The lonely and friendless often succeed amazingly. "Multum incola fuit anima mea" ("My spirit hath been much alone") said the great Bacon. His mind fed on loneliness, on failure, and even on disgrace.
How much success is due to freedom from that harm which friendship does?
The reader can finish this editorial for himself with hundreds of other arguments. This is enough for a sample.
SHALL WE TAME AND CHAIN THE INVISIBLE MICROBE AS WE NOW CHAIN NIAGARA?
When Solomon was gathering his materials to build the Temple, his, large cedar trunks from Lebanon and his costly materials from everywhere, he used oxen, mules, camels.
With all his wisdom, he little dreamed that the day would come when his descendants, instead of using mules and huge beasts of burden, would heat water and with steam develop a force sufficient to tear his Temple from its foundation.
Still less did he dream that steam would eventually be superseded, as clumsy and primitive, by the invisible force of electricity.
When the thunder roared, the lightning flashed and his conscience troubled him, Solomon, turning away from his thousand wives and his numerous other doubtful associates, put his head under the richly embroidered pillow, worked, perhaps, by Sheba's own fair hands—it did not enter his mind that that lightning could be tamed and put to work.
Man has been gradually controlling and employing the various animals on the earth's surface. He taught the elephant to haul wood and water and to fight his battles. He trained the horse, the dog. He even taught falcons to bring him back birds from beyond the clouds, and otters to catch fish in the bottom of lakes and rivers.
Gradually he has made himself independent of his animal partners.