totle says the same thing in the cold, calculated terms of precise philosophy. (A man is what he does. He can do nothing except what he first sees as an unaccomplished idea, and then bends all his energies to accomplish. In working out his ideas and making them real, he at the same time works out his own powers, and becomes a living force, a working will in the world. And since the soul is just this working will, the man has so much soul, no more, no less, than he registers in manual or mental work performed. To be able to point to some sphere of external reality, a bushel of corn, a web of cloth, a printed page, a healthful tenement, an educated youth, a moral community, and say that these things would not have been there in the outward world, if they had not first been in your mind as an idea controlling your thought and action; - this is to point to the external and visible counterpart and measure of the invisible and internal energy which is your life, your soul, your self, your personality.

IV

THE NEED OF INSTRUMENTS

Aristotle's first doctrine, then, is that we must work for worthy ends.) The second follows

directly from it. We must have tools to work with; means by which to gain our ends. General Gordon, who was something of a Platonist, remarked to Cecil Rhodes, who was a good deal of an Aristotelian, that he once had a whole room full of gold offered him, and declined to take it. "I should have taken it," replied Mr. Rhodes. "What is the use of having great schemes if you haven't the means to carry them out?" (As Aristotle says: "Happiness plainly requires external goods; for it is impossible, or at least not easy, to act nobly without some furniture of fortune. There are many things that can be done only through instruments, so to speak, such as friends. and wealth and political influence; and there are some things whose absence takes the bloom off our happiness, as good birth, the blessing of children, personal beauty. (Happiness, then, seems to stand in need of this kind of prosperity."

How different this from all our previous teachings! The Epicurean wants little wealth, no family, no official station; because all these things involve so much care and bother. The Stoic barely tolerates them as indifferent. Plato took especial pains to deprive his guardians of most of these very things. Aristotle on this point is perfectly sane. He says you want them; because, to

the fullest life and the largest work, they are wellnigh indispensable. The editor of a metropolitan newspaper, the president of a railroad, the corporation attorney cannot live their lives and do their work effectively without comfortable homes, enjoyable vacations, social connections, educational opportunities, which cost a great deal of money. For them to despise money would be to despise the conditions of their own effective living, to pour contempt on their own souls.

Is Aristotle, then, a gross materialist, a mere money-getter, pleasure-lover, office-seeker? Far from it. These things are not the end of a noble life, but means by which to serve ends far worthier than themselves. To make these things the ends of life, he explicitly says is shameful and unnatural. The good, the true end, is "something which is a man's own, and cannot be taken away from him."

Now we have two fundamental Aristotelian doctrines. We must have an end, some section of the world which we undertake to mould according to a pattern clearly seen and firmly grasped in our own minds.

Second, we must have instruments, tools, furniture of fortune in the shape of health, wealth, influence, power, friends, business and social and political connections with which to carry out our

ends. And the larger and nobler our ends, the more of these instruments shall we require.) If, like Cecil Rhodes, we undertake for instance to paint the map of Africa British red, we shall want a monopoly of the product of the Kimberley and adjacent diamond mines.

V

THE HAPPY MEAN

The third great Aristotelian principle follows directly from these two. If we are to use instruments for some great end, then the amount of the instruments we want, and the extent to which we shall use them, will obviously be determined by the end at which we aim. We must take just so much of them as will best promote that end. This is Aristotle's much misunderstood but most characteristic

doctrine of the mean. .) Approached from the point of view which we have already gained, this doctrine of the mean is perfectly intelligible, and altogether reasonable. For instance, if you are an athlete, and the winning of a foot-ball game is your end, and you have an invitation to a ball the evening before the game, what is the right and reasonable thing to do? Dancing in itself is good. You enjoy it. You would like to go. You need recrea

tion after the long period of training. But if you are wise, you will decline. Why? Because the excitement of the ball, the late hours, the physical effort, the nervous expenditure will use up more energy than can be recovered before the game comes off upon the morrow. You decline, not because the ball is an intrinsic evil, or dancing is intrinsically bad, or recreation is inherently injurious, but because too much of these things, in the precise circumstances in which you are placed, with the specific end you have in view, would be disastrous. On the other hand, will you have no recreation the evening before the game; but simply sit in your room and mope? That would be even worse than going to the ball. For nature abhors a vacuum in the mind no less than in the world of matter. If you sit alone in your room, you will begin to worry about the game, and very likely lose your night's sleep, and be utterly unfitted when the time arrives. Too little recreation in these circumstances is as fatal as too much. What you want is just enough to keep your mind pleasantly diverted, without effort or exertion on your part. If the glee club can be brought around to sing some jolly songs, if a funny man can be found to tell amusing stories, you have the happy mean; that is, just enough recreation to put you in condi