New Thought · 1860-1911

The Science of Being Great

The final book in Wattles' trilogy applies the same systematic approach to human character that he gave to wealth in The Science of Getting Rich - arguing that greatness is not talent, privilege, or luck, but a specific way of thinking and relating to others that anyone can learn and practise.

What Wattles Got Right

Why The Science of Being Great still matters

The Science of Being Great makes an argument that almost no other success book of its era made: that greatness is available to everyone, not as an aspiration but as a practise. Wattles decoupled human excellence from biological inheritance, educational credentials, and financial position. That was a genuinely radical claim in 1911, and the psychological case for it is stronger now than it was then.

His most precise insight is the one in Chapter 12: you can never become great until you have overcome anxiety, worry, and fear. He understood - a full century before emotion regulation became the foundation of modern psychotherapy - that being anxious and unsettled is not a personality weakness but a cognitive one. An anxious mind cannot perceive clearly. A fearful mind cannot act from its best intelligence. Wattles named the problem that CBT would spend the next hundred years designing tools to address.

He also identified service as the mechanism of greatness, not its reward. Where the rest of the New Thought tradition was largely focused on individual accumulation, Wattles insisted that real greatness expresses itself through giving increase to others - leaving every person you encounter feeling more capable, more seen, more alive. That is not sentiment; it is the most durable description of value creation in the entire personal development tradition.

And his 'doing common things in a great way' principle is the most underrated idea in the book. He did not ask people to wait for a grand platform or a worthy occasion. He said: the stage you are standing on right now is sufficient. Do what is in front of you with full attention, genuine care, and complete integrity. That is where greatness actually lives.

Historical Context

How The Science of Being Great came to be written

The Science of Being Great was published in 1911, the year Wattles died. He was fifty years old, in poor health, and by his daughter Florence's account was finally living the results he had spent decades writing about. Like The Science of Getting Rich before it, this book was not assembled from other people's stories - it was written by someone in the middle of his own transformation.

The Progressive Era context matters. Wattles was not a detached metaphysician. He was an active Socialist Party of America candidate who ran for Congress in 1908 and for Prosecuting Attorney in 1910. He had read Karl Marx alongside Emerson and Hegel. He understood structural inequality from the inside - as someone who had spent decades experiencing it.

This creates the most fascinating tension in the book. Wattles the socialist knew that systemic barriers were real. Wattles the metaphysician wrote that anyone could overcome them through the Principle of Power. He never resolved the contradiction, but the fact that he felt it gives the book an ethical seriousness that most New Thought literature completely lacks.

He was also ejected from the Methodist Church for heresy, which positioned him at the intersection of radical politics and radical spirituality - a combination that was genuinely unusual in early twentieth-century America. The ethical insistence of Chapter 8, the demand for complete consecration to service over competitive dominance, is the product of that unusual background.

Core Principles

The 6 core principles of The Science of Being Great

The Principle of Power

Wattles' foundational premise is that every person contains an innate capacity for greatness - a 'Principle of Power' that is not distributed by birth, education, or circumstance but is universally available. What differs between people who express this capacity and those who do not is not the amount of power they have but the way they are directing it. This maps onto the modern psychological concept of intrinsic motivation: the research consistently shows that people operating from internal values and genuine engagement produce qualitatively different work than people operating from external pressure or fear of failure.

Creation over competition - applied to character

The same creative-versus-competitive distinction Wattles applied to wealth in The Science of Getting Rich appears in a different form here. The person seeking greatness through competitive dominance - outshining others, claiming status, accumulating credentials - is operating from the same scarcity mindset that keeps the wealth-seeker trapped in competitive thought. Real greatness, Wattles argues, does not compare itself to others. It simply does what it does as well as it can possibly be done. This is the psychology of intrinsic excellence, and it is incompatible with the chronic threat-state that competitive striving produces.

Emotional regulation as the prerequisite

Chapter 12 is the most clinically precise passage in Wattles' entire trilogy. 'You can never become a great man or woman until you have overcome anxiety, worry, and fear. It is impossible for an anxious person, a worried one, or a fearful one to perceive truth; all things are distorted and thrown out of their proper relations by such mental states.' He is describing what cognitive psychology calls cognitive narrowing under stress - the well-documented phenomenon in which a body in threat mode contracts attention, reduces perceptual range, and impairs higher-order reasoning. He identified the problem with precision. CBT, NLP, and body-based work provide the tools he could not.

