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Excerpt from World Literatures: Arabic, Chinese, Czechoslovak, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Scottish, Swedish, Yugoslav As a rule the average man shrinks from a philosophical or imaginative interpretation of his existence. He adheres to a few simple views or doctrines; or he allows hls sp1rit to be drugged by slogans; or is suspicious, i.e. Silently slanderous of values. To seek in common sense, as it is applied today, the key to the secret of comprehension would be useless indeed. Then there are those who have a messianic disposition. They are attached fanatically to fantastic convictions or prejudices, or are clinging stubbornly to well-sounding phrases. Their solace seems to be mental and moral platitudes. Considering the inherent imper fection of man and considering environmental complications and inanities it is not surprising that Socrates' know thyself seems outside the domain of realization. Man's defective sensibility plus his pressing obligations and the tension of the human struggle explain his habit to settle by a few catchwords or ex ternal activities the ethical, metaphysical, social, and aesthetic Issues of life. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.