There are two kinds of union: one by removing differences, separating the elements that differentiate from those that unite, the other by fusion, bringing these differences into agreement. If we take away from the mind of each man that which is his own, that way of looking at things that is peculiar to him, everything that he takes care to hide for fear people should think him mad, we are left with that which he has in common with everyone else, and this common element gives us that wretched thing that is called common sense and which is nothing more than the abstract of the practical intelligence. But if we fuse into one the differing judgments of people, with all that they jealously preserve, and bring their caprices, their oddities, their singularities into agreement, we shall have human sense, which, in those who are rich in it, is not common but private sense. The best that occurs to men is that which occurs to them when they are alone, that which they dare not confess, not only not to their neighbour but very often not even to themselves, that which they fly from, that which they imprison within themselves while it is in a state of pure thought and before it can flower into words. And the solitary is usually daring enough to express this, to allow it to flower, and so it comes about that he speaks that which others think in solitude by themselves and which nobody dares to publish. The solitary thinks everything aloud, and surprises others by saying that which they think beneath their breath, while they seek to deceive one another by pretending to make them believe that they are thinking something else, but without anybody believing them. All this will help you to deduce for yourself in what way and to what extent solitude is the great school of sociability, and how right it is that we should sometimes withdraw ourselves from men in order that we may the better serve them. INTELLECTUALITY AND SPIRITUALITY There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. _Hamlet_, Act I, Scene V.