nous, conspicuous talent, but all his lesser, innate faculties and mental forces. Such all-round development makes a true genius of a crank and a world's leader out of an otherwise despised fanatic.

"Every thought," wrote Emerson, "which genius and piety throw into the world, alters the world," and Carlyle said, "In every epoch of the world, the great event, parent of all others, is it not the arrival of a Thinker in the world?" The average man drifts into a line of work which makes peculiar and, at the same time, restricted demands upon him. He earns a competence, functions to make a believedly fitting return for the emolument received, gravitates into a "position," settles into habitual lines of thought, begins to operate with the subconscious mind as an automaton and meets unusual conditions with a mind becoming less and less exercised, and, therefore, less and less vital and efficient. He is soon lulled into somnolence and as a mental force in the world, dies prematurely without contributing much, if anything, to the world's progress. Epictetus likens such a man to a traveler "who returning into his country and meeting on the way with a good Inn, should remain there. 'Have you forgotten your intentions, man? You were not traveling to this place, but only through it.' 'But this is a fine place.' 'And how many other fine Inns are there and how many pleasant fields, yet they are simply as a means of passage. There are many men who stop just as this traveler did at the first seemingly good Inn; they "go no farther, but sit down and waste their lives shamefully there as if among the sirens."

A waste of purpose, motive and direction in life is

what makes existence on this planet so uninteresting, dreary and monotonous; and yet this very psychological attitude courts monotony and this negative theory of life, or, shall we say, lack of any theory and sane reasoning, attracts gloom and envelops the soul in a deadening pall of despair. A man may gain riches and power, be hailed as successful and yet be an automaton, a mere machine with money-making or power-grasping characteristics and with a mind woefully neglected and the nobler qualities and possibilities atrophied. Is there any comparison between the mental or spiritual life of man, on the one hand, and his materialistic, sensuous and animal existence on the other?

"Better to fail in the high aim than

Vulgarly in the low aim succeed."

The human brain is like an apartment with many rooms. Some men live in one or two rooms of their brain, and seldom use or even enter other equally attractive and important rooms. Many men are mere warehouses with every available cubic inch of their personality stuffed with merchandise and worldly goods, with a price-tag attached. Beecher, describing this class said, "There are apartments in their souls which were once tenanted by taste and love and joy and worship, but they are all deserted now and the rooms are filled with earthy and material things." And again he said, "Many men. build in life as cathedrals have been built; the part nearest the ground seems finished but those parts which soar toward heaven, the turrets and the spires, lie forever incomplete." Fuller expressed the same

thought when he said, "Often the cock-loft is empty in those whom nature hath built many stories high."

The human brain might be likened to a threestory house with basement in the rear. The biological evolution of man has progressed in a manner analogous to the building of a house and during man's ascent from the lower animals, two stories have been added to the original lower floor and basement. The cellar occupied in the rear is known as the cerebellum and science tells us that this part of the brain is primitive, brutish and sensual. The first floor or stratum of the brain performs functions in common with the higher forms of animal life and can be fittingly designated as "animal" with its keen physical senses and its avarice, aggression, love of life, self-preservation and combativeness. The next floor, built through the ages as man by evolution became more and more a thinking and reasoning creature, can be termed the "human" or "material" stratum of the brain and it appears to house the meditative and critical faculties. The top floor, existing to some extent in all men, is the “ethical" stratum and this part of the brain has been created to naturally and fittingly house those psychological properties which have raised men above all other forms of life. On this floor are spaces designed to fittingly accommodate and nurture morality, ethics, reverence, ideals, sympathies, benevolence, conscientiousness, aspirations, honor, justice, constancy and consistency. Many men, presented by nature with a three-story house to use and live in, refuse to spend any time up stairs and seldom visit the upper floor.

Each floor of the house created to contain the brain is divided into rooms and there are front rooms and rear rooms. Scientists tell us that the room of Domesticity, like the kitchen of the average home, is in the rear; and the distinctive intellectual faculties are in the front. As man has by evolution advanced farther and farther from the lower animals, the fore part of his brain has developed as well as the crown or upper part. There are old-fashioned and simple people living in homes containing only a kitchen and a parlor, or, as the Scotch named them, "But" and "Ben," who keep the front and best room in the house closed up, using it only on Sundays and in extreme cases for parties, funerals and weddings. The frontal brain room is often used in a similar manner and wonderful, innate, intellectual faculties lie unused, inert dead.

Epictetus has said that man is a rational being, distinguished from wild and domesticated animals by mind and reasoning faculties. "Take care, then, to do nothing like a wild beast, otherwise you have destroyed the man; you have not fulfilled what your nature promises. Take care, too, to do nothing like cattle; for thus likewise the man is destroyed. When we act gluttonously, lewdly, rashly, sordidly, inconsiderately, into what are we sunk? Into cattle. What have we destroyed? The rational being. When we behave contentiously, injuriously, passionately and violently, into what have we sunk? Into wild beasts. And further, some of us are wild beasts of a larger size; others little mischievous vermin. By means of this animal kindred, some of us, deviating toward it, become like wolves, faithless

and crafty; others like lions, wild, savage and untamed; but most of us like foxes, disgraceful even among brutes. For what else is a slanderous and illnatured man but a fox or something yet more wretched and mean?"

The brain is like a library with sections referring to different prime classifications of subjects and each section with its shelves and numerous volumes. How many men spend their lives perusing the books on only one shelf or in one section, thus making it impossible to live well-rounded lives! Reading is the great channel by which one can gain knowledge, broaden the vision and stimulate thought. Books have been written dealing with every field of human knowledge, research and endeavor, and a modern, well-stocked library has shelves liberally supplied with such books. "All that mankind has done, thought, gained or been, is lying in magic preservation in the pages of books. The true University of these days is a collection of books" (Carlyle). The human brain, like a modern library, should be the circulating abode of diversified knowledge with great breadth and depth of multiform interests and each well-rounded personality will see that the brain shelves of knowledge are not empty nor the books once placed therein dusty and disfigured with the cobwebs of disuse.

The average man refuses not only to think but also to read, i. e., to read such books as are worth while, that stimulate thought, awaken dormant faculties and spur onward to activity. "That book is good which puts me in a working mood." The perusal of newspapers, light novels and "kill time"