to his house, and he who knows how to do this, knows also how to use electricity for the purpose of advancing civilization still further. Parents are often distressed at facts which mean that the young mind is violently impelled to satisfy the Law of alternate action, by throwing itself under the influence of some teacher whose views are opposed to those of former teachers. What the young mind imperatively needs is not conflict of opinion but alternation of attitude and of emotion; we should try so to organize life that this relief can be found without actual contradiction. Young people need contact with persons who feel differently from their parents; teachers might give that relief without suggesting that the parents are mistaken or wrong. But at present there is so much tension on questions of opinion that, if parents select teachers whose tendencies are opposite to their own, the children learn from the strangers to think their parents mistaken; whereas the parent who seeks out for his children influences counter to his own, gives thereby the best possible proof of being in the right; for he proves that he has more confidence in the Eternal Truth of the Principle of alternation than in his own special opinions.
All who live in the intimacy of great original thinkers, observe how incompetent the families and intimate friends of such men usually are to understand them. The reason, I believe, is that men of Genius attract so much attention as to destroy the mental elasticity of those around them, and thus weaken their mental vigour. The son of a great thinker does not acquire true vigour till he throws himself out of his father's sphere of influence. The psychology of the matter not being
