"THE PLEASURES OF LIFE" 243 



quately the increase of the sources of pleasure 

 given to mankind by appreciation of arts which 

 did not touch him very closely. 



I have thought that it was not possible to 

 present Sir John Lubbock's intellectual character 

 in any true light to the reader without making 

 some insistence on these limitations to his still 

 very extraordinary versatility, but there is one, 

 and a higher side, the moral, of his character 

 which it is possible, as it seems to me, to admire 

 without any restriction whatever. And I write 

 these words in the fullest sense of their extra- 

 ordinary significance. One who was a friend of 

 Sir John almost from the childhood of both of 

 them said to me, " I do not believe that he once, 

 in the whole course of his life, did a thing that he 

 thought to be wrong." That is praise so high 

 that it is hardly conceivable that it can be justly 

 bestowed on any human being. I knew him over 

 a less extended, but still a considerable period, 

 and of my own more limited knowledge should 

 endorse this very remarkable dictum. He ap- 

 peared to have attained the ideal height of 

 perfection at which temptation to do that which 

 the reason and the conscience condemn ceases to 

 assail a man. For that very cause, because the 

 good action was that which always seemed 

 natural and even inevitable for him, it almost 

 appeared to have lost its meritorious character. 

 Of course, the apparent absence of temptation 

 was but the result of a very unusual power of 

 control developed by lifelong exercise. It was 

 the art which conceals art exhibited in relation 

 to the ethical problems. 



