APHORISMS AND REFLECTIONS 143 



A Local Museum should be exactly what its name 

 implies, viz., "Local" illustrating local Geology, 

 local Botany, local Zoology, and local Archaeology. 



Such a museum, if residents who are interested in 

 these sciences take proper pains, may be brought to 

 a great degree of perfection and be unique of its 

 kind. It will tell both natives and strangers exactly 

 what they want to know, and possess great 

 scientific interest and importance. Whereas the 

 ordinary lumber-room of clubs from New Zealand, 

 Hindoo idols, sharks' teeth, mangy monkeys, 

 scorpions, and conch shells who shall describe the 

 weary inutility of it ? It is really worse than nothing, 

 because it leads the unwary to look for the objects of 

 science elsewhere than under their noses. What 

 they want to know is that their "America is here," 

 as Wilhelm Meister has it. 



A man who speaks out honestly and fearlessly 

 that which he knows, and that which he believes, 

 will always enlist the good-will and the respect, 

 however much he may fail in winning the assent, of 

 his fellow men 



Science and literature are not two things, but two 

 sides of one thing. 



I neither deny nor affirm the immortality of man. 

 I see no reason for believing in it, but, on the other 

 hand, I have no means of disproving it. 



