164 SCIENCE AND ART AND EDUCATION vn 



now becoming a somewhat long experience of 

 varied conditions of life. 



I am not about to trouble you with my auto- 

 biography; the omens are hardly favourable, 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 such 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 which 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 happens that it has been my 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 Papua 

 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 



