20 ORIGIN AND NATURE OF LIFE 



tern, filling gaps in it, and elucidating apparent 

 exceptions. All this is of the highest value 

 to him, and to the higher processes of evolu- 

 tion in which he himself is a conscious factor. 

 The highest advantage accruing to him is the 

 study itself and the means which arise 

 incidentally to the study of enlarging its 

 scope and making new advances. Compared 

 to this higher pleasure the material advan- 

 tages are but trumpery, and too often 

 act as an enervating influence on the less 

 studious portion of humanity, or form the 

 means of degrading and enslaving the 

 many millions who do not possess enough 

 scientific knowledge to arrange how to share 

 the material benefits so that they may be a 

 blessing to all instead of a curse alike to those 

 who possess too much and those who possess 

 too little. 



Despite these material advantages or dis- 

 advantages to the world at large springing 

 from his work, the true scientific pioneer, 

 whom we may regard as we choose either as 

 the genius or the genie of higher evolution, is 

 irresistibly impelled by his natural endow- 

 ments to go on cataloguing, and arranging, 

 and investigating natural phenomena, and it 

 is well that we should consider at the outset 

 what are the apparent limitations of the age 



