th at a time when no one of us ever thought of it. Our conscious wisdom has nothing
to do with our wisdom tooth. It also manufactures specific antidotes a-gainst poison,
on the whole with amazing success, and it does all these things with absolute silence,
without the usual racket of a factory, so that our superfine metaphysician may not
be disturbed and is free to think about his spirit or his essence.

IV. HUMAN LIFE A POEM
I think that, from a biological standpoint, human life almost reads like a poem. It
has its own rhythm and beat, its internal cycles of growth and decay. It begins with
innocent childhood, followed by awkward adolescence trying awkwardly to adapt itself
to mature society, with its young passions and follies, its ideals and ambitions;
then it reaches a manhood of intense activities, profiting from experience and
learning more about society and human nature; at middle age, there is a slight easing
of tension, a mellowing of character like the ripening of fruit or the mellowing of
good wine, and the gradual acquiring of a more tolerant, more cynical and at the same
time a kindlier view of life; then in the sunset of our life, the endocrine glands
decrease their activity, and if we have a true philosophy of old age and have ordered
our life pattern according to it, it is for us the age of peace and security and leisure
and contentment; finally , life flickers out and one goes into eternal sleep, never
to wake up again. One should be able to sense the beauty of this rhythm of life, to
appreciate, as we do in grand symphonies, its main theme, its strains of conflict
and the final resolution. The movements of these cycles are very much the same in
a normal life, but the music must be provided by the individual himself. In some souls,
the discordant note becomes harsher and harsher and finally overwhelms or submerges
the main melody. Sometimes the discordant note gains so much power that the music
can no longer go on, and the individual shoots himself with a pistol or jumps into
a river. But that is because his original leitmotif has been hopelessly over-shadowed
through the lack of a good self-education. Otherwise the normal human life runs to
its normal end in a kind of dignified movement and procession. There are sometimes
in many of us too many staccatos or impetuosos, and because the tempo is wrong, the
music is not pleasing to the ear; we might have more of the grand rhythm and majestic
tempo of the Ganges, flowing slowly and eternally into the sea.
No one can say that a life with childhood, manhood and old age is not a beautiful
arrangement; the day has its morning, noon and sunset, and the year has its seasons,
and it is good that it is so. There is no good or bad in life, except what is good
according to its own season. And if we take this biological view of life and try to
live according to the seasons, no one but a conceited fool or an impossible idealist∴∴
can deny that human life can be lived like a poem. Shakespeare has expressed this
idea more graphically in his passage about the seven stages of life, and a good many
Chinese writers have said about the same thing. It is curious that Shakespeare was
never very religious, or very much concerned with religion. I think this was his
greatness;
he took human life largely as it was, and intruded himself as little upon the general
scheme of things as he did upon the characters of his plays. Shakespeare was like
Nature herself, and that is the greatest compliment we can pay to a writer or thinker.
He merely lived, observed life and went away .
I. THE MONKEY Epic
BUT if this biological view helps us to appreciate the beauty and rhythm of life,
it also shows our ludicrous limitations. By presenting to us a more correct picture
of what we are as animals, it enables us to better understand ourselves and the
progress of human affairs. A more generous sympathy, or even tolerant cynicism, comes
with a truer and