STRAIGHT GOODS 
 IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 By 
 
 PAULKARISHKA
 

 
 i. i Pa I <K ' ■ 
 
 STRAIGHT GOODS IN 
 PHILOSOPHY 
 
 BY 
 
 PAUL KARISHKA 
 
 AUTHOE OF 
 
 "SOME PHILOSOPHY OF THE HERMETICS," 
 
 'SOME MORE PHILOSOPHY OF THE HERMETICS," " EL RESHID,' 
 
 "THE TWENTIETH CENTURY CHRIST," ETC. 
 
 •* 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 ROGER BROTHERS, Publishers 
 
 1910 
 
 LONDON: L. N. FOWLER & CO
 
 81 
 
 H5 
 
 Copyright, 1910, by 
 DAVID P. HATCH 
 
 LOS ANGELES, CAL. 
 
 All Rights Reserved 
 
 THE TROW PRESS, NEW YORK
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 Concerning Societies 3 
 
 Three Sources of Happiness 9 
 
 Loving Everybody 11 
 
 A Psychic Truth 13 
 
 The Professional Philosopher 15 
 
 Excuses 17 
 
 Healing of the Body by Mind 20 
 
 The Unit of Force and the Individual 32 
 
 Our Right and Title in Happiness 37 
 
 What and Who is a Master? 41 
 
 Posing 43 
 
 The Things We Hate 45 
 
 Sympathy 49 
 
 The Funeral of a Living Corpse 55 
 
 Something About Chaos 61 
 
 The Will and Rhythm 65 
 
 Like the Shield of Achilles 69 
 
 Weeds 77 
 
 Waste Places 81 
 
 The Wild Beast 84 
 
 Man and Woman, or Woman and Man, — Which?. 92 
 
 Cheap Verbiage 101 
 
 The Thoughts that Kill 104 
 
 Food HI
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 The Value of the Imagination in Life 119 
 
 Essentials of a Philosophic Life 126 
 
 Constellations 135 
 
 Why Women Are Sly 142 
 
 Privileged People 151 
 
 Problems 158 
 
 Fear and Worry 163 
 
 The Jewel in the Toad's Head 171 
 
 The Law of Opposites 177 
 
 The Absolute 182 
 
 Old Age 188 
 
 Our Blessings 197 
 
 The Past 203 
 
 What's the Use? 208
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 STRAIGHT GOODS AND "THE PLAIN MAN." 
 
 Doctors of Philosophy and collegiate authori- 
 ties on Psychology frequently refer to the "plain 
 man" as distinguished from an individual of 
 1 ' trained mind. ' ' By the ' ' plain man ' ' they mean 
 the common sense person, who relies on his every- 
 day experiences for his criterion, irrespective of 
 deep and subtle analysis. The plain man has a 
 kind of "horse intuition," using his senses for 
 what they are worth, bringing memory to the 
 fore as a help in his final decisions. He has no 
 interest in the relationship of brain and body from 
 a scientific standpoint, nor does he care a farth- 
 ing whether Interactionism, Automatism or Paral- 
 lelism clinches and settles the whole question or 
 not. Whether mind and matter are equal and 
 interdealing, as the Reactionist asserts,— implying 
 causal relations, sequence, sensational brain event 
 and volitional brain event coming one after the 
 other, either way necessitating time, priority, etc., 
 is not of the slightest importance to him. Nor 
 does Automatism stir up in his being any deep- 
 seated interest. It is all the same as far as he is 
 concerned, if the Automatist succeeds in proving
 
 ii INTRODUCTION 
 
 that mind depends on body, hanging to the breast 
 of it like an infant to its mother, having its "ups 
 and downs," its glooms and pleasures by permis- 
 sion of this autocratic flesh, which dominates it 
 like a tyrant. If his physical brain takes a notion 
 to fall into a stupor he does not care if his mind 
 is literally nowhere, consciousness being but a 
 secretion, so to speak, of brain itself. 
 
 No, the plain man is quite indifferent to the 
 subtleties of brain storms from the automatist's 
 point of view. Nor does he lose sleep at night 
 in cogitating the great doctrine of Parallelism. 
 What business is it of his, if our bodily life is 
 "a closed circle in which nervous processes run 
 their course between sense organs and muscles 
 without consciousness, from beginning to end, 
 having anything to do with matter"; denying 
 causal relations between mind and matter, resting 
 on the assumption that the association between 
 the two is quite a different affair. No, the plain 
 man keeps strictly out of the wrangle between 
 these different schools. The brain event may take 
 place before or after he has exercised his volition, 
 for all he cares. Body and mind may run para 
 or otherwise, the only interest he has in the con- 
 test between scholars is the fight itself; to the 
 cause that set it going he is supremely indifferent. 
 
 In writing Straight Goods I have been thinking 
 a good deal about the "plain man" and his needs, 
 therefore I have hesitated to dip continually into 
 metaphysics as such, believing that the truths that 
 lie there can be shown more clearly under the 
 guise of simple thought. Nevertheless I have not
 
 INTKODUCTION iii 
 
 avoided the problems of down to date contention, 
 but have striven to strip them of certain scholarly 
 appellations, that serve to make them mysterious 
 and out of reach. Psychology, Metaphysics and 
 Science have a selected vocabulary of their own, 
 and I have endeavored to do some translating 
 into simpler English in order to bring their un- 
 doubted truths before the eyes of the "plain 
 man." For instance, he will have no patience 
 with the word " epiphenomenalist, " nor will he 
 bother to hunt it out in his pocket dictionary, if 
 indeed it is there; and this is only an example of 
 many other terms clear enough to the student but 
 a botheration to the "plain man. ,, 
 
 The question of Consciousness, the most subtle 
 and practically impossible question of psychology, 
 is so fraught with mystery that I have practically 
 let it alone. Whether Consciousness is really ' ' the 
 thing in itself" arising under certain conditions 
 and disappearing under others; in other words, 
 whether it is existence, as some of our thinkers be- 
 lieve, is a question open to debate. To the minds 
 of some of the Doctors of Philosophy consciousness 
 as such seems quite apart from and devoid of the 
 element of energy; others again claim that the 
 individual Unit of Force necessitated by and co- 
 existent with the substance w(e call matter, is the 
 "thing in itself," and that consciousness per se 
 is only a factor of it, sometimes manifesting and 
 sometimes not. Consciousness is so evasive, sub- 
 tle, intangible, and yet so absolutely essential to 
 any realization of life in activity, that an attempt 
 to analyze it is like that of investigating pure ego,
 
 iv INTRODUCTION 
 
 which is neither here nor there, but apparently 
 everywhere in the life of an individual being. 
 
 But dropping this vital question, which like a 
 live wire, is beyond handling unless one is gloved, 
 I have attempted to deal with subjects of which 
 this same consciousness is well aware, and trust 
 that I have put them into words that may possibly 
 appeal to the "plain man" if to no one else. A 
 certain hermeticism is perfectly right and proper, 
 but there is another kind of secrecy which is some- 
 what farfetched. As this is the day of public 
 schools and general education, whatever it is right 
 for the mass of humanity to know should be 
 thrown upon a screen with a magic lantern effect, 
 that "he who runs may read," and not only read 
 but understand. Metaphysic, so long lying in 
 coma, is undoubtedly waking up. When we read 
 science into our psychology, it will emphatically 
 assert itself, and become as essential as physiology 
 to the education of the modern world. 
 
 And lastly, it is not so much the fact of con- 
 sciousness that has concerned me in this book, as 
 the facts in consciousness.
 
 CONCERNING SOCIETIES. 
 
 Everyone knows that men in combination often 
 work out larger schemes and consummate greater 
 undertakings than does the individual per se. 
 
 For practical purposes, a cold-blooded corpora- 
 tion, bound by hard and fast rules, soulless, heart- 
 less, marching straight on to the goal desired 
 without "let or hindrance," is a thing of power 
 and wonder. Its unfeelingness is in a sense its 
 strength. Societies of any kind, whether close 
 corporations, with faces set hard toward money 
 making, or men combined in the pursuit of 
 science, art or exploration, have opportunities far 
 surpassing those of most individuals who go 
 ahead alone. Even churches, Sunday schools, 
 mystic bodies bolstered by the assumption of 
 brotherhood, from the point of material inter- 
 action and exchange of favors, have the chances 
 on their side, as against him who stands apart. 
 
 Societies are eminently protective of "matters 
 of fact" and things of matter. Their parts being 
 interdependent, they are self-balancing, and will 
 stand for no chicanery or false pretense— that 
 is, the majority of them. Of course, there are
 
 4 STRAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 exceptions, but I can safely assert that no com- 
 bined body can live long unless it is healthy, and 
 by healthy I mean honest and true to itself. 
 
 The work of a society has less brilliancy than 
 individual effort, as it naturally assumes a level 
 that includes all of its constituents. There is no 
 sparkling apex or dazzling skyrocket possible 
 under the rigidity of its conditions; but its pon- 
 derosity and massiveness make it a thing of 
 power. It marches on with heavy tread like the 
 elephant. The individual only can soar like the 
 skylark. 
 
 The world's greatest achievements are carried 
 to a finish as a rule by combined and organized 
 powers, either of the state, a business corpora- 
 tion, or a restricted society; but because of this, 
 because of the impossibility of gaining great 
 material results without it, by polarity and the 
 necessity of balance, there is another kind of 
 work that is inherently individual, and will not 
 thrive under dictation, or advance by prescribed 
 rules. 
 
 Through many centuries, called the dark ages, 
 the Church attempted to do the individual's 
 thinking, praying, loving and hating for him; it 
 looked at man's soul through a spyglass, and 
 strove to carve it up with a surgeon's knife. It 
 dictated as to what an individual should and 
 should not believe; it shriveled the human free 
 will and forced upon the intellect the abnormality 
 of giving the lie unto itself. This was the climax 
 of the "Leviathan" power of church and state,
 
 CONCEKNING SOCIETIES 5 
 
 standing for a massed organism made up of cer- 
 tain vitals that breathed and spoke and coerced. 
 
 But the organic tends ever toward dissolution. 
 The immortal is an individual. 
 
 To condemn on that account, churches, schools, 
 or combinations of any kind, would be absurd. 
 
 Eeferring to the monstrous abuses once author- 
 ized by the church and state, serves only to show 
 their usefulness. The normal is made clearer 
 when we study the abnormal. Corporation and 
 combination have their places, and the individual 
 has his. Some projects are far better done by a 
 body of men, and others by the man alone. The 
 army, the mass, would be chaotic without its 
 leader, the man. Collaboration is often attempted 
 in writing a book, but it is a rare artist who per- 
 mits another to handle the brush with him on a 
 masterpiece. Many combine in orchestra, but 
 the great soloist wings his way upward alone. 
 
 Admitting this to be-, you ask, why debate the 
 question? Simply because there is a stage in a 
 man's development when he cannot be dictated 
 to by a society, nor chained to an " incorporate 
 body." Perhaps we should modify this. Out- 
 wardly he may honestly come and go in the 
 "order," or church or school of thought, but 
 diametrically opposed to this— that is, inwardly, 
 he is free. 
 
 I have said there is a stage in the soul's de- 
 velopment where this is so, but I do not assert 
 that all humanity has reached it; in fact, a large 
 proportion of human beings are, safely and
 
 6 STRAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 rightly, still in the nest; they have not evolved 
 wings, and by wings I mean individual character- 
 istics that entitle them to fly. A bird makes a 
 sorry figure when he flutters and cannot soar. 
 
 But how about those individuals who really 
 have the whole empyrean at their command; 
 whose wings are strong and equal to the travers- 
 ing of endless space? Are they condemned, by 
 their power, to a life of isolation? Is there for 
 them no nest, no home? Most certainly they have 
 a home, but its windows and doors are wide open; 
 it is without locks and bars; it is neither cleaned 
 with a muckrake nor regulated by a "big stick." 
 There is, perhaps, no cathedral crouching humbly 
 beneath a monstrosity of dome, where the self- 
 emancipated may "toe the mark." No priest 
 can excommunicate them, nor priestess set upon 
 them her infallible seal. 
 
 Birds meet in the sky and fly in flocks, or wing 
 their way alone, as the case may demand; for 
 being birds they have the prerogatives of their 
 kind and the daring of soaring things. For prac- 
 tical purposes— and by practical I mean right 
 here, materially safe, financially cautious, com- 
 mercially successful, combiningly productive— 
 this heavenly way is quite preposterous. If a 
 combination of men whose final aim is the soul's 
 evolution were to use their consolidation for 
 material matters only, having from the point of 
 philosophy absolute freedom, and from the point 
 of morality or ethical harmony absolute domina- 
 tion, I presume they would have permanent sue-
 
 CONCERNING SOCIETIES 7 
 
 cess. But thus far, practically all combinations 
 that have the good of the soul as their final reason 
 for incorporating, presume to say what that good 
 shall be, irrespective of that same soul's needs 
 and longings. 
 
 From the point of morality or interdealing 
 ethically, the society should have absolute author- 
 ity; but from the point of the soul's attainment 
 and intellectual freedom, the society should have 
 no power whatever, positing a cult of independ- 
 ence, which in the last analysis is the most binding 
 dependence of a self upon itself, for when an 
 individual takes all heaven for his domain and 
 the earth for his footstool, he must have the 
 strength for his own personal sustainment or fall 
 back into the arms of the priest and the protec- 
 tion of the ritual, mumbling a creed over and 
 over, as though it were the last and only word. 
 
 A corporation is an artificial person, made up 
 of a combination of persons. Law is its father, 
 and its mother is an intangible something that 
 holds its parts together, whether they shift 
 among themselves or not. She has powers, lia- 
 bilities and responsibilities, peculiarly her own. 
 A corporation is of the genus of personalities, 
 having the power of Unity rather than that of the 
 particulars that make it up. 
 
 Now I would ask, how can such an " artificial 
 person" be the supreme guide of a man's immor- 
 tal soul? For instance— imagine an ecclesiastical 
 corporation, made up of saints. This generaliza- 
 tion of saints into a composite or corporate unity
 
 8 STEAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 becomes supreme dictator as to the evolving of 
 souls not designed in the scheme of things for 
 the role of saintship at all. An anomaly follows, 
 and man stands condemned. 
 
 Now what is a congregation? "Any collection 
 or assemblage of persons or things." Specific- 
 ally the word is used in a religious sense as a 
 gathering of persons for religious worship. Of 
 course, in a restricted sense, it may be brought 
 under church government, etc., but in its broadest 
 aspect, the term stands for freedom.
 
 THREE SOURCES OF HAPPINESS. 
 
 Do not be shocked! Passionate love, whether 
 for country, lover, or child, is always selfish and 
 centered on an object. This is a source of 
 ecstasy, and its opposite — misery. There go 
 along, half concealed with passionate love, jeal- 
 ousy, anxiety, responsibility, fear. These com- 
 bined make misery, but misery, in its heart of 
 hearts, is ecstasy, and worth having, and makes 
 life worth living when kinetic periodically. 
 
 The next source of happiness is nature love— 
 the power to blend into all sights and sounds— to 
 universalize. Its opposite is specialization, which 
 comes as pain after a bath in nature's milk. This 
 source of happiness produces consolation rather 
 than ecstasy, and is longer lived. 
 
 The third is the One Thing. This is the mas- 
 ter's chief source of joy, though he indulges in 
 the others also. The opposite of the One Thing 
 is many things. The One Thing lies in linking 
 things. This is the binding power— the creative. 
 IT IS HARD. There is opposition in it, resist- 
 ance, desperation; but at each snap of the clasp
 
 10 STRAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 fastening on another link of the chain. The mas- 
 ter knows the supreme joy— that of creation. The 
 One Thing includes memory of the past and an 
 approximate knowledge of the future.
 
 LOVING EVERYBODY. 
 
 It is the sheerest nonsense to pretend to love 
 everybody, and he who is guilty of the lie of so 
 asserting is not worthy of philosophy, except (we 
 are apt to say except) he have by that assertion 
 a peculiar meaning. 
 
 When you begin to love people en masse, it is 
 because you have consolidated them into an indi- 
 vidual, exactly as the cells group in the human 
 body. You have made of a community of people 
 a grand man, and love them as a being— one. 
 This is because you must specialize and symbolize 
 in love. You cannot love a crowd as a crowd. 
 The orator seeks one face in the pulsating mass 
 of humanity before him, and the whole audience 
 becomes the body to which the face belongs. 
 
 One loves his country because there is some 
 other country that he does not love. His race is 
 represented by its flower, and stands apart in its 
 typical individual as the chosen people. If you 
 love all beings on the planet— earth, they con- 
 solidate into one in contradistinction to the 
 inhabitants of other planets to whom you are 
 indifferent.
 
 12 STEAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 God, to be loved, must 1 bet specialized, personal- 
 ized. Therefore, Christ, the individual. This 
 altruism amounts to nothing unless it be a con- 
 solidated individualism. You love somebody, 
 not everybody. You may love a mass of some- 
 bodies as a unit, but only because there are other 
 bodies that you care nothing about. 
 
 Sympathy is invariably individual, and is in- 
 variably spent on a less fortunate individual than 
 yourself. We look up to and, possibly, worship 
 some one stronger and grander than are we; but 
 rarely ever waste sympathy on him unless he be 
 in some special way a sufferer or inferior. So, 
 then, in teaching, be careful to make this distinc- 
 tion. If you search through Hermetics you will 
 find this law emphasized. 
 
 Understand then, that an abstraction can never 
 appeal to our sense of unity; it is the individual 
 that touches the unity, and God was made in 
 Christ like unto man, with his infirmities and 
 griefs.
 
 A PSYCHIC TRUTH. 
 
 Hold up a diamond before an expert, and he 
 will look upon its flaw. The flaw will be all to 
 him. By the flaw will he gauge its value, by the 
 flaw will he condemn it; its glitter and beauty 
 will vanish in the diamond's defect. Let a 
 musician listen to another; his ear is attuned to 
 discords rather than to harmonies. He listens for 
 a slight failing in the tone, a defect in the touch, 
 a skipping of notes; and he judges by the flaws. 
 Ignoring the mighty crash of harmonies, he sees 
 the humpy mouse of ugliness only which the 
 great wave of melody bore upon its breast as a 
 beautiful face bears a mole. 
 
 In judging character you are apt to dwell upon 
 the flaw, though a mere speck on the white breast 
 of a dove. In the critic's eye it grows until he 
 is blinded to the beauty and charm of the whole. 
 The flaw becomes a part of himself at last, and 
 the man judged goes clean and free from pollu- 
 tion; the critic has taken his thorn, it has been 
 transferred, much to his disgust and amazement. 
 
 Now for a psychic truth, over which I desire
 
 ?4 STEAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 you to ponder. Never look a living creature 
 straight in the eyes holding the gaze, unless you 
 wish to establish between yourself and it a psychic 
 bond. This bond once established between your- 
 self and a cat, a dog, a beetle, a fly, a fish, a man, 
 causes you to partake, in a degree, its sufferings 
 and its joys. You cannot escape, you are bound 
 by the gossamer cord of sympathy. 
 
 Catch not, then, the gaze of a creature that you 
 desire neither to hate nor love, suffer with nor 
 enjoy.
 
 THE PROFESSIONAL PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 Every philosopher has a profession; philosophy 
 is never his work. Work is not for philosophy, 
 but philosophy for work. Philosophy makes a 
 lawyer great, a teacher wise, an artist powerful; 
 even a common laborer, divine. To be sure, there 
 are doctors of psychics in all colleges, but this is 
 not the question. I deplore and pity that man, 
 woman, or child, who reverses all things and 
 serves philosophy instead of forcing philosophy 
 to serve him. 
 
 One may take rest in his profession, he may 
 adopt the business of idleness; but if he be a 
 philosopher he will know how to do it. Philos- 
 ophy will help him to rest. But to be a profes- 
 sional philosopher is more grievous than to< be a 
 professor of religion. Unless a man becomes a 
 recluse for a purpose, he should have a business 
 among men. This throws him in continual con- 
 tact with his kind. The professional philosopher 
 should be shunned like the professional philan- 
 thropist. 
 
 Remember, then, that whatever you do, whether
 
 16 STEAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 at work or idle, philosophy is at your service, 
 and you are its master. Should you serve philos- 
 ophy, you will be the meanest wretch on earth; 
 for there is nothing so despicable as a servant of 
 philosophy and a slave of religion. Force philos- 
 ophy to serve you, and you are a king in power. 
 I do not argue against the change of environment 
 or work, if necessary or desirable, but against 
 the overthrow of the work of the world for philos- 
 ophy's sake. 
 
 Philosophy should touch up all work, of what- 
 ever kind, with gold and silver. Philosophy 
 means wisdom in work; it is a key, a grasp, a 
 means, a passport. To devote yourself to philos- 
 ophy, is to be a fool ; to force philosophy to serve 
 you, is to be wise. 
 
 The philosopher makes over environment, 
 adapts easily to circumstances, transforms con- 
 ditions, forces object, and colors and tints ugli- 
 ness with beauty.
 
 EXCUSES. 
 
 Show me a man who is not given to making 
 excuses for his shortcomings, a man who is calm, 
 and I will stamp him as great— rare. Is gold 
 easy to find? Are diamonds as cheap as glass? 
 Is beauty an everyday commodity? The man 
 who is constantly excusing himself is conscience- 
 stricken, and therefore is not great. 
 
 Let us analyze. What is the origin of an ex- 
 cuse? Simply a secret feeling that you have 
 allowed indolence and self-love and other vague 
 reasons to take the place of a duty left undone. 
 You have neglected something, and you realize 
 it. Then you hunt around to find an excuse with 
 which to veneer yourself. The very fact that you 
 wish to cover yourself with the varnish of apology 
 shows that you have something to hide. Ver- 
 bosity is the legacy of the apologist. He lathers 
 himself with words. Does he sin against himself? 
 Does he over-eat, over-drink, over-sleep? Does 
 he neglect the essentials of health and unfit him- 
 self for his working life ? Behold, how he bubbles 
 with the foam of excuses. Does he forget his
 
 18 STKAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 friends? Is he ungrateful? Has he abused con- 
 fidence? Has he stolen, lied, cheated, maligned, 
 broken promises? How tender is he of his own 
 faults; how he gushes with self -justification ! 
 Strange, nevertheless, he is harsh with others, 
 making no allowance whatever for their short- 
 comings, having no charity for their self-indulg- 
 ences. 
 
 Are excuses never excusable, then, you may 
 well ask? Rarely. Why the excuse? If you have 
 done evil, or caused evil, directly or indirectly— 
 why not admit it, and condone it? Why spit 
 upon a child's dirty face, and call it washed? A 
 great man often does evil, and frankly says so; 
 but he seldom tries to adorn his ugliness with an 
 excuse. 
 
 People excuse themselves out of hell, out of 
 heaven, out of education, out of fulfilled ambition. 
 "I might have done this or that," they say. "I 
 might have had this or that if it had not been 
 for so and so," " Circumstances were such," "my 
 situation was thus and so." Yes, yes, yes, we 
 understand. We hear it also in matters of philos- 
 ophy. "When we get this matter straightened 
 we shall start once more;" as if a philosophy 
 were not the very solver of problems, the panacea 
 of woes. This travesty on philosophy were indeed 
 amusing, were it not so pathetic. You excuse 
 yourself from concentrating, from persisting, 
 from willing even ; and by you, I mean everybody 
 who does. 
 
 The habit of making excuses grows on one
 
 EXCUSES 19 
 
 until his characteristic look is that of a man who 
 is hunted by creditors. He dislikes the reaping 
 of his own crops sown in laziness, and so he says, 
 "Excuse me." It is a polite phrase, and is well 
 enough as a pass word; but please do not use it 
 sincerely. The tendency to inertia is in man as 
 it is in a stone. Effort is effort, and he is ignor- 
 ant who expects great achievements to spring 
 from the soft head of laziness. The skull of Jupi- 
 ter from which Minerva sprung was hard, and 
 had to be split with an ax before (with tremen- 
 dous birth pangs) the goddess could be born.
 
 HEALING OF THE BODY BY MIND. 
 
 In the first place, what is body? Second, what 
 is mind? And, third, what is healing? 
 
 Body, according to the accepted idea, is ''mate- 
 rial organized substance, whether living or dead. ' ' 
 It is "physical structure." More generally 
 speaking, it is apparently "inert matter." 
 
 Mind is "that which feels, wills, thinks— the 
 conscious subject, Ego— soul;" specifically it id 
 "intellect as distinguished from feeling." 
 
 Healing is "cure— means of making whole." 
 
 Having defined the terms, we discover that we 
 have but a superficial knowledge of them after 
 all. When I say body is "inert matter," I know 
 it is not vital principle per se, but discovering 
 what it is not, is in no way demonstrating what 
 it is. A horse is not a dog— yet what is a horse? 
 A flower is not its perfume nor its color— what is 
 it then? In the last analysis no one knows what 
 matter is. Physicists have plenty of hypotheses 
 in regard to it, and for want of exact knowledge 
 are obliged to rest content. 
 
 Again, in the last analysis we are grossly ignor-
 
 HEALING OF THE BODY BY MIND 21 
 
 ant about mind. We realize some of its powers, 
 and are aware that it is diametrically opposed to 
 that which we call matter; but the ultimate 
 "mind stuff," what is it? Naming it energy, 
 force, consciousness, motion, dynamics, etc., is 
 simply substituting other terms, without solving 
 the problem. Secondary, experimental compre- 
 hension of mind is reasonably easy, but an under- 
 standing of its primal nature is beyond us. 
 
 In regard to healing or cure— whether it be rad- 
 ical or superficial, is a question also. The soothing 
 of a body into a temporary adjustment of its 
 parts to each other, so that pain subsides, is not 
 necessarily a cure. The animal organs have an 
 accommodating way of helping each other, or 
 accepting outside assistance, taking on all the 
 assumptions of wholeness, when in reality they 
 are far from normal or complete. 
 
 False teeth in the mouth, soon forgotten as 
 such, grind away like a genuine set. A man 
 adopts a Cork leg, and gets quite in accord with 
 it, or even two Cork legs. Spectacles are perched 
 on the nose, and an individual reads small print 
 as though with normal eyes. The human stomach 
 puts up with all sorts of insults, and adapts itself 
 to unreasonable condiments. The palate learns 
 to like what it naturally hates, for the sake of 
 peace; the nose, for the same reason, endures and 
 enjoys the rankest odors. All this goes to show 
 that we may think we are healed, when in reality 
 we are not. For the sense of comfortableness and
 
 22 STRAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 i 
 
 adaptiveness of the body is easily mistaken for 
 wholeness or health. 
 
 Having discovered then, that body, mind, and 
 cure are too deep for us to sound as to what they 
 really are, we are driven to treat the subject from 
 the standpoint of experience only, dropping at 
 once the momentous question of their elemental 
 values. 
 
 But experience is a term of tremendous import. 
 Experimental knowledge is in its infancy. We 
 are as ignorant as Hobbes as to what effects will 
 result from new causes till we put them to the 
 test; but once finding out, we are sure of fixed 
 facts, and a law that never fails. Experience, 
 then, gives us stability through the unfailing law 
 that goes with it, and inspiration to push ahead 
 for new thrills in untried fields not yet explored. 
 
 Returning to the subject of body, mind, and 
 healing, we find that we have from the standpoint 
 of our common ground, matter or body as one 
 pole of our being, and dynamic mind for the 
 other. Now the question is— can healing be 
 achieved, by the pole mind, on the other pole 
 matter or body? That is, have the poles power 
 over each other? If so, has mind more power 
 than matter, or vice versa? Which dominates, or 
 does neither? 
 
 Let us start with the body. Does it, can it, 
 affect mind? I am arguing now from the com- 
 mon ground of consciousness and knowledge, not 
 from the impossible base of what mind and 
 matter in their finality really are. I am arguing,
 
 HEALING OF THE BODY BY MIND 23 
 
 too, from my own personal experience, believing 
 by analogy that my experience is likely to be the 
 lot of my fellows also. 
 
 From the common sense standpoint, then, I 
 discover that my mind is exceedingly susceptible 
 to the condition of my body; if the organs are in 
 harmony with each other, doing the full share of 
 work assigned to them, I am well, and my mind, 
 as far as its house of flesh is concerned, is quite 
 at ease. On the contrary, an insignificant ail- 
 ment—a toothache, a pin prick, a corn, or a slight 
 attack of indigestion, will unhinge my thinking 
 powers, and unless I am hypnotized into ignoring 
 my trivial pain, or am strong enough to will it 
 down, it becomes excruciating and overthrows 
 my mental equilibrium. 
 
 Reversing the picture, what is on the other 
 side? Suppose, for instance, my conscience 
 troubles me, or I am in deadly fear, or am raging 
 mad, or desperately bereaved— my digestion 
 becomes impaired, my head aches, my nerves are 
 prostrated, my heart palpitates, my sight is dim; 
 in fact, my whole body loses its tone and is seared 
 and blasted by the cyclone in my mind. 
 
 Interaction between mind and body is a fact 
 firmly established by experience, and accepting 
 this as truth, are we putting it to practical use, 
 simply allowing this interaction to go on haphaz- 
 ard; or are we bringing our will to bear upon this 
 law? That is, are we pitting law against law? 
 for there is as surely the law of will, as there is 
 that of relationship.
 
 24 STRAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Now the individual mind, as such, has a Unit 
 Will— one; but the individual's body, on the con- 
 trary, has a million or billion wills, as the case 
 may be. Physiology, biology, all the up-to-date 
 "ologies and isms" that pertain to body show 
 the countless individuals that go to make up the 
 material cell life of that combination dominated 
 by the unit called Man. His "living environ- 
 ment" of flesh, absurdly called inert matter, is a 
 world of individuals of all sizes, shapes and 
 powers. So the many-willed body of a human 
 being is but the pole that lies opposite and paral- 
 lels the one-willed mind. Query— Can the domi- 
 nant will of mind regulate the multiple wills of 
 body, or vice versa? 
 
 As before said, our experience is yet in infancy. 
 What new effect will be born from a pregnant 
 cause, we have yet to learn. The causes of today 
 are the effects of yesterday, or in other words, an 
 evolution. Latent powers in mind are being real- 
 ized. Living matter, or rather moving matter, is 
 only half explored. 
 
 But setting all this aside, and accepting man 
 as he accepts himself— a Unit, or individual com- 
 posed of body and mind or "dust and energy," 
 interacting, inseparable, polarized— finding by 
 experience that his mind can be tortured, even 
 unbalanced, by his body, and his body almost 
 murdered by his mind— what is he going to do 
 about it? 
 
 I am not intending to investigate abnormal 
 cases, where martyrs burned at the stake have
 
 HEALING OF THE BODY BY MIND 25 
 
 dominated their suffering by radiant spirit, where 
 a man of science of the Galileo stamp has suc- 
 cumbed in the torture chamber and lied in the 
 face of truth; for these only go to show that 
 exceptionally under great stress and strain, the 
 element of time being a factor, the body comes 
 uppermost triumphantly, or vice versa. I shall 
 simply consider an ordinary, everyday, sick-and- 
 well man, with an individual will running para to 
 colonies upon colonies of other wills which make 
 up his body, and belong to him by right of unity. 
 Yes, his body belongs to him, matter belongs 
 to him— he cannot exist apart from it in some 
 form; but his possessions are conditioned and 
 subject to the law of the organic, and the prin- 
 ciple of relativity. He has something more than 
 a vested right in matter, he has an inherent, 
 eternal right. It is the other half of himself— the 
 live half, that stands for the many balanced ever- 
 lastingly against his Ego, the one. But because 
 that half of him is the many and he himself is 
 the one, equilibrium between the two is hard to 
 keep. One or the other pole is likely for the time 
 being to dominate, and the warfare since Adam, 
 of fighting the flesh or mastering the spirit, is 
 going on continually with all save those who have 
 learned the art of balance between the two, or 
 approximate poise. 
 
 The great error lies in the idea— never in the 
 least borne out by facts— that one or the other 
 pole should be annihilated. A Schopenhauer 
 would kill the will or mind, and a Brahman zealot
 
 26 STRAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 would crucify the body; a modern priestess would 
 deny that same body a right even to be; and a 
 modern phallic worshiper would immerse mind 
 in the symbolic fetish of sex. 
 
 But the sane, honest thinker, who looks on both 
 sides of the question, demands fair play between 
 the poles of himself, and strives by experience to 
 find out at just what point body and mind reach 
 a moving equilibration. He does not say to his 
 body, "You take mind in hand and heal and domi- 
 nate it," nor to his mind, "You force body to 
 health," in defiance of its indestructible law of 
 relativity. On the contrary, being no fool, he 
 recognizes the principle of the organic, and allows 
 it freedom to accomplish its healing work, if 
 possible, in its own way. 
 
 This abnormal forcing of body to play the part 
 of mind, and mind to play the part of body, is 
 what does the mischief in the attempt at cures of 
 either one or the other. 
 
 The question, then, sifts down to this: If body 
 has its own self-governing law, namely, that of 
 rhythm and relationship, adapting its parts with 
 perfect accord one with the other, resulting in 
 harmony,— how shall man know when the like- 
 wise eternal law of discord is opposing it? 
 
 The answer is simple. In the majority of cases, 
 pain or discomfort is the newsbearer. 
 
 We condemn pain, we deny its right to be, we 
 even lie unto ourselves and pretend that it is 
 not; but perhaps if we realized that this much
 
 HEALING OF THE BODY BY MIND 27 
 
 maligned messenger is often a life-saver, we might 
 not class it hereafter among the unmitigated evils. 
 
