DIFFICULTIES ARISING FROM IGNORANCE. 211 



stances of which we are ignorant, believing a vast amount 

 of error and contradiction, surrounded on all sides by a 

 nearly unlimited number of phenomena requiring an almost 

 infinitely great degree of intelligence to understand them 

 completely. And we appear to be destined, through an 

 immeasurable time in the future, to be compelled to pass 

 through an almost infinite amount of toil, in order to 

 discover them. 



Difficulty in all cases is greater or less according to 

 the extent of our powers; that which is difficult to one 

 man is more or less so to another ; but with all men the 

 difficulties are amazingly increased by the limited extent 

 of our faculties. Our organs of vision do not enable us to 

 decompose light, to distinguish simple colours from com- 

 pound ones, or even to perceive one-third of the length of 

 the entire solar spectrum, the ultra-red and ultra-violet 

 rays being to us quite invisible ; we also cannot see dis- 

 tinctly in feeble light. We have no sense at all for the 

 detection of magnetism. Our mental faculties are also 

 extremely limited, and are more frequently undeveloped 

 than our senses. Many persons who possess scientific 

 knowledge have but little manipulative ability; and of 

 those who have been accustomed to teach science and 

 repeat the experiments of others, but few have the power 

 of imagining new and likely hypotheses, and a still smaller 

 number possess the combination of abilities requisite to 

 constitute a successful and original investigator. In 

 addition to all this, the impressions we derive from our 

 senses are often fallacious, and the inferences we draw 

 from our impressions are frequently erroneous, and our 

 every act and thought is extremely liable to be tainted 

 with mistake and error. 



The difficulty of research is amazingly increased either 

 by the magnitude, the minuteness, the complexity, or 



