10 



man must stick to one business alone, and that to attempt to know 

 more is to know none. 



A clergyman who is an adept in geology is too frequently considered 

 little better than an infidel, and if he adopts chemistry he is su2:)posed 

 to have dealings with the devil ; as was Friar Bacon in days gone by. 

 If a lawyer shows a familiar acquaintance with the laws of physics he 

 is at once considered to be an unsound jurist ; and Lord Bacon, the 

 piince of all philosophers, is supposed to have fallen by bribery and cor- 

 ruption only because he presumed to quarrel with Aristotle and the 

 school me D. If a schoolmaster is known as a Jiaturalist he is in danger 

 of losing his pupils. Eoscoe was by some of his contemporaries 

 supposed to have been unfortunate in business because he was suc- 

 cessful as an author ; and there are some who believe that Hogers' 

 bank would never have been robbed if he had not written poetry in his 

 younger days. Dr. Mantell lost almost all his practice because he was 

 known to be an ardent geologist ; and a physician is supposed to be 

 lost to his profession when he writes upon metaphysics. 



We may even go further, and say that if a man is known to enjoy 

 field sports as a relaxation, he is supposed to be even worse than 

 a philosopher. The world allows to the professional man no 

 pleasures of this kind, and considers that a man is better fitted for the 

 active duties of life by the pleasures of sense than by mental culture, 

 or bodily exei'cise in a pure atmosphere. Yet experience shows, even 

 to the meanest intellect, that it is not the man who sticks to his 

 business, and that alone [" the practical man," as he is par excellence 

 designated), who is the one to attain the greatest knowledge of his art 

 or craft, and exercise the highest influence over its progress. 



It was not a seaman who worked out the law of storms, but a general 

 in the array ; nor, when adopted, were seamen the first to test it 

 thoroughly. The architects of England tried in vain to produce a 

 gigantic building worthy of the Great Exhibition, and were taught a 

 new phase of their art, by a gardener. Iron shipbuilders and ex- 

 perienced captains lost many of their ships without any advance in 

 the knowledge of how to adjust their compasses, and were at length 

 taught by a clergyman ; and, in Liverpool, by a committee of merchants, 

 naval officers, engineers, physicians, and others. It was not a bellfounder, 

 but a barrister, who made " Big Ben " of Westminster. Our generals 

 campaigned in the Crimea in tlie style of two hundred years ago, and 

 made no improvements till shown the way by the Crystal Palace Com- 

 pany. Doctors were contented with their miserable hospitals till shown 

 how to improve them by Florence Nightingale, a gentle country lady. 

 Dockyard-masters could give no explanation of mysterious fires till 



