Review the field. Take an “account of stock.” Most people have five senses in tolerably good order. How many have seriously calculated the number of different gratifications each of these senses is capable of yielding? Beyond these lie the inviting fields of the Agreeable Emotions, whose prolific soil needs but to be stirred to teem with flower and fruit; and still beyond, but in easy reach, the uplands of Reason and Thought rise into the purer air, and offer perspectives of entrancing beauty. All these resources are, to some extent, open to every one. But most sit like a peasant at the table of a prince, refusing to taste the choice viands which are before him, because he cares only for the beans and hodge-podge of his daily fare. Along with the multiplication of the sources of enjoyment must go the studied avoidance of profitless pain. I say _profitless_ pain, because there is pain which is profitable, and to avoid that would be to miss the best of life, as I shall try to show on a later page,――a distinction too often forgotten by those political economists who are preparing the race for the era of universal happiness. All pain is profitless which is incurred by a deliberate violation of natural law, such as needless neglect of health or disregard of social custom. When we confess that we have “made fools of ourselves,” we suffer what our knowledge could have prevented, and we recognize it. The part of wisdom is to avoid such suffering. Here lies the incalculable value of knowledge in this pursuit. I do not mean extensive learning or erudition, but knowledge of ourselves, of our immediate natural surroundings, and of our own sphere of probable activity. The chief value of Knowledge, says Epictetus, is that it destroys Fear. We do not dread the known, but the unknown. Its worth does not stop there. It enables us to escape disasters, to lessen pain, to mitigate suffering in ourselves and others, and to secure many joys. Three verbs, observes the philosophical Littré, express the ideal perfection of human happiness――to know, to love, and to serve. The true end of what is called “culture,” or a “liberal education,” is not to store the mind with a variety of facts useful in managing men or in making money, but to expand our sympathies, to bring us in touch with all that is beautiful and enjoyable in our lives; it is to increase the sensitiveness of our finer instincts, so that they will respond more readily to the delicate stimuli of pleasurable impressions. Thoreau, walking behind the farmer’s cart, claimed to have stolen the best part of the load of apples when he inhaled the fragrant aroma from the fruit. To him it was more gratifying than to have filled his stomach with the acid pippins.