THE SUBJECT CONTINUED. 24:1 



invention, when would-be-discoverers,'dashing blind- 

 fold at unconsidered combinations, are each pro- 

 foundly busy putting 'new wine into old bottles;' 

 never devoting one serious hour of study to the 

 simple elements of the problem they undertake 

 the mechanical means necessary to accomplish it ; 

 but, (like the scribe DICKENS tells of, who ventured 

 a treatise on Chinese Metaphysics, by looking out 

 ' China ,' and ' Metaphysics? in the Cyclopaedia!) 

 taking a plow and a steam-engine or a spade and 

 a steam-engine as the inevitable sire and dam of 

 the fore-determined 'cross,' plunged headlong inte 

 the labyrinth of complex and solitary contrivance 

 how to join things which Nature had put asunder." 



-"velut agri Somnia, vanse 



Fingentur species ; ut nee pes, nee caput uni 

 Reddatur formse. * * * * 

 Infolix operis Summa, quia ponere totum 

 Ncsciat !" 



Such, we may anticipate, will be the storm of 



* " Like a sick man's dreams, ideas shall be formed without 

 any regard to reality : so that neither feet nor head shaH 

 be given to the figure to which they properly belong. * * 

 And he will be unsuccessful in the completion of his work, 

 because he does not give just proportions to the whole. 



[HORACE, Ars. Poet., vs. 7, $5. 



