So much, then, for this first book. It would not need to be more than a little pocket volume of fifty or sixty pages, and a young man should have it to refer to at any moment of his studies. One of its maxims would be to look up the original evidence upon which anything he was told was based. Another rule he would find in it would be to underline all such words as “seems,” “probably,” and so forth, and watch in his books the way in which they gradually turn, as the argument proceeds, into “is” and “certainly.” He would also be warned before reading the work of any authority to remember that that authority was a human being, to look up his biography, if possible to meet him personally, to find out what general knowledge he had and what impression he made upon the casual man that met him. How many men have written histories of a campaign and yet have been proved at a dinner-table ignorant of the range of artillery during their period! How many men have learnedly criticised the style of Rousseau upon a knowledge of French very much inferior to that of most governesses! I at Oxford knew a don who exposed and ridiculed the legend of the Girondins, but throughout his remarks pronounced their title with a hard _g_. As for the politicians, their little guide-book through life should be of another sort. In this the first and most valuable part would deal with political judgment and prophecy. The utmost care would be taken by the author to show how valueless is any determination of the future, and how crass the mind which predicts with confidence. Since so very few men happen to have made lucky shots, it would be the peculiar care of the author in a loving manner to collect all the follies and misjudgments which these same men had made upon other grave matters. And, in general, the reader would be left very certain that every pompous prophecy he heard was a piece of folly. Next in the book would come examples of all that political men have said and done which they most particularly desired to have forgotten. This would serve a twofold purpose, for first it would amuse and instruct the politician as he read it, since the misfortunes of others are delightful to human kind, and, secondly, it would show him that he could not himself trust to the effect of time, and that his natural desire to turn his coat or to pretend to some policy he did not understand would at last be judged as it deserved. In the third and final portion of the book the politician would be given a list of interesting truths, with regard to the matter of his trade. It would be proved to him in a few sentences that his decisions depend upon various difficult branches of study, and by a few suggested questions he would be convinced of his ignorance therein. The shortness of human life would be insisted upon, with examples showing how a man having painfully reached power was stricken with paralysis or died in torment. The ludicrous miscarriage of great plans would be