The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace D. Wattles Book Review
The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace D. Wattles is a 17-chapter book published in 1910 by Elizabeth Towne of Holyoke, Massachusetts, and copyrighted on April 1 of that year. It argues that getting rich follows from thinking and acting in what Wattles calls a Certain Way. Kevin Trudeau's recommended reading list carries it, and that is why this classic book gets a full book review here rather than a passing mention. Read it if you want the source document the modern law of attraction is downstream of. Skip it if you need proof, because Wallace Wattles asks the reader for faith instead.
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The whole text runs roughly 22,000 words, so you can finish it in an evening. The argument does not get deeper after chapter four. It gets louder.
What The Science of Getting Rich Actually Teaches
Wallace Wattles opens by claiming that a person cannot live a complete life without money, and that the study of getting rich is the basis of everything else. From there he builds a four-part mechanism. Thought acts on a universal substance. The thought must be definite. The thinker must hold gratitude. And the thinker must act, every day, where he already stands. Understanding those four moves is the whole book.
Note what is absent. The book does not teach saving, budgeting or investing. Wallace D. Wattles will only teach a mental posture and a work rule.
Nothing in that mechanism has scientific standing. Wikipedia's article on the book notes that its contents are commonly regarded as pseudoscientific rather than as wealth-creation strategy. The word science sits in the title because Wattles put it there, not because anyone tested it. Every mechanism below is his claim, described as he describes it.
The First Principle: Thought Acting on Formless Substance
Wattles states the foundation in chapter four. "Thought is the only power which can produce tangible riches from the Formless Substance," he writes. "The stuff from which all things are made is a substance which thinks, and a thought of form in this substance produces the form."
That is monism, and Wattles says so in his preface, tracing it to Hindu philosophy and to Descartes, Spinoza, Hegel and Emerson. He never claims to have invented it. He claims to have made an old philosophy usable by people with no interest in philosophy.
Thinking in the Certain Way
The instruction that follows is the most useful part of the book. Form a clear mental image of what you want. Not a mood. Not a general wish for more. A picture with edges on it.
He is scathing about vagueness. Sending a vague desire into the world, he says, is like transmitting the letters of the alphabet in order and letting your friend assemble the meaning himself. "You must know what you want, and be definite." A reader who takes nothing else from this book and takes that has got something.
Acting in the Certain Way
Here is where The Science of Getting Rich separates itself from the softer books it inspired. Wattles refuses to let thought stand alone. "That is the rock upon which many otherwise scientific metaphysical thinkers meet shipwreck," he writes, "the failure to connect thought with personal action." You may think gold toward yourself, but the gold "will not mine itself, refine itself, coin itself into double eagles, and come rolling along the roads seeking its way into your pocket."
His action rule is that you must more than fill your present place. Do everything today that can be done today, and do each act well. You must also, he writes, "so arrange your own business affairs that you may be able to receive it." Chapter twelve names that efficient action. Chapter fourteen adds the impression of increase: in every transaction, give the other party a use value greater than the cash value you take.
Gratitude, and Why He Puts It So Early
Chapter seven is short and carries more weight than its length suggests. Gratitude, in his account, keeps a person in harmonious relation to the substance he wants to impress. "Many people who order their lives rightly in all other ways are kept in poverty by their lack of gratitude," he writes.
Strip the metaphysics away and the practice still holds. Cataloguing what is missing runs a different mental image than acknowledging what arrived. A reader who rejects the Formless Intelligence can keep the habit anyway.