 "Without painl we should probably have no way 
 of ascertaining the disorder and chaos of the 
 body, and would therefore fail to apply remedies. 
 By applying remedies I do not necessarily mean 
 medicine, though there are cases where both 
 medicine and the attention of a specialist are 
 absolutely essential to a restoration of harmony. 
 The organs, tissues and nerves cry and shriek for 
 help in the voice of pain, and the mind proceeds 
 to obtain assistance. In numerous instances, 
 however, pain comes as a caution and warning 
 to mind to 1 let body entirely alone; to< cease feed- 
 ing and over-using it, thus giving it a chance 
 through its law of adaptability to readjust and 
 heal itself. 
 
 The office of mind, then, in reference to its 
 other pole of body, is to treat it scientifically, 
 that is rationally, not interferingly. 
 
 Learn by experience and investigation the in- 
 herent rights and relationships of the organs of 
 matter that make up your physical structure, 
 and let the law of them have its fair chance. A 
 body that can evolve itself is quite likely to be 
 able to look out for itself. The best kind of mind 
 cure is that just one of recognizing body cure. 
 If the mind once realizes the dignity, wonder, 
 mystery of matter in organization, it will surely 
 see also the stupendous law of the organic that 
 acts within it. A man becoming fully conscious 
 of his body's inherent power as body, will trust
 
 28 STRAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 it long enough to practically let it alone, barring 
 accidents or exceptional cases, and will find him- 
 self in the same category with the healthy child 
 of a savage, whose mind is yet too slightly devel- 
 oped to materially interfere with his bodily func- 
 tions. 
 
 The real mind cure method has a ''mind your 
 own business" basis, that is, a recognition by 
 mind of the rights and powers of matter, as the 
 other pole of itself. Once getting this insight, 
 and treating the body as powerful and self-ad- 
 justable, at the same time recognizing the inter- 
 action between itself and mind, man might live on 
 indefinitely and in comparatively sound health. 
 Always alert to recognize the signs of pain, not 
 morbidly but scientifically, helping body in any 
 reasonable way, by medicine or otherwise, when 
 the help must be had, letting it alone when it so 
 demands,— in fact, treating it as a man should 
 treat his wife or a lover his eternal mate, watch- 
 its rhythms and guarding against its passions,— 
 he ought to become a Methuselah and inhabit 
 the earth for centuries. By science, fair play, 
 and a growing experience well used, he ought 
 also to get rid of that bugbear called old age, 
 with its brittle arteries, gray hairs, and toothless 
 jaws. Knowing balance or poise, the mind should 
 never permit the body to go the pace that leads 
 to disorganization; the body should be allowed 
 liberty, not license. 
 
 Healing, then, would better be called balancing,
 
 HEALING OF THE BODY BY MIND 29 
 
 or an establishing of equipoise. Body and mind 
 should be good friends, splendid running mates; 
 but as it is now, one seems everlastingly trying 
 to get the better of the other, and the individual 
 owner of them both finds it convenient to grow 
 old or die " without let or hindrance." He per- 
 mits his body to become, debauched and carrion- 
 fed, and groans because he is chained to a house 
 of flesh; or, on the contrary, allows his body no 
 rights at all, and wails because it cries out in 
 pain. He denies that there is any ''dust" what- 
 ever, and becomes an oracle without its temple. 
 Mind is married to matter, and cannot escape, 
 so what is the use of flying from one state to 
 another in frantic effort to obtain divorce. Far 
 better is it for a man to establish amicable rela- 
 tions between the polarities of himself, learning 
 by experience how to apply the inherent laws 
 of either justly and fairly, thus striking an 
 approximate balance that assures him sound 
 health, escape from old age, and more years than 
 he will care to count. 
 
 Though there is certainly a law of the organic, 
 and a principle of balanced relationships, there 
 is another law that works towards dissolution. 
 Should we look more closely we shall find that 
 these apparently two principles are really but 
 one. An over tendency to organize and relate 
 would outreach itself, as a house may be built too 
 tall, or a person grow too large to adapt to the 
 environment about him, consequently going to
 
 30 STKAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 pieces from congestion or over-production; as if 
 the organizing principle could say, "I have over- 
 done this, I must tear it down, get back to orig- 
 inal matter and try again." So after all, the 
 law of dissolution may be but a serviceable aspect 
 of the law of synthetic structure. 
 
 But right here comes the mind's opportunity to 
 heal, or balance body. If a man finds himself so 
 large he cannot enter a door or associate with his 
 kind, he well knows that dissolution is near by, 
 and if he as mind does not interfere, then the law 
 of body will take a hand and dissolve the house 
 of flesh and reorganize. 
 
 In fact, experience and athletic balance will 
 show him a thousand ways to keep the other pole 
 of himself adaptable to the world's environment. 
 
 I have previously stated that if body made 
 itself, it probably knows how to take care of 
 itself. This sentence is prefixed with an if. But 
 whether it made itself, in the womb of the mother 
 who fed it the material with which to> organize 
 and construct, or the future tenant— the ego that 
 took possession— attended to its upbuilding, or 
 God by his fiat demanded that it should be, makes 
 no difference in respect to its inherent power to 
 hold itself together in harmony with the Ego 
 that makes use of it. Whatever the power that 
 was back of the miracle of organized body, it, 
 having capacity to produce such a wonder, 
 most certainly has genius and strength enough 
 to maintain it. Disharmony is undoubtedly the
 
 HEALING OF THE BODY BY MIND 31 
 
 cause of its breaking up, and harmony that 
 which holds it together. If man then gets some 
 understanding of the law-working power that 
 built his body, he is pretty likely to be able to 
 maintain it intact as long as he so desires.
 
 THE UNIT OF FORCE AND THE 
 INDIVIDUAL. 
 
 What is a Unit of Force? What is an indi- 
 vidual? 
 
 To the first question I answer promptly, that 
 force per se I know nothing about, neither do you, 
 nor any other. Whence it comes, how and why, 
 are questions beyond the power of intellect. 
 
 What we do know, however, in its secondary 
 attribute is energy or force manifested in that 
 which we call matter. Now a Unit of this energy 
 or manifested force, would seem to be a certain 
 prescribed amount, a quantitative expression. But 
 this is no answer. I must look deeper. A unit 
 would be better defined as a quantitative possibil- 
 ity; that is, a generative power equal to a fixed 
 value. But again, I am in a quandary. Does 
 it not take power to generate power,— force to 
 generate force? 
 
 Well, then, I must go round in a circle and say 
 that there is an eternal Unit of Force, with a 
 constant power to express (a better word, per- 
 haps, than generate) a fixed value; and I do not 
 posit this from any knowledge we have of
 
 THE UNIT OF FORCE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 33 
 
 force per se. On the contrary, I reason from 
 our knowledge of energy or force in matter. If, 
 then, we have units of energy, that is, fixed quan- 
 titative values of energy expressing themselves 
 through those which we call individuals, what is 
 an individual? Answer: An individual is some- 
 thing which cannot be divided. It is determined, 
 and has identity and continuity. It is a being- 
 One. It stands in a sense for independence and 
 egoism. In other words, it is a Unit of Force 
 either latent or active. It is not exactly a lump 
 of coal with a quiescent power to burn. It is 
 not necessarily combustion bottled up. Kinetic 
 it will act, and latent it will sleep; but either 
 way and beyond and above both, it is self-ener- 
 gizing, no matter how, whether from drawing on 
 outside resources, such as food and air, or inner 
 resources,— electrical or magnetic. Its power to 
 so draw is not the stuff utilized, but something 
 that cannot find its explanation in the interaction 
 or assimilation of material or electrical products. 
 I have a habit of presenting man as an illustra- 
 tion, though a Unit of Force is not necessarily 
 human. 
 
 Man, then, from an experimental standpoint, 
 and as far as we know, is a Unit of Force called 
 an individual; that is, he has a limited, but 
 constant power to generate energy, or rather to 
 express it, beyond and above the material called 
 to his assistance in so doing. In other words, the 
 builder of the fire called man, is not the fuel 
 nor the dissipated energy that results therefrom.
 
 34 STEAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Neither the combustion nor the manifold expres- 
 sions accruing, are the individual Unit manipu- 
 lating the same. But while he is not, in one 
 sense, the result of his own doing, in another 
 sense he is. 
 
 Now here we must think closely. Something 
 comes from this constant redistributing of energy, 
 everlastingly necessitated by this limited but con- 
 stant amount of unknown, dynamic impulse behind 
 it. What is it? It is the other half of the indi- 
 vidual or the indivisible— his world, self-created 
 and inseparable from him. It is the many of 
 himself polarized to the One or Ego. But "the 
 many" you say, are egos, too, self-willed, and not 
 his own unit. True, but they are within the field 
 of that unit's energy, as we are in the field of 
 the Universal energy; that is, the man's inner 
 world and the unit of productive energy are eter- 
 nally inseparable. 
 
 But here a more difficult problem presents itself: 
 How can a quantitatively fixed unit of energy go 
 on to infinity producing phenomena'? We must 
 remember right here, that the limitation in man's 
 productive power, dynamically considered, does 
 not lie in time as a whole, but in a fraction of 
 time. That is, at any given time, man is limited 
 to a given accomplishment, according to his power 
 to express in matter as energy. His force would 
 seem almost to be numbered, as a unit-energy of 
 say two, four, or six capacity. Remember again, 
 that I am dealing now with his fullest capability, 
 not with that possibly expressed; for more likely
 
 THE UNIT OF FORCE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 35 
 
 than not he allows to lie dormant, unused, or lat- 
 ent, a reserve power, like money in bank, not 
 drawn upon unless the occasion demands. 
 
 If my position be correct, that man is a Unit of 
 Force sitting centrally, so to speak, among his 
 creations,— in one sense dominating his expressed 
 field of energy, in another sense dominated by it, 
 —individual in that he and his world of energized 
 things cannot be divided; individual also in that 
 his generative power is constant and true to> itself; 
 myriad and self willing in that within his field of 
 energy he can manipulate its expressions and cre- 
 ate or lie dormant through a regulated rhythm, we 
 have, as an individual unit, an apparent contra- 
 diction which the real thinker resolves into a 
 paradox. 
 
 As man, then, you are 1 a being with exhaustless 
 resource, limited, nevertheless, by time and num- 
 ber. As though behind you were an eternal spring 
 of life-giving water, that you are forced to imbibe 
 through a pipe restricted in size, yours might be 
 a four inch, mine a two; you in one instant have 
 twice the quantity that I obtain, yet that does 
 not prevent my obtaining your quota a moment 
 after. The element of time and all that goes with 
 time, such as space, quantity, quality, modality, 
 etc., are the restraining elements; that is, man's 
 manifested world, even in himself, strikes hands 
 with restrictions at once, and his unit of indi- 
 vidual energy, while unrestricted as to its inex- 
 haustible power of indivisibility and resource, is 
 a force of constant and fixed value from its point
 
 36 STRAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 of expression. Remembering that a paradox is 
 not a contradiction, and that in the Unit of Force 
 itself is the unassailable law of polarity, I believe 
 that as far as science and experience have gone, 
 my hypothesis of the individual unit per se is 
 beyond dispute.
 
 OUR RIGHT AND TITLE IN HAPPINESS. 
 
 In one kind of happiness we as individuals 
 have an inherent right and title, in another we 
 have not. 
 
 The object of life is life, and its elixir is happi- 
 ness. 
 
 In the realm of relativity the rule holds good 
 that the greatest happiness to the greatest num- 
 ber is as near the ideal as can possibly be reached, 
 as relativity by its very nature implies immense 
 misery, whether or no. Relativity implies a con- 
 dition where many people are striving for the 
 same thing. Whether it be wealth, fame or love, 
 there are always plenty of contestants in the 
 game, and some must of necessity go to the wall. 
 
 One who enters the more active forms of life 
 knows intuitively that he must fight every step of 
 the way towards that which he wants, as many 
 others will be reaching after the same thing, with 
 perhaps as good a right as he. In the quieter 
 forms of life the game will perhaps be less intense, 
 nevertheless he will have to play it, and play it 
 too with his eye on the happiness of the greatest 
 number. If not the happiness most certainly the
 
 38 STEAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 greatest good, for the realm of relativities is 
 subject to great and little, high and low, good and 
 evil. 
 
 Now the other kind of happiness, that to which 
 yon have absolute, inherent right and title, con- 
 cerns your own particular self irrespective of 
 others so far as the happiness goes. This happi- 
 ness comes like dew from heaven upon) your soul, 
 when you have done a great, good or self-sacri- 
 ficing act. It results not from the attainment of 
 what you want necessarily, but more often from 
 yielding your personal desire to the general good. 
 This happiness is the reward, inherent, of un- 
 selfish virtue, a certain revelling in virtue for her 
 own pure sake. Now we are not preaching a 
 foolish self-sacrifce that pampers the selfishness 
 of others. On the contrary, we condemn this as 
 unjust, and a breeder of misery to the one who so 
 abases himself as to lie prostrate that his fellows 
 may walk over him. What we mean is quite 
 different. It is the giving up one's personal 
 desire for the general justice and good of another 
 or others, when by so doing a greater amount of 
 happiness is resultant than could otherwise be 
 obtained. Any person so doing, if occasion de- 
 mands, attains, himself, the supreme bliss of 
 virtue for its own sake, and distributes a larger 
 number of special delights among his kind, than 
 could otherwise be experienced. Even more, he 
 often averts a great evil which might result from 
 selfish indulgence. To illustrate: A man becomes
 
 OUE EIGHT AND TITLE IN HAPPINESS 39 
 
 rampant with a special desire— good, perhaps 
 ennobling in itself, but which cannot be realized 
 without appalling results to others. He may long 
 to found an orphan asylum, or endow an ''Old 
 People's Home." By a little sharp practice in 
 business, wrecking many homes thereby, he 
 achieves a fortune and consummates his desire. 
 Let me tell you it will be long— long before he 
 attains the absolute happiness of "virtue for its 
 own sake" after such shady procedure. A woman 
 loves a man who is married. She too perhaps is 
 married, but not to the man she loves. Now this 
 love of hers may be sacred, per se— God alone 
 knows, but she has no right and title in the happi- 
 ness which it brings. Its shadow rests on the 
 home of another. Through her Karma has she 
 arrived at her present condition in life, and in 
 the relativities no happiness is legitimately hers, 
 that brings injustice into the lives of others. Nor 
 will she taste of the absolute bliss, while allowing 
 special unholy delights to enamor her, to the 
 extent that others concerned are affected. This 
 works with man the same. 
 
 Ambition is a good thing, and fame, and the 
 laurel wreath most splendid,— in honest competi- 
 tion worthy of a God. Contest in the open, where 
 sly tricks are unknown, and everything is fair 
 and square, is health giving and stimulating. 
 But a battle won, like a love, through unfair 
 means, inconsiderate of justice and the rights of 
 others, cuts one off at once from his title in this
 
 40 STEAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 absolute, self-respecting happiness, which comes 
 to the virtuous through the practice of virtue. 
 
 • •••••• 
 
 Do not imagine for a moment that a special 
 happiness is not a good thing; on the contrary, 
 any special object you desire, that rightly and 
 justly can be attained, is a joy. It is not the 
 absolute, inherent happiness to which you are 
 entitled through sure service of virtue for her own 
 sake; but a special, acquired right— say the pas- 
 sion of love for a person, the acquisition of wealth, 
 the privilege of travel, the attainment of fame or 
 honor; these come by fairly are often sources of 
 supreme delight, accompanied, however, by the 
 dread of the loss of them. This dread acting as 
 a shadow to foil the sun. 
 
 The happiness of self-sacrifice has no such 
 shadow, and being an inherent right, rather than 
 an acquired one, it is the more stable of the two. 
 Nevertheless the acquired right to a special hap- 
 piness is its own excuse for being, and is to be 
 sought with all one's energy.
 
 WHAT AND WHO IS A MASTER? 
 
 The characteristics of the master are emphat- 
 ically expressed. Let us enumerate some of them: 
 First and pre-eminent is poise or balance. The 
 master in private life is in a jungle of complexity 
 —more than any other man, because his power 
 draws all kinds of humanity to him and tests his 
 mastership at once. Now mark you, if he can ad- 
 just to such a state, being pulled as he is in all 
 directions, by a medley of human beings, and can 
 keep perfect poise, never yielding principle— at the 
 same time realizing that this principle of equity 
 applies not only to himself but to these others 
 also— showing no unjust bias or partiality, using 
 tact in a pre-eminent degree, not only tact but 
 sympathy and kindness, he has one of the great 
 attributes of a great man or master. To test him- 
 self he must be in the crowd, among his kind, fol- 
 lowing his ordinary line of duty. To get along 
 alone is very well, but to work out and realize his 
 supreme power, he must be with others,— those 
 that by right and duty he has associated himself 
 with. A master avoids ultra things as far as 
 possible. The problem of everyday life is hard
 
 42 STEAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 enough without making it harder by devious and 
 unusual ways. The master avoids eccentricity 
 and abnormality, realizing perfectly that there is 
 enough that is strenuous without cultivating it. 
 If he wants a problem, he finds it anywhere, in 
 the simplest things. 
 
 As before said, the master has many character- 
 istics, but they base on poise. However great he 
 otherwise may be, or how much of a genius, with- 
 out this balance mastership is impossible.
 
 POSING. 
 
 You read pages of nonsense and gush, but what 
 proof? "New Thought" abounds in statements, 
 assertions and positions embellished with "dear 
 one" and "sweetheart," but proof— where is it? 
 It is perfectly proper to make an assertion, and 
 anv thinker can ferret out its self-evidence. It 
 is perfectly proper to present data which any one 
 interested can verify; but when a lecture is given 
 or book written that is neither self-evident nor 
 verifiable, unless the writer calls it dream or 
 belief, it is balderdash. I may be as assertive as 
 Cromwell or Swedenborg, if I call it my "belief" 
 or my "fancy," but should I present this stuff for 
 bald fact or science, I deserve ostracism by all 
 sane, progressive minds. There are some things 
 very cheap in this world, and posing is one of 
 them. 
 
 A philosopher is either a child or a worker. He 
 is never a creature of assertion. If he gets inspi- 
 rations he is exceedingly careful about presenting 
 them, unless he can bring verification ; for he him- 
 self can scarcely know that they are inspirations, 
 till they have been proven.
 
 44 STRAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Cranks are breeding more and more of their 
 kind,— lazy humanity opposed to giving value for 
 value. 
 
 Here is a formula: Psychic impression is very 
 real when it equals either demonstration— fact, or 
 self-evidence; otherwise it lies over against possi- 
 bility or absurdity, and if given out, should be 
 qualified with the words "may be" or " can't be." 
 
 Psychic impression equals fact— demonstration. 
 
 Psychic impression equals self -evidence. 
 
 Psychic impression equals fiction or dream.
 
 THE THINGS WE HATE. 
 
 If you watch matters of fact, you will notice 
 that people are very apt to have taken from them 
 that of which they have become very fond, while 
 the things and jobs they hate, stay persistently 
 by them. Why is this? If I am fond of a thing, 
 there is a good reason, and that same reason is 
 likely to make another fond of it also; complica- 
 tions arise, and the loved thing, person, or job 
 is often lost. We hate a thing,— some person we 
 have to live with, or some work we have to do, 
 and it holds us, as does the fly-paper the fly. 
 We "can't seem to get rid of it." Allow me to 
 contradict you, however, you can. If you are a 
 teacher, a lawyer, or a housekeeper you will most 
 likely be relieved of your job, when you learn to 
 love it. Become extremely interested, so much so 
 that you really hate to quit, and some fine day you 
 will find yourself down and out, and you will be 
 sorry, too. Of course you will find compensation 
 and be glad later, perhaps, but you will grieve 
 for your loved and lost, nevertheless. 
 
 Now here is the philosophy: So long as you 
 complain and grumble about the work you have
 
 46 STEAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 to do, no matter whether it be washing dishes, 
 teaching school or trying cases, you are liable to 
 keep on doing it. But when you find the element 
 of delight that is most surely concealed in even 
 the meanest work, you are liable to find yourself 
 outside it. The reason philosophically is, that 
 you have rounded it out, completed and fulfilled 
 it. A man or a woman might persist along a cer- 
 tain line a hundred years and not find its un- 
 doubted merit, as would perhaps another person 
 in a decade. You are not through with a job 
 when you hate it, and it being at the same time 
 your enemy, is not through with you. If you quit 
 it in that frame of mind, you will continually 
 revert to it with a dissatisfied, indignant feeling 
 that will embitter your whole nature. That un- 
 mastered work will haunt you as all unmastered 
 things in your sphere do>. The fact that you 
 could not and would not assimilate that which 
 was legitimately your work by the law of cause 
 and effect (the cause being your own karma by the 
 way) is like repudiating your own offspring. If 
 you are in the least wise, you will find, if you 
 want to really lose that hated thing, job or per- 
 son, you will have to realize it even to' the point 
 of love for it ; otherwise if you quit with it appar- 
 ently, you will be obsessed by it nevertheless. 
 You are not through with a thing till it receives 
 its due, and it is certainly not through with you. 
 The equation has not been struck otherwise. 
 
 Now this does not refer to jobs, persons or 
 things that you have not undertaken. Should
 
 THE THINGS WE HATE 47 
 
 you start seriously to master Euclid, proceed a 
 way in it and then give it up, you have failed in 
 fulfilling your karma. The fact that you started 
 in the study making a causation out of it and a 
 link in your chain of experiences, implies that it 
 is yours indefinitely. If, however, you " steer 
 clear" of a thing, person, study or job, that very 
 steering clear in itself — yes, the avoidance, is 
 again a link in the chain of your karma. There- 
 fore that which you find yourself actually en- 
 gaged in, proves, because you are so engaged, 
 that you have come to it normally and causally 
 and must really find the lovable in it before you 
 can pass it by. 
 
 How about evil, you say, under this philosophy? 
 
 The trouble with an evil thing, person, study 
 or job (evil in itself we mean) is that you love it 
 too much. You would never stay a moment with 
 evil, if it had not a diabolic charm. The good that 
 lies in every evil you have found, and are gloating 
 over and exaggerating. Now by this love you 
 can and must escape this very evil itself. If it 
 be an abnormal habit like lust, or lovei of drink, 
 love it to excess, and it will turn and rend you 
 either by disgust or by death. The reaction from 
 it will be either your cure or your extinction. 
 This same rule applied to a good thing, person, 
 study or job (good in itself we mean), shows 
 that you are, when the love seems very secure, 
 liable to lose it. 
 
 So, if you would retain a treasured person,
 
 48 STKAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 study, thing or job, do not love it to excess ; and if 
 you would be rid of a loved evil, love it to the 
 point of satiety, and it will fly from you and set 
 you free.
 
 SYMPATHY 
 
 To be "lost in another" is not to dispense with 
 one's individuality. On the contrary, the Ego. 
 thus seemingly submerged, is in reality intensified. 
 People to us are after all environment; even our 
 nearest and dearest are outside objects with which 
 ourselves as subjects, are in sympathy. The "I" 
 or Ego of man is only such because of an environ- 
 ment apart from it, and such a condition as that 
 of complete merging or absorption into one's sur- 
 roundings, whether person or otherwise, is impos- 
 sible if the "I" or Ego maintain itself as such 
 in consciousness. That element of difference 
 which proves that the "Me" is never the "not 
 me" is the very field of consciousness itself. 
 
 Now when I sympathize with my friend, I am 
 not lost or absorbed by him; on the contrary, 
 he is a sort of addendum to my inner world. I 
 have annexed him and set him up as an idol in 
 my shrine. Looking closer I find that I had him 
 before I had him; that is, in me was the niche 
 where he was to be by the very nature of myself; 
 in me was the absolute possibility of accurate 
 response to one such as he. I had waited for him
 
 50 STKAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 through the eternities. He and he only could 
 rouse to life a mertain "Me" that must otherwise 
 have slept. Now this apparently disinterested 
 sympathy which I feel for him is in reality sub- 
 limely selfish,— nobly, honorably selfish. It is not 
 the selfishness that cheats others through my 
 acquisitions; on the contrary, it is the appropri- 
 ating of that which is legitimately mine, — as 
 much so as the air I breathe and the light by 
 which I see. 
 
 This friend to whom I seem to be sacrificing, 
 is in reality rebuilding or readjusting my inner 
 world; overhanging it with divine skies; painting 
 it with ravishing sunsets; opening entrancing 
 vistas; and revealing haunting perspectives that 
 otherwise would have been unknown. He gives 
 nothing but myself to myself; that is, he becomes 
 the mirror by which I see the principalities just 
 outside the narrow confines of my former world. 
 
 So this friend, this being for whom my sym- 
 pathy is unquenchable, is really after all but the 
 reflector of my previously unrealized self. As if 
 I had lived ages upon ages without viewing my 
 own face, when suddenly spying it in a still pool, 
 I discover the color of my eyes, the sheen of my 
 hair, the curl of my lips, the texture of my skin. 
 Though I never see myself in the glassy mirror 
 of the lake again, I have added to my inner world 
 the vision of a face which was really mine before. 
 
 Any thing or person that can extend and enlarge 
 our possessions in consciousness (and of what 
 value whatever are they to us as individuals out
 
 SYMPATHY 51 
 
 of consciousness), with that person or thing we 
 sympathize. I think I must revise this sentence. 
 Anything that can extend or enlarge our posses- 
 sions pleasurably in consciousness, calls forth our 
 sympathy; and this makes it quite apparent 
 that anything that extends our inner dominion, 
 unpleasantly arouses antagonism or lack of sym- 
 pathy. That is, if I look into a pool of still 
 water and discover myself ugly, I am obliged to 
 carry along the picture and hate it accordingly. 
 So whoever or whatever jostles into conscious- 
 ness some despicable part of me that previously 
 lay sleeping, I repudiate it then and there, but fail 
 to get rid of it, nevertheless. 
 
 I have sympathy for those only that stir some 
 latent good that is in me into activity. There is 
 an old saying: "Hate the sin, but love the sin- 
 ner." Even those pretentious persons who claim 
 to love indiscriminately and universally, have to 
 rest on some such maxim, for they dare not love 
 the sin. In their repudiating of evil I have proved, 
 beyond dispute, that they do not love everything. 
 The most punctilious saint shows a fine dainti- 
 ness continually as to what he likes and hates; he 
 is constantly picking and choosing, and though 
 his tongue prates of universal love, his acts give 
 the lie to his pretension, and show him to be self- 
 deceived if not in the fullest sense a deceiver. 
 
 Now there is such a thing as universal apprecia- 
 tion, but it is strictly of the intellect and not of 
 the heart. "When we sav love, we are in the realm 
 of feeling, where all humanity, as well as things
 
 52 STEAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 inanimate, are selective and sympathetic. Scien- 
 tifically, I am as interested in the plague of small- 
 pox as in the scent of a rose, but emotionally I 
 repudiate one and gloat over the other. We are 
 not intellectually sympathetic; we are intellec- 
 tually curious, just and impartial. Emotionally, 
 however, from the aspect of loving and hating, 
 our sympathy and repugnance run rampant. 
 
 He who preaches a doctrine of universal love in 
 lieu of selective sympathy, is no true student of 
 human nature, and cannot prove his point by any 
 living or inanimate example. The very nature of 
 individualism or multiplicity in life, is repulsion 
 and attraction; otherwise there could be no con- 
 sciousness as we know it, and no debate upon the 
 subject whatever. If a man is sufficiently identi- 
 fied to even discuss the question, he is in the whirl 
 of interchangeable life and therefore in the realm 
 of feeling, which means love and hate. He him- 
 self is being roused continually, as he evolves 
 among his kind, into a bigger and bigger Ego in 
 consciousness — not bigger in reality, but in possi- 
 bility of given experience. In other words, he 
 is repudiating or sympathizing with things and 
 persons as they reveal by their impacts himself 
 unto himself. 
 
 Can he control his sympathies, you ask? Yes, 
 to an extent. That is, if I get a glimpse of my- 
 self in the mirror, and fear that the picture will 
 make me too happy or too vain, I can refrain 
 from looking again, studying and revelling in its 
 special features. So, on the contrary, if I find
 
 SYMPATHY 53 
 
 ugliness, I need not curse myself continually with 
 the vision, but may turn my eyes away. Herein 
 lies the power of will or freedom over sympathy 
 and its opposite, making us responsible for our 
 loves and hates. 
 
 An important question arises at this point: 
 How about a generalized sympathy, that is, sym- 
 pathy for a group or a race? The answer is 
 simple: It is always the Gentile as against the 
 Jew, or vice versa. As soon as you combine a 
 number into unity, you again have a One,— an in- 
 dividualized "not you" as the environment or 
 object of you yourself— a big mirror, but a re- 
 flector nevertheless. You may generalize to any 
 extent, except that of universality. Something 
 must be polarized to that other something called 
 yourself, lest consciousness be impossible. When 
 you love the world in toto it becomes a Unit— 
 One; you yourself are another, and the world 
 upon worlds in the vault above, still others. By 
 no possible arrangement can you escape "the 
 many" in feeling and comprehension and be con- 
 scious of them at all. In dealing with the uni- 
 versal, you apparently step outside it, and line it 
 up against you like balanced poles of one and the 
 same thing. 
 
 Sympathy is a ''fellow feeling," and is not' 
 necessarily pity, though it often takes this form. 
 Our feeling of compassion for some one is never- 
 theless a self-revelation. I go down into the 
 valley of bereavement with my friend, and draw 
 from it a strange consolation, In sharing his
 
 54 STEAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 trouble I am not only making his burden lighter, 
 but mine also, which some day I shall have to 
 carry on my own account. My possible vale of 
 grief has been revealed to me through his, and 
 when my time of suffering comes I shall escape 
 the shock that otherwise I must feel. "I have 
 been there before, ' ' I shall say to myself, ' ' in the 
 misery of my friend." So even that aspect of 
 sympathy which we call pity has its somber 
 advantages and is not repudiated. 
 
 There is a limit, however, to our power of pity. 
 Beyond that limit we resent such emotion and 
 despise the person who is unstintingly drawing 
 from our well of tears. Justice calls a halt, and 
 bids us ascend from the vale of grief and bask in 
 the sunlight on clear heights. Every person we 
 meet sympathetically, in some special way needs 
 us; in some one point is our inferior,— less strong 
 than we. As a being or unit he may be our supe- 
 rior, but if he makes draughts upon our pity and 
 love, he has most certainly a lack that we can 
 make up to him and in so doing the rich residue 
 of himself becomes a reflector to our inner eyes, 
 revealing to us our otherwise unexplored country.
 
 THE FUNERAL OF "A LIVING COBPSE." 
 
 The Twentieth Century makes emphatic asser- 
 tions, among others that philosophy, oratory and 
 poetry are dead. Bacon, Kant, Spencer, have 
 rounded out philosophy, there is nothing more on 
 that subject to be submitted,— it is dead. Demos- 
 thenes, Cicero and Webster have completed the 
 circle and possibilities in oratory,— it is dead. 
 Sappho, Keats, Poe, have fulfilled the mission of 
 poetry,— it is dead. Now having disposed of these 
 flowers of culture, let the people gird up and 
 begin "doing things.' ' 
 
 But possibly the Twentieth Century is hasty in 
 its judgments. That which seemed to have died 
 has perhaps not been critically examined. No 
 expert has his finger on the pulse of the "corpse." 
 After all it may still be alive and dormant, like 
 the hibernating bear. Something is stalking the 
 land, hunting game, calling itself philosophy, 
 poetry, oratory, and the world laughs. 
 
 This travesty has no sense of a syllogism, no 
 respect for logic and fact, yet labels itself philos- 
 ophy. It has no roses of Pieria, yet calls itself 
 poetry. It has no persuasive "golden tongue,"
 
 56 STKAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 yet presents itself as oratory. So the human 
 shakes his head, winks, shrugs nisi shoulders, and 
 says, "dead! the real thing is dead!" 
 
 The old masters in philosophy since the Renais- 
 sance, had a way of burying themselves to 
 prevent actual interment. A thinker can find a 
 temporary grave in words, if he so desire, and is 
 sure in that way of a periodic resurrection. The 
 shallow mind will never bother about him, but 
 the miner for genius and thought is bound to dig 
 him out. So the philosopher perpetuates himself 
 by hiding. The common, everyday man, up to 
 his ears in work, is most surely not spending his 
 nights over the abstruse postulates of the Critique 
 of Pure Reason or the metaphysical "reactions" 
 of Hegel. Those men and their thoughts, as far 
 as he goes, are dead and returned to whence they 
 came. Nor will he moon over Sappho and Poe. 
 How can he, when his own power of imagery is 
 sound asleep. Therefore, the poets are corpses, 
 or rather wraiths. Nor will he read the speeches 
 of Patrick Henry or Clay. He does not respond 
 to nerve tickling words and rounded periods. He 
 is "doing things." The orator is extinct. 
 
 Well then, if the blossom is dead because I am 
 blind and cannot see it, if melody is dead because 
 I am deaf and cannot hear it, if philosophy is 
 dead because I am thoughtless and cannot grasp 
 it, then I, too, must be on the verge of collapse. 
 
