Your Career is More Important to You Than Anyone

What You Will Learn You need to protect your ability to earn a living at all costs, and you need to make sure that no one is going to slow you down. The sooner you understand that your career is not as important to anyone else as it is to you, the better. Even if it appears like you have no options, you need to be very careful about the people with whom you cast your lot.

I went to high school in an area called Bloomfield Hills, Michigan and lived with my father there during high school. Up until ninth grade I had lived in a city called Grosse Pointe, Michigan, which was about an hour long drive away. Since I had grown up in Grosse Pointe, many of my friends still lived there and I spent many of my weekends there visiting.

One day I received the most amazing telephone call from a friend of mine in Grosse Pointe. A girl that I (and just about every other guy I knew) had been incredibly interested in for a long time had stopped by my buddy’s house with his girlfriend, and told him that he should call me because she wanted to go out with me that night. She had recently broken up with her boyfriend of 5 or 6 years, who was a freshman at the University of Michigan. She was still in high school as was I.

“Are you kidding?” I asked my friend.

“No. You need to get over here right now. We’ll all go out. I do not think you understand … no one has ever gone out with this girl except for her ex-boyfriend. I have no idea why she picked you, but you need to get over here right now!”

I could hardly believe my luck. This seemed too good to be true. In fact, it hardly made sense. I did not know the girl very well and had only been listening to stories from other kids that were obsessed with her, for as long as I could remember. My friend handed me the phone and the girl got on the line and said she was thinking that it would be fun if we all hung out, and that I should come over right away.

I jumped in my Yugo and started making the one-hour drive from Bloomfield Hills to Grosse Pointe. I was about half way there and I noticed that my car was slowing down. Then I heard a loud grinding sort of sound and the engine lost all of its power as I steered the car to the side of the road. When I tried to start the car nothing happened and all I could hear was a clicking. The engine would not turn over.

In a panic sort of state I popped the hood and checked the oil. There was no oil in the engine, which is apparently why the engine had seized up. I had completely trashed the car by forgetting to check the oil. The car was rendered useless–with only 23,000 miles on it. I remembered back to when I had first purchased the car and was very proud of it. One time a man approached me as I was pumping gas, and he told me he was from Yugoslavia and used to have the same car when he had lived there.

“This car will not go more than 25,000 miles,” he had said.

The Yugo was stopped dead beneath a freeway bridge and I decided that the best thing I could do was to go to a gas station and call a taxi. It must have taken me close to a half hour to find a gas station. I called home, but nobody was there. The taxi showed up within a few minutes.

I was, of course, upset about the incident with the Yugo since it was my only car, but I was not all that worried, since I had a large van that I used for my asphalt seal coating business. The van was very nice and I had gotten a great deal on it. It was not something I could drive on a daily basis, though, because after having done several asphalt jobs with the van, I had gotten tar all over the interior. I had to be careful where I sat.

I took a taxi back home and it ended up costing me sixty bucks, which was all the money I had had available for going out that night. I called my friend:

“Where are you?” he asked. “We are all waiting for you!”

I explained to him that I did not have any money, that my car had broken down but I would be leaving in my van right away. My friend sounded annoyed about having to loan me money to go out, but simply told me to hurry up. I started driving again and, incredibly, halfway into the drive the van started making strange noises, losing power and so forth. Within a few minutes the van had broken down, started smoking out of its engine, and literally rolled to a stop directly behind the Yugo, alongside the freeway. It made absolutely no sense.

I was extremely depressed about this whole situation and did not know what to do. I had no money to call a taxi and now I had no way to get to my friend’s house to go out on my dream date. I hiked again to the gas station and told the people there the incredible story about how I had broken down another car, literally right behind the Yugo. They looked at me as if I were insane and clearly did not believe me. They were kind enough to let me use a phone.

I first called my friend in Grosse Pointe. He could not believe me either. He said they were going out without me–and he did not have a car.

“It would kind of be awkward if your first date was her picking you up at a gas station, eh?” my friend said. He was absolutely right. I did not want that. I never got another chance to go out with the girl. Within a week she had another boyfriend.

I called a rich friend of mine who drove out to pick me up. An hour or so later he pulled up in his brand new BMW convertible, wearing Ray Bans and looking somewhat stoned. He had been smoking pot with some other friends. I sat down in the convertible and the guy suddenly got agitated:

“Jesus Christ!! Look, you got a speck of tar on the leather! THIS IS NOT THE YUGO!!”

I got out of the car and busily tried to clean his prized leather seat. The mark on it was no larger than a fingernail and it came out quickly. As we drove back towards my house, my friend started telling me that he thought it would be fun to go into partnership with me in the asphalt business. Since I literally had no money, and no truck, to me getting a partner seemed like a good idea. I was at a very low point and felt like I needed help to get out of the hole I was in.

The business at the time was quite small and involved me passing around various flyers, giving estimates and going out and seal coating people’s driveways, repairing cracks and doing asphalt patches. Apart from the fact that my van had just broken down, the business was going very well and my friend wanted in on it.

For less than a few thousand dollars he bought in to the business and was suddenly a half owner, entitled to half of all of the revenue that came into the business (after expenses, of course). I was excited about having a partner, and working with a partner really took a lot of the stress off my back. Now I had someone to talk with about various things that were going on in the business and, most importantly, I had someone with whom to share the workload.

With the money he invested in the business I bought an old camper to do the work in. While buying the camper I was propositioned in a very strange way and the man selling it made some really crude remarks about other matters, which really freaked me out. Driving away after paying for the camper, I literally felt sexually violated, just because of the things that were said to me during the purchase. After having owned the camper for some time, one day I picked up an old sleeping mattress in the back of it and found several pairs of little girls’ underwear. The event was so bizarre that I had blocked the event out of my mind until just now. Old campers formerly owned by perverts are bad news.

My first day of work with my new partner left us both completely covered in tar. Someone who worked on my partner’s estate had recommended that at the end of each day we clean the tar off of our skin using Brillo pads (steel wool) and liquid Lysol. I am not sure why this recommendation was made; however, before we started work that day we made sure to buy plenty of Brillo pads and liquid Lysol. I remember it was a particularly hot day and we both got a ton of tar on ourselves, which baked on with the heat. At the end of the day we found a hose on someone’s property we were not working on and started cleaning ourselves with steel wool and Lysol. It was so painful I can still feel the sensation of the pain of the steel wool digging into my skin, and the burn of the alcohol from the Lysol.

We scrubbed the tar off of our faces using the steel wool just as we had scrubbed it off of our arms. Since the day had been so hot, the tar did not come off easily. The water from the hose we were using was extremely cold. It must have taken us at least 15 minutes of scrubbing to get all of the tar off. What was so funny about this was that my “partner” acted like we had received some really good advice.

“See, I got it all off!” he exclaimed as we drove away. His arms were all scratched up and so was his face. He had small scratches in a few places that were bleeding. In fact, it looked like he was having a severe allergic reaction. His face was turning all red. I dropped him off at his BMW convertible and he drove off.

The next day he called me and told me that he was breaking out in hives and had all sorts of major scratches all over his face from the steel wool. I saw him that evening and, sure enough, he was having an allergic reaction. We were scheduled to do a job the next day. The next morning, quite early, he called me:

“I do not feel like working today. We’re just chilling out today. Natalie got a new horse and I was thinking about going over and seeing it, getting high and drinking some beers later,” he said.

We had been friends for several years and, in fact, were good friends. There were several people’s driveways that we had scheduled to complete that day and for me this situation was quite serious. I had made promises to complete the work and, in addition, I needed the money. As these thoughts raced through my head I reacted in a way that, from what I remember, may have been a bit too aggressive.

“How can we run a business if you are only going to work the days you feel like it?” I asked him.

There was a long pause. At that moment I realized that for him the business was simply something fun. It was not a mission, not something that was very important to him. He had been discouraged by the Brillo pads and Lysol.

“I’m going out to do the work today,” I told him. And I did.

Later in the afternoon, he stopped by and said hello while I was working on a driveway on his street. He was dressed nicely and I remember he kept his distance from the truck, driveway and myself. He obviously didn’t plan to do any work.

“How much are we making on this one?” he asked me as I sweated in the sun and continued working on the driveway.

The next day, a Sunday, he called me looking for his “cut” of the money from the work. I gave him his cut.

In our partnership together, he went out with me once more and then that was it. For some time, until he finally did not ask anymore, I gave him half of the money that I made from going out and completing the jobs. He ended up making much more than his investment and did very little work. We graduated from high school that year and towards the end of the summer, before he was ready to go off to college, he called me on the phone. He had spent his summer hanging out with a very wealthy kid that lived near us, out in the country. He had a quarry near his property. For fun, the two of them had figured out how to rig explosives that they had stolen from a trailer on the quarry site–to blow up Porta Potties. It apparently was very fun and dramatic.

“We want to blow up the camper. I own half of it. Can I come pick it up?” he asked.

“No,” I said. The camper was the only way I could complete jobs. It was an awkward conversation and not a particularly pleasant one. I was deeply offended that someone would want to blow up the vehicle I depended on to earn a living. My job was so unimportant to my “partner” that he wanted to blow it up with dynamite.

Since that bad episode when I was in high school with a partner, I have always been very suspicious about people who want to share in my work: I want to make sure they too are going to contribute as much as I do. You should be cautious about partnerships too. The fact of the matter is that virtually no one is going to work as hard in your career as you. If you depend on others to do your work, you will likely be sorely disappointed.

Throughout the years I have been approached by countless people that want to work with me on an equal basis. Some of these people are people you likely have heard of (most are not); others have been companies that have offered me tens of millions of dollars to share in my work, and still others have been people that are far more skilled or experienced in certain matters than I am. However, whenever I have pushed these people and organizations, and spent a great deal of time with them I have realized that they never will work as hard, or be as committed as I am to what I do.

I do not think that my experience is unique. In fact, I would say that almost everyone out there would never be as committed to your career and your livelihood as you are. You are never going to find the answers to your success and what you need in someone else. It has to come from you. The answers always need to come from you.

I am not saying that there is anything inherently wrong with partners. What I am saying, though, is that you need to protect your ability to earn a living at all costs, and you need to make sure that no one is going to slow you down. Your career is not as important to anyone else as it is to you. The sooner you understand this, the better off you will be. Even if it appears like you have no options (like how I felt when my truck and car both broke down) you need to be very careful about the people with whom you cast your lot.

Common Sense : How To Exercise IT

Blanchard Yorimoto-Tashi, one of the greatest statesmen that Japan has ever produced, presents some of his precepts in his book Common Sense: How To Exercise It. To him common sense is the crown of all faculties and exercised vigilantly, it leads to progress and prosperity. He says, ”enthusiasm is as brittle as crystal, but common sense is durable as brass”. In the teachings that follow, Shogun Yorimoto-Tashi, points out that common sense is a composite product consisting of perception, memory, thought, alertness, deduction, foresight, reason, and judgment. While discussing these separately, he shows us how to acquire and develop common sense and practical sense, how to apply them in our daily lives, and how to utilize them profitably in the business world. You can make incredible changes in your life by using your common sense in the most productive way. I hope you enjoy this book.

–Harrison

COMMON SENSE

HOW TO EXERCISE IT

Blanchard Yorityomo- Tashi

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Announcement

Preface

Lesson I. Common Sense: What is It?

Lesson II. The Fight against Illusion

Lesson III. The Development of the Reasoning Power

Lesson IV. Common Sense and Impulse

Lesson V. The Dangers of Sentimentality

Lesson VI. The Utility of Common Sense in Daily Life

Lesson VII. Power of Deduction

Lesson VIII. How to Acquire Common Sense

Lesson IX. Common Sense and Action

Lesson X. The Most Thorough Business Man

LessonXI. Common Sense and Self-Control

Lesson XII. Common Sense does not Exclude Great Aspirations

ANNOUNCEMENT

The quality popularly designated as “Common Sense” comprehends, according to the modern point of view, the sound judgment of mankind when reflecting upon problems of truth and conduct without bias from logical subtleties or selfish interests. It is one of Nature’s priceless gifts; an income in itself, it is as valuable as its application is rare.

How often we hear the expression “Why, I never thought of that!” Why? Because we have failed to exercise Common Sense–that genius of mankind, which, when properly directed is the one attribute that will carry man and his kind successfully through the perplexities of life. Common Sense is as a plant of delicate growth, in need of careful training and continued watching so that it may bear fruit at all seasons. In the teachings that follow, the venerable Shogun, Yoritomo-Tashi, points out that Common Sense is a composite product consisting of (1) Perception; (2) Memory; (3) Thought; (4) Alertness; (5) Deduction; (6) Foresight; (7) Reason, and (8) Judgment. Discussing each of these separately, he indicates their relations and how they may be successfully employed. Further, he warns one against the dangers that lurk in moral inertia, indifference, sentimentality, egotism, etc.

Common Sense is a quality that must be developed if it is to be utilized to the full of its practical value. Indispensable to this development are such qualifications–(1) Ability to grasp situations; (2) Ability to concentrate the mind; (3) Keenness of perception; (4) Exercise of the reasoning power; (5) Power of approximation; (6) Calmness; (7) Self-control, etc. Once mastered, these qualifications enable one to reap the reward of a fine and an exalted sense, and of a practical common sense which sees things as they are and does things as they should be done.

The desire for knowledge, like the thirst for wealth, increases by acquisition, but as Bishop Lee has told us, “Knowledge without common
sense is folly; without method it is waste; without kindness it is fanaticism; without religion it is death.” But, Dean Farrar added: “With common sense, it is wisdom; with method it is power; with charitybeneficence; with religion it is virtue, life, and peace.”

In these pages, Yoritomo-Tashi teaches his readers how to overcome such defects of the understanding as may beset them. He shows them how to acquire and develop common sense and practical sense, how to apply them in their daily lives, and how to utilize them profitably in the business world.

To him common sense is the crown of all faculties. Exercised vigilantly, it leads to progress and prosperity, therefore, says he “enthusiasm is as brittle as crystal, but common sense is durable as brass.”

THE PUBLISHERS.

PREFACE

Why should I hesitate to express the pleasure I felt on learning that the public, already deeply interested in the teachings of Yoritomo-Tashi, desired to be made familiar with them in a new form?

This knowledge meant many interesting and pleasant hours of work in prospect for me, recalling the time passed in an atmosphere of that peace which gives birth to vibrations of healthful thoughts whose radiance vitalizes the soul.

It was also with a zeal, intensified by memories of the little deserted room in the provincial museum, where silence alone could lend rhythm to meditation, that I turned over again and again the leaves of those precious manuscripts, translating the opinions of him whose keen and ornate psychology we have so often enjoyed together.

It was with the enthusiastic attention of the disciple that once more I scanned the pages, where the broadest and most humane compassion allies itself with those splendid virtues: energy, will and reason.

For altho Yoritomo glorifies the will and energy under all their aspects, he knows also how to find, in his heart, that tenderness which transforms these forces, occasionally somewhat brutal, into powers for good, whose presence are always an indication of favorable results.

He knows how to clothe his teachings in fable and appealing legend, and his exotic soul, so near and yet so far, reminds one of a flower, whose familiar aspect is transmuted into rare perfume.

By him the sternest questions are stripped of their hostile aspects and present themselves in the alluring form of the simplest allegories of striking poetic intensity.

When reading his works, one recalls unconsciously the orations of the ancient philosophers, delivered in those dazzling gardens, luxuriant in sunlight and fragrant with flowers.

In this far-away past, one sees also the silhouette of a majestic figure, whose school of philosophy became a religion, which interested the world because it spoke both of love and goodness.

But in spite of this fact, the doctrines of Yoritomo are of an imaginative type. His kingdom belongs to this world, and his theories
seek less the joys of the hereafter than of that tangible happiness which is found in the realization of the manly virtues and in that effort to create perfect harmony from which flows perfect peace.

He takes us by the hand, in order to lead us to the center of that Eden of Knowledge where we have already discovered the art of persuasion, and that art, most difficult of all to acquire–the mastery of timidity.

Following him, we shall penetrate once more this Eden, that we may study with Yoritomo the manner of acquiring this art–somewhat unattractive perhaps but essentially primordial–called Common Sense.

B. DANGENNES.

LESSON I

COMMON SENSE: WHAT IS IT?

One beautiful evening, Yoritomo-Tashi was strolling in the gardens of his master, Lang-Ho, listening to the wise counsels which he knew so well how to give in all attractiveness of allegory, when, suddenly, he paused to describe a part of the land where the gardener’s industry was less apparent.

Here parasitic plants had, by means of their tendrils, crept up the shrubbery and stifled the greater part of its flowers.

Only a few of them reached the center of the crowded bunches of the grain stalks and of the trailing vines that interlaced the tiny bands which held them against the wall.

One plant alone, of somber blossom and rough leaves, was able to flourish even in close proximity to the wild verdure. It seemed that this plant had succeeded in avoiding the dangerous entanglements of the poisonous plants because of its tenacious and fearless qualities, at the same time its shadow was not welcome to the useless and noxious creeping plants.

“Behold, my son,” said the Sage, “and learn how to understand the teachings of nature: The parasitic plants represent negligence against
the force of which the best of intentions vanish.”

Energy, however, succeeds in overcoming these obstacles which increase daily; it marks out its course among entanglements and rises from the midst of the most encumbered centers, beautiful and strong.

Ambition and audacity show themselves also after having passed through thousands of difficulties and having overcome them all.

Common sense rarely needs to strive; it unfolds itself in an atmosphere of peace, far from the tumult of obstructions and snares that are not easily avoided.

Its flower is less alluring than many others, but it never allows itself to be completely hidden through the wild growth of neighboring branches.

It dominates them easily, because it has always kept them at a distance.

Modest but self-sustaining, it is seen blossoming far from the struggles which always retard the blossoming of plants and which render their flowering slower and, at times, short-lived.

A most absurd prejudice has occasionally considered common sense to be an inferior quality of mind.

This error arises from the fact that it can adapt itself as well to the most elevated conceptions as to the most elemental mentalities.

To those who possess common sense is given the faculty of placing everything in its proper rank.

It does not underestimate the value of sentiments by attributing to them an exaggerated importance.

It permits us to consider fictitious reasons with reservation and of resolutely rejecting those that resort to the weapons of hypocrisy.

Persons who cultivate common sense never refuse to admit their errors.

One may truly affirm that they are rarely far from the truth, because they practise directness of thought and force themselves never to deviate from this mental attitude.

Abandoning for a moment his favorite demonstration by means of symbolism, Yoritomo said to us:

“Common sense should be thus defined:

“It is a central sense, toward which all impressions converge and unite in one sentiment–the desire for the truth.

“For people who possess common sense, everything is summed up in one unique perception:

“The love of directness and simplicity.

“All thoughts are found to be related; the preponderance of these two sentiments makes itself felt in all resolutions, and chiefly in the reflections which determine them.

“Common sense permits us to elude fear which always seizes those whose judgment vacillates; it removes the defiance of the Will and indicates infallibly the correct attitude to assume.”

And Yoritomo, whose mind delighted in extending his observations to the sociological side of the question, adds:

“Common sense varies in its character, according to surroundings and education.

“The common sense of one class of people is not the same as that of a neighboring class.

“Certain customs, which seem perfectly natural to Japan would offend those belonging to the western world, just as our Nippon prejudices would find themselves ill at ease among certain habits customary among Europeans.”

“Common sense,” he continues, “takes good care not to assail violently those beliefs which tradition has transmuted into principles.

“However, if direct criticism of those beliefs causes common sense to be regarded unfavorably, it will be welcomed with the greatest reserve and will maintain a certain prudence relative to this criticism, which will be equivalent to a proffered reproach.

“Common sense often varies as to external aspects, dependent upon education, for it is evident that a diamio (Japanese prince) can not
judge of a subject in the same way as would a man belonging to the lowest class of society.

“The same object can become desirable or undesirable according to the rank it occupies.

“Must one believe that common sense is excluded from two such incompatible opinions?

“No, not at all. An idea can be rejected or accepted by common sense without violating the principles of logic in the least.

“If, as one frequently sees, an idea be unacceptable because of having been presented before those belonging to a particular environment, common sense, by applying its laws, will recognize that the point of view must be changed before the idea can become acceptable.”

And again, Yoritomo calls our attention to a peculiar circumstance.

“Common sense,” he says, “is the art of resolving questions, not the art of posing them.

“When taking the initiative it is rarely on trial.

“But the moment it is a case of applying practically that which ingenuity, science or genius have invented, it intervenes in the happiest and most decisive manner.

“Common sense is the principle element of discernment.

“Therefore, without this quality, it is impossible to judge either of the proposition or the importance of the subject.

“It is only with the aid of common sense that it is possible to distinguish the exact nature of the proposition, submitted for a just appreciation, and to render a solution of it which conforms to perfect accuracy of interpretation.

“The last point is essential and has its judicial function in all the circumstances of life. Without accuracy, common sense can not be satisfactorily developed, because it finds itself continually shocked by incoherency, resulting from a lack of exactness in the expression of opinions.”

If we wish to know what the principal qualities are which form common sense, we shall turn over a few pages and we shall read:

“Common sense is the synthesis of many sentiments, all of which converge in forming it.

“The first of these sentiments is reason.

“Then follows moderation.

“To these one may add:

“The faculty of penetration;

“The quality consistency.

“Then, wisdom, which permits us to profit by the lessons of experience.

“A number of other qualities must be added to these, in order to complete the formation of common sense; but, altho important, they are only the satellites of those we have just named.

“Reason is really indispensable to the projection of healthy thoughts.

“The method of reasoning should be the exhaustive study of minute detail, of which we shall speak later.

“For the moment we shall content ourselves by indicating, along the broad lines of argument, what is meant by this word reason.

“Reasoning is the art of fixing the relativeness of things.

“It is by means of reasoning that it is possible to differentiate events and to indicate to what category they belong.

“It is the habit of reasoning to determine that which it is wise to undertake, thus permitting us to judge what should be set aside.

“How could we guide ourselves through life without the beacon-light of reason? It pierces the darkness of social ignorance, it helps us to distinguish vaguely objects heretofore plunged in obscurity, and which will always remain invisible to those who are unprovided with this indispensable accessory–the gift of reasoning.

“He who ventures in the darkness and walks haphazard, finds himself suddenly confronted by obstacles which he was unable to foresee.

“He finds himself frightened by forms whose nature he cannot define, and is often tempted to attribute silhouettes of assassins to branches of trees, instead of recognizing the real culprit who is watching him from the corner of the wild forest.

“Life, as well as the wildest wilderness, is strewn with pitfalls. To think of examining it rapidly, without the aid of that torch called reason, would be imitating the man of whom we have just spoken.

“Many are the mirages, which lead us to mistake dim shadows for disquieting realities, unless we examine them critically, for otherwise we can never ascribe to them their true value.

“Certain incidents, which seem at first sight to be of small importance, assume a primordial value when we have explained them by means of reasoning.

“To reason about a thing is to dissect it, to examine it from every point of view before adopting it, before deferring to it or before rejecting it; in one word, to reason about a thing is to act with conscious volition, which is one of the phases essential to the conquest of common sense.

“This principle conceded, it then becomes a question of seriously studying the method of reasoning, which we propose to do in the following manner but first it is necessary to be convinced of this truth.”

Without reason there is no common sense.

Yoritomo teaches us that, altho moderation is only of secondary importance, it is still indispensable to the attainment of common sense.

It is moderation which incites us to restrain our impatience, to silence our inexplicable antipathies and to put a break on our tempestuous enthusiasms.

Can one judge of the aspect of a garden while the tempest is twisting the branches of the trees, tearing off the tendrils of the climbing vines, scattering the petals of the flowers and spoiling the corollas already in full bloom?

And now, Yoritomo, who loves to illustrate his teachings by expressive figures of speech, tells us the following story.

“A Japanese prince, on awakening, one day, demanded lazily of his servants what kind of weather it was, but he forbade them to raise the awnings which kept a cool, dim light in his room and shielded his eyes from the strong light from without. The two servants left him reclining upon his divan and went into the adjoining room, where the stained-glass windows were not hung with curtains.

“One of them, putting his face close to a yellow-tinted pane of glass, exclaimed in admiration of the beautiful garden, bathed in the early morning sunlight.

“The second one, directing his gaze to a dark blue pane and, looking through the center, remarked to his companion, I see no sunshine, the day is dreary and the clouds cast gloomy shadows upon the horizon.

“Each one returned to relate their impressions of the weather, and the prince wondered at the different visions, unable to understand the reason.”

There, concluded the Shogun, that is what happens to people who do not practise moderation.

Those, who see things through the medium of enthusiasm refuse to recognize that they could be deprived of brilliancy and beauty.

The others, those who look upon things from a pessimistic standpoint, never find anything in them save pretexts for pouring out to their hearers tales of woe and misery.

All find themselves deceptively allured; some rush toward illusion, others do not wish to admit the positive chances for success, and both lacking moderation, they start from a basis of false premises from which they draw deplorable conclusions, thus defeating future success.

The spirit of penetration, according to the old Nippon philosopher, is not always a natural gift. “It is,” said he, “a quality which certain people possess in a very high degree but which in spite this fact should be strengthened by will and discipline.

“One can easily acquire this faculty by endeavoring to foresee the solution of contemporary events; or at least try to explain the hidden reasons which have produced them.

“Great effects are produced, many times, from seemingly unimportant causes, and it is, above all, to the significant details that the spirit of penetration should give unceasing and undivided attention.

“Everything around us can serve as a subject for careful study; political events, incidents which interest family or friends, all may serve as just so many themes for earnest reflection.

“It is always preferable to confine this analysis to subjects in which we have no personal interest; thus we shall accustom ourselves to judge of people and things dispassionately and impersonally. This is the quality of mind necessary to the perfect development of penetration.

“If, for any reason, passion should create confusion of ideas, clearness of understanding would be seriously compromised and firmness of judgment, by deteriorating, would cast aside the manifestation of common sense.

“The spirit consistency is perhaps more difficult to conquer, for it is a combination of many of the qualities previously mentioned.

“Its inspiration is drawn from the reasoning faculty, it cannot exist without moderation and implies a certain amount of penetration, because it must act under the authority of conviction.

“If you strike long enough in the same place on the thickest piece of iron, in time it will become as thin as the most delicate kakemono [a picture which hangs in Japanese homes].

“It is impossible to define the spirit of consistency more accurately.

“It is closely related to perseverance, but can not be confounded with it, because the attributes of consistency have their origin in logic and reason which does not produce one act alone but a series of acts sometimes dependent, always inferred.

“The spirit of consistency banishes all thought derogatory to the subject in question; it is the complete investiture of sentiments, all converging toward a unique purpose.”

This purpose can be of very great importance and the means of attainment multiform, but the dominant idea will always direct the continuous achievements; under their different manifestations–and these at times contradictory–they will never be other than the emanation of a direct thought, whose superior authority is closely united to the final success.

Wisdom, continued the philosopher, should be mentioned here only as the forerunner which permits us to analyze experience.

It is from this never-ending lesson which life teaches us that the wisdom of old age is learned.

But is it really necessary to reach the point of decrepitude, in order to profit by an experience, actually useless at that time, as is always a posthumous conquest.

“Is it not much better to compel its attainment when the hair is black and the heart capable of hope?

“Why give to old age alone the privileges of wisdom and experience?

“It is high time to combat so profound an error.

“Is it not a cruel irony which renders such a gift useless?

“Of what benefit is wisdom resulting from experience if it cannot preserve us from the unfortunate seduction of youth?

“Why should its beauty be unveiled only to those who can no longer profit by it?” This is the opinion of Yoritomo, who says:

“What would be thought of one who prided himself on possessing bracelets when he had lost his two arms in war?

“It is, therefore, necessary, not only to encourage young people to profit by lessons of wisdom and experience, but, still further, to indicate to them how they can accomplish the result of these lessons.

“It is certain that he who can recall a long life ought to understand better than the young man all the pitfalls with which it is strewn.

“But does he always judge of it without bias or prejudice?

“Does he not find acceptable pretexts for excusing his past faults and does he not exaggerate the rewards for excellence, which have accorded him advantages, due at times to chance or to the force of circumstances?

“Finally, the old man can not judge of the sentiments which he held at twenty years of age, unless it be by the aid of reminiscences, more or less fleeting, and an infinitely attenuated intensity of representation.

“Emotive perception being very much weakened, the integrity of memory must be less exact.

“Then, in the recession of years, some details, which were at times factors of the initial idea, are less vivid, thus weakening the power of reason which was the excuse, the pretext, or the origin of the act.

“This is why, altho we may honor the wisdom of the aged, it is well to acquire it at a time when we may use it as a precious aid.

“To those who insist that nothing is equivalent to personal experience, we shall renew our argument, begging them to meditate on the preceding lines, drawing their attention to the fact that a just opinion can only be formed when personal sentiment is excluded from the discussion.

“Is it, then, necessary to have experienced pain in order to prevent or cure it?

“The majority of physicians have never been killed by the disease they treat.

“Does this fact prevent them from combatting disease victoriously?

“And since we are speaking of common sense we shall not hesitate to invoke it in this instance, and all will agree that it should dictate our reply.

“Then why could we not do for the soul that which can be done for the body?

“It is first from books, then from the lessons of life that physicians learn the principles underlying their knowledge of disease and its healing remedies.

“Is it absolutely indispensable for us to poison ourselves in order to know that such and such a plant is harmful and that another contains the healing substance which destroys the effects of the poison?

“We may all possess wisdom if we are willing to be persuaded that the experience of others is as useful as our own.”

The events which multiply about us, Yoritomo says, ought to be, for each master, an opportunity for awakening in the soul of his disciples a perfect reasoning power, starting from the inception of the premises to arrive at the conclusions of all arguments.

From the repetition of events, from their correlation, from their equivalence, from their parallelism, knowledge will be derived and will be productive of good results, in proportion as egotistical sentiment is eliminated from them; and slowly, with the wisdom acquired by experience, common sense will manifest itself tranquil and redoubtable, working always for the accomplishment of good as does everything which is the emblem of strength and peace.

LESSON II

THE FIGHT AGAINST ILLUSION

Common Sense such as we have just described it, according to Yoritomo, is the absolute antithesis of dreamy imagination, it is the sworn enemy of illusion, against which it struggles from the moment of contact.

Common sense is solid, illusion is yielding, also illusion never issues victorious from a combat with it; during a struggle illusion endeavors vainly to display its subterfuges and cunning; illusions disappear one by one, crusht by the powerful arms of their terrible adversary–common sense.

“The worship of illusion,” says Yoritomo, “presents certain dangers to the integrity of judgment, which, under such influence, falsifies the comparative faculty, and sways decision to the side of neutrality.

“This kind of mental half-sleep is extremely detrimental to manifestations of reason, because this torpor excludes it from imaginary conceptions.

“Little by little the lethargy caused by this intellectual paralysis produces the effect of fluidic contagion over all our faculties.

“Energy, which ought to be the principle factor in our resolutions, becomes feeble and powerless at the point where we no longer care to feel its influence.

“The sentiment of effort exists no longer, since we are pleased to resolve all difficulties without it.

“In this inconstant state of mind, common sense, after wandering a moment withdraws itself, and we find that we are delivered over to all the perils of imagination.

“Nothing that we see thus confusedly is found on the plane which belongs to common sense; the ideas, associated by a capricious tie, bind and unbind themselves, without imposing the necessity of a solution.

“The man who allows himself to be influenced by vague dreams,” adds the Shogun, “must, if he does not react powerfully, bid farewell to common sense and reason; for he will experience so great a charm in forgetting, even for one moment, the reality of life, that he will seek to prolong this blest moment.

“He will renounce logic, whose conclusions are, at times, opposed to his desires, and he will plunge himself into that false delight of awakened dreams, or, as some say, day-dreams.

“Those who defend this artificial conception of happiness, like to compare people of common sense to heavy infantry soldiers, who march along through stony roads, while they depict themselves as pleasant bird-fanciers, giving flight to the fantastic bearers of wings.

“But they do not take into account the fact that the birds, for whom they open the cage, fly away without the intention of returning, leaving them thus deceived and deprived of the birds, while the rough infantry soldiers, after many hardships, reach the desired end which they had proposed to attain, thus realizing the joys of conquest.

“There they find the rest and security, which the possessors of fugitive birds will never know.

“Those who cultivate common sense will always ignore the collapses which follow the disappearance of illusions.

“How many men have suffered thus uselessly!

“And what is more stupid than a sorrow, voluntarily imposed, when it can not be productive of any good?

“Men can not be too strongly warned against the tendency of embellishing everything that concerns the heart-life, and this is the inclination of most people.

“The causes of this propensity are many and the need for that which astounds is not the only cause to be mentioned.

“Indolence is never a stranger to illusion.

“It is so delightful to foresee a solution which conforms to our desires!

“For certain natures, stained with moral atrophy, it is far sweeter to hope for that which will be produced without pain.

“One begins by accelerating this achievement, so earnestly desired, by using all the will-power, and one becomes accustomed progressively to regard desires as a reality, and, aided by indolence, man discounts in advance an easy success.

“False enthusiasm, or rather enthusiasm without deliberate reflection, always enters into these illusions, which are accompanied by persuasion and never combatted by common sense.

“Vanity is never foreign to these false ideas, which are always of a nature to flatter one’s amour propre.

“We love to rejoice beforehand in the triumph which we believe will win and, aided by mental frivolity, we do not wish to admit that success can be doubted.

“The dislike of making an effort, however, would quickly conceal, with its languishing voice, the wise words of common sense, if we would listen momentarily to them.

“And, lastly, it is necessary to consider credulity, to which, in our opinion, is accorded a place infinitely more honorable than it deserves.”

And now the sage, Yoritomo, establishes the argument which, by the aid of common sense, characterized these opinions.

According to him, “It does not belong to new and vibrating souls, as many would have us believe.

“When credulity does not proceed from inveterate stupidity, it is always the result of apathy and weakness.

“Unhappiness and misfortune attend those who are voluntarily feeble.

“Their defect deprived them of the joy derived from happy efforts. They will be the prey of duplicity and untruth.

“They are the vanquished in life, and scarcely deserve the pity of the conqueror; for their defeat lacks grandeur, since it has never been aurioled by the majestic strength of conflict.”

Following this, the Shogun speaks to us of those whom he calls the ardent seekers after illusion.

One evening he related the following story: “Some men started off for an island, which they perceived in the distance.

“It looked like a large, detached red spot, amid the flaming rays of the setting sun, and the men told of a thousand wonders about this unknown land, as yet untrodden by the foot of man.

“The first days of the journey were delightful. The oars lay in the bottom of the boat untouched, and they just allowed themselves to drift with the tide. They disembarked, singing to the murmur of the waters, and gathered the fruits growing on the shores, to appease their hunger.

“But the stream, which was bearing them onward, did not retain long its limpidity and repose; the eddies soon entrapped the tiny bark and dragged the men overboard.

“Some, looking backward, were frightened at the thought of ascending the river, which had become so tempestuous.

“Escaping the wreckage of the boat as best they could, they entrusted themselves again to the fury of the waters.

“They had to suffer from cold and hunger, for they were far from shore, and as, in their imagination, the island was very near, they had neglected to furnish themselves with the necessities of life.

“At last, after the fatigues which forethought would have prevented, they found themselves one evening, at sundown, at the base of a great rock, bathed in the rosy light of the departing sun.

“This, then, was the island of their dreams.

“Tired out and exhausted from lack of food, they had only the strength to lie down upon the inhospitable rock, there to die!

“The disappearance of the illusion, having destroyed their courage and having struck them with the sword of despair, the rock of reality had proved destructive of their bodies and souls.

“The moral of this story easily unfolds itself.

“If the seekers after illusions had admitted common sense to their deliberations, they would certainly have learned to know the nature of the enchanted isle, and they would have taken good care not to start out on their journey which must terminate by such a deception.

“Would they not have taken the necessary precaution to prevent all the delays attendant upon travels of adventure, and would they have entrusted their lives to so frail a skiff, if they had acquired common sense?”

We must conclude, with Yoritomo, that illusion could often be transformed into happy reality if it were better understood, and if, instead of looking upon it through the dreams of our imagination, we applied ourselves to the task of eliminating the fluid vapors which envelop it, that we might clothe it anew with the garment of common sense.

Many enterprises have been considered as illusions because we have neglected to awaken the possibilities which lay dormant within them.

