itate the good, and can not be enforced without great peril
to the Government.... What evil can be imagined greater for a
State, than that honorable men, because they have thoughts of their
own and can not act a lie, are sent as culprits into exile! What
more baneful than that men, for no guilt or wrongdoing, but for the
generous largeness of their mind, should be taken for enemies and
led off to death, and that the torture-bed, the terror of the bad,
should become, to the signal shame of authority, the finest stage
for the public spectacle of endurance and virtue!

--_Benedict Spinoza_

[Illustration: SPINOZA]

The word philosophy means the love of truth: "philo," love; "soph,"
truth; or, if you prefer, the love of that which is reasonable and
right. Philosophy refers directly to the life of man--how shall we live
so as to get the most out of this little Earth-Journey!

Life is our heritage--we all have so much vitality at our disposal--what
shall we do with it?

Truth can be proved in just one way, and no other--that is, by living
it. You know what is good, only by trying. Truth, for us, is that which
brings good results--happiness or reasonable content, health, peace and
prosperity. These things are all relative--none are final, and they are
good only as they are mixed in right proportion with other things.
Oxygen, we say, is life, but it is also death, for it attacks every
living thing with pitiless persistency. Hydrogen is good, but it makes
the very hottest fire known, and may explode if you try to confine it.

Prosperity is excellent, but too much is very dangerous to most folks;
and to seek happiness as a final aim is like loving love as a
business--the end is desolation, death. Good health is best secured and
retained by those who are not anxious about health. Absolute good can
never be known, for always and forever creeps in the suspicion that if
we had acted differently a better result might have followed.

And that which is good for one is not necessarily good for another.

But there are certain general rules of conduct which apply to all men,
and to sum these up and express them in words is the business of the
philosopher. As all men live truth, in degree, and all men express some
truth in language, so to that extent all men are philosophers; but by
common assent, we give the title only to the men who make other