THE UNIVERSE OF INFORMATION.pdf - ideals

fortune. How could he leave him to this alone when all the
children including himself would inevitably receive great benefit
from it upon its reconstitution? Moreover, there was only
one way of making a fortune for himself, that fortune which
he hoped would give him the freedom necessary to follow some
work of science of his own devising, and that way was to work
with his father. He was himself, he believed, too anxious, tooscrupulous,
too passive, too little able to battle and struggle to
succeed independently of his father. Although he continued to
detest the law, how could he abandon it, even though now he
could imagine no one more «anti-scientific» than a lawyer?
Yet, always, there stirred painfully and urgently within him a
sense of creativity which demanded his recognition, demanded
immediate expression. «When I am confronted with a book, an
article, after every conversation I have, there surges within me
the desire to write, to undertake an investigation. A little
evokes a world.»
He weighed the pros and sonc of joining the New University
again and again, exclaiming impatiently, «Aere I am twenty
six years old and not having made a decision! To be scattered,
to be as nothing, to be rushing after everything and
not to know how to follow anything, an education to improve,
to complete, to resume after six years in which it has been so
poorly continued.» He let himself be persuaded by La Fontaine
to support the New University and to give a course at it. But
then he changed his mind, and wrote to de Greef that the responsibility
of becoming a professor was too great.
He had characteristically formulated the alternatives as.
though they were in some way mutually exclusive and had then
vacillated agitatedly between them. But the moment of decision
passed. The status quo was shaken by it but maintained, and
he continued to act as though in fact the life of lawyer,,
business man and «practical» scholar were not entirely incompatible.
During 1894 and 1895 he worked on his father's affairs,
reported regularly to the Palais de Justice and collaborated
with La Fontaine at the International Office of Sociological
Bibliography, which they soon took to calling simply the International
Office of Bibliography. During this time, too, he
also wrote a number of substantial legal studies which must
have given some satisfaction to his need to study and write. 5
THE DEWEY DECIMAL
CLASSIFICATION
In August of 1894 he took his annual vacation. There were
several congresses in which he wished to participate being held
at Ostend, and then a meeting of the British Association at
Oxford. After two or three days in London, he set out on a
bicycle trip around the south eastern coast of England. This
was cut short by indisposition and he returned through Bel-
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