 Two reasons are the cause of this absurd judg- 
 ment on the Muse by the Twentieth Century: 
 First, the age is pursuing practical ends, and its
 
 THE FUNEEAL OF "A LIVING COKPSE" 57 
 
 energy is spent along those lines. Second, and 
 growing out of the first, the age is asleep in cer- 
 tain of its faculties. It is not a question of the 
 death of philosophy, oratory, poetry, after all; on 
 the contrary, the case is reversed. The Twentieth 
 Century is atrophied in regard to them. It has 
 but a faint capacity of response, and therefore 
 asserts that these arts themselves are no more. 
 If my ears are stopped and I cannot hear a mus- 
 ical rhapsody, the stark corpse is not the body of 
 the sound, but I myself. This being so, the 
 travesty of these apparently dead wonders has its 
 golden opportunity and proceeds to use it for all 
 it is worth. Everywhere are doctors of philos- 
 ophy without a consistent cult. Everywhere are 
 poets without the poem, orators without oratory. 
 There are books upon books, in this Century, 
 full of "pronouncements" on philosophy; volumes 
 weedy with assertions that are not self-evident; 
 judgments not founded on discovered facts, and 
 reasoning without logical premise. Therefore, 
 the world wags its head, puts a finger to its brow, 
 and laughs. There is verse and verse— yards and 
 yards of it— rhythmic, clean-cut, crystal clear, 
 but like a glass of water: You look through it, 
 and searching, find a blank. Being like water, it 
 has no fire; it cannot burn. The world says trash, 
 and laughs again. Well groomed men stand on 
 platforms and "orate." Their coats are well cut 
 and funereal. Their gestures go to prove their 
 close dealings with some school of dramatic ex- 
 pression. Their voices are persuasive; their
 
 58 STKAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 throats well oiled. Their words are picked and 
 matched like gems in a necklace. They make no 
 "holy show" of themselves, sawing space and 
 tearing their hair. They are altogether well- 
 mannered, and the people who compose their audi- 
 ences get up and go out, one after another, bored 
 to death. Why? Because in these orators there 
 is no "do or die" earnestness, no defiant intent to 
 carry the people en masse on the wings of their 
 words. Their flying machines are out of order. 
 There is something wrong with the soaring gear. 
 If they themselves are incapable of rising, how 
 can they expect to lift the dead weight of an 
 irresponsive crowd along with them? 
 
 Philosophy has a strange way of resurrecting 
 itself periodically, just as an individual gets up 
 in the morning after a good night of sleep. And 
 the world has a peculiar habit of recognizing it, 
 after its energy has been withdrawn from some 
 other object. 
 
 Absolute inertness is unthinkable. A stick of 
 wood burns when the match is applied. If there 
 was no real need of philosophy in the world, it 
 would surely die. But, as a cult or philosophic 
 belief is simply a means to an end — a formula or 
 set of formulas toward smooth living— a guide to 
 the line of least resistance in the path men travel, 
 and as the world cannot get on without it, the 
 apparent corpse of philosophy is, after all, only 
 shamming, and mankind is deluding itself when 
 it pronounces it dead. 
 
 Poetry has an equally uncanny way of reap-
 
 THE FUNERAL OF "A LIVING CORPSE" 59 
 
 pearing and charming earth with its syren voice,— 
 possibly in the distant echo of the steam whistle, 
 the far, ominous cry of the motor, or the dull 
 reverberation of the whirring wheel. Poetry is 
 not always where the sun sets, or the rainbow 
 vanishes. The Muse sometimes strokes the brow 
 of the plough-boy and rides alongside the man 
 of the plains. She digs with the miner, and flashes 
 her fires on the laborer at the forge. She breaks 
 in upon the monotony of a practical people, and, 
 lifting her wings, flies over skyscrapers and shops 
 by the side of the aeronaut. She even transforms 
 the skyscrapers themselves into towers and tur- 
 rets, and makes the heart of a great mart of trade 
 into a castellated center of dreams. Dead? bah! 
 Poetry is not always touching wine glasses. She 
 is often sweeping a floor. Her language is not 
 that of platitude, nor her tongue that of syllables. 
 I can very well imagine the men of the present 
 age, those who make history, coming together 
 decently to attend the funeral of philosophy, ora- 
 tory and poetry, symbolized by a composite 
 corpse. Flowers are brought, a few tears shed, 
 a grave is dug, when unexpectedly, the dead 
 becoming " quick;" it sits up in its coffin and 
 looks about. It is the very Muse itself, resem- 
 bling all those who have followed in its wake. 
 There is a Baconian touch upon its brow, a glance 
 like that of Spencer in its eyes, a Kantian pose of 
 its head, a Sapphic smile on its lips, a Markham 
 grip of the hand, and as it salutes the new century
 
 60 STEAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 a timbre in its voice like the great tones of a Lin- 
 coln or Demosthenes. Dead! The Muse dead! 
 
 The funeral is a farce. The men of action are 
 transfixed. The travesty on "the real thing" 
 slinks to cover. Philosophy stalks the land and 
 proceeds to practice what it preaches ; its skeleton 
 —fact and logic, its body— self-evidence. Poetry 
 burning with divine fire sings as she sang before 
 on the Greek islands and the Scotch heath. Ora- 
 tory discards platitudes and proceeds to uplift 
 and win. The hustling Twentieth Century finds 
 to its astonishment that the Muse itself is suf- 
 ficiently alive to "do things," and that these so- 
 called things having a well-fixed stamp upon 
 them, are potent and imperishable. 
 
 Well, then, Mr. Matter of Fact, take off your 
 funeral gloves and dismiss your pallbearers. The 
 undertaker must wait awhile before he lays out 
 the Muse and fills in the grave.
 
 SOMETHING ABOUT CHAOS. 
 
 Harmony, the end sought in life, can only be 
 found through chaos. This sounds paradoxical, 
 to say the least; let us investigate and see. 
 
 In the first place monotony is not harmony; 
 monotony inevitably brings about discord. Har- 
 mony is only found through an eternal readjust- 
 ment of things — a continuous re-relationship. 
 Why? Life in a sense is motion, and motion ne- 
 cessitates constant change. Harmony being a con- 
 dition realized in life pure and simple, must there- 
 fore be coincident with change. Now there is no 
 change, however slight, unless it has in it some 
 element of chaos. Re-relationships mean a break- 
 ing up to unite again with a shade of difference, 
 and this breaking up is chaos. Harmony, while 
 not itself chaos, is nevertheless impossible with- 
 out it. It is the other side of chaos, and when 
 we ignore its right and principle, while viewing 
 the phenomena of life, we have our eyes fixed on. 
 monotony, which is sure to breed a cataclysm. 
 When a thing becomes so static that it seems 
 monotonous, it is bound to go to pieces, as far 
 as human effort is concerned. The mind by its 
 dynamic quality can never endure an interminable 
 condition or thing, even the divinest, without
 
 62 STRAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 making an attempt to alter it, and this attempt 
 results in chaos or a restoration through cyclonic 
 readjustment to harmony itself. 
 
 The eye cannot dwell perpetually upon one pic- 
 ture, though, it be the face of an archangel. The 
 ear will not tolerate a continual sound, though it 
 be the trumpet of Gabriel. The mind revolts at a 
 continuity without its element of difference, and 
 to get this difference it resorts to chaos. In this 
 very chaos itself there is a tragic charm and 
 splendor irrespective of the new order of things 
 it is bound to establish. 
 
 There is a savage joy in overturning— tearing 
 down, uprooting. Nature in a mild way is con- 
 stantly burning up and rebuilding. Man himself 
 grows from a child by this process; he is a per- 
 petual wonder of chaos and cosmos. From an 
 infant he becomes a youth, all new as far as his 
 material make-up is concerned; and then a man, 
 new again, made over and over, his face, hands, 
 hair, eyes, continually taking on fresh aspects, 
 wrought by the sculptor Chaos into* a harmonic 
 unity adapted to his environment and demands. 
 And what Nature sometimes takes years to do, in 
 a fit of hurry and enthusiasm she again accom- 
 plishes in a few weeks. She rejuvenates a person 
 in fever by burning him to a skeleton and piling 
 new flesh on his bones. She rearranges a land- 
 scape by destroying its topography, thrusting up 
 baby islands to the surface of a sea and leveling 
 an old crag into a promontory. 
 
 There is affinity in the soul of man for the 
 terrific, the terrible; the reckless joy won from
 
 SOMETHING ABOUT CHAOS 63 
 
 the " spice of danger' * is no vain thing. The 
 "poet" who sings in platitudes and swings to a 
 pendulum is, after cA\, no poet whatever. The 
 primal law of chaos balanced to harmony has 
 never been revealed to him by the Muse. When 
 the storm comes and Nature rages, he hides his 
 head under his undeveloped plumes and shivers 
 with fright. But the real lover of life, the stormy 
 petrel, with wings long and pointed, and power 
 of sustained flight above all soaring creatures, 
 follows the phantom ship that furnishes him 
 sustenance. Across the immensities he goes mid 
 lightning, thunder, boiling seas and scowling 
 clouds, finding no land anywhere for his tired feet. 
 On, on, beating his pointed wings in teeth of the 
 gale, through the night, through the day he 
 travels. Chaos, tearing the clouds to ribbons, 
 gouging out great caverns in the waves, riding 
 on the bowsprit of the ship, snapping the masts, 
 ripping the sails, hissing amid the yards, running 
 across decks in balls of fire, engulfing, booming,— 
 a veritable God of rapture and despair,— is to this 
 wild petrel of the sea of life a Muse of majesty 
 and unquestioned power. 
 
 There is no use talking, gentlemen,— you who 
 prate of unqualified harmony and a static love,— 
 you cannot sail on a placid sea of bliss and be con- 
 tent,— no, no, no. Your Poes and Dantes must 
 show you hell, that you may "balance up" to 
 heaven. Your lotus lands and your drugs are the 
 stagnant things of earth; they have the odor of 
 the tomb.
 
 64 STEAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Chaos is evil, deadly, terrible, but without it 
 there is nothing good; in fact in its final reaches 
 it is itself most good. Chaos is the hag that car- 
 ries an angel in her womb. Chaos is darkness with 
 light in her eyes. Chaos is fury that hugs prolific 
 peace. Chaos is destiny that hides the star of 
 love. Chaos is the wrath of God.
 
 THE WILL AND RHYTHM. 
 
 What is Will, and what is Rhythm? A man's 
 will detached from the force used in executing 
 it, I define as desire— wish. Rhythm is included 
 in the law of action and reaction; it is the swing 
 between the poles of being, or all opposing atti- 
 tudes manifested in life. From these definitions 
 it would seem that will and rhythm are diamet- 
 rically opposed to each other, the former standing 
 for freedom and the latter for law— necessity- 
 fate. 
 
 As I have before argued, a principle contains 
 within itself its opposite or tangent tendency. 
 For instance, the so-called centrifugal force is but 
 the normal result of the persistent centripetal. 
 Centralization overdone, so to speak, by its very 
 nature throws off, and the independents thus dis- 
 carded follow the centrifugal law, which is noth- 
 ing other than the centripetal reversed. Very 
 well, then, let us look at this question of rhythm 
 and will from a similar point of view. Will, 
 desire, or wish, seemingly independent of the law 
 of rhythm, is nevertheless immersed in it. Were 
 it not for the rigidity of action and reaction, there 
 could be no sense of freedom. The rebellion of
 
 66 STKAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 will or desire to the strict requirements of rhythm 
 is hinged upon this very strictness. Rhythm, like 
 the centripetal force, overdoes itself, and the inde- 
 pendent will or freedom is born. This seems far- 
 fetched, but let us see. What is this dualized 
 force with its poles called centripetal and cen- 
 trifugal, but another name for action and reaction 
 or rhythm? And what is this rhythm in toto but 
 another name for necessity and freedom. Action 
 and reaction being the true balance between the 
 centralizing and repulsive tendencies, this central- 
 izing and repelling power, by its very nature must 
 of necessity be polarized to another element 
 inherent in itself, namely, freedom— will. The 
 rigidity of the law necessitating equality between 
 the action and reaction of energy, gives that same 
 energy its loophole of escape, or an element of 
 freedom. This we call free will, desire or wish, 
 for necessity could never for an instant be with- 
 out it. Why? If all actions and reactions had 
 no meaning or reason for being save to act and 
 react, and there were no opposing element in the 
 nature of such motion, as far as consciousness 
 goes, the universe would become motionless; but 
 as will pure and simple is not energy per se, and 
 as energy per se is but the stress.and strain in 
 substance, there is a point— nodal or surdal— 
 where they neutralize, and here desire or will 
 or freedom— whatever you choose to call it— has 
 its being in consciousness. The very conditions 
 of action and reaction could not be without this
 
 THE WILL AND KHYTHM 67 
 
 turning point ; and here the unknowable third ele- 
 ment appears, which we call Will. 
 
 But coming down from the metaphysical aspect 
 of this question into the conscious life of man, I 
 find him restricted exteriorly and free within; 
 his very freedom again necessitating his restric- 
 tions. Why? Being a Unit of Force, not the 
 Unit of Force, there are others like himself inter- 
 nally free, with wills and aspirations also. Now 
 that the many may be free in this great sea of 
 " Oneness," each having the same right of liberty 
 as the other, exteriority they must be restricted; 
 that is they limit each other, and rhythm and 
 interaction of necessity follow ; not that only, but 
 desire or will itself by its very nature is craving 
 for a special,— some thing or things as distinct 
 from other thing or things. Inwardly I may in- 
 dulge this will or wish to my heart's content. I 
 am free to desire whatever specials I choose, but 
 let me once proceed to act my longing, that is, 
 energize this wish and send it rampant into the 
 realm of objectivity, and I bring up against limita- 
 tions on every side. Other wills as inherently 
 free as my own are ranged against me. I find 
 myself in a sea of tides, struggling with rhythm 
 and nearly drowned in the rise and fall of objectiv- 
 ity. Things toss me about like a derelict— the 
 actions and reactions of others are regulating my 
 own; matter in all forms of vibration is asserting 
 its rights; wheels are revolving within wheels, and 
 paths are crossing paths— the boundless freedom 
 of "the me," pure and simple, is circumscribed by 
 some other "me" interiorly like unto myself.
 
 68 STEAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Yet without this restriction brought about by 
 external objects, there could be no interior free- 
 dom to desire anything at all; and without this 
 interior freedom to desire a thing, there could be 
 no objects whatever in our conscious universe.
 
 LIKE THE SHIELD OF ACHILLES. 
 
 "He gnashed his teeth, 
 "Fire glimmered in his eyes, 
 "Anguish intolerable wrung his heart, 
 "While he put on his glorious arms— 
 
 "The labor of a God. 
 "His broad shield uplifted last, luminous as the 
 
 moon, 
 "Such as to mariners a fire appears kindled by 
 
 shepherds - 
 "On the distant top of some lone hill. 
 "Such, from Achilles' burning shield divine, 
 "A lustre struck the skies.'' 
 This armor was forged by Vulcan, for the god- 
 dess Thetis to present to her son Achilles. 
 "He fashioned first a shield massy and broad, 
 "Toiling with skill divine. 
 
 * * There he described the earth, the heaven, the sea, 
 "The sun that rests not, and the moon full-orbed. 
 1 i There also all the stars that round about 
 "As with a radiant frontlet bind the skies; 
 "The Pleiads and the Hyads, and the might of 
 
 huge Orion; 
 "There discord raged, there Tumult 
 "And the force of ruthless Destiny.
 
 70 STRAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 ' ' There too he formed the likeness of a field 
 
 " Crowded with corn, 
 "In which the reapers toiled, 
 "Each with a sharp-toothed sickle in his hand: 
 "There also, amid a pleasant grove 
 "A pasture formed, spacious 
 "And sprinkled o'er with silver sheep. 
 "To these the glorious artist added next 
 "A labyrinth of dance, such as of old 
 "In Crete's broad island, 
 "Doedalus composed 
 "For bright-haired Ariadne; 
 "Last, with the might of Ocean's boundless flood, 
 "He filled the border of the wondrous shield; 
 "The armor finished, bearing in his hand the 
 
 whole 
 "He set it down at Thetis' feet. 
 "She like a falcon from the snowy top 
 "Stooped of Olympus, bearing to the earth 
 "The dazzling wonder fresh from Vulcan's hand. 
 "Now rose the moon in saffron vest attired 
 ' ' From Ocean, with new day for gods and men, 
 "When Thetis at the fleet of Greece arrived, 
 
 "Bearing that gift divine!" 
 
 The great in philosophy,— the master, he who 
 knows himself and life, is protected by a shield 
 that reflects all earth and sky as did that of 
 Achilles. His armour is forged by Vulcan in the 
 deeps of experience, and bearing it before him, he 
 is invincible and secure. Unless his mother,— the 
 Thetis, in whose womb he slept, places this pan- 
 oply at his feet, he is helpless in waging war on
 
 LIKE THE SHIELD OF ACHILLES 71 
 
 his enemy; but once attired, and his shield,— "the 
 labor of a God", uplifted, "he gnashes his teeth, 
 Fire glimmers in his eyes, ' ' and ' ' though anguish 
 intolerable wrings his heart," the battle is his 
 and his alone. 
 
 • •••••• 
 
 It is a fact that no man dare face the dangers 
 of life without some form of protection. He is 
 on the defensive and he knows it. Even the sav- 
 age has his crude and ghostly religion as a barrier 
 between himself and the onslaughts of the world. 
 His shield may be covered with animal hides 
 "seven deep," but it protects him from head to 
 foot when pushing his way through the labyrinth 
 of life. True, it does not reflect the sun from its 
 bosses, nor the pale glamour of the moon, nor is 
 there a pictured ocean at its rim. Wheels within 
 wheels, perhaps are wanting, but it is "seven 
 deep" with hides, and serves the purpose de- 
 manded by his childish soul. 
 
 Again there is the shield of the common man, 
 with the ritual of his church or order engraved 
 upon it,— an amulet strong enough to ward off 
 any enemy deeming him worthy of attack. All 
 fighters have shields ; only the inherently protected 
 go outwardly unprotected. 
 
 To dare the world, the flesh and the devil is to 
 defy every thing or person with a will differently 
 disposed from your own. It is Troy challenging 
 Greece, and Greece challenging Troy. The instant 
 you start to blaze your own trail, north, south, east 
 or west, in the journey of life, death stalks beside 
 you. Instinctively you shield yourself, and push
 
 72 STEAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 on. A shaft strikes here and is warded off, 
 another there and rebounds. From head to foot 
 are you covering up your naked self, lest a vital 
 part be hit. Of course there are sheep! Follow- 
 ers are on all the grazing places of earth, and 
 though they are without panoply, the shepherd 
 who fights their battles and does their thinking 
 is armed from head to foot. 
 
 All cults that have made their way, and have 
 not gone down before the world's onslaughts, have 
 had masters protected by shields and helmets cun- 
 ningly fashioned, more or less strong, and now and 
 then invincible. If there is anywhere a weak spot 
 in the armor of a leader of a religion or philos- 
 ophy, the opposing world is bound to find it, and 
 only that system stands the onslaught of centuries 
 whose prophet carries before him an invulnerable 
 shield. A little teacher or preacher comes and 
 goes with a blare of trumpet and glitter of steel; 
 he rushes forth to battle with conventional life 
 followed by a "pack of sheep"; "his massy 
 shield o'ershadowing him whole, Ten circles bright 
 of brass around its field." But later another 
 teacher or preacher carrying another shield with 
 ten more circles of brass, crushes him in the dust, 
 and the world encores and laughs. The question 
 is perfectly self-settling. If a man cannot stand, 
 he can not, that is all. His shield may ward off 
 destruction for a time, but he finds later that death 
 was only sparring. The fatal blow is bound to be 
 struck, and his faith and himself overthrown. He 
 has had his little day. He has gone into history 
 as a corpse. He is not immortal.
 
 LIKE THE SHIELD OF ACHILLES 73 
 
 But a shield like that of Achilles, forged by a 
 God— ''luminous as the moon", is the matchless 
 wonder carried by him, master or man, who can 
 blaze his own trail, and maintain his own position 
 as against the world. If his mother Thetis 
 descends from Olympus and pleads with Vulcan to 
 settle ''his ponderous anvil on the block— one 
 hand with his huge hammer filled, one with the 
 tongs," a shield with ''five strong folds" will be 
 forged, as invincible as destiny. All splendors of 
 earth, sea and sky will be reflected from its mass- 
 ive front— flashing defiance to the very objects 
 which it dares to mirror. 
 
 To huge Orion in the sky, another "huge Orion" 
 on Achilles' shield sends challenge. 
 
 To the sun in heaven "that rests not" another 
 restless sun flings its resplendent rays. 
 
 To the "moon full-orbed" another moon as lum- 
 inous, stares daringly. 
 
 To the stars above,— "The Pleiads and the Hy- 
 ads", the stars upon this deep sheen of moving 
 panoply flaunt greeting. 
 
 To Discord, Tumult, ruthless Destiny, the 
 raging furies of Achilles' shield throw down the 
 gauntlet. 
 
 And to the fields of whispering corn and grow- 
 ing grain on earth's warm stretches, the summer 
 glories on the shield's perspectives wave their 
 greeting. 
 
 And to the groves and pastures "sprinkled with 
 silver sheep," the living, moving wonders of Vul- 
 can's masterpiece give answer. 
 
 Even bright-haired Ariadne on Achilles' shield
 
 74 STBAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 is dancing as once aforetime "In Crete's broad 
 island" she danced and dallied. And on it too 
 the ocean falls and rises, as boundless as the 
 mighty flood on earth's great bosom. 
 
 • •••••• 
 
 He who faces the whole world of objectivity and 
 dares it, must be himself the whole world. Greek 
 meets Greek. Any honest amior is better than 
 none, when man goes forth to fight the battle of 
 life; but that which is forged by a God is beyond 
 compare. 
 
 • •••••• 
 
 How shall I know, you ask, whether I have 
 donned this indestructible panoply or not? And 
 I answer, by watching those who fall and those 
 who stand. Look into common life and common 
 things and learn a lesson. Is there any one more 
 absurd than he who talks with giant superlatives 
 about the wonders of mathematics, and like 
 Hobbes, tries to square the circle, when a simple 
 problem in arithmetic or algebra is beyond his 
 power of solving? Who more ridiculous than he 
 who prates of chemistry and never investigates its 
 synthetic combinations? Who more laughable 
 than the man that fools himself, in regard to biol- 
 ogy or physiology or geology or astronomy or 
 psychology— having shut his mind to all discov- 
 ery, resting complacently on the data of the past. 
 A teacher arises head and shoulders above the 
 crowd that surrounds him, and rants in "high- 
 falutin" phrases and platitudes without self- 
 evidence ; drives home logic, based on a ridiculous 
 hypothesis, or a self-asserted premise built from
 
 LIKE THE SHIELD OF ACHILLES 75 
 
 no known fact. He is cased in an armor, and 
 carries a shield "seven hides deep." His voice 
 is loud and far reaching, his foxy eyes glance side- 
 wise, he shows his teeth, he strikes at hidden ene- 
 mies, lurking in mid-heaven— demons of air and 
 sunbeam; he piles climax upon climax, as he soars 
 on the wings of speech; he manipulates words so 
 shrewdly that he seems to his appalled disciples 
 the very God. His tin helmet glitters, his "pol- 
 ished greaves" flash, his corslet throws fire. His 
 great sword slung from his shoulder in full view, 
 menaces and frightens. Altogether this teacher, 
 with head and shoulders above the crowd, seems 
 invincible; but let some one, no matter how hum- 
 ble, protected by a shield like that of Achilles, and 
 armored by Vulcan, challenge him, dare him to 
 enter the arena where dialectic wrangles are toler- 
 ated and truth brought to light, and he plays the 
 role of martyr at once, and "dies the death." 
 Why? Because the panoply of an Achilles is 
 bright and on the shield all things in heaven above 
 and earth below are as they are. 
 
 It is a bold revelation. The shield is a mirror 
 that reflects the truth, not pleasant always, but 
 nevertheless truth. It stands the test of the sharp- 
 est scrutiny and closest investigation. Micro- 
 scopic and telescopic eyes but bring to clearer view 
 its startling accuracies. He who dares to gird on 
 such armor dares to face fact. It is not learning 
 that entitles one to it, it is freedom from prejudice 
 and a willingness to be a peer of the universe as 
 it is, in all its myriad specializations and moods. 
 He who lifts up a shield like that of Achilles is
 
 76 STRAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 without delusions, but has the open mind. He is 
 the fighter, cutting his way through the resisting 
 world by sheer force of truth. The gods are on 
 his side— God. He may fall a thousand times, but 
 no power can hold him down. His flashing shield 
 mocks and blinds his enemy as does the full-orbed 
 sun; its ocean waves of light engulf and disturb 
 him; "The Pleiads and the Hyads and the 
 might of huge Orion burn into his very soul,— its 
 Discord, Tumult, ruthless Destiny make havoc of 
 his life. The armor of the Gods has laid him 
 low!
 
 WEEDS. 
 
 My neighbor hails me and demands that I cut 
 down my poplar trees— anger in his eye, scorn on 
 his lip. Why? "Because they shed their leaves." 
 Have you ever been to France, I ask, or Italy? 
 "No." "Well, let me alone then, for what is 
 Lombardy without its poplars, or what am I?" 
 
 This question of taste produces various effects, 
 some good others bad. If all people admired 
 the same type, all men's wives would look 
 alike, all husbands would be counterparts, there 
 would be few marriages by the way, houses would 
 be uniform, trees all of one species, cats all of one 
 stripe. It is well then that men disagree in mat- 
 ters of taste, for the awful uniformity of material 
 things bred from unanimous opinions in taste, 
 would level the human mind to inane monotony— 
 a sea without a wave, a desert without a hill. If 
 I like sweet fennel and my neighbor prefers cat- 
 tails, the stranger who passes, caring neither for 
 my neighbor nor myself, is nevertheless charmed. 
 But when a whole block of neighbors becomes 
 enamored of one idea, and that idea is a shaved 
 palm tree, I pity the stranger. To his untutored 
 eye it would seem that a trade's union painter had
 
 78 STKAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 varnished the whole lot of them, and if perchance 
 he be an artist, I pity him yet more. 
 
 According to a great philosopher of the present 
 era, humanity is forever seeking a moving 
 equilibrium, whatever that may mean, and if this 
 be so, it is also true that in seeking they contin- 
 ually bound back and forth between extremes. 
 Through this tireless polarity we get diversity in 
 taste, and from the tout ensemble of variety 
 beauty shows her eyes. If, however, at any time 
 nature's instinct to versatility is disturbed and 
 the matter of uniformity is taken in hand by man, 
 we get results to be sure, but such results! Gar- 
 dens with flower-beds modeled on five-pointed 
 stars, houses with wings exactly alike, chimney 
 pots of the same height, gargoyles with the iden- 
 tical grin, wall paper repeating its pattern till 
 the sick are made insane, carpets ditto, streets 
 straight, hills leveled, valleys raised, ditches 
 boxed, weeds annihilated — but, my subject is 
 weeds. 
 
 The Century Dictionary defines weeds as those 
 herbaceous plants which are useless and without 
 beauty or especially those which are troublesome. 
 It further says that the application of this general 
 term is relative. Handsome plants, such as the 
 oxeye daisy, cornflower, and the purple cowwheat, 
 are weeds to the agriculturist, flowers to the 
 esthetic. The exotics from cool countries are 
 sometimes weeds in the tropics. 
 
 So then I will not allow my neighbor to con- 
 demn me for cultivating weeds, so long as I raise 
 them on my own side of the fence. My eye simply 
 
 <
 
 WEEDS 79 
 
 gloats on the cheap, sun-dreading morning-glory, 
 a climber so beautifully wicked that it fears the 
 full light of day, except perhaps in Egypt, where 
 it dares the very noon itself. I gloat on its deli- 
 cate diabolism, its deuced purple and white 
 determination to strangle some useful plant, and 
 have its early morning passions and presump- 
 tions in spite of the scowl next door. I gloat over 
 my straggling democratic nasturtiums that claim 
 prior right to all lands entailed or unentailed, 
 wherever they can by squatting get a foot-hold, 
 staying for five years or a hundred, proving 
 possession in their case to be nine points of the 
 law. 
 
 I admire the courage of weeds, their radical 
 methods, their brass, nor do they bluff and blow 
 without cause,— a veritable sprawl of beauty,— 
 shocking to conservative plants, an almost shame- 
 less display of enticements that establish effects 
 in "local color," "bright patches," etc., being 
 amorously sought for by artists the world wide. 
 
 My neighbor objects to the falling of my poplar 
 leaves, and denounces them as litter. True, they 
 are a bit untidy, and lack the beauty of New Eng- 
 land death in October when the frost has painted it 
 until it becomes an illusion and seems like golden 
 russet life. Between two evils which shall I 
 choose? A cleanly disposed tree that deliberately 
 changes its clothes once a year and airs itself 
 naked in the meantime, or the evil of no magnifi- 
 cent stately poplar at all, a monotonous barren- 
 ness, a glare, a cement sidewalk, and a pair of 
 dark goggles for my eyes. Which evil? Why the
 
 80 STEAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 waving stately evil of my trees, dead leaves and 
 all, with the condemnation of those sun-shriveled 
 neat neighbors of mine thrown in. 
 
 All weeds are not vegetable; some are human. 
 They use us, of course— yes, even more, they make 
 use of us, but how they blossom! A weedless 
 world would be unnatural. If I may but serve 
 as a prop for some morning-glory weed of a 
 human, who greets the dawn with a smile, and 
 defies heaven's blue with its esthetic tints, I may 
 consider that I have a calling and election worthy 
 of a prop at least.
 
 WASTE PLACES. 
 
 How would it be, I wonder, if the ' ' civil author- 
 ities" the country over should take it into their 
 heads to seek out the vilest, most disreputable 
 places and transform them into veritable heavens. 
 How again if every householder should find the 
 plague spot in his house or yard and make it a 
 thing of beauty. "The desert were a paradise 
 if— the rose might blossom there." The human 
 race inclines greatly to improve the improved and 
 to make more vile the thing already smirched. 
 Like the kitchen-middens of prehistoric ages, a 
 modern dumping pile is cumulative, an ash heap 
 heterogeneous, and an alley promiscuous, all inten- 
 sifying their characteristics with the passage of 
 time. 
 
 Reformers there are and always have been, 
 overthrowing kings, unseating senators, reorgan- 
 izing communities, and improving religion, but 
 where is he who is destined to dethrone the mag- 
 nate squalor, and denude him of his rags. Suppose 
 a people, say those of the United States, rose sim- 
 ultaneously with this idea, let us see how it would 
 work. The "authorities" of each, finding their 
 damnation spot some pest-breeding, germ-develop- 
 ing, bad-smelling locality, would proceed to turn
 
 82 STEAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 it into a miniature paradise, its very rottenness 
 aiding them in the attempt, a kiosk or a classic 
 structure (a place for lilies and roses). While 
 the typical city is astonishing itself, the country 
 also is repairing its apparently irreparable spots 
 in its highways. Its most dilapidated bridge is 
 exchanged for something ornate, and its pregnant 
 beauties suffered to be born. Simultaneously with 
 this good work the typical householder discovers 
 that while his front yard boasts of a stereotyped 
 beauty like that of his neighbor, having 1 the trim- 
 med lawn, the trimmed hedges and the trimmed 
 trees, his can-adorned backyard is potential with 
 an original beauty about which his neighbor has 
 no concern. Why not make a mound of the old 
 rags, old bottles and old shoes, cover it with dirt 
 and plant vines there, sowing it thick with seeds? 
 Why not, in this rubbish-strewn back yard, so mix 
 its practical aspect with its natural intent that 
 green beauty and floral voluptuousness shall inter- 
 twine and "straggle and draggle" their unified 
 charm about in such free abandon that the house- 
 holder shall find himself eating, smoking and 
 reading there at all hours, lured more and more 
 by its consummate fascination. Now, suppose 
 that the well enough, the commonplace decencies 
 that are neither beautiful nor ugly be let severely 
 alone, and only the real vileness of the city, coun- 
 try and household be simultaneously attacked, 
 what would be the result after the passage of a 
 few months? 
 
 Not a house in the land would have a closet con- 
 taining a hidden corruption compared with which
 
 WASTE PLACES 83 
 
 the traditional skeleton is white and clean, not a 
 city with a sink of material iniquity, not an in- 
 habited country spot made dangerous by unright- 
 eous neglect. Suppose that the general uprising 
 causing an almost fanatic attack on these physical 
 evils should be accompanied by an equally insane 
 desire for light, so that the darkest and most loath- 
 some places should become as day, what then? 
 Blind alleys would be illuminated from end to end, 
 villainous resorts would glare with electric eyes, 
 treacherous pitfalls would yawn beneath arc 
 lamps, every cellar and every closet in every house 
 would have a possibility of sudden illumination. 
 
 Who can deny that if such a peculiar idea were 
 to suddenly strike the united population of some 
 favored land, say, for instance, America, that the 
 renovating instinct of making the last first, and 
 the worst best, in the material sense, might not 
 revolutionize the very race mind where the idea 
 originated, inciting humanity to seek out its un- 
 seen waste places, its interior loathsomeness of 
 which the extreme is symbolic, determining to 
 transform its most hideous propensities into ten- 
 dencies toward beauty supreme. This indeed 
 would not alone be a transformation of locality, 
 but one of energy also, turning hell into heaven, 
 death to life.
 
 THE WILD BEAST. 
 
 He climbs the highlands of old Turkestan, 
 
 And mid its ramparts dares the world and man; 
 
 "Where trailing cedars and dwarfed willows 
 
 thrive- 
 Cold, shivering, hunted, he is yet alive. 
 Along the Hindoo Koosh he stalks and glides, 
 And beings human, by his stealth, derides. 
 He sniffs the salt air blown cross Persian skies, 
 And laps the water where the rivers rise. 
 Where roll and rumble the Blue Nile and White 
 He wanders boldly through the day and night, 
 And on the edge of Africa he stares 
 Back at the land where Freedom lives and dares. 
 
 blessedness of clean Sahara air! 
 