Doing common things in a great way

Wattles used Abraham Lincoln as his primary example of greatness: a man who spent decades doing ordinary work - splitting rails, running a small store, practicing law in a frontier town - and doing each thing he did with complete attention and genuine integrity. Greatness was not revealed by the scale of Lincoln's eventual stage; it was built in all the ordinary moments that preceded it. This principle asks the reader to stop waiting for a worthier occasion and to bring their full capacity to what is already in front of them. Behaviourally, this is an activation practice: the habit of full engagement with present tasks rather than withholding effort for a future that may never arrive.

Consecration and service

Chapter 8 is the ethical heart of the book. Wattles demands that the seeker lay aside all thought of competitive dominance, reputation management, or personal aggrandisement, and dedicate their work entirely to giving increase to others - leaving every person and situation better than they found it. This is not spiritual sentimentality; it is a description of the values-aligned action that Acceptance and Commitment Therapy identifies as the most reliable route to sustained psychological wellbeing. People who work from genuine care for the quality and impact of what they are doing are consistently more engaged, more resilient, and more effective than people working from status anxiety or approval-seeking.

The mental exercise - alignment as a daily practice

Chapter 21 contains a structured daily practice: physical relaxation, followed by a verbal affirmation that aligns the body, mind, and soul into a single channel - 'I surrender my body to be ruled by my mind; I surrender my mind to be governed by my soul; and I surrender my soul to the guidance of God.' Stripped of the theological framing, this is a sequential settling exercise: bring the body into rest, align thinking with values, release the outcome. It anticipates the body-calming and values-clarification sequences used in contemporary therapy practice.

Chapter by Chapter

What's inside The Science of Being Great

1 - Any Person May Become GreatAn innate Principle of Power resides in every person. Greatness is not genetic or aristocratic; it is the natural expression of a consciousness aligned with universal intelligence.

2 - Heredity and OpportunityBiological inheritance and social circumstance do not fix destiny. The subconscious patterns formed by environment can be systematically retrained through conscious, directed thought.

3 - The Source of PowerReal personal power comes from inner alignment with the infinite, not from accumulated knowledge or external instruction. The source is available to everyone directly.

4 - The Mind of GodTrue wisdom - the kind that produces great work - comes from aligning the individual mind with universal intelligence. This is not mysticism but attention directed toward what is true and good.

5 - PreparationThe practical beginning: surrender the ego's agenda, align the physical and mental planes under the guidance of the soul, and prepare the inner instrument before attempting great work.

6 - The Social Point of ViewThe seeker must shift from viewing the world as broken and decaying to seeing it as a perfect system in the process of beautiful completion. This is not naivety but a deliberate perceptual reorientation.

7 - The Individual Point of ViewGreatness is demonstrated now, in the current circumstances, by performing the work immediately at hand with complete poise and full attention. Waiting for a larger stage is the most common form of self-abandonment.

8 - ConsecrationThe ethical mandate: cast out greed, vanity, and competitive dominance. Dedicate every action to giving increase to others. This is the chapter that separates The Science of Being Great from every other New Thought success book.

9 - IdentificationConsciously identify your own spiritual nature with the infinite presence available to all. This is the practice of dissolving the illusory separation between the personal self and the larger intelligence it is part of.

10 - IdealizationConstruct a clear mental image of your idealized self - the person you are in the process of becoming. This image is the blueprint that directs the subconscious toward its actualization.

11 - RealizationHold the ideal with unwavering conviction and act as though its manifestation is already in progress. The universal substance moves toward the held image when it is met with faith rather than desperate wanting.

12 - Hurry and HabitHurry destroys the poise from which great work emerges. The quality of attention you bring to each act is more important than the number of acts you complete. Poise must be established as a daily habit, not an occasional state.

13 - ThoughtConcentrated thought is the creative force of greatness. The distinction between reactive thinking - which merely responds to circumstances - and proactive thinking from the Certain Way is what separates ordinary from extraordinary output.

