I now come to an entirely¹ different aspect of the whole subject. Hitherto I have dealt with the human machine as a contrivance for adapting the man to his environment. My aim has been to show how much depends on the machine and how little depends on the environment, and that the essential business of the machine is to utilise, for making the stuff of life, the particular environment in which it happens to find itself—and no other! All this, however, does not imply that one must accept, fatalistically and permanently² and passively, any preposterous³ environment into which destiny has chanced to throw us. If we carry far enough the discipline of our brains, we can, no doubt, arrive at surprisingly good results in no matter what environment. But it would not be 'right reason' to expend⁴ an excessive amount of will-power on brain-discipline when a slighter effort in a different direction would produce consequences more felicitous⁵. A man whom fate had pitched into a canal might accomplish miracles in the way of rendering⁶ himself amphibian⁷; he might stagger the world by the spectacle of his philosophy under amazing difficulties; people might pay sixpence a head to come and see him; but he would be less of a nincompoop if he climbed out and arranged to live definitely on the bank.  
The advantage of an adequate study of the control of the machine, such as I have outlined, is that it enables the student to judge, with some certainty, whether the unsatisfactoriness of his life is caused by a disordered machine or by an environment for which the machine is, in its fundamental construction, unsuitable. It does help him to decide justly whether, in the case of a grave difference between them, he, or the rest of the universe, is in the wrong. And also, if he decides that he is not in the wrong, it helps him to choose a new environment, or to modify the old, upon some scientific principle. The vast majority of people never know, with any precision, why they are dissatisfied with their sojourn⁸ on this planet. They make long and fatiguing⁹ excursions in search of precious materials which all the while are concealed¹⁰ in their own breasts. They don't know what they want; they only know that they want something. Or, if they contrive¹¹ to settle in their own minds what they do want, a hundred to one the obtaining of it will leave them just as far off contentment as they were at the beginning! This is a matter of daily observation: that people are frantically¹² engaged in attempting to get hold of things which, by universal experience, are hideously¹³ disappointing to those who have obtained possession of them. And still the struggle goes on, and probably will go on. All because brains are lying idle! 'It is no trifle that is at stake,' said Epictetus as to the question of control of instinct by reason. 'It means, Are you in your senses or are you not?' In this significance, indubitably the vast majority of people are not in their senses; otherwise they would not behave as they do, so vaguely¹⁴, so happy-go-luckily, so blindly. But the man whose brain is in working order emphatically is in his senses.
 
And when a man, by means of the efficiency of his brain, has put his reason in definite command over his instincts, he at once sees things in a truer perspective than was before possible, and therefore he is able to set a just value upon the various parts which go to make up his environment. If, for instance, he lives in London, and is aware of constant friction¹⁵, he will be led to examine the claims of London as a Mecca for intelligent persons. He may say to himself: 'There is something wrong, and the seat of trouble is not in the machine. London compels me to tolerate dirt, darkness, ugliness, strain, tedious daily journeyings, and general expensiveness. What does London give me in exchange?' And he may decide that, as London offers him nothing special in exchange except the glamour¹⁶ of London and an occasional seat at a good concert or a bad play, he may get a better return for his expenditure¹⁷ of brains, nerves, and money in the provinces. He may perceive, with a certai............