And such is,indeed,the fact.The wish to accomplish something outside their formal programme is common to all men who in the course of evolution have risen past a certain level.
Until an effort is made to satisfy that wish,the sense of uneasy waiting for something to start which has not started will remain to disturb the peace of the soul.That wish has been called by many names.It is one form of the universal desire for knowledge.And it is so strong that men whose whole lives have been given to the systematic acquirement of knowledge have been driven by it to overstep the limits of their programme in search of still more knowledge.Even Herbert Spencer,in my opinion the greatest mind that ever lived,was often forced by it into agreeable little backwaters of inquiry.
I imagine that in the majority of people who are conscious of the wish to live--that is to say,people who have intellectual curiosity--the aspiration to exceed formal programmes takes a literary shape.They would like to embark on a course of reading.Decidedly the British people are becoming more and more literary.But I would point out that literature by no means comprises the whole field of knowledge,and that the disturbing thirst to improve one's self--to increase one's knowledge--may well be slaked quite apart from literature.With the various ways of slaking I shall deal later.
Here I merely point out to those who have no natural sympathy with literature that literature is not the only well.