 O purity of river springs and height! 
 Great wonder of the land of larches, where 
 
 The juniper and cedar seek the light; 
 Hot beauty of the haunts of the gazelle! 
 
 O'er Arab desert, where the antelope 
 Has wandered far, and felt the fawning spell 
 
 Of magic happiness and peace and hope; 
 Even where the poppy, saffron, madder, thrive,— 
 
 And almond trees sigh softly as they grow; 
 The leopard and the lion, fierce, alive, 
 
 Unrivaled, mid the sweating jungles go.
 
 THE WILD BEAST 85 
 
 Alas wild beast! confined within his cage, 
 
 For scent of free, wide air he'll long and fret. 
 No man can break his will, nor quell his rage, 
 
 The pine and almond he remembers yet. 
 The lichens, larches, cedars sadly call, 
 
 And arctic splendors beckon him and gleam; 
 The shining sands, grim heights— ah! all 
 
 He lost in life, he lives again in dream. 
 
 That the wild beast is not tame is evident, 
 but— what is a wild beast, and what a tame one? 
 
 A wild beast is defined as having many charac- 
 teristics; he is bold, brave, self-willed, and lives 
 in "a state of nature"— whatever that may mean. 
 If he is "Nature's own product," she is certainly 
 responsible for him, and judging by the flashing 
 eye, superb teeth and glossy coat of a wild beast, 
 she seems to be a pretty good mother. If, how- 
 ever, the wild beast is as self-willed as he is said 
 to be, how does it happen that he is everlastingly 
 tied to his mother Nature's apron strings? Pos- 
 sibly Nature does the most for those of her crea- 
 tures who ' ' shift for themselves ; ' ' their very will- 
 ful and free-lance tendencies making them true to 
 her after all; for are not freedom, boldness and 
 independence attributes of Nature's great soul? 
 And are not tame beasts simply travesties on her 
 ultimate self? This being so, she lets their teeth de- 
 cay, their claws grow dull, their coats become 
 rusty, their eyes dim; in fact, they are mangy- 
 servile, and lean for support on their captors and 
 subduers. Alas! Nature repudiates them, and in 
 "a state of culture"— spiritless, their glory de-
 
 86 STKAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 parted, they degenerate into useful creatures, pets 
 and slaves. 
 
 I am not altogether defending the wild beast, 
 or any living thing of earth, sea or air that is 
 self-willed and independent. Self-will often runs 
 into license, and that trait once manifested in any 
 creature on the planet, he is set upon if possible 
 and destroyed. But there is a self-will that is not 
 license, and the majority of wild beasts possess it, 
 with the exception, perhaps, of that wildest beast 
 of all— man himself. 
 
 Jungle animals hunt and kill for food, and fight 
 for stalking ground; but it is not evident that 
 the majority of them slaughter for the fun of it, 
 or to tone up their nervous systems, strengthen 
 their lungs with deep breathing, or purify their 
 blood and clarify their brains. Necessity and the 
 pangs of hunger drive them forth to prey upon 
 their victims, but surely not the romantic love of 
 adventure for adventure's sake, nor a desire to 
 collect specimens as proof positive of their prow- 
 ess and sterling worth. They demand the right 
 to life and freedom. A very humble demand after 
 all, and no greater than that made by man, who 
 screams at the top of his voice, "Give me liberty 
 or give me death l" 
 
 Of course, in the estimation of the ordinary in- 
 dividual, a beast or animal is not to> be considered 
 in the same category as man. The beast is in a 
 class by himself, the machine class, or if not the 
 machine class, in the created class, labeled and 
 ticketed for a certain destiny which is that of 
 slaving for humanity, or if not slaving, affording
 
 THE WILD BEAST 87 
 
 mankind its chance of recreation in chase, capture 
 and death, for the death's sake. God above— the 
 loving Father— made these poor brutes, as a 
 solace to man in his hours of ennui, a source of 
 excitement and blood-letting pleasure. He, the 
 loving Father, desired that man should feel the 
 thrill of thrills, the ultimate supreme joy of hound- 
 ing and stalking, and holding at bay some poor 
 four-legged brute that had presumed to assert a 
 little independence, and live in "a state of 
 nature. ' ' 
 
 I am not referring now to the right of mastery 
 one creature has over another— man' included— for 
 an ultimate beneficial object, say that of self -pro- 
 tection or preservation, but to that assumption of 
 right by which man preys upon other animals, 
 possibly less beastly than himself, for sport. 
 
 Now the climax of this sport is reached at the 
 time the hunted creature is caught and the killing 
 takes place. At this supreme moment the hunter's 
 reward is at hand. He thrills with his sense of 
 power; his heart beats a tattoo in his breast; his 
 blood mounts to his brain. His victim, whose love 
 of freedom is paramount though his body writhes, 
 is the exhibition upon which he gloats like a glut- 
 ton. It is a voluptuous sensation— nothing in the 
 line of nerve thrill quite equals it— and he thanks 
 and thanks again his "loving Father" for bestow- 
 ing upon him this supreme opportunity and ca- 
 pacity for revelling in this double extract of bliss. 
 The "four-legged" brute had not sinned nor at- 
 tacked him. He had been peaceably living his life, 
 in his own free, independent way in a "state of
 
 88 STEAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 nature". Perhaps I am wrong; possibly he had 
 sinned. What more unforgivable than to dare to 
 live thus? Only the hunter has the peremptory 
 right of self-will ; the hunted have but one object 
 in being, and that object is to serve their captor 
 and him only. 
 
 The beast is not the brother of man— no, no; 
 humanity never evolved from debased specimens— 
 never. Any theory like that of evolution that 
 implies such possibilities is preposterous. Man 
 and man only has rights! And the wild beast is 
 retreating farther and farther back into the wil- 
 derness, where a human being can find no habitat. 
 This intolerable, willful thing must be hunted out, 
 killed, stuffed and set up in a museum. The 
 naturalist needs him; the nature fakir must have 
 him; schools and colleges cannot get on without 
 him. Professors have a call to wrangle over him. 
 He is altogether a necessity to modernism. Nim- 
 rod, the mighty hunter, must "get busy." 
 
 So; this wild splendor of a beast— the lion with 
 a voice like thunder and a head like that of Olym- 
 pian Zeus— eyes anxious and pathetic, staring 
 over desert stretches for the sight of the enemy- 
 ears listening for the report of the deadly rifle- 
 nostrils moist and wide to catch the far scent of 
 danger; this king of beasts, tawny like strained 
 light— amber, golden, magnificent— stalking his 
 own loved territory, guarding his mate and his 
 cubs— is to die the death of shame, that man may 
 taste a supreme sensation and gloat over a 
 sanguineous bliss. Or if this king of wild beasts 
 is taken alive, he serves as an object of curiosity
 
 THE WILD BEAST 89 
 
 to crowds of sight-seers, who gaze amusedly at 
 the caged creature walking back and forth behind 
 the bars, restlessly doubling and turning himself 
 or staring ahead as if seeing a mirage, dim and 
 distant, of desert splendor and jungle beauty; his 
 eye fixed on an apparent vacancy, which, to him, 
 is filled with visions of other days when free, 
 dominant, he guarded his prescribed domain and 
 sneered at fate. 
 
 But the lion is not the only wild beast. Up 
 where the Ganges rises, the splendid tiger cools 
 his bright red tongue; haunting difficult places, 
 the crystal springs of sacred waters are offered 
 him for drink. Where the larch, lichen, trailing 
 cedars, birch, pine and juniper grow rank, the sly 
 fox hunts for shelter and a right of being. In the 
 high plateaus and inaccessible mountains, the 
 wolf, deer and wild goat, seek safety and a home. 
 The gazelle, too,— free, shy and beautiful, with 
 eyes like those of a woman in love, hides in un- 
 used places. The man-like chimpanzee and gorilla 
 have taken up land far from human quarters; 
 while the zebra, giraffe and elephant keep away 
 from countries pre-empted by their enemies— man- 
 kind. Even the small, dainty bits of "wild 
 beasts' ' strive hard to find unassailable quarters 
 and establish themselves for life. But, and but is 
 sometimes a portentous word, the more difficult 
 and inaccessible the stalking ground of the wild 
 beast, the more anxious man becomes to drive him 
 forth. No matter how safe he is from their 
 attacks, they are never safe from his. He hunts 
 the chamois for his skin, to be sure, also for sport
 
 90 STEAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 —and to get a constitutional. He shoots the deer 
 for the antlers that adorn, later on, his hunting 
 box; and the lion for his hide, to spread beneath 
 "my lady's feet." Man seems to be incessantly 
 tortured by the idea that these creatures defy 
 him, so he pleads excuse after excuse for ousting 
 and destroying them. He needs the exercise; his 
 liver is lazy; he must have the hide, the horns are 
 absolutely essential; life would be inane were he 
 deprived of these gifts and privileges which his 
 "Loving Father" has so beneficently bestowed. 
 
 So up where the lichen grows, on the great 
 Siberian plain, he hurries armed and equipped. 
 To the highlands of Turkestan and the Plateau 
 of Thibet, he scrambles, panting, out of breath. 
 To the desert of Iran he wends his way. To the 
 source of the great rivers in the Himalayas he 
 pushes. On the borders of Africa you see him, 
 and in the Soudan, or penetrating Libya> and 
 sniffing hungrily the keen air of the Sahara. He 
 is afraid of nothing when "his blood is up," and 
 the hunter's moon rises like a shield of gold from 
 the waste land of earth. He only is entitled to 
 freedom. Wild beasts who have pre-empted far 
 quarters he has no use for; and though they 
 severely let him alone, they must, nevertheless, be 
 routed out, tortured and killed, that his supremacy 
 may be assured— and his health and liver pre^ 
 served. 
 
 Great God in Heaven! where in destiny is that 
 mirage of a millenium, promised by one of old, 
 when the lion and the lamb shall lie down together
 
 THE WILD BEAST 91 
 
 and cruelty and blood debauchery be consigned to 
 perdition 1 
 
 Of course, there must be killing on this old 
 earth of ours. The " fittest" is bound to survive; 
 for self-preservation and self-protection all living 
 things are destroying and eating one another. 
 But if through cruel necessity that condition must 
 be, why add to it willful slaughter for sport, and 
 the love of slaying for the slaying 's sake? 
 
 I have heard that the sin of sins, the unforgiv- 
 able transgression, is that against the Holy Ghost. 
 What comes nearer being that deadly sin than 
 the rampant orgy experienced by the human soul 
 when it revels in brute killing, for the thrills it 
 brings? The sin of the sportsman is not visited 
 upon the victim, for he can die but once, but upon 
 his own soul, which it eats and cankers. He 
 brutalizes himself and those divine powers given 
 him for celestial enjoyment. His bliss in«>his- act 
 of killing is Mephistophelian. Yet should this ex- 
 treme view of the question be presented to him, 
 he would laugh, and declare that his premise for 
 life is quite different, and therefore" he feels justi- 
 fied in his attitude toward the brute creation; in 
 fact, these wild beasts were bestowed upon him 
 as a gift by his " Loving Father" to do with as 
 he wills, and therefore he has no apology to make 
 here or hereafter.
 
 MAN AND WOMAN, OR WOMAN AND 
 MAN- WHICH? 
 
 I can imagine a composite man, made up of the 
 characteristics of the different males of various 
 countries to date, laying down the law to a com- 
 posite woman who stands beside him. "I am the 
 one," he says; "you, woman, are but an adden- 
 dum — an afterthought. God made me, or I 
 evolved, it does not matter which, and you came 
 later at my desire, as a solace for my hours of 
 ease. You were given into my hands to do with as 
 I see fit, exactly as were the birds of the air, the 
 beasts of the field, and the fishes of the sea. Look 
 at my brawn, my brain, my size— now what are 
 you going to do about it?" And the "down-to- 
 date" woman shrugs her shoulders and stares im- 
 pudently into his eyes. "Never mind," he goes 
 on, "you can sneer and rail and scoff, but before 
 you begin, let me call your attention to some in- 
 controvertible facts. See those pyramids defying 
 time, monsters on the edge of Libya,— I did that! 
 See the Sphinx and the mighty pillars of Thebes 
 and Baalbec,— I did that! See those miracles of 
 architecture in India, and those exquisite temples 
 of Cathay and Japan,— I did that! Look at those 
 black tunnels under mountain chains, those for-
 
 MAN AND WOMAN 93 
 
 tresses and castles; glance along the great wall 
 of China,— I did that! Stare over the ocean and 
 watch the craft as they come and go; the steam- 
 ship, the white-winged sailboat. Gaze at the 
 thousands of miles of steel rail, and the freight 
 and palace cars, pulled by the iron horse, anni- 
 hilating distance between seas— I did that! Be- 
 hold the balloon and the airship mounting to the 
 zenith ; see the diving bell and the submarine boat 
 descending to the depths — I did that! Notice 
 carefully the lens of the telescope, how exquisite- 
 ly it is ground, wooing the stars out of heaven by 
 its clarity, fineness and power— I did that! Just 
 examine this miscroscope, bringing new worlds to 
 light and new possibilities to the fore; consider 
 the revelations of the X-ray and the N; glance at 
 your telephone, please, and the wireless,— I did 
 that! Why, madam, the very garments you wear 
 are the result of my effort, mine. Your furs, your 
 shoes, your shoe-strings, those barbarisms on your 
 headgear, are a gift from me. The gems on your 
 fingers, the gold in your teeth, are due to my in- 
 genuity,— I did all that! The house you live in, 
 the bed you sleep on, the food you devour, the 
 carriage you ride in— you have to thank me for- 
 me! me! The really great pictures that your eyes 
 gloat upon, a large proportion of the literature 
 you read, the music that charms you, are due to 
 me." 
 
 "But you swear, sir," interrupts the composite 
 woman, shrugging her shoulders again; "you get 
 drunk, sir, your mind is defiled, your thoughts are 
 impure. ' '
 
 94 STRAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 "Drunk!" he sneers, "even you would indulge 
 had you such a marvelous record over which to 
 glory and boast. Now what have you to say about 
 me— am I not master as well as man?" 
 
 The woman stares long in his eyes without 
 quailing; indeed, the expression in her own is 
 sneering and defiant. 
 
 "No one doubts that you manipulate matter 
 very well, ' ' she answers, with a drawl that carries 
 in it a deal of contempt. "Your mind even is 
 quite godlike; but how about yourself as such? 
 You are ugly, straight, flat— the beauty of curves 
 is not yours. You grow a coarse beard on your 
 face; you are far from neat; you smoke a vile 
 cigar, expectorate tobacco juice, and say vulgar 
 and impossible things; you boast and brag and 
 preach, but fail to practice; you fight and knock 
 your enemy down. Altogether as a person, apart 
 from your achievements, you are mostly con- 
 temptible. But look at me, how beautiful I am! 
 Examine the texture and color of my skin ; glance 
 into my eyes and behold how my soul leaps 
 through them; look at my rounded form, my deli- 
 cate hands, tipped with rose-leaf nails ; watch my 
 dainty ways and note my disgust of filth and nasty 
 speech. I am an interior being, the mother of 
 you, the male. I do for you what no man can; 
 I mould and form you for nine long months. My 
 heart is all devotion. I am very, very pure, finer 
 grained than you— a superior being! You can- 
 not bring forth a child, how dare you, sir, present 
 your mere mechanical contrivances and dead- 
 weight monstrosities as in any way comparable
 
 MAN AND WOMAN 95 
 
 with that which I can do in actually producing 
 an organized person, which is yourself— you! 
 Yes, I am the mother of man, and that man you. 
 The cause is certainly equal to the effect." She 
 towers over him and struts slightly. 
 
 "Possibly," he answers, scowling. "You have 
 materialized a Frankenstein in producing me. 
 When you huddled my bones, muscles and skin 
 together in a male form, how did you know but 
 that this so-called masculine 'effect' of yours 
 might strangle and murder you? What is to 
 hinder me from annihilating you altogether? You 
 are utterly in my power and at my mercy. I can 
 make of you a beast of burden less valued than 
 my horse or ox, I can force you to perpetual 
 motherhood or perpetual degradation, I can lock 
 you up and condemn you to ignorance— I can even 
 make you love me and grovel at my feet ! ' ' 
 
 She shrugs her shoulders again; the composite 
 woman has acquired this habit. 
 
 "True," she answers, "you can debase, de- 
 bauch and imprison me, but should you wipe me 
 off the face of the earth, you annihilate yourself 
 also. And as for love, I may simulate it in order 
 to preserve my life, but the real thing you can 
 never compel me to give. Cupid will have none 
 of you, you beast! Would you be loved you must 
 give love in return ; once feeling that emotion you 
 cannot mistreat the object upon which you vent it. 
 This question is self-settling, sir." She struts 
 again, and defies him with her eyes. 
 
 "Love is a mere side issue," he asserts, snap-
 
 96 STEAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 pislily. ' ' The grand passion is a disease ; man gets 
 over it after a time— then what?" 
 
 "You prove yourself a liar," she retorts; "for 
 have you not called me ' the fairest, ' have you not 
 said that to be with me was like dwelling in an 
 orchard of spikenard and saffron, calamus and 
 cinnamon, with all the trees of frankincense, 
 myrrh and aloes? Have you not likened me to 
 the 'lily among the thorns?' Have you not told me 
 that I am as 'a fountain of gardens, a well of 
 living waters'?" 
 
 The tears begin to flow from her eyes, and she 
 bows her head. Then the composite man, dumb- 
 founded, looks about him for a place of egress. He 
 can fight her to the point of hatred, but when she 
 weeps, he is beside himself. Eight here there 
 appears a sage upon the scene. He is not a typ- 
 ical ' ' wise man, ' ' aged, bearded and on the verge 
 of senility. On the contrary, he is erect and in 
 his prime, with eyes quick-moving and temperate. 
 His bearing expresses power without bombast- 
 authority without assumption. He steps between 
 this man and woman and looks them in the eyes. 
 
 "Why such distress and misunderstanding?" 
 he asks. "What is it all about?" 
 
 "You are a philosopher," blurts the man; "you 
 ought to know." 
 
 "Sit down and let us discuss this matter," in- 
 sists the sage. "You are both aggressive, and 
 there is danger of a quarrel." 
 
 "Yes, and of a divorce," remarks the composite 
 woman. 
 
 "Impossible," asserts the philosopher. "The
 
 MAN AND WOMAN 97 
 
 negative and positive can never get rid of each, 
 other; soi let me see if the harmony necessary to 
 amicable relations between you two can be dis- 
 covered. For the sake of politeness and the priv- 
 ileges supposed to be her due, I will begin with 
 this woman's assumptions." 
 
 "But I do not want any privileges," she asserts, 
 hotly; "justice is all I ask!" 
 
 "Very well, then. First, you make claim to 
 superior beauty. As a man thinketh, so is he, 
 and I presume this rule applies to woman also 1 . 
 Therefore, as you are quite assured that you are 
 more beautiful than man, your certainty counts 
 for something. Besides, man in his passion has 
 filled your soul with this idea, using flattery as a 
 means to obtain his desires, and you in your 
 credulity believed him; indeed, for the time being 
 he was honest, for while his passion lasted your 
 fascinations were certainly genuine. Therefore, 
 you have reason for your assumption of beauty. 
 But, remember, it is the jack-o'-lantern of the 
 mating season appearing and vanishing on the 
 wings of sex emotion." 
 
 "Next you assert your purity as evidence of 
 your superiority over man. Now, my dear mother 
 of man, remember that being a composite, you 
 are made up of the traits of saint and sinner; in 
 you are the fires of the courtesan and the religious 
 devotee, the woman of the brothel and the nun of 
 the cloister. Do not imagine that torpid physical 
 conditions stand for innocence nor ignorance. 
 Purity is fire blazing in high places ; purity is not 
 atrophy; purity is temptation resisted, not the
 
 98 STRAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 lack of temptation. More negative than your 
 enemy, the male, you may or may not be more 
 pure. So please lay no stress upon your superior- 
 ity on that score. But your claim for a higher 
 place in the universe than belongs to your oppo- 
 site, is because you have given him birth 
 after forming and nourishing him; and this 
 assumption is certainly worth looking into. In 
 fact, had you in reality created him, you might 
 well rest on the apex of achievement. But there 
 is nothing to prove in science, to date, that you 
 did more in the nine months that you mothered 
 him, than to help him clothe himself in a body of 
 flesh. There is nothing to prove that he is not an 
 eternal being making use of you temporarily as 
 a means toward reincarnation. I do not assert 
 that this is so; I simply challenge you to prove 
 the contrary. One thing, however, you may be 
 sure of— you can do something that he cannot; 
 that is, mother the child within the zone of your 
 own body." 
 
 ''Now let me look into his side of the question, 
 and see if he can make his egoistic claims good. 
 You Twentieth Century composite man! Point 
 with just pride at your great achievements which 
 certainly are gigantic, but I see no reason why 
 they might not have been done by woman, minus 
 the maternal capacity. Woman seems to be you 
 with something added, namely, maternity, which 
 addition amounts to a subtraction, as a certain 
 proportion of her years and strength goes toward 
 the exercise of this extra faculty. Now suppose 
 the world of women ceased to exercise this latter
 
 MAN AND WOMAN 99 
 
 prerogative, except in a certain number of selected 
 cases set apart for the reproduction of the human 
 race, and spent a century or more in developing 
 brain and muscle equally with man. Is there any- 
 thing to prove that she would fall behind him in 
 the arts, sciences, or physical achievements? If 
 history or legend have a base of truth, there have 
 been times when women, the Amazons, for in- 
 stance, were capable of herculean attainments; 
 and the sporadic cases all through history show 
 that she has possibilities in her of producing 
 masterpieces under unusual conditions. The ex- 
 ceptional women of all ages prove what the gen- 
 eral level might be under favorable environment. 
 So, my vain composite man, when crowing over 
 your material achievements, remember that 
 woman, taking advantage of the higher educa- 
 tion, attending colleges and remaining unmarried 
 until far advanced in youth, reduces her child- 
 bearing period to fifteen or twenty years. This, 
 with the fact that her knowledge of hygienics and 
 physical culture, will probably greatly prolong 
 her life, gives her in a period of, say eighty years, 
 sixty or more for other work than that of pro- 
 creation. Now there is no telling what splendid 
 achievements she may be equal to in this half 
 century or more, when her education shall have 
 so advanced as to act as a stimulant to her crea- 
 tive powers. The fainting, clinging, uneducated, 
 much-married woman is out of fashion. The time 
 she once spent in making a patch-work quilt is 
 now devoted to study or athletics, and in a few 
 decades a quite different feminine specimen will
 
 100 STRAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 walk the earth from her who lives and moves 
 today. 
 
 "But, setting all this aside, from whatever 
 standpoint you judge, remember that mathematic- 
 ally speaking, woman plus maternity, minus the 
 strength and time lost through it, equals you with 
 your unadulterated aptitude for mechanical and 
 intellectual achievement. Eemember, too, that 
 your power over her body, enabling you to im- 
 prison or debauch it, is fully balanced by her 
 power over your very physical existence itself; 
 or if not over your physical existence, at least 
 over what sort of life and body you shall have. 
 
 So you two imperishable, opposite poles of the 
 same thing— man and woman— standing for the 
 negative and positive in being or the inner and 
 outer, forget not that this is after all but a sex 
 relationship, and that each of you beyond and 
 above your gender is an individual, destined to 
 manifest in a million forms during an eternity of 
 being. Once believing this, for the sake of peace, 
 I pray you, cease your boasting and your wrang- 
 ling as to which is higher or lower or first or 
 last ; and see that one of you is in no way superior 
 as an entity to the other, and that in the long 
 run and general round up you stand shoulder to 
 shoulder, the brand burnt into you both being the 
 mark human and therefore good!"
 
 CHEAP VERBIAGE. 
 
 It is the easiest thing imaginable to call names; 
 a street ruffian is quite equal to it, to say nothing 
 of a child; therefore when a college professor 
 pronounces women savages, and a minister of the 
 gospel declares that men are beasts, the appella- 
 tions pass for face value and nothing more. The 
 word "fool" hissed at another may set the 
 calumniator burning in everlasting fires, or pro- 
 ducing but a flash go out like a firecracker. It is 
 quite easy to say things, but often exceedingly 
 difficult to verify them and stand by results. 
 Even my so-called proofs may rest on a faulty 
 premise, and therefore have no effect save that of 
 kindling flames of indignation wherever the sparks 
 of my ill-sorted words hit. Seeing but the outer 
 appearance of Mr. Innocence, I may pronounce him 
 a heartless iceberg; could I get into the recesses 
 of his divine soul, I should possibly discover a 
 seething volcano. It is rather daring to dabble 
 in strong terms as regards the inaccessible. If I 
 know a thing thoroughly I am justified in denoun- 
 cing or applauding it in sharp language. I may 
 pick it up with a pointed stick of a word and 
 transfix it for the world to stare at, but before I
 
 102 STRAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 presume on anything* so radical I would better be 
 sure of myself and the thing that I have in hand. 
 
 The cheapness of language and the richness of 
 vocabulary impel the sage to be laconic. Pedantry 
 he despises, sentimentality he avoids, bullet-words 
 fired from the throat of a street Apache are to 
 him a horror. So being entirely wise, he rarely 
 calls names, and seldom uses reviling terms. Sel- 
 dom, I say, for sometimes he makes exceptions 
 and pronounces an anathema more terrible than 
 the ecclesiastical curse, because in the heart of it 
 sits truth, virgin and enshrined. 
 
 Truth then is the only excuse for calling names 
 —truth absolute and relative, truth unassailable 
 and beyond question. It is easy to see how rarely a 
 strong term can honestly be used, and why the 
 wise of earth though speaking with authority 
 avoid exaggeration. The chances are that strings 
 of names applied indiscriminately to some object 
 are like a glaring advertisement spread upon its 
 windows as "a send-off" to the poster himself. 
 He sees no other way of getting famous; or lack- 
 ing mental fibre he perhaps attempts to i l kill two 
 birds with one stone,"— the winged abstraction 
 and the soaring individual exalted by it. Inflated 
 by egotism he thinks he has them down, but more 
 likely he himself is prone and they untouched fly 
 on. The man, whether a teacher or poacher, who 
 calls such names as "ninny," "beast," "savage," 
 ' ' consummate fool, ' ' etc. has some motive or other. 
 Probably he seeks self-aggrandizement through a 
 cheap method of advertising; if not that, he is 
 likely after revenge, hoping to down his enemy
 
 CHEAP VEEBIAGE 1D3 
 
 with his slanderous tongue. Possibly he is justi- 
 fied, and pronounces a maranatha that "rings 
 true" and final. Whatever his reason, he is on 
 fighting ground and can never stand against re- 
 turn attack unless armed with good weapons and 
 trained to the firing line.
 
 THE THOUGHTS THAT KILL. 
 
 Thought is said to be dynamic, but what does 
 the term dynamic mean? Does it pertain to 
 mechanical forces not in equilibrium, or in equili- 
 brium? According to the authorities, it always 
 involves the consideration of force and therefore 
 motion. It is a vague word, applied indiscrimi- 
 nately to religion, philosophy and morals. The 
 nearest we can come to accuracy in defining it is 
 to call dynamics the mathematics of force and the 
 science of motion. Now is thought dynamic, that 
 is, can we call it an equilibrated or unequilibrated 
 force? Does it move? Can it be reckoned with 
 mathematically? If so, do we realize what a 
 power thought is? Thought, mind you, is not 
 speech, for the latter in expressing it is likely to 
 weaken its projectile power. 
 
 I want in this paper to consider thought as such, 
 quite apart from its written or spoken symbolisms. 
 The whole world is thinking and that means, if 
 our hypothesis be correct, that thought has its 
 element of force in motion; that a terrific impact 
 of energy is bombarding us at all times, night and 
 day, giving us shock upon shock, the source of 
 which is beyond our ken. Put squarely, this is 
 an awful assumption, and it is a wonder that we
 
 THE THOUGHTS THAT KILL 105 
 
 can stand before it and persist in maintaining our 
 individuality. The unseen world is a fearful bat- 
 tle ground, where thought unshielded crashes 
 upon thought,— force meeting force with diabolic 
 persistence, idea embracing idea in the clutch of 
 marriage or death, energies defying energies with 
 devilish mathematical certainty, dynamics ruling 
 fate and humbling individualism to its knees. I 
 can think and so can you, and that is what is the 
 matter. Animals, too, whether reasoners or not, 
 can cogitate and mingle in this hideous contest 
 indiscriminately. Thought is like lightning in the 
 way it strikes. Whence it comes, whither it goes, 
 how or whom it will hit, is beyond the common 
 herd to ascertain, and our only defense is in strik- 
 ing back with the same kind of projectile energy 
 that has proved itself antagonistic. 
 
 Before going further in this investigation I pro- 
 pose to find a definition for thought and another 
 for reason; peering at the same time into the ani- 
 mal's mind to discover where to place him in this 
 battle ground of dynamics. 
 
 First, then, what is thought? The act of think- 
 ing might be simply defined as consciousness of 
 certain phenomena belonging together, suggested 
 primarily by the senses, but held intact inwardly 
 till they develop into a motion true to itself 
 throughout; one that can be revived at any time 
 as a whole, standing apart, defiant of other 
 motions. In thinking, we get a suggestion from 
 outside, and about it we weave a series of judg- 
 ments, comparing it with other notions hereto^ 
 fore conceived. In a sense, thought contains some
 
 106 STEAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 small percentage of reasoning, though the reasoner 
 himself may be quite unaware that his mind has a 
 logical tendency. Thought involves within itself 
 the elements of doubt, purpose and will. Thought 
 lies within thought, that is, a simple notion may 
 be reflected upon until it becomes more and more 
 subtle and complex, far removed from the original 
 concept, yielding in a sort of last analysis the 
 very texture and mathematics of thinking itself. 
 Now what is reason? Reason seems to be a 
 form of reckoning or summing up of notions,— a 
 finding of relationships between them; it amounts 
 to an emphatic judgment, and results in decision 
 or action. Thought pure and simple seems less 
 purposeful, it is contemplative and meditative, 
 but when it culminates in decision, it were better 
 called reason, and is generally borne out by a line 
 of conduct. Reason being a just relationship of 
 facts, from the generalized point of view becomes 
 a kind of universal intelligence, a recognized logic 
 of events, and sequence of particulars bound to be, 
 because of the law of relativity or cause and effect. 
 From this definition of reason, animals are cer- 
 tainly reasonable, though some enthusiasts on 
 comparative animal psychology claim to the con- 
 trary. What animals are or are not in the think- 
 ing world depends upon how thought and reason 
 are defined. Given a major premise in logic and 
 the minor premise deduced is the reason— perhaps 
 this explanation will decide whether the beast 
 uses reason or not. How do we deduce a minor 
 premise from a major except through inference 
 based on experience? The first or major premise
 
 THE THOUGHTS THAT KILL 107 
 
 is an accepted fact or axiom because of experience, 
 and the minor has its normal relationship as a 
 legitimate and reasonable successor. Do animals 
 fail to recognize the universal truth of a major 
 premise, whatever it may be, and find out by a 
 series of experiments the validity of the minor? 
 This is the question under fire today, and from 
 its present state might be answered either way. 
 Man, however, most assuredly reasons logically, 
 by the nature of mind itself, and this reason 
 which includes innumerable reasons, while it 
 necessitates thought, can hardly be defined as 
 such. All brainy creatures think more or less, 
 that is, they are teeming with opinions, ideas and 
 beliefs, and of course this thinking is reasonable 
 or unreasonable, as the case may be based on, or 
 devoid of facts. Thought can be listed and regis- 
 tered—fact related logically to fact, or it may be 
 a loose array of notions, ideas and dreams, backed 
 by terrific energy that gives it dynamic potency 
 without an element of sequence or truth to justify 
 its being. Thought, then, unbalanced by the ele- 
 ment of reason, and active with force, is dangerous, 
 and more likely than not will maim or kill. Now 
 in the finality we do not know what force is, nor 
 the reason for thought and consciousness. Sec- 
 ondarily, however, we understand the working of 
 the laws by which consciousness and thought 
 become possible, also the essentials that go to 
 make up reason and all that pertains thereto. 
 We know that no thought can be without an 
 expense of energy, and therefore the assumption 
 is not preposterous when we infer that thought
 
 108 STRAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 is dynamic. We know also that all thought takes 
 form and symbolizes itself in some sort of figure, 
 expressing itself internally in the same dimen- 
 sions and outlines that exterior objects assume; 
 therefore it is not too great an assumption to 
 claim that thoughts are things. 
 
 Presuming then that thoughts are dynamic, to 
 an extent unreasonable, and also things, if our 
 hypothesis be tenable, we can readily see what a 
 terrible means of destruction they might become 
 under favoring conditions. Bombarded by the 
 thoughts of others we certainly are, though per- 
 haps in a haphazard way; now imagine such a 
 bombardment done with deliberate intention by 
 some individual who has a special object to gain. 
 Sent directly to its mark, the unconscious recipient 
 of this fusilade or dynamic discharge that is 
 freighted with suggestions diabolic and damning, 
 must in course of time succumb to the malignant 
 attack. Unless put upon the defensive he will be 
 as literally murdered by outer suggestions as 
 though he were battered down with a ram. 
 
