296 PERSONAL PREPARATION FOR RESEARCH. 



he made but little use of the balance, and he was quite 

 unable to make chemical analyses. His success was largely 

 due to his great industry and perseverance in one object, 

 and to his having selected a comparatively unexplored 

 portion of science, which was then ripe for research. The 

 example of Priestley prove? that a discoverer may be 

 entirely self-taught ; and that it is not absolutely necessary 

 to be what is termed ' an all-round man ' in order to dis- 

 cover new scientific truths. If a man makes new facts in " 

 science his continual object of pursuit, and is very indus- 

 trious and persevering in the search, he will sooner or later 

 find some, whether he has been previously educated in the 

 subject or not. The disadvantages, however, of a defective 

 education and want of extensive knowledge of a subject are 

 so great, that only in rare cases have uninstructed persons the 

 necessary amount of industry and perseverance to qualify 

 themselves for the pursuit of original research in science. 

 Notwithstanding the value of previous reading, many 

 who are well read in science do no research ; it is also said 

 that one of our best investigators in physics and chemistry 

 (the late Dr. Matthiessen) did not practise it. Some ori- 

 ginal workers prefer to exhaust their own imaginations first, 

 and then read the particular subject, and this plan has the 

 principle of action and reaction to recommend it. It is 

 also thought by some investigators, that reading before- 

 hand leads one's mind insensibly into the groove of 

 that of the author, and thus causes mental bias and 

 prevents the development of originality. But this argu- 

 ment would apply to all previous knowledge whatever, and 

 lead us to assume that the most perfect condition of mind 

 with which to commence a research is a complete tabula 

 rasa, or entire ignorance of everything, and thus conduct 

 to the illogical conclusion, that the best way to obtain 

 original ideas is to destroy all the conditions of thought. 



