he centipede. From the beginning of time he had manipulated
his countless legs with exquisite precision. Men had regarded him with
wonder and amazement. But he was innocent of his own art, being a
contrivance of nature, perfectly constructed to do her bidding. One day
the centipede discovered life. He discovered himself as one who walks,
and the newly awakened intelligence, first observing, then foreseeing,
at length began to direct the process. And from that moment the
centipede, because he could not remember the proper order of his going,
lost all his former skill, and became the poor clumsy victim of his own
self-consciousness. This same self-consciousness is the inconvenience
and the great glory of human life. We must stumble along as best we
can, guided by the feeble light of our own little intelligence. If
nature starts us on our way, she soon hands over the torch, and bids us
find the trail for ourselves. Most men are brave enough to regard this
as the best thing of all; some despair on account of it. In either case
it is admittedly the true story of human life. We must live as separate
selves, observing, foreseeing, and planning. There are two things that
we can do about it. We can repudiate our natures, decline the
responsibility, and degenerate to the level of those animals that never
had our chance; or we can leap joyously to the helm, and with all the
strength and wisdom in us guide our lives to their destination. But if
we do the former, we shall be unable to forget what might have been, and
shall be haunted by a sense of ignominy; and if we do the second, we
shall experience the unique happiness of fulfilment and
self-realization.

Life, then, is a situation that appeals to intelligent activity. Humanly
speaking, there is no such thing as a situation that is not at the same
time a theory. As we live we are all theorists. Whoever has any
misgivings as to the practical value of theory, let him remember that,
speaking generally of human life, it is true to say that there is no
practice that does not issue at length from reflection. That which is
the commonest experience of mankind is the conjunction of these two, the
thought and the deed. And as surely as we are all practical theorists,
so surely is philosophy the outcome of the broadening and deepening of
practical theory. But to understand how the practical man becomes the
philosopher, we must inquire somewhat more carefully into the manner of
his thought a