the few are reached whose feet grapple the bough from which the swarm depends; so with the objects of our thinking—­they hang to each other by associated links, but the original source of interest in all of them is the native interest which the earliest one once possessed.

If we are to exorcise this spirit of indifference that has settled down like a miasma upon clubdom we must find James’s original germ of interest—­the twig upon which our cluster of bees is ultimately to hang.  Here we may introduce two axioms:  Everyone is deeply interested in something; few are supremely interested in the same thing.  I shall not attempt to prove these, and what I shall have to say will be addressed only to those who can accept them without proof.  But I am convinced that illustrations will occur at once to everyone.  Who has not seen the man or woman, the boy or girl who, apparently stupid, indifferent and able to talk only in monosyllables, is suddenly shocked into interest and volubility by the mere chance mention of some subject of conversation—­birds, or religion, or Egyptian antiquities, or dolls, or skating, or Henry the Eighth?  There are millions of these electric buttons for galvanising dumb clay into mental and spiritual life, and no one of them is likely to act upon more than a very few in a given company—­the theory of chances is against it.  That is why no possible programme could be made that would fit more than a very small portion of a given club.  We have seen that many club-programmes are made with an irreducible minimum of intelligence; but even a programme committee with superhuman intellect and angelic goodwill could never compass the solution of such a problem as this.  Nor will it suffice to abandon the general programme and endeavour to select for each speaker the subject that he would like best to study and expound.  No one knows what these subjects are but the owners of the hearts that love them.

We have seen how the scientific and technical societies manage the matter and how well they succeed.  They appoint a committee whose duty it is to receive contributions and to select the worthiest among those presented.  The matter then takes care of itself.  These people are all interested in something.  They are finding out things by experimentation or thought; by induction or deduction.  It is the duty and the high pleasure of each to tell his fellows of his discoveries.  It is in this way that the individual gives of his best to the race—­the triumph of the social instinct over selfishness.  As this sort of intellectual profit-sharing becomes more and more common, the reign of the social instinct will extend and strengthen.  To do one’s part toward such an end ought to be a pleasure, and this is one reason why this course is commended here to the women’s clubs.