the lower, from the wider to the narrower view of human knowledge. It
seeks to fly but cannot: instead of aspiring towards perfection, 'it
hovers about this lower world and the earthly nature.' It loses the
religious sense which more than any other seems to take a man out of
himself. Weary of asking 'What is truth?' it accepts the 'blind witness of
eyes and ears;' it draws around itself the curtain of the physical world
and is satisfied. The strength of a sensational philosophy lies in the
ready accommodation of it to the minds of men; many who have been
metaphysicians in their youth, as they advance in years are prone to
acquiesce in things as they are, or rather appear to be. They are
spectators, not thinkers, and the best philosophy is that which requires of
them the least amount of mental effort.

As a lower philosophy is easier to apprehend than a higher, so a lower way
of life is easier to follow; and therefore such a philosophy seems to
derive a support from the general practice of mankind. It appeals to
principles which they all know and recognize: it gives back to them in a
generalized form the results of their own experience. To the man of the
world they are the quintessence of his own reflections upon life. To
follow custom, to have no new ideas or opinions, not to be straining after
impossibilities, to enjoy to-day with just so much forethought as is
necessary to provide for the morrow, this is regarded by the greater part
of the world as the natural way of passing through existence. And many who
have lived thus have attained to a lower kind of happiness or equanimity.
They have possessed their souls in peace without ever allowing them to
wander into the region of religious or political controversy, and without
any care for the higher interests of man. But nearly all the good (as well
as some of the evil) which has ever been done in this world has been the
work of another spirit, the work of enthusiasts and idealists, of apostles
and martyrs. The leaders of mankind have not been of the gentle Epicurean