human body or mind in that direction. He has established a standard. He has set us a mark which enables us to look with equanimity upon any one who does not approach it or surpass it. To throw fifty successive "ringers" at quoits is a feat requiring an almost godlike faculty. There are few services higher than demonstrating the utmost capacities of the human spirit; and it is a sound popular instinct which applauds such demonstrations, even in matters which impress the censorious as trivial.
"But suppose," objects a wary moralist, "suppose a man wishes to demonstrate the utmost capacity of the human spirit for being a tiger or a snake. Should you applaud that experiment?" No, I should not applaud that experiment. I should do mon possible to dissuade the aspirant from that, and I should proceed in this way. I should first lead him through a zoölogical garden to the cage of the Bengal tiger and the python; and I should say: "Here is a far better tiger, and here is a far better snake than you can ever hope to become by the utmost stretch of your tigerish or reptilian propensities. You will make no inspiring contribution by this experiment. You will bungle towards it and fall short. An unsurpassable mark has already been set by the framer of this