 All this seems quite possible if thoughts are 
 dynamic things projected by will at an unpro- 
 tected object. What is to be done about it, you 
 ask, if such an assumption is proven to be fact? 
 As fire is the remedy for fire, so thought must 
 fight thought, or rather negative it. Suppose I 
 send thoughts malignant with hatred, like whiz- 
 zing bullets straight at a man's soul, and sup- 
 pose, too, that they glance off that soul and have 
 no effect— why! Simply because he has shielded 
 himself with ''dynamic things" of his own. The
 
 THE THOUGHTS THAT KILL 109 
 
 mathematics of energy has been reckoned on in 
 his case; forms of his own conception are giants 
 that stand guard, panoplied and immune. His 
 "thought forms" are resistive Titans, and from 
 their gleaming shields the darts of the enemy fall 
 harmless. Even a rushing onslaught of those evil 
 demons, themselves fighting tooth and nail with 
 his own strong phalanx, are unable to throw it 
 down. 
 
 Man then can "think off" the thoughts of others 
 and stand comparatively aloof, or unguarded he 
 may become a clear-cut target for intentional or 
 unintentional attacks. He lives in a veritable 
 chaos of thought forms, dynamic and mathemat- 
 ically forceful, nevertheless is safe and protected 
 by a reasoning power of his own without which 
 he would be thrown down and destroyed. What 
 then are the thoughts that kill another who sets 
 up no defense and is utterly unprepared for 
 attack? 
 
 Suppose, for instance, that I deliberately direct 
 my thinking powers toward the belittling and 
 disgrace of an apparent friend. I depreciate him 
 mentally, night and day; I think of him as degen- 
 erate, small, mean; I condemn him constantly and 
 despise him without mercy— subtly, silently, I 
 bombard him with ideas of contempt, never for 
 an instant qualifying my condemnations with a 
 grain of charity. In time somehow, without 
 knowing why, he will begin to lose his self-respect, 
 to see himself with my eyes, to judge himself with 
 my mind. Feeling himself contemptible, he will 
 begin to act the part, and his downward course
 
 110 STRAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 once begun, he will lose no time in striking bot- 
 tom,— a victim of my murderous energy directed 
 with forethought at the very foundation of his 
 honor and uprightness; worse, I remain unhung, 
 unpunished, as far as the world goes, while he is 
 denied a burying spot in a decent graveyard, or a 
 single excuse for his degenerate conduct. 
 
 The deadly danger of my act lies in its secrecy. 
 I deliberately set about to exert my power, hold- 
 ing my tongue speechless, that the potency of my 
 devilish spell may be more pronounced. I am not 
 the slanderer nor backbiter, nor the gossip, not 
 at all; on the contrary, I preserve a ''golden si- 
 lence," and utterly mislead my companions as to 
 the quiet diabolism of my deed. Of course, there 
 will be a round-up and I shall get my deserts and 
 the brand of my kind stamped in, but in the mean- 
 time I go about my daily tasks a smiling good 
 fellow, approved of and applauded by the world 
 at large. 
 
 Murderers are more common than we think, and 
 the slain by unknown causes that mystify the 
 coroner are being shoveled under ground every 
 day of our lives.
 
 FOOD. 
 
 Alcohol is not food; alcohol is a stimulant. Food 
 is a builder, and in process of combustion adds 
 something besides a temporary exhilaration to 
 the blood. Food contains within itself the neces- 
 sary elements for the reconstruction of the body. 
 Alcohol, on the contrary, is destructive, and by 
 its over excitation of the cells and organs pro- 
 duces reactions that are distinctly injurious. All 
 stimulants deal more or less in this way, but alco- 
 hol in any form is the king of destroyers. He 
 who cheats himself with the idea that alcohol is 
 an emergency-aid to digestion, a food by proxy, 
 so to speak, is entertaining a fiend in the mask 
 of a priest. Alcohol comes graciously into the 
 system, soothing or exhilarating it as the case 
 may be, and he who imbibes it feels, for the time 
 being, as though a hooded monk were blessing 
 him with the sacrament. All sweet and good 
 things uplift themselves in his mind; he loves his 
 friends more tenderly, he thinks more clearly, his 
 heart and mind go out to every living thing in 
 sympathy; his ambition swells to bursting, he 
 longs for world upon world to conquer— even the 
 stars;— the Priest of all good is showering bless- 
 ings on his head. Ah ! suddenly, without warning,
 
 112 STRAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 the aspect of this Bonze, called of God, becomes 
 malignant and the victim of his machinations 
 finds himself slightly incoherent in his thought. 
 His ideas, so clear a moment before, fail to co-or- 
 dinate; the love so welling and deep an instant 
 ago turns to jealousy and suspicion. What has 
 happened to him? He has been tippling, that is 
 all. Tired with work he slipped off into the coun- 
 try or up to the mountain top, and drank a few 
 glasses of beer "in order to build himself up," 
 tone his nerves and make him "good and ready" 
 for another battle with life. He imagines his food 
 will assimilate better if he adds alcohol to the 
 combination; in, fact, he imagines all sorts of 
 things just because he wants to find an excuse 
 for indulging a bad habit. 
 
 Now food pure and simple is stimulating also, 
 but it is the natural exultant uplift of a real 
 climb, there is nothing fictitious about the rise. 
 On a well-digested, assimilated meal, a man does 
 not mentally ascend to the heights of heart and 
 intellect in a balloon that bursts in mid-air and 
 drops him ignominiously to earth. The stimula- 
 tion of food is normal ; in fact, the pleasure result- 
 ant is an index of work well done. A true addi- 
 tion has been made in the bank of man's physical 
 being; there is something to show for it. The 
 figures in his book of accounts stand for substan- 
 tiate. He commands something better than credit ; 
 he has product instead. 
 
 Now there are stimulants so mildly gentle in 
 their reactions that their effect is practically 
 harmless and the pleasure they give justifies their
 
 FOOD 113 
 
 moderate use. But once and for all, let me say 
 to you that alcohol is not one of them. "Danger! 
 poison!" should be written on every bottle. 
 "Handle with care" is not sufficient. Only a 
 physician in case of great emergency is able to 
 do even that. 
 
 How beautifully alcohol flashes in the light! 
 Amber, old rose, silver, all the gems sparkling in 
 liquid splendor in its drops. The sun turns them 
 to diamonds, the moon to opals. Alas, it is enti- 
 cing,— like a courtesan! To mingle in it, to be one 
 with it, is what you crave and anticipate. It has 
 excited your appetite— and so does food, you say. 
 Yes, but with a difference. Unless you are fam- 
 ished, starving, your normal hunger is a sane, 
 reasonable desire to put something adaptable into 
 your body in the place of that used up. It is a 
 simple restoration accompanied by a temperate 
 craving. But when the longing seizes you for 
 stimulant, it is apt to become frantic. If you 
 cannot satisfy it openly, you will take devious 
 ways to gratify it. It is the lust of the palate, 
 the throat, the stomach, the whole being. Food 
 soon satisfies a healthy appetite, but the craving 
 for alcohol is insatiable. As a rule, the more you 
 have, the more you want, and although you pam- 
 per and indulge this longing, like an evil woman,, 
 it "turns and rends you". 
 
 I have thus far been speaking of food as such 
 in a generalized sense, and by using the word 
 food I have absolutely covered the question. For 
 food is food, that is, a body builder, and anything 
 that fails to do this, be it bread, meat, vegetable
 
 114 STEAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 or fruit, is not food at all. I may eat a hearty 
 meal of wholesome material, and it may make 
 me desperately sick; it was not food for me. 
 Pood comprises two factors, the substance and 
 the recipient. Two essentials are necessary that 
 food may deserve its appellation, namely, raw 
 material and a good digestive organism. You 
 may haul lumber to a vacant lot, but if the master 
 carpenter and his assistants are not on hand the 
 structure will fail to rise. So grain, meat, vege- 
 tables and fruit become food at just that point 
 where they are assimilated and turned into build- 
 ing material for body. ''What is one man's 
 meat is another man's poison," is true of food, 
 but not of such a commodity as alcohol. It has 
 essentially, as far as body is concerned, one ele- 
 ment, namely, that of rabid stimulation, and is 
 without exception every man's poison. True, this 
 power of quick stimulation may under dire ex- 
 tremity act as a rebuff to death, warding it off till 
 other factors can get to work; but outside this 
 possibility it has no excuse for being, either in 
 medicine or the pleasurable physical life of man. 
 Extreme cases, such as a terrible accident, or 
 absolute heart failure, are like those others where 
 ether and chloroform are indispensable in hos- 
 pital operations; they are exceedingly rare, and 
 do not come under the head of our ordinary ex- 
 periences in life. 
 
 There are food cranks who lay down explicit 
 rules as to what a man shall or shall not eat. 
 There are others again who preach hygienic con- 
 ditions of body and let the food question take its
 
 FOOD 115 
 
 own gait. Of course, there are well-known food- 
 stuffs, without which man could not subsist, and 
 he in his enthusiasm for them forgets that with- 
 out a good stomach they are practically useless. 
 An individual writes books and books on the 
 value of wheat, and another publishes pamphlets 
 on how to develop and maintain class A digestive 
 organs. I am quite certain that he who has ac- 
 quired the latter will take no issue with the author 
 on the food values in wheat. 
 
 Food, as I said before, is only such under con- 
 ditions, namely, a good builder and something to 
 build with. Now a person might as well put 
 rocks into his stomach as grain, if it is cancerous 
 or burning with inflammation. Whatever is there 
 will "lie like a stone"— even wheat. 
 
 Fasting has been and still is, among religious 
 bodies, a great remedy, where the man is incapa- 
 ble of making food for himself. If he would go 
 off when he is "run down" to some high moun- 
 tain or near the sea, or onto the great plain, and 
 instead of slyly or perhaps conscientiously taking 
 stimulant, fast, he would be astonished at the 
 result. This fasting need never be absurdly done, 
 he simply reduces his food substance to minimum, 
 giving the overstocked body, loaded with mate- 
 rial not food, a chance to free itself. 
 
 Food is a valuable commodity. Much that is 
 taken in at the mouth is incapable of being made, 
 through the chemical processes going on in the 
 digestive organs, into food at all. Once in a man 
 it proceeds to clog and incapacitate him, and fast- 
 ing is his best method of getting rid of it. Jesus
 
 116 STEAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 came " eating and drinking"; he also came * 'fast- 
 ing and praying." The whole food secret lies in 
 the assimilation of the products used for the sup- 
 port of life, and the demon to be conquered every 
 time is that one called "over supply," which is 
 greater than the demand. The palate is a mis- 
 chievous thing. Its primal object no doubt was 
 to seduce men into eating, but its seductiveness 
 overreached itself and set the human being to 
 gorging and imbibing. 
 
 I began this paper with a reference to alcohol 
 as not food, believing that by showing the eccen- 
 tricities of the abnormal the normal might appear 
 more distinctly, also to flatly contradict a number 
 of savants who claim that alcohol is food. All 
 that I ask, in order to controvert their position, 
 is a thorough investigation of facts as to the 
 action of alcohol and its destructive quality. Let 
 biology, physiology, pathology, make some 
 strictly honest experiments and gather in data 
 unbiased as to their desires on the subject, and 
 I have no fear but my position will stand. 
 
 There are other non-food stimulants used quite 
 largely, but as alcohol is consumed inordinately 
 in comparison with them, I use that as my lead- 
 ing example. Remembering that products are 
 not food until they are accepted and chemicalized 
 by the digestive organs, we shall be astonished 
 at the different substances men devour, accord- 
 ing to the locality and climate where they live. 
 The blubber of whale, that would make a person 
 of the temperate zone deathly sick, is quite the 
 real food for the Esquimaux. Curry and rice suit
 
 FOOD 117 
 
 the East Indian, and maize the New Englander. 
 Rats, bugs and snakes nourish certain human 
 beings as surely as ice cream "tones up" a chorus 
 girl. Climate and locality are tremendous factors 
 in the question of food. So also is social inter- 
 course. A dinner eaten alone may go undigested 
 and undeveloped into nourishment; in company, 
 however, the same "food-stuff" may build a man 
 up and give him a day's outing. Certain states 
 of mind, when eating, help a person wonderfully 
 in the process of digestion. Certain other states 
 retard that process and turn his "meal" into 
 poison. It is evident, then, that to be a food- 
 maker one should discover in what mood he best 
 digests his ' ' good square meal. ' ' This is as vitally 
 important a problem as that about the substance 
 out of which that same square meal is composed. 
 There is no doubt that certain longings for 
 special things have meaning and are indicators 
 of what is really good for a human being to eat 
 and drink. These longings can be easily dis- 
 tinguished from the cravings arising from a fixed 
 bad habit. The normal desire for the right thing 
 out of which to make food does not stay with one, 
 as a rule, after the craving has been gratified. 
 One gets enough shortly of that which he wants, 
 the chemical demand has been satisfied and the 
 desire leaves him. I am not speaking now of the 
 lust of the palate, but a cry of the whole body, 
 for some special thing, like acid, water, salt, sugar. 
 If people would watch the inner workings of their 
 physical being more scientifically, they would 
 shortly learn its language and be able to make
 
 118 STEAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 good food for themselves out of the products in 
 hand. In manufacturing food they incidentally 
 develop rich blood, which, rushing through the 
 veins and arteries, distributes the products and 
 clears up the by-products all along the line. 
 
 In closing I wish again to emphasize the truth 
 that alcohol and other stimulants pure and simple 
 are not food, but that this all important substance 
 is a subtly made product developed in the human 
 body from whatever it can assimilate and use. 
 There is no use in laying down fixed rules as to 
 what a man shall eat. But that same man, never- 
 theless, should find out for himself by watching 
 his own powers in digestion, not with the naked 
 eye, by the cruel method of animal vivisection, 
 but by logical conclusions drawn from his own 
 conscious experience as* to how successfully or 
 otherwise the manufacturer within him is work- 
 ing out the problem. Is the skin of a man clear, 
 are his eyes bright, is he hungry normally and 
 periodically? Does he forget his meal after he 
 has eaten it? Are the economics of his system 
 up to par? Do the supply and demand balance? 
 Does he hold his weight, is he strong, fully alive 
 and ready to batt-le with difficulty? Is the sense 
 of humor tingling within him— does he love to 
 play, does he love to work? Is he defiant of 
 death? Does he believe himself immortal, is he 
 "dead sure" of heaven and doubtful about hell? 
 Are angels quite possible and devils a toper's 
 dream? Then "for certain" he is a food maker, 
 and consequently a being of power.
 
 THE VALUE OF THE IMAGINATION 
 IN LIFE. 
 
 The image Is not the ultimate or primal energy 
 which expresses through it. Symbols in the mind 
 are apparently the means by which this same 
 energy becomes self-conscious. Furthermore, 
 these inner forms, ranging from pictures to let- 
 ters and letters to words and figures, are invari- 
 ably patterned on an outside standard or objects 
 discovered by the physical senses. What then is 
 imagination? Imagination is the inner visualiz- 
 ing, symbolizing power absolutely coexistent with 
 thought and feeling in the self-conscious mind. 
 A man could not think coherently for an instant 
 without this faculty of forming his thought. He 
 may possibly be aware of uplifting or depressing 
 moods, attractions and repulsions, without word- 
 ing or imagining them except in a vague way; 
 but true thinking necessitates words or pictures 
 in which to clothe it, and this is supplied by the 
 imagination. 
 
 You can see at once then of what value the 
 imagination is in life, and how impossible it 
 would be to get on with ourselves and our fellows 
 without it. Form is one of the first factors in 
 thought and comprehension; specialization into
 
 120 STEAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 things necessitates form and consequently the 
 variety which makes an individual life a possi- 
 bility. 
 
 There is no absolute uniformity anywhere; no 
 two forms are exactly alike; their chief bond of 
 relationship lies in the fact of form itself, as dis- 
 tinguished from the formless. Law, for instance, 
 is formless, yet would be a void or nothing with- 
 out form. There is an inherent principle of form 
 itself which is the one and only unifying tie that 
 unites the multiplicity of diversified forms. Any 
 person or animal that thinks at all has a dim or 
 distinct recognition of this principle of individ- 
 uality and form. Now the difference between liv- 
 ing creatures in regard to* this inner visualizing, 
 form-making power, lies in its clear-cut intensity. 
 An artist with transcendent power will remember 
 with almost mathematical accuracy the shapes of 
 animals, birds, people and types, though the ex- 
 terior model be absent. Once having seen some 
 special form that really attracted his undivided 
 attention, he carries the true outline of it in his 
 brain and can reproduce it with brush or pencil at 
 will. Another person without this perfect visual- 
 izing faculty will have but a vague recollection of 
 the accurate shape and postures of, say a cat, dog 
 or horse, and needs must have the living, breath- 
 ing model before his physical eyes in order to 
 make a picture of it. Why? Because, as I said 
 before, our inner shapes are stolen from outside, 
 and he that can best concentrate on "outsideness" 
 is the one who carries the accurate image within ; 
 that is, he can visualize and his dreams are peo-
 
 VALUE OF THE IMAGINATION IN LIFE 121 
 
 pled with such vitalized realities that they become 
 when his eyes are shut a horror or a joy. 
 
 In the power to concentrate lies the open secret 
 of what men call a wonderful imagination. I will 
 not say that memory is another factor, because 
 the power to concentrate includes the power to 
 remember. Concentration is the open secret of 
 good memory also. By concentration I mean 
 using energy toward obtaining an outer picture 
 to hang on the inner wall of mind. I get it any- 
 how "by hook or crook"; I will have it; if not 
 honestly, then dishonestly; if not honorably from 
 conventional standpoint, then dishonorably. It 
 is mine because I have set my heart upon it ; that 
 is, I am emotionally bewitched after it— passion- 
 ately craving it. I bore it with eyes; I pierce 
 through and through it ; I feel it with the tentacles 
 of my brain; I hear it with my inner ears, and 
 catch its rankness or its perfume. I am enrap- 
 tured, enamored and horribly in love with it; my 
 full being is reaching out toward it, my utter soul 
 is fixed upon it. This is concentration— imagina- 
 tion. How many of us I wonder are equal to such 
 frenzy? Yet without this intense emotion of con- 
 centration, this passionate clutching and mental 
 grappling with the thing desired, we are not art- 
 ists and in ordinary parlance have no imagina- 
 tion. Perhaps I should qualify this. All living 
 creatures have the image making power, but only 
 a few possess a rich and powerful imagination. 
 
 The law cannot be laid down too strenuously, 
 that unless you can concentrate you cannot create 
 for yourselves "mansions in Heaven." That
 
 122 STRAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 inner world of yours will be peopled with ghosts 
 rather than with vitalized, dominating beings. 
 
 Imagination in life has its fixed values. First 
 and, foremost, you have imagination or you could 
 not go on as an individual. So primarily its use 
 is to permit you the right of special entity, as so 
 and so— cat, dog, horse, cow, man. You have 
 parcelled yourself off, and if one person you are 
 certainly not another. You have sufficient form- 
 making power to distinguish thing from thing, 
 and to deal with life in terms of specialization. 
 Particulars have worth to you in proportion to 
 the assets of your imagination. Therefore the 
 first value placed upon the image-making power 
 is the possibility through it of life itself. Eight 
 at this point a great gulf is fixed between the 
 genius and the common man. By a genius I mean 
 one who can concentrate persistently and there- 
 fore visualize and, necessarily, remember; one that 
 uses energy greedily, emotionally, intellectually, 
 and brings the outside world inside his mentality, 
 thrusting it forth again under the guise of revivi- 
 fication and therefore creation. Between this gen- 
 ius and the common unimaginative man, as I 
 before said, is a great gulf fixed but certainly not 
 one impassable. It is a daring, difficult thing to 
 try to cross it, but if one can endure the nervous 
 shock of depth and darkness, isolation and still- 
 ness, almost utter blankness, he may get over. 
 The outside is not easily stolen and transferred 
 to the inside and retained there in clear-cut form. 
 The brigand who dares the attempt is bound to 
 risk something and pay an exorbitant figure in
 
 VALUE OF THE IMAGINATION IN LIFE 123 
 
 the act of readjustment. Often his very sanity- 
 goes in with the bargain— his friends, his repu- 
 tation, his conscience, his health. For a man to 
 steal the face of a friend, loot vast stretches of 
 landscape, capture the real water of a sea, the 
 genuine blue of a sky, the actual atmosphere in 
 toto, the innermost "feel" of things— this whole- 
 sale, almost diabolic appropriation, this utter, 
 divine greed, is well nigh ruinous to his mental 
 balance. He pays an enormous price for para- 
 dise—and sometimes he gets it. 
 
 When as an artist you go after the soul of an 
 object and ravish it and bring it home into your 
 brain, you take your chances. Possibly you have 
 wedded Eve before the fall— possibly after. The 
 serpent may have seduced her, and her progeny 
 may be— "well, never mind!"— you, the genius, 
 have played with fire, and possibly are burned. 
 
 But it is characteristic of him whose imagina- 
 tion is intensive and creative power virile, that 
 with all its beauty, horror, delight and suffering, 
 he prefers his live, energized world to the mere 
 dead level mirage that constitutes the dream land 
 of the ordinary individual. Yet the value of his 
 imagination in life is somewhat the same after 
 all as is that of the clod. 
 
 As the commonest individual existence hinges 
 on the image-making power, so the uncommon 
 life of the great visualist depends on the fullness 
 of this gift. He is rich, to be sure, but his coin 
 is from the same mint as that of the poor. Added 
 to this he has stocks and bonds, houses and lands, 
 principalities, servants, slaves ; a harem of beauty,
 
 124 STRAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 and alas, dungeons, sewers, underground pas- 
 sages, debris, dirt, grime. Nevertheless, he is rich. 
 Like old Stamboul, his minarets, domes and mos- 
 ques tower over his squalid streets, and for every 
 barking cur in the alleys of his mind the caique 
 floats in and out on the Bosporus of his soul; 
 for every leprous native of his squalid land of 
 dreams a ship glides round the waters of a mys- 
 tic Golden Horn. The word value as applied to 
 his exuberant imagination might better be 
 changed to values. He may be a ''poor devil" 
 of an artist, a down-at-the-heel dreamer, without 
 a dime or a bank book, but he is a producer for 
 all that. No imagination is truly such that fails 
 to create, that is, gives forth again. That which 
 was purloined sees daylight once more as a new 
 thing, touched up by the thief with the divine 
 afflatus of himself. 
 
 There is no pronounced, unusual merit in a 
 celibate or impotent imagination. A brain stuffed 
 full with images that cannot get out is a crazy 
 brain. The divine imagination ceases to be such 
 without breathing room and co-ordination, and 
 becomes instead a hell, alive with monstrous forms 
 that in their struggle with each other melt to 
 formlessness and resolve at last into blank vacuity 
 before the horrified eyes of their creator. 
 
 The real visualist, the true magician, is inevit- 
 ably a creator. The only newness that he gives 
 the world is the inevitable stamp of himself as 
 himself on all that he brings forth. He has 
 ravished the soul out of the object he abducted, 
 and welded it onto his own in a passion of heat
 
 VALUE OF THE IMAGINATION IN LIFE 125 
 
 that must of necessity bring forth results. These 
 results burst the shell of his brain, stimulate his 
 fingers, his eyes, his voice, and lo! the outer world 
 realizes a new and wonderful thing,— a great pic- 
 ture, a great poem, a great song. The equation is 
 struck, the thief has squared accounts, the price 
 has been paid. A Christ is born, a miracle is per- 
 formed, and God is justified.
 
 ESSENTIALS OF A PHILOSOPHIC 
 
 LIFE. 
 
 First and foremost, reticency or a cautious 
 tongue is essential in philosophy. The preachy, 
 proselyting person is rarely the philosopher. The 
 man with the "gift of talk," fond of poses, is 
 seldom inherently a sage. A real philosopher 
 often has disciples who are drawn to him by a 
 certain mental gravitation. He is harboring a 
 jewel, and the flash of it they are determined to 
 set eyes on. Or perhaps he has secreted a key 
 in some hidden pocket of himself which a sly 
 thief is bound to pick. Possibly he has a solvent 
 for life's woes, a balm for its wounds, and certain 
 injured persons are determined to get the recipe. 
 Maybe under the moon he gathers herbs and be- 
 comes to the eyes of curiosity a medical Paracelsus 
 in search of life's elixir. Anyhow there is some- 
 thing concealed in the true philosopher that 
 nevertheless reveals itself in a form of power 
 which excites the emulation of those who hang 
 upon his skirts. "He's got something," they 
 say; "yes, he has truly got something." There 
 is nothing quite so exasperating to another as the 
 fellow who "has got something." What that
 
 ESSENTIALS OF A PHILOSOPHIC LIFE 127 
 
 " something" is they have no idea, but it is " some- 
 thing," and they want ''one just like it." 
 
 When a man has really and truly "got some- 
 thing" that others hound him for, he is probably 
 a philosopher. Certainly he has one of the philo- 
 sophic essentials, and that is reticence. Look back 
 in history and you will find that the great teachers 
 were often hermetic, giving out or withholding 
 as judgment dictated. I do not imagine Socrates 
 announced himself with bell-ringing, like a fruit 
 peddler. In his rank earnestness he was often 
 loquacious and a great talker, but that was be- 
 cause he was in love with his subject and not with 
 himself. The pretender to the throne of philo- 
 sophy is most assuredly in love with himself. 
 Kant rarely left Konigsberg, though his fame 
 spread from the Baltic to the far West. Though 
 self-assured and positive, he knew how to hold 
 his tongue. Schopenhauer found life so "tick- 
 lish" that he brooded over it like a hawk. Sar- 
 castic as a parrot, he was nevertheless more like 
 an owl, and when he fully committed himself he 
 certainly had something to say. Spencer was a 
 man of words and reiterations, but every sentence 
 had intrinsic value, and his verbosity was a 
 mighty wedge that split and disorganized old 
 conditions. He was sufficiently reticent to keep 
 himself to himself and talk from principles and 
 data rather than personalisms. Jesus was a very 
 well of secrets, giving cautiously his great form- 
 ulas, often veiling them in parable, using the fad 
 of His time, the fable, as a shell for His kernel of 
 truth. Gautama gave out to the ignorant class a
 
 128 STRAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Hinayana philosophy of many rules and mandates, 
 holding in reserve the mighty "Mahay ana" for 
 him only who could understand. As with Jesus, 
 so with the Buddha; the eyes and ears of their 
 disciples made all the difference. 
 
 Now let us see how a pretender in philosophy 
 manages. The sun heralds himself with the vir- 
 gin dawn, but the fakir carries before him a shield 
 of blazing brass and announces his arrival with 
 a "tom-tom." "I am coming, I have arrived," 
 he says; "I'm as secret as the grave. I've got 
 something, too. Pay me a dollar and it is yours." 
 He is an auctioneer, and sells his mental wares 
 to the highest bidder. Pretending to hermeticism 
 he is open at all times to approach, and takes 
 bribes brazenly; in fact, advertises for them right 
 and left. ' ' The greatest on earth, ' ' he nevertheless 
 has cheap days when he reduces his hundred-cent 
 fee to twenty-five. Now you cannot bribe, brow- 
 beat or bully a real philosopher, nor will he flat- 
 ter you. His reticence is not obstinacy; it is duty. 
 There are some things he has no business to tell; 
 there are times when he cannot consistently speak; 
 and when he holds his tongue, he holds it. 
 
 Reticence then is one of the essentials of a phil- 
 osophic life. Why? Because the truth is a "two 
 edged" weapon and a sage is not likely to play 
 with it. Once I saw a Japanese Buddhist Bonze 
 draw a short sword, with a keen blade, its whole 
 length on his tongue, but before he performed this 
 feat he was sure of his nerve. Jesus revealed His 
 secrets to the nervy, the brainy, the well-balanced; 
 but to the world He spoke in parables.
 
 ESSENTIALS OF A PHILOSOPHIC LIFE 129 
 
 Another essential of a philosophic life is con- 
 sistency. First the truth promulgated and lived 
 by, must be true to itself; next it must be borne 
 out by practice. It is odd, to say the least, for a 
 man to discourse in persuasive tones on the value 
 of a self-contained spirit, and later swear at his 
 wife. To preach healing and go home and be 
 sick, to uphold chastity and marry into lewdness, 
 to recommend fasting and gorge, to advocate 
 temperance and drink alcoholized bitters, is rank 
 inconsistency, and not the way of a philosopher. 
 In fact, the sage seems rather worse than he really 
 is; his badness is apt to be on the surface. He 
 is often gruff, impolite, and unconventional, but 
 within he is white, that is, striving with all his 
 might to live up to his convictions. He is often 
 like a street digger, rather slimy to the eye, but 
 inside abnormally healthy and clean because of 
 his honest activity. 
 
 The philosopher has to fight his way, and often 
 has a rough-house exterior, but his muscles are 
 tough as pine knots and his heart as rhythmic as 
 a Buddhist bell. 
 
 That reminds me that another essential of the 
 philosophic life is the big back brain and the 
 power to fight. A philosopher never " takes 
 water" nor shows a white flag. Obstinate? Yes, 
 and no. Not contentious for the sake of it, but 
 from inborn conviction. Of course, he is a peace- 
 lover, but the price of peace is often a fray. He 
 never goes round with "a chip on his shoulder'' 
 spoiling for battle; he is simply a defender and 
 belongs to that order of chivalry that is up in
 
 130 STRAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 arms for the honor of truth. Truth to him is a 
 woman,— she, and he is her knight. His heart as 
 well as his head is offered in her defense. 
 
 This being so, courage is undoubtedly an essen- 
 tial to the philosophic life. But is there no per- 
 sonalism in it? you ask. Is the philosopher for- 
 ever hustling for abstractions f Yes, there is per- 
 sonalism. Even truth takes form in his eyes. 
 Sometimes she is his beloved land, his people 
 under the guise of the Goddess of Liberty, and the 
 philosopher is a patriot. Sometimes she is a city, 
 an Athens, and your philosopher serves Minerva 
 on the Areopagus. Sometimes it is a sacred scroll, 
 a parchment, written over with finalities, beyond 
 dispute, exact formulas that there is no gainsay- 
 ing; and your philosopher stands or falls in its 
 defense. Sometimes it is progressive science— 
 hard, cruel, true— and your philosopher squares 
 his shoulders and marches by its side. Sometimes 
 it is Law, unbending, rigid, and your philosopher 
 sets his jaw and stands hard by. Sometimes it 
 is Art, and your philosopher swerves not a hair's 
 breadth from the task assigned. Sometimes it is 
 the "poor and needy" and your philosopher be- 
 comes as one of them with no place to lay his 
 head. Personalism! Your philosopher is always 
 a person, and deals with personifications from 
 start to finish. 
 
 Now I am about to say something startling. 
 One of the supreme essentials of a philosophic life 
 is emotion. A philosophic head without heart to 
 balance is more dangerous to humanity than an 
 aeroplane. It rides supremely over the woes of
 
 ESSENTIALS OF A PHILOSOPHIC LIFE 131 
 
 others, indifferent for the time being to the clod 
 and its miseries. To realize the mathematics of 
 a problem, social or otherwise,— to get at the 
 inherent rectitude snuggled like a kernel in the 
 shell of the ten commandments, and not kindle to 
 them emotionally, is monstrous. Energy has 
 heat; without energy the inherency and initiative 
 of a thing or principle is dead. No matter how 
 prettily the social laws clear up in the mind of 
 the thinker, proving their efficiency by the per- 
 petual power of adjustments in combination, if 
 this same thinker has no feeling, no love for the 
 beauty of such possible poise and balance, he is 
 not a philosopher, and lacks one of the essentials 
 of a philosophic life. And this is a touchstone 
 by which you can detect values and distinguish a 
 fakir from a sage. A pretender may weep when 
 he explains his philosophy, but more likely his 
 tears are flowing because the cash box at the door 
 of his lecture room is sparsely filled, than from 
 emotion over the beauty of the so-called truth he 
 expounds. He has strained his eyes so hard for 
 a glitter of coin that, whether or no, they shed 
 tears. "Jesus wept." There is no account or 
 laconic statement that "Jesus smiled." And yet 
 I presume He even laughed. Emotion consisting 
 entirely of tears is nauseous. The sense of humor 
 is an essential to the philosophic life. The sun 
 is the real thing; shadows depend on the sun, but 
 the sun is quite independent of the shadows. The 
 weeping prerogative in humanity is the special- 
 ist's own. Things, as things, stand up and hide 
 the sun, and shadows lie prone at their feet. But
 
 132 STKAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 humor is the very sun itself laughing among the 
 branches and between the leaves of ''things in 
 themselves" so utterly independent of them that 
 there is a universalism about it that is a dis- 
 carnate joy. A puritan philosopher, with a Jap- 
 anese sigh, a hollow cheek and prim lip— unless 
 he laughs inside and makes a joke of his exterior- 
 is after all but a pretender to the throne of the 
 sage. He is simply "one long drawn shadow," 
 egotistic enough to imagine himself endowed with 
 potency to put out the sun. Thank heaven that 
 shades are not self-energizing, and that the humor- 
 ous Sun uses them as foils, and foils only to his 
 transcendent brightness. 
 
 Another essential to a philosophic life is chas- 
 tity, and any priest of any cult who secretly 
 preaches free love, obscenity, or phallic worship 
 as such under the guise of hygiene, sun baths, etc., 
 has no possibility of living a philosophic life. The 
 distribution of energy is at the base of the sex 
 question, and that teacher who authorizes a waste 
 of this precious commodity, or rather its misappli- 
 cation, is not in the narrow, straight path of 
 philosophy. 
 
