1 68 LVCK, OR CUNNING ? 



every now and then attempt to deal with matters alien 

 to the routine of daily life. The boundaries between 

 the two kingdoms being very badly defined, it is only 

 by giving them a wide berth and being so philosophical 

 as almost to deny that there is any either life or death 

 at all, or else so full of common sense as to refuse to 

 see one part of the body as less living than another, 

 that we can hope to steer clear of doubt, inconsistency, 

 and contradiction in terms in almost every other word 

 we utter. We cannot serve the God of philosophy 

 and the Mammon of common sense at one and the 

 same time, and yet it would almost seem as though 

 the making the best that can be made of both these 

 worlds were the whole duty of organism. 



It is easy to understand how the error of philo- 

 sophers arose, for, slaves of habit as we all are, we are 

 more especially slaves when the habit is one that has 

 not been found troublesome. There is no denying 

 that it saves trouble to have things either one thing 

 or the other, and indeed for all the common purposes 

 of life if a thing is either alive or dead the small 

 supplementary residue of the opposite state should be 

 neglected as too small to be observable. If it is good 

 to eat we have no difficulty in knowing when it is 

 dead enough to be eaten; if not good to eat, but 

 valuable for its skin, we know when it is dead enough 

 to be skinned with impunity ; if it is a man, we know 

 when he has presented enough of the phenomena of 

 death to allow of our burying him and administering 

 his estate ; in fact, I cannot call to mind any case in 

 which the decision of the question whether man or. 



