Perfect Critic" we read: "The vast accumulations of knowledge - or at least of information - deposited by the nineteenth century have been responsible for an equally vast ignorance. When there is so much to be known, when there are so many fields of knowledge in which the same words are used with different meanings, when every one knows a little about a great many things, it becomes increasingly difficult for any one to know whether he knows what he is talking about or not. And when we do not know, or when we do not know enough, we tend always to substitute emotions for thoughts." Or as another Englishman said three hundred years ago, "We have more words than notions." As a matter of fact, we are such slaves to words that we frame our so-called notions to fit our words, rather than our words to fit our notions. The world is today governed by high-sounding phrases, which sometimes hit the mark, but are quite as apt to go wide of it.

The difficulty of exercising sound imagination increases in inverse ratio to the multiplicity of new facts that must be taken into account. Imagination implies coordination, and there are so many more things to coordinate. In the past the world was governed far more exclusively by the imagination of the strongest minds than is the case now. The average man thinks he governs the world today, but he mistakes. He is himself but a tool in the hand of the phrase-maker of defective imagination, and perhaps that is stating the case too charitably.

The wandering remarks in which we have indulged above all come to one point. In its social and economic aspects life is a very different thing from what it was a century ago, or fifty years ago, or even ten years ago. Where half a century ago an ounce of thought was required to keep things straight, we now need a pound. Where are we going to get the other fifteen ounces? Is it true that we need them? It is true, for the reason that the great machine shop of life contains vastly more implements than it did then, and when not used aright they are many times more dangerous. All over the world conditions have ceased to be local and have become national and international. Local communities no longer feed and clothes themselves. They are dependent on world conditions. There is today hardly a world financial problem, a world transportation problem, a world labor problem, that is not also a specific local problem in every community, big and little, throughout Christendom and in partibus infidelium. Directing minds were always necessary

to keep things from going wrong, but in the past the necessity was never anything like as great as at present, and it is not as great now as it will be in the future, as our tools increase more and more and become more and more diversified. The average man must submit to guidance in increasing measure, or find himself increasingly at the mercy of forces that will grind him to dust. Let us not deceive ourselves. In developing so enormously the mechanism of our social and industrial life we have created an alternative from which we cannot hope to escape it will either make or break the world. The mechanism will not run itself. It must be run by rule with the most perfect safeguards. It has not been run as well as possible in the past, but on the other hand the danger was not as great. At least, those to whom was committed its management were sufficiently alive to the need of care to keep the world, as we have said, from irreparable harm.

But now the man in the street untrained, lacking imagination, with the audacity of ignorance, the unwitting tool of self-seeking trouble makers (men who aim to flourish on the disorders of society) - thinks himself competent to exercise a dominant voice in the management of the vast economic machine which we call life. The part he wants to play calls for powers which most of us do not possess, for experience which most of us have neither time nor opportunity to acquire, for single mindedness that is rare in a world so full of distractions as this. The most the average man is, or probably ever will be, able to do is to thread his way under guidance amid the complicated and dangerous machinery of life without being destroyed by it. It is a dangerous thing to "monkey with the buzz saw," which is a beneficent tool in experienced hands and an engine of destruction in ignorant hands. It would be foolish to mince words. The average man is not competent with his unaided intellect to run the world as it ought to be run, and he knows it. He knows perfectly well that if the task were committed to him he would have to call for help. In the end he would have to call upon the same kind of minds that have been performing the task in the past. He would then discover experimentally that the social and industrial life of the world has not been constructed the way it has by the whim or deviltry of man. He would learn to his cost that it has been constructed this particular way because under the laws governing the universe it could be constructed no other way. Real imagination

would make this clear to anybody. We admire the masterpieces of poetry and art and say that imagination produced them. If it had never done more than that man would have perished from off the earth ages ago. It has produced everything that has ever been worth having in the life of man since man became a conscious soul.