The Science of Getting Rich at a Glance
| Detail | What the record shows |
|---|---|
| Author | Wallace Delois Wattles, American, born 1860, died February 7, 1911 in Ruskin, Tennessee |
| First published | 1910, copyright dated April 1, 1910 |
| Original publisher | Elizabeth Towne, Holyoke, Massachusetts, priced at $1.00 |
| Chapters | 17, plus a preface |
| Length | Roughly 22,000 words in the 1910 text. Reprint page counts vary widely |
| Copyright status | Public domain. The full text is online for free |
| Central claim | Thought acting on a formless thinking substance produces the thing imagined |
| Named method | Thinking and acting in a Certain Way |
| Named practices | A definite mental image, gratitude, efficient action, the impression of increase |
| Tradition | New Thought |
| Author's politics | Christian socialist, Socialist Party candidate in Indiana in 1908 and 1910 |
| Best-known descendant | The Secret, the 2006 film and book by Rhonda Byrne |
| Edition linked here | 2018 CreateSpace paperback reprint, ISBN 9781984052339 |
| Our rating | 3.5 out of 5 |
How the Book Is Organized
Seventeen chapters, in this order: The Right to be Rich, There is a Science of Getting Rich, Is Opportunity Monopolized, The First Principle in the Science of Getting Rich, Increasing Life, How Riches Come to You, Gratitude, Thinking in a Certain Way, How to Use the Will, Further Use of the Will, Acting in the Certain Way, Efficient Action, Getting into the Right Business, The Impression of Increase, The Advancing Man, Some Cautions and Concluding Observations, and Summary of the Science of Getting Rich.
Chapter seventeen does something clever, and it is why this book survives as a study text. It restates the whole argument in about 700 words, and almost every Wattles quote circulating online is pulled from it. The book summary Wallace Wattles wrote himself is already in the book. Read that chapter first, then begin at chapter one and watch him build it.
One note on chapter fifteen. It applies the argument to physicians and clergy and makes statements about medical practice that this review will not repeat and takes no position on. Nothing here is health guidance.
Where This Classic Book Came From, and Who Wallace Wattles Was
Wallace Delois Wattles was born in 1860 and died on February 7, 1911, in Ruskin, Tennessee, about a year after this book appeared. He started late and wrote fast. Nine titles are attributed to him between 1904 and 1911, most from Elizabeth Towne, whose magazine The Nautilus was a main organ of New Thought.
The detail people miss is his politics. Wattles was a Christian socialist who ran for office in Indiana as a Socialist Party candidate in 1908 and again in 1910. Keep that in view while you read chapter three. A man campaigning against the economic order also wrote a book telling individuals that the order could not hold them back. He was not writing for the wealthy. He wrote for people who wanted to become rich and had been told they could not.
How the Book Reached Rhonda Byrne
This connection turned a 1910 pamphlet into a permanent seller, and it deserves an accurate account. According to Wikipedia's article on Wallace Delois Wattles, Rhonda Byrne told a Newsweek interviewer that her inspiration for the 2006 film The Secret was her exposure to Wattles's book, which her daughter gave her during a difficult period. On Oprah Winfrey's website, Byrne described reading it this way: "Something inside of me had me turn the pages one by one, and I can still remember my tears hitting the pages as I was reading it. It gave me a glimpse of The Secret."
So the modern law of attraction has a traceable starting gun, and it is this book, written a century ago by a dying socialist. Byrne's film and book both followed in 2006. Our full review of The Secret covers what she built on Wallace Wattles and what she left behind.
Which Edition of The Science of Getting Rich Should You Buy?
This matters more here than for almost any other book on the shelf, and nobody warns you. The Science of Getting Rich is public domain, so anyone may print it, and hundreds of publishers have. Page counts, typesetting, introductions and even chapter numbering vary from reprint to reprint. The edition linked from this page is the 2018 CreateSpace paperback, ISBN 9781984052339, a print-on-demand reprint of the 1910 text.
Two consequences follow, and both reward an open mind. Do not pay a premium on the assumption that a higher price buys a better text, because the words are identical and the 1910 text is online for free. If you want editorial value, buy an edition with a named editor and an introduction, since that is the only thing you are paying for.
Common Criticisms of The Science of Getting Rich
An honest book review names these, and the most damaging criticisms of Wallace D. Wattles come from his own text.
