Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 68.djvu/448

 444 probably for the remainder of his life. He is to a considerable degree thrown out of harmony with his environment, and his attitude toward the world is not very wholesome, because of his mal-adjustment to it. He feels that the world is growing worse because it is now hard for him to make a living. Man tends to realize himself only in so far as the conditions remain the same during the period of his application as they were during his period of preparation and adjustment.

The same tends to hold true in the intellectual world, and it seems that Osler's point of view is not without substantial support. The world as a whole continually moves forward in its general notions about things. The individual tends to lag. The professional man, even the scholar, in his point of view, in his way of looking at things, tends to become fixed. The lamentable consequence is that, like the typesetter, his services to society ultimately become less and less useful and vital, and he likewise loses his position, and is supplanted by one who has the vital point of view. It is a daily occurrence that a teacher's, a minister's a professional man's, even sometimes a college professor's, services are no more wanted.

The question comes, can the scholar keep abreast with the times? The most strenuous effort will almost invariably fall short of its attempt. Our ideas integrate into a system. An apperceptional something functions in all intellectual life. The ideas in our minds are the standards by which we receive new truths and ideas. We crystallize into our notions about things; in other words, we form habits of thought as well as of action, and thus become fixed in our theories and attitudes. Considering, therefore, the fact that every subsequent impression upon the mind of a person is viewed in the light of what is already in the mind and fixed, it is not difficult to see why it is almost impossible for that mind to accept an entirely new point of view, no matter how reasonable that point of view may seem to one whose ideas as standards are in consonance with the new view-point.

Ofttimes it happens, however, that scholars are far ahead of their times. They are dreamers or prophets. They anticipate a more or less distant future, and their thoughts and standards all integrate into a system consistent with their point of view. There are only a few whom they can interest in their lofty conceptions. The man most popular in his time is he who gives expression to what the world gropes after, who lives what they feel, who makes their felt wants real. But the environment, intellectually as well as physically, is cumulative, and soon society will have outgrown him. He becomes obsolete. He has given them the means of stepping beyond him to a higher interest. They are now shouting to another hero who is helping them still another step higher in realization. The world keeps on shouting, but continually to new individuals.