 Another essential to the philosophic life is self- 
 sacrifice, or rather, self-preservation. The self 
 given up is the self found; the self laid down is 
 the self upraised. This is not sentimentality, it 
 is the law of energy transformed. The self is 
 many sided. The unit of self contains within it 
 the many of selves. But who ever heard of a 
 fakir giving up anything, even one of his many 
 selves, to gain the supreme reward? The fakir
 
 ESSENTIALS OF A PHILOSOPHIC LIFE 133 
 
 specializes on his ego— his ego. No other ego is 
 taken into consideration except as coin is in its 
 vicinity. The fakir is after money first and noto- 
 riety second. He bleeds the poor, by promises 
 of wealth. "Send me a dollar," he says, "by 
 next post, and I will show you how to make 
 twenty." And sometimes he does. The motive 
 of this pretender to unheard of powers, however, 
 is "get rich quick"— "hit or miss"— it doesn't 
 matter. The object of the true philosopher is to 
 prove the verities and practice on the principles; 
 that is, really become what people think he is. 
 When they say "he has got something," he wants 
 to make good. 
 
 But you ask, what's the use of it all? Doesn't 
 the truly wise man pay too big a price for his 
 wisdom? Does it really bring happiness? In 
 answer, I would say that he pays well no doubt; 
 he lays abnormal passion, greed, wicked selfish- 
 ness, fear, an evil tongue, love of notoriety, on 
 the altar of philosophy and sets fire to them. In 
 return he gets courage, a certain lofty indifference 
 to public opinion, some "dead sure" formulas 
 to live by, and ultimately power. Now each in- 
 dividual must decide for himself whether the 
 flame is worth the candle, whether the fire of 
 energy is a good exchange for the body of desire. 
 No person is obliged to be a philosopher. There 
 is no law that can whip him into* line and force 
 him to travel the narrow way of the sage. Truly 
 wise men are not proselyters, taking a human 
 being by the coat collar and yanking him into the 
 fold. "Fishermen of men" perhaps they are, but
 
 134 STEAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 there is so much good bait on their hook that it 
 is harmless to him who bites. 
 
 The essentials of a philosophic life are positive ; 
 in fact, in strict philosophy (unlike religion) there 
 are no non-essentials. That which is not essen- 
 tial is irrespective of philosophy.
 
 CONSTELLATIONS. 
 
 As constellations refer primarily to clusters of 
 stars, used figuratively in regard to persons they 
 should necessarily be brilliants with power to 
 flash and scintillate. Groups of poets, scientists, 
 artists, thinkers, might well make up a peopled 
 constellation. Probably there would be a fiery 
 sun, or several for that matter, dominating the 
 lesser lights, even down to the little asteroids. 
 
 Once belonging to a human constellation it is 
 hard to break from it. The attractive power of 
 the genius who heads it is as binding as gravita- 
 tion. Were I advocating reincarnation, I should 
 say that human constellations fall together in 
 groups periodically from life to life. Were I 
 teaching evolution I should say that certain 
 evolved factors embodied in human bodies fall 
 together by the law of affinity, occult chemistry 
 supplying the motif to constellate. Were I preach- 
 ing the ordinarily accepted tenet of creation, 
 I should again posit mental sympathy through 
 congruity of taste as a sufficient reason for the 
 grouping of human stars. So it does not matter 
 which premise I take as the cause of like seeking 
 like and opposite attracting opposite, the fact 
 stands however it is founded. 
 
 People fall together in groups, brilliant people
 
 136 STKAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 especially. Whether expert thieves or expert 
 divines, infernal liars or dazzling saints, the fact 
 that they can dazzle constellates them under the 
 spell-binding gleam of their central sun. Lucifer 
 was a star angel and he fell headlong through 
 heaven, but continues to shine in hell, neverthe- 
 less, the brilliant dazzler of a flashing group. 
 
 The good or evil expressed through a constel- 
 lation is generally indicated by its central sun. 
 He may be an old red or yellow star burning with 
 the fires of diabolism, but while he burns and has 
 fuel he is bound to have a group of the lurid ones 
 about him reflecting the lustful coloring of him- 
 self. He may be a young blue sun tinted to match 
 the heaven in which he lives, or white within and 
 without like a diamond of first water, and other 
 stars will cluster around him reflecting purity and 
 clarity of his heavenly brightness. "Whatever the 
 constellation, whether evil or good, it is brilliant 
 and true to itself and master. An all-pervading 
 spirit feeds its fires, a unified motif strikes the 
 match, aim and idea pour in the fuel. 
 
 The eyes of the persons making up a special 
 group flash with the same light; it may be lurid, 
 it may be keen, it may be divine, but it is the 
 unified gleam of the special constellation to which 
 they belong. Imagine a group of Socialists, all 
 stars, coming together because they must. In the 
 eye of each, in the expression, is the identical 
 menace that their leader wears. Rebellion gleams 
 in the glances of a group of revolutionists, hate 
 in those of the anarchists. All kickers who revolt 
 at the present state of things have the fraternal-
 
 CONSTELLATIONS 137 
 
 lodge glance that marks them members of this or 
 that constellation. Artists, those who have fra- 
 ternized under a master, have the long stare that 
 pronounces them concentrators. You know their 
 teacher by their glance, and the slight scowl be- 
 tween their brows. Musicians carry about with 
 them the very atmosphere of their special group. 
 There is a "general something" that acts as an 
 expose. Members of secret societies, presumed to 
 be as hermetic as a sealed jar, are as easily seen 
 through as is its glass. Their "air of secrecy" 
 goes along with them and betrays the very lodge 
 in which they affiliate. Eeligionists and philos- 
 ophers have faulty backdoors to their "sanctum 
 sanctorum"; they will not stay shut, and the flock 
 of sheep that make up their special herd are 
 known and ticketed. 
 
 The shine in a constellation inevitably betrays 
 it. If it were not by its very nature made up of 
 a group of brilliants it might remain perpetually 
 undiscovered. There are people working and 
 fraternizing sub rosa in societies, but they are 
 not in constellations. The law of affinity, un- 
 doubtedly applies to them also, but being irre- 
 flective the world is but little wiser in regard to 
 them. I have said that people who belong in this 
 or that constellation cannot help themselves. Per- 
 haps I should qualify this and say, certain per- 
 sons being thus and so must of necessity find their 
 own, that is, others of the same ilk. But why 
 need persons be so and so, and so and so? Being 
 a brilliant thief, I of necessity herd with thieves, 
 but why be a thief at all? The first initiative in
 
 138 STEAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 self is taken by self, through that same self's 
 desire. Desiring to steal, I fall into a constella- 
 tion of thieves; my mind and the other minds of 
 the den run together in liquid brightness which is 
 thievery. If I desire beauty I necessarily frater- 
 nize with others of the stamp who revel in beauty 
 also. My soul is forged with those others who 
 melt as I do. This goes to show that I may pos- 
 sibly free myself from a constellation, good or 
 evil, by changing the initiative desire; but while 
 I liberate my future life to some extent from the 
 associations of the group, I cannot liberate the 
 past nor get rid of the causes growing therefrom. 
 If I have once truly been one with a constellation, 
 a star cluster of brilliant people, good or evil, it 
 is like tearing my heart out to divorce it, and 
 only by change of desire through revolt of con- 
 science can it be done. Where the conscience does 
 not, can not revolt, the stars in the group being 
 white through and through, nothing save a dia- 
 bolically evil desire fostered on carrion and 
 nursed on slime can cause a break. 
 
 A pure order may have a viper in its midst, 
 and should it escape from the cluster and shine 
 in other centers, it will always have something of 
 divinity about it to tell the world of its previous 
 high estate. ' * Once a gentleman, always a gentle- 
 man," though dead drunk in the gutter. The 
 stamp is on him and serves to make his fall a 
 monstrosity. 
 
 One may well ask here, if it is possible to shine 
 alone, irrespective of constellations. Yes and no, 
 and I will tell you why. In the first place that
 
 CONSTELLATIONS 139 
 
 which makes a constellation is the law of attrac- 
 tion or affinity. A constellation is not an organ- 
 ized society necessarily; it may or may not be. 
 Groups of men fall together in certain ages and 
 places, but there is perhaps no chosen president, 
 speaker or secretary in the combination. It is 
 neither deliberately organized nor is it acci- 
 dental. There is a deeper law beneath this prob- 
 lem. When a Grant, a Sheridan, a Sherman and 
 a Lincoln come forth at the same time and work 
 in harmony to save a country, there is something 
 farther down than the eye can reach as the gist 
 of the puzzle. When a Longfellow, a Lowell, an 
 Emerson, a Thoreau, an Alcott, a Holmes, a Parker 
 and a Phillips appear contemporaneously and stir 
 up the dry bones of crabbed New England, there is 
 a meaning behind it that the ordinary mind does 
 not catch. When a Shakespeare, a Ben Jonson, 
 and others of the Elizabethan Age place bay 
 leaves on their own heads, there is a question 
 there that the common sense man has to ponder. 
 When Eolean poets singing in group produce 
 such music that the Lesbian coast is echoing it 
 yet, the curious psychologist might as well sit 
 up and look about. When inventors come con- 
 temporaneously, and congenial thinkers like 
 Spencer, Tyndall, Romanes and Darwin appear in 
 clusters, it becomes a puzzle worth considering. 
 Environment surely has much to do with it, and 
 the waiting ripeness of the age. The peole are 
 ready and the masters appear. At another time 
 and under different conditions these same mas- 
 ters might be in hiding.
 
 140 STRAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 The secret sides of a constellation are the bodies 
 of its stars, but that which belongs to the world 
 is the flash and shine of them. 
 
 Now as to individual splendor— the isolated 
 genius— he is there in his constellation as surely 
 as some big sun dominates others in the sky above, 
 and his isolation and selfhood lie not in lack of 
 company, but rather in the aloofness that his 
 greatness necessitates. He is alone in a crowd,— 
 in the center among his own disciples or followers 
 he is still, in one sense, by himself. In another, 
 however, he is one with them; his motif is their 
 motive, his aim theirs. As before said, the same 
 light flashes in his eyes as illuminates theirs. 
 The spirit of the body is one. 
 
 Curious people will ask all sorts of questions 
 as to the length of life of a constellation; if the 
 head of it is a hypnotist, if he rules and sub- 
 jugates by suggestion, if all his disciples are 
 negated and mere puppets in his hands, if in- 
 fluence is his sly weapon, and sophistry his van- 
 tage point? To the "lump sum" of these ques- 
 tions I answer no. Stars are individuals. He has 
 a weak knowledge of the human will who claims 
 that it can be permanently dominated by a mas- 
 ter or a hypnotist. A so-called master could not 
 for an instant claim the name if he attempted an 
 unfair control. The master rests on principles, 
 and principles are mightily impersonal as regards 
 partiality, selectivity, domination. To be sure 
 there is a law of selectivity, but the law per se is 
 impartial. 
 
 No, the members of a constellation, people
 
 CONSTELLATIONS 141 
 
 entitled to flame and shine because of their vital 
 energy— bad though they may be, or good— are 
 not easily hypnotized in the revolting sense. The 
 persons who make it up are too positive for nega- 
 tion and submission to a tyrant head. Fight 
 among themselves they may, but no one of a con- 
 stellation makes a doormat of himself for others 
 to walk over. 
 
 As to the length of life of a constellation, the 
 question is self-settling. If the theory of rein- 
 carnation be proved to be a truth, a group of 
 humans may appear and shine periodically, age 
 after age. If one short life is all man has on 
 earth, by the law of affinity groups and herds of 
 congenial souls would get together just the same. 
 Whether the time of a constellation is short or 
 long does not prohibit its strength and adjustabil- 
 ity. In fact, all things equal, it would probably 
 remain intact indefinitely unless outside factors 
 served to break it up. Inherently it is true to it- 
 self, and therefore by its nature perpetual. Its 
 breaking up even from the point of external ex- 
 perience by death and disintegration is not in 
 reality its destruction, for though the body van- 
 ish, the individual spirits that animated it with 
 one aim or motif are in some form of life contin- 
 uing in close communion.
 
 WHY WOMEN ARE SLY. 
 
 Women are subtle and sinuous in their ways 
 and dealings. They rarely take the short cut and 
 line of least resistance, but meander round instead. 
 They feel their way like cats, treading gingerly, 
 often retreating to return again with a slight 
 change in their course. They act as though 
 dreading explosions, gunpowder, dynamite. Their 
 eyes, called modest, are really anxious, and the 
 far-off look which poets rave over is the problem- 
 glance; they are peering into a maze. They are 
 made in curves, and they act in curves. The art 
 of evading is the woman's art. They argue in 
 circles, not because they fail to see straight ahead 
 from cause to effect, but rather from caution and 
 a dread of committing themselves. Even their 
 frankness (and they are often frank) is condi- 
 tioned by a great secrecy. The really loquacious, 
 apparently blunt woman is a vast storehouse of 
 unspoken things. "The other half has not been 
 told." In unloading her mind she reserves some- 
 thing. A woman without reserves is a woman 
 lost. A woman who has given all is out of the 
 market. A woman with no mystery in her make- 
 up is unpainted, unpowdered, and altogether too 
 transparent to be a woman at all.
 
 WHY WOMEN ARE SLY 143 
 
 Why all this? Glance back into history and 
 study human evolution by means of data. There 
 was a time, it is said, when women were Amazons; 
 that is, strong and invincible; but that era, if it 
 ever existed, was prehistoric. The legends that 
 introduce us to these Dianas of mythical ages and 
 peoples produce no data worth having. In his- 
 toric times, beginning with Herodotus and our 
 family Bible, we find out a great deal about the 
 status of woman. Veiled— a vast majority of 
 them— or kept indoors, behind shutters, they 
 became female ' ' peeping Toms, ' ' having no recre- 
 ation but gossip among themselves, and no occu- 
 pation save that of vying with each other in child- 
 bearing. In a sense they were on a level of the 
 more prolific animals. Progeny quantitatively 
 was the ideal they were forced to invoke. A bar- 
 ren woman was a monstrosity. Probably in the 
 beginnings of her evolution she quite agreed with 
 man in this question; having no way of developing 
 her brain, her energy went to sex and motherhood, 
 and all the evil as well as the good that travels 
 with it. She was keen in her own experiences, 
 intuitive, jealous, revengeful, passionate, abnorm- 
 ally affectionate, yet from love of excitement and 
 change, treacherous and fickle. Her energy flow- 
 ing through so constricted a channel was danger- 
 ous and explosive; her methods of gaining her 
 ends, for the same reason, sly and sinuous. The 
 fact that she could do something man could not, 
 that is, bear offspring, gave her the peculiar ego- 
 tism of motherhood from which she has not yet 
 entirely freed herself. She makes capital out of
 
 144 STRAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 the fact that she can produce progeny. She uses 
 the birth pangs as a bribe with judges and jury. 
 She manages her husband with the same seduc- 
 tion. She throws glamour over her lover during 
 the courting period with vague hints in regard 
 to it. She glories in her natural martyrdom, and 
 uses it for all it is worth. She tells her sons how 
 she suffered in bearing them, and persuades them 
 into the straight path on that account. She gives 
 her daughters a formula by which they shall some- 
 time persuade their sons also. 
 
 Woman is really so shrewd that she seizes upon 
 any and every resource that shall give her power. 
 Poor as poverty compared with man in her ' ' ways 
 and means,' ' those few that she has are used for 
 all they are worth. Her childbearing capacity is 
 her richest asset. In every conceivable way she 
 makes it tell. There is a certain amount of phys- 
 ical suffering parceled out to her through the dis- 
 pensation of the Almighty that man has not been 
 afflicted with, and her nature is such that she un- 
 doubtedly prefers it to the painless life of her 
 husband. It is better capital and brings larger 
 interest. Like a child, she trades her birth pangs 
 for a diamond necklace or a house and lot. 
 
 Now I am not speaking of the exceptional indi- 
 viduals of the feminine sex, but of woman as such. 
 Her weakness is her strength, and she knows it. 
 She came into the world as a woman simultane- 
 ously with man, no doubt, more powerful than he 
 in fruitfulness and weaker than he in her capacity 
 of self-maintenance. She squares up for her extra 
 capacity with her extra agony, and faces man with
 
 WHY WOMEN AEE SLY 145 
 
 her eyes on a level with his; but in order to main- 
 tain that level and hold her place of equality, she 
 has been obliged to use subterfuge. Her negative 
 ways are sly ways ; her ends are gained by round- 
 about methods. 
 
 Now of what nature is this man who faces her 
 so levelly 1 Minus one power that is hers, namely, 
 that of child-bearing, he nevertheless gains in 
 physical freedom. All roads are open to him save 
 one,— the road to the heaven of motherhood. But 
 few ways have been open to her save the straight 
 path to this peculiar paradise. In symbolism she 
 might stand for Unity or singleness of aim,— the 
 simple; while he would represent Complexity, or 
 the compound,— many. I am refering now to wo- 
 man as feminine and man as masculine. But as 
 it happens, woman though such is also an indi- 
 vidual, possessed of an unsexed element, which is 
 strictly mind fired by ambition and curiosity; no 
 female, even the most slavish, is entirely without. 
 Many women are more intellectual than feminine, 
 and that is why they are sly. Having other de- 
 sires to gratify besides those of mere sex and 
 motherhood, and formerly as a rule restricted in 
 almost every conceivable way in so doing, they 
 get gratification by stealth, and the ' ' stolen kisses 
 are sweet." 
 
 Man enjoys so thoroughly being pre-eminent, 
 he has dinged into her ears from time immemorial 
 that her sphere is the home. She has but one 
 trade, that of housekeeping; one duty, that of wife 
 and mother. To be sure this one trade of hers 
 is a vitally complex affair. Inside this house
 
 146 STRAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 where she is supposed to reign, she must in real- 
 ity be "Jack of all trades." No chef on a salary 
 of ten thousand a year is supposed to equal her 
 in cooking. "Home cooking" is, should and 
 must be the very acme of the cuisine art. Her 
 husband's stomach is the most sacred thing on 
 earth, his heart is a mere bagatelle in comparison. 
 She is not only cook but housemaid, in theory if 
 not in fact. Her hawkeye must be ever on the 
 alert for dust and disorder; her keen nose must 
 be equally alive to scents and counter scents; her 
 artist temperament must continually adjust itself 
 toi color and sound. Altogether, she is cook, 
 housemaid, gown designer, artist, cordial hostess, 
 bargainer, manager, economist— social, political 
 and financial. At the same time a person well- 
 read, up to date, perfectly robed, companionable 
 and sympathetic with husband and children, and 
 never on any account short tempered even to the 
 lifting of an eyelash. Yet as before said, she is 
 simply wife and mother according to the final 
 mandate of the preacher and the ultimatum of the 
 husband. I do not pity her in her complexity of 
 home life, for to tell the truth it saves her indi- 
 viduality intact. To be simply wife and mother 
 and nothing more, would be damning to any ele- 
 ment of personality that might be hers. She 
 would not deserve a name even, had she not dis- 
 tinctive element to answer to it. Women might 
 well be all Marys, or Myras or Janes had they not 
 the inside house life to develop their individual 
 differences. But the inherent complexity in wo- 
 man is too big even for her home interior; she
 
 WHY WOMEN AEE ULY 147 
 
 is morbidly anxious to get outside and live. She 
 feels the call of the sea, the sky, the far spaces. 
 The city lures and beckons— the trades, the shops. 
 Even the rougher jobs entice and stimulate. She 
 wants to fight, to write, to preach, to teach— to 
 be a heroine, a missionary, a doctor, a lawyer. 
 She simulates modesty and coquetry to wheedle 
 men into letting her into their colleges and pro- 
 fessions. She studies secretly and learns things 
 she "ought not to know." She nurses her baby 
 once too often each day, in order to steal the time 
 to solve a problem in mathematics. Her curiosity 
 is fiercely abnormal along all lines that her hus- 
 band follows ; she wants to keep up with him, she 
 will keep up with him, and if there is no open, 
 above-board way to so do, she chooses an under- 
 ground method. This is why she is sly. 
 
 In early history, devoted to motherhood, she 
 still had enough other traits to cause her to be 
 abnormally curious. Suppressed and enslaved 
 she became both explosive and treacherous. Al- 
 lowed more latitude today, she nevertheless 
 brings into the present century her inherited at- 
 tributes and continues to use influence to accom- 
 plish her ends. Now what is the meaning of the 
 word "sly"? In its extreme sense it is "meanly 
 artful;" in a modified sense it is "cunning, in- 
 genious and shrewd." Woman as a rule is not 
 meanly sly, so we ignore the first definition and 
 cling to the second. Her slyness, shrewdness or 
 artfulness, if it be a fault, is really not hers alone. 
 By the nature of the life she has been forced to 
 endure through the centuries she could not very
 
 148 STRAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 well be otherwise and have a life worth living. 
 Who then is to blame? It is partly the fault of 
 the male, her companion, and partly the result of 
 her necessary motherhood. Man, aggressive, com- 
 pelling, selfishly in love with freedom and all that 
 pertains thereto — a monopolizer by his very na- 
 ture—has by every possible means in his power, 
 through preaching, teaching, appealing to her su- 
 perstition, coercing, bribing and dictating, striven 
 to tie woman down to the life of homekeeper, 
 wife and mother, and that only. Ministers and 
 priests are forever exhorting her to use influence, 
 influence. Her whole stock in trade, they tell her, 
 is influence. Would a woman have anything de- 
 sirable let her marshal all her little cupids of in- 
 fluence and get it. Does she want a ^Republican 
 or Democratic President to rule over her country, 
 let her bring to bear her influence on her husband, 
 brothers and sons, till they lose their individual- 
 ized-clear-seeing and yield to her persuasion. It 
 seems to the short-sighted a more effective method 
 than the ballot every time. She has a dozen or 
 more votes to her credit, while through female 
 suffrage she would cast but one. This insidious 
 preaching by pastors, deacons and doctors about 
 woman's influence would be damnable in its ef- 
 fect if it were not so ludicrous. These spiritual 
 guides are really telling her to be sly, shrewd, 
 persuasive— so much so that she can cajole her 
 male friend to act against his conscience and bet- 
 ter judgment. She becomes a veritable Eve, and 
 tempts him to taste of a certain apple that she 
 approves.
 
 WHY WOMEN AEE SLY 149 
 
 Truly, men are too manly to be as effectively 
 influenced as they pretend. To make woman feel 
 that she has a godlike power in that of influence, 
 thus preventing her from continually contend- 
 ing for her so-called rights and therefore disturb- 
 ing his mental equilibrium, he doctors her with 
 these sham doses. Nor is she deceived. They are 
 nothing but bread pills, and she knows it. Never- 
 theless she proceeds to take him at his word and 
 uses her influence for all it is worth. There is 
 a charm in its application, it gives her a proxy 
 power and a forged liberty, which is sufficiently 
 wicked to be fascinating. In persuading him to 
 go her way, though she knows that nine times 
 out of ten he won't, she is laughing to herself, 
 because he, in his rank honesty thinks she is in 
 earnest. He knows he is trying to dupe her, but 
 he never dreams that she is trying to dupe him. 
 Her attempt at slyness succeeds, his fails. She 
 has become constitutionally, hereditarily sly, be- 
 cause of her motherhood and his physical power 
 over her; but he, poor soul, cruelly straightfor- 
 ward by nature, attempting her methods is a 
 transparent failure. The balance could not be 
 struck between man and woman and equality jus- 
 tified were this not so. All things favor him as 
 lord and master save one— the shrewd art of the 
 negative. The negations of woman are sly powers, 
 which enable her to look straight into his eyes. 
 In time this fact will be modified. Never can she 
 escape the prerogative of motherhood, which par- 
 tially negatives herself and life, but the shuttle 
 cock play indulged in through the ages between
 
 150 STEAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 herself and man, is likely sooner or later to come 
 to an end. As the individual in her dominates 
 the sex, subterfuge will to an extent subside.
 
 PKIVILEGED PEOPLE. 
 
 There are certainly privileged people,— why? 
 Are they made of different clay from others? 
 Is their pedigree royal? Are they immune from 
 the law of cause and effect 1 % Are they gods 
 and goddesses? Outwardly they appear quite 
 like ordinary humanity,— sometimes a little below 
 par. Is that shabby genteelness of theirs a 
 stamp of caste and exclusiveness, and are they 
 thereby privileged? Their right and title to such 
 presumptions must have a cause somewhere, but 
 where? 
 
 The privileged person in a house, any house, 
 has many prerogatives. First he speaks his mind. 
 Whether it be permissible on all occasions to ex- 
 press oneself verbally is questioned, but in his 
 case, by the virtue of his privilege, he is made 
 an exception. He is privileged too in his choice 
 of language. He indulges in strong terms, his 
 tongue is sharp; sarcasm, pessimism or any other 
 ism is tolerated in his case. The queer thing 
 about it is, that he throws stones, but no one ever 
 thinks of retaliating. His house is not made of 
 glass. He criticises harshly, indulging in adjec- 
 tives and superlatives remorselessly, and woe be 
 to any one who presumes to answer him in strong
 
 152 STEAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 epithets. He is in quite a different class in regard 
 to freedom of speech from that of those whom 
 he addresses. 
 
 The reason of this is not hard to find. The 
 privileged person is tolerated because in some 
 manner he "makes good" and hands over a sur- 
 plus to humanity which the unprivileged indi- 
 vidual does not. When the favored one is good, 
 he is so very, very good that he strikes a balance 
 with his badness and maintains a sort of moving 
 equilibrium that people call "fair." When he 
 does things they are so extraordinary that the 
 world forgives his chaotic moments, remember- 
 ing all the time that he serves its ends rather 
 more than he injures them, and some indulgence 
 must be dealt out to him in order that he keep 
 on doing. 
 
 Right here let me insist, that any person not 
 so fortunate, trying the methods of the privileged 
 person, will soon find to his great disgust that 
 they "don't work." Mankind will not tolerate 
 him for an instant. "What can he do," they 
 say, "to give him any right to browbeat us? He's 
 not a genius, he's no wiser than we are. He'd 
 better look out. Let him once try to fix things, 
 and we'll fix him!" 
 
 When a man, then, finds himself privileged, 
 there is some reason for it, most assuredly, for 
 the world is inherently selfish, and only puts up 
 with its tyrants because they are serving it a 
 good turn. A privileged child in a family is 
 either an unusually brilliant infant or an invalid. 
 The sick are always more or less privileged by
 
 PRIVILEGED PEOPLE 153 
 
 the nature of their value. The prospect of losing 
 the invalid, even though he be but an ordinary 
 person, serves to show his worth and the diffi- 
 culty of filling the void his absence will make; 
 therefore he is humored and privileged. The 
 genius is most inevitably privileged, even more, 
 he is pampered. What he does is so transcendent, 
 that what he is is winked at. He may break all 
 the laws of the decalogue, and yet be forgiven. 
 He can browbeat his wife, and enjoy an affinity,— 
 yes two of therm He can express opinions that 
 put the gospels to> shame. He can live on his 
 friends and slander his enemies; for being a 
 genius and preparing to leave something behind 
 him that the world must forever marvel over, 
 he is permitted unusual license. Like the gods, 
 immortal, he walks over earth roughshod, and 
 earth's inhabitants get down and kiss his foot- 
 prints. But let the non-genius try to stride about 
 in the same manner, and the sovereign of justice 
 will transfix him before he has gone a mile. 
 There are sterling reasons behind all this. The 
 man who takes must give, and the non-genius 
 doesn't pay the price of privileges,— "that is 
 why. ' ' 
 
 A beautiful woman is always privileged, and 
 she knows it. Real beauty— the genuine thing, is 
 uncommon, and is a source of supreme delight. 
 Any person— a man, a child, especially a well- 
 sexed woman— who can radiate beauty, scatter 
 it before her and behind her in the guise of charm 
 and fascination, is justifiably privileged. Any 
 effort on her part to preserve that beauty, any
 
 154 STRAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 sacrifice on the part of her friends to hold her 
 high above the heads of others, is overlooked. 
 She gives lavishly and takes prodigiously, and 
 the balance between herself and the world is 
 struck. She is privileged. 
 
 Specialists in science are privileged persons. 
 We excuse their grandiloquence and narrowness 
 because of their great service. An eye specialist 
 will tell you that all diseases spring from a 
 wrongly focused eye. It is really, in his estima- 
 tion, the only cause of suffering. Set your line 
 of vision properly and you will be as healthy 
 as Hebe. You laugh in your sleeve, and getting 
 a good pair of lenses go to the drug shop and 
 dose as before, forgiving your specialist because 
 of his skill in his own particular calling. 
 
 Another physician, of narrow but keen insight, 
 announces that your appendix is the "imp of 
 the perverse, " that without it you would be as 
 athletic as Diana. Knowing his pronounced skill 
 you overlook his idiosyncrasies and proceed to 
 the blood doctor who desires to administer an 
 "alterative" at once, solemnly asserting that 
 your very life is dictated to by certain corpuscles 
 that should be given their conge on the spot. 
 
 Your dentist tells you that on the condition 
 of your mouth hinges your longevity, and being 
 proud of your new gold tooth you admit his 
 premise to his face, but go into hysterics behind 
 his back. 
 
 Your physical culture teacher asserts that deep 
 breathing is your only hope, while a close friend 
 insists that your one chance of happiness lies
 
 PEIVILEGED PEOPLE 155 
 
 in mastication or a prolonged and tantalizing 
 grinding of your food. 
 
 Now these specialists are really equal to things, 
 in one way or another, and their absurdities are 
 overlooked because of the good they do. They 
 are privileged. 
 
 There are occasions when even an ordinary 
 person becomes privileged. An ignoramus may 
 rise to the rank that entitles him to special con- 
 sideration if he acts as guide on a mountain 
 pass, or through an unexplored forest. Being 
 native to these regions, he has acquired the right 
 of occasional privilege. 
 
 About the privileged person himself there is 
 something to say. You wonder if he enjoys exer- 
 cising his little tyrannies, browbeating the world 
 because the world cannot get on so well with- 
 out him. Yes, in a sense I believe he does; 
 nevertheless he realizes that he has his limit, and 
 lives in dread of over-stepping it. He is also* in 
 fear of other privileged individuals who by 
 nature of their acquired rights are his natural 
 enemies. One privileged person rarely gets down 
 on his knees to another, that is certain. Notice 
 the haughty air of the acknowledged beauty when 
 she sails by the acknowledged savant. Notice 
 the sneer on the lips of said savant as he weighs 
 her assets with his own. If a privileged person 
 is tender-hearted he suffers because of the misery 
 he brings about through the exercise of his pre- 
 rogative. The tears of his wife and friends flow 
 at his sharp words, which they are not permitted 
 to resent in kind. If he has any heart he cannot
 
 156 STEAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 fail to react from the results of his own selfish- 
 ness. All his ultra indulgences outside of right 
 and law have inherently within them their own 
 punishment. His privilege never extends to an 
 exemption from that, his privilege is a gift from 
 humanity or a reward for some favor he does 
 for mankind; but the inherent law of the evil 
 in which he merges himself has nothing to do 
 with special licenses and spares him not a jot 
 or tittle from the result of his outrages. What 
 cares the law for his genius or power of giving? 
 Law is law, and shows no favor. 
 
 So the privileged man, who takes to himself 
 two wives outside the bans— or inside either, 
 who sits down in his friend's house and stays 
 there, sleeping in the best bed, devouring the 
 best food, and abusing hospitality,— the genius 
 who lives wilfully or ignores the law of the land, 
 gets his just deserts from law itself,— privilege 
 or no privilege. "A king can do no wrong," 
 to be sure, but the man who represents the king 
 can sin like Satan and burn in perdition. No 
 privilege or special permit can save him from 
 the consequences of his own acts. 
 
 Privileges then, sifted down to this, are thrown 
 in with the exchange between parties in order 
 to square a deal. That is, you being able to give 
 certain benefits to humanity quite out of the ordi- 
 nary, get in exchange certain possibilities of indul- 
 gences quite out of the ordinary also. Now there 
 are persons who could have privileges and do 
 not take them. They rank, however, with the 
 thrice great and are not in the same category
 
 PKIVILEUED PEOPLE 157 
 
 with the subjects of this paper. The people com- 
 bined are headed by a sort of invisible Pope, 
 wiho sells indulgences to those who lavish favors 
 upon him; but the stern Judge who administers 
 the law accepts no bribes and shows no partiality.
 
 PBOBLEMS. 
 
 Why are there great financiers if the problem 
 of money-making is not itself a thing of interest ? 
 The millionaire is surely endowed with enough 
 of this world's goods for actual comfort. As 
 well might I ask, why do men play chess? The 
 zest in living is the fascination of the problem. 
 To disentangle a puzzle and clear up a mystery 
 is pre-eminently satisfactory. The problem is 
 the mental grindstone that sharpens the mind to 
 a clean edge. At the chessboard of life sits the 
 financier and plays the game. The king he hopes 
 to checkmate is called Money. The charm of 
 the playing is greater than that of the success; 
 in fact the problem is the real thing and the solu- 
 tion but a bagatelle. 
 
 People protest and rebel continually against 
 the difficulties in their way, the uncertainties, 
 the distractions; but suppose these obstacles were 
 removed suddenly and the sea of life reduced to 
 a dead level,— what then? Previous complaints 
 would be as syren echoes compared with the up- 
 roar of protest that would batter the eardrums at 
 the dead monotony of such a condition. Life would 
 be insufferable without the problem, in fact 
 would cease, and stagnation would reign supreme.
 
 PROBLEMS 159 
 
 The lure of the puzzle is the charm of being. It 
 arouses all our activities in the attempt at a 
 solution, and the fury of endeavor is the fullness 
 of being. 
 