He asks for faith and then calls it an exact science
The preface does not hedge. "It is expected that the reader will take the fundamental statements upon faith, just as he would take statements concerning a law of electrical action if they were promulgated by a Marconi or an Edison." One sentence later: "Every man or woman who does this will certainly get rich; for the science herein applied is an exact science, and failure is impossible."
Those two statements cannot both hold. An exact science is one you can check. A teaching you must accept on faith is not, and calling failure impossible removes the last thing that would make it testable. That is the largest problem with the book, and it sits on page one.
"No man is kept poor because opportunity has been taken away from him"
Chapter three opens with that sentence, and it is the line that ages worst. Wattles goes on to suggest that a steelworker with no path to owning the plant should buy ten to forty acres and farm it.
He returns to the objection in chapter sixteen with an answer that shows the shape of the whole system: "It is true that existing governments keep the masses in poverty, but this is because the masses do not think and act in the Certain Way." If people "have the Faith that they can become rich, and move forward with the fixed purpose to become rich, nothing can possibly keep them in poverty." The structural problem is conceded, then reassigned to the individual.
The wider criticism of the tradition
Barbara Ehrenreich's 2009 book Bright-sided, published by Metropolitan Books, argued that American positive thinking encourages complacency and a failure to engage with reality. She wrote about the tradition rather than about Wattles by name. Chapter three is where that argument lands hardest.
There is no page for the reader who does everything right
Follow the instructions in good faith, get nothing, and the book has nowhere to send you. Its own logic says failure is impossible, so the only explanation left is that you did not really do it. That closed loop is the defect every law of attraction book after him inherited.
The criticisms at a glance
| What the book claims | The objection | Source of the objection |
|---|---|---|
| This is an exact science and failure is impossible | The preface asks the reader to accept the statements on faith, which makes the claim untestable | Wattles's own preface, 1910 |
| Thought acting on formless substance produces riches | Commonly regarded as pseudoscientific rather than as wealth-creation strategy | Wikipedia |
| No man is kept poor because opportunity has been taken away | Concedes structural barriers, then reassigns them to the individual | Wattles, chapters three and sixteen |
| Positive mental orientation changes material outcomes | Encourages complacency and disengagement from reality | Barbara Ehrenreich, Bright-sided, 2009 |
| The method cannot fail if followed | No troubleshooting for the reader who follows it and gets nothing | This review |
| The reader is buying a definitive text | Public domain reprints differ in length, layout and added material | This review, comparing current editions |
Why Kevin Trudeau Points People Toward This Book
Trudeau's teaching runs on a claim with the same shape as Wattles's. What he adds is the part Wattles left out.
Start with the Teachability Index, which Trudeau describes as willingness to learn multiplied by willingness to change. It is multiplication in his telling, not addition, so a reader who is willing to learn and unwilling to change scores nothing. Learning is only half of it. The Science of Getting Rich is easy to be willing to learn from, being short, certain and free, and it asks almost nothing of the second variable.
Then there is what he calls counterintentions, the subconscious programs he says run against the goal you just wrote down. That is exactly the gap in Wattles, who tells you to hold a definite mental image with unwavering faith and never says what to do when part of you does not believe it. Trudeau's claim is that the unexamined counterintention quietly cancels the image.
His Training Balance Scale makes the same point from another direction, and his four-step manifestation formula of desire, belief, expectancy and inspired action reads like the Certain Way with a diagnostic bolted on. Wattles supplies the philosophy. Trudeau supplies the sequence, at least in his telling.
Where It Sits Next to the Global Information Network
Trudeau founded the Global Information Network in 2009 as a private membership club built on his claim that the most useful knowledge about wealth was kept out of circulation. His material, including Your Wish Is Your Command, runs as a sequence rather than a single insight.