14 - Action at HomeGreatness begins in the domestic sphere. Family members must be treated with the same absolute respect and genuine care that the practitioner aspires to offer the wider world. Character is not situational.

15 - Action AbroadEvery professional and public interaction must be conducted with complete integrity and the intention of leaving others feeling expanded. The impression of increase applies as much to colleagues and clients as to those we actively serve.

16 - Some Further ExplanationsWattles addresses philosophical doubts about the relationship between individual consciousness and the formless substance, clarifying potential misunderstandings in the framework.

17 - More About ThoughtSustained mental focus physically restructures the brain's pathways over time. The modern language is neuroplasticity; Wattles' language is more literal, but the underlying observation - that repeated concentrated thought changes what the mind becomes capable of - is correct.

18 - Jesus' Idea of GreatnessTrue greatness, in the tradition Wattles draws on, is defined through humble, ego-free service rather than economic or political domination. The servant model of leadership is the most psychologically sustainable.

19 - A View of EvolutionHuman struggle is framed within a larger teleological process. Negative states are not evidence of failure but undeveloped stages in an evolutionary arc moving toward greater expression.

20 - Serving GodReligious duty, reframed: active participation in the evolutionary process by maximising your own talents and consistently helping others to develop theirs. Service is the mechanism, not the reward.

21 - A Mental ExerciseA structured daily practice: physical relaxation, followed by a verbal alignment of body, mind, and soul. The sequence anticipates modern body-calming and values-clarification practices.

22 - A Summary of The Science of Being GreatThe complete curriculum condensed into its essential sequence: faith in the Principle of Power, a clear ideal held with conviction, and consistent action in the Certain Way starting with the work immediately available.

Legacy

The legacy of The Science of Being Great

The Science of Being Great is the least-read book in the Wattles trilogy, overshadowed by The Science of Getting Rich after Rhonda Byrne credited it in The Secret. This is partly because its focus on character and service is a harder sell than a book explicitly about wealth. But it is, in many ways, the more psychologically sophisticated work.

Wattles' identification of anxiety as the primary blocker of greatness anticipates the central insight of cognitive behavioural therapy by half a century. His insistence on service as the mechanism of excellence rather than its reward anticipated what positive psychology's research on intrinsic motivation would confirm decades later. And his 'doing common things in a great way' principle is arguably the most practically useful idea in the entire New Thought tradition.

Where The Science of Getting Rich gave the world the creative-versus-competitive distinction, The Science of Being Great gave it something rarer: an account of success that is explicitly ethical. In a tradition that has been repeatedly hijacked by individualism and magical thinking, that distinction still matters.

What Was Missing

What Wattles could not have known

Wattles understood that anxiety and fear block greatness. What he could not provide was any mechanism for releasing them. He wrote before CBT, before body-based psychology, before any of the tools we now have. Knowing that worry distorts perception is not the same as having tools that interrupt the worry loop at the physical level where it is actually running.

His mental monism - the idea that thought alone determines circumstance - places the entire weight of life outcomes on the individual's inner state. For readers facing genuine structural barriers, this framing can tip from empowering to burdensome. Wattles was himself a Socialist Party candidate who understood systemic inequality; his metaphysics and his politics were in genuine tension, and he never resolved it.

The book also lacks the practical daily structure that makes principles into habits. Wattles tells you what the practice is - consecration, identification, idealization, realization. He does not give you a daily sequence that builds those states through consistent repetition at the level where real change actually happens.

Who This Is For

Who gets the most from The Science of Being Great

✓You've read The Science of Getting Rich and want to apply the same framework to who you are becoming, not just what you are building
✓You feel the gap between the person you are and the person you are capable of being - and want a systematic approach to closing it
✓You are drawn to service-oriented success rather than competitive achievement for its own sake
✓You notice anxiety, worry, or self-doubt getting in the way of your best work and want the psychological tools to address them at the root
✓You want to understand why Wattles was unusual in the New Thought tradition - and why his ethics still hold up
✓You do ordinary work and want to do it in an extraordinary way, without waiting for a grander stage

The DAR Response

We applied CBT, NLP & somatic work to The Science of Being Great

The DAR approach takes Wattles' ethical framework - which holds up remarkably well - and pairs it with the psychological tools he could not have known. The anxiety and fear he identified as blockers of greatness are addressed through CBT's cognitive restructuring, NLP's state management techniques, and body-based practices that work at the physical level where those states are actually held.

