Page:Moral Obligation to be Intelligent.djvu/141

 they drew substance for their fancy from the supposed exaltation of spirit with which young children make their acquaintance with this planet. But nothing in our observation of children or in the anthropologist's observation of primitive men, would allow much truth in this old doctrine; the very contrary seems to be the fact—that only the sophisticated can appreciate the miracles that are actually before our eyes. Children take their world for granted; when we disclose some amazement at life, some awe of facts, it is a sign that we are no longer children. Moreover, we wonder only at what lies on the border of our experience; what is totally beyond us we still take for granted. The unclothed savage of Borneo is brought to the settlements and treated to a ride in a motor-car. Knowing nothing of such things, he is neither surprised nor interested,