174 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



say, means genius itself; the prime essence of all genius what- 

 soever." But who shall say where we are to cut into the circle ? 

 Waive the question what is essential truth, and say that genius 

 is the heaven-sent quality of mind that leads a searcher to it ? 

 Or start with genius and define truth as the goal to which 

 constructive genius works ? 



Some will have it that a possible view of the operations of 

 thinking consists in regarding it as a process of selection con- 

 stantly exercised by the thinker from a continuous supply of 

 suggestions. The active brain appears to be restless in sug- 

 gestion. The judgment of the thinker incessantly controls the 

 direction of thought by rejecting the irrelevant suggestions of 

 the brain and correlating the acceptable. The power of dis- 

 crimination between the fertile and the barren in thought and 

 work is a gift that is distributed here with splendid lavishness, 

 there with sad parsimony. Contrast the bad workman's " That 

 will do " with the good workman's " That will do," and we find 

 ourselves face to face with this exercise of choice. This quality 

 of judgment is perhaps supreme amongst the talents that go to 

 make up genius ; the other gifts — receptivity, suggestiveness, 

 skill of hand and eye and brain — seem but as tools in its service. 

 The patient judgment of a good thinker is as it were a good 

 presiding agent over a meeting to decide some important issue 

 in the interests of the intellectual state. If the meeting is to 

 result in good and worthy decisions, the chairman must be 

 ready to let views declare themselves ; he must be prompt to 

 discern the good ideas and the bad ; he must guide the debate 

 by encouraging the consideration of some views and by sternly 

 repressing others that unduly emphasise side issues. 



It was this quality of judgment which Sir William Huggins 

 possessed in so marked a degree. It led him not only to wise 

 choice of subjects for investigation and to just apportionment 

 of the experimental means to the philosophical ends, but also 

 to sane discernment of the limits to which he might fairly press 

 his conclusions. He has often been accredited with habitual 

 caution; and his caution was of that commendable kind that 

 came from a just recognition not only of the power of his 

 methods but also of their limitations. And if the quality of 

 mind that marked him out among his fellows has to be sum- 

 marised in a single word, it would probably be generally 

 conceded that he excelled in judgment.] 