The initial thought, extravagant as it may appear, brings with it, at times, facilities of realization that a judgment dictated by common sense can alone make us appreciate.

He who knows how to keep a strict watch over himself will be able to escape the causes of disillusion, which lead us through fatal paths of error, to the brink of despair.

“That which is above all to be shunned,” said the philosopher, “is the encroachment of discouragement, the result of repeated failures.

“Rare are those who wish to admit their mistakes.

“In the structure of the mind, inaccuracy brings a partial deviation from the truth, and it does not take long for this slight error to generalize itself, if not corrected by its natural reformer–common sense.

“But how many, among those who suffer from these unhappy illusions, are apt to recognize them as such?

“It would, however, be a precious thing for us to admit the causes which have led us to such a sorry result, by never permitting them to
occur again.

“This would be the only way for the victims of illusion to preserve the life of that element of success and happiness known as hope.

“Because of seeing so often the good destroyed, we wish to believe no more in it as inherent in our being, and rather than suffer repeatedly from its disappearance, we prefer to smother it before perfect development.

“The greater number of skeptics are only the unavowed lovers of illusion; their desires, never being those capable of realization, they have lost the habit of hoping for a favorable termination of any sentiment.

“The lack of common sense does not allow them to understand the folly of their enterprise, and rather than seek the causes of their habitual failures, they prefer to attack God and man, both of whom they hold responsible for all their unhappiness.

“They are willingly ironical, easily become pessimists, and villify life, without desiring to perceive that it reserved as many smiles for them as the happy people whom they envy.

“All these causes of disappointment can only be attributed to the lack of equilibrium of the reasoning power and, above all, to the absence of common sense, hence we cannot judge of relative values.

“To give a definite course to the plans which we form is to prepare the happy termination of them.

“This is also the way to banish seductive illusion, the devourer of beautiful ambitions and youthful aspirations.”

And, with his habitual sense of the practical in life, Yoritomo adds the following:

“There are, however, some imaginations which can not be controlled by the power of reasoning, and which, in spite of everything, escape toward the unlimited horizons of the dream.

“It would be in vain to think of shutting them up in the narrow prison walls of strict reason; they would die wishing to attempt an escape.

“To these we can prescribe the dream under its most august form, that of science.

“Each inventor has pursued an illusion, but those whose names have lived to reach our recognition, have caught a glimpse of the vertiginous course they were following, and no longer have allowed themselves to get too far away from their base–science.

“Yes, illusion can be beautiful, on condition that it is not constantly debilitated.

“To make it beautiful we must be its master, then we may attempt its conquest.

“It is thus that all great men act; before adopting an illusion, as truth, they have assured themselves of the means by the aid of which they were permitted first to hope for its transformation and afterward be certain of their power to discipline it.

“Illusion then changes its name and becomes the Ideal.

“Instead of remaining an inaccessible myth, it is transformed into an entity for the creation of good.

“It is no longer the effort to conquer the impossible, which endeavor saps our vital forces; it is a contingency which study and common sense strip of all aleatory principles, in order to give a form which becomes more tangible and more definite every day.

“We have nothing more to do with sterile efforts toward gaining an object which fades from view and disappears as one approaches it.

“It is no longer the painful reaching out after an object always growing more indistinct as we draw near it.

“It is through conscious and unremitting effort that we attain the happy expression of successful endeavor and realize the best in life, for slow ascension in winning this best leaves no room for satiety in this noble strife.

“We must pity those who live for an illusion as well as those whose imagination has not known how to create an ideal, whose beauty illumines their efforts.

“It is the triumph of common sense to accomplish this transformation and to banish empty reveries, replacing them by creating a desire for the best, which each one can satisfy–without destroying it.

“The day when this purpose is accomplished, illusion, definitely conquered, will cease to haunt the mind of those whom common sense has illumined; vagaries will make place for reason and terrible disillusion will follow its chief (whose qualities never rise above mediocrity) into his retreat, and allow the flower of hope to blossom in the souls already filled with peace–that quality which is born of reason and common sense.”

LESSON III

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE REASONING POWER

When reading certain passages in the manuscripts of Yoritomo, one is forcibly reminded of the familiar phrase: “Nothing is definitely finished among men, for each thing stops only to begin again.”

He says, “That many centuries before the great minds constructed altars to the goddess of Reason, they were in search of a divinity to replace the one they had just destroyed.

“If it were proposed to me to build temples which would synthesize my devotion with certain sentiments, my desire would be that those dedicated to the Will and to Reason should dominate all others, for then they would be under the protection of powers for good.”

In a few pages further on he insists again and again upon the necessity of developing the worship of reason.

“Reasoning,” he continues, “is a divinity, around which gravitate a whole world of gods, important but inferior to it.

“Among this people of these idols, so justly revered, there is one god which occupies a place apart from the others.

“This god is Common Sense, which gave birth to Reason, and has always been its faithful companion.

“It is, in reality, the controlling force exercising its power to guard reason against the predominating character and nefarious tendencies created by self-interest.

“Common sense compels reason to admit principles whose justice it has already recognized, and, at the same time, incites reason to reject those whose absurdity it has demonstrated.

“Common sense allies itself with reason, in order to make that selection of ideas which personal interest can either set aside entirely or modify by illogical inference.

“Reason obeys certain laws, all of which can be united in one sentiment–common sense.”

This statement could be illustrated symbolically by comparing its truth to a fan, whose blades converge toward a central point where they remain fixt.

Applying the precept to the picture, the old Shogun gives the design which we are faithfully copying.

“In this ideal fan,” explains Yoritomo, “not only the true reproduction of the qualities directing the progress of knowledge must be perceived, but the symbol of their development must be traced.

“All of these qualities are born of common sense, to which they are closely allied, unfolding and disclosing a luminous radiance.

“Altho each one may have its autonomy, they never separate, and, even as a fan from which one blade has disappeared can only remain an imperfect object little to be desired, even so, the symbolic fan of reasoning, when it does not unite all the required qualities, becomes a mutilated power, which can only betray the destiny originally attributed to it.

“Consequently, starting from common sense as the central point of reasoning, we find, first, perception.

“This is the action by which exterior things are brought near to us.

“Perception is essentially visual and auditory, altho it influences all our senses.

“For example, the fact of tasting a fruit is a perception.

“The seeing of a landscape is equally one.

“The hearing of a song is also a perception.

“In a word, everything which presents itself to us, coming in contact with one of our senses, is a perception; otherwise, the inception of an idea.

“This is the first degree of reasoning.

“Immediately following is memory, without which nothing could be proved.

“It is memory, which, by renewing the motive power of reason, allows us to judge of the proportion of things, grasped by the senses in the present as related to those which come to us from the past.

“Without memory it would be impossible to make a mental comparison.

“It would be most difficult to determine the true nature of an event, announced by perception, if an analogous sensation, previously experienced, had not just permitted us to classify it by close examination or by differentiating it.

“Memory is a partial resurrection of a past life, whose reconstruction has just permitted us to attribute a true value to the phases of existence.

“It is in preserving the memory of things that we are called upon to compare them and then to judge of them.

“Thought is produced immediately after perception, and the recollection, very often automatic, that it creates within us.

“It is the inception of the idea which it engenders by a series of results.

“Thought permits the mind to exercise its judgment without allowing itself to be influenced by the greatness or humility of the idea.

“By virtue of corresponding recollections, it will associate the present perception with the past representations, and will take an extension, more or less pronounced, according to the degree of intellectuality of the thinker, and according to the importance of the object of its reflections.

“But rarely does the idea present itself alone.

“One thought almost always produces the manifestation of similar thoughts, which group themselves around the first idea as birds of the same race direct their flight toward the same country.

“Thought is the manifestation of the intellectual life; it palpitates in the brain of men as does the heart in the breast.

“It is thought which distinguishes men from animals, who have only instinct to guide them.

“It can be admitted, however, that this instinct is a kind of obscure thought for these inferior beings, from which reflection is eliminated, or, at least, reveals itself only as a vassal of material appetite.

“But with creatures who have intelligence, thought is a superior faculty, which aids the soul to free itself from the bondage of vulgar and limited impressions.

“When perception, memory, and thought unite to form judgment, activity of mind will become necessary, in order to accelerate the production of ideas in extending the field of imagination.

“Moral inertia is the most deplorable of all defects; it retards intellectual growth and hinders the development of personality.

“It is, in this understanding, the enemy of common sense, for it will admit voluntarily a reasoning power, existing per se, rather than make the necessary effort which will set free the truth and constitute an individual opinion.

“Vulgarity is, then, almost always the sign of mental sloth.

“It is not infrequent to see a mind of real capacity fall into error, where an intelligence of mediocre caliber asserts its efficiency. Indifference is the most serious obstacle to the attainment of judgment.

“Common sense demands a keen alertness of understanding, placed at the disposal of a reflection which appears at times slow of action, but which is long in being manifested only because of the desire to surround itself by all the guaranties of truth concerning the object in question.

“The fifth blade of the fan is the quality of deduction–the most solid basis for the judgments which are formed by common sense.

“By deduction we are able to solve all relative questions with perfect accuracy.

“It is by abstracting reckless contingencies, and by relying only upon the relativeness of facts, that we can succeed in discovering the truth that there are too many representations as to these facts.

“Deduction is the great support of mental weakness. It helps in discerning proportions, possibilities, even as it helps in skilfully avoiding the fear of error.”

We shall have occasion to speak more at length of deduction, for Yoritomo devotes many pages to it. We shall, then, defer to a future chapter the interesting developments that he discloses on this subject, and we shall continue to study the fan of common sense with him.

“Foresight,” he continues, “is rightly looked upon as one of the indispensable elements in cultivating common sense.

“The faculty of foresight always accompanies common sense, in order to strengthen its qualities of skill and observation.

“One must not confound, as many people are tempted to do, foresight and conjecture.

“The first consists in taking great care to prevent the repetition of unhappy facts which have already existed.

“Foresight will exert an influence on future events by establishing an analogy between them and the actual incidents which, of necessity, will lead to the adoption or rejection of present projects.

“It is to be observed that all these faculties are subordinate, one to the other, and, in proportion to the unfolding of the fan, we can prove that all the blades previously mentioned have concurred in the formation of the blade of which we are now speaking.

“In order to foresee disasters it is necessary that the perception–visual or auditory–of said disasters should already have imprest us.

“We have kept intact the memory of them, since it is reconstructed emotion which guides our thoughts.

“These same thoughts, in extending themselves, form groups of thoughts harmonious in character, all relative to the one, which is the object of the debate.

“Our mind becomes more active in recalling the incidents, the remembrance of which marks the time which has elapsed between the old perception and the present state of mental absorption.

“The faculty of deduction, which is born of these different mental conflicts, permits me to foresee that circumstances of the same nature will lead to others similar to those we have already mentioned.

“We have merely sketched rapidly the scale of sensations which follow each other, in order to reach the explanation of how foresight is formed, this faculty of which we are now speaking.

“By assimilating these present facts with those of the past, we are permitted to draw a conclusion, relating to the same group of results, because of the conformity of those past facts to the present questions.

“Foresight is passive; between it and precaution there is the same difference as between theory and practise.

“Precaution is preeminently active, and it marks its first appearance by means of foresight, but does not stop in this effort until it has rendered foresight productive.

“It is well to foresee, but it is precious to preclude.

“The second part of the act of precaution can, however, only be accomplished after having permitted the brain to register the thoughts which determine the first part of this act.”

In order to understand this very subtle difference, but very important one, which classifies these two sentiments, the old sage gives us the following example:

“Let us suppose,” he says, “that, on a beautiful day in spring, a man starts out for an excursion which will last until the dawn of the following day.

“If he has common sense, he will say to himself that the sun will not be shining at the time of his return, that the nights of spring are cold, and that this one will be no exception to the rule.

“This is foresight.

“If common sense, with all its consequences, takes possession of him, it will increase his power of reasoning. He will think that, in order to avoid suffering from the change of temperature, it would be well to cover himself with a cloak.

“And, even tho the sun shone, he would not hesitate to furnish himself with this accessory, which in fact will render him the greatest service.

“This is precaution.

“This quality is indispensable to the formation of the reasoning power; for, in addition to the necessity of foreseeing certain results, it permits also of directing their course, if it be impossible to exempt them completely.

“Reasoning is the art of developing, to the highest degree, the suppositions resulting from deduction.

“One is usually mistaken as to the exact meaning of the words ‘to reason,’ and people seldom attach the importance to them which they should.

“One is apt to think that the gift of reasoning is bestowed upon every one.

“Perhaps; but to reason, following the principles of justice and truth, is an operation which can only be performed by minds endowed with common sense.

“In order to arrive at this result, it is essential to impress upon oneself the value of the words, ‘to deduct accurately,’ after having produced the radiation of thoughts which depend upon the object in question, and to foresee the consequences of the facts that a resolution could determine.

“Above all, to avoid contentment with the approximate, which conceals many pitfalls under false appearances.

“Without permitting oneself to express useless trivialities, not to neglect to become impregnated with those axioms which have been rightfully baptized, ‘wisdom of nations.’

“They are generally based on a secular observation, and are the product of many generations.

“It would be puerile to attach vital importance to them, but one would surely regret having entirely scorned their counsel.

“Too much erudition is at times detrimental to reason, based on common sense. Altho fully appreciating science, and devoting serious study to it, one would do well to introduce the human element into his knowledge.

“There are some essential truths which modify daily life without, for this reason, lessening their importance.

“Some of them are of premature development; others are of miniature growth.

“To reason without offending common sense, it is, therefore, indispensable to consider time, place, environment, and all the contingencies which could arise to undermine the importance of reasoning.”

After having reviewed all these phases, we shall then extend, in accord with Yoritomo, the last blade of this rudimentary fan, and we shall find judgment.

“This one is the index to that quality of mind called conviction.

“This mental operation consists in drawing together many ideas that their relative characteristics may be determined.

“This operation takes the place contiguous to reasoning, of which it is the result.

“Judgment determines its character after having registered the reasons which ought to indicate its position; it deducts the conclusions imposed by the explanatory principle, and classifies the idea by submitting it to the valuation placed upon it by judgment.

“All judgment is either affirmative or negative.

“It can never be vascillating nor neutral.

“In this last case it will assume the title of opinion, and will attribute to itself the definite qualities which characterize judgment.

“It is, however, at times subjected to certain conditions, where the principles on which it is based are not sufficiently defined, and, therefore, becomes susceptible to a change, either of form or of nature.

“It is possible, without violating the laws of common sense, to establish a judgment whose terms will be modified by the mutation of causes.

“But common sense demands that these different influences should be foreseen, and that these eventualities should be mentioned when pronouncing the judgment.”

We have reached the last blade of the symbolic fan, described by the philosopher, for many secondary qualities may be placed between the principle blades.

But faithful to his explanatory method, he wished to indicate to us the broad lines first, and also to state the indispensable faculties constituting common sense, by teaching us their progression and development.

He desired to demonstrate to us also how much all these qualities would be lessened in value if they were not united and bound together in the order in which they ought to manifest themselves.

“We have all possest,” said he, “some fans whose point of reunion was destroyed in part or altogether lost.

“What becomes of it, then?

“During a certain length of time, always rather short, the blades, after having remained bound together by the thread which holds them, separate, when it is severed because of the lack of harmony and of equilibrium at their base.

“Very soon, one blade among them detaches itself, and the mutilated fan takes its place in the cemetery where sleep those things deteriorated because of old age or disuse.

“It is the same with the qualities which we have just enumerated. As long as they remain attached to their central point, which is common sense, they stand erect, beautiful and strong, concurring in the fertilization of our minds, and in creating peace in our lives.

“But if the point of contact ceases to maintain them, to bind them together, to forbid their separating, we shall soon see them fall apart after having escaped from the temporary protection of the secondary qualities.

“For a while we seek to evoke them; but recognizing the ruse existing in their commands, we shall soon be the first to abandon them, in order to harmonize our favors with the deceptive mirage of the illusions; at least, if we do not allow ourselves to be tempted by fallacious arguments of vanity.

“In the one as in the other case, we shall become, then, the prey of error and ignorance, for common sense is the intelligence of truth.”

LESSON IV

COMMON SENSE AND IMPULSE

Impulsive people are those who allow themselves to be guided by their initial impressions and make resolutions or commit acts tinder the domination of a special consciousness into which perception has plunged them.

Impulse is a form of cerebral activity which, forces us to make a movement before the mind is able to decide upon it by means of reflection or reasoning. The Shogun deals with it at length and defines it thus:

“Impulse is an almost direct contact between perception and result.

“Memory, thought, deduction, and, above all, reason are absolutely excluded from these acts, which are never inspired by intellectuality.

“The impression received by the brain is immediately transmuted into an act, similar to those acts which depend entirely on automatic memory.

“It is certain in making a series of movements, which compose the act of walking upstairs or the action of walking from one place to another, we do not think of analyzing our efforts and this act of walking almost limits itself to an organic function, so little does thought enter into its composition.

“In the case of repeated impulses, it can be absolutely affirmed that substance is the antecedent and postulate of the essence of being.

“Substance comprises all corporal materialities: instinctive needs, irrational movements, in a word, all actions where common sense is not a factor.

“Essence is that imponderable part of being which includes the soul, the mind, the intelligence, in fact the entire mentality.

“It is this last element of our being which poetizes our thoughts, classifies them, and leads us to common sense, by means of reasoning and judgment.

“He who, having received an injury from his superior, replies to it at once by corresponding affront, is absolutely sure to become the victim of his impulses.

“It is only when his act is consummated, that he will think of the consequences which it can entail; the loss of his employment first, then corporal punishment, in severity according to the gravity of the offense; lastly, misery, perhaps the result of forced inactivity.

“On the contrary, the man endowed with common sense will reflect in a flash, by recalling all the different phases which we have described. His intelligence, being appealed to, will represent to him the consequences of a violent action.

“He will find, in common sense, the strength not to respond to an injury at once; but will not forego the right, however, of avenging himself under the guise of a satisfaction which will be all the more easily accorded to him as his moderation will not fail to make an impression in his favor.”

“There is, between common sense and impulse,” says Yoritomo, “the difference that one would find between two coats, one of which was bought ready-made, while the other, after being cut according to the proportions of the one who is to wear it, was sewed by a workman to whom all the resources of his art are known.”

If impulses adopt the same character for every one, common sense adapts itself to the mind, to the sensitiveness, to the worth of him who practises it; it is a garment which is adjusted to the proportions of its owner, and, according to his taste, is elaborate or simple.

Certain people have a tendency to confound intuition and impulse.

These two things, really very different in essence, are only related by spontaneity of thought which gives them birth.

But whereas intuition, a sensation altogether moral, concisely stated, is composed of mental speculations, impulses always resolve themselves into acts and resolutions to act.

Intuition is a sort of obscure revelation, which reason controls only after its formation.

Impulse never engages common sense in the achievements which it realizes. It never decides upon them in advance, and almost always engenders regrets.

It is the result of a defeat in self-control, which will-power and the power of reasoning alone can correct.

Intuition is less spontaneous than impulse.

It is a very brief mental operation, but, nevertheless, very real, which, very indistinctly, touches lightly all the phases of reasoning, in order to reach a conclusion so rapidly that he who conceives it has difficulty in making the transformations of the initial thought intelligible.

It is none the less true that intuition is always inspired by a predicted reflection, but, in spite of this fact, an existing reflection.

Impulse, on the contrary, only admits instinct as its source of existence.

It is the avowed enemy of common sense, which counsels the escape from exterior insinuations that one may concentrate, in order to listen to the voice which dictates to us the abstinence from doing anything until after making a complete analysis of the cause which agitates us.

Some philosophers have sought to rank inspiration under the flag of impulse, which they thought to defend; yes, even to recover esteem under this new form.

“We should know how to stand on guard,” says Yoritomo, “against this fatal error.”

“Inspiration,” says he, “is rarely immobilized under the traits which characterized its first appearance.

“Before expressing itself in a work of art or of utility, it was the embryo of that which it must afterward personify.

“The ancients when relating that a certain divinity sprang, fully armed, from the head of a god, accredited this belief to instantaneous creation.

“If musicians, painters, poets, and inventors want to be sincere, they will agree that, between the thought which they qualify as inspiration, and its tangible realization, a ladder of transformations has been constructed, and that it is only by progressive steps that they have attained what seemed to them the nearest to perfection.”

Impulse, then, is only distantly related to inspiration and intuition.

Let us add that these gifts are very often only the fruit of an unconscious mental effort, and that, most of the time, the thoughts, which in good faith one accepts as inspiration or intuition, are only nameless reminiscences, whose apparition coincides with an emotional state of being, which existed at the time of the first perception.

There, again, the presence of reasoning is visible, and also the presence of common sense, which tries to convert into a work of lasting results those impressions which would probably remain unproductive without the aid of these two faculties.

Impulses are, most of the time, the vassals of material sensations.

Definite reasoning and impartial judgment, inspired by common sense, are rarely the possession of a sick man.

Sufferings, in exposing him to melancholy, make him see things in a defective light; the effort of thinking fatigues his weak brain, and the fear of a resolution which would force him to get out of his inactivity has enormous influence upon the deductions which dictate his judgment.

Before discussing the advantages of conflict, he will instinctively resign himself to inertia.

If, on the contrary, his temperament disposes him to anger, he will compromise an undertaking by a spontaneous violence, which patience and reflection would otherwise have made successful. It is possible also that a valiant soul is unable to obey a weak body, and that instinct, awakened by fear, leads one on to the impulsive desires of activity.

Inadequate food or excessive nourishment can produce impulses of a different nature, but these differences are wholly and completely distinct as to character.

The most evident danger of impulses lies in the scattering of mental forces, which, being too frequently called upon, use themselves up without benefiting either reason or common sense.

The habit of indulging in movements dictated only by instinct, in suppressing all the phases of judgment leaves infinitely more latitude to caprice, which exists at the expense of solid judgment.

Perception, being related to that which interests our passions, by getting in direct contact with the action which should simply be derived from a deduction, inspired by common sense, multiplies the unreflected manifestations and produces waste of the forces, which should be concentrated on a central point, after having passed through all the phases of which we have spoken.

In addition, the permanency of resolutions is unknown to impulsive people.

Their tendency, by leading them on toward instantaneous solutions, allows them to ignore the benefits of consistency.

“They are like unto a peasant,” said the old Nippon, “who owned a field in the country of Tokio. Scarcely had he begun to sow a part of the field when, under the influence of an unhappy impulse, he plowed up the earth again in order to sow the ground with a new seed.

“If he heard any one speak of any special new method of cultivation, he only tried it for a short while, and then abandoned it, to try another way.

“He tried to cultivate rice; then, before the time for harvesting it, he became enthusiastic for the cultivation of chrysanthemums, which he abandoned very soon in order to plant trees, whose slow development incited him to change his nursery into a field of wheat.

“He died in misery, a victim of his having scorned the power of consistency and common sense.”

Now Yoritomo, after having put us on our guard against impulses, shows us the way to conquer these causes of disorder.

“To control unguarded movements, which place us on a level with inferior beings. That is,” said he “in making us dependent on one instinct alone. This is,” said he, “to take the first step toward the will to think, which is one of the forms of common sense.

“In order to reach this point, the first resolution to make is to escape from the tyranny of the body, which tends to replace the intellectual element in impulsive people.

“When I was still under the instruction of my preceptor, Lang-Ho, I saw him cure a man who was affected with what he called ‘The Malady of the First Impulse.’

“Whether it concerned good actions or reprehensible ones, this man always acted without the least reflection.

“To launch a new enterprise, which the most elementary common sense condemned, he gave the greater part of his fortune in a moment of enthusiasm.

“He allowed himself to commit acts of violence which taught him severe lessons.

“Finally, vexed beyond measure, dissatisfied with himself and others, he so brutally maltreated a high dignitary in a moment of violent anger that the latter sent for him that he might punish him. Learning of this, the man, crazy with rage, rushed out of his house in order to kill the prince with his own hand.

“It was in this paroxysm of passion that my master met him. Like all impulsive people, he was full of his subject, and, joining the perception of the insult to the judgment of it, which his instinct had immediately dictated to him, he did not conceal his murderous intentions.

“My master, by means of a strategy, succeeded in dissuading him from accomplishing his revenge that day. He persuaded him that the prince was absent and would only return to town upon the following day.

“The man believed him, and allowed himself to be taken to the house of Lang-Ho.

“But it was in vain that Lang-Ho unfolded all his most subtle arguments. Neither the fear of punishment, nor the hope of pardon, could conquer the obstinacy which can always be observed in impulsive people when their resolution has not accomplished its purpose.

“It was then that my master employed a ruse, whose fantastic character brings a smile, but which, however, demonstrates a profound knowledge of the human heart when acting under the influence of common sense.

“During the sleep of his guest, Lang-Ho took off his robe, replacing it by a garment made of two materials. One was golden yellow, the other a brilliant green. After attacks of terrible anger, in spite of the solicitation of his impulsive nature which incited him to go out, he did not dare to venture into the streets in such a costume.

“That which the most subtle arguments had been unable to accomplish, was obtained through fear of ridicule.

“Two days passed; his fury was changed into great mental exhaustion, because impulsive people can not withstand the contact with obstacles for any length of time.

“It was this moment which my master chose to undertake the cure, in which he was so vitally interested.

“With the most delicate art, he explained to the impulsive man all the chain of sentiments leading from perception to judgment.

“He caused common sense to intervene so happily that the man was permeated by it. My master kept him near by for several weeks, always using very simple arguments to combat the instinctive resolutions which were formulated in his brain many times a day.

“Common sense, thus solicited, was revealed to the impulsive one, and appeared like a peaceful counselor.

“The ridiculous and odious side of his resolution was represented to him with such truth that he embraced Lang-Ho, saying:

“‘Now, Master, I can go away, and your mind can be at rest about me.

“‘The arguments of common sense have liberated me from bondage in which my lack of reflection held me.

“‘I return to my home, but, I beg of you, allow me to take away this ridiculous costume which was my savior.

“‘I wish to hang it in my home, in the most conspicuous place, that, from the moment my nature incites me to obey the commands of impulse, I may be able to look at once upon this garment, and thus recall your teachings, which have brought sweetness and peace into my life.’”

All those who are inclined to act by instinct should follow this example, not by dressing up in a ridiculous robe half green and half yellow, but by placing obstacles in the way of the accomplishment of impulsive acts, which the dictates of common sense would not sanction.

“For those whose mind possess a certain delicacy,” again says the old master, “these obstacles will be of a purely moral order, but for those who voluntarily allow themselves to be dominated by a diseased desire for action, obstacles should adopt a tangible form; the difficulty in conquering anything always makes impulsive people reflect a little.

“Under the immediate impression of the perception of an act they are ready for a struggle to the death; but this ardor is quickly extinguished, and inertia, in its turn, having become an impulse, makes them throw far away from them the object which determined the effort.

“In proportion as they encounter obstacles, which they have taken the precaution to raise, the encroachment of the impression will make itself less felt.

“The mere fact of having foreseen will become a matter for reflection for them.

“The feeling of the responsibilities will be roused in them, and they will understand how difficult it is to escape the consequences of impulsive acts.”

Would one not say that these lines had been written yesterday?

More than ever our age of unrest makes us the prey of impulses, and to the majority of our contemporaries, the robe, half green and half yellow (by recalling to them the worship of common sense), will become a fetish, more precious than all the amulets with which superstition loves to adorn logic, or to incorporate fantastic outline in the classic setting of beautiful jewels.

LESSON V

THE DANGERS OF SENTIMENTALITY

The Shogun says: “There are sentimentalities of many kinds, some present less dangers than others, but from every point of view they are prejudicial to the acquisition and exercise of common sense. To cultivate sentiment over which the Will has no control is always to be regretted.

“Sentimentality is multiform.

“It presents itself, at times, under the aspect of an obscure appeal to sensuality and brings with it a passing desire of the heart and of the senses, which produces an artificial appreciation of the emotion felt.

“In this first case sentimentality is an unconscious manifestation of egotism, because, outside of that which provokes this outward manifestation, everything is alienated and becomes indistinct.

“The incidents of existence lose their true proportion, since everything becomes relative to the object because of our preoccupation.

“The impulse reigns supreme there when sentimentality establishes itself, and the desire of judgment, if it makes itself apparent, is quickly shunned, to the profit of illusory reasons, in which pure reason does not intervene.

“This sentimentality amalgamating the springs of egotism bereaves the soul’s longing of all its greatness.

“The anxiety to attribute all our impressions to emotion is only a way of intensifying it for our personal satisfaction, at the expense of a sentiment far deeper and more serious, which never blossoms under the shadow of egotism and of frivolous sentimentality.

“Never will common sense have the chance to manifest itself in those who permit such ephemeral and enfeebling impressions to implant themselves in their souls.

“However they must be pitied because their artificial emotion often results in a sorrow which is not lessened by repetition, but whose manifestation is none the less prejudicial to the peace of their being.

“All those who do not harmonize common sense and the emotions of the heart become passive to the investiture of a sentimentality which does not wait to know if the object be worthy of them before it exists in consciousness.

“From this state of mind arise disillusions and their recurrence entails a defect in the conception.

“Men who are often deceived in allowing themselves to feel a sorrow which is only based on the longings of sentimentality become pessimists quickly and deny the existence of deep and enduring affection judged from its superior expression.

“This superior expression of sentiment is freed from all personality and such judgment which differentiates it from other sentiments.

“If we wished to appeal to common sense we should acknowledge, too often, that in the search for expansion we have only recognized the opportunity to satisfy the inclination which urges us to seek for pleasure.

“Sentiment reasons, and is capable of devotion. Sentimentality excludes reflective thought and ignores generosity.

“We are capable of sacrificing ourselves for sentiment.

“Sentimentality exacts the sacrifice of others.

“Therefore, profiting by the principles already developed, he who cultivates common sense will never fail to reason in the following manner:

“Opening the symbolic fan, he will encounter, after perfection, the memory which will suggest to him the recollections of personal and strange experiences and he will record this fact: abegation is rarely encountered.

“The inclination of our thoughts will suggest to us the difficulties there are in searching for it.

“Deduction will acquaint us with the temerity of this exaction, and precaution will attract our thoughts to the possibility of suffering which could proceed from disillusion.

“Following this, reasoning and judgment will intervene in order to hasten the conclusion formulated by common sense.

“It follows then that, abnegation being so rare, common sense indicates to me that it would be imprudent for me to allow my happiness to rest upon the existence of a thing so exceptional.

“For this reason this sentimental defect will find common sense armed against this eventuality.

“There is another form or sentimentality not less common.

“It is that which extends itself to all the circumstances of life and transforms true pity into a false sensibility, the exaggeration of which deteriorates the true value of things.

“Those who give publicity to this form of sentiment are agitated (or imagine themselves to be agitated) as profoundly on the most futile of pretexts as for the most important cause.

“They do not think to ask themselves if their ardor is merited; also every such experience, taking out of them something of their inner selves, leaves them enfeebled and stranded.

“Every excursion into the domain of sentimentality is particularly dangerous, for tourists always fail to carry with them the necessary coinage which one calls common sense.”

After having put ourselves on guard against the surprizes of mental exaggeration, Yoritomo warns us of a kind of high respectable sentimentality which we possess, that is none the less censurable because under an exterior of the purest tenderness it conceals a profound egotism.

It concerns paternal love from which reasoning and common sense are excluded.

“Nothing” said he, “seems more noble than the love of parents for their children, and no sentiment is more august when it is comprehended in all its grandeur.

“But how many people are apt to distinguish it from an egotistical sentimentality.

“I have seen some mothers oppose the departure of their sons, preferring to oblige them to lead an obscure existence near to them, rather than impose upon themselves the sorrow of a separation.

“These women do not fail to condemn the action of others, who, filled with a sublime abnegation, allow their children to depart, hiding from them the tears which they shed, because they have the conviction of seeing them depart for the fortune and the happiness which they feel themselves unable to offer them.

“Which of these are worthy of admiration? Those who condemn their children to a life of mediocrity in order to obey an egotistical sentimentality, or those who, with despair in their hearts, renounce the joy of their presence, and think only of their own grief in order to build upon it the happiness of their dear ones.

“The common sense of this latter class inspiring in them this magnificent sentiment, and forcing them to set aside a sentimentality which is, in reality, only the caricature of sentiment, has permitted them to escape that special kind of egotism, which could be defined thus: The translation of a desire for personal contentment.

“Ought we then to blame others so strongly?

“It is necessary, above all, to teach them to reason about the ardor of their emotions, and only to follow them when they find that they are cleansed from all aspiration which is not a pledge of devotion.”

Now the Shogun speaks to us with that subtlety of analysis which is characteristic and refers to a kind of sentimentality the most frequent and the least excusable.

“There are,” he tells us, “a number of people who, without knowing that they offend common sense in a most indefensible manner, invoke sentimentality in order to dispense with exercising the most vulgar pity, to the profit of their neighbor.

“A prince,” he continues, “possest a large? tract of land which he had put under grain.

“For the harvest, a large number of peasants and laborers were employed and each one lived on the products of his labor.

“But a prolonged drought threatened the crop; so the prince’s overseer dismissed most of the laborers, who failed to find employment in the parched country.

“Soon hunger threatened the inmates of the miserable dwellings, and sickness, its inseparable companion, did not fail to follow.

“Facing the conditions the prince left, and had it not been for two or three wealthy and charitable people the laborers would have starved to death.

“This pitiful condition was soon changed, abundance replaced famine, and the master returned to live in his domain.

“But amazement followed when he addrest his people as follows: Here I am, back among you, and I hope to remain here a long time; if I left you, it was because I have so great an affection for all my servants and because even the bare thought of seeing them suffer caused me unbearable sorrow.

“I am not among those who are sufficiently hard-hearted to be able to take care of sick and suffering people and to be a witness of their martyrdom. My pity is too keen to permit of my beholding this spectacle; this is why I had to leave to others, less sensitive, the burden of care which my too tender heart was unable to lavish on you.”

And that which is more terrible is that this man believed what he said.

He did not understand the monstrous rent which he made in the robe of common sense, by declaring that he had committed the vilest act of cruelty due to excessive sensitiveness since it represented a murderous act of omission.

Examples of this form of sentimentality are more numerous than we think.

There exist people who cover their dogs with caresses, gorging them with dainties, and will take good care not to succor the needy.

Others faint away at sight of an accident and never think of giving aid to the wounded.

One may observe that for people exercising sentimentality at the expense of common sense, the greatest catastrophe in intensity, if it be far away from us, diminishes, while the merest incident, a little out of the ordinary, affects them in a most immoderate manner if it be produced in the circle of their acquaintances.

It is needless to add that, if it touches them directly, it becomes an unparalleled calamity; it seems that the rest of the world must be troubled by it.

This propensity toward pitying oneself unreasonably about little things which relate to one directly and this exaggerated development of a sterile sentimentality are almost always artificial, and the instinct of self-preservation very often aids in their extermination.

“Among my old disciples,” pursues the Shogun, “I had a friend whose son was afflicted by this kind of sentimentality, the sight of blood made him faint and he was incapable of aiding any one whomsoever; that which he called his good heart, and which was only a form of egotistical sentimentality, prevented him from looking at the suffering of others.

“One day, a terrible earthquake destroyed his palace; he escaped, making his way through the ruins and roughly pushing aside the wounded who told about it afterward.

“I saw him some days after; instead of reproaching him severely for his conduct, I endeavored to make him see how false was his conception of pity, since, not only had he not fainted at the sight of those who, half-dead, were groaning, but he had found in the egotistical sentiment of self-preservation the strength to struggle against those who clung to him, beseeching him for help.

“I demonstrated to him the evident contradiction of his instinctive cruelty to the sentimentality that it pleased him to make public.

“I made an appeal to common sense, in order to prove to him the attitude which he had, until then, assumed, and I had the joy of seeing myself understood.

“My arguments appealed to his mentality, and always afterward, when he had the opportunity to bring puerile sentimentality and common sense face to face, he forced himself to appeal to that quality, which in revealing to him the artifice of the sentiment which animated him, cured him of false sensibility, which he had displayed up to that time.”

Sentimentality is in reality only a conception of egotism, under the different forms which it adopts.

Yoritomo proves it to us again, in speaking of the weakness of certain teachers, who, under the pretext of avoiding trouble, allow their children to follow their defective inclinations.

