CONSTRUCTIVE IDEALISM: Page 96

out of joint with the laws of right-living and right-thinking. Heredity, environmental conditions, emotion, and ignorance;-all contribute their quota to the emasculation of man's resistant forces. Fact is, men are as lazy as they dare to be. If they work at all, there must be a strong incentive to back up their sudden fit of activity. It is the prospect of an ease-living, lazy life that allures them to activity. It is a long spell of active inactivity that most people want. No wonder their powers of resistance are in a state of atrophy! No wonder they land themselves in a vicious circle! Truly, most truly, has it been said that an idle brain is the devil's workshop. Now, reader, are you one such? I hope not. But, if so, why so? Listen to one of Maeter-link's symbolic stories. In the middle ages there lived a powerful man who was impressed by the fact that each wish that he had conceived had caused him years of toil, struggle, and hard exertion before it could be accomplished an that, too, when he was on the verge of failure. He could not understand why success was so hard to achieve. He thought hard and searched much. At last he felt that there was a secret enemy that constantly antagonised him. He determined to find him out and crush him. The rugged side of life repelled him. He wished to press on to the fascinating by-ways of pleasure and ease. Life under old conditions was not worth living. This barrier removed, he could be happy. One evening while out walking he saw a man approaching