Xlii PROCEEDINGS. 



to accept the confident assertion of anotiier individual graspin.^ 

 every opportunity for self aggrandizement. 



x\s a student he has first to carefully confine his observations to 

 that which is material and to oft trodden paths, to accept nothing 

 as true which cannot be put to the test over and over again, since 

 isolated cases, however suggestive of the truth of certain conten- 

 tions, may mislead when all conditions of a problem have not been 

 noted. Further than this faith in the teachings and reverence for 

 the fathers of modern science are not inculcated to pass beyond 

 respect. Their deductions of yesterday are subject to the cold 

 criticism of to-day equally with the latest theory of the youngest 

 tyro : and as for flights of fancy and the poet's glamour, they are 

 not needed to enhance admiration, awe and wonder of the myster- 

 ious marvels that unfold themselves to his growing intelligence. 



In the schools of chemistry and physics, natural phenomena 

 have no sporadic mysteries, though their controlling source be 

 obscure, and vast ignorance respecting them necessarily still pre- 

 vails. Repeated proof is essential, since fortuitous concurrences 

 nuir the accuracy of findings based on solitary examples. The 

 world is full of superstitions derived from hasty generalizations, 

 and many have come down from pagan times and been engrafted 

 with modern belief. 



The teachings of the nursery, with its first and indelible im- 

 pressions, have a lasting effect, and we grow up creatures largely of 

 habit, indisposed to ])ut aside pre-conceived opinions and even 

 perhaps unable to dispassionately consider, on their merits, ques- 

 tions toucbing ourselves. This innate tendency of the mind to keep 

 alive the lore impressed in cliildhood and clung to generation after 

 generation, is in kee])ing with ancestral cbaracterisiics of the body 

 which we note in ourselves and our neighbours, and which the 

 breeder of choice strains of animals and plants is particular to 

 propogate. 



The unbiassed student will take the stand that the intelligence 

 with which he is endowed calls for it exercise and growth; that he 

 is warranted in searching into all that appertains to himself and 

 his surroundings, although his powers are restricted and he is 

 incapable of reducing t« order a fraction of the mysteries about 