“It is by an instinctive hatred of effort that parents forbid themselves to make their children cry when reprimanding them,” said he.

“If the parents wish to be sincere to themselves, they will perceive that the sorrow in seeing their children’s tears flow, plays a very small part in their preconceived idea of indulgence.

“It is in order to economize their own nervous energy or to avoid cleverly the trouble of continued teaching, that they hesitate to provoke these imaginary miseries, the manifestation of which is caused by the great weakness of the teachers.

“Common sense, nevertheless, ought to make them understand that it is preferable to allow the little ones to shed a few tears, which are quickly dried, rather than to tolerate a deplorable propensity for these habits which, later in life, will cause them real anxiety.”

And the philosopher concludes:

“A very little reasoning could suffice to convince one of the dangers of sentimentality, if the persons who devote themselves entirely to it consented to reflect, by frankly agreeing to the true cause which produces it.

“They would discover in this false pity the desire not to disturb their own tranquility.

“They would also perceive that, in order to spare themselves a few unpleasant moments in the present they are preparing for themselves great sorrow for the future.

“In parental affection, as in friendship or in the emotions of love, sentimentality is none other than an exaggerated amplification of the ego.

“If it be true that all our acts, even those most worthy of approbation, can react in our personality, at least it is necessary that we should be logical and that, in order to create for ourselves a partial happiness or to avoid a temporary annoyance, we should not prepare for ourselves an existence, outlined by deception and fruitless regrets.

“Sentimentality and its derivatives, puerile pity and false sensitiveness, can create illusion for those who do not practise the art of reasoning, but the friends of common sense do not hesitate to condemn them for it.

“In spite of the glitter in which it parades itself, sentimentality will never be anything but the dross of true sentiment.”

LESSON VI

THE UTILITY OF COMMON SENSE IN DAILY LIFE

As our philosopher explains, the influence of common sense is above all appreciation of daily events. “We have,” he continues, “very rarely in life the opportunity of making grave decisions, but we are called upon daily to resolve unimportant problems, and we can only do it in a judicious way, if we are allowed to devote ourselves to certain kinds of investigation.

“This is what may be called to judge with discrimination, otherwise, with common sense.

“Without this faculty, it is in vain that our memory amasses the materials, which must serve us in the comparative examination of facts.

“And this examination can only be spoiled by decrepitude, if common sense did not succeed in dictating its conclusions to us.

“Thanks to this faculty, we possess this accuracy of mind which permits us to discern truth from falsehood.

“It is this power which aids us in distinguishing what we should consider as a duty, as a right, or as a thing conforming to equity, established by the laws of intelligence.

“Without common sense we should be like an inexperienced gardener, who, for want of knowledge, would allow the tares to grow and would neglect the plants whose function is to nourish man.

“In order to conform to the habit of judging with common sense, one ought first to lay down the following principle:

“No fact can exist, unless there is a sufficient motive to determine its nature.

“It is when operating on the elements furnished us by common sense that we are able to discern the quality of the object of our attention.

“One day, a sage, whom people gladly consulted, was asked by what means he had learned to know so well the exact proportion of things, so that he never failed to attribute to them their real value.

“‘Why’ they added, ‘can you foresee so exactly the evil and direct us to that which is right and just?’

“And the superstitious people added:

“‘Are you not in communication with the spirits, which float in space, which come from the other world?

“Would you not be counseled by voices which we have not the power to hear, and do you not see things which are visible to you alone?’

“‘You are right,’ replied the saintly man, smiling:

“‘I have indeed the power to hear and to see that which you do not perceive; but sorcery has no relation to the power which is attributed to me.

“If you wish, you will be able to possess it in your turn, for my means are not a secret.

“‘I keep my eyes and ears open.’

“And as every one burst out laughing, believing it a joke, the sage began again:

“‘But this is not all; after having seen and heard, I call to my aid all the qualities which constitute common sense and, thanks to this faculty, I draw my conclusions from my experience, from which enthusiasm, fancy, as well as personal interest are totally excluded.

“‘This done, and my judgment being formulated in my thought, I adapt it to the circumstances, and especially to the material situation and to the mentality of those who consult me.’

“From these counsels,” thinks the Shogun, “we must draw a precious lesson.

“It is true that an exigency, physical or moral, can determine, in different individuals, a very different resolution.

“According to the manner of life adopted, or the direction given to one’s duties, different resolutions can be made without lacking common sense. It is indisputable that what represents social obligations does not demand the same conduct from the peasant as from the prince.

“We should outrage common sense in presenting a workman with a gorgeous robe suitable for great ceremonies, in which to do his work, but reason would be equally outraged if one put on a shabby costume to go to the palace of the Mikado.”

The nature of resolutions inspired by common sense varies according to environment, the time, and the state of mind in which one is.

These conditions make of this quality a virtue really worth acquiring, for it is more difficult to conquer than many others and its effects are of infinite variety.

But as always, Yoritomo, after having signaled the danger, and indicated the remedy, gives us the manner of its application.

That which follows is marked by that simplicity of conception and facility of execution which render the doctrine of the Nippon philosopher absolutely efficacious.

Instead of losing himself by digressing from his subject and by placing himself on the summits of psychology, he remains with us, puts himself on the level of the most humble among us, and says to us all:

“The best way to use common sense in daily life consists in declaring one’s honest intentions.

“What should I do if I were in the place of the person with whom I am discussing?

“I found myself one day on the slope of a hill named Yung-Tshi, and I remarked that the majority of the trees were stript of their foliage.

“The season seeming to me not sufficiently advanced for this condition of vegetation, I exprest my astonishment to a passer-by, who replied to me:

“‘Alas! This occurs every year at the same time, and it is not well to cultivate trees on the height of Yung-Tshi, for the sun, being too hot, dries them up before the time when the foliage ought to fall.’

“A few days afterward my steps lead me on the opposite slope of the same hill.

“There the trees were covered with foliage, still green but uncommon, and their appearance indicated an unhealthy condition of growth.

“‘Alas!’ said a man who was working in the hedges to me, ‘it is not well to cultivate trees on the height of Tung-Tshi, for the sun never shines there, and they can only acquire the vigor they would possess if they were planted in another country.’

“And, altho recognizing the truth of these two opinions, so contradictory, I could not help thinking that they were the reproduction of those which men, deprived of common sense, express every day.

“The same hill produced a vegetation, affected in different ways, by reason of different causes; and the people, instead of taking into consideration how carelessly they had chosen the location of their plantation, preferred to attribute the defect to the site itself, rather than to their lack of precaution.

“Both of them were suffering from a hurtful exaggeration, but each one explained it in a way arbitrarily exclusive.

“He of the north made out that the sun never shone on the summit of Yung-Tshi, and the inhabitant of the south affirmed that the health-giving shade was unknown there.”

This is why it is indispensable to the successful resolution of the thousand and one problems of daily life, both those whose sole importance is derived from their multiplicity and those whose seriousness justly demands our attention, to employ the very simple method which prescribes that we place ourselves mentally in the position and circumstances of the person with whom we are discussing.

If each one of the inhabitants of Yung-Tshi had followed this precept, instead of declaring that the hill never received the sun or that shade never fell upon it, they would each one have thought for himself.

“At what conclusions should I arrive, if I had planted my trees on the opposite side?”

From the reasoning which would have ensued, the following truth would most certainly have been revealed.

“If I were in the other man’s place, I should certainly think as he does.”

This premise once laid down, the conclusion would be reached; all the more exact, because, without abandoning their arguments, each one would present those which it is easy to turn against an adversary.

Before solving a problem, he who desires to avoid making a mistake must never fail to ask himself this question:

What should I do if my interests were those of the opposite party?

Or, yet again:

What should I reply if my adversaries used the same language to me as I purpose using when addressing them?

This method is valuable in that it raises unexpected objections, which the mind would not consider if one had simply studied the question from one’s own point of view.

It is a self-evident fact that, according to the state of mind in which we are, things assume different proportions in the rendering of judgment on them.

We must not argue as children do, who, not having the sense of calculating distances, ask how the man standing near to them will be able to enter his house, which they see far away, and which seems to them of microscopic dimensions.

One departs from common sense when one attributes to insignificant things a fundamental value.

We neglect to consider it in a most serious way when we adopt principles contrary to the general consensus of opinion accredited in the environment in which we are living.

“A high dignitary of the court,” says Yoritomo, “would be lacking in common sense if he wished to conduct himself as a peasant and, on the other hand, a peasant would give a proof of great folly were he to attempt the remodeling of his life on the principles adopted by courtiers.

“He who, passing his life in camps, wished to think and to act like the philosopher, whose books are his principal society, would cause people to doubt his wisdom; and the thinker who should adopt publicly the methods of a swashbuckler would only inspire contempt.”

In ordinary life, one ought to consider this faculty of common sense as the ruling principle of conduct.

One can be lacking in thought, in audacity, in brilliant qualities, if only one possesses common sense.

It takes the place of intelligence in many people, whose minds, unaccustomed to subtle argument, only lend themselves to very simple reasoning.

A versatile mentality rarely belongs to such minds, because it is not their forte to unfold hidden truths.

It walks in the light and keeps in the very middle of the road, far from the ambushes which may be concealed by the hedges of the cross-roads.

Many people gifted with common sense but deprived of ordinary intelligence have amassed a fortune, but never, no matter how clever he may be, has a man known success, if he has not strictly observed the laws of common sense.

It is not only in debates that the presence of this virtue should make itself felt, but every act of our life should be impregnated with it.

There are no circumstances, no matter how insignificant they may appear, where the intervention of common sense would be undesirable.

It is only common sense which will indicate the course of conduct to be pursued, so as not to hurt the feelings or offend the prejudices of other people.

There are great savants, whose science, freed from all puerile beliefs, rises above current superstition.

They would consider it a great lack of common sense if they expounded their theories before the humble-minded, whose blind faith would be injured thereby.

Of two things one is certain: either they would refuse to believe such theories and this display of learning would be fruitless, or their habitual credulity would be troubled and they would lose their tranquility without acquiring a conviction sufficiently strong to give them perfect peace of mind.

Even in things which concern health, common sense is applicable to daily life.

It is common sense which will preserve us from excesses, by establishing the equilibrium of the annoyances which result from them, with reference to the doubtful pleasure which they procure.

Thanks to common sense, we shall avoid the weariness of late nights and the danger of giving oneself up to the delights of dissipation.

“It is common sense,” says the philosopher, “which forces us at a banquet to raise our eyes to the hour-glass to find out how late it is.

“It is under the inspiration of this great quality of mind that we shall avoid putting to our lips the cup already emptied many times.

“Common sense will reflect upon the mirror of our imagination the specter of the day after the orgy; it will evoke the monster of the headache which works upon the suffering cranium with its claws of steel; and, at some future day, it will show us precocious decrepitude as well as all bodily ills which precede the final decay of those who yield to their passions. It will also impose upon us the performance of duty under the form which it has adopted for each individual.

“Common sense represents for some the care of public affairs; for others those of the family; for us all the great desire to leave intact to our descendants the name which we have received from our fathers.

“For some of those still very young, it is like a lover long desired!

“For sages and warriors, it blows the trumpet of glory.

“Finally, common sense is the chosen purpose of every one, courted, demanded, desired or accepted, but it exists, and under the penalty of most serious inconveniences it does not permit us to forget its existence.”

Coming down from the heights where he allows himself to be transported at times for a brief moment, Yoritomo tells us the part played by common sense with reference to health.

“Common sense” he assures us, “is the wisest physician whom it is possible to consult.

“If we followed its advice, we should avoid the thousand and one little annoyances of illnesses caused by imprudence.

“The choice of clothing would be regulated according to the existing temperature.

“One would avoid the passing at once from extreme heat to extreme cold.

“One would never proffer this stupid reflection: Bah! I shall take care of myself, which impudent people declare when exposing themselves carelessly to take cold.

“We should understand that disease is a cause of unparalleled disorder and discord.

“In addition to the thought of possible sufferings, that of grief for those whom we love, joined to the apprehension of a cessation of social functions, on whose achievement depends our fortune, would suffice to eliminate all idea of imprudence, if we had the habit of allowing common sense to participate in all our actions of daily life.

“To those who walk under its guidance; it manifests itself without ceasing; it dominates all actions without their being compelled to separate themselves from it.

“It is unconsciously that they appeal to common sense and they have no need of making an effort to follow its laws.

“Common sense is the intelligence of instinct.”

LESSON VII

POWER OF DEDUCTION

Before entering the path which relates directly to the intellectual efforts concerning the acquisition of common sense, the Shogun calls our attention to the power of deduction.

“It is only,” said he, “where we are sufficiently permeated with all the principles of judgment that we shall be able to think of acquiring this quality, so necessary to the harmony of life.

“The most important of all the mental operations which ought to be practised by him who desires common sense to reign supreme in all his actions and decisions, is incontestably deduction.

“When the union of ideas, which judgment permits, is made with perception and exactness, there results always an analysis, which, if practised frequently, will end by becoming almost a mechanical act.

“It is, however, well to study the phases of this analysis, in order to organize them methodically first.

“Later, when the mind shall be sufficiently drilled in this kind of gymnastics, all their movements will be repeated in an almost unconscious way, and deduction, that essential principle of common sense, will be self-imposed.

“In order that deductions may be a natural development, the element relating to those which should be the object of judgment should be grouped first.

“The association of statements is an excellent method for it introduces into thought the existence of productive agents.

“We have already spoken of the grouping of thoughts, which is a more synthetical form of that selection.

“Instead of allowing it to be enlarged by touching lightly on all that which is connected with the subject, it is a question, on the contrary, of confining it to the facts relating to only one object.

“These facts should be drawn from the domain of the past; by comparison, they can be brought to the domain of the present in order to be able to associate the former phenomena with those from which it is a question of drawing deductions.

“It is rarely that these latter depend on one decision alone, even when they are presented under the form of a single negation or affirmation.

“Deduction is always the result of many observations, formulated with great exactness, which common sense binds together.

“That which is called a line of action is always suggested by the analysis of the events which were produced under circumstances analogous to those which exist now.

“From the result of these observations, the habit of thinking permits of drawing deductions and common sense concludes the analysis.

“The method of deduction rests upon this.

“One thing being equal to a previous one should produce the same effects.

“If we find ourselves faced by an incident that our memory can assimilate with another incident of the same kind, we must deduce the following chain of reasoning:

“First, the incident of long ago has entailed inevitable consequences.

“Secondly, the incident of to-day ought to produce the same effects, unless the circumstances which surround it are different.

“It is then a question of analyzing the circumstances and of weighing the causes whose manifestation could determine a disparity in the results.

“We shall interest ourselves first in the surroundings for thus, as we have said, habits of thought and feeling vary according to the epoch and the environment.

“A comparison will be established between persons or things, in order to be absolutely convinced of their degree of conformity.

“The state of mind in which we were when the previous events were manifested will be considered, and we shall not fail to ascertain plainly the similarity or change of humor at the moment as related to that of the past.

“It is also of importance to observe the state of health, for under the affliction of sickness things assume very easily a hostile aspect.

“It would be wrong to attribute to events judged during an illness the same value which is given to them at this present moment.

“When one is absolutely decided as to the relation of new perceptions and mental representations, one can calculate exactly the degree of comparison.

“The moment will then have arrived to synthesize all the observations and to draw from them the following deductions:

“First, like causes ought, all things being equal, to produce like effects.

“Secondly, the event which is in question will therefore have the same consequences as the previous one, since it is presented under the same conditions.

“Or again:

“Being granted the principle that like causes produce like effects, as I have just affirmed, and that there exist certain incompatibilities between the contingencies of the past and those of to-day, one must allow that these incompatibilities will produce different results.

“And, after this reasoning, the deductions will be established by constituting a comparison in favor of either the present or past state of things.”

But the philosopher, who thinks of everything, has foreseen the case where false ideas have obscured the clearness of the deductions, and he said to us:

“The association of false ideas, if it does not proceed from the difficulty of controlling things, is always in ungovernable opposition to the veracity of the deduction.

“What would be thought of a man of eighty years who, coming back to his country after a long absence, said, on seeing the family roof from a distance:

“‘When I was twenty years old, in leaving here, it took me twenty minutes to reach the home of my parents, so I shall reach the threshold in twenty minutes.’

“The facts would be exact in principle.

“The distance to be covered would be the same; but legs of eighty years have not the same agility as those of very young people, and in predicting that he will reach the end of his walk in the same number of minutes as he did in the past, the old man would deceive himself
most surely.

“If, on the contrary, on reaching the same place he perceived that a new route had been made, and that instead of a roundabout way of approach, as in the past, the house was now in a straight line from the point where he was looking at it, it would be possible to estimate approximately the number of minutes which he could gain on the time employed in the past, by calculating the delay imposed upon him by his age and his infirmities.

“Those to whom deduction is familiar, at times astonish thoughtless persons by the soundness of their judgment.

“A prince drove to his home in the country in a sumptuous equipage.

“He was preceded by a herald and borne in a palanquin by four servants, who were replaced by others at the first signs of fatigue, in order that the speed of the journey should never be slackened.

“As they were mounting, with great difficulty, a zigzag road which led up along the side of a hill, one of these men cried out:

“‘Stop,’ said he, ‘in the name of Buddha, stop!’

“The prince leaned out from the palanquin to ask the cause of this exclamation:

“‘My lord,’ cried the man, ‘if you care to live, tell your porters to stop!’

“The great man shrugged his shoulders and turning toward his master of ceremonies, who was riding at his side, said:

“‘See what that man wants.’

“But scarcely had the officer allowed his horse to take a few steps in the direction of the man who had given warning when the palanquin, with the prince and his bearers, rolled down a precipice, opened by the sinking in of the earth.

“They raised them all up very much hurt, and the first action of the prince, who was injured, was to have arrested the one who, according to him, had evoked an evil fate.

“He was led, then and there, to the nearest village and put into a cell.

“The poor man protested.

“‘I have only done what was natural,’ said he. ‘I am going to explain it, but I pray you let me see the prince; I shall not be able to justify myself when he is ill with fever.’

“‘What do you mean,’ they replied, ‘do you prophesy that the prince will have a fever?’

“‘He is going to have it.’

“‘You see, you are a sorcerer,’ said the jailer, ‘you make predictions.’

“And then he shut him in prison, to go away and to relate his conversation to them all.

“During this time, they called in a healer who stated that the wounds of the great nobleman were not mortal in themselves, but that the fever which had declared itself could become dangerous.

“He was cured after long months.

“During this time the poor man languished in his prison, from whence he was only taken to appear before the judges.

“Accused of sorcery and of using black magic, he explained very simply that he had foreseen the danger, because in raising his eyes he hadnoticed that the part of the ground over which the herald had passed was sinking, and that he had drawn the following conclusions:

“The earth seemed to have only a medium thickness.

“Under the feet of the herald he had seen it crumble and fall in.

“He had deduced from this that a weight five times as heavy added to that of the palanquin, would not fail to produce a landslide.

“As to the prediction concerning the fever, it was based on what he had seen when in the war.

“He had then observed that every wound is always followed by a disposition to fever; he therefore could not fail to deduce that the serious contusions occasioned by the fall of the prince would produce the inevitable consequences.

“The judge was very much imprest with the perspicacity of this man; not only did he give him his liberty, but he engaged him in his personal service and in due time enabled him to make his fortune.”

We do not wish to affirm–any more than Yoritomo, for that matter–that fortunate deductions are always so magnificently rewarded as were those of this man.

However, without the causes being so striking, many people have owed their fortune to the faculty which they possest of deducing results where the analogy of the past circumstances suggested to them what would happen.

He warns us against the propensity which we have of too easily avoiding a conclusion which does not accord with our desires.

“Too many people,” said he, “wish to undertake to make deductions by eliminating the elements which deprive them of a desired decision.

“They do not fail either to exaggerate the reasons which plead in favor of this decision; also we see many persons suffer from reasoning, instead of feeling the good effects of it.”

Those who cultivate common sense will never fall into this error, for they will have no difficulty in convincing themselves that by acting thus they do not deceive any one except themselves.

By glossing over truth in order to weaken the logical consequences of deductions they are the first to be the victims of this childish trick.

That which is called false deduction is rarely aught save the desire to escape a resolution which a just appraisement would not fail to dictate.

It might be, also, that this twisting of judgment comes from a person having been, in some past time, subjected to unfortunate influences.

By devoting oneself to the evolution of thought, of which we have already spoken when presenting the symbolical fan, and above all, by adopting the precepts which, following the method of Yoritomo, we are going to develop in the following lessons, we shall certainly succeed in checking the errors of false reasoning.

“The important thing,” said he, “is not to let wander the thought, which, after resting for a moment on the subject with which we are concerned and after touching lightly on ideas of a similar character, begins to stray very far from its basic principles.

“Have you noted the flight of certain birds?

“They commence by gathering at one point, then they describe a series of circles around this point, at first very small, but whose circumference enlarges at every sweep.

“Little by little the central point is abandoned, they no longer approach it, and disappear in the sky, drawn by their fancy toward another point which they will leave very soon.

“The thoughts of one who does not know how to gather them together and to concentrate them are like these birds.

“They start from a central point, then spread out, at first without getting far from this center, but soon they lose sight of it and fly
toward a totally different subject that a mental representation has just produced.

“And this lasts until the moment when, in a sudden movement, the first one is conscious of this wandering tendency.

“But it is often too late to bring back these wanderers to the initial idea, for, in the course of their circuits, they have brushed against a hundred others, which are confounded with the first, weaken it, and take away its exact proportions.

“The great stumbling-block again is that of becoming lost in the details whose multiplicity prevents us from discerning their complete function in the act of practising deduction.

“It is better, in the case where our perception finds itself assailed by the multitude of these details, to proceed by the process of elimination, in order not to become involved in useless and lazy efforts.

“In this case we must act like a man who must determine the color of a material at a distance where the tiny designs stand out in a relief of white on a background of black.

“Suppose that he is placed at a distance too great to perceive this detail.

“What should he do to be able to give the best possible description?

“He will proceed by elimination.

“The material is neither red nor green; orange and violet must be set aside, as well as all the subordinate shades.

“It has a dull appearance, hence, it is gray; unless…. And here mental activity comes into play and will suggest to him that gray is composed of black and white.

“He will then be sure to form a judgment which will not be spoiled by falsity, if he declares that the material is a mixture of black and white.

“Later, by drawing nearer, he will be able to analyze the designs and to convince himself of their respective form and color, but by deducing that the material was made up of the mixture of two colors he will have come as near as possible to the truth:

“Deduction never prejudges; it is based on facts; only on things accomplished; it unfolds the teaching that we ought to obtain as a result.”

Again the Shogun recommends to us the union of thoughts and the continuous examination of past incidents in the practise of deductions.

“If on entering a room,” said he, “we are at times confused, it happens also that we correct this impression after a more attentive examination.

“The gilding is of inferior quality; the materials are of cotton, the paintings ordinary, and the mattings coarse.

“At first sight we should have deduced, judging from appearances, that the possessor of this house was a very rich man, but a second examination will cause us to discover embarrassment and anxiety.

“It is the same with all decisions that we must make.

“Before devoting ourselves to deductions inspired by the general aspect of things, it is well to examine them one by one and to discover their defects or recognize their good qualities.

“We shall be able thus to acquire that penetration of mind whose development, by leading us toward wise deductions, will bring us to the discovery of the truth.”

LESSON VIII

HOW TO ACQUIRE COMMON SENSE

Common Sense is a science, whatever may be said; according to Yoritomo, it does not blossom naturally in the minds of men; it demands cultivation, and the art of reasoning is acquired like all the faculties which go to make up moral equilibrium.

“This quality,” said the philosopher, “is obscure and intangible, like the air we breathe.

“Like the air we breathe, it is necessary to our existence, it surrounds us, envelops us, and is indispensable to the harmony of our mental life.

“To acquire this precious gift, many conditions are obligatory, the principle ones being:

“Sincerity of perception.

“Art of the situation.

“Attention.

“Approximation.

“Experience.

“Comparison.

“Analysis.

“Synthesis.

“Destination.

“Direction.

“And lastly the putting of the question.

“It is very clear that without exactness of perception we could not pretend to judge justly; it would then be impossible for us to hear the voice of common sense, if we did not strive to develop it.

“Perception is usually combined with what they call in philosophical language adaptation.

“Otherwise it is difficult, when recognizing a sensation, not to attribute it at once to the sentiment which animated it at the time of its manifestation.

“The first condition, then, in the acquiring of common sense is to maintain perfection in all its pristine exactness, by abstracting the contingencies which could influence us.

“If we do not endeavor to separate from our true selves the suggestions of sense-consciousness, we shall reach the point where perception is transformed into conception, that is to say, we shall no longer obtain reality alone, but a modified reality.

“With regard to perception, if we understand its truthfulness; it will be a question for reawakening it, of placing ourselves mentally in the environment where it was produced, and of awakening the memory, so as to be able to distinguish, without mistake, the limits within which it is narrowly confined.

“The art of situation consists in reproducing, mentally, past facts, allowing for the influence of the surroundings at that time, as compared with the present environment.

“One must not fail to think about the influences to which one has been subjected since this time.

“It is possible that life during its development in the aspirant to common sense may have changed the direction of his first conceptions either by conversation or by reading or by the reproduction of divers narrations.

“It would then be a lack of common sense to base an exact recollection of former incidents on the recent state of being of the soul, without seeking to reproduce the state of mind in which one was at the epoch when those incidents occurred.

“Activity of mind, stimulated to the utmost, is able to give a color to preceding impressions, which they never have had, and, in this case again, the recollection will be marred by inexactness.

“The art of situation requires the strictest application and on this account it is a valuable factor in the acquirement of common sense.

“Attention vitalizes our activity in order to accelerate the development of a definite purpose toward which it can direct its energy.

“It could be analyzed as follows:

“First, to see;

“Secondly, to hear.

“The functions of the other senses come afterward, and their susceptibility can attract our attention to the sensations which they give us, such as the sense of smell, of touch, of taste.

“These purely physical sensations possess, however, a moral signification, from which we are permitted to make valuable deductions.

“The first two have three distinct phases:

“First degree, to see.

“Second degree, to look.

“Third degree, to observe.

“If we see a material, its color strikes us first and we say: I have seen a red or yellow material, and this will be all.

“Applying ourselves more closely, we look at it and we define the peculiarities of the color. We say: it is bright red or dark red.

“In observing it we determine to what use it is destined.

“The eye is attracted by:

“The color.

“The movement.

“The form.

“The number.

“The duration.

“We have just spoken of the color.

“The movement is personified by a series of gestures that people make or by a series of changes to which they subject things.

“The form is represented by the different outlines.

“The number by their quantity.

“The duration by their length; one will judge of the length of time it takes to walk a road by seeing the length of it.

“The act of listening is divided into three degrees.

“First degree, to hear.

“Second degree, to understand.

“Third degree, to reflect.

“If some one walking in the country hears a dog bark he perceives first a sound: this is the act of hearing.

“He will distinguish that this sound is produced by the barking of a dog; this is the act of understanding.

“Reflection will lead him then to think that a house or a human being is near, for a dog goes rarely alone.

“If the things which are presented to our sight are complex, those which strike our ears are summed up in one word, sound, which has only one definition, the quality of the sound.

“Then follow the innumerable categories of sound that we distinguish only by means of comprehension and reflection, rendered so instinctive by habit that we may call them automatic, so far as those which relate to familiar sounds.

“The example which we have just given is a proof of this fact.

“Let us add that this habit develops each sensitive faculty to its highest degree.

“The inhabitants of the country can distinguish each species of bird by listening to his song; and the hermits, the wanderers, those who live with society on a perpetual war footing, perceive sounds which would not strike the ears of civilized people.

“Approximation is also one of the stones by whose aid we construct the edifice of common sense.

“Concerning the calculations of probabilities, the application of approximation will allow us to estimate the capacity or the probable duration of things.

“We can not say positively whether a man will live a definite number of years but we can affirm that he will never live until he is two hundred.

“There are, for approbation, certain known limits which serve as a basis for the construction of reasoning, inspired by common sense.

“It can be affirmed, in a positive way, that, if the trunk of a tree were floating easily, without sinking to the bottom of the water, it would not float the same if thirty men were to ride astride of it.

“The initial weight of the tree permits it to maintain itself on the surface; but if it be increased to an exaggerated total, we can, without hesitation, calculate indirectly the moment when it will disappear, dragging with it the imprudent men who trusted themselves to it.

“Everything in life is a question of approximation.

“The house which is built for a man will be far larger than the kennel, destined to shelter a dog, because the proportions have been calculated, by approximation, according to the relative difference between the stature of the human and canine species.

“Clothing is also suited to the temperature.

“One naturally thinks that, below a certain degree of cold, it is necessary to change light clothes for those made of thicker material.

“As with the majority of the constructive elements of common sense, approximation is always based on experience.

“It draws its conclusions from the knowledge of known limitations, whose affirmation serves as a basis for the argument which determines deduction in a most exact manner.

“Experience itself depends on memory, which permits us to recall facts and to draw our conclusions from them, on which facts reasoning is based.”

The Shogun does not fail to draw our attention to the difference between experience and experimentation.

“This last,” said he, “only serves to incite the manifestation of the first.

“It consists of determining the production of a phenomenon whose existence will aid us in establishing the underlying principles of an observation which interprets the event.

“That is what is called experience.

“Comparison is a mental operation which permits us to bring things that we desire to understand to a certain point.

“It is comparison which has divided time according to periods, which the moon follows during its entire length.

“It is by comparing their different aspects and by calculating the duration of their transformations, that men have been able to divide time as they do in all the countries of the world.

“The science of numbers is also born of comparison, which has been established between the quantities that they represent.

“This is the art of calculating the differences existing between each thing, by determining the relativeness of their respective proportions.

“Comparison acts on the mind automatically, as a rule.

“It is indispensable to the cultivation of common sense, for it furnishes the means of judging with full knowledge of all the circumstances.

“Analysis is an operation, which consists of separating each detail from the whole and of examining these details separately, without losing sight of their relationship to the central element.

“Analysis of the same object, while being scrupulously exact, can, however, differ materially in its application, according to the way that the object is related to this or that group of circumstances.

“There are, however, immutable things.

“For example: the letters of the alphabet, the elementary sounds, the colors etc., etc.

“It suffices to quote only these three elements; one can easily understand that the most elaborate manuscript is composed of only a definite number of letters always repeating themselves, whose juxtaposition forms phrases, then chapters, and finally the complete work.

“Music is composed only of seven sounds whose different combinations produce an infinite variety of melodies.

“Elementary colors are only three in number.

“All the others gravitate around them.

“Therefore, these same letters, these same notes, these same colors, according to their amalgamation, can change in aspect and cooperate in the production of different effects.

“The same letters can express, according to the order in which they are placed, terror or confidence, joy or grief.

“The same is true of notes and colors.

“Common sense ought then, considering these rules, to know how to analyze all the details and, having done this, to coordinate and to classify them, in order to distinguish them easily.

“Coordination and classification form an integral part of common sense.”

And Yoritomo, who delights in reducing the most complex questions to examples of the rarest simplicity, says to us:

“I am supposing that one person says to another, I have just met a negro. The interlocutor, as well as he who mechanically registers this fact, without thinking, gives himself up to analysis and to coordination which always precedes synthesis.

“Without being aware of this mental action, their minds will be occupied first with the operations of perception then of classification.

“This negro was a man of a color which places him in a certain group of the human race.

“It is always thus that common sense proceeds, its principal merit being to know how to unite present perceptions with those previously cognized, then to understand how to coordinate them so as to be able to group them concretely, that is to say, to synthesize them.

“Destination is defined as the purpose or object, born of deduction and of classification.

“Destination does not permit of losing sight of the end which is proposed.

“It allows the consideration of the purpose to predominate always, and directs all actions toward this purpose, these actions being absolutely the demonstrations of this unique thought.

“Habits, acquired in view of certain realizations, ought to be dropt from the moment the purpose is accomplished, or that it is weakened.”

It is by absolutely perpetuating those habits, whose pretext has disappeared, that one sees the achievement of certain actions which have been roughly handled by common sense.

“There are,” again says the philosopher, “certain customs, whose origin it is impossible to remember; at the time of their birth, they were engendered by necessity, but even tho their purpose be obliterated, tradition has preserved them in spite of everything, and those who observe them do not take into consideration their absurdity.

“People of common sense refrain from lending themselves to these useless practises, or, if they consent to allow them a place in their thoughts it is that they attribute to them some reason for existence, either practical or sentimental.”

Direction is indicated by circumstances, by environment, or by necessity.

There is direction of resolutions as well as direction of a journey; it is necessary, from the beginning, to consider well the choice of a good route, after having done everything possible to discriminate carefully between it and all other routes proposed.

It happens, however, that the way leads also through the cross-roads; it is even indispensable to leave the short cuts in order to trace the outline of the obstacles.

Direction is, then, an important factor in the acquiring of common sense.

The putting of the question takes its character from comparison, from experience, and principally from approximation; but it is in itself a synthesis of all the elements which compose common sense.

He who wishes to acquire common sense should be impregnated with all that has preceded.

Then he will discipline himself, so as to be able to judge, by himself, of the degree of reason which he has the right to assume.

He will begin by evoking some subject, comparing its visual forms with, those forms which he understands the best, in other words, to the perceptions which are the most familiar to him.

If it concerns a question to be solved, he will try to recall some similar subject, and establish harmony, by making them both relative to a common antecedent.

Yoritomo advises choosing simple thoughts for the beginning.

“One will say, for example:

“Such a substance is a poison; the seeds of this fruit contain a weak dose of it; these seeds could then become a dangerous food, if one
absorbed a considerable quantity.

“Common sense will thus indicate a certain abstaining from eating of it.

“Then one may extend his argument to things of a greater importance, but taking great care to keep within the narrow limits of rudimentary logic.

“One must be impregnated with this principle:

“Two things equal to a third demand an affirmative judgment or decision.

“In the opposite case the negative deduction is enjoined.

“It is by deductions from the most ordinary facts that one succeeds in making common sense intervene automatically in all our judgments.

“What would be thought of one who, finding himself in a forest at the time of a violent storm, would reason as follows:

“First: The high summits attract lightning.

“Secondly: Here is a giant tree.

“Thirdly: I’m going to take refuge there.

“Then it is that common sense demands that the state his three propositions as follows:

“First: High summits attract lightning.

“Secondly: Here is a giant tree.

“Thirdly: I’m going to avoid its proximity because it will surely be dangerous.

“If he acted otherwise; if, in spite of his knowledge of the danger, he took shelter under the branches of the gigantic tree, exposing himself to be struck by lightning, one could, in this case, only reproach him with imprudence and lay the blame to the lack of common sense which allowed him to perform the act that logic condemned.”

Now the old Nippon speaks to us of the means to employ, that we may avoid pronouncing too hasty judgments, which are always, of necessity, weakened by a too great indulgence for ourselves and at the same time too great a severity for others.

“I was walking one day,” said he, “on the shores of a lake, when I discovered a man sitting at the foot of a bamboo tree, in an attitude of the greatest despair.

“Approaching him, I asked him the cause of his grief.

“‘Alas!’ said he to me, ‘the gods are against me; everything which I undertake fails, and all evils crush me.

“‘After the one which has just befallen me only one course of action is left to me, to throw myself in the lake. But I am young, and I am weeping for myself before resolving to take such a step.’

“And he related to me how, after many attempts without success, he had at last gained a certain sum of money, the loss of which he had just experienced.

“In what way did you lose it?” I asked him.

“‘I put it in this bag.’

“‘Has some one stolen it?’

“‘No, it has slipt through this rent.’

“And he showed me a bag, whose ragged condition confirmed, and at the same time illustrated his statement.

“‘Listen,’ said I, sitting down beside him, ‘you are simply devoid of common sense, by invoking the hatred of the gods! You alone are the cause of your present misery.

“‘If you had simply reasoned before placing your money in this bag, this would not have happened to you.’

“And as he opened his eyes wide:

“‘You would have thought this,’ I resumed:

“‘The material, very much worn, is incapable of standing any weight without tearing.

“‘Now, the money which I possess is heavy, my bag is worn out.

“‘I shall not, therefore, put my money in this bag or, at least, I shall take care to line it beforehand with a solid piece of leather.