BY JOHN D. STREET

Back to old Paris. The all night Bordeaux train was only a few hours late in reaching the banks of the Seine. The journey had been one of discomfort; the only sleeping wagon was "complet" - I had given up my berth to a lady, so had to be satisfied with a middle seat in an ordinary compartment of the train. For the sake of economy, even the hot water foot warmers had been dispensed with (Time, last of December, 1918), so wrapped in my overcoat, and wearing a warm cap, I was prepared to make the best of it. The train was overcrowded, the compartments were supposed to accommodate eight first-class passengers, but more attempted to get in; nothing but stern language and a fist doubled up prevented an overflow. In ordinary times the conductor could be called; owing to the war the men had been replaced by women. Now a French woman clothed with a little official authority is apt to be long on arguments. Knowing the rights of passengers, and as I can talk French about as fast as any born Frenchman, I decided not to call on the conductress, but to do the policing for that compartment. A very indifferent dinner had put me in the right trim for a fight.

After several attempts, the train actually started, so we settled down for the all night journey. A lady, built on Dutch schooner lines, was my immediate neighbor, and soon she began to doze, her head seeking a resting place on my shoulder. But, O horrors! she had indulged, nay, probably enjoyed, the lowly but well-known Latin fruit, garlic, and I got the full benefit of it. As she was booked to Paris, it was up to me to find some kind of antidote. I lighted an American cigar; she seemed to enjoy that. In a little while I shifted to my pipe; then and only then did she ease up and turn her face the other way, so I kept the pipe going all night until we reached the Ville Lumiere.

The Quai d'Orsay station seemed very unfamiliar with its wooden barracks, skirted employes, and military guards. The buffet alone looked natural. My mouth, all cotton wool from so much smoking, fairly longed for coffee. My order was quickly given some coffee, rolls and butter. The waiter eyed me sadly and shrugged his shoulders. "No butter, no rolls." "Well, bring me what you have." He trotted off, and brought back some coffee and a chunk of war bread, no sugar for substitute, some saccharine water. "Where is your bread ticket?" the

waiter enquired. I explained that I had only landed the day before from America, and was ignorant of the regulations. The word America settled it; he fairly beamed on me. "You can have all the bread you want." I thanked him. Such as it was, I wanted but little of it. I called for my check; he pleasantly reminded me that I came from America; I smiled, gave him the regular French tip, i. e., ten per cent of the total, and added half a franc for the bread. Well, that waiter looked as if he would enjoy taking a bite out of me. I merely squared my shoulders, gave him the "once over" and smiled; he bowed. This showed me that our boys had been playing at being Pittsburgh millionaires in the matter of tips.

No porters about, I had to do my own portering. I picked up my bags and headed for the front of the station, expecting to find a cab or taxi, but none was in sight. After waiting quite a little time I was advised to go to the rue de Rivoli; my chances there would be better. They were; I soon spotted a cab, the cocher appearing gracious, I threw my bags in and told him to drive me to the Prefecture of Police, for it was necessary that I obtain a sauf conduit to circulate in France. As it was some distance, the cocher looked wise. Said he, "Do you notice that kicking strap?" "Yes." "Well, are you not afraid?” “No, if he starts anything he will get you first, why should I worry?" No room for argument, so he started off.

In a couple of hours I had completed all formalities; armed with the pass, I was ready for business. "One word of caution," said the official, "keep away from the American lines, they are very strict." Inwardly I chuckled at this, because it was my intention to make a bee line for the American artillery to visit a namesake I was longing to see. Another all night journey was before me. For a franc I had secured a reservation of a corner seat, where I hoped to be able to sleep. I did, and reached my terminal at 5 A. M.I should say my railroad terminal, for the camp was 18 kilometers beyond, with no apparent way of reaching it. Of course I wanted my coffee tout-de-suite. At the auberge, the very old lady assured me she could give me coffee, but that was all. I spied a bottle of cognac on the shelf, and signified that I would take some. Now, times were hard, this was evident everywhere; so in order to make the bottle of cognac do its full duty, it had been most liberally weakened with aqua pura. It took the equivalent of three petits verres to get a taste of what the label called for.