222 SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



and the limit of their usefulness. These three directions 



of thought mark three tolerably distinct attitudes of the 



human mind. Skill in inventing and in applying new 



42. and precise methods the exact habit or attitude of 



The exact, 



the histori- thought i love of detail, and the desire for complete and 



cal, and the 



hablt^of exhaustive knowledge the historical habit or attitude of 

 lought. thought ; lastly, the desire to become fully alive to the 

 value of existing methods or principles, which implies a 

 consciousness of the limited nature of one and every 

 principle the critical habit or attitude of thought. The 

 progress of mathematics and natural science depends pri- 

 marily on the first ; classical studies depend on the second ; 

 philosophical reasoning mainly on the last. Each of the 

 three nations which have led human progress and thought 

 during the past centuries has probably been possessed 

 of these three cardinal virtues in equal proportions. For 

 though Newton stands pre-eminent in the first, we have 

 Laplace and Gauss and their numerous followers in other 

 countries ; though the great volume of classical learning 

 and criticism has emanated from the schools of Wolf, 

 Hermann, and Bockh, they themselves point back to 

 Bentley and Joseph Scaliger ; and even Kant's unrivalled 

 enterprise was prepared by Hume, and dates back to 

 Descartes. There need, therefore, be no angry rivalry or 

 carping jealousy. We may point to the remarkably equal 

 contributions of the three nations to the general progress 

 of thought. But a very different and truly legitimate 

 interest prompts us to note how in the great performances 

 of each nation, in the literature of each of the three lan- 

 guages, different factors have been at work different 