“‘From this moment,’ I proceeded, ‘there only remains one thing for you to do, always consult common sense before coming to any conclusion, and you will always succeed.

“‘As for your opinion concerning the hatred of the gods for you, if you will once more call common sense to your assistance you will
reason as follows: “‘Gracious divinities protect only wise people.

“‘Now, I have acted like a fool.

“‘It is, therefore, natural that they should turn away from me.’

“How many useless imprecations would be avoided,” adds the Shogun, “if it were given to men to know how to employ the arguments which common sense dictates, in order to distribute the weight of the mistakes committed among those who deserve the burden, without, at the same time, forgetting to assume our own share of the responsibility if we have erred.

“Nothing is more sterile than regrets or reproaches when they do not carry with them the resolution never again to fall into the same error.”

Afterward the philosopher demonstrates to us the necessity of abstracting all personality from the exercises which combine for the attainment of common sense.

“There is,” said he, “an obstacle against which all stupid people stumble; it is the act of reasoning under the influence of passion.

“Those who have not decided to renounce this method of arguing will never be able to give a just decision.

“There are self-evident facts, which certain people refuse to admit, because this statement of the truth offends their sympathies or impedes their hatreds, and they force themselves to deny the evidence, hoping thus to deceive others regarding it.

“But truth is always the strongest and they soon become the solitary dupes of their own wilful blindness.

“The man of common sense knows how to recognize falsehood wherever he meets it; he knows how vain it is to conceal a positive fact and also how dangerous it is to deceive oneself, a peril which increases in power, in proportion to the effort made to ignore it.

“He does not wish to imitate those pusillanimous people who prefer to live in the agony of doubt rather than to look misfortunes in the face. He who is determined to acquire common sense will use the following argument:

“Doubt is a conflict between two conclusions.

“So long as it exists it is impossible to adopt either.

“Serenity is unknown to those whom doubt attacks.

“To obtain peace, it is necessary to become enlightened.

“However, it is wise always to foresee the least happy issue and to prepare to support the consequences.

“The man who thinks thus will be stronger than adversity and will know how to struggle with misfortune without allowing it to master him.”

It is in these terms that Yoritomo initiates us into what he calls the mechanism of common sense; in other words, the art of acquiring by the simplest reasoning this quality dull as iron, but, like it, also solid and durable.

LESSON IX

COMMON SENSE AND ACTION

These qualities are two relatives very near of kin; but, just for this reason, they must not be confounded.

While common sense is applied to all the circumstances of life, practical sense is applicable to useful things.

Common sense admits a very subtle logic which is, at times, a little complex.

Practical sense reasons, starting from one point only; viz., material conveniences.

It is possible for this sense to be spoiled by egotism, if common sense does not come to its assistance.

It is by applying the discipline of reasoning to practical sense that it modifies simple sense perception by urging it to ally itself with logic, which unites thought to sentiment and reason.

“The association of common sense and practical sense is necessary,” says Yoritomo, “in order to produce new forms, at the same time restraining the imagination within the limits of the most exact deductions and of the most impartial judgment.”

Science is, in reality, a sort of common sense to which the rules of reasoning are applied, and is supported by arguments which practical sense directs into productive channels.

That which is called great common sense is none other than a quality with which people are endowed who show great mental equilibrium whenever it is a question of resolving material problems.

These people are generally country people or persons of humble position, whose physical organism has been developed without paying
much attention to their intellectual education; they are, in fact, perfect candidates for the attainment of common sense, without having been educated to this end.

Their aptitude results from a constant habit of reflection which, rendering their attention very keen, has permitted them to observe the most minute details, therefore they can form correct conclusions, when it is a question of things that are familiar to them.

A peasant who has been taught by nature will be more skilled in prophesying about the weather than others.

He will also know how to assign a limit to the daily working hours, at the same time stating the maximum time which one can give without developing repulsion, which follows excesses of all kinds.

In his thought, very simple, but very direct, will be formulated this perfect reasoning:

Health is the first of all blessings, since without it we are incapable of appreciating the other joys of life.

If I compromise this possession I shall be insensible to all others.

It is, therefore, indispensable that I should measure my efforts, for, admitting that a certain exaggerated labor brings me a fortune, I shall not know how to enjoy it if illness accompanies it.

This is the logic which is called practical sense.

Yoritomo continues, saying that there is a very close connection between the faculty of judging and that of deducing.

“Practical sense, allied to common sense, comes to the assistance of the latter, when it is tempted to reject the chain of analogy, whose representation too often draws one far from the initial subject.

“It facilitates coordination, clearness, and precision of thought.

“It knows how to consider contingencies, and never fails to have a clear understanding of relative questions.”

And to illustrate his theory, he cites us an example which many of our young contemporaries would do well to remember.

“There was,” said he, “in the village of Fu-Isher, a literary man, who wrote beautiful poems.

“He lived in great solitude, and no one would have heard of his existence if it had not been that my master, Lang-Ho, while walking in the woods one day, was attracted by the harmonious sounds of poetry, which this young man was reciting, without thinking that he had any other listeners than the birds of the forest.

“Lang-Ho made himself known to him and began to question him.

“He learned that he did not lack ambition, but, being poor, and having no means of approaching those who would have been able to patronize him, he was singing of nature for his own pleasure, waiting patiently until he should be able to influence the powerful ones of the earth to share his appreciation.

“Lang-Ho, touched by his youth and his ardor, pointed out to him the dwelling of a prince, a patron of the arts, and, at the same time, told him how he ought to address the nobleman, assuring him that the fact of his being a messenger from a friend of the prince would open the doors of the palace to him.

“The next day the young poet presented himself at the home of the great lord, who, knowing that he had been sent by Lang-Ho, received
him in spite of the fact that he was suffering intensely from a violent headache.

“He learned from the young man that he was a poet and treated him with great consideration, making him understand, however, that all sustained mental effort was insupportable to him on that day.

“But the poet, not paying attention to the prince’s exprest desire, unrolled his manuscripts and began reading an interminable ode without noticing the signs of impatience shown by his august hearer.

“He did not have the pleasure of finishing it.

“The prince, seeing that the reader did not understand his importunity, struck a gong and ordered the servant who appeared to conduct the young man out of his presence.

“Later, he declared to Lang-Ho that his protege had no talent at all, and reprimanded him severely for having sent the poet to the palace.

“But my master did not like to be thus criticized.

“So, a little while after that, one day, when that same prince was in an agreeable frame of mind, Lang-Ho invited him to the reading of one of his works.

“The nobleman declared that he had never heard anything more beautiful.

“‘That is true,’ said Lang-Ho, ‘but you ought to have said this the first time you heard it.’

“And he revealed to the prince that these verses were those of the young man whom he had judged so harshly.”

From this story two lessons may be drawn:

The first is, that if common sense indicates that judgment should not change from scorn to enthusiasm, when it is a question of the same object, practical sense insists that one should be certain of impartiality of judgment, by avoiding the influence of questions which relate to environment and surrounding circumstances.

The second concerns opportunity.

We have already had occasion to say how much some things, which seem desirable at certain times, are questionable when the situation changes.

Bad humor creates ill-will; therefore it is abominably stupid to provoke the manifestation of the second when one has proved the existence of the first.

In order that there may be a connection between the faculty of judgment and that of deduction, it is essential that nothing should be allowed to interpose itself between these two phases of the argument.

Harmony between all judgments is founded on common sense, but it is practical common sense, which indicates this harmony with precision.

It is also practical common sense which serves as a guide to the orator who wishes to impress his audience.

He will endeavor first to choose a subject which will interest those who listen to him.

In this endeavor he ought, above all, to consult opportunity.

And, as we have remarked on many occasions, the Shogun expresses theories on this subject, to which the people of the twentieth century could not give too much earnest consideration.

“There are,” said he, “social questions, as, for example, dress and custom.

“With time, opinions change, as do forms and manners, and this is quite reasonable.

“The progress of science by ameliorating the general conditions of existence, introduces a need created by civilization which rejects barbarous customs; the mentality of a warrior is not that of an agriculturist; the man who thinks about making his possessions productive has not the same inclinations as he whose life is devoted to conquest, and the sweetness of living in serenity, by modifying the aspirations, metamorphoses all things.

“In order to lead attention in the direction which is governed by reason, it is indispensable for the orator that he should expound a subject whose interpretation will satisfy the demand of opportunity, which influences every brain.

“Practical sense will make him take care to speak only of things that he has studied thoroughly.

“It will induce him to expound his theory in such a way that his hearers will have to make no effort to assimilate it.

“That which is not understood is easily criticized, and practical sense would prevent an orator from attempting to establish an argument whose premises would offend common sense.

“He would be certain of failure in such a case.

“His efforts will be limited, then, to evoking common sense, by employing practical sense, so far as what refers to the application of principles which he desires to apply successfully.”

Yoritomo recommends this affiliation for that which concerns the struggle against superstition.

“Superstition,” he says, “offends practical sense as well as common sense, for it rests on an erroneous analysis.

“Its foundation is always an observation marred by falsity, establishing an association between two facts which have nothing in common.

“There are people who reenter their homes if, when they reach the threshold, they perceive a certain bird; others believe that they are threatened with death if they meet a white cat.”

Without going back to the days of Yoritomo, we shall find just as many people who are the victims of superstitions concerning certain facts, which are only the observance of customs fallen into disuse, and whose practise has been perpetuated through the ages, altho, as we have said in the preceding chapter, the purpose of the custom has disappeared, but the custom itself has not been forgotten.

It is in this way that the origin of the superstition concerning salt dates back to the time of the Romans, who (while at variance with the principles of contemporary agriculture) sowed salt in the fields of their enemies and thought that by so doing they would make them sterile.

To that far-distant epoch can be traced the origin of the superstition concerning the spilling of salt.

Whatever may have been its cause, superstition is the enemy of common sense, for, when it does not originate in an abolished custom, it is the product of a personal impression, associating two ideas absolutely unconnected.

“Practical sense,” Yoritomo continues, “is a most valuable talent to cultivate, for it prevents our judging from appearances.

“Frivolous minds are always inclined to draw conclusions from passing impressions; they adopt neither foresight, nor precaution, nor approximation.

“There are people who will condemn a country as utterly unattractive, because they happened to have visited it under unfavorable circumstances.

“Others, without considering what a country has previously produced, and that at present the grain has not been planted, will declare unfertile the soil which has been untilled for some months.

“On the other hand, if they visit a house on a sunny day, it would be impossible for them to associate it with the idea of rain.

“It would be most difficult to make these people alter their judgment, prematurely formed, and, in spite of the most authoritative assertions and the most self-evident proofs, their initial idea will dominate all those which one would like to instil into their minds.

“One moment would, however, suffice for reason to convince them that the variations of atmosphere and the conditions of cultivation can modify the aspect of a country, of a field, and of a house, to the extent of giving them an appearance totally different from the one which they seemed to have.

“But he who judges by appearances never rejoices in the possession of that faculty which may be called reason in imagination.

“This is a gift, developed by practical sense and which common sense happily directs in right channels.

“Those who are endowed with this faculty can, with the help of reasoning, and by means of thought, build up a future reality based on a judgment whose affirmation admits of no doubt.

“It is not a question of hypothesis, no matter how well-founded it is.

“Experience, in this case, is united with deduction to form a preconceived but certain idea.

“By cultivating practical sense, we shall escape the danger of idealization which, with people of unbalanced mentality, often sheds an artificial light upon the picture.”

There is still another point to which Yoritomo calls our attention, in order to encourage us to cultivate the twin reasoning powers whose advantages we are trying to commend in this chapter:

“Practical sense,” says he, “sometimes puts common sense apparently in the wrong, while acting, however, without the inspiration of the latter.

“This happens when it is an advantage, for the perfect equilibrium of the projects in question, that it should be maintained at the same pitch, in order that it may be understood by all.

“In the legendary days, snow the color of fire once fell on the inhabitants of a little village, who were all about to attend a religious ceremony.

“One man alone, an old philosopher, had remained at home because, at the time they were to leave, he suddenly fell ill.

“When his sufferings were relieved, he started out to join the others and found them committing all sorts of follies.

“Two among them were reviling one another, each one claiming that he was the only king.

“Some were weeping because they thought that they were changed into beasts.

“Others were screaming, without rime or reason, now embracing each other, now attacking one another furiously.

“Soon the wise man recognized that they had been affected by the fall of snow, which had made them crazy, and he tried to speak to them in the language of reason.

“But all these crazy people turned on him, crying out that he had just lost his reason and that he must be shut away.

“They undertook the task of taking him back to his home, but, as that was not to be accomplished without rough usage, he assumed the part indicated by practical sense; this man of common sense feigned insanity, and from the moment the insane people thought that he resembled them they let him alone and ceased to torment him.

“The philosopher profited by this fact to disarm their excitement, and, little by little, all the time indulging in a thousand eccentricities, which had no other object than to protect himself against them, he demonstrated their aberration to them.”

Could not this story serve as an example to the majority of contemporary critics?

Is it not often necessary to appear to be denuded of common sense, to make the voice of reason dominate?

In the fable of Yoritomo, his philosopher proved his profound knowledge of the human heart, while he put in practise the power of practical sense in apparent opposition, however, to common sense.

We said this at the opening of the chapter: practical sense and common sense are two very near relatives, but they are two and not one.

LESSON X

THE MOST THOROUGH BUSINESS MAN

One of the principle advantages of common sense is that it protects the man who is gifted with it from hazardous enterprises, the risky character of which he scents.

Only to risk when possessing perfect knowledge of a subject is the sure means of never being drawn into a transaction by illusory hopes.

An exact conception of things is more indispensable to perfect success than a thousand other more brilliant but less substantial gifts.

“However,” says Yoritomo, “in order to make success our own, it is not sufficient to have the knowledge of things, one must above all know oneself.

“On the great world-stage, each one occupies a place which at the start may not always be in the first rank.

“Nevertheless, work, intelligence, directness of thought and, above all, common sense, can exert a positive influence on the future superiority of the situation.

“Before everything else, it is indispensable that we should never delude ourselves about the position which we occupy.

“To define it exactly, one should call to mind the wise adage which says: Know thyself.

“But this knowledge is rare.

“Presumptuous persons readily imagine that they attract the eyes of every one, even if they be in the last rank.

“Timid persons will hide themselves behind others and, notwithstanding, they are very much aggrieved not to be seen.

“Ambitious persons push away the troublesome ones, in order that they themselves may get the first places.

“Lazy persons just let them do it.

“Irresolute persons hesitate before sitting down in vacant places and are consumed with regrets from the time they perceive that others, better prepared, take possession of them; the more so as they no longer get back their own, for, during their hesitation, another has seated, himself there.

“Enthusiasts fight to reach the first rank, but are so fatigued by their violent struggles that they fall, tired out, before they have attained their object.

“Obstinate people persist in coveting inaccessible places and spend strength without results, which they might have employed more judiciously.

“People of common sense are the only ones who experience no nervous tension because of this struggle.

“They calculate their chances, compute the time, do not disturb themselves uselessly, and never abandon their present position until they have a firm grasp on the following place.

“They do not seek to occupy a rank which their knowledge would not permit them to keep; they draw on that faculty with which they are gifted to learn the science of true proportion.

“They do not meddle in endeavors to reform laws; they submit to them, by learning how to adapt them to their needs, and respect them by seeking to subordinate their opinion to the principle on which they are based.

“Persons who have no common sense are the only ones to revolt against the laws of the country where they live.

“The wise man will recognize that they have been enacted to protect him and that to be opposed to their observance would be acting as an enemy to oneself.”

However, people will say, if laws are so impeccable in their right to authority, how is it that their interpretation leads so often to disputes?

It is easy to reply that lawsuits are rarely instituted by men of common sense; they leave this burden to people of evil intent, who imagine thus to make a doubtful cause triumph.

It must be conceded that this means succeeds at times with them, when they are dealing with timid or irresolute persons; but those who have contracted the habit of reasoning, and who never undertake anything without consulting common sense, will never allow themselves to be drawn into the by-paths of sophistry.

If they are forced to enter there temporarily, in order to pursue the adversary, who has hidden himself there, they will leave these paths as soon as necessity does not force them to remain there longer and with delight regain the broad road of rectitude.

A few pages further on we find a reflection which the Shogun, always faithful to his principles of high morality, specially addresses to those who make a profession of humility.

“Obedience,” he says, “ought to be considered as a means; but, for the one who wishes to succeed, in no sense can it be honored as a virtue.

“If it be a question of submission to law, that is nothing else but the performance of a strict duty; this is a kind of compact which the man of common sense concludes with society, to which he promises his support for the maintenance of a protection from which he will be the first to benefit.

“This obedience might be set down as selfishness were it not endorsed by common sense.

“There are people, it is true, who, even altho wishing to support their neighbor when called upon to do so by the law, seek to evade this duty if left to themselves.

“These are pirates who have broken completely not only with the spirit of equity, but also with simple common sense.

“It is always foolish to set the example of insubordination, for, if it were followed, it would not be long before general disorder would appear.

“Some men were sitting one day on the edge of an inlet and were trying with a net to catch fish, whose playful movements the men were following through the limpid water.

“According to their character, their perseverance, their cleverness, and the ingenuity of the means employed, they caught a proportionate number of fish; but those who caught the least had one or two.

“This success encouraged them, and they began again in good earnest, each one in his own way, when a stranger appeared; he was armed with a long branch of a tree, which he plunged in the pond, touching the bottom and stirring up the mud, which, as it scattered, rose to the surface of the water.

“The limpidity of the water was immediately changed; one could no longer see the fish, and the fishermen decided to discontinue their sport.

“But the man only laughed at their discomfiture and, brandishing a large net, he threw it in his turn, chaffing them at the patient cunning by which they had, he said, taken such a poor haul.

“He brought up some fish, it is true, but at each haul he was obliged to lose so much time in removing the impurities, the débris, and the weeds of all kinds from the net that very soon the fishermen had the satisfaction of seeing him punished for his mean conduct.

“What he took was scarcely more than what the smartest among them had taken, and his net, filthy from the mud, torn by the roots that he was unable to avoid, was soon good for nothing.”

Might it not be from this fable that we have taken the expression, “to fish in troubled waters,” of which without a doubt the good Yoritomo furnished the origin many, many centuries ago?

His prophetic mind is unveiled again in the following advice that not a business man of the twentieth century would reject.

“Common sense,” he says, “when it is a question of the relations of men as to what concerns business or society, ought to adopt the characteristic of that animal called the chameleon.

“His natural color is dull, but he has the gift of reflecting the color of the objects on which he rests.

“Near a leaf, he takes the tint of hope.

“On a lotus, he is glorified with the blue of the sky.

“Is this to say that his nature changes to the point of modifying his natural color?

“No; he does not cease to possess that which recalls the color of the ground, and the ephemeral color which he appropriates is only a semblance, in order that he may be more easily mistaken for the objects themselves.

“The man who boasts of possessing common sense, altho preserving his personality, ought not to fail, if he wants to succeed, to reflect that of the person whom he wishes to aid him in succeeding.”

Let it not be understood for a moment, that we advise any one to act contrary to the impulses of justice.

But cleverness is a part of common sense in business, and assimilation is essential to success.

It is not necessary to abandon one’s convictions in order to reflect principles which, without contradicting them, give them a favorable color.

Common sense can remain intact and be differently colored, according as it is applied to the arts, politics, or science.

It would not deserve its name if it did not know how to yield to circumstances, in order to adorn the momentary caprice with flowers of reason.

In the primitive ages, common sense consisted in keeping oneself in a perpetual state of defense; attack was also at times prescribed, by virtue of the principle that it is pernicious to allow one’s rights to be imperiled.

Attack was also at times a form of repression.

It was also a lesson in obedience and a reminder not to misunderstand individual rights.

In later times, common sense served to make the advantages of harmony appreciated.

It directed the descendants of peoples exclusively warlike toward the secret place where science unfolds itself to the gaze of the vulgar; then it taught them to provide for their existence by working.

It has demonstrated to them the necessity of reflection, by inciting them to model their present course of life on the lessons which come from the past.

It has given them the means to evoke it easily and effectively.

It has injected into their veins the calmness which permits them to draw just conclusions and to adopt toward preceding reasonings the attitude of absolute neutrality, without which all former presentiments are marred by error.

Each epoch was, for common sense, an opportunity to manifest itself differently.

At the moment when poetry was highly honored, it would have been unreasonable to have ignored it, for the bards excited great enthusiasm by their songs which gave birth to heroes.

And now, imbued with the principles which in his day might be taken to represent what we to-day call advanced ideas, Yoritomo continues:

“Common sense can, then, without renouncing its devotion to truth, take various forms or shades, for the truth of yesterday is not always the truth of to-day.

“The gods of the past are considered simply as idols in our day and the virtues of the distant past would be, at present, moral defects which would prevent men from winning the battle of life, whose ideal is The Best for which all the faculties should strive.”

The Shogun also touches lightly on a subject which, already discust in his time, has become, in our day, a burning truth; it is a question of a fault, which in the world of practical life and in that of business can cause considerable injury to him who allows it to be implanted in him.

We refer to that tendency which has been adorned or rather branded successively with the names of hypochondria, pessimism, and lastly neurasthenia, an appellation which comprises all kinds of nervous diseases, the characteristic of which is incurable melancholy.

“There are people,” he says, “who are afflicted with a special color-blindness.

“Everything they look at assumes immediately to their eyes the most somber hues.

“They see in a flower only the germ of dry-rot; the most ideal beauty appears to them only like the negligible covering of some hideous skeleton.

“However, they hang on to this life which they do not cease to calumniate, and people of common sense are rarely found who will try to reason with them from a common-sense standpoint:

“‘Since life is so insupportable to you, why do you impose upon yourself the obligation to struggle with it?

“‘Only insane people try to prolong their sojourn in a place where they suffer martyrdom.’

“It is true that when, perchance, this argument is placed before them, they do not fail to reply by invoking the shame of desertion.

“‘Well, is not then the interest of the struggle to which we are subjected a sufficient attraction to keep us at our post?’”

And, always enamored with the doctrine, which we are now assiduously maintaining, he concludes:

“Common sense is, at times, the unfolding of a magnificent force which incites us to attune our environment to actualities.

“One must not, however, fall into excess and draw a huge sword to pierce the clouds, which obscure the sun.

“If struggle is praiseworthy when we have to face a real enemy, it becomes worthy of scorn and laughter if we attack a puerile or imaginary adversary.

“But the number of people incapable of appreciating the true color of things is not limited to those who enshroud them in black.

“There are others, on the contrary, who obstinately insist upon surrounding them with a halo of sunlight only existing in their imagination.

“For such deluded people, obstacles seen from a distance take on the most attractive appearance; they would be readily disposed to enjoy them and only consent to allow them a certain importance if they absolutely obstruct the way.

“But until the moment when impossibility confronts them, do they deny its existence or underrate its importance by attributing a favorable influence to it.

“This propensity to see all in the ideal would be enviable if it did not wound common sense, which revenges itself by refusing to these improvident people the help of the reasoning power necessary to sustain them in the crisis of discouragement which brings about irresistibly the establishment of error.

“These unbalanced people rarely experience success, for they are unable, as long as their blindness lasts, to mark out a line of serious conduct for themselves.

“All projects built on the quicksands of false deductions will perish without even leaving behind them material sufficient to reconstruct them.

“It is impossible to combat strongly enough this tendency to self-delusion, which inclines us to become the prey of untruth, by preventing the birth of faith, based on preceding success.

“Sincere conviction, on the contrary, will lead us to refute strongly all the false arguments, which impede thought and would choke it in order to allow unadulterated pleasure to be installed on the ruins of common sense.

“The battle of life demands warriors and conquerors as well as critics, less brilliant, perhaps, but just as worthy of admiration, for their mission is equally important, altho infinitely more obscure.

“Whether he be a peasant tilling his field or a rich capitalist manipulating his gold, he who works in order to satisfy the needs or luxury of his existence is a fighter whose hours are spent in occupations more or less dangerous.

“From time to time, however, a cessation of hostilities is produced; such always follows the appearance of common sense which, by giving to things their true proportions, causes the greater part of inequalities to disappear.

“Finally, he who cultivates this virtue unostentatiously will always be protected from the caprices of fortune; if he is poor, common sense will indicate to him the way to cease to be poor, and, if chance has given him birth in opulence, the counsels of experience will demonstrate to him the frailty of possessions that one has not acquired by personal effort.”

This conclusion is strikingly true, for it is certain that prosperity attained by personal effort is less likely to fade away than an inherited fortune, whose owner can only understand the ordinary pleasure of a possession which he has not ardently desired.

He who is the maker of his own position is more able to maintain it; he knows the price of the efforts which he had to make in order to construct it, and, armed with common sense, he is as able to defend his treasure as to enjoy the sweet savor of a thing which he has desired, longed for, and won by the force of his will and judgment, placed at the service of circumstances and directed toward success.

LESSON XI

COMMON SENSE AND SELF-CONTROL

“Where life manifests itself,” says Yoritomo, “antagonism always springs up.”

“In the eternal struggle between the individual and social soul, each of which, in its turn, is victorious or vanquished, a truce is declared only if self-control is allied to common sense, in order to maintain the equilibrium between individual sentiment, natural to each one of us, and the ideas of mankind as a whole.

“All classes of society are subject to this law, and, from the proudest prince to the humblest peasant, every one is obliged to harmonize their social duties with their personal obligations.

“Those who understand how to imbibe thoroughly the lessons of common sense, never ignore the fact that morality is always closely related to self-interest.

“If each one of us would observe this rule individual happiness would not be long in creating a harmony from which all men would benefit.

“One thing we should avoid, for the attainment of universal tranquility, and that is the perpetual conflict between individual and social interest.

“The day when each one of us can comprehend that he is a part of this ‘all,’ which is called society, he will admit that sinning against society may be considered the same as sinning against oneself.

“Passing one day before an immense cabin, built of bamboo, which stood near a rice-plantation, I perceived a man who hid himself from my view, without however being able to escape my notice altogether. I went resolutely to him, to ask him the explanation of his suspicious movement.

“After an unsuccessful attempt to escape, he resigned himself to allow me to approach him, and I understood the reason of his apprehension:

“He was carrying several pieces of bamboo which he had detached from the house. He wanted, he said, to make a little blaze because the dampness was chilling him.

“Without replying to him, I led him by the hand to the place where the branches taken away had left a large space, a kind of opening in the side of the house, through which a keen wind was rushing.

“‘Look,’ I said to him, ‘the blaze that you are going to make will warm you for a few minutes, but, during the whole night the cold wind will freeze you–you and your companions.

“‘In order to procure for yourself an agreeable but passing sensation you are going to inflict upon them continued sufferings, of which you can not escape your share.’

“The man hung his head and said: ‘I had not thought of this; I was cold and I allowed myself to be tempted by the anticipated pleasure of warming myself, even if only for a few minutes.’

“And, convinced by common sense, he repaired the harm which he had done, first by reason of selfishness, then by thoughtlessness, but, above all, by lack of self-control.

“To dominate oneself to the point of not allowing oneself to become the slave of miserable contingencies which appear as temptations to self-indulgence, and conceal from their pettiness the beauty of the consistent action–this is only given to the chosen few and can only be understood by those who cultivate common sense.”

Is this to say that reasoning should be a school for abnegation.

Such a thought is far from our minds.

Neither habitual abnegation nor modesty is among the militant virtues, and for this reason the critics ought often to relegate them to their proper place, which is the last, very close to defects to which they closely approach and among whose ranks one must sometimes go in order to discover them.

But, apart from the question of a sterile abnegation, we must foresee that it may be important not to overestimate one’s individual interests, to the visible detriment of the general interest.

This is a fault common to all those who have not been initiated into the practise of self-control by means of reasoning based on solid premises.

They are ready to sacrifice very great interests, which do not seem to concern them directly, for some immediate paltry gratification.

“They act,” said the philosopher, “like a peasant who should risk his harvest in order to avoid paying the prince the rent which belongs to him.

“Common sense teaches us that we should call to our assistance self-control, in order to repress the tendencies which tempt men to sacrifice the general interest to some personal and vehement desire.

“Rarely do these people find their advantage in separating themselves from the mass, and the prosperity of the greatest number is always the cradle of individual fortunes.”

Leaving questions of primary importance to come to the subtleties of detail in which, he delights, Yoritomo speaks to us of self-control allied to common sense, extolling to us its good effects in practical questions of our every-day life.

“We too often confound,” said he, “self-control and liberty.

“We are tempted to believe that a slave can not possess it, inasmuch as it is the special possession of all those to whom riches give a superior position in the world.

“How profound is this error!

“The lowest slave can enjoy this liberty, which is worth all others: self-control, which confers intellectual independence more precious than the most precious of possessions, whereas the most powerful prince may be altogether ignorant of this blessing.

“There are dependent souls who, for want of the necessary strength to escape from vassalage to the external impressions will always drag on, feeble and opprest by the exactions of a mental servitude from which they can not free themselves.

“Others rise proudly, ready to command circumstances, which they dominate with all the power of their volition governed by reason.

“It is common sense which will guide them in this ascent by keeping them within the limits assigned to those things pertaining to reason and rectitude of mind.

“Before everything, it is well not to forget that this faculty invites those who cultivate it to seek always for exact facts.

“Knowledge, in all its aspects is, then, a perfect educator for those who do not wish to build on the flimsy foundation of approximate truth.

“In pronouncing the word knowledge, we do not wish to speak of abstract studies which are only accessible to a small number; we wish to express the thought of instruction embracing all things, even the most humble and ordinary.

“A man from the city was walking in the country one day, not far from a vast swamp.

“All around it were a few miserable huts, the shelter of some peasants whose business it was to gather the reeds from the borders, weaving them into large baskets to be sold afterward in the neighboring country.

“Little by little twilight descended, slowly enveloping all things in a mist of ashy gray, and vapors arose from afar over the stagnant water.

“The man from the city trembled, believing that he recognized fantoms in this moving vapor; he sought to flee, but, unfamiliar with the locality, he ran along the side of the swamp without finding the end of it.

“Exhausted from fatigue and trembling with fear, he resolved to knock at one of the cabins.

“He was welcomed by a basket-maker, to whom he related his fright, adding that he was unable to understand how this man found the courage to live in a place haunted in such a terrible way.

“The peasant smiled and explained to the man, whose intellectual culture was, however, infinitely superior to his own, by what phenomenon of evaporation these mirages were produced.

“He demonstrated to him that these fantoms were only harmless vapors, and the city man admired the knowledge which common sense had taught the ignorant one.”

And Yoritomo concluded:

“This peasant gave there a proof of what self-control allied to common sense can do.

“Instead of allowing himself to be influenced by appearances, he confined himself to reflection, and observation aided by attention led him to a deduction resting on truth.

“The essential factor of control is cool-headedness, which permits of seeing things in their true light, and forbids us to gild them or to darken them, according to our state of mind at the time.”

The Shogun adds:

“Fear, hideous fear, is a sentiment unknown to those whose soul communes with self-control and common sense.

“The first of these qualities will produce a fixt resolution tending to calmness, at the same time that it makes a powerful appeal to cool-headedness, which permits of reflection.

“Fear is always the confession of a weakness which disavows struggle and wishes to ignore the name of adversary.

“Cool-headedness is the evanescent examination of forces, either physical or intellectual, with reference to supposed danger.

“Without self-control cool-headedness can not exist; but it only develops completely under the influence of common sense which dictates to it the reasons for its existence.

“Cool-headedness, by leaving us our liberty of thought, enlightens us undoubtedly on the nature of danger, at the same time that it suggests to us the way to avoid it, if it really exists.

“There can not be a question of fear for those who possess the faculties of which we have just spoken, for it is well known that, from the moment when the cause of fear is defined it ceases to exist; it becomes stupid illusion or a real enemy.

“In the one case, as in the other, it ought not to excite anxiety any longer, but contempt or the desire to fight it.

“For those whose mind is not yet strong enough to resolve on one or other of these decisions it will be well to take up again the argument indicated in the preceding pages, and to say:

“Either the object of my fear really exists, and, in this case, I must determine its nature exactly, in order to use the proper means first to combat it and then to conquer it.

“Or it is only an illusion, and I am going to seek actively for that which produces it, in order never again to fall into the error of which my senses have just been the dupes.”

Looking over these manuscripts, so rich in valuable advice, we find once more the following lines:

“Self-control and cool-headedness are above all necessary to aid in dissimulating impressions.

“It is very bad to allow one of the speakers in a dialog to read the mind of him who speaks to him like an open book.

“He whose thoughts are imprest vividly on the surface is always placed at a glaring disadvantage.

“The thought of glorifying hypocrisy is far from our minds, for it has nothing to do with the attitude which we recommend.

“The hypocrite strives to assume emotions which he does not feel.

“The man gifted with cool-headedness is intent on never allowing them to be seen.

“It keeps his adversary in ignorance of the effect produced by his reasoning and allows him to take his chance, until the moment when, in spite of this feigned indifference, he reveals himself and permits his mind to be seen.

“Now, to know the designs of a rival, when he is ignorant of those that we have conceived, is one of the essential factors of success.

“In every way, he who is informed about the projects of his adversary walks preceded by a torch of light, while the adversary, if he can not divine his opponent’s plans, continues to fight in darkness.”

The most elementary common sense counsels then cool-headedness when exchanging ideas, even when the discussion is of quite an amicable nature.

From this habit there will result a very praiseworthy propensity to exercise self-control, which is only a sort of superior cool-headedness.

It is also the cause of a noble pride, because it is more difficult to win a victory over one’s passions than to conquer ordinary enemies, and he who, with the support of common sense, succeeds in ruling himself, can calculate, without arrogance, the hour when he will reign over the minds of others.

LESSON XII

COMMON SENSE DOES NOT EXCLUDE GREAT ASPIRATIONS

“A very common error,” says Yoritomo, “is that which consists in classifying common sense among the amorphous virtues, only applicable to things and to people whose fundamental principle is materiality.

“This is a calumny which is spread broadcast by fools who scatter their lives to the four winds of caprice and extravagance.

“Not only does common sense not exclude beauty, but it really aids in its inception and protects its growth by maintaining the reasons which produced its appearance.

“Without it, the reign of the most admired things would be of short duration, granting that the want of logic had not prevented their production.

“What is there more commendable than the love of work, devotion to science, ambition to succeed?

“Could all this exist if common sense did not intervene to permit the development of the deductions on which are based the resolutions that inspired in us these aspirations.

“But this is not all; without logic, which permits us to give them solidity, the most serious resolutions would soon become nothing but vague projects, shattered as soon as formed.

“In common sense lies the cause and the object of things.

“It is common sense which makes us realize that difference that few persons are willing to analyze, and which lies between judgment and opinion.

“We almost always succeed in readily confounding them, and from this mistake results a too-frequent cause of failures.

“Opinion is a conviction which is capable of modification.

“In addition to this, as it is based on mere indications and probability, it is rarely free from the personal element.

“Opinion depends upon the favorite inclination, upon the mood of the moment, upon sundry considerations, which direct it almost always toward the desired solution.

“Also it depends often on thoughtfulness or on the inexactness of the initial representation, which we are pleased to disguise slightly at first, then little by little to color in accordance with our desires.

“Falsehood does not necessarily enter into this process of tricking things out; it is, three-quarters of the time, the result of an illusion which we are prone to perpetuate within us.

“We are too often in the position of the three wise men who, while rummaging in an old sarcophagus, discovered a vase whose primitive function they were unable to determine with any certainty.

“One of them was a poet and an idealist.

“The second only prized positive things.

“The third belonged to the category of melancholy people.

“After a few days devoted to special research work, they met together again in order to communicate to each other their different opinions about the exhumed vase.

“‘I have found the secret,’ said the first.

“‘I also,’ affirmed the second.

“‘I equally have found it,’ replied the third.

“And each one based his opinion on preconceived notions which reflected their bent of mind:

“‘This vase,’ said the first, ‘was intended to hold incense, which they burned a that epoch, in the belief that the smoke dispelled the evil spirits.’

“‘Nonsense!’ cried out the second; ‘this vase is a pot which at that time served as a receptacle for keeping spices.’

“‘Not so!’ insisted the third, ‘it is an urn of antiquated design used for receiving tears; that is all.’

“These three serious men were certainly sincere in giving explanations which each one of them declared decisive. They exprest opinions which they believed implicitly and which their respective natures directed irresistibly toward their peculiar bents of mind.

