all will agree that it should dictate
our reply.

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

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

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

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

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

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

LESSON II

THE FIGHT AGAINST ILLUSION

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

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

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

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

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

"Energy, which ought to be the principle factor in our resolutions,
becomes feebl