Laughter was also condemned, if indulged in without very good cause.  “The miserable man whose mind is warped laughs at everything, not knowing what he ought to know, that he himself has no lack of faults.”  I need scarcely tell you that the English are still a very serious people, not disposed to laugh nearly so much as are the men of the more sympathetic Latin races.  You will remember perhaps Lord Chesterfield’s saying that since he became a man no man had ever seen him laugh.  I remember about twenty years ago that there was published by some Englishman a very learned and very interesting little book, called “The Philosophy of Laughter,” in which it was gravely asserted that all laughter was foolish.  I must acknowledge, however, that no book ever made me laugh more than the volume in question.

The great virtue of the men of the North, according to the “Havamal,” was indeed the virtue which has given to the English race its present great position among nations,—­the simplest of all virtues, common sense.  But common sense means much more than the words might imply to the Japanese students, or to any one unfamiliar with English idioms.  Common sense, or mother-wit, means natural intelligence, as opposed to, and independent of, cultivated or educated intelligence.  It means inherited knowledge; and inherited knowledge may take even the form of genius.  It means foresight.  It means intuitive knowledge of other people’s character.  It means cunning as well as broad comprehension.  And the modern Englishman, in all times and in all countries, trusts especially to this faculty, which is very largely developed in the race to which he belongs.  No Englishman believes in working from book learning.  He suspects all theories, philosophical or other.  He suspects everything new, and dislikes it, unless he can be compelled by the force of circumstances to see that this new thing has advantages over the old.  Race-experience is what he invariably depends upon, whenever he can, whether in India, in Egypt, or in Australia.  His statesmen do not consult historical precedents in order to decide what to do:  they first learn the facts as they are; then they depend upon their own common sense, not at all upon their university learning or upon philosophical theories.  And in the case of the English nation, it must be acknowledged that this instinctive method has been eminently successful.  When the “Havamal” speaks of wisdom it means mother-wit, and nothing else; indeed, there was no reading or writing to speak of in those times: 

    No man can carry better baggage on his journey than wisdom.

    There is no better friend than great common sense.

But the wise man should not show himself to be wise without occasion.  He should remember that the majority of men are not wise, and he should be careful not to show his superiority over them unnecessarily.  Neither should be despise men who do not happen to be as wise as himself: