PATIENCE A QUALITY OF GREAT DISCOVERERS. 253 



daily, recording them on sheets of paper prepared for the 

 purpose. One day, when a new servant was installed in 

 the house, she immediately proceeded to display her zeal 

 by 6< putting things to rights." Abauzit's study, amongst 

 other rooms, was made tidy and set in order. When he 

 entered it, he asked of the servant, " What have you done 

 with the paper that was round the barometer ? " " Oh, sir," 

 was the reply, " it was so dirty that I burnt it, and put in 

 its place this paper, which you will see is quite new." 

 Abauzit crossed his arms, and after some moments of 

 internal struggle, he said, in a tone of calmness and resig- 

 nation : " You have destroyed the results of twenty-seven 

 years' labour ; in future touch nothing whatever in this 

 room." ' l 



One of the most prominent qualities of a great dis- 

 coverer is accuracy of method and of perception. Caven- 

 dish was a remarkable example of the method and accuracy 

 of scientific investigators. 'His theory of the universe 

 seems to have been that it consisted solely of a multi- 

 tude of objects which could be weighed, numbered, and 

 measured ; and the vocation to which he considered 

 himself called was, to weigh, number, and measure as 

 many of those objects as his allotted three score years 

 and ten would permit. This conviction biassed all his 

 doings alike, his great scientific enterprises and the 

 petty details of his daily life.' ' Throughout his long life, 

 he never transgressed the laws under which he seems to 

 have instinctively acted. Whenever we catch sight of 

 him we find him with his measuring-rod and balance, his 

 graduated jar, thermometer, barometer, and table of loga- 

 rithms ; if not in his grasp, at least near at hand. Many 

 of his scientific researches were avowedly quantitative. 



1 CJtaracter, by S. Smiles, pp. 223, 224. 