“Judgment, in order to be free from all which is not common sense, ought then to put aside all personal predilections, all desire to form a conclusion to humor our inclinations.

“Absolute impartiality of judgment is one of the rarest gifts and at the same time is the noblest quality which we can possess.”

We should then conclude, with the Shogun, that common sense aids in the production of noble aspirations, and is not concerned only with that which relates to materiality, as so many people would have us understand.

The Nippon philosopher teaches us also the part which he assigns to the habitual practise of goodness.

“We are too easily persuaded,” he says, “that goodness, like beauty, is a gift of birth.

“It is time to destroy an error rooted in our minds for too many centuries.

“Goodness is acquired by reasoning and logic, as are so many other qualities, and it is common sense which governs its formation.

“Have we ever reflected over the sum total of annoyances that people, who are essentially wicked, add every day to those imposed upon them by circumstances?

“Are we capable of appreciating the joys of life when impatience makes the nerves vibrate or when anger brandishes its torch in the bends and turns of the brain?

“People who lack goodness are the first to be punished for their defect. Serenity is unknown to them and they live in perpetual agitation, caused by the irritation which they experience on the slightest provocation.”

Common sense indicates then in an irrefutable way that there is every advantage in being good.

And Yoritomo proves it to us, by using his favorite syllogism:

“Happiness,” he says, “is above all a combination of harmony and absence of sorrow.

“Wickedness, by inspiring us with discontent and anger, disturbs this harmony.

“We must, therefore, banish wickedness, that we may cultivate goodness, which is the creator of harmony.”

Continuing still further the same argument, he adds:

“Common sense would have the tendency even to make us promise to be good, so as to satisfy our own egotism.

“Goodness creates smiles; to sow happiness around one, is a way of having neither eyes nor heart offended by the sight of people in tears; it is the eliciting of an agreeable joy, whose rays will shed a golden light over our life; is it not more pleasing to hear the ring of laughter than to listen to painful sobs?”

So, we should never lose an opportunity of being good and that without mental reservation.

Gratitude is not the possession of every soul and he who does good may expect to receive ingratitude.

He will not suffer from it, if he has done good, not in the way a creditor does who intends to come on the very day appointed to claim his debt, but as a giver who fulfils his mission from which he is expecting a personal satisfaction, without thinking of any acknowledgment for what he has done.

If the debtor is filled with gratitude, the joy of being good is that much increased.

There is a species of common sense of a particularly noble quality that is called moral sense and which the Shogun defines thus:

“The moral sense is the common sense of the soul; it is the superior power of reasoning which stands before us that we may be prevented from passively following our instincts; it is by its assistance that we succeed without too much difficulty in climbing the steep paths of duty.

“This sense discerns an important quality, which puts us on our guard against the danger of certain theories, whose brilliancy might seduce us.

“It is the moral sense which indicates to us the point of delimitation separating legitimate concessions from forbidden license.

“It allows us to go as far as the dangerous place where the understanding with conscience might become compromised and, by reasoning, proves to us that there would be serious danger in proceeding further.

“It is the moral sense which distinguishes civilized man from the brute; it is the regulator of the movements of the soul and the faithful indicator of the actions which depend on it.”

We must really pity those who are deprived of moral sense for they are the prey of all the impulses created in them by the brute-nature, which sleeps in the depths of each human creature.

The man whose moral sense is developed will live at peace with himself, for he will only know the evil of doubt when he realizes the satisfaction of having conquered it.

Moral sense, like common sense, is formed by reasoning and is fostered by the practise of constant application.

It is the property of those who avoid evil, as others avoid the spatter of mud, through horror of the stains which result from it.

Those who do not have this apprehension flounder about, cover themselves with mud, sink in it and finally are swallowed up.

Yoritomo again takes up the defense of common sense, with reference to the arts.

“Can one imagine,” he says, “a painter conceiving a picture and grouping his figures in such a way as to violate the rules of common sense?

“We should be doomed, if this were true, to see men as tall as oak-trees and houses resembling children’s toy constructions, placed without reference to equilibrium among green or pink animals, whose legs had queer shapes.

“Madmen represent nature thus, which seems to them outlined in strange forms.

“But people of common sense reproduce things just as sound judgment conceives of them; if they throw around them at times the halo of beauty which seems exaggerated, let us not decry them.

“Beauty exists everywhere; it dwells in the most humble objects, makes all around us resplendent and, if we refuse to see it, we are blinded by an unjust prejudice, or our minds are not open to the faculty of contemplation.

“It is revealed above all to those who cultivate common sense and reject the sophistries of untruth that they may surround themselves with truth.

“Such people scorn trivial casualties; they adopt an immutable rule, reasoning, which permits them to deduce, to judge, and afterward to produce.

“All beautiful creations are derived from this source.

“The most admirable inventions would never have been known if common sense had not helped them to be produced, strengthening those who conceived them by the support of logic, which demonstrated to them the truth of their presumptions.

“Authority follows, based on the experience which, by maintaining the effect of judgment, has armed them with the strength of the mind, the true glory of peaceful conquerors.”

Would one not say that the Shogun, in writing these lines, foresaw the magnificent efforts which we are witnessing each day and that from the depths of time he caught a glimpse of these brave conquerors of the air and of space, whose great deeds, seeming at times the result of a crazy temerity, are in reality only homage rendered to common sense, which has permitted them to calculate the value of their initiative without mistake?

And one can not be denied the pleasure of entering once more into close communion of thought with the old philosopher when he says:

“Enthusiasm is of crystal but common sense is of brass.”

Garlic Olive Oil, Craigslist Massages–and Doing Your Homework

What You Will Learn You need to do your homework and always know what you are getting into. Do not look for jobs that do not match your interests, or deliver on your expectations. You need to research and understand the people you are interviewing with, and whom you are going to be working with. Even if you are desperate for work, you need to make sure you fully understand what you are getting into before you take the job.

I’ve decided that I am never again going to have a masseuse come over from Craigslist. It’s just not worth it.

A few weeks ago I was at a conference in Chicago. I was staying at a so-so hotel without a spa near the airport. I called the front desk to see if they had anyone they could recommend for a massage and the receptionist recommended that I find someone on Craigslist. Since I am in the career business, the only part of Craigslist I have ever spent any time on has been the job listings; however, Craigslist has a lot more than jobs listed. As I quickly realized, you can find just about anything on Craigslist.

I found a masseuse that seemed really good: She had a bunch of statements on her description about how she worked near the airport, and that there was no sex whatsoever associated with her services. After looking at the first few massage listings of other people I realized why she felt the need to have such an explicit sort of “NO SEX!” advertisement: Many of the pictures in the other ads were borderline pornographic, and it was clear that much more than massage would be occurring if you called certain people. In fact, it seemed like many of the people were not actually offering a massage at all.

When the woman arrived for the massage, I saw that she was a very serious seeming, petite German woman who was ready for business. She brought sheets that literally appeared to have creases ironed in them. Everything seemed very much in order. Within a few minutes she set up a massage table and started giving me a massage. It was one of the greatest massages I had ever had in my life. Within around 10 minutes I had completely dozed off. When she woke me up I could not believe I had slept through the whole massage.

“How long was I sleeping?” I asked her.

“Two hours,” she said.

I was astonished that I had slept for so long. Within a couple of minutes the masseuse had packed up and was ready to go. She told me the cost of a two hour massage. I paid her and tipped her for having done such an excellent job, and she was gone.

To get all the oil off my body I took a shower. When I came out of the shower I glanced at the clock on the nightstand and realized that only around 50 minutes had gone by since the woman had shown up. It was only 8:50 and she had arrived at 8:00. So, I had paid for a two hour massage that had only been around 40 minutes. I could not believe I had been scammed by a masseuse. By the time I realized this the woman was long gone.

That was my first experience with getting a massage on Craigslist. I had my second experience a couple of nights ago.

I live pretty far outside of a major city and have always enjoyed getting a massage now and then. I lived for around 5 years directly across the street from a Ritz-Carlton resort. Every few weeks I would walk over there and get a massage. Around three years ago, I moved away from that neighborhood, and I now live far from any hotels or spas. Unfortunately, the only place I have found nearby is run by a man in an office complex, who does something called “Rolfing”. Rolfing is not like typical massage and is, instead, a very painful sort of muscular manipulation meant make you stand up straighter and improve your posture. It hurts while the entire process is occurring, but after the two hour long Rolfing session, you feel pretty good. The practice is more of a medical/chiropractic sort of thing than a massage, but the end results are excellent. I have noticed myself thinking clearly and feeling much more relaxed after these sessions. It is much more effective than any other sort of massage I have ever had.

Rolfing is s meant to be a series of sequential sessions. For example, the first session concentrates on opening your chest. The next session focuses on your legs and so forth. Following several sessions, you are supposed to feel a major change in your relationship with your body. Rolfers have to go to school to learn how to do it properly, and I believe one of the only schools for the discipline is in Colorado. Because of the duration of the schooling and other factors, there are simply not many people out there who do Rolfing.

The man who does Rolfing near my house eventually made it big with investments. One of the last times I visited him he was talking about a mine he had invested in. Also, from what I understand, he is pals with all sorts of celebrities, whom he has “Rolfed” in our community. He apparently pals around with these people, flying around to all sorts of places in his spare time. He does not seem that committed to his work anymore. A couple of years ago he gave me a few Rolfing sessions then got injured and stopped working for a year. I remembered a few months ago that I had never paid him for his last session, which was a year ago (he only takes cash) and one day when I was near his office I saw someone inside working. I stopped by and paid for the last session I had had, because I happened to have the money on me. The woman working in the reception told me that the owner had not worked in over a year, but that he “might” be willing to take a on a few new select patients. He called me a week or so later and I started going to see him again.

A month or so ago, he completely fell off the face of the earth–again. I have no idea what happened.

Because I am eager to complete all of the Rolfing sessions, I asked my assistant to start researching to see if it would be possible for any qualified person to come by my house to do some Rolfing. Realizing from my experience in Chicago that there are “massage-type” people on Craigslist, we decided to look there. The only person we found was on Craigslist, and she had a listing of at least 25 different types of massage that she offered, in addition to Rolfing.

“Are you sure she does Rolfing?” I asked my assistant as I looked at the list of all the types of massages the person supposedly knew.

“Yes, it says right here on her Craigslist advertisement that she is certified in Rolfing,” she told me. Sure enough, it did.

A few nights ago the woman showed up at my house to perform a Rolfing session. She was in her early to mid-50s, I would guess, and quite normal looking. There was not anything unusual about her, as far as I could tell. She took a massage table and set up in a spare room in our house. I got undressed, put a towel around my waist, and walked into the room a few minutes later. My wife was putting my daughter to bed in the next room over.

“Okay, make sure all of your clothes are off and lie on your back face up. I am not going to put a towel over you, if that is alright, because I want to have access to your entire body.”

The idea of lying on the table without wearing any clothes whatsoever, face up, was a bit more than I could handle. I had never seen this woman before in my life. When I had had Rolfing done in the past, I had always been in my underwear, so I did not understand why I was expected to be nude for this.

“I am not sure I am comfortable with this,” I told her. She then said something that convinced me permanently to never ever call a masseuse from Craigslist again:

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I am not going to do any ‘tantric release’ this session. While I do not need to, I generally like to sit down and discuss tantric release with my clients’ wives before doing this. People have strange feelings about sexual matters and I find this is best.”

I was in a bit of a state of shock, and I decided to push a little further.

“What is ‘tantric release’?” I asked her.

“Genital manipulation,” she said.

“Oh, of course. How silly of me,” I said.

As she had correctly guessed, this was not something I wanted to experience. I told the woman I was going to go change and would be back in a minute or so. I put on a pair of running shorts and tied them very, very tightly around my waist.

Once the “massage” started, I realized that the woman knew very little, if anything, about Rolfing. In fact, I could tell she knew very little about massage.

She told me that she preferred to use water instead of massage oil, and started massaging me with water. I have a lot of hair on my body, and she kept pulling all the hair in my back. The entire process was excruciating. It was even worse because she was talking the entire time about her past lives and a bunch of other nonsense. She said something about being on a raw meat diet that was so effective it had made a bunch of warts fall off of her back. The whole experience was completely bizarre.

Because the massage was so painful, at some point I had to ask her to stop and get some oil or something.

“She was probably using water because she is too cheap to buy massage oil,” my wife said later.

The woman did not seem happy about this, but told me she would use olive oil instead of water. She started massaging me with olive oil and my eyes started to water. It smelled like garlic. I told her it smelled awful.

“It’s garlic olive oil. It’s all I have,” she told me.

I could not believe I was being massaged with garlic olive oil. I smelled like a bowl of spaghetti. Several days later the room still smells like a bowl of spaghetti. My shower still smells like a bowl of spaghetti, and so do I. In fact, I cannot get the smell of garlic off my body. She even used the oil in my hair to give me a scalp massage. Wherever I am I can smell that garlic. For example, I was sitting there watching television last night, and suddenly got a whiff of the smell.

I hate the smell of garlic; just thinking about it gives me a headache. It has been days since the garlic massage and, even as I write this, my eyes are watering. The only way to keep my eyes from watering is to be on the move.

“She probably purchased the garlic olive oil because it was on sale,” my wife told me later.

My experience with looking for a massage on Craigslist is no different from someone looking for a job on any sort of Internet job board, who is looking for the best thing he or she can possibly find. When I saw the ad for a masseuse on the Craigslist in Chicago, I did not have many options: I picked the person who was not showing me pictures of her private parts in her advertisement, and who declared that nothing unexpected–or illegal, would happen during the massage. However, the fact that the massage therapist in Chicago was advertising in the same area as hookers should have been a warning sign to me. The next time I used Craigslist, I simply looked under the keyword “Rolfing”, which was not the most intelligent way to conduct my search. The fact that 20 different types of massage were listed in the chosen masseuse’s ad should have been a warning sign.

You need to do your homework and always know what you are getting into. In the case of the Rolfing practitioner, I could have called the people who give certifications for Rolfing, and I probably could have found someone good. In the case of the hotel in Chicago, I could have simply found another hotel down the street, one with a decent spa. You need to use logic and make sure that you always understand that what you are doing is the correct thing to do.

Many people look for jobs the way I looked for a massage. They do not think through what they are getting into, and they wind up in jobs that do not match their interests, or deliver on their expectations. You need to research and understand the people you are interviewing with, and whom you are going to be working with. Even if you are desperate for work, you need to make sure you fully understand what you are getting into before you take the job.

The Dangers of Getting Jobs Through Friends and Family

Men are more ready to repay an injury than a benefit, because gratitude is a burden and revenge a pleasure.

-Tacitus (c. 55-120 A.D.)

What You Will Learn Watch out about taking up a job with the help of family and friends. Nepotism is usually considered a negative term and can serve to create resentment in all employment environments. Your friend or family member’s act of kindness could ultimately result in a strained and imbalanced relationship. You are safer getting a job without the help of family and friends.

“Oh, I already have a friend there. I’ll just contact them.” In the legal recruiting realm, this is one of the more common things we hear after informing an attorney that a certain law firm has a job opening. There is a lot you need to consider before you decide to apply to a job through a friend or relative or take a job working for a friend or relative. First, it is exceedingly rare that a friend or family member will ever be able to get you a position. The reason for this is simple: despite what you think, the involvement of friends or family members in your job search may actually hurt you because they may not want to help you get a job. Moreover, all employers know the severe problems that can arise when friends or relatives work together. Due to this, simply going through a close contact is often something that is counterproductive to your job search. Second, even if you are one of the few people who are able to get a position through a friend or family member, you could run into a great deal of trouble and harm your relationship with that person in the process.

When you are seeking a job through a friend, you may be surprised to find that he or she will not help you get a job with his or her organization. Moreover, the organization may actually look upon you negatively and not hire you if you try to use a friend or family member to get a job.

One of the most common things that people think is that friends are their best allies in a job search. After all, the job market is a harsh place. Who better to help you with your job search than a friend employed inside a firm for which you would like to work? A friend certainly recognizes all of your strengths and appreciates you for the person you are. In addition, the thought of depending upon a stranger when you have a friend or family member close by does not make a lot of sense. Certainly you can always trust a friend over a stranger, right?

I have been a legal recruiter for several years. I have represented more candidates than I can count. In all of my time as a legal recruiter, I have never once had a candidate get a job through a friend. Incredibly, I have actually gotten several candidates jobs with firms where they thought that they had friends inside who were helping them with their job searches-”insiders” who never managed to get their friends interviews. Moreover, when I think back on my own life, I do not think that I have ever gotten any job by having a friend or relative help me.

The issue with using friends to try to help you with your job search is that you never know your friends as well as you think. Almost instinctively, many friends are competitive with one another. When you are dealing with people close to you, you will often agree with them just to avoid argument. In fact, if you spend more than a couple of hours with your family or a group of your friends, you will find this sort of thing occurring probably every few minutes throughout each conversation. Friends and family also often do their best to laugh extra hard at each other’s jokes and cover up their unpleasant qualities. Your friends and family will most often say they love your taste in music, your choice of clothing, your house or apartment, your writing, and most everything you take seriously. It is possible your friends and family mean this. It is also possible they do not.

The thought of asking a friend to help you with a job search is, in effect, an attempt to shield yourself from the harshness of the world. The same enthusiasm your friends and family have for you in the personal realm, you may imagine, will directly translate to an eagerness to help you find work with their organization. I would offer at the outset that this is a possibility, and you may not be wrong in thinking this. Notwithstanding, this is often not the case.

One of the more common things that happens when people ask a friend or family member for help is nothing. The friend or family member gets your resume and thinks about it and then (for whatever reason) decides he or she does not want to forward it to the powers that be. You cannot imagine how common this is. If you have forwarded a resume to a friend inside a company recently, call the company about it. In more than 50 percent of cases, your “friend” will not have even forwarded the information. He will pleasantly tell you that he will, but he doesn’t. Your friend will often lie and tell you he forwarded the information when he did not. Again, I have seen this more times than I can count. The number is more than 50 percent (with the possible exception of firms which pay “bounties” for employees who bring candidates to their company).

Your guess as to why this occurs is as good as mine. Perhaps your friend or family member simply does not want the two of you working in the same office. Perhaps your friend does not want to take responsibility for what you might do if you were hired. Perhaps (just perhaps) your friend honestly does not think as highly of your capabilities as you do. While your friend may not tell you that he resents you because you once had, did, or said such and such, you can believe this can come out if you come to him seeking assistance with getting a job. Again, you will not even know this has come out-it just will. The firm may never see your resume.

Assuming your friend or family member does forward your resume, be prepared for all sorts of brutally honest assessments of your character and talents of which you personally may never have been aware. Most friends speak about one another with other groups of friends when the other is not around. Not all of this conversation is pleasant. Do you have any idea what your friends are saying about you? I can almost guarantee you that some of it is negative. You probably do not know even 10 percent of the negative things your friends and family say about you when you are not around. I have a question for you: do you want any of this negative information to be communicated to your potential employer?

There are reasons why organizations do not like to hire friends and family members of their employees. Nepotism has traditionally been considered a negative term. The word originates from the Latin word nephos, which means nephew, and was created to describe Pope Calixtus III’s hiring of nephews as cardinals. The first anti-nepotism policies probably originated in the Roman Catholic Church during the Middle Ages or Renaissance, when resentment began to build against incompetent people being appointed to high clerical offices. To this day, nepotism is something which can serve to create resentment in all employment environments. In this instance, I define “nepotism” as the hiring of friends as well as relatives.

Reducing corruption and increasing efficiency are the primary reasons many organizations have anti-nepotism policies. Corruption has always been a concern in this realm. If individuals who are friends or relatives work together, organizations fear that these individuals may collaborate to advance their own interests rather than the interests of the organization. Nepotism can also lower the morale of those who supervise relatives or friends of high-level members of the organization, those who work with them, and those who feel that rewards or promotions have been bestowed in an unfair manner. One or two friends or relatives may react negatively (and contrary to the interests of the organization) when another is criticized or disciplined. Finally, perception is a serious problem. Other employees will often perceive unequal treatment of a friend or relative regardless of whether or not this is the case.

While a great deal could be written about nepotism, suffice it to say that it is something many employers are concerned about. Using a perceived “in” with a firm to try to get a job may actually hurt you because of the firm’s own feelings about nepotism.

It is important to note that not all firms will be against nepotism. For example, in smaller, family-owned firms, nepotism is often common because it provides an efficient way to identify dedicated people. Nepotism may also foster a dedicated, family-like environment that boosts the morale of everyone-relatives and friends alike. A good example is the Central Intelligence Agency, which actually encourages the hiring of married couples. Having both spouses free to discuss classified information actually can reduce the strain of a high-stress career.

While nepotism may have its place, it is important to note that more often than not it is something that can scare away employers. It is, therefore, better off avoided in the job search.

I review a lot of the resumes that we receive from throughout the United States each day at our recruiting firm, BCG Attorney Search. There are two things that I frequently see: (1) associates (i.e., younger attorneys) who obviously do not have the qualifications to work inside a certain law firm, and (2) associates working for small law firms that are owned by their father or mother (with their own last name in the masthead) who are secretly looking for jobs. Each and every time I speak with these associates, I find that they are in positions because of family members and are extremely resentful of those family members for whatever reason. They have lots of negative things to say about them and desperately want a new job with the same salary and level of responsibility. Not once in my career have I seen someone from this class of associates who was qualified for a job even remotely as good as the one he or she was in at the time. Nevertheless, these associates always resent and, in most instances, hate the family member who got them the job they were unqualified for to begin with. Moreover, these associates refuse to go to a less-prestigious firm or job. Most often, in fact, they believe they should be working for an even better organization.

If you accept a job through a friend or family member, watch out. More importantly, watch yourself. In the end, you will likely be your own downfall. It is your friend or family member’s act of kindness that will ultimately unbalance your relationship.

The typical pattern that happens when someone is hired by a friend or family member is as follows. First, the people hired are grateful for being hired, but generally want to feel as if they deserve their good fortune. Accordingly, the friends or family members hired will look for all sorts of justifications to show the world and demonstrate to themselves that they deserve their good fortune.

One response from the people hired may be to believe that their being hired is a “payback” of sorts for everything that they have ever done to be kind to their friend or family member. They begin a process of justifying their hiring by everything they have ever said or done for the friend or family member.

Another response may be for the people hired to begin comparing themselves to others in the firm and believing that they are more intelligent than all of those other people. Therefore, the hired friends or family members justify their positions by often unjustly attacking their fellow employees.

The most common reaction, though, is that the hired friend or family member will become resentful against the person who helped him or her get the job to begin with. The receipt of a favor can come to mean, in the hired friend or family member’s eyes, that he or she was hired due to this and not based on merit. There is what I would term “hidden condescension” in the act of hiring a friend or family member that grinds at the new employee all the time.

Whomever you are working for likely cares more about (1) getting the job done and (2) doing the job as well as it can be done than about having friendly feelings flowing between the two of you. Your status as a friend or relative of someone does not mean that you are automatically the one who can best do the job. If you cannot do the job in the best manner, more resentment is going to arise when your friend or family member asks another person to help with a given task.

One of the more brilliant statesmen of the 19th Century, Napoleon’s foreign minister Talleyrand, decided that his boss was leading France to ruin. Talleyrand therefore decided that he needed to take Napoleon down. Obviously, the task of overthrowing Napoleon would not be a small one. In order to carry it out, Talleyrand desperately needed to enlist the assistance of someone he could trust. Instead of turning to a friend for help, Talleyrand turned to his worst enemy, Fouché, the head of the secret police.

Fouché had even previously tried to have Talleyrand assassinated. The brilliance of Talleyrand’s choice was that it provided Fouché with the opportunity to reconcile with Talleyrand on an emotional level. In addition, there was nothing Fouché would expect from Talleyrand, and, quite the contrary, Fouché would work hard to prove that he was worthy of Talleyrand picking him for the task. When people have something to prove, they will work harder than those who do not. Compare this to what could have occurred if Talleyrand simply went to a friend for help.

Talleyrand chose Fouché because he knew that their relationship would be based entirely on their mutual self-interest in removing Napoleon and not be poisoned by personal feelings. While their effort to topple Napoleon ultimately failed, they were able to generate much interest in the cause and have a good relationship going forward.

Like Talleyrand, it is important to realize that getting a job and working in a job on equal ground and in an atmosphere of mutual self-interest is crucial. Personal feelings obscure the fact that there is work that needs to be done in an efficient manner. In a work environment where everyone is evaluated and judged on merit, more productivity and honesty on all sides can only ensure good business.

One of the more disturbing phone calls I have received over the years was from the Dean of Career Services at a second-tier law school. The dean had read an article I wrote which advised attorneys on how to get a job in a tough legal market. The dean told me that the first place everyone should always look to get a job was with his or her family. The dean then told me that people should go to events and “make friends” with other attorneys and then ask them for a job (a.k.a. “networking”). As I listened to the dean speak, it became abundantly clear to me that she did not like any manner of getting a job that did not come through friends or family. In her view, getting a job through a friend or family member was far better than getting a job through a “stranger.” It is natural when looking for a job to contact the people you know to see if they can help you with your job search. In fact, I would guess that most attorneys early in their careers contact a family member, a personal friend, or an acquaintance when seeking a new job. Most people I have worked with as a recruiter (who have contacted me for assistance) have been clear with me that before contacting a recruiter they contacted a friend, an acquaintance, or another person they were connected with in some social manner to see if they could help with a job search. Moreover, most attorneys who have been practicing for a year or more have at some point in time told a friend that they would try to assist him or her with getting a job at their law firm.
While it may sound hard to believe-and contrary to the advice of the dean-you actually may be safer getting a job without the help of family or friends and working in an environment without family or friends. You do both at your own risk. Most of the time, I believe the risks far outweigh the potential long-term and short-term rewards.

Marketing Yourself–Who, What and How

What You Will Learn You need to market to the right people, use the right bait as well as use more than one marketing medium. To succeed in your job search you need to package yourself to the correct people in the correct places. You need to know how to spread your message.

In your career and life you need to be aware of (1) who you are marketing yourself to, (2) what you are marketing and (3) how you are marketing yourself. Each of these three things can make a major difference in the success of your job search. I have seen people who understand these three components literally:

• make tens of millions of dollars in a short time;
• get jobs when the companies were not hiring;
• easily get positions in any economic environment.

You Need to Market to the Right People. When I first started working as a legal recruiter, it was early 2000 and the market for corporate attorneys in Silicon Valley was out of control. At the time, attorneys were leaving law firms to take jobs inside of Internet companies, and were getting stock options in many cases. Some young attorneys made millions of dollars in less than a few years and because attorneys perceived there was so much opportunity inside of young tech companies they were “jumping ship”, leaving law firms as fast as they could. In response, law firms started ratcheting up salaries and hiring new corporate attorneys as fast as they could.

I was a legal recruiter in Los Angeles and for the first six months or so that I was recruiting I did not place a single corporate attorney in Los Angeles. However, during this six month period I did place probably at least 20 corporate attorneys in Silicon Valley. I placed corporate attorneys from small towns and firms in New Jersey within giant Silicon Valley firms. In many cases these were people who had been out of work for months. If a corporate attorney could make it to the interview and act with a modicum of professionalism in the interview they would get the job. To say the market in Silicon Valley was incredible would be an understatement.

At the same time, though, corporate attorneys were not very highly in demand in Los Angeles. Many of the corporate attorneys I was working with in Los Angeles waited weeks to get interviews, despite having stellar qualifications. The corporate attorneys simply were not having luck tracking down jobs in Los Angeles. It was the same thing in a few other cities around the United States. If you were a corporate attorney working in Los Angeles at the time, you might have become quite discouraged by the market, and thought there was something wrong with you. In reality, there was nothing wrong with the corporate attorneys–it was all about the market trends at the time.

The way the market works is among the most important things you can understand about your life, and particularly your job search. You need to bring your product or service to the right market in order to succeed with it. If you put yourself in the right market you will do exceptionally well.

I met a guy my age not too long ago, who attended the University of Michigan Law School. When he graduated from there he had a difficult time finding a good job with a law firm in Detroit. He took a low paying job inside of a company that was not that prestigious, because it was the only job he could get. Then, I think, he got fired and moved to the Bay Area. He was one of the first people hired at a major technology company and he got all sorts of stock options and made millions of dollars. After that he was one of the first few employees at another technology company and, in less than a year, he made over $50,000,000, when the company went public. He now spends his time traveling between multiple homes and investing in other technology companies. Do you think any of this would have happened if this person had stayed in Detroit, working his first lousy job? Of course not; he had to go to the right market, one that would make full use of his abilities and talents.

It is all about where and to whom you market yourself.

This morning I got a spam email about a Russian bride dating site. I went to the site and then spent around 15 minutes poking around, looking at all sorts of pictures of men on tours to meet women in all sorts of cities in Russia. Many of the women shown were extremely attractive, and the pictures were obviously not staged. Many of the men were surrounded by 5 or 6 girls, all of whom were apparently very eager to meet them and spend time with them. I highly doubt many of these men in their late 50s are usually surrounded by beautiful twenty somethings back home in Cleveland, or wherever they are from. Clearly the market to which this type of service is most appealing is comprised of older, single males that are lonely, or are looking for a certain kind of companionship.

It is all about where and to whom you market yourself.

In your job search you need to make sure you are marketing yourself in the right area. You need to be where the action is. If you are not succeeding in one area, you should look elsewhere. You need to go to markets in which you are wanted and needed, and should not concentrate on any other markets. You need to go wherever the demand is.

Many people spend decades believing they are not capable or do not have the right skills; they do not make the most of themselves because they are trying to market themselves in the wrong area, or to the wrong people. You need to market yourself to people who are interested in what you have to offer, and often this may mean changing locations geographically, or searching for a group that you know will appreciate what you have to offer.

This pertains not only to jobs, but also to the people with whom you associate. You need to associate with people who appreciate you. There is no sense in trying to fit in with people that do not appreciate you, or whom you do not like.

You Need to Market Using the Right Bait. A couple of weeks ago, my wife brought back from the fish store all sorts of exotic fish food for our salt water fish. She got frozen shrimp, bloodworms, clams and all sorts of other delicacies to feed the fish. Prior to this, we had fed our fish mainly dry food and frozen brine shrimp. Last night my wife asked me to feed the fish and I went into the freezer and broke off a piece of the frozen shrimp and, since it was quite large, I decided that was all I was going to feed the fish that evening.

I dropped the shrimp into the tank and all of the fish, except for one, quickly rushed towards the shrimp and started pecking at it aggressively, eating small parts of it as the water quickly thawed it out. However, one of our fish, a large black fish, which I have seen go crazy over bloodworms, brine shrimp, clams and dried food, simply ignored the shrimp. He had absolutely no interest in it–even amidst the feeding frenzy that whirled around him. Somewhat concerned, I told my wife about this and she told me to put some dried flakes in the tank. Sure enough, the fish swam right towards the flakes and ate them all up.

The fish simply did not like shrimp.

If I were a fisherman, the last thing I would want to do is try to catch that big black fish using shrimp. Obviously I would need to use another sort of bait in order to get the black fish to bite. In your job search and life, you always need to have the correct bait.

A short time ago I received a call from a company that was doing a reference check on one of our former employees. The person had worked for us in an administrative capacity, answering phones and filing; however, when the company called us for a reference check, I learned that the applicant had apparently said that she had been “The Vice President of Product Development”–or something along those lines. She was applying, of course, for a product development job. In our company we do not actually have Vice Presidents, and we certainly do not have a product development division–nor do we have any products other than websites.

Instead of crushing the person’s chances of getting the job in this tough economy, and feigning astonishment about the false title she had given herself, after a short pause I collected my thoughts and simply stated that our policy was only to confirm dates of employment, nothing more or less. I found out later that the person got the job.

While I am not suggesting that you do what this person did; what I am suggesting is that you need to have the right “bait” for each job for which you are applying. If the person had put down that she had been an administrator with us, she likely would not have gotten a job in which she would be in charge of a “product development division” at another company. The person had lied on her résumé in order to manufacture a “bait” that would increase her chances of getting the job.

When you are applying for a job, the content of your résumé is the bait that you are offering. You need to tailor your bait to each type of employer and each type of job out there. The better your bait, the better your odds of getting the right job.

You Need to Market Using More Than One Medium. Several times throughout my career I have started receiving multiple messages from someone I do not know on my voicemail at work. Since I have no idea who the person is, or what the call is about, I will generally not return the first few calls, because I figure it is a salesperson or something along those lines. Eventually, however, if the person is persistent enough I will return the call.

The calls are usually about the person wanting to come in for an interview to talk about working for me in some capacity (jobs for which there are no openings). Because I am often curious after having been called so many times, I will occasionally bring the person in for an interview (in one instance I even flew the person over to our offices internationally and then sponsored him for a U.S. visa). Throughout the years I have actually hired several people that simply called me out of the blue seeking jobs. Many of these people are thriving in various careers to this day, doing all sorts of things that they learned in our company.

These people succeeded because they were smart enough and determined enough to pick up the phone and make personal contact with me. They did not simply email me a résumé and hope this would get them a job. They called and then they called again and again.

• Other job seekers send multiple faxes.
• Other job seekers have sent letters seeking jobs and then followed up.
• Other job seekers I have met at networking events.
• Other job seekers have figured out my personal email address and sent me personal messages.
• Other job seekers have contacted a recruiter.
• Other job seekers go door to door with their résumés.
• Other job seekers mail letters to every employer in a certain zip code.

The more methods you use to communicate with employers, the more likely you are to stand out and get the job. You need to use multiple methods in your attempts to track down a job because, if you do not, you will not stand out and be seen.

When the major Hollywood studios release a new movie, they do everything within their power to make sure people know it is available:

• They take out giant billboards.
• They take out television ads.
• They take out huge newspaper and magazine ads.
• They put ads on the Internet and build huge websites about the movie.
• They do radio ads.
• The put banners on buses.
• They put signs on bus stops.
• They hire public relations firms to get stories about their brand in the media.
• They hold screening parties.
• They run trailers for the movie inside movie theaters.
• They fly banners for the movie behind airplanes.
• They sponsor sporting events.

In essence, they do everything within their power to let as many people know about the movie as they possibly can, using as many communication media as possible. This is what you need to do when you are searching for a job as well. What would happen to most of these movies if the studios only did one of these things, for example? Not much. That is why we always hear about movies like the Blair Witch Project, which manage to catch on without all the hype that is bolstered by massive, multi-tiered marketing campaigns. It hardly ever happens.

You need to market yourself in every possible medium.

To succeed in your job search (and in your life), you need to market yourself to the correct people in the correct places. You need to know how to package yourself to have the right bait, and you also need to use as many media as you can, in order to spread your message.

Depression, Health, Boredom, Interesting People and Self Esteem

What You Will Learn You need to fight depression and being over-weight and unhealthy. Do fun things and have various interests and be around and connect with interesting people. Work on your self-esteem. Your daily activities and goals should relate to bringing yourself up and rising to meet life’s many challenges.

I remember my first encounters with the self improvement industry when I was younger. In many areas of the United States, people look at self improvement as something that is absolutely crazy. This is how the people around me viewed it when I was growing up. When I think about self improvement, however, I think about people doing things like:

• …trying to improve their mood and level of happiness,
• …trying to improve their health,
• …trying to become interested in new things,
• …trying to meet other interesting people,
• …trying to improve their self esteem.

This is for the most part what self improvement is all about–these five things mentioned above. It takes on different forms (and some people make one or more of these issues their sole focus) but this is essentially what self improvement is all about. The people who do these five things well are the ones that experience the most change and live the best lives.

I have spent a lot of time with people who focus on these five things and I can tell you that they have usually managed to transform their lives into something that is so far beyond what I saw growing up, it is unbelievable. Some of these people own islands in exotic places. Others have the partners of their dreams. Others have confidence they have used to forge amazing careers on the world stage. Others have more friends than they can count. Focusing on these five areas and learning to excel in them can mean the difference between your living the life of your dreams–or just an average life.

When you start thinking about the “average” person out there you start to realize that what is going on in the world is not inspiring for everyone. I have heard the average adult American often described as someone who

• …is mildly depressed.
• …is at least 25 pounds overweight and unhealthy.
• …is bored most of the time.
• …does not know many interesting people.
• …has low self esteem.

