Life, like heat, is a mode of motion, and progress consists in discarding a good thing as soon as you have found a better. * * * * * Occasionally Herbert Spencer used to spend a Sunday afternoon with the Carlyles at their modest home in Chelsea. At such times Jeannie Welsh would usually manage to pilot the conversational craft along smooth waters; but if she were not present, hot arguments would follow, and finally a point would be reached where Carlyle and Spencer would simply sit and glare at each other. "After such scenes I always thought less of two persons, Carlyle and myself," said Spencer; "and so for many years I very cautiously avoided Cheyne Row." Then there was another man Spencer avoided, although for a different reason; this individual was John Tyndall. On the death of Tyndall, Spencer wrote: "There has just died the greatest teacher of modern times: a man who stimulated thought in old and young, every one he met, as no one else I ever knew did. Once we went together for a much-needed rest to the Lake District. Gossip, which has its advantages in that it can be carried on with no tax on one's intellectual powers, had no part in our conversation. The discussion of great themes began at once wherever Tyndall was. "The atmosphere of the man was intensely stimulating: everybody seemed to become great and wise and good in his presence. "We walked on the shores of Windermere, climbed Rydal Mount, rowed across Lake Grasmere (leaving our names on the visitors' list), and all the time we dwelt upon high Olympus and talked. "But, alas! Tyndall's vivacity undid me: two days of his company, with two sleepless nights, and I fled him as I would a pestilence." But Carlyle growled out one thing in Spencer's presence which Spencer often quoted. "If I had my own way," said Carlyle, "I would send the sons of poor men to college, and the sons of rich men I would set to work." Manual labor in right proportion means mental development. Too much hoe may slant the brow, but hoe in proper proportion develops the cerebellum. In the past we have had one set of men do all the work, and another set had all the culture: one hoes and another thirsts. There are whole areas of brain-cells which are evolved only through the efforts of hand and eye, for it is the mind at last that directs all our energies. The development of brain and body go together--manual work is brain-work. Too much brain-work is just as bad as too much toil; the misuse of the pen carries just as severe a penalty as the misuse of the hoe. And it is a great satisfaction to realize that the thinking world has reached a point where these propositions do not have to be proven. There was a time when Spencer regretted that he had not been sent to college, instead of being set to work. But later he came to regard his experience as a practical engineer and surveyor as a very precious and necessary part of his education.