58 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Nature has done much to create differences, and human egotism 

 has come in to second the efforts of Nature, and supplement her 

 work hy getting up differences in our favor where no such thing in 

 point of fact exists. B may be a fool, but thinks himself wiser than 

 C, who is in truth far wiser than B. C thinks himself much wiser 

 than he really is, and in comparing himself with B gets the full benefit 

 of the real difference, with a large surplus from the inflation. Thus 

 are both men made happy. Indeed, should you take each man's esti- 

 mate of himself, you might, to find a fool, be obliged to do as Dioge- 

 nes did to find an honest man. But, if you should take each man's 

 opinion of other men's abilities, the fools would outnumber the wise 

 men ten to one, that one being himself. Alas ! what should we philos- 

 ophers do were there no simple souls whereby to measure our colossal 

 intellects ? Thank God for wise men, but thank God for fools ! Every 

 fool as well as every knave has done a great. deal for human happi- 

 ness. Woe is the day when fools and knaves shall be no more ! O 

 stirpiculturist, stay thy hand, and leave us still a background to the 

 great picture of life ! And thank God for egotism, which enables us 

 to make so much out of so little. It was not the philosopher that 

 " Oh'd ! " when the poet wrote : 



" Oh, wad some power the giftie gie us 

 To see oursels as ithers see us ! " 



He was wiser who wrote 



" Where ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be wise." 



It will be a black-letter day when we find ourselves out. Why not 

 let us go on, each one thinking himself the biggest toad in the pud- 

 dle, and being happy ? Why not let us still have the difference in our 

 favor, since it is so cheap a happiness, and withal so innocent? 



Those who agree with me thus far may yet ask : " But is not the 

 number as well as the degree of differences too great ? Has not Na- 

 ture rather overdone the thing when she gets up a hell-bender" {vide 

 Webster and the Aquarium), "or gives us not only an Apollo whom we 

 admire, but a leper whom we loathe?" Why, my dear sir, after all 

 the orthodox animals were made though I don't know where you 

 would draw the line between the regulars and the irregulars you and 

 I both could find much pleasure in looking at a hell-bender, and he no 

 doubt finds far more pleasure in being a hell-bender than in being no- 

 body. However many forms we may have seen, we still want to see 

 something different. Yes, but how about the miserable, suffering 

 leper? How about these extremes of wretchedness ? Something in 

 the way of music may be got up from the eight simple tones of a 

 simple octave. If you are to have music worth hearing, you must 

 extend the scale through the octave above and the octave below ; but, 

 if you would have music with all its pathos, power, and sublimity, 

 you must make use of all the octaves that are at the command of the 



