There is no greater egoism than that of learning when it is treated simply as a mark of personal distinction to be held and cherished for its own sake. ... [K]knowledge is a possession held in trust for the furthering of the well-being of all
most notable distinction between living and inanimate beings is that the former maintain themselves by renewal.
By object is meant some element in the complex whole that is defined in abstraction from the whole of which it is a distinction.