is impossible to combat strongly enough this tendency to
self-delusion, which inclines us to become the prey of untruth, by
preventing the birth of faith, based on preceding success.

"Sincere conviction, on the contrary, will lead us to refute strongly
all the false arguments, which impede thought and would choke it in
order to allow unadulterated pleasure to be installed on the ruins of
common sense.

"The battle of life demands warriors and conquerors as well as critics,
less brilliant, perhaps, but just as worthy of admiration, for their
mission is equally important, altho infinitely more obscure.

"Whether he be a peasant tilling his field or a rich capitalist
manipulating his gold, he who works in order to satisfy the needs or
luxury of his existence is a fighter whose hours are spent in occupations
more or less dangerous.

"From time to time, however, a cessation of hostilities is produced; such
always follows the appearance of common sense which, by giving to things
their true proportions, causes the greater part of inequalities to
disappear.

"Finally, he who cultivates this virtue unostentatiously will always be
protected from the caprices of fortune; if he is poor, common sense will
indicate to him the way to cease to be poor, and, if chance has given him
birth in opulence, the counsels of experience will demonstrate to him the
frailty of possessions that one has not acquired by personal effort."

This conclusion is strikingly true, for it is certain that prosperity
attained by personal effort is less likely to fade away than an inherited
fortune, whose owner can only understand the ordinary pleasure of a
possession which he has not ardently desired.

He who is the maker of his own position is more able to maintain it; he
knows the price of the efforts which he had to make in order to construct
it, and, armed with common sense, he is as able to defend his treasure as
to enjoy the sweet savor of a thing which he has desired, longed for, and
won by the force of his will and judgment, placed at the service of
circumstances and directed toward success.

LESSON XI

COMMON SENSE AND SELF-CONTROL

"Where life manifests itself," says Yoritomo, "antagonism always
springs up."

"In the eternal struggle between the individual and social soul, each of
which, in its turn, is victorious or vanquished, a truce is declared only
if self-control is allied to common sense, in order to maintain the
equilib