282 LIFE AND EXPERIENCES CHAP. 



He was altogether innocent of a knowledge of 

 science or of scientific method, and indeed he may 

 with truth be said to have belonged to a pre-scientific 

 age, and the following incident is interesting as indicat- 

 ing his views on such subjects. He was good enough 

 to ask me to dine with him^whilst he was living in St. 

 James's Square. I entered the drawing-room rather 

 before the rest of the company, when he said with the 

 usual empressement, " Ah, I have long wished to ask 

 you two questions in physical science." Before he could 

 put his questions the rest of the guests arrived and 

 dinner was proceeded with. I imagined that Mr. 

 Gladstone had forgotten all about the physical science. 

 But not a bit of it. After dinner, when we retired into 

 the drawing-room, he at once came up to me and said : 

 " Now, come and sit by me on the sofa. I'll ask you 

 those questions on physical science. The first is this. 

 There are two bodies in space, highly heated ; they are 

 both cooling down ; one is smaller than the other; and 

 my question to you is this : ' Which of these two bodies 

 will cool down the sooner, the smaller or the larger ? ' 

 " Well, sir," I said, u I presume that the smaller body 

 would cool down sooner." "Ah, well," he said, " I 

 fancied so too, but I thought there might be some phy- 

 sical law," with that peculiar screw of the mouth and 

 that blinking of the eyes which his friends knew so 

 well, " by which the larger body would cool down 

 sooner. Thank you very much. The second question 

 is this. You know at Ha warden we have coal-pits. I 

 have been down them, and there I have seen coal 

 measures, and in the middle of these measures I noticed 

 bands of harder material, a hard concretionary mass. 

 Very singular, is it not ? " " Well, sir," I said, " I don't 

 know about that, they are very common, those bands 

 of hardened under-clay; they always accompany the 



