NECESSITY OF PATIENCE 305 



And be assured that this reticence, while it is a kind- 

 ness to the literature of science, will most certainly 

 bring with it its own reward to yourselves. It will 

 increase your confidence, and make your ultimate 

 contributions more exact in their facts as well as more 

 accurate and convincing in their argument. 



The other danger to which I referred as demanding 

 patience is of an opposite kind. As we advance in 

 our career, and the facts of our investigations accum- 

 ulate around us, there will come times of depression 

 when we seem lost in a labyrinth of detail out of which 

 no path appears to be discoverable. We have, perhaps, 

 groped our way through this maze, following now 

 one clue, now another, that seemed to promise some 

 outlet to the light. But the darkness has only closed 

 around us the deeper, and we feel inclined to abandon 

 the research as one in which success is, for us at least, 

 unattainable. When this blankness of despair shall 

 come upon you, take courage under it, by remembering 

 that a patient study of any department of nature 

 is never labour thrown away. Every accurate obser- 

 vation you have made, every new fact you have 

 established, is a gain to science. You may not for 

 a time see the meaning of these observations, nor the 

 connection of these facts. But their meaning and 

 connection are sure in the end to be made out. You 

 have gone through the labour necessary for the 

 ascertainment of truth, and if you patiently and watch- 

 fully bide your time, the discovery of the truth 

 itself may reward your endurance and your toil. 



It is by failures as well as by successes that the true 

 ideal of the man of science is reached. The task 



