ou aren't,
I know) you will admit that this is true of you; you exist in the hope
that one day things will be sufficiently smoothed out for you to begin
to live. That is just where you differ from the man whose brain is his
hobby. His daily routine consists in a meditation in the following vein:
'This day is before me. The circumstances of this day are my
environment; they are the material out of which, by means of my brain, I
have to live and be happy and to refrain from causing unhappiness in
other people. It is the business of my brain to make use of _this_
material. My brain is in its box for that sole purpose. Not to-morrow!
Not next year! Not when I have made my fortune! Not when my sick child
is out of danger! Not when my wife has returned to her senses! Not when
my salary is raised! Not when I have passed that examination! Not when
my indigestion is better! But _now!_ To-day, exactly as to-day is! The
facts of to-day, which in my unregeneracy I regarded primarily as
anxieties, nuisances, impediments, I now regard as so much raw material
from which my brain has to weave a tissue of life that is comely.'

And then he foresees the day as well as he can. His experience teaches
him where he will have difficulty, and he administers to his brain the
lessons of which it will have most need. He carefully looks the machine
over, and arranges it specially for the sort of road which he knows that
it will have to traverse. And especially he readjusts his point of view,
for his point of view is continually getting wrong. He is continually
seeing worries where he ought to see material. He may notice, for
instance, a patch on the back of his head, and he wonders whether it is
the result of age or of disease, or whether it has always been there.
And his wife tells him he must call at the chemist's and satisfy himself
at once. Frightful nuisance! Age! The endless trouble of a capillary
complaint! Calling at the chemist's will make him late at the office!
etc. etc. But then his skilled, efficient brain intervenes: 'What
peculiarly interesting material this mean and petty circumstance yields
for the practice of philosophy and right living!' And again: 'Is _this_
to ruffle you, O my soul? Will it serve any end whatever that I should
buzz nervously round this circumstance instead of attending to my usual
business?'

I give this as an example of the necessity of adjusting the point of
view, and of the manner in which a brain habituat