and digestibility are sacrificed to a trivial and transi-
tory achievement of good appearance. But enforce-
ment of the thesis has been carried far enough. The
general proposition that there is no due proportioning
of the various ends of life, has been exemplified in
the more special proposition that the æsthetic ends
occupy far too large an area of consciousness.

By all means let people have around a few beau-
tiful things on which the eyes may dwell with pleas-
ure day after day; but let not life be distorted by
the distracting of attention from essentials. Here are
parents whose duty it is to fit children for carrying
on life, but who, guided by mere tradition or not even
that, have bestowed scarcely a thought on education
rationally considered. Here are people required to
take part in the direction of social affairs by their
votes, who are still guided by the crudest supersti-
tions--"good-for-trade" fallacies and the like--who
never dream of fitting themselves for their functions
as citizens. And on all sides are those who ignore the
natural world around, animate and inanimate, the un-
derstanding of which in its essential principles con-
cerns alike the right conduct of life and the concep-
tion of human existence. Meanwhile endless care
and thought are daily bestowed on a multiplicity of
things which are expected to bring admiration;
though, whether things worn or things displayed as
ornaments, they as often as not do the reverse.

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