ity.

If he has led a clean, healthy, vigorous life, he cannot have
experienced the feelings and problems of a drunkard and dope-fiend
slowly submerging in dissipation and vice. If he married young and has
known the joy of entire devotion to a loyal and loving helpmate, he
cannot have had the experience of a profligate who has been divorced
four times and is about to take another chance with a dashing
grass-widow. Hundreds and thousands of situations that other human
beings are called upon to face, he cannot have gone through on his own
account.

But if we are able to find out and bear in mind the experience of other
people, we can make use of it, as a warning and a guide, in much the
same way as if it had happened to ourselves. If I have seen a boy try to
run across the road in front of an automobile and stumble and get
killed, it is not necessary for me to get killed in order to appreciate
the danger of the experiment. You may never have seen this happen, but
if I have and I tell you about it, you can use the information you get
from me and still save yourself the necessity of risking your neck.

This principle is not at all difficult to understand. It has always been
applied, to greater or less extent, in the lives of all human beings,
everywhere. It is no more than common sense to profit by the experiences
of others, and try to avoid their mistakes.

It seems strange that such a universal principle should be overlooked by
the up-to-date minds of the new generation. Yet the least little glimmer
of light from it would in itself seem to be a sufficient answer to their
question.

"Why shouldn't I go ahead and gratify all my impulses?"

Because although your own limited experience may be insufficient to
warn you and guide you, the experience of other people has shown
repeatedly that such and such impulses usually lead to such and such
consequences which would be very harmful to you.

In the long run the results of others' experience are a better guide to
follow than your selfish impulses. You wish to be intelligent and
reasonable, don't you? Well, if you lack experience and understanding,
it is neither intelligent nor reasonable to imagine that you are the
best judge of the consequences.

Of course, the examples we have cited so far--the strange dog that
bites, the boy and the automobile, typhoid fever and polluted water--are
very elementary. Also the questions they involve--the harmful
consequences of certain