ON THE STUDY OF PHYSICS. 291 



sciously, and makes his very indifference beneficial to 

 him. You may have more systematic motions, you 

 may devise means for the more perfect traction of each 

 particular muse le, but you cannot create the joy and 

 gladness of the game, and where these are absent, the 

 charm and the health of the exercise are gone. The 

 case is similar with the education of the mind. 



The study of Physics, as already intimated, consists 

 of two processes, which are complementary to each 

 other the tracing of facts to their causes, and the 

 logical advance from the cause to the fact. In the 

 former process, called induction, certain moral qualities 

 come into play. The first condition of success is patient 

 industry, an honest receptivity, and a willingness to 

 abandon all preconceived notions, however cherished, if 

 they be found to contradict the truth. Believe me, a 

 self-renunciation which has something lofty in it, and 

 of which the world never hears, is often enacted in the 

 private experience of the true votary of science. And 

 if a man be not capable of this self-renunciation this 

 loyal surrender of himself to Nature and to fact, he 

 lacks, in my opinion, the first mark of a true philo- 

 sopher. Thus the earnest prosecutor of science, who 

 does not work with the idea of producing a sensation 

 in the world, who loves the truth better than the 

 transitory blaze of to-day s ti fame, who comes to his task 

 with a single eye, finds in that task an indirect means 

 of the highest moral culture. And although the virtue 

 of the act depends upon its privacy, this sacrifice of 

 self, this upright determination to accept the truth, no 

 matter how it may present itself even at the hands of 

 a scientific foe, if necessary carries with it its own 

 reward. When prejudice is put under foot and the 

 stains of personal bias have been washed away when a 

 man consents to lay aside his vanity and to become 



