However, I can only speak for myself, and of my idea of work. I felt satisfied when my work led me to a new discovery, whether it was the discovery of a new continent of thought, or of the smallest desert island in the vast ocean of truth. I would gladly go so far as to try to convince my friends by a simple statement of facts. Let them follow the same course and see whether I was right or wrong. But to make propaganda, to attempt to persuade by bringing pressure to bear, to canvass and to organize, to found societies, to start new journals, to call meetings and have them reported in the papers, has always been to me very much against the grain. If we know some truth, what does it matter whether a few millions, more or less, see the truth as we see it? Truth is truth, whether it is accepted now or in millions of years. Truth is in no hurry, at least it always seemed to me so. When face to face with a man, or a body of men, who would not be convinced, I never felt inclined to run my head against a stone wall, or to become an advocate and use the tricks of a lawyer. I have often been blamed for it, I have sometimes even regretted my indolence or my quiet happiness, when I felt that truth was on my side and by my side. I suppose there is no harm in personal canvassing, but as much as I disliked being canvassed, did I feel it degrading to canvass others. I know quite well how often it happened at a meeting when either a measure or a candidate was to be carried, that the voters had evidently been spoken to privately beforehand, had in the conscience of their heart promised their votes. The facts and arguments at the meeting itself might all be on one side, but the majority was in favour of the other. Men whose time was of little value had been round from house to house, a majority had been compacted into an inert unreasoning mass; and who would feel inclined to use his spade of reason against so much unreason? Some people, more honest than the rest, after the mischief was done, would say, “Why did you not call? why did you not write letters?” I may be quite wrong, but I can only say that it seemed to me like taking an unfair advantage, unfair to our opponents, and almost insulting to our friends. Still, from a worldly point of view, I was no doubt wrong, and it is certainly true that I was often left in a minority. My friends have told me again and again that if a good measure or a good man is to be carried, good men must do some dirty work. If they cannot do that, they are of no use, and I doubt not that I have often been considered a very useless man by my political and academic friends, because I trusted to reason where there was no reason to trust to. I was asked to write letters, to address and post letters, to promise travelling expenses or even convivial entertainments at Oxford, to get leaders and leaderettes inserted in newspapers. I simply loathed it, and at last declined to do it.