1G4: SCIENCE AND ART AND EDUCATION vii 



• 



what long experience of varied conditions of 

 life. 



I am not about to trouble you with my auto- 

 biogra})liy; the omens are hardly favoural)le, at 

 present, for work of that kind. But I should like 

 if I may do so without appearing, what I earnestly 

 desire not to be, egotistical, — I should like to make 

 it clear to you, that sucli notions as these, which 

 are sometimes attributed to me, are, as I have said, 

 inconsistent with my mental constitution, and still 

 more inconsistent with the upshot of the teaching 

 of my experience. For I can certainly claim for 

 myself that sort of mental temperament which can 

 say that nothing human comes amiss to it. I 

 have never yet met with any branch of human 

 knowledge wliich I have found unattractive — 

 which it would not have been pleasant to me to 

 follow, so far as I could go; and I have yet to 

 meet with any form of art in which it has not 

 been possible for me to take as acute a pleasure 

 as, I believe, it is possible for men to take. 



And with respect to the circumstances of life, it 

 so hap])ens that it has beerrmy fate to know many 

 lands and many climates, and to be familiar, by 

 personal experience, with almost every form of 

 society, from the uncivilised savage of Pajnia 

 and Australia and the civilised savages of the 

 slums and dens of the poverty-stricken parts of 

 great cities, to those who perhaps, are occasionally 

 the somewhat over-civilised members of our 



