292 THE WORK UNDERTAKEN. 



V. EPILOGUE. 



In concluding this laborious work, extending over a life- 

 time, I beg permission to make a personal statement which 

 it will be well for the reader to keep in mind when meeting 

 the Stasian dupes often in high and influential stations 

 after the publication of this, our work. 



The Work Undertaken. 



Ever since I understood the conditions of the chemical 

 elements in reference to a single, primitive substance, (that 

 is, since 1855), I have most faithfully labored in this field, 

 mainly in the following three directions: 



I. In the Laboratory by EXPERIMENTATION and in the 

 field and sky by OBSERVATION, the most thorough under- 

 standing of the true groundwork of physical and chemical 

 science was sought. 



In my Elements of Physics (1870), of Chemistry (1871), 

 and in the method of Quantitative Induction (1872), this 

 groundwork was used in the instruction of very large classes, 

 the largest laboratory classes in America at that time. 



II. The great MASTERS OF THE PAST and FOUNDERS OF 

 MODERN SCIENCE were most diligently studied, without 

 regard to difficulties in the way; they became, in fact, my 

 teachers, because I was determined to learn from their 

 works how they solved great problems and how they pre- 

 sented their results. 



I trust that I have not been so much with Newton, Kepler, 

 Galileo and Copernicus, without learning something from 

 them by the study of their original publications. 



But I have also studied with THE ANCIENT MASTERS, not 

 only with Archimedes and Hipparchus, but also with Plato 

 and Pythagoras. 



With admiration and with awe I have learned to read 

 with understanding the most general result of all true 

 modern science in the BOOK OF WISDOM dating back three 

 thousand years: 



u Thou hast disposed all things wisely according to 

 (t measure, number and weight." 