The Science of Getting Rich is the opposite. One insight, stated seventeen ways, by a man with about a year left to live who clearly knew it. Wattles is the law of attraction before it had that name, and that is both his strength as a first text and his ceiling as a last one.
Two neighbors on the same shelf are worth naming. As a Man Thinketh by James Allen, from 1903, is shorter and more inward. Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, from 1937, is longer and built around interviews and steps. Napoleon Hill gives you machinery. Wattles gives you the premise it runs on.
Who Should Read The Science of Getting Rich, and Who Should Skip It
Read it if you have started other classics in this subject and stalled, because this one is finishable. Read it if you want an understanding of where the law of attraction came from and prefer the primary text to a summary of a summary. Read it if you like blunt writing.
Skip it if you want evidence, or a plan for your situation, or any acknowledgment that circumstances differ. Skip it if chapter three will make you throw the book, because chapter sixteen doubles down. And skip it if you have already worked through Hill or Trudeau, since you will meet the same timeless principles here in thinner form.
Our rating: 3.5 out of 5. High marks for brevity, for insisting on action alongside thought, and for being the honest origin of a very large tradition. Real deductions for the faith clause, for chapter three, and for the missing page that tells a stuck reader what to do next.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace D. Wattles worth reading?
Yes, as a primary source. It is the book most modern manifestation writing descends from, it takes about two hours, and Wattles insists on daily action rather than thought alone. It is worth less as practical instruction, since he asks the reader to accept the premise on faith and offers nothing to anyone who gets no result.
How long is The Science of Getting Rich and how many chapters does it have?
The 1910 text runs 17 chapters plus a preface and roughly 22,000 words, which is an evening of reading. Printed page counts vary a great deal between reprints because the book is public domain and hundreds of editions exist with different typesetting and added material.
What is the Certain Way in The Science of Getting Rich?
It is Wattles's name for his whole method. Form a clear and definite mental image of what you want, hold it with faith and gratitude, and act every day in a way that more than fills your present place. He splits it into thinking in the Certain Way and acting in the Certain Way, and he insists both are required.
Did The Science of Getting Rich inspire The Secret?
Yes, by Rhonda Byrne's own account. Wikipedia's article on Wattles states that Byrne told a Newsweek interviewer her inspiration for the 2006 film came from reading this book, which her daughter gave her. On Oprah Winfrey's website Byrne said of reading it, "It gave me a glimpse of The Secret."
Is The Science of Getting Rich in the public domain?
Yes. Wattles died in 1911, so the 1910 text is in the public domain and the complete book is available online at no cost. Paid editions are reprints of that same text. What you pay for is paper, typesetting, and sometimes an editor's introduction.
Which edition of The Science of Getting Rich should I buy?
Check the publisher and the print length before buying, because reprints differ. The edition linked on this page is the 2018 CreateSpace paperback, ISBN 9781984052339. If you want more than the bare text, look for an edition with a named editor and an introduction, since that is the only added value on offer.
What are the main criticisms of The Science of Getting Rich?
Three recur. The preface asks readers to accept the statements on faith while calling the subject an exact science in which failure is impossible, which makes the claim untestable. Chapter three asserts that no man is kept poor by lack of opportunity. And there is no guidance for a reader who follows the instructions and gets nothing, because the book's own logic says that cannot happen.
Should I read Wattles or Napoleon Hill first?
Wattles first, because he is shorter and states the premise plainly. Napoleon Hill assumes you already accept that premise and spends his pages on organization, persistence and the mastermind idea. Reading them in that order shows you what one century of the same subject added.
The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace D. Wattles Book Review: The Short Version
One 1910 pamphlet, 17 chapters, roughly 22,000 words, and a direct line to almost everything written on this subject since. The mechanism is thought acting on a formless substance. The method is a definite mental image held with gratitude, plus daily action that more than fills your present place. The defect is on page one, where Wattles asks for faith and calls the result an exact science. Read it for the premise and the plain language. Do not read it last.