Page:The reflections of Lichtenberg.djvu/159

 because of the spirit lusting too much against the flesh. Man proper looks like a bulb with many thousand roots: it is his nerves alone that feel, while the rest serves merely to hold the roots and make them easier to carry about ; all we see is the pot in which the man is planted. Our museums are full of ivory cupsan indication of the pet hobby of our good forefathers : out of the material from which the Greek would have carved an Apollo they made drinking vessels. The English follow their feelings more than do other nations ; and this is why they are so prone to admit new senses, as, for instance, the sense of truth, sense of beauty, moral sense, and so on. Where the common people appreciate puns and often make them, one may safely take it that the nation is of a very high order of culture.

If I ever had to name a mark of intelligence in which I had seldom been deceived, it would be this, that people much older than they look rarely have much intelligence, and that, conversely, young people who look old approach the intelligence of age. I hope that I shall be understood aright and not be taken to mean that by young-looking I understand health and a fresh complexion, or by age, pallor and wrinkles.