1826.] m the Affairs of Life. 335" 



tive by his eagerness to pursue several interesting objects at 

 once ; but he will soon learn by experience the valuable truth 

 which constituted the chief rule of the great De Witt's policy, 

 that he can only succeed by attending to one thing at a time. 

 This habit attained, he is on the high road to knowledge, but 

 several others are essential to success ; patience and systematic 

 perseverance in research, cleanliness and a love of order in appa- 

 ratus and materials, are useful in every operative pursuit, but 

 indispensible in this. His brief records require at the instant an 

 exertion of mental exactness, comprehensiveness, and perspi- 

 cuity. He must continue in the hourly practice of these humble 

 virtues, to derive any real benefit from his labours, and to avoid 

 being blocked up at the end of each day's work with a mass of 

 imsightly and unserviceable matter. 



The delightful mental excitement which sustains and repays 

 him throughout a course of experimental investigation, is nearly 

 allied to mingled feelings of curiosity and admiration, which, in 

 the perusal of a novel, cliarms his attention to its successive inci-»' 

 dents. He is led on through adventures and difficulties — through 

 doubts, mysteries, and partial discoveries, ardently engrossed by 

 his subject, and confident in the consistency of the author, who 

 rewards his perseverance by permitting gleams of light at inter- 

 vals to dawn upon his anxious mind, — now faint, — now strong, 

 till the long looked-for explanation clears all up at last. But 

 here the simihtude ends. The mind of the novel reader sinks 

 into comparative languor when his pursuit is ended, and excite- 

 ment over; whilst the chemist is roused to higher efforts of 

 discovery by the new information and power which each step in 

 his research has rewarded him with. The former is a species of 

 a passive mental gratification that weakens the taste for profit- 

 able or useful employment ; whilst the delight enjoyed by the 

 chemist admits of being heightened by cheering reflections on 

 the successful exertion of his active faculties, the certainty that 

 his labours will be useful to mankind, and the hope that they 

 will be productive to himself of character, perhaps of fortune. 

 He finds his mind strengthened by exercise, enlarged by expe- 

 rience, gratified by discovery, confident from past success, and 

 in a state of complete preparation to enter again the field of 

 useful inquiry. 



In going through a course of experimental chemistry, the 

 pupil will find himself obliged to abandon so many vulgar errors 

 and popular prejudices, that he becomes cautious how he adopts 

 opinions on physical subjects, without receiving the best proof 

 of their correctness that the nature of the case admits of. He 

 learns to distinguish between what he knows himself, and what 

 he hears of. He finds that besides the propositions which he can 

 believe and disbelieve, there are others respecting which his 

 limited knowledge does not afford him an opportunity of coming 