His 'doing common things in a great way' principle is translated into a daily practice structure: specific prompts for bringing full attention and genuine care to the actions already on your list, rather than waiting for inspiration or a worthier occasion. The cheat sheets, workbook, and tracker below are built on that premise - that character is made in the ordinary moments, not the extraordinary ones.

Go deeper

Apply The Science of Being Great with DAR

Join the list for free reading editions and practice resources as each classic launches.

Browse free downloads →

Questions Answered

Questions about The Science of Being Great

What is the Principle of Power and why does Wattles keep returning to it?+

The Principle of Power is Wattles' term for the innate capacity for greatness that he believes resides in every person. It is not distributed by birth, education, or wealth - it is universally available, but most people either misdirect it or fail to activate it at all. In modern terms, it maps onto the research on intrinsic motivation and self-determination theory: people who work from genuine internal engagement with their own values and capacities consistently produce qualitatively different outcomes than people working from external pressure or competitive anxiety. Wattles keeps returning to it because he believes most people have been taught to look for greatness in the wrong direction - outward toward achievements and credentials, rather than inward toward the quality of attention and care they bring to what is already in front of them.

How is this book different from The Science of Getting Rich - do I need to read both?+

The two books share a philosophical framework - the same Principle of Power, the same Certain Way - but they apply it to entirely different domains. The Science of Getting Rich is about material wealth and economic position. The Science of Being Great is about character, service, and the quality of human excellence. You do not need to read one before the other, but reading both together reveals Wattles' complete vision: that the same systematic approach produces results in the inner life that it produces in the outer one. If you have read The Science of Getting Rich and felt something was missing - a deeper ethical dimension, an account of who you are becoming rather than what you are accumulating - this book provides it.

Wattles says anyone can become great by changing their thinking. What about structural inequality?+

This is the most important question to ask before applying Wattles' framework. He was himself aware of systemic inequality - he was a Socialist Party candidate who understood material barriers from personal experience. The tension in the book between his political awareness and his metaphysical individualism was real and unresolved. The honest answer is that the Principle of Power is a genuine and valuable tool for internal transformation, and that it does not eliminate structural barriers. What it can do is help you operate at the fullest possible expression of your capacities within whatever circumstances you are in - which is not nothing, and is genuinely valuable. The DAR reading takes Wattles' core insights about character, attention, and service seriously while being honest that thought alone does not dismantle systemic injustice. Both things are true at the same time.

What does Wattles mean by 'doing common things in a great way'?+

He means exactly what it says: the work you are doing right now, in the circumstances you are currently in, is a sufficient stage for the expression of greatness. He used Abraham Lincoln as his primary example - a man who spent decades splitting rails, running a small store, and practising law in a frontier town, doing each thing with complete attention and genuine integrity, long before any public stage appeared. The insight is that greatness is not unlocked by a bigger platform - it is built in the ordinary moments. The person who withholds full effort and care until the right occasion arrives is practising the opposite of greatness. The person who brings their full capacity to the task immediately in front of them is already doing the thing.

Is the NLP and CBT content in the DAR products consistent with Wattles' philosophy?+

The NLP and CBT tools are consistent with Wattles' goals, even though the language differs completely. Wattles identified anxiety, worry, and fear as the primary blockers of greatness and provided no tools for addressing them beyond willing them away. CBT provides the cognitive restructuring tools that interrupt the thought patterns underlying those states. NLP provides state management techniques - anchoring, reframing, timeline work - that can shift the internal condition Wattles kept pointing toward. Body-based work addresses the physical patterns where those states are actually held. The DAR products use all three to do what Wattles was asking his readers to do, with the tools he did not have access to.

Get free reading editions and weekly practice notes as new classics launch.

Join the list →

More Wealth & Prosperity titles