The Fallacy of Success

Alternatively called the Midas Touch, the golden touch is the magical power associated with a famous Greek myth about the Phrygian king Midas. In the myth, Dionysius grants Midas his wish that everything he touches will become gold. When Midas realizes that he cannot even enjoy a meal because of this power, he regards it as a curse. More recently, individuals who have a talent for turning a profit and seem to always come out ahead are sometimes said to have a golden touch. In the essay, Chesterton calls attention to the irony of using this term in such a way. In his critique of the article “The Instinct that Makes People Rich,” Chesterton accuses the author of cunningly distorting the Midas myth. The author associates Midas’s golden touch with his own idea of an innate talent that inevitably ensures success. However, Midas’s instinct betrayed him; the story in its original form is a cautionary tale about unchecked greed.

Mysticism is a quality of religious or spiritual thought or belief characterized by obscurity, illusion, dreaminess, and mystery. Mystical experiences may be described as confusing, uncertain, strange, and incommunicable. Chesterton accuses the authors of books on success of having a mystical perception of the success of wealthy, famous people—that is, their perception of these people is distorted and disconnected from reality. They vaguely perceive that these people have succeeded, but they cannot articulate the mystery of how they succeeded, which they don’t comprehend. In Chesterton’s opinion, this is part of the allure: Chesterton states that all worship has a mystical element because mysteriousness elevates the thing worshipped above the worshipper. His critique of the books’ mysticism is closely related to themes of both The Instinct to Worship and The Complexity of Falsehood and the Modesty of Truth.

In this essay, opportunities are beneficial possibilities produced by circumstances. Those who perceive these possibilities and act accordingly reap the rewards of wealth and status. The author of “The Instinct that Makes People Rich” suggests that opportunities, though varied, are distributed to all, and he exhorts his readers to seize them, implying that opportunities do not inevitably benefit individuals; they are not decrees of fortune but must be proactively noticed and exploited. Chesterton does not directly discuss opportunity and its relationship to success, though his view that success is achieved through hard work or cheating—neither of which passively befall people—and his ready admission that individuals such as Mr. Vanderbilt succeeded through hard work suggest that he likewise does not view opportunities as guaranteed gifts of fortune.