You may not be a Newton. But if you can condescend to aim at being an inferior Sandow, can't you afford to try even harder to be an inferior Newton?
Don't be a muscular monkey. Be a low-grade philosopher, if you can't be high-grade, and find how much true pleasure there is even in inferior brain gymnastics. ——
Take up some problem and study it:
There goes a woman, poor and old. She carries a heavy burden because she is too sad and weak to fight against fate, too honest to leave a world that treats her harshly.
There struts a youngster, rich and idle.
How many centuries of hell on earth will it take to put that woman's load on that other broad, fat, idle back?
Answer that one question, better still, TRANSFER THE LOAD, and your life will not have been wasted. ——
It is THOUGHT that moves the world. In Napoleon's BRAIN are born the schemes that murder millions and yet push civilization on. The mere soldier, with gold lace and sharp sword, is nothing—a mere tool.
It is the concentrated thought of the English people under Puritan influence that makes Great Britain a sham monarchy and a real republic now.
It is the thought of the men of independent MIND in this country that throws English tea and English rule overboard forever.