LITTLE 

 JOURNEYS 



sometimes used to work on a mathematical problem 

 for hours or days. Many would give it up. A few of the 

 class would take the answer from the book, and in an 

 extremity force the figures to give the proper result. 

 Such students, it is needless to say, never gained the 

 respect of either class or teacher — or themselves. They 

 had the true theological instinct. 



But a few kept on until the problem was solved, or the 

 fallacy of it had been discovered. In life's school such 

 were the men just named, and the distinguishing fea- 

 ture of their lives was that they were students and 

 learners to the last. 



Of this group of scientific workers, Alfred Russel Wal- 

 lace alone survives, aged eighty-two at this writing, 

 still studying, earnestly intent upon one of nature's 

 secrets that four of his great colleagues years ago la- 

 beled, "Unknown," and the other two marked, "Un- 

 knowable." 



To some it is an anomaly and contradiction that a lover 

 of science, exact, cautious, intent on certitude, should 

 accept a belief in personal immortality. Still, to others 

 this is regarded as proof of his superior insight. 

 All thinking men agree that we are surrounded by phe- 

 nomena that to a great extent are unanalyzed; but Her- 

 bert Spencer, for one, thought it a lapse in judgment to 

 attribute to spirit intervention, mysteries which could 

 not be accounted for on any other grounds jft It was 

 equal to that sin against science which Darwin com- 

 mitted, and which he atoned for in contrite public con- 

 fession, when he said, " It surely must be this, other- 

 108 



