a man practices makes him stand out from his fellows and his peers.

The most important means to the knowledge of truth is that a man think well and long. And the art of thinking well begets not only philosophers and scholars; it begets all men, whatever their classes and their occupations.

We must keep our minds always at work, lest their light go out, and for fear that sloth and paralysis overtake them. The most important aid to thinking well is complete attention to everything; and in order to think well we must attend well — otherwise we are like the lancet that cannot cut if its stroke is not made firm. Most of the time things pass before our minds and our imaginations but leave no mark upon us, because our minds are scattered: we look as though we did not look, and we hear as though we did not hear. This is the inattention that sometimes makes us fail to see something appearing right before us. Attention, then, is the source of the thinking from which the luminous idea is born; and how often useful opportunities escape us through our inattention. Attention multiplies the power of the mind and its luminosity to a degree that is almost past belief.

And when we wish to examine a thing, we must first ask ourselves: is it within our power to know it and to obtain it, or not?

And does it exist, or not?

And what are its nature and its kinds?

And since everything has its end, we must ask what its result

and its end may be, should we obtain it.

"Pascal" said: men have three kinds of mind. First, the math-ematical mind, from which are derived the science of geometry and algebra; this is the sound mind that admits no error, because it is founded on precision and exactitude. The second kind is the fine, subtle mind that observes things and understands them; this too is founded on precision and exactitude. The third kind is the mind turned toward illusions, vanity, and charlatanry; this one is founded on error and deceit, because it belongs neither to the mathematical mind nor to the fine, subtle mind — and the majority, alas, are possessed of the erring, misleading mind.

The true thinker is the one who grasps the clear, precise, well-pro-portioned idea, with upright, mature judgments, wisely and deliberately. There may be people who observe the truth and grasp it, but hastily and rashly, and so they understand of it only the surfaces. We may say that man is the plaything of his thoughts and his imaginings, and that often he would like to apply truths according to his inclinations and his passions.

And there is the theory of relativity, which says that I may see the thing I believe to be true as true in relation to myself, while another may see it as false in relation to himself. As for truth itself, it is ever relative to the sound human mind; and the sound human mind changes and evolves with the passage of time. Truth

itself, then, changes and evolves with the passage of time and the succession of generations.

How many people have gone from this world without knowing or understanding anything of its secrets — indeed, without knowing anything of their own selves, or ever trying to know — although wisdom requires that we open our eyes to know the secrets of our hearts, and so reform ourselves, instead of being led blindly to the things that compel us to do them and drag us down to the lowest depths.

These are some of the principal paths of evolution and progress, which I hope the people of my country, and all the Arab lands, will follow, so that we may always move forward and stand in the vanguard of the peoples and nations of this age.