OR

LIVING THOUGHTS

-FOR OUR-

Moral, Intellectual and Physical
Advancement,

By Leading Thinkers of To-Day.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

JOHN H. VINCENT, D. D., LL. D.

ILLUSTRATED.

Holier than any Temple of Wood or Stone, Consecrated for Divine Right and Moral
Purposes, is the Human Body.

DETROIT, MICH.:

F. B. DICKERSON & CO., PUBLISHERS.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1887, by

F. B. Dickerson & Co.,

in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Books are educators, and their aim should be to answer and encourage those earnest aspirations for improved conditions, higher culture and a better environment, felt by every intelligent person. As we are endowed with a sense and a love of physical beauty, so also have we an ideal of moral, intellectual and social beauty.

Man seeks a triple perfection: first, intellectual, which no creature below him aspires to or is capable of; second, a moral, or divine perfection, consisting of those things whereunto we tend by spiritual means, but which, here, we can not attain; lastly, a social perfection, consisting of the elements which are essential to the existence of society, and embracing also, in its higher department, all those graces which render human intercourse beautiful, and satisfy those finer social instincts which God has implanted in the breasts of all superior beings.

Intellectual and moral training are necessary adjuncts to the social training of every individual who would attain the highest

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culture in this direction. That structure endures longest the foundation of which is most securely laid. As no work of the architect will withstand the beating rays of the summer sun or the blasts of winter without a firm basis, so it may be said of man, that he cannot hope to maintain a social position, impreg nable to all assaults of public criticism, without morality and intellectuality as a foundation upon which to build his social structure. A higher and nobler aim must be his, also, than that of social position alone; and it is the object of the present work, first, to encourage and assist its student in the praise. worthy enterprise of erecting a moral and intellectual temple; second, to lay down those social laws that will enable him suitably to decorate it.

It is believed that the work is wholly original and unique,that nothing approaching it, either in form or scope, was ever before attempted. In preparing it, the publishers have, at great expense of time, patience and money, called to their aid those men and women who, by reason of their intellectual training and high positions in society, seemed best fitted to lead an upward tendency in the moral, intellectual and social training of the people. We trust we have succeeded in providing for the public a work that needs no apology for its appearance; but one that will be a welcome visitor to every home where worthy books are to be found.

F. B. D. & CO.