290 HOW TO STUDY NATURAL HISTORY. [xn. 



himself. He has had no share in the process by 

 which the results were arrived at. In short, he has 

 not gone into the real scientia, that is, the " knowing 1 3> 

 of the matter. He has gained a certain quantity of 

 second-hand information : but he has gained nothing in 

 mental training, nothing in the great " art of learning," 

 the art of finding out things for himself, and of 

 discerning truth from falsehood. Of course, where the 

 lecture is a scientific one, illustrated by diagrams, this 

 defect is not so extreme : but still the lecturer who 

 shows you experiments, is forced to choose those 

 which shall be startling and amusing, rather than im- 

 portant ; he is seldom or never able, unless he is a man 

 of at once the deepest science and the most extraordinary 

 powers of amusing, to give you those experiments in 

 the proper order which will unfold the subject to you 

 step by step; and after all, an experiment is worth 

 very little to you, unless you perform it yourself, ask 

 questions about it, or vary it a little to solve difficulties 

 which arise in your own mind. 



Now mind I do not say all this to make you give up 

 attending lectures. Heaven forbid. They amuse, that 

 is, they turn the mind off from business ; they relax it, 

 and as it were bathe and refresh it with new thoughts, 

 after the day's drudgery or the day's commonplaces ; 

 they fill it with pleasant and healthful images for after- 

 thought. Above all, they make one feel what a fair, 

 wide, wonderful world one lives in ; how much there is 

 to be known, and how little one knows ; and to the 

 earnest man suggest future subjects of study. I only 

 ask you not to expect from lectures what they can 

 never give ; but as to what they can give, I consider, 

 I assure you, the lecturer's vocation a most honourable 



