n used, and used with success in every
other kind of investigation, and we must investigate life too, even
if it turns out to be all a kind of Mendelism, moved and swayed by
absolutely fixed laws, which take no account of what we sorrowfully
desire.

Let us, then, gather up our threads a little. Let us first confront the
fact that, under present conditions, in the face of the mass of records
and books and accumulated traditions, arts and sciences must make
progress little by little, line by line, in skilled technical hands.
Fine achievement in every region becomes more difficult every day,
because there is so much that is finished and perfected behind us; and
if the conditions of our lives call us to some strictly limited path,
let us advance wisely and humbly, step by step, without pride or vanity.
But let us not forget, in the face of the frigidities of knowledge,
that if they are the mechanism of life, emotion and hope and love and
admiration are the steam. Knowledge is only valuable in so far as it
makes the force of life effective and vigorous. And thus if we have
breasted the strange current of life, or even if we have been ourselves
overpowered and swept away by it, let us try, in whatever region we
have the power, to let that experience have some value for ourselves
and others. If we can say it or write it, so much the better. There
are thousands of people moving through the world who are wearied and
bewildered, and who are looking out for any message of hope and joy that
may give them courage to struggle on; but if we cannot do that, we can
at least live life temperately and cheerfully and sincerely: if we have
bungled, if we have slipped, we can do something to help others not to
go light-heartedly down the miry path; we can raise them up if they
have fallen, we can cleanse the stains, or we can at least give them the
comfort of feeling that they are not sadly and insupportably alone.

VII. OUR LACK OF GREAT MEN

It is often mournfully reiterated that the present age is not an age
of great men, and I have sometimes wondered if it is true. In the
first place I do not feel sure that an age is the best judge of its own
greatness; a great age is generally more interested in doing the things
which afterwards cause it to be considered great, than in wondering
whether it is great. Perhaps the fact that we are on the look-out for
great men, and complaining because we cannot find them, is the best
proof of o