Psychology

The Origins of Self-Help (no joke)

by David Zahl on Feb 15, 2008 • 3:01 pm 3 Comments

Yesterday my sister-in-law Bonnie informed me that the first ever self-help book was written in 1859 by a Scottish man named Samuel Smiles(!). It was titled “Self-Help”, and the first sentence was “Heaven helps those who help themselves”.

The rest, as they say, is history! Amazing…

3 comments

Todd says:

Feb 16, 2008

He stole that quote from Benjamin Franklin, who was actually a deist. So much for those Christian self-help book!

Dr. Robert C. Worstell says:

Feb 16, 2008

Smiles was certainly the first to use “Self-Help” in the title. However, there are earlier claims of self-help books. One called “Secreta Secretorum” (Secret of Secrets) was published by hand (before printing presses) for over 500 years running – and it in turn was an English translation of an older Islamic mystic text.

If you wanted to get into the oral traditions of self-help, you’d have to go back and study what is now called “Huna”, a very old philosophy which predates Egyptian and traces are found all over this planet – including England.

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Improve Thyself! On the Fantasy Person You’re Failing to Become | Mockingbird says:

Jan 20, 2018

[…] the self-improvement boom, it’s hard not to do a double-take. I mean, a lot of this stuff has Christian roots. But he’s getting at something Esther Perel once described in regard to the pressure people […]

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The Origins of Self-Help (no joke)