This description of the average person is, in my opinion, quite true. When you go to the average town in America these are the kinds of people you meet. These people comprise many of my relatives and I am sure they comprise many of your relatives as well. This may even describe you as well. Many people fit the above description.

I am not being judgmental about this; however it is extremely important to point this out because, all in all, it relates to you. These characteristics of (1) depression, (2) being overweight, (3) being bored, (4) not knowing interesting people and (5) having low self esteem are all things that hold the average person back. In contrast, the people who seem to have the most success in everything they do fight the tide that seems to naturally draw people towards each of these pitfalls.

Make no mistake about it: there is a tide out there that is pushing most of us to be depressed, unhealthy, bored, around boring people and have low self esteem. If you think about it, this is where the greater weight of the world is pushing most people–and it is pushing you too. Reverse this tide and spend your life fighting for the opposite, and you will experience much more success and happiness than you can imagine.

1. You Need to Fight Against Depression in Your Life. Being depressed is a huge danger. When you are depressed you are less effective in everything you do because you spend most of your energy focused on negative thoughts. You look at the world in a negative manner and see unhappiness instead of happiness. The world does not look like the fun place it should and, instead, it appears to be an unpleasant place–sometimes extremely so. You see only obstacles, not opportunity. You do not have the energy you need to complete things and succeed.

According to a recent USA Today article:

The number of Americans using antidepressants doubled in only a decade, while the number seeing psychiatrists continued to fall, a study shows. About 10% of Americans — or 27 million people — were taking antidepressants in 2005, the last year for which data were available at the time the study was written. That’s about twice the number in 1996, according to the study of nearly 50,000 children and adults in today’s Archives of General Psychiatry. Yet the majority weren’t being treated for depression. Half of those taking antidepressants used them for back pain, nerve pain, fatigue, sleep difficulties or other problems, the study says. http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-08-03-antidepressants_N.htm

Despite these numbers, it is certain that the number of people who are depressed is much higher than the number of people using antidepressants, and probably several times so.

In order to fight depression, it is important that we take numerous actions in our daily lives. For example, we should do our best to avoid being around depressed people because their attitudes will wear off on us. It is also difficult to be depressed when you are moving and active; therefore, keeping active is important. Being around inspiring people and events can help you avoid being depressed too, as can exercise and a healthy diet. Talking through your problems can help you avoid being depressed. Dwelling on positive thoughts and accomplishments can also help you stay in a happy, healthy state of mind. Seeing a doctor or therapist if you are depressed for too long is also a good idea to get guidance.

2. You Need to Fight Being Overweight and Unhealthy. Numerous studies have linked obesity to all sorts of other problems:

“Research Links Obesity with Depression, Other Mood Disorders”
By Lindsey Tanner, Associated Press | July 10, 2006

Despite the stereotype, fat people are not more jolly than people of normal weight, according to a study that instead found obesity strongly linked with depression and other mood disorders.

Whether obesity might cause these problems or is the result of them is not certain, and the research does not provide an answer, but there are theories to support both arguments.

Depression often causes people to abandon activities, and some medications used to treat mental illness can cause weight gain. On the other hand, obesity is often seen as a stigma, and overweight people often are subject to teasing and other hurtful behavior.

The study of more than 9,000 adults found that mood and anxiety disorders, including depression, were about 25 percent more common in the obese people studied than in the non-obese. Substance abuse was an exception: Obese people were about 25 percent less likely to abuse drugs or alcohol than slimmer participants.

The results, which appear in the July issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, “suggest that the cultural stereotype of the jolly fat person is more a figment of our imagination than a reality,” said Dr. Wayne Fenton of the National Institute of Mental Health, which funded the study. “The take-home message for doctors is to be on the lookout for depression among their patients who are overweight.”

Both conditions are quite common. About one-third of US adults are obese, and depression affects about 10 percent of the population, or nearly 21 million US adults in a given year.

Previous studies produced conflicting results on whether obesity is linked with mental illness including depression, although a growing body of research suggests there is an association.

This latest study helps resolve the question, said Dr. Susan McElroy, a psychiatry professor at the University of Cincinnati and editor of a textbook on obesity and mental disorders.

The number of Americans who are overweight and unhealthy is incredible, as reflected in the following government statistics from 2005-2006:

Percent of non-institutionalized adults age 20 years and over who are overweight or obese: 67%

Percent of non-institutionalized adults age 20 years and over who are not obese: 33%

Percent of adolescents age 12-19 years who are overweight: 18%

Percent of children age 6-11 years who are overweight: 15%

Percent of children age 2-5 years who are overweight: 11% http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/overwt.htm

Being overweight and obese has numerous side effects that can hurt you from reaching your full potential in your career and life. For example, obesity can have a major impact on whether you are hired or promoted by certain employers:

Employment provides an outlet for social discrimination. There is evidence that obesity causes discrimination in work settings. With different reasons relating to obesity, employers have specific ways to avoid hiring obese people. Job placement and promotion are affected by obesity and gender compounds weight discrimination.

Why do Employers not hire those who are Obese?
Stereotypes can lead employers not to hire an obese person. People who are obese are seen as “less desirable” employees who, compared with others, are less competent, less productive, not industrious, disorganized, indecisive, inactive, and less successful..” (Larkin, 1979, pg. 315-316). Employers have three main reasons to not hire an obese person. Employers use store image, insurance costs and future health conditions, and physical limitations as reasons not to hire obese people. http://www.uhh.hawaii.edu/academics/hohonu/writing.php?id=111

It is difficult news to digest, but if you are going to reach your full potential in your career and in your life, obesity is something you need to fight against as much as you possibly can. Maintaining a healthy weight is something you should do your best to achieve, as doing so will benefit you both professionally and personally. Obesity has been shown to relate to the quality of our moods and productivity; therefore, in order to succeed you need to make sure that you are as psychologically and physically fit as possible.

You should develop a dietary plan and strategy that enable you to have the best health possible. You also need to stick to an exercise plan that allows you to stay fit.

Maintaining your ideal weight can help you live much longer and can give you the energy and focus to do well in your career. In addition, exercise can help alleviate stress. Virtually every very successful person I know has made exercise and weight control a priority in their lives, and it is something that they are continually striving to maintain. You too should make this a priority.

3. You Need to Do Fun Things and Have Various Interests, so You Are Not Bored. I am not sure why this is; however, the most happy and successful people out there generally have strong interests in one or many things outside of work, and they are never bored. The strong outside interest could be something as simple as fly fishing, or it could be contemporary literature, for example.

Hobbies and interests are a great way for us to relieve stress and they are helpful in allowing us to divert our focus away from the subject of our work to something completely unrelated. In addition, hobbies expose us to people with similar interests, which helps us make friends.

It is important that you have interests and do things you enjoy when you are not working. These interests could require you to read or learn new things. Regardless of what you choose to do, having outside interests will make you more interesting and will make your life fuller.

When you are bored you tend to wallow. Wallowing typically will not lead to your making the most of yourself. When you wallow, for example, you tend to get depressed and you tend to eat more and be unhealthy. You need to put yourself in a place wherein you are occupied, alert and interested. Being interested in outside things will also make you more interesting to others, which will lead to your being more successful as well.

4. You Need to Spend Your Time with and Seek out Other Interesting People. It is important that you spend your time with people who are interesting and are also seeking to succeed, like you are. If you are around people with the shared goals of avoiding depression, being healthy and having outside interests, the odds are very good that you will be similarly motivated as well, and can keep each other on track.

When you are around interesting people, you will find yourself becoming more like them as well. The benefit of spending your time around accomplished people is that the people that are part of the group challenge each other and support each other to grow. You will see other accomplished people setting goals, and you will imitate them by setting your own goals, for example.

You should seek out interesting people in your life and do your best to be around them. Interesting people will “pick you up” and help you grow and become more accomplished. They will also keep you engaged, help you from being bored, and connect you with opportunities that interest you.

5. You Need to Work on Your Self Esteem. Nothing can hold us back like having low self esteem. I have seen people with very little talent rise to great heights due to nothing more than the sheer force of their self esteem. It is important that you do everything that you can to develop your self esteem. The better you feel about yourself, the more you can accomplish, and the more strength you will have to finish whatever projects you start.

Self esteem comes from many places, and many people base their self esteem on things they have done in the past. Other people base their self esteem on what other people say about them. Other people base their self esteem on their weight, or how good their job is. The thing about self esteem is that it really needs to be internal and should be unwavering, no matter what stage of life we are in or how we may feel we are doing at something. Self esteem should be a constant and we should make every effort to continually feel good about ourselves, because not doing so will hurt us tremendously.

There are many methods to improve your self esteem such as journaling, therapy, self hypnosis, engaging in activities you are good at that give you reinforcement, and others. Everyone will have their own solutions and ideas about what they can do to improve their self esteem. The important thing is that you do whatever you can to insure you have high self esteem because not doing so will hold you back and prevent you from becoming the person you are capable of becoming.

***

In order to be everything you are capable of being, it is essential that you fight against (1) depression, (2) being overweight and unhealthy, (3) being bored, (4) not knowing interesting people and (5) having low self esteem. Your daily activities and goals should relate to bringing yourself up in each of these categories, as you rise to meet life’s many challenges.

Seven Reasons People Never Have the Successful Careers They Are Capable of

What You Will Learn People who do not reach their full potential are complacent; rely too much on the opinions of others; allow difficulties to turn into ruin; and associate negative things with being successful. Further, they do not make success a firm ‘must’; never associate positive things with being successful; never develop a strategy that works; nor follow through with their plans. To be successful, you can never give up or be a dabbler. Commitment and follow through are the most important components of success.

A lawyer told me last night that most of the other attorneys she knows are looking to do something other than practice law. Lawyers are one of the most fascinating breeds of people I know. The ones who go to the top law schools and start in jobs with the top law firms generally have been performing at a very high level for their entire lives; however, when they get out in the real world, a good proportion of these attorneys fail to have fulfilling and successful long term careers. What this has taught me is that no matter how smart we are, how talented we are, or how much potential we have–there is something else that matters when it comes down to whether or not we will have good careers. It often comes down to being able to do certain simple things.

I have been studying what makes people successful in their careers for as long as I can remember. Some people out there have incredibly truly admirable careers, and they remain successful in every type of economy and under virtually every circumstance. There are others who do not make the most of their careers and are unsuccessful under virtually every circumstance.

There are seven reasons I have identified that determine whether someone will make the most of their career or not:

1. People Who Do Not Reach Their Full Potential Are Complacent. I will never forget that night. I was standing around in a bar in Windsor, Ontario one summer evening with a bunch of kids from our town, and a girl I had been infatuated with for some time came up and started talking to me, and then asked me out on a date. I had known her since I was probably 6 years old, and she was an accomplished athlete, student and so forth. She had been dating another guy for at least a few months, who was in college at the time. We had just graduated from high school that spring.

“What about your boyfriend?” I asked her at one point.

“It’s starting to get boring,” she said.

Since I was young at the time, I was still learning about dating and so forth, and this statement came as a real surprise to me. What this girl was saying, in effect, was that she no longer felt challenged, and she wanted to try something new. This girl ended up becoming extremely successful, and I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that she was always challenging herself, and always had been. She was never happy doing anything for long and she always pushed herself to do new things.

In order to be as successful as you can possibly be, nothing is more important than not allowing yourself to be complacent. The most successful people out there are never completely happy with themselves and their level of accomplishment, and are always pushing themselves to do more and more.

Complacency takes on many forms. If you allow yourself to get too comfortable you will see your growth slowing. Your life will start to feel like a bit of routine–no longer exciting or inspiring. You may be asking yourself “can I do better” and things like this. If you start to get bored or complacent, then you need to start challenging yourself.

2. People Who Do Not Reach Their Full Potential Rely Too Much on the Opinions of Others. One of the hardest decisions I ever made in my career was to quit a $170,000 year job as an attorney (in 1999) without any idea whatsoever about what I would then do with my career. As it turned out, this was the best decision I ever made, but it was also incredibly difficult. Everyone around me thought my decision was completely nuts. I cannot even begin to tell you the number of people that told me that I was making a “mistake”, and how many made fun of me for making this choice.

You need to do what is right for you. Never let the opinions of others influence you and your beliefs about what you are capable of becoming–and never fear the opinions of others. When I left the practice of law, what I did right was listen to what was inside of my heart, instead of the opinions of others. In order to reach your full potential in everything you do, it is important that you too listen to your heart and not the opinions of others–either real or perceived.

3. People Who Do Not Reach Their Full Potential Allow Difficulties to Turn Into Ruin. The world is full of people who have experienced various setbacks and difficulties in their careers. The difference between those who end up thriving in their careers and those who do not often comes down to people’s ability to get through the various difficulties they have had, and come out on top.

I know of some attorneys who have been fired more than five times, yet they are still having incredible legal careers. I know of other attorneys who were fired once, and were so upset by this that they got into drugs and started having so many problems in their lives and careers that they never recovered. You need to be resilient and to never let negative experiences hold you back. We all have negative experiences–it is what we do with these negative experiences that matters the most. Turn negatives into positives.

4. People Who Do Not Reach Their Full Potential Associate Negative Things with Being Successful. Striving to be successful means being competitive. Every organization has some level of competitiveness to it and every job has some level of competitiveness to it. Many people try to become successful and fail, and when they fail they feel bad. After some time, people stop trying because they want to avoid the negative feelings associated with trying to become successful, so they try to find jobs that are “safe” and “secure”. Thus they attempt to avoid being exposed to those negative emotions they might feel from trying to become successful.

It is important to understand that these kinds of associations may be controlling your life. I have heard so many people throughout the years say that they would not want a certain position, would not want a certain level of success and so forth, due to their perceptions that having a certain level of success is negative. Many of the beliefs about what we can accomplish have been instilled in us by others throughout our lives, unbeknownst to us. We may have been given the impression by people who are our competitors that being successful is undesirable. Alternatively, we may just fear the unknown. It is important that you do not associate negative things with being successful and, instead, associate success with a positive outcome, which usually takes the form of a happier life.

5. People Who Do Not Reach Their Full Potential Never Make Success a Firm Must. In order to experience success, you simply cannot accept the substitute for success, which is being average or below average. By refusing to accept mediocrity, people who end up achieving the most and being successful find a way to succeed–regardless of the conditions they are in. They “do what they have to do” in order to be successful.

You need to refuse to accept the possibility of not being as successful as you can be. People who refuse to accept mediocrity look for ways to insure they make the most of their lives and every situation. Refuse to be average.

6. People Who Do Not Reach Their Full Potential Never Develop a Strategy That Works. In order to make the most of your career, you need to have goals and to know where you are going at all times. When you set goals, they help guide you towards your destination, and everything else begins to fall into place:

• You start paying attention to things that lead you to your goals.
• You start ignoring things that carry you away from your goals.
• You know the resources that will bring you closer toward your goals.

In order to get ahead in your career and life, it is incredibly important that you have a strategy to take you there. Your strategy is made up of the goals you set and the methods you choose to help you meet those goals. You must have a strategy in order to reach your goals. It never needs to be a “perfect” strategy; what is most important is that you simply have a strategy. It starts with having a clear vision for where you want to go.

7. People Who Do Not Reach Their Goals Do Not Follow Through With Their Plans. Many people have goals and a strategy; however, more important than goals is the follow through. Setting up systems to make you accountable on a periodical basis is very helpful. You need to have methods for monitoring your progress on a daily and weekly basis, to insure that you reach your objectives. It can be very difficult to set up these follow through plans, but the advantages are great.

Have you ever made a resolution to, for instance “run 5 miles a day”, or something similar? What most people do is try it for a day or two, or a week or two–and then they give up. Many people are “dabblers” and because they are dabblers they never reach their potential. They try something, but never follow through and give it their all. Commitment and follow through are the most important components of success.

Avoiding these seven negative career traits will help you become the most successful person you are capable of being.

The Importance of Environment

What You Will Learn The environment that you are in makes all the difference and ultimately shapes who you become. You need to seek out environments that support you in becoming the person you want to be. You need to be focused on the environment in addition to all of the other things while choosing places to work. Your success and happiness is largely determined by the environment you operate in, and the person you believe you can become.

I have decided that I do not like exercising in the gym in our building in Las Vegas anymore. The facility itself is very nice and new, and has excellent equipment. It is also very clean and well maintained; in fact, it is one of the nicest gyms I have ever seen. The window views of the stratosphere outside are also pretty cool. However, it is what is going on inside the gym that bothers me.

Almost every time I have been to the gym I have seen men running with their shirts off on the treadmills. Beads of sweat fly off them onto other adjacent equipment. People just do not act the way they should in the gym. Other people talk loudly on cell phones while people like me are trying to get some exercise right next to them. I was working out there a while back and saw an old guy with headphones, singing very loudly to himself. Many people do not wipe the equipment off when they get off the machines, and people seem to loiter in a way that makes me uncomfortable. For example, there are a ton of kids in their early 20s, who like to go sit in the gym because they can pick up free wifi there.

Las Vegas is in the middle of a real estate meltdown. Condominiums in the building that might have been $10,000,000+ a few years ago are now $3,000,0000, and condominiums that might have been $650,000 are now $150,000. Even at these massive discounts, however, properties are not selling all that well. I would estimate that my building is less than twenty percent full, and many of the units have been rented out for a short term by the banks, with the hopes that things will return to normal soon, and they will be able to sell them. When I walk up to this giant building at night, only a few lights can be seen on inside the units from the street.

At least once every few weeks there is some sort of “sales event” at the condo, wherein the owners of the property bring in all sorts of free food and attempt to interest people in buying the vacant units. They have hired real estate agents that look like models to give tours. In front of the building, they have leased Bentleys, Porsches and so forth, which they park there to make people think these expensive vehicles are part of the lifestyle of the condominium. In reality, however, the garages are filled with primarily older model American cars, driven by twenty somethings, who drive back and forth each day to their jobs in hotels and so forth around Las Vegas.

In front of the building, there are a couple of giant black signs that are at least 10 feet tall, which say: “Condos from the Low $100s!!”. The signs have been planted in the astroturf (there is no real grass there) in front of the building. When you get close to the sign you can see that the area that says “Low $100s!” has been painted over several times after successive price cuts, which just keep coming. The paint looks extra thick in this particular area of the sign.

Since there are so many younger people living inside of the building, and we are in Las Vegas, as I am sure you can imagine, there are also people that appear to be prostitutes and strippers living among us. A few months ago I was in the elevator and there was a female midget standing there alongside a very tall tall woman. They were all dressed up, talking about how they had just charged some guy $1,500 for a “fantasy hour”–whatever that meant, but that he probably would have paid $2,000, if only the tall woman had not been in such a hurry. They were holding alcoholic drinks. (That’s another thing about this building: people walk around with alcohol much more than they probably do anywhere else in the world.)

The elevators on the weekends are regularly filled with young kids exchanging quick innuendos about whatever craziness occurred the night before.

“Dude, I cannot believe you made me sleep in the hall. My neck hurts!” I heard a guy say to his buddy the other day in the elevator, as I stared at the numbers of the passing floors, waiting to reach the lobby.

“Sorry man. I could not believe she came home with me! I would have done the same for you.”

The few times I have been on the elevator during these sorts of exchanges, the people in the midst of them have looked over at me as if I were going to smile at them and give them some sort of nod of approval, or share a smile with them about this. I guess I must be getting old because I have realized that I have passed that point, and I no longer find these sort of things funny, like I once did. I see the humor in it, but it just is not that cool to me anymore–especially when I am pushing my two year old in a stroller and wondering about the sort of people she will be meeting and learning from a few years from now.

What is wrong with the building I am in? Nothing. It is a very nice building, and it appears to be very well constructed. I also think the management of the building is absolutely exceptional, and is really on top of most things going on there. Given the massive drop in home values in Las Vegas and the timing this recently completed building came to market, this has turned it into a “party building”, and it is not filled with the sort of people I am comfortable living with at my age. It is not a family building. The people that are living there are not interested in living there, and they all plan on moving on at some point in the not-so-distant future.

It is not the income level of the people there either. Some of the nicest buildings I know of in New York City, for example, are luxury buildings that, as a condition of being built in certain neighborhoods, have low income housing in them. I know someone who is a bartender with a masters degree from an Ivy League college, who lives in a studio in one of these buildings and pays $250 a month for an apartment that probably would normally cost $3,500. The thing is that he and the other low income people that live there treat the place like a home, and feel glad to be there. He has been there for over 10 years and is extremely grateful. The people in our building in Las Vegas are just “passing through”. They do not care what anyone thinks of them, or how they behave.

Thus, the problem is the environment.

As we were coming back from Las Vegas yesterday, we stopped at the Mad Greek Restaurant in Baker, California (considered to have some of the hottest temperatures on earth), and I picked up the local real estate magazine. The magazine was filled with houses for $30,000 and giant luxury houses in the middle of the desert for less than $600,000, which would easily cost millions in Los Angeles. As I started thinking about this, however, I realized that no matter how nice the house might be, the purchaser still would be stuck living in an environment that is among the hottest places on earth.

A few weeks ago, a friend of my wife’s invited us to an open house for a private school in Los Angeles. I sat there with probably at least 100 other people, learning about how competitive it is for parents to get their kids into this particular kindergarten. Parents were on their absolute best behavior as they learned about the many months it could potentially take for their kids to get accepted into the school. Some parents will happily and aggressively do everything they can to get their kids into kindergartens that cost over $20,000 a year–even when there are perfectly good public schools in many of the upscale neighborhoods they live in. Why on earth would someone do this?

The reason for all this nonsense is the environment: Parents want their kids to get into good schools because they feel this will lead to success down the road. People believe in the power of environments to shape their futures and the futures of their children.

The environment that you are in makes all the difference. It ultimately shapes who you become.

There has been an ongoing debate for some time about the importance of the intelligence characteristics we inherit genetically from our parents, versus what we learn from the people and circumstances we are around. This debate is known as nature versus nurture, and was ignited with a particular amount of passion with the 1994 publication of the book The Bell Curve. The Bell Curve was co-written by the late Harvard psychologist Richard J. Herrnstein and American Enterprise Institute political scientist Charles Murray. The book quickly became a bestseller.

The Bell Curve’s central argument is that between 40% and 80% of our intelligence is genetically inherited from our parents, and that genetics have more of an effect on us than our socioeconomic background (i.e., our environment), in the determination of whether we are likely to succeed in our lives going forward. In addition to stating that our IQ comes primarily from our parents, the book also argues that having a high IQ is extremely important for getting a good job, having a high income, doing well in school and, similarly, that having a low IQ correlates with having a low income, not doing well in school and other similar failures. The most controversial idea of The Bell Curve revolves around the idea that you cannot “reform” or help low IQ people by modifying their social environments.

When the book was originally published, as might have been expected, there was a great deal of debate set off by The Bell Curve, and many scientists, educators, sociologists and others quickly came to the opposite conclusion. For example, studies of adopted children have shown that even their IQs will increase if they are put in improved environments.

“Well-controlled adoption studies done in France have found that transferring an infant from a family having low socioeconomic status (SES) to a home where parents have high SES improves childhood IQ scores by 12 to 16 points or about one standard deviation, which is considered a large effect size in psychological research.” “The malleability of intelligence is not constrained by heritability”. (p. 76, Wahlsten, D.) In B. Devlin, S.E. Fienberg., & K. Roeder. Intelligence, Genes, and Success: Scientists respond to The Bell Curve. New York: (1997).

There are also numerous other studies that show the effect of environment on IQ, success and other areas of people’s lives. Personally, I believe that it is next to impossible that our environment and the people that we live with, work with and associate with can have anything less than a major impact on what ends up happening to us and the people we become. It would be incorrect to claim that a good environment has little impact on how successful we ultimately end up becoming.

Your career and your life will be largely determined by the environment you operate in. You need to seek out environments that support you becoming the person you want to be, and the person you believe you can become. A strong environment can make all the difference. Put yourself in the most demanding work environments and you will likely develop a great deal of skills you would not otherwise develop. Work around the smartest and most ambitious people and you too will likely become smarter and more ambitious. Your environment will shape you far more than you may realize. Your environment comes down to where you live, the people you associate with, where you work and more.

When I picked a place in Las Vegas I made a mistake that many of us make. I picked a place that had the best view and was the best deal. I did not consider the environment. I was blinded by things other than the environment. The environment I am in is so bad that every time I leave the confines of the condominium I am reminded of the mistake I made.

We lose sight of the environments of the jobs we choose as well.

We may choose a job that has the best salary. We may choose a job that has the best commute. We may choose an employer that has the best brand. We may choose a job that has the best benefits or vacation policy.

We choose places to work for all sorts of reasons; however, ultimately it is the environment and people we will be around every day that is the most important. We need to be focused on the environment in addition to all of the other things. It is the environment that will ultimately determine our happiness, and shape who we become.

Mental Efficiency

Arnold Bennett’s Mental Efficiency and Other Hints to Men and Women is a light-hearted, yet thought-provoking collection of articles that describe mental efficiency as a state of mind. It is a roadmap that you need to follow, in order to develop strength within yourself, and to begin to make positive changes in your life. Through this book, Bennett offers techniques and secrets for sharpening your mental efficiency and organizing your life, marriage, and happiness. It is powerful, significant and meaningful, and it should open up to you an understanding of how to achieve your goals. I hope you enjoy it.

–Harrison

MENTAL EFFICIENCY AND OTHER HINTS TO MEN AND WOMEN

Arnold Bennett

THE APPEAL

CHAPTER I

IF there is any virtue in advertisements –and a journalist should be the last person to say that there is not–the American nation is rapidly reaching a state of physical efficiency of which the world has probably not seen the like since Sparta. In all the American newspapers and all the American monthlies are innumerable illustrated announcements of “physical-culture specialists,” who guarantee to make all the organs of the body perform their duties with the mighty precision of a 60 h.p. motor-car that never breaks down. I saw a book the other day written by one of these specialists, to show how perfect health could be attained by devoting a quarter of an hour a day to certain exercises. The advertisements multiply and increase in size. They cost a great deal of money. Therefore they must bring in a great deal of business.

Therefore vast numbers of people must be worried about the non-efficiency of their bodies, and on the way to achieve efficiency. In our more modest British fashion, we have the same phenomenon in England. And it is growing. Our muscles are growing also. Surprise a man in his bedroom of a morning, and you will find him lying on his back on the floor, or standing on his head, or whirling clubs, in pursuit of physical efficiency. I remember that once I “went in” for physical efficiency myself. I, too, lay on the floor, my delicate epidermis separated from the carpet by only the thinnest of garments, and I contorted myself according to the fifteen diagrams of a large chart (believed to be the magna charta of physical efficiency) daily after shaving. In three weeks my collars would not meet round my prize-fighter’s neck; my hosier reaped immense profits, and I came to the conclusion that I had carried physical efficiency quite far enough.

A strange thing –was it not? –that I never had the idea of devoting a quarter of an hour a day after shaving to the pursuit of mental efficiency. The average body is a pretty complicated affair, sadly out of order, but happily susceptible to culture. The average mind is vastly more complicated, not less sadly out of order, but perhaps even more susceptible to culture. We compare our arms to the arms of the gentleman illustrated in the physical efficiency advertisement, and we murmur to ourselves the classic phrase: “This will never do.” And we set about developing the muscles of our arms until we can show them off (through a frock coat) to women at afternoon tea. But it does not, perhaps, occur to us that the mind has its muscles, and a lot of apparatus besides, and that these invisible, yet paramount, mental organs are far less efficient than they ought to be; that some of them are atrophied, others starved, others out of shape, etc.

A man of sedentary occupation goes for a very long walk on Easter Monday, and in the evening is so exhausted that he can scarcely eat. He wakes up to the inefficiency of his body, caused by his neglect of it, and he is so shocked that he determines on remedial measures. Either he will walk to the office, or he will play golf, or he will execute the post-shaving exercises. But let the same man after a prolonged sedentary course of newspapers, magazines, and novels, take his mind out for a stiff climb among the rocks of a scientific, philosophic, or artistic subject. What will he do? Will he stay out all day, and return in the evening too tired even to read his paper? Not he. It is ten to one that, finding himself puffing for breath after a quarter of an hour, he won’t even persist till he gets his second wind, but will come back at once. Will he remark with genuine concern that his mind is sadly out of condition and that he really must do something to get it into order? Not he. It is a hundred to one that he will tranquilly accept the status quo, without shame and without very poignant regret. Do I make my meaning clear?

I say, without a very poignant regret, because a certain vague regret is indubitably caused by realizing that one is handicapped by a mental inefficiency which might, without too much difficulty, be cured. That vague regret exudes like a vapour from the more cultivated section of the public. It is to be detected everywhere, and especially among people who are near the half-way house of life. They perceive the existence of immense quantities of knowledge, not the smallest particle of which will they ever make their own.

They stroll forth from their orderly dwellings on a starlit night, and feel dimly the wonder of the heavens. But the still small voice is telling them that, though they have read in a newspaper that there are fifty thousand stars in the Pleiades, they cannot even point to the Pleiades in the sky. How they would like to grasp the significance of the nebular theory, the most overwhelming of all theories ! And the years are passing; and there are twenty-four hours in every day, out of which they work only six or seven; and it needs only an impulse, an effort, a system, in order gradually to cure the mind of its slackness, to give “tone” to its muscles, and to enable it to grapple with the splendors of knowledge and sensation that await it! But the regret is not poignant enough. They do nothing. They go on doing nothing. It is as though they passed for ever along the length of an endless table filled with delicacies, and could not stretch out a hand to seize. Do I exaggerate? Is there not deep in the consciousness of most of us a mournful feeling that our minds are like the liver of the advertisement –sluggish, and that for the sluggishness of our minds there is the excuse neither of incompetence, nor of lack of time, nor of lack of opportunity, nor of lack of means?

Why does not some mental efficiency specialist come forward and show us how to make our minds do the work which our minds are certainly capable of doing? I do not mean a quack. All the physical efficiency specialists who advertise largely are not quacks. Some of them achieve very genuine results. If a course of treatment can be devised for the body, a course of treatment can be devised for the mind. Thus we might realize some of the ambitions which all of us cherish in regard to the utilization in our spare time of that magnificent machine which we allow to rust within our craniums. We have the desire to perfect ourselves, to round off our careers with the graces of knowledge and taste. How many people would not gladly undertake some branch of serious study, so that they might not die under the reproach of having lived and died without ever really having known anything about anything! It is not the absence of desire that prevents them. It is, first, the absence of will-power–not the will to begin, but the will to continue; and, second, a mental apparatus which is out of condition, “puffy,” “weedy,” through sheer neglect. The remedy, then, divides itself into two parts, the cultivation of will-power, and the getting into condition of the mental apparatus. And these two branches of the cure must be worked concurrently.

I am sure that the considerations which I have presented to you must have already presented themselves to tens of thousands of my readers, and that thousands must have attempted the cure. I doubt not that many have succeeded. I shall deem it a favour if those readers who have interested themselves in the question will communicate to me at once the result of their experience, whatever its outcome. I will make such use as I can of the letters I receive, and afterwards I will give my own experience.

THE REPLIES

CHAPTER I CONTINUED…

The correspondence which I have received in answer to my appeal shows that at any rate I did not overstate the case. There is, among a vast mass of reflecting people in this country, a clear consciousness of being mentally less than efficient, and a strong (though ineffective) desire that such mental inefficiency should cease to be. The desire is stronger than I had imagined, but it does not seem to have led to much hitherto. And that “course of treatment for the mind,” by means of which we are to “realize some of the ambitions which all of us cherish in regard to the utilization in our spare time of the magnificent machine which we allow to rust within our craniums”–that desiderated course of treatment has not apparently been devised by anybody. The Sandow of the brain has not yet loomed up above the horizon. On the other hand, there appears to be a general expectancy that I personally am going to play the role of the Sandow of the brain. Vain thought!

I have been very much interested in the letters, some of which, as a statement of the matter in question, are admirable. It is perhaps not surprising that the best of them come from women–for (genius apart) woman is usually more touchingly lyrical than man in the yearning for the ideal. The most enthusiastic of all the letters I have received, however, is from a gentleman whose notion is that we should be hypnotized into mental efficiency. After advocating the establishment of “an institution of practical psychology from whence there can be graduated fit and proper people whose efforts would be in the direction of the subconscious mental mechanism of the child or even the adult,” this hypnotist proceeds: “Between the academician, whose specialty is an inconsequential cobweb, the medical man who has got it into his head that he is the logical foster-father for psychonomical matters, and the blatant ‘ professor’ who deals with monkey tricks on a few somnambules on the music-hall stage, you are allowing to go unrecognized one of the most potent factors of mental development.” Am I? I have not the least idea what this gentleman means, but I can assure him that he is wrong. I can make more sense out of the remarks of another correspondent who, utterly despising the things of the mind, compares a certain class of young men to “a halfpenny bloater with the roe out,” and asserts that he himself “got out of the groove” by dint of having to unload ten tons of coal in three hours and a half every day during several years. This is interesting and it is constructive, but it is just a little beside the point.

A lady, whose optimism is indicated by her pseudonym, “Esperance,” puts her finger on the spot, or, rather, on one of the spots, in a very sensible letter. “It appears to me,” she says, “that the great cause of mental inefficiency is lack of concentration, perhaps especially in the case of women. I can trace my chief failures to this cause. Concentration is a talent. It may be in a measure cultivated, but it needs to be inborn. . . . The greater number of us are in a state of semi-slumber, with minds which are only exerted to one half of their capability.” I thoroughly agree that inability to concentrate is one of the chief symptoms of the mental machine being out of condition. “Esperance’s” suggested cure is rather drastic.

She says: “Perhaps one of the best cures for mental sedentariness is arithmetic, for there is nothing else which requires greater power of concentration.” Perhaps arithmetic might be an effective cure, but it is not a practical cure, because no one, or scarcely any one, would practice it. I cannot imagine the plain man who, having a couple of hours to spare of a night, and having also the sincere desire but not the will-power to improve his taste and knowledge, would deliberately sit down and work sums by way of preliminary mental calisthenics. As Ibsen’s pup-pet said: “People don’t do these things.” Why do they not? The answer is: Simply because they won’t; simply because human nature will not run to it. “Esperance’s” suggestion of learning poetry is slightly better.

Certainly the best letter I have had is from Miss H. D. She says: “This idea [to avoid the reproach of ' living and dying without ever really knowing anything about anything'] came to me of itself from somewhere when I was a small girl. And looking back I fancy that the thought itself spurred me to do something in this world, to get into line with people who did things – people who painted pictures, wrote books, built bridges, or did something beyond the ordinary. This only has seemed to me, all my life since, worth while.” Here I must interject that such a statement is somewhat sweeping. In fact, it sweeps a whole lot of fine and legitimate ambitions straight into the rubbish heap of the Not-worth-while. I think the writer would wish to modify it. She continues: “And when the day comes in which I have not done some serious reading, however small the measure, or some writing … or I have been too sad or dull to notice the brightness of colour of the sun, of grass and flowers, of the sea, or the moonlight on the water, I think the day ill-spent. So I must think the incentive to do a little each day beyond the ordinary towards the real culture of the mind, is the beginning of the cure of mental inefficiency.” This is very ingenious and good. Further: “The day comes when the mental habit has become a part of our life, and we value mental work for the work’s sake.” But I am not sure about that. For my-self, I have never valued work for its own sake, and I never shall. And I only value such mental work for the more full and more intense consciousness of being alive which it gives me.

Miss H. D.’s remedies are vague. As to lack of will-power, “the first step is to realize your weakness; the next step is to have ordinary shame that you are defective.” I doubt, I gravely doubt, if these steps would lead to anything definite. Nor is this very helpful: “I would advise reading, observing, writing. I would advise the use of every sense and every faculty by which we at last learn the sacredness of life.” This is begging the question. If people, by merely wishing to do so, could regularly and seriously read, observe, write, and use every faculty and sense, there would be very little mental inefficiency. I see that I shall be driven to construct a program out of my own bitter and ridiculous experiences.

THE CURE

CHAPTER I CONTINUED…

“But tasks in hours of insight willed

Can be through hours of gloom fulfilled.”

The above lines from Matthew Arnold are quoted by one of my very numerous correspondents to support a certain optimism in this matter of a systematic attempt to improve the mind. They form part of a beautiful and inspiring poem, but I gravely fear that they run counter to the vast mass of earthly experience. More often than not I have found that a task willed in some hour of insight can not be fulfilled through hours of gloom. No, no, and no! To will is easy: it needs but the momentary bright contagion of a stronger spirit than one’s own. To fulfill, morning after morning, or evening after evening, through months and years–this is the very dickens, and there is not one of my readers that will not agree with me.

