A UNIVERSE OF MIND-STUFF 



have been able to learn regarding Clifford's in- 

 tellectual life, it would seem to have been at all 

 times carried on with an intensely passionate, 

 irrepressible zeal, as regardless of all physical 

 laws as if the mind were not merely a distinct 

 but an independent entity, unhampered even 

 during the present life by physical conditions. 



I cite this singular discrepancy between know- 

 ledge and practice on account of its intrinsic 

 interest, not in reproof of the course of a friend 

 whose loss I must ever mourn. Admitting, with 

 Mr. Spencer, that one is morally bound so to 

 treat the body as not " in any way to diminish 

 the fulness or vigour of its vitality," one sees 

 at the same time that, as the world is now con- 

 stituted, emergencies often arise which subordi- 

 nate to higher duties the duty of keeping one- 

 self well. To save human life I may jump into 

 a freezing river, though an ice-water bath be not 

 recommended by hygienic advisers. So one 

 sympathizes with the heroic sense of duty which 

 often leads the scholar to toil early and late, and 

 long after weariness has set in, in the perform- 

 ance of work which is expected of him, though 

 in many cases the work itself may be obscure 

 in fame and the taskmaster thankless and treach- 

 erous. For my own part I sympathize keenly, 

 too, with a very different feeling, with that 

 glorious exuberance of vital energy which in 

 youthful days leads one far on into the night, 

 293 



