s on his master's
lessons; he finds that Fo has only been able to change himself into a
white elephant, because that is the most beautiful of animals. "The
kings of Siam and Pegu," he says, "have made war for a white elephant;
certainly if Fo had not been hidden in that elephant, these kings would
not have been so senseless as to fight simply for the possession of an
animal.

"The enemy of Fo will come to defy him at the end of the world;
certainly this enemy will be a rhinoceros, for the rhinoceros fights the
elephant." It is thus that in mature age the fakir's learned pupil
reasons, and he becomes one of the lights of India; the more subtle his
mind, the more false is it, and he forms later minds as false as his.

One shows all these fanatics a little geometry, and they learn it easily
enough; but strange to relate, their minds are not straightened for
that; they perceive the truths of geometry; but they do not learn to
weigh probabilities; they have got into a habit; they will reason
crookedly all their lives, and I am sorry for them.

There are unfortunately many ways of having a false mind:

1. By not examining if the principle is true, even when one deduces
accurate consequences therefrom; and this way is common.

2. By drawing false consequences from a principle recognized as true.
For example, a servant is asked if his master is in his room, by persons
he suspects of wanting his life: if he were foolish enough to tell them
the truth on the pretext that one must not lie, it is clear he would be
drawing an absurd consequence from a very true principle.

A judge who would condemn a man who has killed his assassin, because
homicide is forbidden, would be as iniquitous as he was poor reasoner.

Similar cases are subdivided in a thousand different gradations. The
good mind, the just mind, is that which distinguishes them; whence comes
that one has seen so many iniquitous judgments, not because the judges'
hearts were bad, but because they were not sufficiently enlightened.

_FATHERLAND_

A young journeyman pastrycook who had been to college, and who still
knew a few of Cicero's phrases, boasted one day of loving his
fatherland. "What do you mean by your fatherland?" a neighbour asked
him. "Is it your oven? is it the village where you were born and which
you have never seen since? is it the street where dwelled your father
and mother who have been ruined and have reduced you to baking little
pies for