Page 171 - Napoleon Hill Think and Grow Rich Full Book | Success Learned

Henry Ford had not "hit his pace" of achievement until he had passed the age of
forty. Andrew Carnegie was well past forty before he began to reap the reward of
his efforts.

James J. Hill was still running a telegraph key at the age of forty. His stupendous
achievements took place after that age. Biographies of American industrialists
and financiers are filled with evidence that the period from forty to sixty is the
most productive age of man. Between the ages of thirty and forty, man begins to
learn (if he ever learns), the art of sex transmutation. This discovery is generally

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accidental, and more often than otherwise, the man who makes it is totally un-
conscious of his discovery. He may observe that his powers of achievement have
increased around the age of thirty-five to forty, but in most cases, he is not famil-
iar with the cause of this change; that Nature begins to harmonize the emotions of
love and sex in the individual, between the ages of thirty and forty, so that he may
draw upon these great forces, and apply them jointly as stimuli to action.

Sex, alone, is a mighty urge to action, but its forces are like a cyclone-they are
often uncontrollable. When the emotion of love begins to mix itself with the emo-
tion of sex, the result is calmness of purpose, poise, accuracy of judgment, and
balance. What person, who has attained to the age of forty, is so unfortunate as
to be unable to analyze these statements, and to corroborate them by his own
experience?

When driven by his desire to please a woman, based solely upon the emotion of
sex, a man may be, and usually is, capable of great achievement, but his actions
may be disorganized, distorted, and totally destructive. When driven by his desire
to please a woman, based upon the motive of sex alone, a man may steal, cheat,
and even commit murder. But when the emotion of LOVE is mixed with the emo-
tion of sex, that same man will guide his actions with more sanity, balance, and
reason.

Criminologists have discovered that the most hardened criminals can be reformed
through the influence of a woman's love. There is no record of a criminal having
been reformed solely through the sex influence. These facts are well known, but
their cause is not. Reformation comes, if at all, through the heart, or the emo-
tional side of man, not through his head, or reasoning side.

Reformation means, "a change of heart." It does not mean a "change of head."
A man may, because of reason, make certain changes in his personal conduct
to avoid the consequences of undesirable effects, but GENUINE REFORMA-