he world, back into some high pitched
observation-tower of the mind, from the philosophic seclusion of
which the world scene can be easily imagined as different from what
it is. Nothing is more salutary in the midst of the mad confusion of
the world than these retirements. It is to no mere "ivory tower" of
aesthetic superiority that we retreat. It is to a much higher and more
spacious eminence. So high indeed do we withdraw that all the ivory
towers of the world seem far beneath us; beneath us, and not more
or less sacred than other secular erections.

It is from this point of observation that our humour is suddenly
made aware of the startling absurdity of human institution; and not
only of _human_ institution; for it is made aware also of the
absurdity of the whole fantastic scheme of this portentous universe.
We regard the world in these high speculative moods much as
children do when they suddenly enquire of their bewildered parents
why it is that human beings have two legs and why it is that little
girls are different from little boys.

It is one result of these withdrawings to the translunar empyrean that
the life of a man of action upon this earth does not appear any more
or any less remarkable or important than the life of a man of letters.
All human activities from that celestial height are equal; and
whether we plunge into politics or into pleasure, into science or into
theology, seems a mere incidental chance, as indifferent in the great
uncaring solar system as the movements of gnats around a lamp or
midges around a candle.

The great historic revolutions, the great social reformations, ancient
or modern, present themselves from this height as just as important--as
just as unimportant--as the visions of saintly fanatics or the
amours of besotted rakes.

Nothing is important and anything may be important. It is all a
matter of the human point of view. It is all a matter of taste. Looking
at the whole mad stream of things from this altitude, we see the
world as if we were peering through an inverted telescope; or rather,
shall we say, through an instrument called an "equi-scope"--whose
peculiarity it is to make all things upon which it is turned _little and
equal._

The mental temper of Anatole France is essentially one which is
interested in historic and contemporary events; interested in the
outward actions and movements of men and in the fluctuations of
political life. But it is interested in these th