always for the accomplishment of good as does everything which is the
emblem of strength and peace.




LESSON II

THE FIGHT AGAINST ILLUSION


Common Sense such as we have just described it, according to Yoritomo, is
the absolute antithesis of dreamy imagination, it is the sworn enemy of
illusion, against which it struggles from the moment of contact.

Common sense is solid, illusion is yielding, also illusion never
issues victorious from a combat with it; during a struggle illusion
endeavors vainly to display its subterfuges and cunning; illusions
disappear one by one, crusht by the powerful arms of their terrible
adversary--common sense.

"The worship of illusion," says Yoritomo, "presents certain dangers to
the integrity of judgment, which, under such influence, falsifies the
comparative faculty, and sways decision to the side of neutrality.

"This kind of mental half-sleep is extremely detrimental to
manifestations of reason, because this torpor excludes it from imaginary
conceptions.

"Little by little the lethargy caused by this intellectual paralysis