THE BIRKBECK INSTITUTION. 241 



I tell you that I must tell you a great deal more.' I 

 thought he meant to insinuate that I wished for illegi- 

 timate aid in the working out of my theme. I shrank 

 together, and resolved that if I could not, without the 

 slightest aid, accomplish the work from beginning to 

 end, it should not be accomplished at all. Wandering 

 among the pinewoods, and pondering the subject, I 

 became more and more master of it ; and when my dis- 

 sertation was handed in to the Philosophical Faculty, 

 it did not contain a thought that was not my own. 



One of my experiences at Marburg may be worth 

 noting. For a good while I devoted myself wholly to 

 the acquisition of knowledge; heard lectures and 

 worked in the laboratory abroad, and studied hard at 

 home. When a boy at school I had read an article, 

 probably by Addison, on the importance of order in the 

 distribution of our time, and for the first year or so my 

 time was ordered very stringently, specified hours being 

 devoted to special subjects of study. But in process of 

 time I began the attempt of adding to knowledge as well 

 as acquiring it. My first little physical investigation 

 was on a subject of extreme simplicity, but by no means 

 devoid of scientific interest ' Phenomena of a Water- 

 jet.' Among other things, I noticed that the musical 

 sound of cascades and rippling streams, as well as the 

 sonorous voice of the ocean, was mainly if not wholly 

 due to the breaking of air-bladders entangled in the 

 water. There is no rippling sound of water unaccom- 

 panied by bubbles of air. This inquiry was followed by 

 others of a more complicated and difficult kind. Well, 

 over and over again after work of this description had 

 begun, I found myself infringing my programme of 

 study. Discontent and self-reproach were the first 

 result. But it was soon evident that a rigid ordering 

 of time would now be out of place. You could not 

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