APHORISMS AND REFLECTIONS 77 



are followed up, they are but accessories to the 

 great instrument of scientific teaching demon- 

 stration. If I insist unweariedly, nay fanatically, 

 upon the importance of physical science as an 

 educational agent, it is because the study of any 

 branch of science, if properly conducted, appears 

 to me to fill up a void left by all other means of 

 education. I have the greatest respect and love 

 for literature ; nothing would grieve me more than 

 to see literary training other than a very prominent 

 branch of education : indeed, I wish that real literary 

 discipline were far more attended to than it is ; but 

 I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that there is a 

 vast difference between men who have had a purely 

 literary, and those who have had a sound scientific, 

 training 



In the world of letters, learning and knowledge 

 are one, and books are the source of both ; whereas 

 in science, as in life, learning and knowledge are 

 distinct, and the study of things, and not of books, is 

 the source of the latter. 



All that literature has to bestow may be obtained 

 by reading and by practical exercise in writing 

 and in speaking ; but I do not exaggerate when 

 I say that none of the best gifts of science are to 

 be won by these means. On the contrary, the 

 great benefit which a scientific education bestows, 

 whether as training or as knowledge, is dependent 

 upon the extent to which the mind of the student 

 is brought into immediate contact with facts 

 upon the degree to which he learns the habit of 



