knowledge of what mind is. After all that has been written, elaborated
and imagined, do we actually _know_ more than Omar Khayam knew?

"There was the door to which I found no key;
There was the veil through which I could not see;
Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee
There was--and then no more of Thee and Me."

Philosophy is still powerless to tell us what mind is; the self, the
ego always vanishes as we seem to be nearing it, it always eludes our
deepest probings--we only demonstrate our failure in regard to our
knowledge of it. All this is true, but should we therefore despair? If
we are born with the record on the brain of the inexorable desire to
_know_, the very failure should stimulate us to further, and greater,
and more fruitful questionings.




II.



CONTRASTS.


CARLYLE, GEORGE ELIOT, MAZZINI, BROWNING,

All contrasts drawn between writers, and thinkers should have for aim
the setting forth of some striking and fundamental difference in