THE WAY OF ESCAPE. 167 



things are insufficient should surely find no difficulty 

 in admitting that the degrees are more numerous than 

 is dreamed of in the somewhat limited philosophy 

 which common sense alone knows. Livingness depends 

 on range of power, versatility, wealth of body and 

 mind — how often, indeed, do we not see people taking 

 a new lease of life when they have come into money 

 even at an advanced age ; it varies as these vary, 

 beginning with things that, though they have mind 

 enough for an outsider to swear by, can hardly be said 

 to have yet found it out themselves, and advancing to 

 those that know their own minds as fully as anything 

 in this world .does so. The more a thing knows its 

 own mind the more living it becomes, for life viewed 

 both in the individual and in the general as the out- 

 come of accumulated developments, is one long process 

 of specialising consciousness and sensation ; that is to 

 say, of getting to know one's own mind more and more 

 fully upon a greater and greater variety of subjects. On 

 this I hope to touch more fully in another book ; in the 

 meantime I would repeat that the error of our philoso- 

 phers consists in not having borne in mind that when 

 they quitted the ground on which common sense can 

 claim authority, they should have reconsidered every- 

 thing that common sense had taught them. 



The votaries of common sense make the same mis- 

 take as philosophers do, but they make it in another 

 way. Philosophers try to make the language of com- 

 mon sense serve for purposes of philosophy, forgetting 

 that they are in another world, in which another tongue 

 is current ; common sense people, on the other hand. 



