The best, the most effective way of convincing a reader is to begin one's argument with inoffensive, commonplace assertions. When suspicion has been sufficiently lulled, and a certainty has been begot that what follows will be a confirmation of the readers own accepted views--then has the moment arrived to speak one's mind openly, but still in the same easy tone, as if there were no break in the flow of truisms. The logical connection is unimportant. Consequence of manner and intonation is much more impressive than consequence of ideas. The thing to do is to go on, in the same suave tone, from uttering a series of banalities to expressing a new and dangerous thought, without any break. If you succeed in this, the business is done. The reader will not forget--the new words will plague and torment him until he has accepted them. 21 The habit of logical thinking kills imagination. Man is convinced that the only way to truth is through logic, and that any departure from this way leads to error and absurdity. The nearer we approach the ultimate questions of existence, in our departure from logicality, the more deadly becomes the state of error we fall into. The Ariadne ball has become all unwound long ago, and man is at the end of the tether. But he does not know, he holds the end of the thread firmly, and marks time with energy on the same spot, imagining his progress, and little realising the ridiculous situation into which he has fallen. How should he realise, considering the innumerable precautions he has taken to prevent himself from losing the logical way? He had better have stayed at home. Once he set out, once he decided to be a Theseus and kill the Minotaur, he should have given himself up, forfeited the old attachment, and been ready _never to escape from the labyrinth_. True, he would have risked losing Ariadne: and this is why long journeys should be undertaken only after family connections have become a burden. Such being the case, a man deliberately cuts the thread which binds him to hearth and home, so that he may have a legitimate excuse to his conscience for not going back. Philosophy must have nothing in common with logic; philosophy is an art which aims at breaking the logical continuity of argument and bringing man out on the shoreless sea of imagination, the fantastic tides where everything is equally possible and impossible. Certainly it is difficult, given sedentary habits of life, to be a good philosopher. The fact that the fate of philosophy has ever lain in the hands of professors can only be explained by the reluctance of the envious gods to give omniscience to mortals. Whilst stay-at-home persons are searching for truth, the apple will stay on the tree. The business must be undertaken by homeless adventurers, born nomads, to whom _ubi bene ibi patria_. It seems to me that but for his family and his domesticity, Count Tolstoy, who lives to such a ripe old age, might have told us a great many important and