22 ON THE RELATION OF 



through a stricter course of training than grammar is in a 

 position to supply. What strikes me in my own experience 

 of students who pass from our classical schools to scientific and 

 medical studies, is, first, a certain laxity in the application of 

 strictly universal laws. The grammatical rules in which they 

 have been exercised are for the most part followed by long 

 lists of exceptions; accordingly they are not in the habit of 

 relying implicitly on the certainty of a legitimate deduction 

 from a strictly universal law. Secondly, I find them for the 

 most part too much inclined to trust to authority, even in cases 

 where they might form an independent judgment. In fact, in 

 philological studies, inasmuch as it is seldom possible to take in 

 the whole of the premisses at a glance, and inasmuch as the de- 

 cision of disputed questions often depends on an aesthetic feeling 

 for beauty of expression, and for the genius of the language, 

 attainable only by long training, it must often happen that the 

 student is referred to authorities even by the best teachers. 

 Both faults are traceable to a certain indolence and vagueness 

 of thought, the sad effects of which are not confined to sub- 

 sequent scientific studies. But certainly the best remedy for 

 both is to be found in mathematics, where there is absolute 

 certainty in the reasoning, and no authority is recognised but 

 that of one's own intelligence. 



So much for the several branches of science considered as 

 exercises for the intellect, and as supplementing each other in 

 that respect. But knowledge is not the sole object of man upon 

 arth. Though the sciences arouse and educate the subtlest 

 powers of the mind, yet a man who should study simply for the 

 sake of knowing, would assuredly not fulfil the purpose of his 

 existence. We often see men of considerable endowments, to 

 whom their good or bad fortune has secured a comfortable 

 livelihood or good social position, without giving them, at the 

 ame time, ambition or energy enough to make them work, 

 <lragging out a weary, unsatisfied existence, while all the time 

 they fancy they are following the noblest aim of life by constantly 

 devoting themselves to the increase of their knowledge, and the 

 cultivation of their minds. Action alone gives a man a life 



