of supreme personal importance than your wise plain man, whom all his
friends consult for his sagacity.

Mind, I am not hereby accusing the plain man of total spiritual
blindness--any more than I would accuse him of total physical
blindness because he cannot see how he looks to others when he walks
into a room. For nobody can see all round himself, nor know absolutely
all about his own case; and he who boasts that he can is no better
than a fool, despite his wisdom; he is not even at the beginning of
any really useful wisdom. But I do accuse my plain man of deliberately
shutting his eyes, from pride and from sloth. I do say that he might
know a great deal more about his case than he actually does know, if
only he would cease from pitying and praising himself in the middle of
the night, and tackle the business of self-examination in a rational,
vigorous, and honest fashion--not in the dark, but in the sane
sunlight. And I do further say that a self-examination thus properly
conducted might have results which would stultify those outrageous
remarks of his to his wife.



III


Few people--in fact, very few people indeed--ever realize the
priceless value of the ancient counsel: "Know thyself." It seems so
trite, so ordinary. It seems so easy to acquire, this knowledge. Does
not every one possess it? Can it not be got by simply sitting down in
a chair and yielding to a mood? And yet this knowledge is just about
as difficult to acquire as a knowledge of Chinese. Certainly nine