If men only reflected what tyrants they obey--these black magicians who are called professors; who settle what we are to think and believe; who test and examine, reject and choose; who form committees, write handbooks, deliver lectures, and bestow prizes on those who accept _their_ hypotheses. And has it ever occurred to a student to criticise his teacher? No; he swallows everything uncritically. But if he goes into a church where he hears God's own word revealed by way of intuition to the prophets, then he begins to exercise his critical faculty; then he finds it very difficult to comprehend the simplest things; then he wants mathematical certainty, which he considers the highest while it is really the lowest. Swedenborg says in one place: "Though goodness and truth are sent down through the heavens, when they reach the hells they are changed into evil and falsity; the brilliant light of the sun changes into ugly colours and its warmth becomes an evil odour." =Rousseau.=--In my youth I read of an Englishman who shot himself because life was so wearisome. He had counted the buttons which he had to unbutton and button up every day--in his under-clothing half a dozen, in his day-shirt half a dozen, in his collar and cuffs half a dozen, in his waistcoat, trousers, and coat a dozen, in his boots, gaiters, and gloves two dozen. When he wanted to ride out he had to change, as he had also to do for dinner and the evening. This story, though absurd, reveals the naked truth. Life has become so burdensome, and half the day is spent in useless occupations: unnecessary visits, telephoning, writing letters about nothing, reading the papers; especially in making one's toilette which formerly consisted of a becoming mantle fastened with a single cord, but has now developed into a whole set of things with buttons, hooks, eyes, strings, ribbons, needles, buckles. Our toilettes are a miniature picture of our civilisation with all its time-wasting fussiness, most of which is useless nonsense. The man who lives in the country and cultivates the ground needs neither art, science, nor literature. He who has nature needs no art, and religion is more than science and literature. There are churches everywhere, but museums, theatres, book-shops, and clubs only in the towns. Whether they are necessary is another question. That is Rousseau!