362 PERSONAL PREPARATION FOR RESEARCH. 



phenomenon or fact, and the new truths of nature impliec 

 in it ; and this combination of intuitive sensibility and 

 extensive accurate knowledge is a rare gift, and consti- 

 tutes the essence of scientific genius. The highest effoi 

 of scientific imagination require acute and accurate pei 

 ception, ready and faithful memory, instant power of 

 comparison and detection of similarities and differences, 

 sound inference, ready and rapid analysis, combination, 

 and permutation of ideas, and immediate perception of 

 new truths evolved by each of these. Much of the suc- 

 cessful action of the imagination depends upon the fact 

 that all knowledge sheds a light beyond itself; and it is by 

 observing the reflection of this light, as it were, upon 

 associated ideas, that the mind perceives, and the imagi- 

 nation is said to conceive, new truths. 



The most valuable exercise of this power in scientific 

 research is in the conception of important new truths, 

 such as those which are embodied in the great laws and 

 principles of nature ; and in such cases it acts pre- 

 eminently as ( the divine faculty,' when combined with 

 the prophetic intellect. As also each general law or 

 principle includes a great number of instances, and as the 

 conception of the idea of it is usually founded upon a 

 single, or only a few instances, so the conception of such 

 a truth is more or less an hypothesis until it has been 

 sufficiently proved. 



Many original researches are based upon pure hypo- 

 theses or questions to be answered, and these are usually 

 the direct results of thought and imagination in a well- 

 stored mind. Unscientific persons often mistake such 

 hypotheses for science itself, the scaffolding for the build- 

 ing. Science is truth, but hypotheses are only a prelimi- 

 nary to science, and may be true or untrue ; pure hypo- 

 theses add nothing to real knowledge. 



