ng a football about, or
dancing, or playing on the piano, or writing a poem, or painting a
picture. The geologist predicts to a certainty that no gold will be
found on the summit, and if gold did exist there no one would be
able to work it. Climbing Mount Everest will not put a pound into
anyone's pocket. It will take a good many pounds out of people's
pockets. It will also entail the expenditure of much time and
necessitate the most careful forethought and planning on the part of
those who are organising the expedition. And it will mean that those
who carry it out will have to keep themselves at the very highest
pitch of physical fitness, mental alertness, and moral courage and
endurance. They will have to be prepared to undergo the severest
hardships and run considerable risks. And all this, I say, without the
prospect of making a single penny. So there will be no _use_ in
climbing Mount Everest. If the ascent is made at all it will be made
for the sheer love of the thing, from pure enjoyment--the enjoyment
a man gets from pitting himself against a big obstacle.

But if there is no _use,_ there is unquestionably _good_ in climbing
Mount Everest. The accomplishment of such a feat will elevate the
human spirit. It will give men--and especially us geographers--a
feeling that we really are getting the upper hand on the Earth, that
we are acquiring a true mastery of our surroundings. As long as we
impotently creep about at the foot of these mighty mountains and
gaze on their summits without attempting to ascend them, we
entertain towards them a too excessive feeling of awe. We are
almost afraid of them. We have a secret fear that they, the material,
are dominating us, the spiritual. But as soon as we have stood on
their summit we feel that _we_ dominate _them_--that we, the
spiritual, have ascendancy over them, the material. And if man
stands on Earth's highest summit he will have an increased pride and
confidence in himself in his struggle for ascendancy over matter.
This is the incalculable good which the ascent of Mount Everest will
confer.

We who have lived among the peoples of the Himalaya are better
able than most to appreciate how great this good is. We have seen
how tame and meagre is their spirit in comparison with the spirit of,
for example, the Swiss, or French, or Italian inhabitants of the Alps;
and in comparison with what men's spirit ought to be. They have
many admirable qualities, but they are fearful a