People never will recollect, that mere learning and mere cleverness are of next to no value in life, while energy and intellectual grip, the things that are inborn and cannot be taught, are everything. CCCLXXIV In my opinion a man's first duty is to find a way of supporting himself, thereby relieving other people of the necessity of supporting him. Moreover, the learning to do work of practical value in the world, in an exact and careful manner, is of itself a very-important education, the effects of which make themselves felt in all other pursuits. The habit of doing that which you do not care about when you would much rather be doing something else, is invaluable. CCCLXXV Success in any scientific career requires an unusual equipment of capacity, industry and energy. If you possess that equipment you will find leisure enough after your daily commercial work is over, to make an opening in the scientific ranks for yourself. If you do not, you had better stick to commerce. Nothing is less to be desired than the fate of a young man, who, as the Scotch proverb says, in 'trying to make a spoon spoils a horn' and becomes a mere hanger-on in literature or in science, when he might have been a useful and a valuable member of Society in other occupations. CCCLXXVI Playing Providence is a game at which one is very apt to burn one's fingers. CCCLXXVII I conceive that the leading characteristic of the nineteenth century has been the rapid growth of the scientific spirit, the consequent application of scientifc methods of investigation to all the problems with which the human mind is occupied, and the correlative rejection of traditional beliefs which have proved their incompetence to bear such investigation. CCCLXXVIII Science reckons many prophets, but there is not even a promise of a Messiah. CCCLXXIX I have not the slightest doubt about the magnitude of the evils which accrue from the steady increase of European armaments; but I think that this regrettable fact is merely the superficial expression of social forces, the operation of which cannot be sensibly affected by agreements between Governments. In my opinion it is a delusion to attribute the growth of armaments to the "exactions of militarism." The "exactions of industrialism," generated by international commercial competition, may, I believe, claim a much larger share in prompting that growth. Add to this the French thirst for revenge, the most just determination of the German and Italian peoples to assert their national unity; the Russian Panslavonic fanaticism and desire for free access to the western seas; the Papacy steadily fishing in the troubled waters for the means of recovering its lost (I hope for ever lost) temporal possessions and spiritual supremacy; the "sick man," kept alive only because each of his doctors is afraid of the other becoming his heir.