an be illustrated by the actual action of
the muscles. How often we see a man working with his mouth while
writing, when he should be only using his hands; or, working uselessly
with his left hand, when what he has to do only needs the right! How
often we see people trying to listen with their arms and shoulders!
Such illustrations might be multiplied indefinitely, and, in all cases,
the false sympathy of contraction in the parts of the body which are
not needed for the work in hand comes from a wrong dependence,--from
the fact that the pats of the body that are not needed, are officiously
dependent upon those that are properly active, instead of minding their
own affairs and saving energy for their own work.

The wholesome working of the human organism, is so perfect in its
analogy to the healthy relations of members of a community, that no
reader should pass it by without very careful thought.

John says:--

"I am not going to be dependent upon any man. I am going to live my own
life, in my own way, as I expect other men to live theirs. If they will
leave me alone, I will leave them alone," and John flatters himself
that he is asserting his own strength of personality, that he is
emphasizing his individuality. The truth is that John is warping
himself every day by his weak dependence upon his own prejudices. He is
unwilling to look fairly at another main's opinion for fear of being
dependent upon it. He is not only warping himself by his
"independence," which is puffed up with the false appearance of
strength, but he is robbing his fellow-men; for he cannot refuse to
receive from others without putting it out of his own power to give to
others. Real giving and receiving must be reciprocal in spirit, and
absolutely dependent upon each other.

It is a curious and a sad study to watch the growing slavery of such
"independent" people.

James, on the other hand, thinks he cannot do anything without asking
another man's advice or getting another man's help; sometimes it is
always the same man, sometimes it is one of twenty different men. And
so, James is steadily losing the power of looking life in the face, and
of judging for himself whether or not to take the advice of others from
a rational principle, and of his own free will, and he is gradually
becoming a parasite,--an animal which finally loses all its organs from
lack of use, so that only its stomach remains,--and has, of course, no
intelligence at all. The exa