VOCATION VERSUS AVOCATION 



methods by which you may arrive at any successful 

 issue of your avocational labors. Here the new fact 

 you discover must be susceptible of verification by other 

 observers before it can bring you credit; the new 

 method of investigation must be one that others can also 

 follow; the new interpretation must be one that ap- 

 peals to other connoisseurs by its logicality and validity ; 

 and supposing your line to be an artistic one your 

 picture or sculpture or what not must bear in its every 

 line the proof of earnest effort and honest method. 

 Here, too, nothing succeeds like success, but there are 

 no shady bypaths that can by any possibility lead to 

 the heights. 



Note yet another contrast. Business competition, 

 however honestly pursued, is a strife a veritable 

 battle; your success, however legitimate, is attained 

 at the expense of some less skilful or less fortunate rival; 

 and your fortune, unless you use it wisely, may be a 

 positive injury to mankind, a detractor from the sum 

 of human happiness. But your scientific investigation 

 will rarely militate against the interests of any rival; 

 will do no injury to any competitor, there usually being 

 none. Your success will be something over which all 

 men may rejoice; and in proportion as your discovery 

 has importance, it will serve to aid others to the com- 

 pletion of their own investigations, or will add directly 

 to the welfare of humanity at large. Similarly, but 

 even more obviously, your work of art, in proportion 

 as it is a success, will add directly to the sum of human 

 pleasure injuring no one. Your pursuit of an avoca- 



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