Yet such is the elastic quality of human nature that most of my correspondents are quite ready to ignore the sad fact and to demand at once: “what shall we will? Tell us what we must will.” Some seem to think that they have solved the difficulty when they have advocated certain systems of memory and mind-training. Such systems may be in themselves useful or useless – the evidence furnished to me is contradictory – but were they perfect systems, a man cannot be intellectually born again merely by joining a memory-class. The best system depends utterly on the man’s power of resolution. And what really counts is not the system, but the spirit in which the man handles it. Now, the proper spirit can only be induced by a careful consideration and realization of the man’s conditions –the limitations of his temperament, the strength of adverse influences, and the lessons of his past.

Let me take an average case. Let me take your case, O man or woman of thirty, living in comfort, with some cares, and some responsibilities, and some pretty hard daily work, but not too much of any! The question of mental efficiency is in the air. It interests you. It touches you nearly. Your conscience tells you that your mind is less active and less informed than it might be. You suddenly spring up from the garden-seat, and you say to yourself that you will take your mind in hand and do something with it. Wait a moment. Be so good as to sink back into that garden-seat and clutch that tennis racket a little longer. You have had these “hours of insight” before, you know. You have not arrived at the age of thirty without having tried to carry out noble resolutions -and failed. What precautions are you going to take against failure this time? For your will is probably no stronger now than it was aforetime. You have admitted and accepted failure in the past. And no wound is more cruel to the spirit of resolve than that dealt by failure. You fancy the wound closed, but just at the critical moment it may reopen and mortally bleed you. What are your precautions? Have you thought of them? No. You have not.

I have not the pleasure of your acquaintance. But I know you because I know myself. Your failure in the past was due to one or more of three causes. And the first was that you undertook too much at the beginning. You started off with a magnificent program. You are something of an expert in physical exercises –you would be ashamed not to be, in these physical days –and so you would never attempt a hurdle race or an uninterrupted hour’s club-whirling without some preparation. The analogy between the body and the mind ought to have struck you. This time, please do not form an elaborate program. Do not form any program. Simply content yourself with a preliminary canter, a ridiculously easy preliminary canter. For example (and I give this merely as an example), you might say to yourself: “Within one month from this date I will read twice Herbert Spencer’s little book on ‘ Education ‘ –sixpence –and will make notes in pencil inside the back cover of the things that particularly strike me.” You remark that that is nothing, that you can do it “on your head,” and so on. Well, do it. When it is done you will at any rate possess the satisfaction of having resolved to do something and having done it. Your mind will have gained tone and healthy pride. You will be even justified in setting yourself some kind of a simple program to extend over three months. And you will have acquired some general principles by the light of which to construct the program. But best of all, you will have avoided failure, that dangerous wound.

The second possible cause of previous failure was the disintegrating effect on the will-power of the ironic, superior smile of friends. Whenever a man “turns over a new leaf ” he has this inane giggle to face. The drunkard may be less ashamed of getting drunk than of breaking to a crony the news that he has signed the pledge. Strange, but true! And human nature must be counted with. Of course, on a few stern spirits the effect of that smile is merely to harden the resolution. But on the majority its influence is deleterious. Therefore don’t go and nail your flag to the mast. Don’t raise any flag. Say nothing. Work as unobtrusively as you can. When you have won a battle or two you can begin to wave the banner, and then you will find that that miserable, pitiful, ironic, superior smile will die away ere it is born.

The third possible cause was that you did not rearrange your day. Idler and time-waster though you have been, still you had done something during the twenty-four hours. You went to work with a kind of dim idea that there were twenty-six hours in every day. Something large and definite has to be dropped. Some space in the rank jungle of the day has to be cleared and swept up for the new operations. Robbing yourself of sleep won’t help you, nor trying to “squeeze in” a time for study between two other times. Use the knife, and use it freely. If you mean to read or think half an hour a day, arrange for an hour. A hundred percent margin is not too much for a beginner. Do you ask me where the knife is to be used? I should say that in nine cases out of ten the rites of the cult of the body might be abbreviated. I recently spent a weekend in a London suburb, and I was staggered by the wholesale attention given to physical recreation in all its forms. It was a gigantic debauch of the muscles on every side. It shocked me. “Poor withering mind! ” I thought. “Cricket, and football, and boating, and golf, and tennis have their ‘ seasons,’ but not thou!” These considerations are general and prefatory. Now I must come to detail.

MENTAL CALISTHENICS

CHAPTER I CONTINUED…

I have dealt with the state of mind in which one should begin a serious effort towards mental efficiency, and also with the probable causes of failure in previous efforts. We come now to what I may call the calisthenics of the business, exercises which may be roughly compared to the technical exercises necessary in learning to play a musical instrument. It is curious that a person studying a musical instrument will have no false shame whatever in doing mere exercises for the fingers and wrists while a person who is trying to get his mind into order will almost certainly experience a false shame in going through performances which are undoubtedly good for him.

Herein lies one of the great obstacles to mental efficiency. Tell a man that he should join a memory class, and he will hum and haw, and say, as I have already remarked, that memory isn’t everything; and, in short, he won’t join the memory class, partly from indolence, I grant, but more from false shame. (Is not this true?) He will even hesitate about learning things by heart. Yet there are few mental exercises better than learning great poetry or prose by heart. Twenty lines a week for six months: what a “cure “for debility! The chief, but not the only, merit of learning by heart as an exercise is that it compels the mind to concentrate. And the most important preliminary to self-development is the faculty of concentrating at will. Another excellent exercise is to read a page of no matter-what, and then immediately to write down–in one’s own words or in the author’s –one’s full recollection of it. A quarter of an hour a day! No more! And it works like magic.

This brings me to the department of writing. I am a writer by profession; but I do not think I have any prejudices in favour of the exercise of writing. Indeed, I say to myself every morning that if there is one exercise in the world which I hate, it is the exercise of writing. But I must assert that in my opinion the exercise of writing is an indispensable part of any genuine effort towards mental efficiency. I don’t care much what you write, so long as you compose sentences and achieve continuity. There are forty ways of writing in an unprofessional manner, and they are all good. You may keep “a full diary,” as Mr. Arthur Christopher Benson says he does. This is one of the least good ways. Diaries, save in experienced hands like those of Mr. Benson, are apt to get themselves done with the very minimum of mental effort. They also tend to an exaggeration of egotism, and if they are left lying about they tend to strife. Further, one never knows when one may not be compelled to produce them in a court of law. A journal is better. Do not ask me to define the difference between a journal and a diary. I will not and I cannot. It is a difference that one feels instinctively. A diary treats exclusively of one’s self and one’s doings; a journal roams wider, and notes whatever one has observed of interest. A diary relates that one had lobster mayonnaise for dinner and rose the next morning with a headache, doubtless attributable to mental strain. A journal relates that Mrs. ———-, whom one took into dinner, had brown eyes, and an agreeable trick of throwing back her head after asking a question, and gives her account of her husband’s strange adventures in Colorado, etc.

A diary is All I, I, I, I, itself I (to quote a line of the transcendental poetry of Mary Baker G. Eddy). A journal is the large spectacle of life. A journal may be special or general. I know a man who keeps a journal of all cases of current superstition which he actually encounters. He began it without the slightest suspicion that he was beginning a document of astounding interest and real scientific value; but such was the fact. In default of a diary or a journal, one may write essays (provided one has the moral courage); or one may simply make notes on the book one reads. Or one may construct anthologies of passages which have made an individual and particular appeal to one’s tastes. Anthology construction is one of the pleasantest hobbies that a person who is not mad about golf and bridge –that is to say, a thinking person –can possibly have; and I recommend it to those who, discreetly mistrusting their power to keep up a fast pace from start to finish, are anxious to begin their intellectual course gently and mildly. In any event, writing – the act of writing –is vital to almost any scheme. I would say it was vital to every scheme, without exception, were I not sure that some kind correspondent would instantly point out a scheme to which writing was obviously not vital.

After writing comes thinking. (The sequence may be considered odd, but I adhere to it.) In this connexion I cannot do better than quote an admirable letter which I have received from a correspondent who wishes to be known only as “An Oxford Lecturer.” He says: “Till a man has got his physical brain completely under his control –suppressing its too-great receptivity, its tendencies to reproduce idly the thoughts of others, and to be swayed by every passing gust of emotion –I hold that he cannot do a tenth part of the work that he would then be able to perform with little or no effort. Moreover, work apart, he has not entered upon his kingdom, and unlimited possibilities of future development are barred to him. Mental efficiency can be gained by constant practice in meditation –i. e., by concentrating the mind, say, for but ten minutes daily, but with absolute regularity, on some of the highest thoughts of which it is capable.

Failures will be frequent, but they must be regarded with simple indifference and dogged perseverance in the path chosen. If that path be followed without intermission even for a few weeks the results will speak for themselves.” I thoroughly agree with what this correspondent says, and am obliged to him for having so ably stated the case. But I regard such a practice of meditation as he indicates as being rather an “advanced” exercise for a beginner. After the beginner has got under way, and gained a little confidence in his strength of purpose, and acquired the skill to define his thoughts sufficiently to write them down – then it would be time enough, in my view, to under-take what “An Oxford Lecturer ” suggests. By the way, he highly recommends Mrs. Annie Besant’s book, Thought Power: Its Control and Culture. He says that it treats the subject with scientific clearness, and gives a practical method of training the mind. I endorse the latter part of the statement.

So much for the more or less technical processes of stirring the mind from its sloth and making it exactly obedient to the aspirations of the soul. And here I close. Numerous correspondents have asked me to outline a course of reading for them. In other words, they have asked me to particularize for them the aspirations of their souls. My subject, however, was not self-development. My subject was mental efficiency as a means to self-development. Of course, one can only acquire mental efficiency in the actual effort of self-development. But I was concerned, not with the choice of route; rather with the manner of following the route. You say to me that I am busying myself with the best method of walking, and refusing to discuss where to go. Precisely. One man cannot tell another man where the other man wants to go.

If he can’t himself decide on a goal he may as well curl up and expire, for the root of the matter is not in him. I will content myself with pointing out that the entire universe is open for inspection. Too many people fancy that self-development means literature. They associate the higher life with an intimate knowledge of the life of Charlotte Bronte, or the order of the plays of Shakespeare. The higher life may just as well be butterflies, or funeral customs, or county boundaries, or street names, or mosses, or stars, or slugs, as Charlotte Bronte or Shakespeare. Choose what interests you. Lots of finely-organized, mentally-efficient persons can’t read Shakespeare at any price, and if you asked them who was the author of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall they might proudly answer Emily Bronte, if they didn’t say they never heard of it. An accurate knowledge of any subject, coupled with a carefully nurtured sense of the relativity of that subject to other subjects, implies an enormous self-development. With this hint I conclude.

EXPRESSING ONE’S INDIVIDUALITY

CHAPTER II

A MOST curious and useful thing to realize is that one never knows the impression one is creating on other people. One may often guess pretty accurately whether it is good, bad, or indifferent –some people render it unnecessary for one to guess, they practically inform one –but that is not what I mean. I mean much more than that. I mean that one has one’s self no mental picture corresponding to the mental picture which one’s personality leaves in the minds of one’s friends. Has it ever struck you that there is a mysterious individual going around, walking the streets, calling at houses for tea, chatting, laughing, grumbling, arguing, and that all your friends know him and have long since added him up and come to a definite conclusion about him –without saying more than a chance, cautious word to you; and that that person is you? Supposing that you came into a drawing-room where you were having tea, do you think you would recognize yourself as an individuality? I think not.

You would be apt to say to yourself, as guests do when disturbed in drawing-rooms by other guests: “Who’s this chap? Seems rather queer. I hope he won’t be a bore.” And your first telling would be slightly hostile. Why, even when you meet yourself in an unsuspected mirror in the very clothes that you have put on that very day and that you know by heart, you are almost always shocked by the realization that you are you. And now and then, when you have gone to the glass to arrange your hair in the full sobriety of early morning, have you not looked on an absolute stranger, and has not that stranger piqued your curiosity? And if it is thus with precise external details of form, colour, and movement, what may it not be with the vague complex effect of the mental and moral individuality?

A man honestly tries to make a good impression. What is the result? The result merely is that his friends, in the privacy of their minds, set him down as a man who tries to make a good impression. If much depends on the result of a single interview, or a couple of interviews, a man may conceivably force another to accept an impression of himself which he would like to convey. But if the receiver of the impression is to have time at his disposal, then the giver of the impression may just as well sit down and put his hands in his pockets, for nothing that he can do will modify or influence in any way the impression that he will ultimately give. The real impress is, in the end, given unconsciously, not consciously; and further, it is received unconsciously, not consciously. It depends partly on both persons. And it is immutably fixed before-hand. There can be no final deception. Take the extreme case, that of the mother and her son. One hears that the son hoodwinks his mother. Not he! If he is cruel, neglectful, overbearing, she is perfectly aware of it. He does not deceive her, and she does not deceive herself. I have often thought: If a son could look into a mother’s heart, what an eye-opener he would have! “What!” he would cry. “This cold, im-partial judgment, this keen vision for my faults, this implacable memory of little slights, and injustices, and callousness’s committed long ago, in the breast of my mother!” Yes, my friend, in the breast of your mother. The only difference between your mother and another person is that she takes you as you are, and loves you for what you are. She is n’t blind: do not imagine it.

The marvel is, not that people are such bad judges of character, but that they are such good judges, especially of what I may call fundamental character. The wiliest person cannot for ever conceal his fundamental character from the simplest. And people are very stern judges, too. Think of your best friends –are you oblivious of their defects? On the contrary, you are perhaps too conscious of them. When you summon them before your mind’s eye, it is no ideal creation that you see. When you meet them and talk to them you are constantly making reservations in their disfavour –unless, of course, you happen to be a schoolgirl gushing over like a fountain with enthusiasm. It is well, when one is judging a friend, to remember that he is judging you with the same godlike and superior impartiality. It is well to grasp the fact that you are going through life under the scrutiny of a band of acquaintances who are subject to very few illusions about you, whose views of you are, indeed, apt to be harsh and even cruel.

Above all it is advisable to comprehend thoroughly that the things in your individuality which annoy your friends most are the things of which you are completely unconscious. It is not until years have passed that one begins to be able to form a dim idea of what one has looked like to one’s friends. At forty one goes back ten years, and one says sadly, but with a certain amusement: “I must have been pretty blatant then. I can see how I must have exasperated ‘em. And yet I hadn’t the faintest notion of it at the time. My intentions were of the best. Only I didn’t know enough.” And one recollects some particularly crude action, and kicks one’s self. . . . Yes, that is all very well; and the enlightenment which has come with increasing age is exceedingly satisfactory. But you are forty now. What shall you be saying of yourself at fifty? Such reflections foster humility, and they foster also a reluctance, which it is impossible to praise too highly, to tread on other people’s toes.

A moment ago I used the phrase “fundamental character.” It is a reminiscence of Stevenson’s phrase “fundamental decency.” And it is the final test by which one judges one’s friends. “After all, he ’s a decent fellow.” We must be able to use that formula concerning our friends. Kindliness of heart is not the greatest of human qualities –and its general effect on the progress of the world is not entirely beneficent –but it is the greatest of human qualities in friendship. It is the least dispensable quality. We come back to it with relief from more brilliant qualities. And it has the great advantage of always going with a broad mind. Narrow-minded people are never kind-hearted. You may be inclined to dispute this statement: please think it over; I am inclined to uphold it.

We can forgive the absence of any quality except kindliness of heart. And when a man lacks that, we blame him, we will not forgive him. This is, of course, scandalous. A man is born as he is born. And he can as easily add a cubit to his stature as add kindliness to his heart. The feat never has been done, and never will be done. And yet we blame those who have not kindliness. We have the incredible, insufferable, and odious audacity to blame them. We think of them as though they had nothing to do but go into a shop and buy kindliness. I hear you say that kindliness of heart can be “cultivated.” Well, I hate to have even the appearance of contradicting you, but it can only be cultivated in the botanical sense. You can’t cultivate violets on a nettle. A philosopher has enjoined us to suffer fools gladly. He had more usefully enjoined us to suffer ill-natured persons gladly. … I see that in a fit of absentmindedness I have strayed into the pulpit. I descend.

BREAKING WITH THE PAST

CHAPTER III

ON that dark morning we woke up, and it instantly occurred to us –or at any rate to those of us who have preserved some of our illusions and our naivete –that we had something to be cheerful about, some cause for a gay and strenuous vivacity; and then we remembered that it was New Year’s Day, and there were those Resolutions to put into force! Of course, we all smile in a superior manner at the very mention of New Year’s Resolutions; we pretend they are toys for children, and that we have long since ceased to regard them seriously as a possible aid to conduct.

But we are such deceivers, such miserable, moral cowards, in such terror of appearing naive that I for one am not to be taken in by that smile and that pretence. The individual who scoffs at New Year’s Resolutions resembles the woman who says she doesn’t look under the bed at nights; the truth is not in him, and in the very moment of his lying, could his cranium suddenly become transparent, we should see Resolutions burning brightly in his brain like lamps in Trafalgar Square. Of this I am convinced, that nineteen-twentieths of us got out of bed that morning animated by that special feeling of gay and strenuous vivacity which Resolutions alone can produce. And nineteen-twentieths of us were also conscious of a high virtue, forgetting that it is not the making of Resolutions, but the keeping of them, which renders pardonable the consciousness of virtue.

And at this hour, while the activity of the Resolution is yet in full blast, I would wish to insist on the truism, obvious perhaps, but apt to be overlooked, that a man cannot go forward and stand still at the same time. Just as moralists have often animadverted upon the tendency to live in the future, so I would animadvert upon the tendency to live in the past. Because all around me I see men carefully tying them-selves with an unbreakable rope to an immovable post at the bottom of a hill and then struggling to climb the hill. If there is one Resolution more important than another it is the Resolution to break with the past. If life is not a continual denial of the past, then it is nothing. This may seem a hard and callous doctrine, but you know there are aspects of common sense which decidedly are hard and callous. And one finds constantly in plain common-sense persons (O rare and select band!) a surprising quality of ruthlessness mingled with softer traits. Have you not noticed it? The past is absolutely intractable. One can’t do anything with it. And an exaggerated attention to it is like an exaggerated attention to sepulchers –a sign of barbarism. Moreover, the past is usually the enemy of cheerfulness, and cheerfulness is a most precious attainment.

Personally, I could even go so far as to exhibit hostility towards grief, and a marked hostility towards remorse -two states of mind which feed on the past instead of on the present. Remorse, which is not the same thing as repentance, serves no purpose that I have ever been able to discover. What one has done, one has done, and there’s an end of it. As a great prelate unforgettably said, “Things are what they are, and the consequences of them will be what they will be. Why, then, attempt to deceive ourselves “–that remorse for wickedness is a useful and praiseworthy exercise? Much better to forget. As a matter of fact, people “indulge “in remorse; it is a somewhat vicious form of spiritual pleasure. Grief, of course, is different, and it must be handled with delicate consideration. Nevertheless, when I see, as one does see, a man or a woman dedicating existence to sorrow for the loss of a beloved creature, and the world tacitly applauding, my feeling is certainly inimical. To my idea, that man or woman is not honouring, but dishonouring, the memory of the departed; society suffers, the individual suffers, and no earthly or heavenly good is achieved. Grief is of the past; it mars the present; it is a form of indulgence, and it ought to be bridled much more than it often is. The human heart is so large that mere remembrance should not be allowed to tyrannize over every part of it.

But cases of remorse and absorbing grief are comparatively rare. What is not rare is that misguided loyalty to the past which dominates the lives of so many of us. I do not speak of leading principles, which are not likely to incommode us by changing; I speak of secondary yet still important things. We will not do so-and-so because we have never done it – as if that was a reason! Or we have always done so-and-so, therefore we must always do it – as if that was logic! This disposition to an irrational Toryism is curiously discoverable in advanced Radicals, and it will show itself in the veriest trifles. I remember such a man whose wife objected to his form of hat (not that I would call so crowning an affair as a hat a trifle!). “My dear,” he protested, “I have always worn this sort of hat. It may not suit me, but it is absolutely impossible for me to alter it now.” However, she took him by means of an omnibus to a hat shop and bought him another hat and put it on his head, and made a present of the old one to the shop assistant, and marched him out of the shop. “There!” she said, “you see how impossible it is.” This is a parable. And I will not insult your intelligence by applying it.

The faculty that we chiefly need when we are in the resolution-making mood is the faculty of imagination, the faculty of looking at our lives as though we had never looked at them before –freshly, with a new eye. Supposing that you had been born mature and full of experience, and that yesterday had been the first day of your life, you would regard it today as an experiment, you would challenge each act in it, and you would probably arrange to-morrow in a manner that showed a healthy disrespect for yesterday. You certainly would not say: “I have done so-and-so once; therefore I must keep on doing it.” The past is never more than an experiment. A genuine appreciation of this fact will make our new Resolutions more valuable and drastic than they usually are. I have a dim notion that the most useful Resolution for most of us would be to break quite fifty per cent, of all the vows we have ever made. “Do not accustom yourself to enchain your volatility with vows. . . . Take this warning; it is of great importance.” (The wisdom is Johnson’s)

SETTLING DOWN IN LIFE

CHAPTER IV

THE other day a well-known English novelist asked me how old I thought she was, really. “Well,” I said to myself, “since she has asked for it, she shall have it; I will be as true to life as her novels.” So I replied audaciously: “Thirty-eight.” I fancied I was erring if at all, on the side of “really,” and I trembled. She laughed triumphantly. “I am forty-three,” she said. The incident might have passed off entirely to my satisfaction had she not proceeded: “And now tell me how old you are.” That was like a woman. Women imagine that men have no reticences, no pretty little vanities.

What an error! Of course I could not be beaten in candor by a woman. I had to offer myself a burnt sacrifice to her curiosity, and I did it, bravely but not unflinchingly. And then afterwards the fact of my age remained with me, worried me, obsessed me. I saw more clearly than ever before that age was telling on me. I could not be blind to the deliberation of my movements in climbing stairs and in dressing. Once upon a time the majority of persons I met in the street seemed much older than myself. It is different now. The change has come unperceived. There is a generation younger than mine that smokes cigars and falls in love. Astounding! Once I could play left-wing forward for an hour and a half without dropping down dead. Once I could swim a hundred and fifty feet submerged at the bottom of a swimming-bath. Incredible! Simply incredible! . . . Can it be that I have already lived?

And lo! I, at the age of nearly forty, am putting to myself the old questions concerning the intrinsic value of life, the fundamentally important questions: What have I got out of it? What am I likely to get out of it? In a word, what’s it worth? If a man can ask himself a question more momentous, radical, and critical than these questions, I would like to know what it is. Innumerable philosophers have tried to answer these questions in a general way for the average individual, and possibly they have succeeded pretty well. Possibly I might derive benefit from a perusal of their answers. But do you suppose I am going to read them? Not I! Do you suppose that I can recall the wisdom that I happen already to have read? Not I! My mind is a perfect blank at this moment in regard to the wisdom of others on the essential question. Strange, is it not? But quite a common experience, I believe. Besides, I don’t actually care two pence what any other philosopher has replied to my question. In this, each man must be his own philosopher. There is an instinct in the profound egoism of human nature which pre-vents us from accepting such ready-made answers. What is it to us what Plato thought? Nothing. And thus the question remains ever new, and ever unanswered, and ever of dramatic interest. The singular, the highly singular thing is –and here I arrive at my point –that so few people put the question to themselves in time, that so many put it too late, or even die without putting it.

I am firmly convinced that an immense proportion of my instructed fellow-creatures do not merely omit to strike the balance-sheet of their lives, they omit even the preliminary operation of taking stock. They go on, and on, and on, buying and selling they know not what, at unascertained prices, dropping money into the till and taking it out. They don’t know what goods are in the shop, nor what amount is in the till, but they have a clear impression that the living-room behind the shop is by no means as luxurious and as well-ventilated as they would like it to be. And the years pass, and that beautiful furniture and that system of ventilation are not achieved. And then one day they die, and friends come to the funeral and remark: “Dear me! How stuffy this room is, and the shop’s practically full of trash! “Or, some little time before they are dead, they stay later than usual in the shop one evening, and make up their minds to take stock and count the till, and the disillusion lays them low, and they struggle into the living-room and murmur : “I shall never have that beautiful furniture, and I shall never have that system of ventilation.

If I had known earlier, I would have at least got a few inexpensive cushions to go on with, and I would have put my fist through a pane in the window. But it’s too late now. I am used to Windsor chairs, and I should feel the draught horribly.”

If I were a preacher, and if I hadn’t got more than enough to do in minding my own affairs, and if I could look any one in the face and deny that I too had pursued for nearly forty years the great British policy of muddling through and hoping for the best –in short, if things were not what they are, I would hire the Alhambra Theatre or Exeter Hall of a Sunday night –preferably the Alhambra, because more people would come to my entertainment –and I would invite all men and women over twenty-six. I would supply the seething crowd with what they desired in the way of bodily refreshment (except spirits –I would draw the line at poisons), and having got them and myself into a nice amiable expansive frame of mind, I would thus address them –of course in ringing eloquence that John Bright might have envied:

Men and women (I would say), companions in the universal pastime of hiding one’s head in the sand, –I am about to impart to you the very essence of human wisdom. It is not abstract. It is a principle of daily application, affecting the daily round in its entirety, from the strap hanging on the District Railway in the morning to the strap hanging on the District Railway the next morning. Beware of hope, and beware of ambition! Each is excellently tonic, like German competition, in moderation. But all of you are suffering from self-indulgence in the first, and very many of you are ruining your constitutions with the second. Be it known unto you, my dear men and women, that existence rightly considered is a fair compromise between two instincts–the instinct of hoping one day to live, and the instinct to live here and now. In most of you the first instinct has simply got the other by the throat and is throttling it.

Prepare to live by all means, but for heaven’s sake do not forget to live. You will never have a better chance than you have at present. You may think you will have, but you are mistaken. Pardon this bluntness. Surely you are not so naive as to imagine that the road on the other side of that hill there is more beautiful than the piece you are now traversing! Hopes are never realized; for in the act of realization they become something else. Ambitions may be attained, but ambitions attained are rather like burnt coal, ninety percent, of the heat generated has gone up chimney instead of into the room. Nevertheless, indulge in hopes and ambitions, which, though deceiving, are agreeable deceptions; let them cheat you a little, a lot. But do not let them cheat you too much. This that you are living now is life itself –it is much more life itself than that which you will be living twenty years hence. Grasp that truth. Dwell on it. Absorb it. Let it influence your conduct, to the end that neither the present nor the future be neglected. You search for happiness? Happiness is chiefly a matter of temperament. It is exceedingly improbable that you will by struggling gain more happiness than you already possess. In fine, settle down at once into life. (Loud cheers.)

The cheers would of course be for the refreshments.

There is no doubt that the mass of the audience would consider that I had missed my vocation, and ought to have been a caterer instead of a preacher. But, once started, I would not be discouraged. I would keep on, Sunday night after Sunday night. Our leading advertisers have richly proved that the public will believe anything if they are told of it often enough. I would practice iteration, always with refreshments. In the result, it would dawn upon the corporate mind that there was some glimmering of sense in my doctrine, and people would at last begin to perceive the folly of neglecting to savour the present, the folly of assuming that the future can be essentially different from the present, the fatuity of dying before they have begun to live.

MARRIAGE

CHAPTER V

THE DUTY OF IT EVERY now and then it becomes necessary to deal faithfully with that immortal type of person, the praiser of the past at the expense of the present. I will not quote Horace, as by all the traditions of letters I ought to do, because Horace, like the incurable trimmer that he was, “hedged” on this question; and I do not admire him much either. The praiser of the past has been very rife lately. He has told us that pauperism and lunacy are mightily increasing, and though the exact opposite has been proved to be the case and he has apologized, he will have forgotten the correction in a few months, and will break out again into renewed lamentation.

He has told us that we are physically deteriorating, and in such awful tones that we have shuddered, and many of us have believed. And considering that the death-rate is decreasing, that slums are de-creasing, that disease is decreasing, that the agricultural laborer eats more than ever he did, our credence does not do much credit to our reasoning powers, does it? Of course, there is that terrible “influx” into the towns, but I for one should be much interested to know wherein the existence of the rustic in times past was healthier than the existence of the town-dwellers of to-day. The personal appearance of agricultural veterans does not help me; they resemble starved ‘bus-drivers twisted out of shape by lightning.

But the piece de resistance of the praiser of the past is now marriage, with discreet hints about the birth-rate. The praiser of the past is going to have a magnificent time with the subject of marriage. The first moanings of the tempest have already been heard. Bishops have looked askance at the birth-rate, and have mentioned their displeasure. The matter is serious. As the phrase goes, “it strikes at the root.” We are marrying later, my friends. Some of us, in the hurry and pre-occupation of business, are quite forgetting to marry. It is the duty of the citizen to marry and have children, and we are neglecting our duty, we are growing selfish! No longer are produced the glorious “quiverfuls” of old times! Our fathers married at twenty; we marry at thirty-five. Why? Because a gross and enervating luxury has overtaken us. What will become of England if this continues? There will be no England! Hence we must look to it! And so on, in the same strain.

I should like to ask all those who have raised and will raise such outcries. Have you read “X”? Now, the book that I refer to as “X” is a mysterious work, written rather more than a hundred years ago by an English curate. It is a classic of English science; indeed, it is one of the great scientific books of the world. It has immensely influenced all the scientific thought of the nineteenth century, especially Darwin’s. Mr. H. G. Wells, as cited in “Chamber’s Cyclopedia of English Literature,” describes it as “the most ‘ shattering’ book that ever has or will be written.” If I may make a personal reference, I would say that it affected me more deeply than any other scientific book that I have read. Although it is perfectly easy to understand, and free from the slightest technicality, it is the most misunderstood book in English literature, simply because it is not read. The current notion about it is utterly false. It might be a powerful instrument of education, general and sociological, but publishers will not reprint it –at least, they do not. And yet it is forty times more interesting and four hundred times more educational than Gilbert White’s remarks on the birds of Selborne. I will leave you to guess what “X” is, but I do not offer a prize for the solution of a problem which a vast number of my readers will certainly solve at once.

If those who are worrying themselves about the change in our system of marriage would read “X,” they would probably cease from worrying.

For they would perceive that they had been put-ting the cart before the horse; that they had elevated to the dignity of fundamental principles certain average rules of conduct which had sprung solely from certain average instincts in certain average conditions, and that they were now frightened because, the conditions having changed, the rules of conduct had changed with them. One of the truths that “X “makes clear is that conduct conforms to conditions, and not conditions to conduct.

The payment of taxes is a duty which the citizen owes to the state. Marriage, with the begetting of children, is not a duty which the citizen owes to the state. Marriage, with its consequences, is a matter of personal inclination and convenience. It never has been anything else, and it never will be anything else. How could it be otherwise? If a man goes against inclination and convenience in a matter where inclination is “of the essence of the contract,” he merely presents the state with a discontented citizen (if not two) in exchange for a contented one! The happiness of the state is the sum of the happiness of all its citizens; to decrease one’s own happiness, then, is a singular way of doing one’s duty to the state! Do you imagine that when people married early and much they did so from a sense of duty to the state –a sense of duty which our “modern luxury “has weakened? I imagine they married simply because it suited ‘em. They married from sheer selfishness, as all decent people do marry. And do those who clatter about the duty of marriage kiss the girls of their hearts with an eye to the general welfare? I can fancy them saying, “My angel, I love you –from a sense of duty to the state. Let us rear innumerable progeny –from a sense of duty to the state.” How charmed the girls would be!

If the marrying age changes, if the birth-rate shows a sympathetic tendency to follow the death-rate (as it must -see “X”), no one need be alarmed. Elementary principles of right and wrong are not trembling on their bases. The human conscience is not silenced. The nation is not going to the dogs. Conduct is adjusting itself to new conditions, and that is all. We may not be able to see exactly how conditions are changing; that is a detail; our descendants will see exactly; meanwhile the change in our con-duct affords us some clew. And although certain nervous persons do get alarmed, and do preach, and do “take measures,” the rest of us may re-main placid in the sure faith that “measures” will avail nothing whatever. If there are two things set high above legislation, “movements,” crusades, and preaching, one is the marrying age and the other is the birth-rate. For there the supreme instinct comes along and stamps ruthlessly on all insincere reasoning’s and sham altruisms; stamps on everything, in fact, and blandly remarks: “I shall suit my own convenience, and no one but Nature herself (with a big, big N) shall talk to me. Don’t pester me with Right and Wrong. I am Right and Wrong. …” Having thus attempted to clear the ground a little of fudge, I propose next to offer a few simple remarks on marriage.

THE ADVENTURE OF IT

CHAPTER V CONTINUED…

Having endeavored to show that men do not, and should not, marries from a sense of duty to the state or to mankind, but simply and solely from an egoistic inclination to marry, I now proceed to the individual case of the man who is “in a position to marry” and whose affections are not employed. Of course, if he has fallen in love, unless he happens to be a person of extremely powerful will, he will not weigh the pros and cons of marriage; he will merely marry, and forty thousand cons will not prevent him. And he will be absolutely right and justified, just as the straw as it rushes down the current is absolutely right and justified. But the privilege of falling in love is not given to everybody, and the inestimable privilege of falling deeply in love is given to few. However, the man whom circumstances permit to marry but who is not in love, or is only slightly amorous, will still think of marriage. How will he think of it?

I will tell you. In the first place, if he has reached the age of thirty unscathed by Aphrodite, he will reflect that that peculiar feeling of roman-tic expectation with which he gets up every morning would cease to exist after marriage –and it is a highly agreeable feeling! In its stead, in moments of depression, he would have the feeling of having done something irremediable, of having definitely closed an avenue for the out-let of his individuality. (Kindly remember that I am not describing what this human man ought to think. I am describing what he does think.) In the second place, he will reflect that, after marriage, he could no longer expect the charming welcomes which bachelors so often receive from women; he would be “done with” as a possibility, and he does not relish the prospect of being done with as a possibility. Such considerations, all connected more or less with the loss of “freedom” (oh, mysterious and thrilling word!), will affect his theoretical attitude. And be it known that even the freedom to be lonely and melancholy is still freedom.

Other ideas will suggest themselves. One morning while brushing his hair he will see a gray hair, and, however young he may be, the anticipation of old age will come to him. A solitary old age! A senility dependent for its social and domestic requirements on condescending nephews and nieces, or even more distant relations! Awful! Unthinkable! And his first movement, especially if he has read that terrible novel, “Fort comme la Mort,” of De Maupassant, is to rush out into the street and propose to the first girl he encounters, in order to avoid this dreadful nightmare of a solitary old age. But before he has got as far as the doorstep he reflects further. Suppose he marries, and after twenty years his wife dies and leaves him a widower! He will still have a solitary old age, and a vastly more tragical one than if he had remained single. Marriage is not, therefore, a sure remedy for a solitary old age; it may intensify the evil. Children? But suppose he doesn’t have any children! Suppose, there being children, they die –what anguish! Suppose merely that they are seriously ill and recover–what an ageing experience!

Suppose they prove a disappointment –what endless regret! Suppose they “turn out badly” (children do) –what shame! Suppose he finally becomes dependent upon the grudging kindness of an ungrateful child –what a supreme humiliation! All these things are occurring constantly everywhere. Suppose his wife, having loved him, ceased to love him, or suppose he ceased to love his wife! Ces choses tie se commandeni pas–these things do not command themselves. Personally, I should estimate that in not one per cent, even of romantic marriages are the husband and wife capable of passion for each other after three years. So brief is the violence of love! In perhaps thirty-three per cent, passion settles down into a tranquil affection –which is ideal. In fifty per cent, it sinks into sheer indifference, and one becomes used to one’s wife or one’s husband as to one’s other habits. And in the remaining sixteen per cent, it develops into dislike or detestation. Do you think my percentages are wrong, you who have been married a long time and know what the world is? Well, you may modify them a little –you won’t want to modify them much.

