176 IRature's Afracle*, 



ever has, is when a great ugly creature of some 

 Oriental clime comes down to his home and 

 tears him away from his native rock, carries 

 him to the surface, and there literally 

 "squeezes the life out of him." He finally 

 dies of the "grip," and here he sinks to the 

 level of his more aristocratic neighbor. 



But there is another side to our philosophy. 

 If the sponge is exempt from all these ills that 

 we have enumerated it is because he is in- 

 capable of suffering and is therefore incapable 

 of enjoyment. Those beings that have the 

 ability to suffer most have also the ability to 

 enjoy most. The higher the type of civiliza- 

 tion the greater possibilities it offers for real 

 enjoyment also for real misery. This being 

 true, it should be the aim of highly civilized 

 people to eliminate as far as possible those 

 things that make for misery, and cultivate 

 those things that make for happiness in the 

 highest and best sense. 



