Page:Philosophy and Fun of Algebra.djvu/40

PHILOSOPHY AND FUN OF ALGEBRA air. People who do that with their minds grow the Ten Commandments naturally, just as Moses grew them. The world has been trying the other plan—bad food and air inside, and cosmetics outside—for at least 4000 years; and not much seems to have come of it yet. The Ten Commandments have not yet succeeded in getting themselves kept. Perhaps that is why some schoolmasters and mistresses think they would like to try the other plan now. Still, it is very good to have a normal model of what a healthy human being ought to look like outside. It is good to have a standard for reference. Therefore do not get too much immersed in the mere details of your own problems. Learn the Ten Commandments and a few other old standard formularies by heart, and repeat them every now and then. And say to yourself, "If I really am doing my algebra quite rightly, this (the standard formularies) is how I shall think and feel and wish. I shall wish to behave thus, not because anybody ordered me to do so, but from sheer liking and sense of the general fitness of things. 36