30 APHORISMS AND REFLECTIONS 



assimilate and organise into a basis for action ; give 

 them more and it may become injurious. One knows 

 people who are as heavy and stupid from undigested 

 learning as others are from over-fulness of meat and 

 drink. 



There is no mode of exercising the faculty of 

 observation and the faculty of accurate reproduction 

 of that which is observed, no discipline which so 

 readily tests error in these matters, as drawing 

 properly taught. And by that I do not mean artistic 

 drawing ; I mean figuring natural objects. I do not 

 wish to exaggerate, but I declare to you that, in my 

 judgment, the child who has been taught to make an 

 accurate elevation, plan and section of a pint pot has 

 had an admirable training in accuracy of eye and 

 hand. 



cxxm 

 Accuracy is the foundation of everything else. 



Anybody who knows his business in science can 

 make anything subservient to that purpose. You 

 know it was said of Dean Swift that he could write 

 an admirable poem upon a broomstick, and the man 

 who has a real knowledge of science can make the 

 commonest object in the world subservient to an 

 introduction to the principles and greater truths o) 

 natural knowledge. 



My experience of the world is that things left to 

 themselves don't get right. 