The risk of finding one’s self ultimately among the sixteen per cent, can be avoided by the simple expedient of not marrying. And by the same expedient the other risks can be avoided, together with yet others that I have not mentioned. It is entirely obvious, then (in fact, I beg pardon for mentioning it), that the attitude towards marriage of the heart-free bachelor must be at best a highly cautious attitude. He knows he is al-ready in the frying-pan (none knows better), but, considering the propinquity of the fire, he doubts whether he had not better stay where he is. His life will be calmer, more like that of a hibernating snake; his sensibilities will be dulled; but the chances of poignant suffering will be very materially reduced.

So that the bachelor in a position to marry but not in love will assuredly decide in theory against marriage –that is to say, if he is timid, if he prefers frying-pans, if he is lacking in initiative, if he has the soul of a rat, if he wants to live as little as possible, if he hates his kind, if his egoism is of the miserable sort that dares not mingle with another’s. But if he has been more happily gifted he will decide that the magnificent adventure is worth plunging into; the ineradicable and fine gambling instinct in him will urge him to take, at the first chance, a ticket in the only lottery permitted by the British Government.

Because, after all, the mutual sense of owner-ship felt by the normal husband and the normal wife is something unique, something the like of which cannot be obtained without marriage. I saw a man and a woman at a sale the other day; I was too far off to hear them, but I could perceive they were having a most lively argument –perhaps it was only about initials on pillowcases; they were absorbed in themselves; the world did not exist for them. And I thought: “What miraculous exquisite Force is it that brings together that strange, sombre, laconic organism in a silk hat and a loose, black over-coat, and that strange, bright, vivacious, querulous, irrational organism in brilliant fur and feathers ?” And when they moved away the most interesting phenomenon in the universe moved away. And I thought: “Just as no beer is bad, but some beer is better than other beer, so no marriage is bad.” The chief reward of marriage is something which marriage is bound to give –companionship whose mysterious interestingness nothing can stale. A man may hate his wife so that she can’t thread a needle without annoying him, but when he dies, or she dies, he will say: “Well, I was interested” And one always is. Said a bachelor of forty-six to me the other night: “Anything is better than the void.”

THE TWO WAYS OF IT

CHAPTER V CONTINUED…

Sabine and other summary methods of marrying being now abandoned by all nice people, there remain two broad general ways. The first is the English way. We let nature take her course. We give heed to the heart’s cry. When, amid the hazards and accidents of the world, two souls “find each other,” we rejoice. Our instinctive wish is that they shall marry, if the matter can anyhow be arranged. We frankly recognize the claim of romance in life, and we are prepared to make sacrifices to it. We see a young couple at the altar; they are in love. Good! They are poor. So much the worse! But nevertheless we feel that love will pull them through. The revolting French system of bargain and barter is the one thing that we can neither comprehend nor pardon in the customs of our great neighbors. We endeavor to be polite about that system; we simply cannot. It shocks our finest, tenderest feelings. It is so obviously contrary to nature.

The second is the French way, just alluded to as bargain and barter. Now, if there is one thing a Frenchman can neither comprehend nor pardon in the customs of a race so marvelously practical and sagacious as ourselves, it is the English marriage system. He endeavors to be polite about it, and he succeeds. But it shocks his finest, tenderest feelings. He admits that it is in accordance with nature; but he is apt to argue that the whole progress of civilization has been the result of an effort to get away from nature. “What! Leave the most important relation into which a man can enter to the mercy of chance, when a mere gesture may arouse passion, or the color of a corsage induce desire! No, you English, you who are so self-controlled, you are not going seriously to defend that! You talk of love as though it lasted for ever. You talk of sacrificing to love; but what you really sacrifice, or risk sacrificing, is the whole of the latter part of married existence for the sake of the first two or three years. Marriage is not one long honeymoon. We wish it were.

When you agree to a marriage you fix your eyes on the honeymoon. When we agree to a marriage we try to see it as it will be five or ten years hence. We assert that, in the average instance, five years after the wedding it does n’t matter whether or not the parties were in love on the wedding-day. Hence we will not yield to the gusts of the moment. Your system is, moreover, if we may be permitted the observation, a premium on improvidence ; it is, to some extent, the result of improvidence. You can marry your daughters without dowries, and the ability to do so tempts you to neglect your plain duty to your daughters, and you do not always resist the temptation. Do your marriages of ‘romance’ turn out better than our marriages of prudence, of careful thought, of long foresight? We do not think they do.”

So much for the two ways. Patriotism being the last refuge of a scoundrel, according to Doctor Johnson, I have no intention of judging between them, as my heart prompts me to do, lest I should be accused of it. Nevertheless, I may hint that, while perfectly convinced by the admirable logic of the French, I am still, with the charming illogicalness of the English, in favor of romantic marriages (it being, of course, understood that dowries ought to be far more plentiful than they are in England). If a Frenchman accuses me of being ready to risk sacrificing the whole of the latter part of married life for the sake of the first two or three years, I would unhesitatingly reply:
“Yes, I am ready to risk that sacrifice. I reckon the first two or three years are worth it.” But, then, I am English, and therefore romantic by nature. Look at London, that city whose outstanding quality is its romantic quality; and look at the Englishwomen going their ways in the wonderful streets thereof! Their very eyes are full of romance. They may, they do, lack chic, but they are heroines of drama. Then look at Paris; there is little romance in the fine right lines of Paris. Look at the Parisiennes. They are the most astounding and adorable women yet invented by nature. But they aren’t romantic, you know. They don’t know what romance is. They are so matter-of-fact that when you think of their matter-of-factness it gives you a shiver in the small of your back.

To return, one may view the two ways in another light. Perhaps the difference between them is, fundamentally, less a difference between the ideas of two races than a difference between the ideas of two “times of life “; and in France the elderly attitude predominates. As people get on in years, even English people, they are more and more in favor of the marriage of reason as against the marriage of romance. Young people, even French people, object strongly to the theory and practice of the marriage of reason. But with them the unique and precious ecstasy of youth is not past, whereas their elders have for-gotten its savor. Which is right? No one will ever be able to decide. But neither the one system nor the other will apply itself well to all or nearly all cases. There have been thousands of romantic marriages in England of which it may be said that it would have been better had the French system been in force to prevent their existence. And, equally, thousands of possible romantic marriages have been prevented in France which, had the English system prevailed there, would have turned out excellently. The prevalence of dowries in England would not render the English system perfect (for it must be remembered that money is only one of several ingredients in the French marriage), but it would considerably improve it. However, we are not a provident race, and we are not likely to become one. So our young men must reconcile themselves to the continued absence of dowries.

The reader may be excused for imagining that I am at the end of my remarks. I am not. All that precedes is a mere preliminary to what follows. I want to regard the case of the man who has given the English system a fair trial and found it futile. Thus, we wait on chance in England. We wait for love to arrive. Sup-pose it doesn’t arrive? Where is the English system then? Assume that a man in a position to marry reaches thirty-five or forty without having fallen in love. Why should he not try the French system for a change? Any marriage is better than none at all. Naturally, in England, he couldn’t go up to the Chosen Fair and announce: “I am not precisely in love with you, but will you marry me?” He would put it differently. And she would understand. And do you think she would refuse?

BOOKS

CHAPTER VI

The Physical Side

THE chief interest of many of my readers is avowedly books; they may, they probably do, profess other interests, but they are primarily “bookmen,” and when one is a bookman one is a bookman during about twenty-three and three-quarter hours in every day. Now, bookmen are capable of understanding things about books which cannot be put into words; they are not like mere subscribers to circulating libraries; for them a book is not just a book -it is a book. If these lines should happen to catch the eye of any persons not bookmen, such persons may imagine that I am writing nonsense; but I trust that the bookmen will comprehend me. And I venture, then, to offer a few reflections upon an aspect of modern bookishness that is becoming more and more “actual” as the enterprise of publishers and the beneficent effects of education grow and increase together. I refer to “popular editions” of classics.

Now, I am very grateful to the devisers of cheap and handy editions. The first book I ever bought was the first volume of the first modern series of presentable and really cheap reprints, namely, Macaulay’s “Warren Hastings,” in” Cassell’s National Library” (sixpence, in cloth). That foundation stone of my library has unfortunately disappeared beneath the successive deposits, but another volume of the same series, F. T. Palgrave’s “Visions of England” (an otherwise scarce book), still remains to me through the vicissitudes of
seventeen years of sale, purchase, and exchange, and I would not care to part with it. I have over two hundred volumes of that inestimable and incomparable series, “The Temple Classics,” besides several hundred assorted volumes of various other series. And when I heard of the new “Everyman’s Library,” projected by that benefactor of bookmen, Mr. J. M. Dent, my first impassioned act was to sit down and write a postcard to my bookseller ordering George Finlay’s “The Byzantine Empire,” a work which has waited sixty years for popular recognition. So that I cannot be said to be really antagonistic to cheap reprints.

Strong in this consciousness, I beg to state that cheap and handy reprints are “all very well in their way ” -which is a manner of saying that they are not the Alpha and Omega of bookish-ness. By expending £20 yearly during the next five years a man might collect, in cheap and handy reprints, all that was worth having in classic English literature. But I for one would not be willing to regard such a library as a real library. I would regard it as only a cheap edition of a library. There would be something about it that would arouse in me a certain benevolent disdain, even though every volume was well printed on good paper and inoffensively bound. Why? Well, although it is my profession in life to say what I feel in plain words, I do not know that in this connection I can say what I feel in plain words. I have to rely on a sympathetic comprehension of my attitude in the bookish breasts of my readers.

In the first place, I have an instinctive antipathy to a “series.” I do not want “The Golden Legend” and “The Essays of Elia” uniformed alike in a regiment of books. It makes me think of conscription and barracks. Even the noblest series of reprints ever planned (not at all cheap, either, nor heterogeneous in matter), the Tudor Translations, faintly annoys me in the mass. Its appearances in a series seems to me to rob a book of something very delicate and subtle in the aroma of its individuality –something which, it being inexplicable, I will not try to explain.

In the second place, most cheap and handy reprints are small in size. They may be typo-graphically excellent, with large type and opaque paper; they may be convenient to handle; they may be surpassingly suitable for the pocket and the very thing for travel; they may save precious space where shelf-room is limited; but they are small in size. And there is, as regards most literature, a distinct moral value in size. Do I carry my audience with me? I hope so. Let “Paradise Lost” be so produced that you can put it in your waistcoat pocket, and it is no more “Paradise Lost.” Milton needs a solid octavo form, with stoutish paper and long primer type. I have “Walpole’s Letters” in Newness’ “Thin Paper Classics,” a marvelous volume of near nine hundred pages, with a portrait and a good index and a beautiful binding, for three and six, and I am exceedingly indebted to Messrs. Newness for creating that volume. It was sheer genius on their part to do so. I get charming sensations from it, but sensations not so charming as I should get from Mrs. Paget Toynbee’s many volumed and grandiose edition, even aside from Mrs. Toynbee’s erudite notes and the extra letters which she has been able to print. The same letter in Mrs. Toynbee’s edition would have a higher aesthetic and moral value for me than in the “editionlet” of Messrs. Newnes. The one cheap series which satisfies my desire for size is Macmillan’s “Library of English Classics,” in which I have the “Travels” of that mythical personage, Sir John Mandeville. But it is only in paying for it that you know this edition to be cheap, for it measures nine inches by six inches by two inches.

And in the third place, when one buys series, one only partially chooses one’s books; they are mainly chosen for one by the publisher. And even if they are not chosen for one by the publisher; they are suggested to one by the publisher. Not so does the genuine bookman form his library. The genuine bookman begins by having specific desires. His study of authorities gives him a demand, and the demand forces him to find the supply. He does not let the supply create the demand. Such a state of affairs would be al-most humiliating, almost like the parvenu who calls in the wholesale furnisher and decorator to provide him with a home. A library must be, primarily, the expression of the owner’s personality.

Let me assert again that I am strongly in favor of cheap series of reprints. Their influence though not the very finest, is indisputably good. They are as great a boon as cheap bread. They are indispensable where money or space is limited, and in traveling. They decidedly help to educate a taste for books that are neither cheap nor handy; and the most luxurious collectors may not afford to ignore them entirely. But they have their limitations, their disadvantages. They cannot form the backbone of a “proper” library.

They make, however, admirable embroidery to a library. My own would look rather plain if it was stripped of them.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF BOOK-BUYING

CHAPTER VI CONTINUED…

For some considerable time I have been living, as regards books, with the minimum of comfort and decency -with, in fact, the bare necessaries of life, such necessaries being, in my case, sundry dictionaries, Boswell, an atlas, Wordsworth, an encyclopedia, Shakespeare, Whitaker, some De Maupassant, a poetical anthology, Verlaine, Baudelaire, a natural history of my native county, an old directory of my native town, Sir Thomas Browne, Poe, Walpole’s Letters, and a book of memoirs that I will not name. A curious list, you will say. Well, never mind! We do not all care to eat beefsteak and chip potatoes off an oak table, with a foaming quart to the right hand. We have our idiosyncrasies. The point is that I existed on the bare necessaries of life (very healthy – doctors say) for a long time. And then, just lately, I summoned energy and caused fifteen hundred volumes to be transported to me; and I arranged them on shelves; and I rearranged them on shelves; and I left them to arrange themselves on shelves.

Well, you know, the way that I walk up and down in front of these volumes, whose faces I had half-forgotten, is perfectly infantile. It is like the way of a child at a menagerie. There, in its cage, is that 1839 edition of Shelley, edited by Mrs. Shelley, that I once nearly sold to the British Museum because the Keeper of Printed Books thought he hadn’t got a copy –only he had! And there, in a cage by himself, because of his terrible hugeness, is the 1652 Paris edition of Montaigne’s Essays. And so I might continue, and so I would continue, were it not essential that I come to my argument.

Do you suppose that the presence of these books, after our long separation, is making me read more than I did? Do you suppose I am engaged in looking up my favorite passages? Not a bit. The other evening I had a long tram journey, and, before starting, I tried to select a book to take with me. I couldn’t find one to suit just the tram-mood. As I had to catch the tram I was obliged to settle on some-thing, and in the end I went off with nothing more original than “Hamlet,” which I am really too familiar with. . . . Then I bought an evening paper, and read it all through, including advertisements. So I said to myself: “This is a nice result of all my trouble to resume company with some of my books!” However, as I have long since ceased to be surprised at the eccentric manner in which human nature refuses to act as one would have expected it to act, I was able to keep calm and unashamed during this extraordinary experience. And I am still walking up and down in front of my books and enjoying them without reading them.

I wish to argue that a great deal of cant is talked (and written) about reading. Papers such as the “Anthenasum,” which nevertheless I peruse with joy from end to end every week, can scarcely notice a new edition of a classic without expressing, in a grieved and pessimistic tone, the fear that more people buy these agreeable editions than read them. And if it is so? What then? Are we only to buy the books that we read? The question has merely to be thus bluntly put, and it answers itself. All impassioned bookmen, except a few who devote their whole lives to reading, have rows of books on their shelves which they have never read, and which they never will read. I know that I have hundreds such. My eye rests on the works of Berkeley in three volumes, with a preface by the Right Honorable Arthur James Balfour. I cannot conceive the circumstances under which I shall ever read Berkeley; but I do not regret having bought him in a good edition, and I would buy him again if I had him not; for when I look at him some of his virtue passes into me; I am the better for him. A certain aroma of philosophy informs my soul, and I am less crude than I should otherwise be. This is not fancy, but fact.

Taking Berkeley simply as an instance, I will utilize him a little further. I ought to have read Berkeley, you say; just as I ought to have read Spenser, Ben Jonson, George Eliot, Victor Hugo. Not at all. There is no “ought” about it. If the mass of obtainable first-class literature were, as it was perhaps a century ago, not too large to be assimilated by a man of ordinary limited leisure in his leisure and during the first half of his life, then possibly there might be an “ought” about it. But the mass has grown unmanageable, even by those robust professional readers who can “grapple with whole libraries.” And I am not a professional reader. I am a writer, just as I might be a hotel-keeper, a solicitor, a doctor, a grocer, or an earthenware manufacturer. I read in my scanty spare time, and I don’t read in all my spare time, either. I have other distractions. I read what I feel inclined to read, and I am conscious of no duty to finish a book that I don’t care to finish. I read in my leisure, not from a sense of duty, not to improve myself, but solely because it gives me pleasure to read. Sometimes it takes me a month to get through one book. I expect my case is quite an average case. But am I going to fetter my buying to my reading? Not exactly! I want to have lots of books on my shelves because I know they are good, because I know they would amuse me, because I like to look at them, and because one day I might have a caprice to read them. (Berkeley, even thy turn may come!) In short, I want them because I want them. And shall I be deterred from possessing them by the fear of some sequestered and singular person, some person who has read vastly but who doesn’t know the difference between a J. S. Muria cigar and an R. P. Muria, strolling in and bullying me with the dreadful query: “Sir, do you read your books ? ”

Therefore I say: In buying a book, be influenced by two considerations only. Are you reasonably sure that it is a good book? Have you a desire to possess it? Do not be influenced by the probability or the improbability of your reading it. After all, one does read a certain proportion of what one buys. And further, instinct counts. The man who spends half a crown on Stubbs’s “Early Plantagenets” instead of going into the Gaiety pit to see “The Spring Chicken,” will probably be the sort of man who can suck goodness out of Stubbs’s “Early Plantagenets” years before he bestirs himself to read it.

SUCCESS

CHAPTER VII

Candid Remarks

THERE are times when the whole free and enlightened Press of the United Kingdom seems to become strangely interested in the subject of “success,” of getting on in life. We are passing through such a period now. It would be difficult to name the prominent journalists who have not lately written, in some form or another, about success. Most singular phenomenon of all, Dr. Emil Reich has left Plato, duchesses, and Claridge’s Hotel, in order to instruct the million readers of a morning paper in the principles of success!

What the million readers thought of the Doctor’s stirring and strenuous sentences I will not imagine; but I know what I thought, as a plain man. After taking due cognizance of his airy play with the “constants” and “variables” of success, after watching him treat “energetic ” (his wonderful new name for the “science” of success) as though because he had made it end in “ics” it resembled mathematics, I thought that the sublime and venerable art of mystification could no further go. If my fellow-pilgrim through this vale of woe, the average young man who arrives at Waterloo at 9.40 every morning with a cigarette in his mouth and a second-class season over his heart and vague aspirations in his soul, was half as mystified as I was, he has probably ere this decided that the science of success has all the disadvantages of algebra without any of the advantages of cricket, and that he may as well leave it alone lest evil should befall him. On the off-chance that he has come as yet to no decision about the science of success, I am determined to deal with the subject in a disturbingly candid manner. I feel that it is as dangerous to tell the truth about success as it is to tell the truth about the United States; but being thoroughly accustomed to the whistle of bullets round my head, I will nevertheless try.

Most writers on success are, through sheer goodness of heart, wickedly disingenuous. For the basis of their argument is that nearly any one who gives his mind to it can achieve success. This is, to put it briefly, untrue. The very central idea of success is separation from the multitude of plain men; it is perhaps the only idea common to all the various sorts of success –differentiation from the crowd. To address the population at large, and tell it how to separate itself from itself, is merely silly. I am now, of course, using the word success in its ordinary sense. If human nature were more perfect than it is, success in life would mean an intimate knowledge of one’s self and the achievement of a philosophic inward calm, and such a goal might well be reached by the majority of mortals. But to us success signifies something else. It may be divided into four branches:

(1) Distinction in pure or applied science. This is the least gross of all forms of success as we regard it, for it frequently implies poverty, and it does not by any means always imply fame. (2) Distinction in the arts. Fame and adulation are usually implied in this, though they do not commonly bring riches with them. (3) Direct influence and power over the material lives of other men; that is to say, distinction in politics, national or local. (4) Success in amassing money. This last is the commonest and easiest. Most forms of success will fall under one of these heads. Are they possible to that renowned and much-flattered person, the man in the street? They are not, and well you know it, all you professors of the science of success! Only a small minority of us can even become rich.

Happily, while it is true that success in its common acceptation is, by its very essence, impossible to the majority, there is an accompanying truth which adjusts the balance; to wit, that the majority do not desire success. This may seem a bold saying, but it is in accordance with the facts. Conceive the man in the street suddenly, by some miracle, invested with political power, and, of course, under the obligation to use it. He would be so upset, worried, wearied, and exasperated at the end of a week that he would be ready to give the eyes out of his head in order to get rid of it. As for success in science or in art, the average person’s interest in such matters is so slight, compared with that of the man of science or the artist, that he cannot be said to have an interest in them. And supposing that distinction in them were thrust upon him he would rapidly lose that distinction by simple indifference and neglect.

The average person certainly wants some money, and the average person does not usually rest until he has got as much as is needed for the satisfaction of his instinctive needs. He will move the heaven and earth of his environment to earn sufficient money for marriage in the “station” to which he has been accustomed; and precisely at that point his genuine desire for money will cease to be active. The average man has this in common with the most exceptional genius, that his career in its main contours is governed by his instincts. The average man flourishes and finds his ease in an atmosphere of peaceful routine. Men des-tined for success flourish and find their ease in an atmosphere of collision and disturbance. The two temperaments are diverse. Naturally the average man dreams vaguely, upon occasion; he dreams how nice it would be to be famous and rich. We all dream vaguely upon such things. But to dream vaguely is not to desire. I often tell myself that I would give anything to be the equal of Cinquevalli, the juggler, or to be the captain of the largest Atlantic liner. But the reflective part of me tells me that my yearning to emulate these astonishing personages is not a genuine desire, and that its realization would not increase my happiness.

To obtain a passably true notion of what happens to the mass of mankind in its progress from the cradle to the grave, one must not attempt to survey a whole nation, nor even a great metropolis, nor even a very big city like Manchester or Liverpool. These panoramas are so immense and confusing that they defeat the observing eye. It is better to take a small town of, say, twenty or thirty thousand inhabitants –such a town as most of us know, more or less intimately. The extremely few individuals whose instincts mark them out to take part in the struggle for success can be identified at once. For the first thing they do is to leave the town. The air of the town is not bracing enough for them. Their nostrils dilate for something keener. Those who are left form a microcosm which is representative enough of the world at large. Between the ages of thirty and forty they begin to sort themselves out. In their own sphere they take their places. A dozen or so politicians form the town council and rule the town.

Half a dozen business men stand for the town’s commercial activity and its wealth. A few others teach science and art, or are locally known as botanists, geologists, amateurs of music, or amateurs of some other art. These are the distinguished, and it will be perceived that they cannot be more numerous than they are. What of the rest? Have they struggled for success and been beaten? Not they. Do they, as they grow old, resemble disappointed men? Not they. They have fulfilled themselves modestly. They have got what they genuinely tried to get. They have never even gone near the outskirts of the battle for success. But they have not failed. The number of failures is surprisingly small. You see a shabby, disappointed, ageing man flit down the main street, and someone replies to your inquiry: “That’s So-and-so, one of life’s failures, poor fellow!” And the very tone in which the words are uttered proves the excessive rarity of the real failure. It goes without saying that the case of the handful who have left the town in search of the Success with the capital S has a tremendous interest of curiosity for the mass who remain. I will consider it.

THE SUCCESSFUL AND THE UNSUCCESSFUL

CHAPTER VII CONTINUED…

Having boldly stated that success is not, and cannot be, within grasp of the majority, I now proceed to state, as regards the minority, that they do not achieve it in the manner in which they are commonly supposed to achieve it. And 1 may add an expression of my thankfulness that they do not. The popular delusion is that success is attained by what I may call the “Benjamin Franklin” method. Franklin was a very great man; he united in his character a set of splendid qualities as various, in their different ways, as those possessed by Leonardo da Vinci. I have an immense admiration for him.

But his Autobiography does make me angry. His Autobiography is understood to be a classic, and if you say a word against it in the United States you are apt to get killed. I do not, however, contemplate an immediate visit to the United States, and I shall venture to assert that Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography is a detestable book and a misleading book. I can recall only two other volumes which I would more willingly revile. One is Samuel Budgett: The Successful Merchant, and the other is From Log Cabin to White House, being the history of
President Garfield. Such books may impose on boys, and it is conceivable that they do not harm boys (Franklin, by the way, began his Autobiography in the form of a letter to his son), but the grown man who can support them without nausea ought to go and see a doctor, for there is something wrong with him.

“I began now,” blandly remarks Franklin, “to have some acquaintance among the young people of the town that were lovers of reading, with whom I spent my evenings very pleasantly; and gained money by my industry and frugality..” Or again: “It was about this time I conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection. … I made a little book, in which I allotted a page for each of the virtues. I ruled each page with red ink, so as to have seven columns, one for each day of the week. … I crossed these columns with thirteen red lines, marking the beginning of each line with the first letter of one of the virtues; on which line, and in its proper column, I might mark, by a little black spot, every fault I found upon examination to have been committed respecting that virtue, upon that day.” Shade of Franklin, where’er thou art, this is really a little bit stiff! A man may be excused even such infamies of priggishness, but truly he ought not to go and write them down, especially to his son. And why the detail about red ink? If Franklin’s son was not driven to evil courses by the perusal of that monstrous Autobiography, he must have been a man almost as astounding as his father. Now Franklin could only have written his “immortal classic” from one of three motives:

(1) Sheer conceit. He was a prig, but he was not conceited. (2) A desire that others should profit by his mistakes. He never made any mistakes. Now and again he emphasizes some trifling error, but that is “only his fun.” (3) A desire that others should profit by the recital of his virtuous sagacity to reach a similar success. The last was undoubtedly his principal motive. Honest fellow, who happened to be a genius! But the point is that his success was in no way the result of his virtuous sagacity. I would go further, and say that his dreadful virtuous sagacity often hindered his success.

No one is a worse guide to success than your typical successful man. He seldom understands the reasons of his own success; and when he is asked by a popular magazine to give his experiences for the benefit of the youth of a whole nation, it is impossible for him to be natural and sincere. He knows the kind of thing that is expected from him, and if he didn’t come to London with half a crown in his pocket he probably did something equally silly, and he puts that down, and the note of the article or interview is struck, and good-bye to genuine truth! There recently appeared in a daily paper an autobiographic-didactic article by one of the world’s richest men
which was the most “inadequate” article of the sort that I have ever come across. Successful men forget so much of their lives! Moreover, nothing is easier than to explain an accomplished fact in a nice, agreeable, conventional way. The entire business of success is a gigantic tacit conspiracy on the part of the minority to deceive the majority.

Are successful men more industrious, frugal, and intelligent than men who are not successful? I maintain that they are not, and I have studied successful men at close quarters. One of the commonest characteristics of the successful man is his idleness, his immense capacity for wasting time. I stoutly assert that as a rule successful men are by habit comparatively idle. As for frugality, it is practically unknown among the successful classes: this statement applies with particular force to financiers. As for intelligence, I have over and over again been startled by the lack of intelligence in successful men. They are, indeed, capable of stupidities that would be the ruin of a plain clerk. And much of the talk in those circles which surround the successful man is devoted to the enumeration of instances of his lack of intelligence. Another point: successful men seldom succeed as the result of an ordered arrangement of their lives; they are the least methodical of creatures. Naturally when they have “arrived” they amuse themselves and impress the majority by being convinced that right from the start, with a steady eye on the goal, they had carefully planned every foot of the route.

No! Great success never depends on the practice of the humbler virtues, though it may occasionally depend on the practice of the prouder vices. Use industry, frugality, and common sense by all means, but do not expect that they will help you to success. Because they will not. I shall no doubt be told that what I have just written has an immoral tendency, and is a direct encouragement to sloth, thriftless ness, etc. One of our chief national faults is our hypocritical desire to suppress the truth on the pretext that to admit it would encourage sin, whereas the real explanation is that we are afraid of the truth. I will not be guilty of that fault. I do like to look a fact in the face without blinking. I am fully persuaded that, per head, there is more of the virtues in the unsuccessful majority than in the successful minority.

In London alone are there not hundreds of miles of streets crammed with industry, frugality, and prudence? Some of the most brilliant men I have known have been failures, and not through lack of character either. And some of the least gifted have been marvelously successful. It is impossible to point to a single branch of human activity in which success can be explained by the conventional principles that find general acceptance. I hear you, O reader, murmuring to yourself: “This is all very well, but he is simply being paradoxical for his own diversion.” I would that I could persuade you of my intense seriousness! I have endeavored to show what does not make success. I will next endeavor to show what does make it. But my hope is forlorn.

THE INWARDNESS OF SUCCESS

CHAPTER VII CONTINUED…

Of course, one can no more explain success than one can explain Beethoven’s C minor symphony. One may state what key it is written in, and make expert reflections upon its form, and catalogue its themes, and relate it to symphonies that preceded it and symphonies that followed it, but in the end one is reduced to saying that the C minor symphony is beautiful –because it is. In the same manner one is reduced to saying that the sole real difference between success and failure is that success succeeds.

This being frankly admitted at the outset, I will allow myself to assert that there are three sorts of success. Success A is the accidental sort. It is due to the thing we call chance, and to nothing else. We are all of us still very superstitious, and the caprices of chance have a singular effect upon us. Suppose that I go to Monte Carlo and announce to a friend my firm conviction that red will turn up next time, and I back red for the maximum and red does turn up; my friend, in spite of his intellect, will vaguely attribute to me a mysterious power. Yet chance alone would be responsible. If I did that six times running all the players at the table would be interested in me. If I did it a dozen times all the players in the Casino would regard me with awe. Yet chance alone would be responsible. If I did it eighteen times my name would be in every news-paper in Europe. Yet chance alone would be responsible. I should be, in that department of human activity, an extremely successful man, and the vast majority of people would instinctively credit me with gifts that I do not possess.

If such phenomena of superstition can occur in an affair where the agency of chance is open and avowed, how much more probable is it that people should refuse to be satisfied with the explanation of “sheer accident” in affairs where it is to the interest of the principal actors to conceal the role played by chance! Nevertheless, there can be no doubt in the minds of persons who have viewed success at close quarters that a proportion of it is due solely and utterly to chance. Successful men flourish today, and have flourished in the past, who have no quality whatever to differentiate them from the multitude. Red has turned up for them a sufficient number of times, and the universal superstitious instinct not to believe in chance has accordingly surrounded them with a halo. It is merely ridiculous to say, as some do say, that success is never due to chance alone. Because nearly everybody is personally acquainted with reasonable proof, on a great or a small scale, to the contrary.

The second sort of success, B, is that made by men who, while not gifted with first-class talents, have, beyond doubt, the talent to succeed. I should describe these men by saying that, though they deserve something, they do not deserve the dazzling reward known as success. They strike us as overpaid. We meet them in all professions and trades, and we do not really respect them. They excite our curiosity, and perhaps our envy. They may rise very high indeed, but they must always be unpleasantly conscious of a serious reservation in our attitude towards them. And if they could read their obituary notices they would assuredly discern therein a certain chilliness, however kindly we acted up to our great national motto of De mortuis nil nisi bunkum.

It is this class of success which puzzles the social student. How comes it that men without any other talent possess a mysterious and indefinable talent to succeed? Well, it seems to me that such men always display certain characteristics. And the chief of these characteristics is the continual, insatiable wish to succeed. They are preoccupied with the idea of succeeding. We others are not so pre-occupied. We dream of success at intervals, but we have not the passion for success. We don’t lie awake at nights pondering upon it.

The second characteristic of these men springs naturally from the first. They are always on the look-out. This does not mean that they are industrious. I stated in a previous article my belief that as a rule successful men are not particularly industrious. A man on a raft with his shirt for a signal cannot be termed industrious, but he will keep his eyes open for a sail on the horizon. If he simply lies down and goes to sleep he may miss the chance of his life, in a very special sense.

The man with the talent to succeed is the man on the raft who never goes to sleep. His indefatigable orb sweeps the main from sunset to sunset. Having sighted a sail, he gets up on his hind legs and waves that shirt in so determined a manner that the ship is bound to see him and take him off. Occasionally he plunges into the sea, risking sharks and other perils. If he doesn’t “get there,” we hear nothing of him. If he does, some person will ultimately multiply by ten the number of sharks that he braved: that person is called a biographer.

Let me drop the metaphor. Another characteristic of these men is that they seem to have the exact contrary of what is known as common sense. They will become enamored of some enterprise which infallibly impresses the average common-sense person as a mad and hopeless enterprise. The average common-sense person will demolish the hopes of that enterprise by incontrovertible argument. He will point out that it is foolish on the face of it, that it has never been attempted before, and that it responds to no need of humanity. He will say to himself: “This fellow with his precious enterprise has a twist in his brain. He can’t reply to my arguments, and yet he obstinately persists in going on.” And the man destined to success does go on. Perhaps the enterprise fails; it often fails; and then the average common-sense person expends much breath in “I told you so’s”.

But the man continues to be on the look-out. His thirst is unassuaged; his taste for enterprises foredoomed to failure is incurable. And one day some enterprise foredoomed to failure develops into a success. We all hear of it. We all open our mouths and gape. Of the failures we have heard nothing. Once the man has achieved success, the thing becomes a habit with him. The difference between a success and a failure is often so slight that a reputation for succeeding will ensure success, and a reputation for failing will ensure failure. Chance plays an important part in such careers, but not a paramount part. One can only say that it is more useful to have luck at the beginning than later on. These “men of success” generally have pliable temperaments. They are not frequently un-moral, but they regard a conscience as a good servant and a bad master. They live in an atmosphere of compromise.

There remains class C of success –the class of sheer high merit. I am not a pessimist, nor am I an optimist. I try to arrive at the truth, and I should say that in putting success C at ten percent, of the sum total of all successes, I am being generous to class C. Not that I believe that vast quantities of merit go unappreciated. My reason for giving to Class C only a modest share is the fact that there is so little sheer high merit. And does it not stand to reason that high merit must be very exceptional? This sort of success needs no explanation, no accounting for. It is the justification of our singular belief in the principle of the triumph of justice, and it is among natural phenomena perhaps the only justification that can be advanced for that belief. And certainly when we behold the spectacle of genuine distinguished merit gaining, without undue delay and without the sacrifice of dignity or of conscience, the applause of the kind-hearted but obtuse and insensible majority of the human race, we have fair reason to hug ourselves.

THE PETTY ARTIFICIALITIES

CHAPTER VIII

THE phrase “petty artificialities,” employed by one of the correspondents in the great Simple Life argument, has stuck in my mind, although I gave it a plain intimation that it was no longer wanted there. Perhaps it sheds more light than I had at first imagined on the mental state of the persons who use it when they wish to arraign the conditions of “modern life.” A vituperative epithet is capable of making a big show. “Artificialities” is a sufficiently scornful word, but when you add “petty” you somehow give the quietus to the pretensions of modern life. Modern life had better hide its diminished head, after that.

Modern life is settled and done for –in the opinion of those who have thrown the dart. Only it isn’t done for, really, you know. “Petty,” after all, means nothing in that connexion. Are there, then, artificialities which are not “petty,” which are noble, large, and grand? “Petty” means merely that the users of the word are just a little cross and out of temper. What they think they object to is artificialities of any kind, and so to get rid of their spleen they refer to “petty” artificialities. The device is a common one, and as brilliant as it is futile. Rude adjectives are like blank cartridge. They impress a vain people, including the birds of the air, but they do no execution.

At the same time, let me admit that I deeply sympathize with the irritated users of the impolite phrase “petty artificialities.” For it does at any rate show a “divine discontent”; it does prove a high dissatisfaction with conditions which at best are not the final expression of the eternal purpose. It does make for a sort of crude and churlish righteousness. I well know that feeling which induces one to spit out savagely the phrase “petty artificialities of modern life.” One has it usually either on getting up or on going to bed. What a petty artificial business it is, getting up, even for a male! Shaving! Why shave? And then going to a drawer and choosing a necktie. Fancy an immortal soul, fancy a fragment of the eternal and indestructible energy, which exists from everlasting to everlasting, deliberately ex-pending its activity on the choice of a necktie! Why a necktie? Then one goes downstairs and exchanges banal phrases with other immortals. And one can’t start breakfast immediately, because some sleepy mortal is late.

Why babble? Why wait? Why not say straight out: “Go to the deuce, all of you! Here it’s nearly ten o’clock, and me anxious to begin living the higher life at once instead of fiddling around in petty artificialities. Shut up, every one of you. Give me my bacon instantly, and let me gobble it down quick and be off. I ‘m sick of your ceremonies!” This would at any rate not