12 DISCOURSE ON THE STUDY 



were men of superior minds, who reasoned while they 

 worked, and who, not content to grope always in tno 

 dark, and blunder on their object, sought carefully 

 in the observed nature of their agents for guides in 

 their pursuit. To these we owe the creation oF 

 experimental philosophy. 



(8.) Not that it is meant, by any thing above 

 said, to assert that there is no such thing as a great 

 or a little in speculative philosophy, or to place the 

 solution of an enigma on a level with the develope- 

 ment of a law of nature, still less to adopt the 

 homely definition of Smith *, that a philosopher is 

 a person whose trade it is to do nothing, and specu- 

 late on every thing. The speculations of the na- 

 tural philosopher, however remote they may for a 

 time lead him from beaten tracks and every-day 

 uses, being grounded in the realities of nature, have 

 all, of necessity, a practical application, nay more, 

 such applications form the very criterions of their 

 truth, they afford the readiest and completest veri- 

 fications of his theories; verifications which he 

 will no more neglect to test them by than an arith- 

 metician would omit to prove his sums, or a cautious 

 geometer to try his general theorems by particular 

 cases, f 



* Wealth of Nations, book i. chap. i. p. 15. 



f- On this subject, we cannot forbear citing a passage from 

 one of the most profound but at the same time popular writers 

 of our time, on a subject unconnected it is true with our own, 

 but bearing strongly on the point before us. " But, if science 

 be manifestly incomplete, and yet of the highest importance, 

 it would surely be most unwise to restrain enquiry, conducted 

 on just principles, even where the immediate practical utility 

 of it was not visible. In mathematics, chemistry, and every 

 branch of natural philosophy, how many are the enquiries 



