... If he finished his book at twenty-seven, what would he do
with the rest of his life? Besides defending it from possible criticism,
besides expounding and amplifying it a little further as need seemed to
be, there would be no more work for him to do. Supreme essence of
philosophy, history, and all science as it was, it was the final word of
human wisdom. You might say that with it the work of the world was done.
How then should he spend the remaining thirty or forty years of his
life? As matters stood now he had, so to say, twenty years start on
himself. Through the peculiar circumstances of his life, he had reached
a point in his reading and study at twenty-four which another man could
not hope to reach before he was forty-five or fifty. Other men had done
daily work for a livelihood, and had only their evenings for their
heart's desire. Spencer was a civil engineer. Mill was a clerk in an
India house. Comte taught mathematics. But he, in all his life, had not
averaged an hour a week's enforced distraction: all had gone to his own
work. You might say that he was entitled to a heavy arrears in this
direction.
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