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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



or two who can be trusted to put that 

 and that together." Well, "putting that 

 and that together" simply means men- 

 tally recognizing a fact and perceiving 

 its significance. It is not the science 

 of logic that is required in every-day 

 affairs ; it is the faculty or habit of seiz- 

 ing main points and holding them as 

 long as may be necessary. The truly 

 superior man, the man who counts, is 

 he who is thus able to take a grip of 

 things, of that which is substantial, vi- 

 tal, pertinent, organic. 



Self-interest is supposed to be a great 

 sharpener of the mental faculties; but 

 nothing is commoner than to find peo- 

 ple ignoring the very facts on which 

 their happiness chiefly depends. They 

 live according to the impulse and humor 

 of the moment, in a hind of disjoint- 

 r ed, inconsequent fashion. They do not 

 know the great facts of life; and the 

 truth that their life, as a whole, should 

 present a certain organic unity, and 

 should then itself become a great fact, 

 has never been revealed to them. Here 

 is a man who is " all out of sorts." He 

 wants change, he says; the desperate 

 monotony of his existence is killing 

 him. He can not understand how it 

 is that he should have to be always 

 running to the doctor and dosing him- 

 self with tonics and alteratives. He 

 likes to throw the blame on circum- 

 stances ; he likes to think there is some- 

 thing mysterious or at least altogether 

 special in his case ; the last thing he 

 wants to hear is that probably his con- 

 dition is due to the neglect of certain 

 important facts of his physical, per- 

 chance, also, of his moral, nature. He 

 willingly lends himself to the nostrums 

 of the quack; but a simple account of 

 the general principles upon which Na- 

 ture works is nowise to his taste. He 

 does not like to think that certain pen- 

 alties are irrevocable, or that the only 

 course by which partial relief can be 

 obtained is one of careful submission to 

 law for the future. 



"We see substantially the same con- 

 dition of mind in many a man whose 



business career has been one of failure. 

 He likes to think that success in this 

 world is mainly a matter of accident, 

 and that " luck " was against him. That 

 one word, "luck," is the whole phi- 

 losophy of some men : it does not ex- 

 plain anything, but it does what is more 

 pleasing to persons of their disposition, 

 enables them to dispense with explana- 

 tions. We may say in general that 

 there is a fatal disposition in most men 

 not to recognize facts, not to perceive 

 that things are woven together in the 

 iron bands of law, and that nothing 

 stands wholly out of relation to any 

 other thing. This is the tendency 

 which it should be the chief object of 

 education to combat. What we require 

 to do is to build up in the mind, little 

 by little, but with undeviating purpose, 

 the belief that things hang together, 

 and that the business of the intellect is 

 to discover the laws or principles of 

 their association. We should teach that 

 there is order in the universe, which 

 should and must unless our lives are 

 to be marred by failure be responded 

 to by a certain order in our thoughts. 

 We should teach on every occasion, 

 and with every possible variety of il- 

 lustration, that nothing can be done 

 wisely or well that is not done upon 

 system; that random words are vain ; 

 that random thoughts are vain ; that 

 no mental effort is worth anything that 

 is not dominated by some clear pur- 

 pose, and that does not connect itself 

 with previously acquired knowledge. 



We find ourselves here face to face 

 with the principle of evolution. If evo- 

 lution means anything, it means the 

 unity of the universe ; it means the con- 

 struction of a path along which thought 

 can travel from the infinitely small to 

 the infinitely great, from forms of the 

 last degree of simplicity to forms of the 

 highest degree of complexity ; it means, 

 finally, the blending of subject and ob- 

 ject in one all - embracing synthesis. 

 Well, this, according to the measure of 

 our opportunities, is what we have to 

 teach to the young. It will be ac- 



