It is therefore only in the natural course of things that men should want to climb the highest summit of the Himalaya. And though those who set out to climb Mount Everest will probably think little of the eventual results, being perfectly satisfied in their own minds, without any elaborate reasoning, that what they are attempting is something supremely worth while, yet it is easy for lookers on to see that much unexpected good will result from their activities. The climbers will be actuated by sheer love of mountaineering, and that is enough for them. But climbing Mount Everest is no futile and useless performance of no satisfaction to anyone but the climbers. Results will follow from it of the highest value to mankind at large.
For the climbers are unwittingly carrying out an experiment of momentous consequence to mankind. They are testing the capacity of the human race to stand the highest altitudes on this earth which is its home. No scientific man, no physiologist or physician, can now say for certain whether or not a human body can reach a height of 29,000 feet above the sea. We know that in an aeroplane he can be carried up to a much greater height. But we do not know whether he can climb on his own feet such an altitude. That knowledge of men's capacity can only be acquired by practical experiment in the field.
And in the process of acquiring the knowledge a valuable result will ensue. By testing their capacities men actually increase them. By exercising their capacities to the full mountaineers seem to enlarge them. A century ago the ascent of Mount Blanc seemed the limit of human capacity. Nowadays hundreds ascend the mountain every year. And going further afield men ascended the highest peaks in the Caucasus and then in the Andes and have been reaching higher and higher altitudes in the Himalaya. Conway reached 23,000 feet, Kellas 23,186 feet, Longstaff 23,360 feet, Dr. Workman 23,000 feet, Kellas and Meade 23,600 feet and the Duke of the Abruzzi 24,600 feet. It looks therefore as if man by attempting more was actually making himself capable of achieving more. By straining after the highest he is increasing his capacity to attain it.
In this measuring of themselves against the mountains men are indeed very like puppies crawling about and testing their capacities on their surroundings—crawling up on to some obstacle, tumbling back discomfited but returning gallantly to the attack and at last triumphantly surmounting it. Thus do they find out what they can do and how they stand in relation to their surroundings. Also by exercising and stretching their muscles and faculties to the full they actually increase their capacity.
Men are still only in the puppy stage of existence. We are prone to think ourselves very “grown up” but really we are only in our childhood. In the latest discussions as to the period of time which must have elapsed since life first appeared upon this earth a period of the order of a thousand million years was named. But of that immense period man has been in existence for only a quarter or half a million years. So the probability is that he has still long years before him and must be now only in his childhood—in his puppyhood. We certainly find that as he inquisitively looks about his surroundings and measures himself against them he is steadily increasing his mastery over them. In the last five hundred years record after record has been beaten. Men have ventured more and shown more adaptability and a sterner hardihood and endurance than ever before. They have ventured across the oceans, circumnavigated the globe, reached the poles, risen into the air, and it can be only a question of time—a few months or a few years—before they reach the highest summit of the earth.
“What then?” some will ask. “Suppose men do reach the top of Mount Everest, what then?” “Suppose we do establish the fact that man has the capacity to surmount the highest summit of his surroundings, of what good is that knowledge?” This is the kind of question promoters of the enterprise continually have to answer. One reply is obvious. The sight of climbers struggling upwards to the supreme pinnacle will have taught men to lift their eyes unto the hills—to raise them off the ground and direct them, if only for a moment, to something pure and lofty and satisfying to that inner craving for the worthiest which all men have hidden in their souls. And when they see men thrown back at first but venturing again and again to the assault till with faltering footsteps and gasping breaths they at last reach the summit they will thrill with pride. They will no longer be obsessed with the thought of what mites they are in comparison with the mountains—how insignificant they are beside their material surroundings. They will have a proper pride in themselves and a well-grounded faith in the capacity of spirit to dominate material.
And direct practical results flow from this increasing confidence which man is acquiring in face of the mountains. A century ago Napoleon's crossing of the Alps was thought an astounding feat. During the last thirty years troops—and Indian troops—have been moved about the Himalaya in all seasons and crossed passes over 15,000 feet above sea level in the depth of winter. On the Gilgit frontier, in Chitral, and in Tibet, neither cold nor snow nor wind stopped them. In winter or in summer, in spring or in autumn, they have faced the Himalayan passes. And they have been able to negotiate them successfully because of their increased knowledge of men's capacities and of the way to overcome difficulties that constant wrestling with mountains in all parts of the world during the last half-century has given. The activities of the Alpine Club have produced direct practical results in the movement of troops in the Himalaya.
More still will follow. When men have proved that they can surmount the highest peak in the Himalaya they will take heart to climb other peaks and become more and more at home in that wonderful region, extending for nigh two thousand miles from the Roof of the World in the North and West to the borders of Burma and China in the South and East and containing more than seventy peaks over 24,000 feet in height—that is higher than any in the Andes, the second highest range of mountains in the world—and more than eleven hundred peaks over 20,000 feet in height. This great mountain region which in Europe would stretch from Calais to the Caspian is one vast mine of beauty of every varied description. And a mine of beauty has this advantage over a mine of material wealth—that we can never exhaust it. And not only can we never exhaust it, but the more we take out the more we find, and the more we give away the richer we are. We may go on digging into a gold mine, but eventually we shall find there is no gold left. We shall have exhausted our mine. But we may dig into that mine of beauty in the Himalaya and never exhaust it. The more we dig the more we shall find—richer beauty, subtler beauty, more varied beauty—beauty of mountain form and beauty of pure and delicate colour, beauty of forest, beauty of river and beauty of lake and combined beauty of rushing torrent, precipitous cliff, richest vegetation and overtopping snowy summit. And when we have discovered these treasures and made them our own we can actually increase their value to ourselves by giving them away to others. By imparting to others the enjoyment which we have felt we shall have increased our own enjoyment.
We cannot expect those who are first engaged in climbing Mount Everest to have the time or inclination to observe and describe the full beauty there is. They will be set on overcoming the physical difficulties and they will be so exhausted for the moment by the effort they will have made that they will not have the repose of mind which is so necessary for seeing and depicting beauty. But when they have pioneered the way and beaten down a path, others will more leisurely follow after. Many even of these may not be able to express in words or in picture the enjoyment they have felt and be able to communicate it to others. They may not be given to public speech or writing and may have no capacity for painting. The flame of their enjoyment may be kept sacred and hidden within them, and it may be only in the privacy of colloquy with some kindred soul that the white glow of their enjoyment may ever be shown. But, others there may be who have the capacity for making the world at large share with them some little of the joy they have felt—who can make our nerves tingle and our blood course quicker, our eyes uplift themselves and our outlook widen as we go out with them to face and overcome the mountains. Such men as these from their very intimacy with the mountains are able to point out beauties which distant beholders would never suspect. And as Leslie Stephen through his love of mountains has been able to attract thousands to the Alps and given them enjoyment, clean and fresh, which but for him they might never have known, so we hope that in the fulness of time a greater Stephen will tell of the unsurpassable beauty of the Himalaya and by so doing add appreciably to the enjoyment of human life.