ON THE STUDY OF PHYSICS. 285 



utterance ; for such are prolific throughout all time. 

 We cannot yield the companionship of our loftier 

 brothers of antiquity, of our Socrates and Cato, 

 whose lives provoke us to sympathetic greatness across 

 the interval of two thousand years. As long as the 

 ancient languages are the means of access to the ancient 

 mind, they must ever be of priceless value to humanity ; 

 but surely these avenues might be kept open without 

 making such sacrifices as that above referred to, uni- 

 versal. We have conquered and possessed ourselves of 

 continents of land, concerning which antiquity knew 

 nothing ; and if new continents of thought reveal them- 

 selves to the exploring human spirit, shall we not 

 possess them also ? In these latter days, the study of 

 Physics has given us glimpses of the methods of Nature 

 which were quite hidden from the ancients, and we 

 should be false to the trust committed to us, if we 

 were to sacrifice the hopes and aspirations of the 

 Present out of deference to the Past. 



The bias of my own education probably manifests 

 itself in a desire I always feel to seize upon every 

 possible opportunity of checking my assumptions and 

 conclusions by experience. In the present case, it is true, 

 your own consciousness might be appealed to in proof 

 of the tendency of the human mind to inquire into the 

 phenomena presented to it by the senses ; but I trust you 

 will excuse me if, instead of doing this, I take advan- 

 tage of the facts which have fallen in my way through 

 life, referring to your judgment to decide whether such 

 facts are truly representative and general, and not 

 merely individual and local. 



At an agricultural college in Hampshire, with which 

 I was connected for some time, and which is now con- 

 verted into a school for the general education of youth, 

 a Society was formed among the boys, who met weekly 