 The man who falls flat before opposition and 
 does not try with all his might to make the 
 most of it, is really no man at all, but a thing 
 unsexed and unequal to the rich experiences of 
 the battle of life. The problem of maintaining 
 my body equal to the demand of my soul is 
 interesting; the problem of establishing a body 
 for my body, that is, a roof over my head and 
 foundation under my feet, is another vital 
 puzzle, problem of clothes for my back inci- 
 dentally going with it. The problems of fuel, 
 climate, food, keep men busy from ' ' sun up to sun 
 down" in their effort to solve them. The prob- 
 lems of education, race, environment, the adapta- 
 tion of humanity to frigid, torrid and temperate 
 conditions plunges the man of affairs deep in 
 thought. The problem of supply and demand, 
 social and economic relations,— the questions of 
 war, peace, commerce, international law, tax 
 legal and executive brains to the limit. The 
 problems of love, hate, equity, caste, the puzzle 
 of the passions, the sex question, the horns of 
 the dilemma— respectively man and woman. The 
 problem of the small, the problem of the great, 
 and lastly the stupendous problem of knowledge, 
 inclusive of all others the very sphinx of life 
 itself. 
 
 Imagine a heaven with everything settled, com- 
 plete, done, if you can. No more thinking, no
 
 160 STEAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 more speculating, no more wondering, guessing, 
 imagining, fearing,— but everything shelved and 
 finished; yourselves before the throne, with no 
 question mark stamped on you,— so vastly wise 
 that all curiosity lies dead within you; all worlds 
 conquered, all problems solved. Alas! even God 
 could not endure such stagnation, so perforce 
 he made Adam and Eve, and endowed them with 
 freedom, that he himself might have a question 
 to determine, a puzzle to work out. This is not 
 sacrilege but verity, for by no possibility could 
 there be life, the other name of which is action, 
 without the element of obstacle or resistence in- 
 volved. Men are mostly "kickers," not realiz- 
 ing that when they turn on the problems of their 
 existence and revile them, they are condemning 
 their best friends. The wholesome anger, with 
 which we sometimes attack a difficulty is not to 
 be altogether condemned. "Our blood up" we 
 fight hard, and having cleared our path find 
 considerable satisfaction. Considerable, I say, 
 but certainly not supreme, for the job done we 
 at once look about for another, quite unsettled 
 until we "get busy" again. No healthy man 
 rests long and gloats over his laurels. The real 
 fun of the contest was the battle itself; the 
 reward following was but a secondary interest. 
 Even in the problem of love, in the act of win- 
 ning, a man is intoxicated by the west wind 
 blowing off the shores of his distant elysium; 
 having won he settles himself comfortably, but 
 not with rapture, to inhale the appetizing, odor- 
 ous breezes of the family kitchen. He "builds
 
 PROBLEMS 161 
 
 him a house," where he may obtain perfect 
 harmony, absolute rest, domestic bliss and para- 
 dise. While constructing this future haven of 
 delights, he is superlatively happy; but let the 
 house be finished, himself in slippers and gown 
 established inside, and bliss takes wings, his 
 skylark becomes a crow, and he is glum and 
 morose with disappointment. He eats too much, 
 he drinks too much, he smokes too much; he 
 wants to sell, he wants to travel, he wishes he 
 had his money back. He says to himself, "The 
 fool builds the house and the wise man lives in 
 it. I must get out of this," and he gets out, and 
 starts off on the trail of another problem. All 
 showing clearly that the bird of paradise hovers 
 over the game and departs when it is won. 
 
 I do not wish to be misunderstood in this 
 argument. There are difficulties too great to be 
 enticing; there is a degree of "tiredness" that 
 demands surcease of action. One thus weary 
 craves only to float with the tide of being, let- 
 ting things settle themselves, finding in this state 
 of mental and physical exhaustion his heaven in 
 negation, sleep, rest. This however, being a phase 
 of rhythm is but temporary, 'and serves as a 
 preparation for more hard work and discovery. 
 
 Of all the problems, that of death and the 
 possible hereafter is perhaps the most fascinating. 
 While the prospect hangs over us like a pall, 
 black and uncertain, it has its charm, and secret- 
 ly we are all looking forward to it with both 
 dread and rapture, somewhat as a girl contem- 
 plates marriage. The fact of this great change,
 
 162 STRAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 sure sometime to be ours, takes the ennui from 
 the life of the most passe and blase individual, 
 and clothes him with expectancy. Tired of all 
 else, death, awful as it may be, is at least ex- 
 citing, a thing unsolved, and the thick slow- 
 flowing blood of the rankest pessimist mounts 
 to his brain at the thought of it. 
 
 The beginning and ending of life is a veritable 
 Chinese puzzle, and all that goes between like 
 wine to the blood if we once become aware of 
 the charm of the problem.
 
 FEAR AND WORRY. 
 
 It is the fashion nowadays to condemn fear 
 and anathematize worry, but we have failed to 
 annihilate them nevertheless. Why? Because 
 fear and worry are inherent in the "make up" 
 of the man and serve a purpose. Fear as a 
 characteristic has its virtue in being a safeguard 
 and protector. The use of fear and the abuse 
 of fear produce vastly different results. A tem- 
 perate fear leads one to be cautious and care- 
 ful, preventing innumerable accidents that would 
 otherwise occur. An intemperate fear culminates 
 in panic, which in itself is the worst accident 
 of all. The former modifies and subdues our 
 rashness, the latter makes us cowards and ner- 
 vous wrecks. 
 
 The fearless and the fearful man represent 
 the extremes, and between them we have the indi- 
 vidual who uses common sense in regard to his 
 precautions. He worries reasonably, until his 
 "powder is dry," then secure in its protective 
 value he throws off dull care and proceeds to 
 enjoy himself. He locks his door and forgets 
 the thief. He insures his life, and then lives. 
 This is the reasonable man. After doing what 
 he can to prevent disaster he thinks no more 
 about it.
 
 164 STRAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 It is otherwise with the fearful individual, 
 whom some people condemn as a coward. He 
 is afraid and afraid and still more afraid. About 
 his body he worries continually, believing all 
 diseases instead of being possible, are more than 
 probable in his case. He is afraid not only of 
 a complaint, but of the doctor who might dis- 
 cover it. Symptoms scare him, and a lack of 
 symptoms frightens him still more He doses 
 slyly on the guess-work principle, and trembles 
 at the possible result. He is afraid to take medi- 
 cine and afraid not to take medicine. He is 
 frightened if his heart beats, and alarmed at the 
 prospect of its stopping altogether. Unless he 
 temporarily forgets himself his body tortures 
 him with the alarms it generates. He is afraid 
 to travel and afraid to stay at home; he fully 
 realizes the sneaking dangers of his own back- 
 yard,— his sewer pipes, drains and pitfalls; he 
 fears his neighbor's dog and the scratch of his 
 friend's cat. If terrified to the flying point he 
 starts on a journey, he gets himself insured, and 
 proceeds to contemplate disasters of every de- 
 scription, from that of missing his car to a train 
 wreck, dwelling morbidly on the shadings of 
 evil entailed on one who traverses the spaces, 
 skimming over sea and land. 
 
 From the financial point a man of this type 
 is in dread of " setting up in business for him- 
 self" lest the risk be too great, and mightily 
 afraid to serve anyone else, on account of the 
 responsibility. He is afraid to do nothing and 
 afraid to do something. He sees the poor house
 
 FEAE AND WOEEY 165 
 
 ahead if he takes chances, and he sees it again 
 if de does not. He is afraid to "get married," 
 and still more afraid of single blessedness. A 
 wife might fall ill and become a burden, or he 
 might fall ill and have no wife to care for him; 
 either way he scents danger. As for becoming 
 a father, he hates to "chance it," yet if he does 
 not he fears a lonely old age with no one to 
 cheer him in his declining years. On the other 
 hand, he might breed criminals and live to see 
 his son hanged. He's afraid of the hereafter, 
 but fears to join any special church lest some 
 other special church turn out to be a safer sail- 
 ing craft to the port of the unknown. 
 
 Altogether this extremist in the art of worry 
 is so fanatically burning with panic that the 
 world laughs at him and frightens him still more. 
 
 But the man who is "afraid of nothing" is 
 almost as ridiculous. Such a fellow is well de- 
 picted in a dime novel. No enemy daunts him. 
 He has never known fright. If a house burns, 
 he goes where fireman fear to tread, and nearly 
 chokes to death. In a case of drowning he 
 plunges into the breakers and starts out to res- 
 cue the victim. Whether he can swim or not, 
 makes no difference; he dares the water and 
 probably gets the worst of it. A man of this 
 type knows nothing of small worries about his 
 stomach, liver, heart, "coming down" with a 
 serious illness; he pays so little attention to it 
 that he is likely to succumb before a physician 
 gets on his track, but should the doctor reach 
 him in time our rash patient has no fear of him,
 
 y 
 
 166 STEAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 and invites an X-ray inspection with keen relish. 
 Told he must die, he is quite free from terror 
 and shows no dread of the undertaker whom he 
 knows is hovering near like a black crow, waiting 
 for his opportunity,— which in the undertaker's 
 case is never allowed to slip. 
 
 Such an extremist in the art of bravery plunges 
 recklessly into matrimony, and is under no cir- 
 cumstance afraid of his wife. Kegarding father- 
 hood, as far as fear goes he would as soon be 
 a father as not. He is extravagant in money 
 matters, and has no dread whatever of a panic. 
 For him poverty has no terrors, nor has wealth. 
 He is not afraid of dependence nor its contrary. 
 If a burglar enters his house he chases him out, 
 aye, he follows him to the very den of thieves, 
 where he promptly receives a stunning blow on 
 the head and, dime novel fashion, is bound hand 
 and foot, gagged and left alone in a cellar. Un- 
 daunted, if he manages to escape he follows up 
 his enemies and gets his skull cracked again. He 
 is an utterly fearless person,— out in the dark 
 at night prowling the streets, where "hold-up 
 men" ply their trade; in rocky, suspicious look- 
 ing mountain canyons, where rattlesnakes and 
 poison oak flourish; visiting friends down with 
 smallpox, with never a sign of vaccination on 
 him; hard up at the door of an enemy striving 
 to borrow with no false shame in his eyes, as 
 unalarmed about his future state as the babe 
 new-born. 
 
 What is the philosophy of all this? Which 
 extremist is the fool? I answer, both. To be
 
 FEAB AND WOEBY 167 
 
 sure we admire the man of dash and daring, 
 while we despise the panicky coward, yet neither 
 is sane nor reasonable in his method. 
 
 Should I cany out to the letter the modern 
 "saws," "Don't Worry," "Fear Nothing," etc., 
 I should undoubtedly forget my engagements, 
 fail to keep my promises, miss my train, neglect 
 my health, overdraw my bank account, become 
 indifferent to my morals, and imperil my im- 
 mortal soul. Using judgment, I propose to worry 
 and fear sufficiently to "keep the Wolf from my 
 door" and the thief from my trousers' pocket. 
 I shall muzzle my hound in "dog days" and fly 
 to cover in a storm. Having done all that, I 
 do not propose to brood. Worry and fear serve 
 a good purpose in giving warning of danger 
 and stirring me to activity as regards preven- 
 tive ways and means. After that, they are 
 enemies and take on the grotesque and absurd 
 features of the great god Pan, who piped till 
 he raised a panic and then piped some more. 
 
 Without a reasonable amount of precaution 
 superinduced by anxiety, the world could not go 
 on in an orderly manner for any length of time. 
 The cosmic balance hinges on the alertness of 
 the watchman on the lookout, and that watch- 
 man is named Fear. Like pain he has his mis- 
 sion, and when he does not abuse it, like pain, 
 again he becomes a savior. We may pretend 
 that the gospel of "Don't Worry" is the last 
 word in scientific philosophy, but if we had 
 keener insight we should change the phrase to 
 "Don't Worry Unnecessarily." Having worried
 
 168 STEAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 sufficiently to do my best for myself and others, 
 I have no call to waste more energy along that 
 line. Of course this is "easier said than done." 
 A mother hanging over her sick child has most 
 certainly accomplished everything within her 
 power for its relief, and yet she worries. But 
 her case is extreme, we must excuse her. In the 
 thousand and one little things where our intense 
 affections are not involved, it is certainly un- 
 philosophic to waste our strength in foolish 
 fear and anxiety. In so doing we become a bur- 
 den to ourselves and a "bore" to others. There 
 is nothing more wearing to a man's nervous 
 system than to be constantly thrown in company 
 with those who are "eaten up with anxiety." 
 Such individuals air their troubles continually, 
 and make nuisances of themselves. 
 
 The one and only justifiable great fear, it 
 seems to me, is that of being afraid of fear itself. 
 Perhaps I am wrong, for to be terrified by fear 
 permits of a fearful attitude of mind, which it 
 were probably better not to encourage. Well 
 then, how shall we ward off panic if we are not 
 permitted to be afraid of it? By the under- 
 standing, most certainly. Having a clear com- 
 prehension of what the nature of panic is, and 
 the danger involved in allowing it to assert 
 itself, we steer clear of it. 
 
 We must remember that Fear is an emotion, not 
 an intellectual concept. It is a spontaneous re- 
 action from something that seems about to 
 injure us, nevertheless so closely allied to intel- 
 lect that it is more or less colored by it. We
 
 FEAE AND WOEEY 169 
 
 can reason ourselves into being afraid, and we 
 can reason ourselves out again. Talk calmly 
 and convincingly to a man half paralyzed with 
 fright, and he will gradually get his equilibrium 
 and overcome his terror. On the other hand, 
 by appealing to his reason through argument 
 you can throw him into a panic, convincing him 
 that dire disaster is close by. 
 
 Reason then is the means by which we regulate 
 fear, exciting it sufficiently to make us cautious 
 and self -protecting, or subduing it enough to pre- 
 vent extreme tension and positive terror. 
 
 Fear is apt to be attendant upon some other 
 emotion, in fact is often the dim shadow of an 
 exalted passion. The mother fears for her chil- 
 dren because she adores them; the lover fears for 
 his beloved because he worships her. The miser 
 lives in terror because he gloats on his gold. A 
 man otherwise brave is often reduced to coward- 
 ice through love of his family and anxiety about 
 them. 
 
 Fear like hope is a doubtful friend, faithful to 
 a degree, after that an enemy. You can hope 
 against hope, which deferred "maketh the heart 
 sick." You can go on worrying till you yourself 
 are fear embodied, frightful to your friends and 
 a menace to mankind. 
 
 The intangible quality of fear, its uncertainty 
 and procrastination, make it in the long run an 
 exasperating sensation, embittering and chaotic. 
 You say to yourself, "I would prefer to know the 
 worst than to continue to feel this way." The 
 element of expectancy, the sense of something ter-
 
 170 STEAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 rible impending becomes in time beyond endur- 
 ance, and panic ensues. 
 
 The philosopher, while he knows fear and 
 anxiety under the mask of caution, prudence and 
 carefulness, is quite content to stop his acquaint- 
 ance there. Its more intense manifestations, such 
 as terror and frenzy, he strives ever to avoid.
 
 THE JEWEL IN THE TOAD'S HEAD. 
 
 Ugly as the toad appears, nevertheless there is 
 a shining hit of cartilage in his head, as beautiful 
 as a gem ; and so from time immemorial ' ' the jewel 
 in the toad's head" has been recognizee! not only 
 literally but illustratively. If the repulsive and 
 hideous manifest some points of beauty, it should 
 certainly be the aim of all truth seekers to dis- 
 cover and value it. 
 
 There are things which we consider inherently) 
 evil, some aspects of life seem without excuse, 
 ugly, offensive, quite devoid of any redeeming 
 quality. Wait! there's a jewel in the toad's head; 
 somewhere in this evil of ours is the sparkling 
 splendor of a gem that makes the dread horror 
 of the rest bearable, or if not bearable, at least 
 understandable. On every possible aspect of 
 physical, mental and spiritual ugliness,— on every 
 grief, bereavement, pain, shame, or degradation, 
 a light flashes, the gleam of the jewel in the very 
 head of it, a gleam so clear that it serves to 
 explain and almost justify the deformity which 
 otherwise would be a symbol of despair. 
 
 Some kind of gain comes out and manifests in 
 every loss. A scintillating, uncanny gem that 
 flashes in lurid splendor on the chaos of misery
 
 172 STEAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 and miserableness. Let me illustrate: Perhaps 
 your self-respect has disappeared, and with it 
 your decency and honor. You may have broken 
 every one of the ten commandments, sinning 
 also against intrinsic law itself. You have de- 
 graded your whole being; you have stolen, lied 
 and debauched yourself; you have tasted of every 
 evil, and your innermost self is vile. Where in the 
 name of all decency is the jewel in the toad's head 
 in your case? So bad are you that this possible 
 gem has but one flash, one glow; it has no facets 
 and no varied scintillation, but that one steady 
 shine is there nevertheless, and cannot be hid. 
 Bad as you are, the jewel that lights your way is 
 that of experience, and has no less dignified name 
 than that of knowledge. Your touch of pitch has 
 bedaubed you with its blackness, and its jet is a 
 gem and reflects facts. Knowledge is yours in 
 spite of you; its hatefulness and nastiness cannot 
 put out the truth that shines in it as such, miser- 
 able though it be. And by this knowledge you 
 may eventually be saved and delivered. The light 
 of this knowledge flashes from the gem of jet, 
 and shows you the way to better things and a 
 fairer life. No one knows contrasts as do you, no 
 one realizes cleanness as do you who have been 
 vile, no one bows before purity as do you who are 
 impure, no one appreciates honor, even to the point 
 of envy, as do you who are dishonorable, no one 
 adores beauty as do you who are ugly, no one 
 trembles before truth as do you who are a liar. 
 And all because of the jewel in the toad's head— 
 your head. Out of your vast intercourse with evil
 
 THE JEWEL IN THE TOAD'S HEAD 173 
 
 has come your power to estimate values, and that 
 power is the jewel which is especially your own. 
 It is sombre but it flashes, and is not an imitation 
 but a real gem. 
 
 No condition or state of evil is conceivable but 
 that some brilliant sparkles in its darkest place. 
 The sanctum sanctorum of the unholy is lighted 
 by a jewel which has intrinsic worth, and not only 
 the unholy but the unhappy also. The sombre 
 and pessimistic good, people who walk in shadows 
 of their own or others' making, have gems con- 
 cealed or revealed about them, as the case may be. 
 The complaining man by his continual unfair pro- 
 tests against things as they are in his case, but 
 serves by the light of the gem in him to bring into 
 prominence those who bear like burdens patiently 
 without complaint. Some strange lurid light, 
 opaline and resplendent, makes a foil of the back- 
 biter and slanderer by which is seen more dis- 
 tinctly the man of clean soul and cautious tongue. 
 The rubies that drop from the knife of the mur- 
 derer as he draws it from the heart of his victim 
 dance forever before the eyes of humanity and 
 teach the world the dread awfulness of taking 
 human life. Even the hunter who steals like a 
 hound along the trail of his victim has the emerald 
 light in his eyes and his soul, for which caution 
 and fox-like shrewdness stand. All those who 
 revel in danger, those who do, dare and suffer for 
 the sake of conquest and achievement, are lighted 
 by diamond flashes cold as ice and hot as fire. 
 
 Looking deeper, I find there is no real, re- 
 splendent good as such, but that has its evil aspect,
 
 174 STRAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 and in that evil aspect is a gem,— not the jewel 
 of good per se, but the veritable pearl of great 
 price, the gem that is paid for by sin and bereave- 
 ment and pain. For instance, suppose I am 
 healthy, wealthy and happy— thrice good, so to 
 speak; on this very account I have a deep-seated 
 anxiety as regards my power of holding on to 
 these blessings indefinitely. This very unhappi- 
 ness about my happiness gives me keenness to 
 estimate values, and is a blessing in disguise,— 
 in other words, a jewel in the toad's head. Not 
 that worry is in itself good, but the caution born 
 therefrom is exceedingly good, enabling me to 
 maintain possession of those delights which I 
 might otherwise through carelessness lose. Jeal- 
 ousy, contemptible as it is, has a jewel in its head 
 nevertheless, shining brightly enough to reveal 
 one's self to one's self with all the cavern-like pos- 
 sibilities and pitfalls otherwise unknown. It 
 shows the danger of rampant fascination, and the 
 blissful anxieties of overweening love. It is a 
 gem of great light, intense, electric, searching. 
 The mean little thief plies his debasing trade by 
 the glimmer of his tiny jewel, which, garnet-like, 
 shines sufficiently to teach him that a code of 
 honor among those who steal is quite essential in 
 order to make stealing possible. It shows him, 
 too, the better way of honesty by force of contrast, 
 and makes him forever restless and dissatisfied 
 with his lot. 
 
 The scarlet woman wears a gem on her heart 
 radiant with fire which burns and tortures. The 
 purity of an innocent child is realized by her as
 
 THE JEWEL IN THE TOAD'S HEAD 175 
 
 by no other because of her impurity. Fallen, no 
 one appreciates as she appreciates the human 
 being that stands erect. By the light of this jewel 
 she sees the broken hearts of her sisters in shame 
 as no other can see, and by the knowledge gained 
 through painfully clear vision, she and she only 
 can be the savior of herself and those like unto her. 
 
 The gem of sickness is the pearl. The diseased, 
 the halt, the blind,— those physically accursed, by 
 the very disease itself, create, whether or no 1 , the 
 pearl born of their misery. It is a clouded jewel, 
 varying in gleam like the sun from dawn to even- 
 ing. In the breast of the pearl, as on the bosom of 
 the sea, the tides rise and fall, but the light is there 
 as in a mirror, and the patient sufferer sees his 
 own face reflected from its sheen and a divine un- 
 earthliness also that implies higher planes of 
 being, and a disintegration of gross matter into 
 more ethereal elements. It often throws upon the 
 screen of itself the very image of death, like an 
 angel of light, a welcome visitor eagerly embraced. 
 It reflects Hebe also, the image of health, and 
 teaches the invalid values in hygiene that were 
 never before dreamed of. 
 
 The gem of poverty is the turquoise,— like the 
 clear sky. Poverty is often toad-like in its squalor 
 and uncleanness. Purity is expensive, water costs 
 money, time is cash, and the poor are too tired to 
 keep clean. Now the sky when blue like the tur- 
 quoise is stainless, and who like the unclean 
 poor can realize the value of purity? The sky 
 like wealth is boundless to him who is poverty- 
 stricken. The vastness of the great comes to him
 
 176 STRAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 who has nothing. He dreams of domains and pal- 
 aces, kingdoms and principalities. His power of 
 appreciation of abundance is beyond the concep- 
 tion of the well-to-do. Ennui he never knows ; his 
 life is so strenuous that it becomes exciting and 
 intense. Every hour is a tragedy escaped or 
 experienced, every minute vital and problemat- 
 ical. But the jewel shines softly, in azures impal- 
 pable, and whether he knows it or not as a gem, 
 he certainly realizes an indefinable something 
 which makes his poverty endurable and instruct- 
 ive. 
 
 And these are but a few instances of the innu- 
 merable forms that evil assumes. Evil as evil will 
 have nothing to do with light, but intrinsically by 
 the nature of Law the jewel is there. The toad's 
 head has developed its own gem by the nature and 
 virtue of its ugliness. Lilies on a pond of slime 
 serve as a commonplace illustration but pat just 
 here. Evil cannot help bringing forth some form 
 of good by its nature as evil. It is the stalking 
 shadow that acts as a foil to reveal intrinsic worth, 
 and that power to be a foil is as a power good. 
 No contrast nor comparison would be made pos- 
 sible without the aid of that which man calls 
 evil,— no appreciation of values. Even Satan has 
 his mission to perform when he poses as a mirror 
 to reveal the saint. The arch fiend himself, the 
 very Devil, serves the end and intent of being 
 when by the fire of the eyes of him God in heaven 
 is made manifest.
 
 THE LAW OF OPPOSITES. 
 
 A law we believe is eternal, so there is no need 
 to go back in history to find the beginning of it. 
 Nevertheless it is interesting to trace out its dis- 
 coverers, to examine their application, and the 
 results accruing therefrom. 
 
 Now the law of opposites is spoken of in past 
 ages as the identity of contraries, and was foisted 
 upon the world at a very early time by the great 
 thinkers. It is true, as is well known, that the 
 masters in every country brought up at the para- 
 dox; or to make it clearer, Zarathushtra, Pytha- 
 goras, Laotze, Gautama and Jesus met at an 
 apparent point, that in reality was no point at 
 all,— simply the passing or blending place of the 
 extremes. A person, not subtle, calls this point 
 or blending place a contradiction, but a thinker 
 understands that on the contrary it is a paradox. 
 Things that contradict each other are impossible 
 of blending, but a paradox is quite another ques- 
 tion. 
 
 Now upon the paradox hinges the law of oppo- 
 sites, which in simpler parlance might be called 
 the law of rhythm. Zarathushtra, or Zoroaster, as 
 he is commonly called, apparently taught dualism; 
 that there were two principles in nature, the good
 
 178 STRAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 and evil, under the guise of Ahum Mazdao (Or- 
 muzd)— Light, and Angro Mamyush (Ahriman) 
 —Darkness. In the Gathas or sacred books, the 
 evil spirit is less prominent than the good. In 
 Mazdaism, as the faith of Zoroaster is called, the 
 good is so entirely uppermost that it seems to be 
 all in all. 
 
 Now this dualism is as old as history, and is an 
 extremely common belief among the followers of 
 all masters. The followers we say, for not a single 
 master that we can discover believed it. You will 
 notice as you sift the cult of the almost mythical 
 Zoroaster that these apparently two principles in 
 Nature come together, being twins proceeding 
 from the fundamental law of Unity. As surely as 
 day is comprehended because of night and night 
 because of day, so were the light and darkness of 
 this great leader of Iran based emphatically and 
 everlastingly upon One, and their meeting was the 
 identification of contraries and the passage of 
 extremes. 
 
 But let us get away from Persia and look into 
 Ancient Greece. Another almost fabled individ- 
 ual, born probably about 582 B. C, called Pytha- 
 goras, who made of geometry a science, presented 
 the identity of contraries, or the law of opposites. 
 These opposites were unity and duality, or num- 
 ber and one; in modern terms we should say 
 variety in unity,— variety standing for the number 
 of Pythagoras, and unity for one. In the union 
 of these opposites (that is the blending point be- 
 tween the two) consists harmony or neutrality. 
 Suppose we take a simple illustration. Blend
 
 THE LAW OF OPPOSITES 179 
 
 black and white,— opposites, and what do you 
 get but a neutral tint, or gray? Blend night and 
 day, and what do you get but neutrality, dawn, or 
 the gloaming— evening. Blend love and hate,— 
 opposites, and what do you get but the rather 
 comfortable neutral state of indifference? 
 
 The basic philosophy of classic Hellas, then, 
 upon which the later philosophies were grafted, 
 was that dualistic monism— if it may be so 
 called— which is apparently two, but in reality 
 one. Over in old China still further back, about 
 604 B. C, there lived a master who is supposed to 
 be the author of the book called Tao-teh King. 
 This master's name was Laotze, and he taught 
 the identity of contraries. Later on he had a dis- 
 ciple probably as great as himself, who stood to 
 the original as did Paul to Jesus, dialing Tzu 
 left much written matter behind him. Let us 
 quote a few passages. 
 
 "To know that east and West are convertible 
 and yet necessary terms, is the due adjustment of 
 functions. For instance, any given point is of 
 course east in relation to west, west in relation to 
 east; but absolutely it may be said that its west- 
 ness does not include its eastness, or that it is 
 neither east nor west." 
 
 Again he says: "If we say that anything is 
 good or evil because it is either good or evil in our 
 eyes, then there is nothing which is not good, 
 nothing which is not evil. To know that Tao and 
 Chieh were both good and both evil from their 
 opposite points of view, this is the expression of 
 a standard. Therefore those who would have right
 
 180 STEAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 without its correlative wrong, or good without its 
 correlative misrule, they do not comprehend the 
 great principles of the universe. One might as 
 well talk of the existence of heaven without that 
 of earth, or the negative principle without the 
 positive, which is clearly absurd." 
 
 Now after having quoted these passages from 
 Chaung Tzu, Laotze's most brilliant pupil, you 
 are likely to retort, "He was only an Ancient, and 
 we do not base our judgment upon the Ancients." 
 Very well, then, drop the name of Chaung Tzu 
 altogether, forget that Laotze was ever born, wipe 
 Zoroaster off the slate of history, bury Pytha- 
 goras out of sight, look upon the dualistic, mon- 
 istic prince Siddartha as a myth, forget the mag- 
 nificent exposition of the same fundamental truth 
 given out by the Nazarene. And yet I present to 
 your incredulity something still more ancient than 
 are they all in the fact of law itself. T challenge 
 and defy you to disprove it. This principle can no 
 more be ignored than can that of repulsion and 
 attraction, for if you did but know it, it hinges 
 upon this selfsame law as surely as rhythm is 
 rhythm and tides are tides. The identity of con- 
 traries reduced to physics is the law of action and 
 reaction, contraction and expansion, or, expressed 
 in one stupendous term,— POLARITY. He that 
 can freeze with hate can burn with love, he that 
 can save can spend, he that can suffer can enjoy, 
 he that can look down can raise his eyes, he that 
 hath a future hath a past. A heaven implies a 
 hell. And what is this but rhythm, or action and 
 reaction, a going out and coming in, an inhaling
 
 THE LAW OF OPPOSITES 181 
 
 and exhaling, a night and day, an ebb and flow? 
 And the meeting point of these extremes is One. 
 This meeting point I say is neutrality, poise, ap- 
 proximate balance, Nirvana, rest ; the shadows are 
 soft and gray and tender, without passion, with- 
 out fire. 
 
 The irony of all this is that we know it so sub- 
 consciously that we fail to utilize our knowledge. 
 This is no fable, let me tell you, but "The One 
 Thing." To bring this law into practice is to 
 apply the mathematics of Pythagoras to our daily 
 lives, to take stock of our rhythm and discover 
 how the tide stands. Is it coming in or going out ? 
 Will the law of the laws, somehow or other we 
 sit on the crest of the wave, if we do but know 
 it, a law unto ourselves. And when extremes 
 come verging together in the surging vortex of 
 being, we balance like philosophers and find our- 
 selves again on a new crest, uninjured by our 
 plunge into the depths below. There is no hell 
 deep enough to hold a master long. He scales its 
 sides and peers over the brim of it, in spite of a 
 legion of devils marshalled by Satan himself. And 
 because the Sage descends to the infernal regions 
 he discovers the beauty of heaven. Jesus de- 
 scended into hell and then went up— up! Could 
 he ever have risen if he had not been down ? The 
 very very wise court suffering, even to that of a 
 cross. Sorrow is pregnant and as surely as the 
 seed sprouts will bring forth a child called Joy.
 
 THE ABSOLUTE. 
 
 A stupendous subject, and you may well won- 
 der that I, or any other dare to write about 
 it. Reversely you can as reasonably assert 
 that it has been worn threadbare. Either way it 
 is a presumptuous undertaking, which neverthe- 
 less I shall attempt. 
 
 Now in beginning I must know the meaning 
 or meanings of the term, and proceed from the 
 base of a definition. I shall set aside all pre^ 
 liminary ones, such as certain, infallible, peremp- 
 tory, complete, entire, ultimate, immeasurable, 
 etc., and argue at once from the metaphysical 
 definition of the word as a noun. 
 
 The absolute about which I intend to write 
 is "that which is free from restriction," the un- 
 conditioned, independent of relations; in other 
 words, the opposite of the relative. It is si 
 totality, but not infinity. 
 
 I am aware that my definitions may be con- 
 tested, but as long as my argument is true to 
 them, it does not matter. 
 
 Now my appeal is to the ordinary thinker, 
 whose prejudices have not been maintained 
 through the influence of others. Can you, plain 
 man, find some one thing in life which you are 
 sure of, and can honestly define as absolute? 
 Now think! Is there an existent something in
 
 THE ABSOLUTE 183 
 
 things themselves that is uniform, alike in all,— 
 that maintaining relationship, is not in itself 
 relative? Something you cannot see, hear, taste, 
 smell or handle, which nevertheless you are per- 
 fectly certain is free from restriction and uncon- 
 ditioned? "Yes," you answer, "the law of the 
 relativities or the principle which governs them; 
 it has totality and unity, is alike in all and con- 
 ditioned by none." Your answer is well taken, 
 but you must remember that you are now speak- 
 ing of the first principle, the ultimate, not its 
 secondary manifestations which we call the laws, 
 for they hinge upon and modify each other. Fur- 
 ther, this first principle which you may call 
 absolute, has a way of appearing as dual, or as 
 two principles, thus apparently stultifying its 
 absoluteness and seemingly conditioning itself. 
 In fact it has a reverse aspect, and, to him who 
 is not sufficiently subtle, resolves itself into dual- 
 ism, and thence into pluralism. A law that shall 
 seem to draw all things toward a common center 
 and by the nature of its intensity in so doing neces- 
 sarily cause repulsion, is split in two, so to speak, 
 and is spoken of as two principles instead of 
 one. Now the real absoluteness of such a law— 
 call it gravity if you will— lies in the fact that 
 no matter how definitely repulsion asserts itself, 
 the gravity still holds; the principle is unchanged 
 and its effect unmodified in spite of its tangent 
 possibilities. In fact these same possibilities 
 but serve to prove the law upon which they rest. 
 In no way can we effect unity among diverse 
 things unless there is one element in common
 
 184 STEAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 between them. Variety strikes the senses as we 
 look out upon the world. No two things are the 
 same, many are radically different one from the 
 other. Through the five senses we discover 
 the multiplicities, but by these same senses con- 
 jointly or through the sense of the senses, that 
 is through a sort of psychical mental touch, we 
 realize that in them all is the self-existent or 
 absolute law. But, you say, the very law is utter- 
 ly dependent upon the things which it unites; 
 that without things there would be no law of 
 them, therefore this principle itself is relative, 
 and your absolute is a dream of the brain. 
 
