the world, and those who found themselves at maturity wholly devoid of education have become renowned among the learned. Through earnestness the naturally unattractive have become miracles of beauty, and those whose bodies were full of inherited disease have become paragons of robust health.

Through earnestness the most vicious have become world-venerated saints; men of the most lowly origin have become rulers of vast empires; children of sodden and hopeless stupidity have become the greatest of sages; and those who were conceived in hatred and taught to hate all mankind have become full of affection for their fellowmen and beloved by all who know them.

The two most famous philosophers of Medieval Europe were at first such unpromising students that one was nicknamed “the dumb ox” and the other’s given name, Duns, became, and still remains, the common designation (dunce) of stupid school children in his native tongue.

It was through earnestness that the chieftain of an insignificant desert tribe in the wilds of Mongolia became the over-lord of the whole civilized world ruling over an empire larger than those of Alexander, Caesar and Napoleon added together.

It was through earnestness that a friendless dreamer discovered a new hemisphere; and through it that a succession of inventors have given to mankind in recent years a lordship over Nature such as former ages never dreamed of.

On the other hand the lack of earnestness has impoverished the most wealthy, sterilized the best-trained minds, turned charming women into loathsome slatterns and strong men into tottering invalids, transformed those who seemed to be holiest into degraded criminals, cast down from their thrones the mightiest of potentates, made prodigious genius unfruitful and forever obscure, and changed the spoiled darlings of society into sneering misanthropes.

He who possesses or achieves earnestness has thereby won half the battle of life; he who has lost it is already defeated. To those who have it not, this should be the first object of endeavor. There is no defeat that cannot be turned into a victory; and there is no one, however indifferent or disillusioned, who cannot gain or recover the earnestness without which life is devoid of savor and all hopes and aims are mere idle and disquieting dreams.

There is a false earnestness which is merely an intensity of emotion and comes and goes according to the states and influences of the moment. But right and real earnestness involves a firm and fixed intention that remains steadfast regardless of the emotional conditions. Emotion is a fire that burns at random and an ice that mechanically cools; but earnestness is a mighty force ready harnessed for man’s service.

Whatever is worthy of being earnestly willed is worthy of any reasonable labors and sacrifices that may be requisite for its attainment; and wherever these are recoiled from, the earnestness is deficient or non-existent. The knowledge of the objects of right aspiration, the knowledge and possession of the means by which these objects may be gained, the knowledge of the manner in which these objects are to be so utilized as to give the highest degree of enlargement and blessedness to the life, and, above all, that deep earnestness of spirit without which all knowledge will be impotent, all means unavailing, all ends unattained and all purposes unfulfilled, are the most precious of all possible acquirements. Not only are these deserving of being pursued in every possible and lawful way, but they are so transcendentally desirable that reason would require the aspirant to risk almost anything on any reasonable chance of a favorable outcome.

But no chance could be considered a reasonable one save in the presence of those who claim a universal and absolutely certain knowledge, or something approaching it; for those who do not know a thing cannot teach it, and no one can have a full and correct knowledge of the objects, means and purposes of human aspiration unless they understand the System of the Universe, its essential nature, and its origin, cause, destiny and purpose, considered as a whole. If the aspirant supposes that no such Universal Knowledge exists, or can exist, upon the earth, he must at least acknowledge that there is nothing that could be more desirable; and if there are those who assert themselves to possess it, who profess themselves able to annihilate, by the severest processes of rational and objective criticism, the Obscurantist dogma of the relativity of knowledge, and who offer to substantiate their allegations by actually imparting the Absolute and Universal Truth, and super-abundantly demonstrating it in every manner in which demonstration has ever been attempted or imagined upon earth, their claims should be listened to, their offer should be accepted, and any conditions that they impose, provided that these are within one’s right and power, should be eagerly fulfilled. No mere opinion or preference, or anything save the sternest and most imperative dictates of conscience, should be allowed to stand in the way, and conscience cannot under any circumstances bar the door against the Larger Light which is its own most crying need.
——

The reader who truly aspires towards any worthy end with earnestness or who, being without earnestness, sincerely aspires to attain to it, is invited to communicate further with the one from whom they received this paper, stating that they have read it with interest. But if he has not already received the Open Instruction on Aspiration and Attainment and on the Necessity of Right Knowledge, he should first ask to be supplied with them.