Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus (1908).djvu/381

Rh who has got to find his way back alone. The concentration of all responsibility and all the work on a single individual forces him to acquire an all-round skill which is hardly to be gained in any other way. Climbing in parties is apt to develop one-sidedness. One man cuts the steps, another climbs the rocks, and a third always knows the way. Division of laboiir is doubtless excellent, and perchance deserves all that Adam Smith has said in its favour, but it does not develop the ideal mountaineer. In this department of human duty Mr, William Morris gives sounder advice. Of course this is merely another way of saying that the chamois hunter—i.e., the solitary mountaineer —is the best raw material for a guide. The fact that a man has been in the habit of climbing alone, means that the law of the survival of the fittest has had full and ample opportunity of elimmatlng him should he be, in any way, a careless or incapable mountaineer.

From the individual's point of view this elimination may not, perhaps, appear wholly desirable. Yet, judging from his habits, the faithful climber, carried away by altruistic feelings and thinking merely of the welfare of future companions, prefers that the law of the survival of the fittest should have full scope and should pass him through its searching fires. Possibly critics may suggest other and less pleasing motives, perhaps I could even do so myself, but wherefore filch from the lurking foe the joy of a