The  common  prudence  which  recognises  these
is  sanity,  the  sanity  of  the  animal;  and  while
with  respect  to  our  physical  life  we  are  ani-
mals— vertebrates,  mammals,  primates — yet
we  are  less  sane  in  this  low  order  of  prudence
than  the  beasts.  A  higher  prudence  recog-
nises the  social,  ethical,  and  spiritual  needs
of  the  thinker  who  inhabits  this  body.  He
needs  truth  as  he  needs  bread;  solitude  as
well  as  society;  love  no  less  than  money;
recreation  as  much  as  work.  These  are  his
higher  necessities,  not  as  a  vertebrate,  but
as  a  man,  and  he  is  sane  in  the  ratio  of  his
recognition  and  application  of  the  fact.  As
the  sanity  of  the  athlete  counsels  him  to  use
his  muscles  if  they  are  to  be  efficient,  so
must  the  intellectual  man  exercise  his  will
and  mentality,  the  spiritual  man  his  spiritual
faculties.  It  is  but  a  higher  order  of  the
same  prudence  that  counsels  a  man  to  rest  and
to  eat  wisely;  which  in  turn  admonishes  him
not  to  be  just  and  kind  and  true,  if  he  would
militate  against  his  own  well-being.  Health
is  moral  and  spiritual  no  less  than  physical,
and  the  vices  of  the  inner  man  are  fear,  malice,


46  Resources

and  insincerity.  The  common  insanity  of
the  ages  is  the  slavery  to  the  body,  the  belief
that  the  body  is  the  man,  rather  than  his
instrument  merely ;  and  hence  the  over-stimu-
lation of  sense  activity-  The  very  opposite
mania  has  possessed  the  mind  of  the  East,
and  lo,  the  dismal  ascetic!  One  is  as  far
removed  from  sanity  as  the  other.  To  the
eye  of  wisdom,  the  body,  of  small  consequence
in  itself,  is  vastly  important  as  a  means,  as  the
efficient  medium  of  higher  activities.
