Now, when I had become fully convinced that my unpopularity was a fact and not a figment of my imagination, I began to turn the matter over in my mind and to direct my attention to the study of popularity and unpopularity both as to cause and effect. My study led me to several discoveries. The first was this: that some people are born with the attribute of popularity and possess the faculty of making friends without any conscious effort on their part, while others have a trick of making enemies without actually being guilty of any offense. This is not what is called positive and negative “magnetism,” but it is something like that. When a man possesses this faculty for making friends he will make them whether or no, even though he be lacking in all the qualities which men find admirable. He may be selfish, cold, over-ambitious and ruthless of the rights of others, and yet exercise a fascination upon other men. Such a man was Napoleon Bonaparte, who called forth the greatest personal devotion and enthusiasm in the men whom he destroyed for his own ends. Contrariwise, a man may be noble, generous, affable and everything that a popular man should be, and yet be practically without friends.
But I made another and greater discovery which reconciled me to my unpopularity and which, indeed, completely revolutionized my views upon the subject—I discovered that the greatest men in the world have been the ones who had the most enemies!
And it was upon making this discovery, Sir—the most important, in my opinion, that has been made by any sociologist of our time—that I determined to set up my school for the exposition of the science of making enemies. All men, said I to myself, are naturally ambitious; they desire fame, honor and riches. They have but to be shown the way and they will enter eagerly upon it.
Elated as I was at my great discovery, I could not but wonder that men had not discovered this secret long ago. How could such men as Spencer, Lecky, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and the others have overlooked a thing so simple and so obviously true?
Here, I rejoiced, I have a discovery—not a theory, not an hypothesis—but a fact! A fact which may be tested and proven in any field of human activity—in government, in commerce, in religion, in literature, in art—in everything! No religion can live without first enduring persecution; no government can survive without the patriotism bred of the fear of enemies and the hatred of foes; no general can become great without war; no author becomes a classic without criticism; no prophet can conquer without opposition. Nothing great can be done without enemies.
For generations, for ages, men have been proceeding upon an entirely erroneous theory that friends are more necessary to success than enemies. Such stupidity! Such utter disregard of the evidence to the contrary which confronts us upon every hand! Our park benches are lined with men who had too many friends, our charitable institutions are overflowing with them. Think of the most popular man you know and then of the most successful! Are they the same? Of course not. Once you stop to think of it, the truth of my discovery is self-evident. No matter where you go you will find that the greatest man is the one who has the most enemies.
Friends are not only not necessary to a man’s success, but they are often a positive detriment. A man surrounded by friends is like a man blindfolded—he can not see where he is going. How do you improve? By correcting your faults. And who points out your faults, your friends or your enemies? An enemy is a spur. An enemy is an inspiration. Your friends sympathize with you, commiserate with you, agree with you and flatter you; but your enemies advertise you.
Whistler once wrote a book called The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, and I suspect that Whistler had caught an inkling of the truth of my great discovery, but his title was a misnomer. The making of enemies is not an art, but a science. Some people have a special gift for it, as I have, but almost any one can learn how. By observing a few simple rules in this connection, any man should be able to acquire all the enemies he may desire. But any man may save himself a great deal of time and trouble by taking my course of instruction. When he receives his diploma from the Sourface Training School he will be so well versed in this science that he will thereafter follow the principles of the school without any thought whatever, but purely from force of habit.
Judging from the number of people I see about me who are trying in an amateurish way to acquire enemies, the academy should have a large attendance from the start, and since I have never met a more unpopular man than myself, I know of no one more eminently qualified to conduct such a school. I can not afford to make public my method of instruction because such an action would open the field to a host of imitators, but I can assure you that the course is most effective.
There is only one doubt in my mind about the success of the school, and that is this: I fear that when the public realizes the tremendous import of my discovery and appreciates the great work which I am doing for humanity, I shall become so popular that I will be in great danger of losing the success which I have labored so hard to attain and which I so richly deserve.