imply that one must
accept, fatalistically and permanently and passively, any preposterous
environment into which destiny has chanced to throw us. If we carry far
enough the discipline of our brains, we can, no doubt, arrive at
surprisingly good results in no matter what environment. But it would
not be 'right reason' to expend an excessive amount of will-power on
brain-discipline when a slighter effort in a different direction would
produce consequences more felicitous. A man whom fate had pitched into a
canal might accomplish miracles in the way of rendering himself
amphibian; he might stagger the world by the spectacle of his philosophy
under amazing difficulties; people might pay sixpence a head to come and
see him; but he would be less of a nincompoop if he climbed out and
arranged to live definitely on the bank.

The advantage of an adequate study of the control of the machine, such
as I have outlined, is that it enables the student to judge, with some
certainty, whether the unsatisfactoriness of his life is caused by a
disordered machine or by an environment for which the machine is, in
its fundamental construction, unsuitable. It does help him to decide
justly whether, in the case of a grave difference between them, he, or
the rest of the universe, is in the wrong. And also, if he decides that
he is not in the wrong, it helps him to choose a new environment, or to
modify the old, upon some scientific principle. The vast majority of
people never know, with any precision, why they are dissatisfied with
their sojourn on this planet. They make long and fatiguing excursions in
search of precious materials which all the while are concealed in their
own breasts. They don't know what they want; they only know that they
want something. Or, if they contrive to settle in their own minds what
they do want, a hundred to one the obtaining of it will leave them just
as far off contentment as they were at the beginning! This is a matter
of daily observation: that people are frantically engaged in attempting
to get hold of things which, by universal experience, are hideously
disappointing to those who have obtained possession of them. And still
the struggle goes on, and probably will go on. All because brains are
lying idle! 'It is no trifle that is at stake,' said Epictetus as to the
question of control of instinct by reason. '_It means, Are you in your
senses or are you not_?' In this significance, indubitably the vast
majorit