110

Classification of the Sci.
22

as we see it in magpies and rats, is possibly a phase of the love of power. It is a point of honor among book-collectors not to read their books. They delight in books they cannot read and in having many copies of each. Their chief concern is to keep the books out of the hands of those who might use them. The book-collector is the meanest of all human beings, since he turns man's most generous faculty to purposes of spite. He is useful only because his cherished purpose is sure ultimately to be frustrated and his collection to go to use. The love of power seems to be the root of his passion as it is that of the money-maker. The power once acquired, the problem with each of them seems to be how to use it so as to render themselves thoroughly contemptible and despised. Only rarely, a Cornell, a Stewart, a Peabody, or a Carnegie wishes to display his power in any respectable and generous manner. The phe-