greater part of his life studying and experimenting in the noble
possibilities of man. He never lost his absurd faith in that
conceivable splendour. At first it was always just round the corner
or just through the wood; to the last it seemed still but a little
way beyond the distant mountains.

For this reason this story has been called THE RESEARCH MAGNIFICENT.
It was a real research, it was documented. In the rooms in
Westhaven Street that at last were as much as one could call his
home, he had accumulated material for--one hesitates to call it a
book--let us say it was an analysis of, a guide to the noble life.
There after his tragic death came his old friend White, the
journalist and novelist, under a promise, and found these papers; he
found them to the extent of a crammed bureau, half a score of patent
files quite distended and a writing-table drawer-full, and he was
greatly exercised to find them. They were, White declares, they are
still after much experienced handling, an indigestible aggregation.
On this point White is very assured. When Benham thought he was
gathering together a book he was dreaming, White says. There is no
book in it. . . .

Perhaps too, one might hazard, Benham was dreaming when he thought
the noble life a human possibility. Perhaps man, like the ape and
the hyaena and the tapeworm and many other of God's necessary but
less attractive creatures, is not for such exalted ends. That doubt
never seems to have got a lodgment in Benham's skull; though at
times one might suppose it the basis of White's thought. You will
find in all Benham's story, if only it can be properly told, now
subdued, now loud and amazed and distressed, but always traceable,
this startled, protesting question, "BUT WHY THE DEVIL AREN'T WE?"