is, in political economy.  We theorize and legislate as if people were things.  Most of the schemes of social reorganization are based on this fallacy.  It always breaks down in experience.  A has two friends, B and C—­to state it mathematically.  A is equal to B, and A is equal to C. A has for B and also for C the most cordial admiration and affection, and B and C have reciprocally the same feeling for A. Such is the harmony that A cannot tell which he is more fond of, B or C. And B and C are sure that A is the best friend of each.  This harmony, however, is not triangular.  A makes the mistake of supposing that it is—­having a notion that things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other—­and he brings B and C together.  The result is disastrous.  B and C cannot get on with each other.  Regard for A restrains their animosity, and they hypocritically pretend to like each other, but both wonder what A finds so congenial in the other.  The truth is that this personal equation, as we call it, in each cannot be made the subject of mathematical calculation.  Human relations will not bend to it.  And yet we keep blundering along as if they would.  We are always sure, in our letter of introduction, that this friend will be congenial to the other, because we are fond of both.  Sometimes this happens, but half the time we should be more successful in bringing people into accord if we gave a letter of introduction to a person we do not know, to be delivered to one we have never seen.  On the face of it this is as absurd as it is for a politician to indorse the application of a person he does not know for an office the duties of which he is unacquainted with; but it is scarcely less absurd than the expectation that men and women can be treated like mathematical units and equivalents.  Upon the theory that they can, rest the present grotesque schemes of Nationalism.

In saying all this the Drawer is well aware that it subjects itself to the charge of being commonplace, but it is precisely the commonplace that this essay seeks to defend.  Great is the power of the commonplace.  “My friends,” says the preacher, in an impressive manner, “Alexander died; Napoleon died; you will all die!” This profound remark, so true, so thoughtful, creates a deep sensation.  It is deepened by the statement that “man is a moral being.”  The profundity of such startling assertions cows the spirit; they appeal to the universal consciousness, and we bow to the genius that delivers them.  “How true!” we exclaim, and go away with an enlarged sense of our own capacity for the comprehension of deep thought.  Our conceit is flattered.  Do we not like the books that raise us to the great level of the commonplace, whereon we move with a sense of power?  Did not Mr. Tupper, that sweet, melodious shepherd of the undisputed, lead about vast flocks of sheep over the satisfying plain of mediocrity?  Was there ever a greater exhibition of power, while it lasted?  How long