i-jo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



for the case in hand, unless they were made under like circumstances, 

 or unless they can be modified to suit the present conditions. Now, 

 to judge what are the real circumstances and conditions of the case, 

 the man must be able to observe these conditions, and to distinguish 

 those that are essential from those that are merely accidental, to inter- 

 pret his observations aright, and then to reason correctly from the re- 

 sults thus obtained. 



But man does not exist wholly and solely to carry on some handi- 

 craft, business, or profession. Around him lies a world abounding 

 with endless sources of health and happiness, if only he knows where 

 to look for them and how to use them, but equally abounding with 

 pitfalls of misery and distress to all who grope through life intellectu- 

 ally blind and deaf, who having eyes see not, and having ears hear 

 not. Now, the securing of that health and happiness of which I have 

 spoken, so far as it depends on the material world around a man, will 

 depend on his ability to observe closely, to systematize his observa- 

 tions into related groups, and to connect these with the observations 

 and experiences of other men, so as to obtain therefrom a living 

 knowledge of the laws of his being and of the world around him. 

 Here, again, power of observation is the first and most important 

 requisite, and, as a natural gift or talent, this power is extremely rare ; 

 " for the observer," as John Stuart Mill has remarked, " is not he who 

 merely sees the thing which is before his eyes, but he who sees what 

 parts that thing is composed of. One person, from inattention or from 

 attending only in the wrong place, overlooks half of what he sees ; 

 another sets down much more than he sees, confounding it with what 

 he imagines, or with what he infers ; another takes note of the khid 

 of all the circumstances, but, being inexpert in estimating their degree, 

 leaves the quantity of each vague and uncertain ; another sees indeed 

 the whole, but makes such an awkward division of it into parts, throw- 

 ing things into one mass which require to be separated, and separating 

 others which might more conveniently be considered as one, that the 

 result is much the same as, sometimes even worse than, if no analysis 

 had been attempted at all." 



But if man does not exist solely for his profession, neither does he 

 exist solely for and unto himself. He is under certain obligations to 

 his family and to his fellow-men, he has domestic and social duties, 

 and to fulfill these aright, amid the ever-shifting conditions of life, re- 

 quires the keenest powers of observation, of interpretation, and of 

 judgment. And although destruction as surely awaits the man who 

 dwells in moral darkness as it does him who takes his way heedless of 

 all the physical laws of his being, too often the evil he does dies not 

 with him, but lives and works woe to those he loved and would fain 

 have protected. Yet it is here, it is in what regards their social life 

 (and under social I include domestic and political), that too many men 

 seem to be unable to observe aright or to make any use of such ob- 



