t the university--to
hear occasionally of the evil influences of competition, as tending to
promote jealousy between competitors. I always replied that, so far as
my experience went, the evil was altogether imaginary. So far from
competition generating ill-will, the keenest competitors were, as a
rule, the closest friends. There was no stronger bond than the bond of
rivalry in our intellectual contests. One main reason was, of course,
that we had absolute faith in the fairness of the competition. We felt
that it would be unworthy to complain of being beaten by a better man;
and we had no doubt that, in point of fact, the winners were the better
men; or, at any rate, were honestly believed to be the better men by
those who distributed honours. The case, though on a small scale, may
suggest one principle. So far as the end of such competitions is good,
the normal motives cannot be bad. The end of a fair competition is the
discovery of the ablest men, with a view to placing them in the
position where their talents may be turned to most account. It can only
be achieved so far as each man does his best to train his own powers,
and is prepared to test them fairly against the powers of others. To
work for that end is, then, not only permissible, but a duty. The
spirit in which the end is pursued may be bad, in so far as a man
pursues it by unfair means; in so far as he tries to make sham
performance pass off for genuine; or, again, in so far as he sets an
undue value upon the reward, as apart from the qualities by which it is
gained. But if he works simply with the desire of making the best of
himself, and if the reward is simply such a position as may enable him
to be most useful to society, the competition which results will be
bracing and invigorating, and will appeal to no such motives as can be
called, in the bad sense, selfish. He is discharging a function which
is useful, it is true, to himself; but which is also intrinsically
useful to the whole society. The same principle applies, again, to
intellectual activity in general. All genuine thought is essentially
useful to mankind. In the struggle to discover truth, even our
antagonists are, necessarily, our co-operators. A philosopher, as a man
of science, owes, at least, as much to those who differ from him, as to
those who agree with him. The conflict of many minds, from many sides,
is the essential condition of intellectual progress. Now, if a man
plays his part manfull