302 PERSONAL PKEPARATION FOR RESEARCH. 



accordance with our experience, that we often in research 

 do not perceive new tenths that lie close to us, through 

 want of what is termed ' scientific insight,' or more cor- 

 rectly, through insufficient knowledge and power of logical 

 analysis. But most of these cases are instances of want of 

 suitable distribution of our powers, and not proofs that 

 scientific knowledge is a real hindrance to research. To 

 succeed in research, ' intellectual gymnastic power ' must 

 not supersede, but be combined with the other conditions; 

 Both our time and our faculties are very finite quantities, 

 and if we employ them wholly in other departments or 

 forms of science or thought, it follows as a matter of course 

 that we cannot employ them in original research. 



From the various remarks already made respecting the 

 advantage of extensive and suitable reading, and from the 

 fact that a multitude of scientific truths are scattered 

 throughout many publications, and are not all contained 

 in any one of them, it is evident that a scientific man who 

 is much engaged in research requires to have at hand, 

 ready for reference, most of the standard works and 

 periodicals, in several languages, of the different sciences. 



