THE STABILITY OF TRUTH. 359 
at large that fools find it safe to defy them. Those who 
take dreams for realities; those whose memory impres- 
sions and motor dreams are uncontrolled through de- 
fective will; those who mistake subjective sensations 
produced by disease or disorder for ob- 
jective conditions—all these sooner or 
later drop out of existence, taking with 
them the whole line of their possible suc- 
cessors. The condition of mind which is favourable to 
mysticism, superstition, and reverie, is unfavorable to 
life, and the. continuance of such condition leads to 
death. On the billboard across the street (in Oakland, 
California) I see the advertisement of a lecture on 
“ The Ethical Value of Living in Two Worlds at Once.” 
Whoever thus lives in two worlds is certain soon to 
prove inadequate for either. 
‘If all men sought healing from the blessed handker- 
chief of the lunatic, or from contact with old bones or 
old clothes; if all physicians used “ re- 
vealed remedies,” or the remedies “ Na- 
ture finds” for each disease; if all busi- 
ness were conducted by faith; if all 
supposed “natural rights” of man were recognised in 
legislation, the insecurity of these beliefs would speedily 
appear. Not only civilization but civilized man himself 
would vanish from the earth. The safe shelter of the 
cave and hollow tree would be the cradle of the “new 
man’ and the “new woman.” The long and bloody 
road of progress through fool-killing would for centu- 
ries be traversed again. That is strong which endures. 
Might does not make right, but that which is right will 
justify itself by becoming might. What we call social 
virtues are the elements of race stability. 
So closely is knowledge linked to action, that in gen- 
eral among animals and men sensation is absent or not 
The recrudes- 
cence of 
superstition. 
Life based on 
dreams and 
illusions. 