 Now! we have reached the crux of the question. 
 If we assert a beginning of things as such, your 
 assumption is well taken. The law of things 
 could not precede them— by its very nature, 
 neither could things precede the law. If the law 
 is eternal, multiplicity in some form is eternal also. 
 Then you may well ask why things as such are 
 not absolute too. And I answer, that things by 
 their inherent tendency to change, which change 
 alone makes them various, are not absolute; but 
 the law of change, which is but the reverse aspect 
 of the law of unity, is absolute. And this is no 
 quibble. Change, which is the pronounced fac- 
 tor in relationship, is itself changeless. As law 
 it is unity reversely aspected. 
 
 The unconditioned then is law without begin- 
 ning or end, and things are its opposite or eter- 
 nally conditioned manifestation. But, you argue, 
 law is conditioned by its own nature; it is hard, 
 fixed, unalterable. Here we hold up the horns
 
 THE ABSOLUTE 185 
 
 of the dilemma and find that they belong to one 
 Being. Unity, which is law manifesting, is for- 
 ever uniting that which is not hard, fixed and 
 unalterable. As law, it is absolutely given over 
 to dealing with change; as law it makes the 
 volatile and changeable possible, in fact is ab- 
 solute as change. As surely as it is absolute as 
 rigidity, it is legally united to change. It is 
 absolute change and absolute rigidity— a para- 
 dox but not a contradiction. The change can 
 only be produced by fixity, and the unity can 
 only be produced by multiplicity. A garden of 
 incomparable flowers grows from the unifying 
 quality of the river that waters it. One stream 
 permeates all the plants, one liquid makes many 
 manifestations possible. This is but a surface 
 illustration, and is not true to the probe, never- 
 theless it will do, as no simile can possibly ex- 
 plain the subtlety of law. Now this absolute 
 law with its manifestation in things, in its finality 
 we know nothing about. We can understand, 
 however, its paradoxical nature as far as mind 
 can reach, and grasp its absoluteness as such. Is 
 it Being? As far as power and its expressions 
 go, it most certainly is. Is it Gk>d? As far as 
 we can mentally grasp a sense of totality, our- 
 selves included— yes. Then what are things, and 
 why bother about them? 
 
 Right here let me say, that our universe is 
 made up of things, our life is in and among 
 things, our hell and heaven hinge upon things. 
 The only way we can realize this law is through 
 things. We ourselves are things. Their very
 
 
 186 STKAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 changeableness is their glory, their chameleon 
 charm is our paradise, their relativities make the 
 one thing our supreme joy. You cannot say 
 that things are included in the lawi of them, any 
 more than you can say that they include the law. 
 The absolute and relative are polarized aspects 
 of totality. One is no way superior to the other. 
 The pole conditioned is not the pole uncondi- 
 tioned—that is all. Do the poles condition each 
 other then? you ask. I answer that the totality 
 includes its poles, and as a unity it stands as 
 absolute or manifested law, because this law is 
 of itself unity. Its nature is that of complete- 
 ness,— a freedom from restrictions. 
 
 Can I understand the absolute? No, because 
 all reason deals with the conditioned or relative. 
 Can I realize the absolute? Yes, just as I am 
 conscious of gravity by its pull, without com- 
 prehending it. Reason by its nature deals with 
 the many. Law by its nature, as far as I realize 
 it, acts as One. It is the Tao of Laotze, which 
 permeates everything yet is no thing. Energy 
 is beyond me, law is beyond me, as far as 
 brain power and intellect go, but I feel the 
 absolute. When pluralism denies the absolute 
 it exorcises itself, for there could be no plu- 
 ralism without its absolute pole of unity. The 
 Pragmatist harps irritably upon the practical 
 but there could be no practicable without the 
 impracticable. The Solipsist argues that he 
 alone lives the Solitary; but there can be no 
 isolation without the crowd. Time and space 
 are said to annihilate the unconditioned, but
 
 THE ABSOLUTE 187 
 
 there can be no unconditioned without time and 
 space. As relative as I myself am— made 
 up of an infinity of parts, of one thing am I sure, 
 and that is the principle of principles that regu- 
 lates my own multiplicity. Should I call it God, 
 because in my emotion I so construe it, who, I 
 ask, can deny my claim? "Is the Absolute fate, 
 and have I no free will?" No, it is not fate, 
 and I have a free will. The Absolute is impos- 
 sible without my free will. It is on that same 
 free will its absoluteness hinges. My free will 
 necessitates multiplicity, and multiplicity necessi- 
 tates the absolute. This is not blasphemy. I am 
 using intellect now in my effort to* comprehend 
 a prerogative of absoluteness as such. If there 
 were not things to choose between and to desire, 
 I should have no will, nor could I be I,— an indi- 
 vidual, nor could there be a law of absolute unity, 
 for there would be nothing to unify. The very 
 absoluteness or changelessness of this principle 
 demands that which changes, namely, things and 
 the will that roves among them. It is thing as 
 opposed to things, or "the thing in itself," mani- 
 festing as things. 
 
 Fate, then, in the finality of thinking, is a mean- 
 ingless term; secondarily along with the epithet 
 chance, it is tolerated. 
 
 You have read of the "everlasting arms,"— the 
 real and only resting place. I fully believe this 
 enfolding embrace, which man may realize if he 
 will, is none other than that of the absolute and 
 relative, belonging to the One which might well 
 be called Almighty God.
 
 OLD AGE. 
 
 When age gets old it is in order to investigate. 
 Why is it? What is it? "Once upon a time" 
 old age was supposed to be part and parcel of 
 a ' ' long and honorable life. ' ' Indeed it was hard- 
 ly respectable not to reach years of decrepitude, 
 to say nothing of discretion. The bald gray head, 
 the stiff walk, the two canes and the croaking 
 voice were looked upon with awe and approval. 
 Any one who tried to shirk old age was judged 
 abnormal and laughed at until he had properly 
 shelved himself. But science is looking into the 
 matter today, and things are different. Humanity 
 being informed that old age is disease, begins 
 to fight shy of the subject; that is, the male half, 
 while women fail to advertise their years by the 
 shape of their bonnets, as previously they were 
 wont to do. 
 
 When I watch an automobile skimming down 
 its line of perspective till it fades into apparent 
 nonentity, the last thing I lose sight of is its 
 emphatically assertive number. Beautiful, defiant 
 though it may be, it is nevertheless ticketed like 
 a jailbird, and much of its charm vanishes in 
 its obtrusive label. Not long since people, by 
 certain things they wore or not, conspicuously
 
 OLD AGE 189 
 
 announced themselves, one to all intents and pur- 
 poses proclaimed by some trick of dress, I am 
 45; another said 60; another 23. When, like the 
 automobile, they vanished down their lines of 
 perspective, the last to catch your eye were the 
 figures on their backs, mystic but assertive, ad- 
 vertising the number of years they had stalked 
 earth for prey or otherwise, and just what might 
 be expected of them. 
 
 Now that all happened before old age was 
 dubbed disease. Since then till date there has 
 been a sort of jumble in regard to the whys and 
 wherefores of the subject, and people as yet have 
 not found their bearings. Woman was the first to 
 jump into the ranks of the unconditioned. Mrs. 
 Smith was dubious about being the mother of 
 Miss Smith, and tried to pass as her sister. Her 
 "get up" was utterly changed, not in clothes 
 alone, but in physique also. She "thinned down" 
 or "plumped out," as the case might require, 
 growing younger and younger as time passed, 
 much to the chagrin of her daughter, who hardly 
 relished this sisterly attitude, secretly feeling like 
 an orphan— motherless. Later, however, to get 
 even, the said Miss Smith assumed a role, im- 
 possible to Mrs. Smith, namely, that of naive 
 innocence and youthful simplicity, wearing great 
 hairbows and collarless jackets, that proclaimed 
 her at once the girl she was. 
 
 Men through contagion by association with 
 women, began posing as youngsters also. In the 
 great register they falsified their age, some of 
 the baldheaded appearing in wigs; their teeth
 
 190 STRAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 were reinforced, and their gray sidewhiskers 
 shaved off. They even resorted to cold cream 
 and violet water. Their trunks encased in 
 straight-front corsets, beside their sons they 
 looked dapper and well groomed, so much so that 
 the younger men were forced to appear as boys, 
 lest people mistake their fathers for their brothers. 
 
 And all this because old age is disease, and 
 the world resents it. Its respectability went down 
 when the old age microbe presented itself to the 
 microscope. 
 
 Is science right 1 Are we as humans obliged to 
 succumb to old age if we live long enough? Or 
 have we been duped all these centuries with the 
 false assumption that dignity and decrepitude are 
 a noble pair, destined to marry, and the man 
 who scorns a "ripe" old age, which ripeness is 
 in plain language decay, is insane through vanity 
 and self-importance. Some doctors ascribe the 
 disease of old age to a microbe, others to a wrong- 
 ly constituted anatomy. Whether we know the 
 cause or not, we can certainly get at the symp- 
 toms. An aged person (I am not referring in 
 this category to his years) is brittle in arteries 
 and bone, therefore stiff and, in a physical sense, 
 gritty. His hair, his eyes, everything about him 
 is minus the limberness of youth. He bends with 
 an effort, he pants for breath, and his brain in 
 time gives way, bringing about senility and "sec- 
 ond childhood." It is quite evident that some- 
 thing has happened to not only smother the fires 
 of youth, but to contract and harden his mortal 
 body. Can the mere passing of years do this, or
 
 OLD AGE 191 
 
 are the experiences which he goes through during 
 that time the sole cause? I am greatly inclined to 
 believe that certain habits of life will bring about 
 such results and certain others will not, time 
 being but a factor for the " fixing" of them either 
 one way or the other. 
 
 The physical microbe that science has found 
 in the old age patient, might be well used as a 
 symbol of mental bacteria that dominate the mind 
 of man and assure him all that decrepitude can 
 bring. When young the ordinary individual lays 
 his future out in sections, so to speak, primarily 
 cutting it up into youth, middle age, rotund elder- 
 ness, and "mellow" old age. He looks forward 
 to this, and sees himself continually under these 
 different guises, which work themselves out into 
 physical actuality one by one. This is not only 
 a race habit, but a human habit also. He refers 
 these changes in himself to the passing of time, 
 and he constantly repeats his age to himself and 
 to others who are curious enough to ask. He 
 puts himself on this shelf, and that by counting 
 his years. "I am here because I have lived so 
 long, ' ' and here because of ' ' some more. ' ' Other 
 people judge him likewise, and he could as easily 
 escape a straightjacket, as get off his particular 
 perch where he and others have "shelved" him. 
 He looks his age too, no mistake about it. He 
 is a victim of auto-suggestion, and finds no coun- 
 ter hint outside him to change his position. 
 
 Now first let us consider the physical person 
 that makes up a good half of the man. As time 
 passes and the boy matures, he forgets or is
 
 192 STRAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 ignorant that he must change his eating, drink- 
 ing and other habits to correspond. While grow- 
 ing he had a double task on hand; first to main- 
 tain life by the fuel of food, second to add to 
 his bodily stature through the substance assimi- 
 lated. When this full stature is attained the sec- 
 ond process is practically done away with, or 
 should be— the first alone being necessary. To 
 maintain life the demand and supply must be 
 equalized, but the new-made man more likely 
 than not, having cultivated a fastidious palate, 
 proceeds to gorge food in order to tickle this 
 autocrat of his mouth, till the supply is so much 
 beyond the demand that he becomes overstocked. 
 He keeps this up for years and years, and his 
 body, resentful and rebellious, strives in every way 
 to unload itself and maintain an equilibrium. For 
 a while during the man's prime, when his energy 
 is superb, it seems to succeed, but gradually this 
 same energy is sapped in the effort, and as time 
 passes the accretions overbalance the excretions, 
 and slowly but surely the arteries, nerves and 
 tissues succumb. Deposits begin to gather, of 
 both fat and mineral. To even harbor these ab- 
 normal visitors takes strength, and to oust them 
 still more. At this point our victim of his palate 
 begins the medicine regime. Doctors and doses 
 are quite essential to the helping of "nature." 
 To "assist nature" and bring about equilibrium 
 is the cry of Esculapius. Some little gain is 
 made, and if the patient follows his physician's 
 advice and lives abstemiously, a real equation 
 may be struck and genuine old age escaped; for
 
 OLD AGE 193 
 
 whatever microbes show themselves at this period 
 are as likely to grow out of the environment as 
 to cause it, that is, when the environment is con- 
 genial the microbe is there. This is the way he 
 appears to me— this microbe! A little spectacled 
 devil, his bald poll rimmed about with dead hair, 
 his eyes blinking rheum, his toothless mouth 
 drooling,— a shriveled mummy in epitome, his 
 energy all but potential, his voice a ghoulish 
 whimper, and himself too frail for the microscopic 
 eye. 
 
 Now suppose man started life with an alto- 
 gether different standard. In the first place his 
 object is prime,— "prime of life," more and more 
 prime, and yet still more— nothing but prime. 
 Time would be but a factor, enabling him by ex- 
 perience to learn better and better how to main- 
 tain that prime. For him death lies off some- 
 where perhaps, but not old age. He has no more 
 idea of harboring it than he has of smallpox or 
 plague. Poise and equilibrium would never per- 
 mit senility. His one great problem is how to 
 keep this balance, what and how much to eat 
 and drink. In fact the hygiene of life would be 
 the thing to master. Of course he might fail, but 
 one thing is certain, the chances of escape from 
 the disease— old age, are pre-eminently on his 
 side; and after a century of his own and others' 
 experience, he would probably learn the law of 
 balance so perfectly, and live by it so carefully 
 that death would lay a man in his prime in the 
 coffin instead of one that had shriveled with years. 
 
 The science of living must be first learned and
 
 194 STRAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 then practiced. He deserves a lame old age who, 
 knowing the trnth, will not abide by it, but eats 
 and drinks and is merry at the expense of his 
 arteries and to the satisfaction of the bacteria 
 that wait like minute buzzards close at hand. 
 
 Now let us look on the other pole of this ques- 
 tion—the mental attitude. This continual sug- 
 gesting to one's self, "I am getting old, older, 
 oldest;" this holding a mental mirror before one's 
 face to watch the lines come in, the crow's feet 
 and the cat's claws, and the spider's web,— this 
 hunting for brittle gray hairs, this taking of one's 
 temperature periodically, and fingering of the 
 pulse,— this anticipation of rheumatism and men- 
 tal apathy, these all are wonderful helps in bring- 
 ing old age to the fore and establishing old time 
 traditions. Body and mind interact continually. 
 Let either assume an inherited premise as a basis 
 of procedure, and the other agrees. Let both, 
 however, throw over all preconceived notions that 
 are not founded on the law of equilibrium, and 
 start out from the substantial base of a funda- 
 mental poise, and the union will produce a miracle 
 —even perpetual prime. It is not youth that men 
 want but prime. They are never satisfied until 
 they reach it, and there they really desire to stay. 
 
 But you say, everything grows old,— plants, 
 animals, rocks. Do they? There are living trees 
 that flourished when history was young. There 
 are birds and animals that die when they get 
 ready, looking nearly as youthful as when they 
 first appeared a century before. But setting this 
 aside, I admit that creature life as a, rule shows
 
 OLD AGE 195 
 
 age and decay. And man is a creature, you as- 
 sert. Yes, and something more. If the old Bible 
 stories are worthy of credence, the man of ancient 
 times lived for hundreds of years, still young 
 and virile. It is said that in the Orient today 
 there are persons attaining a truly great age, 
 who still seem equal to things. But whether this 
 is so or not, what man has never before done he 
 may some time come to do most certainly. It is not 
 recorded of the past that he talked with or with- 
 out wires, over long distance, but he does it now. 
 Nor was he supposed to be able to weigh the 
 stars and analyze their substance, but he does 
 it now. Nor could he formerly inspect the in- 
 side of a human body by an X-ray, but he does 
 it now. Nor could he manipulate electricity to 
 any extent,— he does it now. Man is a unique 
 force in the universe. What he has done is no 
 criterion for what he will do. One thing I can 
 boldly assert, however: man must make himself 
 "fit" for the majestic processional of the undis- 
 covered which is now sending its clear voice 
 ahead of it in a clarion challenge. No old age 
 microbe can be allowed at the gorgeous assem- 
 blage about to gather to usher in the New, when 
 the "Gaiety of Nations" shall resolve itself into 
 the carnival of the world, met to celebrate the 
 "Events of the 20th Century." And you— man, 
 if you would be a guest, must be in your prime 
 and wear your best clothes. Your "claw hammer 
 swallow tail," without padding. No second-hand 
 coat pinned up into imitation of the real thing 
 will pass you into the assembly where Modern
 
 196 STRAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Science holds court. Science has caught the old 
 age microbe and has it fast on the slide of the 
 microscope, and in its place has presented you 
 with the formula for sane and temperate living 
 sexually and gastronomically. She bids you hold 
 your tongue about your age, lest through auto 
 suggestion you bring in gray hairs. Women al- 
 ready have learned to keep still, and men are 
 taking lessons. Science instructs you not to tabu- 
 late yourselves or wear a ticketed sum-total of 
 your years on your back. She tells you to eat 
 less and drink more (that is, pure water). Altc+- 
 gether the art of living has been reduced to a 
 system plus spontaneity, which is the essence of 
 life itself. 
 
 If you, still, in the light of this dictum, deter- 
 mine to carry your two canes, may the snows 
 of winter descend on your devoted head, for thus 
 "it is spoken" by shivering Age himself, whose 
 crow's feet clutch at your sunken eyelids while 
 he reiterates the old-time traditions as the days 
 and weeks and years go by.
 
 OUR BLESSINGS. 
 
 A commonplace subject, you remark, and one 
 about which much cant sentimentalism has been 
 expressed. Yes, perhaps, but there may never- 
 theless be other aspects to the question. Even 
 the most everyday problems are interesting when 
 studied from a rational point of view, and I wish 
 particularly to discuss this one because of the 
 attitude taken by mankind generally as to the 
 values in life balanced against the disturbances. 
 Men complain from sunrise till sunset, growl, 
 kick, rebel and condemn; but seldom do we find 
 a person glorifying things from dawn to dusk. 
 The modern pessimist gets up at daybreak and 
 commences a revolt that continues till he goes to 
 bed again. The weather, the country, his neigh- 
 bor, his health, all come in for a share of con- 
 demnation. " Things have come to a pretty 
 pass," his "head aches like the deuce," his 
 "finances are all going to smash," "the world 
 hasn't a grain of horse sense and never will have," 
 "the devil's to pay when women mix up in things 
 that don't concern them," "life isn't worth living, 
 anyhow," and "if there's a hereafter" he wants 
 no stock in it; and so on and so on, week in and 
 week out.
 
 198 STRAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Now imagine an optimist facing the east at 
 sunrise, thrilling with delight. "Lucky dog!" he 
 exclaims, "what rapture to be simply alive! How 
 fortunate that I can see such glory as the sun 
 brings. I pity any one who lacks power to appre- 
 ciate this wonder." Before meals he bows his 
 head. "How good it is to just eat and drink; 
 health is of value inestimable; to breathe is a 
 pleasure, and to move, think and act, is something 
 beyond compare." Even hard knocks serve as 
 a vital stimulus to his cheerful spirit. "Fine for 
 me," he says; "sun looks the brighter because of 
 the shadows;" "all things work together for 
 good;" "might as well be dead as not happy;" 
 "O but this living is something worth while!" 
 
 The optimist like the pessimist may exaggerate 
 conditions, but the ordinary individual as a rule 
 inclines more to fault-finding than complaisance, 
 utterly ignoring the good things provided for 
 him, or if not ignoring, accepting them as his 
 just due. 
 
 Now suppose a man started from a new base 
 regarding his estimate of life, and for every evil 
 flying over his head looked for a good to foil 
 it,— a blackbird and whitebird skimming the 
 blue side by side. If the morning is "cold 
 enough to freeze me," the fire in the grate is 
 "hot enough to keep me warm." If I am nearly 
 starved, I find my food delicious. Disgusted 
 with being sick, I am glad that there are doctors. 
 Having lost my money, the work which I 
 previously hated looms up as a blessing. Driven 
 into the house by the storm outside, I appreciate
 
 OUR BLESSINGS 199 
 
 fully the comforts of home. Driven out by ener- 
 vating luxury, I enjoy again the tough, hard, 
 spacious world. And if this be true, why can 
 I not sometimes say so? Am I ashamed to be 
 thankful? Is it disgraceful to acknowledge that 
 I appreciate and often really enjoy the things of 
 life? In Germany you are told to rap on wood 
 if you have dared to boast that matters are pros- 
 pering, lest the demon of ill luck, " watching 
 out" and biding its time, change your course of 
 events for the worse. I believe there is a little 
 imp of good luck also, who is only too glad to 
 polish your reflecting lamp that you may see 
 the glamour in life in lieu of the gloom. As be- 
 fore said in this book, the sun is the real fact; 
 shadows are but effigies made by things that 
 strive to put out the light of day. And if the 
 sun is the real, then the cheerful person is cer- 
 tainly one of sound sense, while the growler is 
 out of tune with cosmic harmonic®. The man 
 who recognizes his blessings has discovered the 
 very source and maintainor of life, while he who 
 realizes his miseries only, is hypnotized by a fic- 
 kle medium that has neither stability nor leading 
 place in the scheme of things. I am not exalting 
 the grinning optimist who sees no shade what- 
 ever, for the shadow is inevitable and rightful, 
 ''worth what it is worth," and cannot be ignored. 
 All that I contend for is a proper placing of 
 values. Gold is gold, and tin is tin. The opti- 
 mist who exalts tin to the rank of gold, and the 
 pessimist who degrades gold to the class of base 
 metal, are not quite level-headed nor excusable.
 
 200 STEAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 The person today who is looked upon as man- 
 ly and square is the stoic of modern stripe, who 
 seems to be enduring untold miseries without 
 uttering a word of complaint. My dear man, 
 your whole attitude is a stubborn protest. You 
 are not undergoing one whit more misery than 
 are your brothers, and yet you appear like a 
 veritable Atlas carrying the big round world on 
 your shoulders. You grit your teeth and bear— 
 what? No more than your child bears or your 
 wife or your friend, who grumbles one moment 
 and thanks the Lord the next. Your silence is 
 a challenge to the Universe. You would die 
 rather than admit that you ever had been or 
 ever could be blessed. Nothing that comes to 
 you in the guise of good is worth considering in 
 comparison with that which is bad. Your lips 
 make a straight line set firmly. Smile? Not you! 
 Why should you? As a stoic you despise the 
 grumbler who talks and growls. You are a man! 
 you will utter no word of protest, but simply 
 endure. Ha! ha! I verily believe that the per- 
 son of sharp tongue is better than you, and 
 fairer. Your pride, sir, is ridiculous. 
 
 Now the right thinking individual is not going 
 to cross a bridge till he comes to it, nor find 
 a stream till he gets there. The sane man doesn't 
 die but once in a lifetime, and while he lives 
 he enjoys aU he can. He is not a pretender. If 
 things are bad he says so, but finds the good in 
 them if possible. If things are good he admits the 
 fact and shouts Hurrah and Glory Hallelujah, 
 not a bit ashamed of his exuberance. It is no
 
 OUR BLESSINGS 201 
 
 disgrace to revel in sunlight, for the source of 
 the rays is reliable and life-giving. The sane 
 person is a frank, disillusioned individual, who 
 can dance around the maypole on a bright spring 
 morning and attend a funeral, if he must, in the 
 afternoon. 
 
 There is a false idea of manliness afloat that 
 permits the cultivation of two types of humanity, 
 either of which is a disgrace to the standard 
 conceived. One is the disgruntled grumbler, 
 who will not acknowledge his blessings though 
 they meet him half way, and the other is the 
 haughty stoic, who is enduring things and en- 
 during them still more, going on and on weighted 
 with woe, as though he were the only sufferer 
 on the planet and the human herd were created 
 for the purpose of witnessing his heroism and 
 pain. He does not know, perhaps, that no camel 
 can carry ''the last straw," and no man more 
 than he is able. "Our shoulders are fitted to 
 our burdens," if not, the load will fall off. The 
 baby with his childish trouble is proportionately 
 as much afflicted, as is his suffering parent with 
 his larger capacity for endurance. The ant, com- 
 paratively speaking, is as great a drudge as a 
 working elephant. The power to endure and the 
 thing we have to bear belong to each other or 
 they will surely be divorced. The statesman who 
 bends before heavy responsibilities is no more 
 overweighted than is his affectionate wife who 
 carries him on her heart. It is all a question of 
 capacities and equalization. So why should one 
 complain more than another, at least about that
 
 202 STEAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 which has com© to him legitimately through his 
 own acts. Of course there are times when an 
 individual has misfortunes "piled on" him, 
 while another seems to go "scot-free." In the 
 "long run," however— and the "long run" may- 
 be very long— equilibrium is struck, and human 
 beings, by the intrinsic nature of their acts in 
 life, get a "just deal" and a fair surplus of 
 blessings. 
 
 In judging, pitying and congratulating each 
 other, we fail to see "round the corner" and 
 through the mistakes engendered by our short- 
 sighted eyes, reach false estimates and wrong 
 conclusions. With the glance spying for evil in- 
 stead of good, the 20th Century is likely to be- 
 come pessimistic and a menace to itself. Our 
 youngsters strutting the streets decrying life 
 and stoutly proclaiming that they never asked 
 to be born, our older folk wondering if "any- 
 thing is really worth while don't you know," our 
 superb appropriation of the good things of earth, 
 without earning them or showing the slightest 
 recognition of their values, all go to show that 
 individualism is becoming precociously conceited 
 and needs humbling by the reactions bound to 
 follow such absurd assertiveness.
 
 THE PAST. 
 
 "Bury the past!" Why? Perhaps if it were 
 dead this advice would be sensible, but as that 
 which is seemingly lost is in reality with us, 
 assertive and often obtrusive, it would be im- 
 possible to annihilate it by an attempted burial. 
 If we could shut our door on the past we should 
 have to begin life all over again and learn our 
 A-B-C's. A blank behind us would mean a blank 
 present,— our minds as vacant as an unfurnished 
 house. The past follows us like a fawning dog; 
 and whines for recognition continuously. It is 
 not only built into us bodily, but helps to stock 
 our inner sanctuary with objectivities, which play 
 over and over the drama,— farces and tragedies 
 enacted before in the outside world. 
 
 To be sure, we forget temporarily, but for- 
 getting is not the destruction of our past any 
 more than is sleep. Horrible or beautiful, evil 
 or good, the past is incorporated into our being 
 and cannot be lastingly escaped. So then, in- 
 stead of trying to run away from it, why not 
 face it squarely and see what can be made out 
 of it. 
 
 It is said that the past is fixed, changeless,— 
 but is this really so? Surely a thing done is
 
 204 STEAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 done, but nevertheless as it relates to our present 
 consciousness we may find in it, after all the 
 element of change. "But how?" you ask. Sup- 
 pose a man committed a murder a few years 
 ago, under sudden impulse unaccountable to him- 
 self. There being extenuating circumstances, 
 the case is one of manslaughter, and he gets off 
 with a light sentence. But within, his soul is 
 racked with horror. The act is done, nothing 
 can change that, and he stands out before his 
 own interior eyes as a hopelessly guilty being 
 without a shade of excuse. Now as far as the 
 killing goes, no change in the past takes place; 
 the victim is dead. But as far as he himself is 
 concerned, a vast difference in the past looms 
 up, making his whole attitude at the time of the 
 deed appear utterly changed. He has learned 
 from his mother that during her pregnancy 
 before he was born she suffered from homicidal 
 mania, due to causes not her fault apparently, 
 which made it almost impossible to resist the 
 committing of such acts as her son later carried 
 out. His whole past under the light of this 
 revelation appears in new aspect. As far as he 
 is concerned it is changed. In reality, of course, 
 all these facts were intact, under cover, but as 
 a past is no past unless recognized in conscious- 
 ness, to him it was changed. Not that only; pos- 
 sibly some other revelation will serve to alter 
 it still more, that is, put his deed in a still 
 different light. 
 
 Two lovers break troth and marry outsiders, 
 each blaming and hating the other for the spoiled
 
 THE PAST 205 
 
 years which seem to be a black cloud over their 
 lives. The past to them is fixed, a grim per- 
 spective, which they believe can never be 
 changed, when a third party or hidden enemy 
 reveals the fact that certain letters, putting new 
 light on the question of their love affair and 
 completely exonerating the betrothed couple, had 
 been intercepted and destroyed by him. Instant- 
 ly the black past glows with sunshine. The fact 
 that they separated stands, but the other con- 
 cealed fact that caused the break restores their 
 former good will and trust. Nothing new really 
 happened except in the consciousness of the par- 
 ties concerned; something out of sight had ap- 
 peared, that was all. But as far as they were 
 affected, their past was entirely altered. 
 
 In finality of facts the past is fixed and 
 changeless; in reality of experience it is a gleam- 
 ing chameleon. We did things ten years ago, 
 that as they receded into the realm of "past- 
 ness" grew different and different with the 
 widening of our conception of ourselves and 
 their bearings upon us. As a man grows away 
 from his childhood his acts take on quite a 
 reverse color from that of years before. He sees 
 the meaning of a child as such, which he did not 
 realize when he first grew out of childish con- 
 ditions. In fact he generalizes on childhood, 
 and his former griefs now amuse him, his former 
 punishments make him smile, his past that once 
 seemed so unfair now appears reasonable and 
 what he deserved. After leaving young man- 
 hood and merging into prime, the past of youth
 
 206 STKAIGHT GOODS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 changes. His insane passions seem inexcusable to 
 him, his rampant egotism disgusting, he wonders 
 how people tolerated him. When he reaches age, 
 these same young years will change yet more, his 
 mental eyes as he looks back see farther and 
 better. His youth appears heroic, sad, charming; 
 he admires what he once detested; he gets a 
 larger grasp on the young fellow of himself, and 
 realizes his charm. 
 
 To sum up then, our past is fixed and our past 
 is changeable— an arrant contradiction apparent- 
 ly. From the potentiality of things in being, 
 the past is unalterable as far as the fact and act 
 go; as fact and act simply, no change is possible; 
 "it is spoken;" "it is done." But from the 
 point of the human understanding of such act 
 and fact, the comprehension of their relation to 
 each other and the environment under which 
 they were worked out, they are ever changing 
 as the intellect of man expands to a larger and 
 clearer grasp on the subject. "If I had known 
 you as I do now, I should have seen your past 
 in quite a different light," one friend says to 
 another. Now suppose, for the sake of a longer 
 backward perspective, that we live life upon life 
 on earth. By the law of evolution or reincar- 
 nation our deeds of the years behind in this 
 present existence would take on quite a new as- 
 pect if the light of "beforehand" gleamed over 
 them. The causes for the effects born in this 
 stage of our existence would intrude their 
 shadowy forms upon us, re-relating the acts of 
 our nearby past in quite a new manner. Some
 
 THE PAST 207 
 
 ghost of the Orient, or th© far North would polish 
 or dull the stones in the chain of events just 
 gone, bringing out jewels or pebbles in an unex- 
 pected way. 
 
 I do not believe in trying to shut out the past. 
 In the first place it cannot be done, in the sec- 
 ond place it is not fair. The coward ignores his 
 unhappy years and tries to look upon them as 
 " escaped," but the brave man faces about 
 periodically and glances scrutinizingly behind 
 him, and sometimes, much to his satisfaction, 
 his broadening comprehension reveals himself to 
 himself as never before, and by the revelation 
 gives him a better insight into the future. No 
 man can be a prophet who fears what is past. He 
 only can look ahead who can gaze steadfastly 
 back. By realizing to some extent what he was, 
 he may alter and improve what he is and there- 
 fore what he is yet to be.
 
 WHAT'S THE USE! 
 
 I have finished " Straight Goods," and you 
 ask, " What's the use?" A sensible question, 
 I assure you. The object of this book is to reveal 
 philosophy in its practical aspect. Failing in 
 that, it were better out of print. It attempts to 
 show that a fundamental law is at the base of 
 life, and if we realize this fact and flow with it, 
 we are practical philosophers. 
 
 But you say, "I want religion." I answer, 
 yes, philosophy includes the religion, that is, the 
 one and only aspect namely, faith in this supreme 
 law and reverence and adoration for the Being 
 expressed by it. Eeligion also includes philos- 
 ophy. A religion that is not philosophic, that 
 is not based on fact and experience, is not worth 
 considering. 
 
 I have no intention to name this law here, for 
 it has been reiterated over and over again in 
 the pages of this book. If the work means any- 
 thing to you, you will certainly find it; if not, 
 shelve the book and forget it. I am aware that 
 a certain proportion of humanity are looking 
 frantically for the absurdly occult,— that which 
 defies reason and common sense; they want ex- 
 citement, sensation, thrills. Like men who drink
 
 WHAT'S THE USE? 209 
 
 they need stronger and yet stronger doses to 
 assuage their growing appetites. We warn all 
 such to let this book severely alone, for it steers 
 clear of the unusual and strives instead to bolster 
 and perpetuate the homely commonplace.
 
 
 Date Due 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 REHJ JU 
 
 1 14 1975 
 
 
 
 AUG 5 
 
 ' 1976 
 
 
 
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 2 3 1976 
 
 
 
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 SABY LOIRS 
 
 
 SEP < 
 
 9 1993 
 
 
 
 
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 JUH^ l 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 PRINTED 1* 
 
 u.s.a. CAT 
 
 . NO. 24 161 
 
 EH?
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 AA 000 664 466 o