xxvi.] CHARACTER OF THE EXPERIMENTALIST. 593 



He must be fertile in theories and hypotheses, and yet full 

 of facts and precise results of experience. He must enter- 

 tain the feeblest analogies, and the merest guesses at 

 truth, and yet he must hold them as worthless till they 

 are verified in experiment. When there are any grounds 

 of probability he must hold tenaciously to an old opinion, 

 and yet he must be prepared at any moment to relinquish 

 it when a clearly contradictory fact is encountered. " The 

 philosopher," says Faraday, 1 " should be a man willing to 

 listen to every suggestion, but determined to judge for 

 himself. He should not be biased by appearances ; have 

 no favourite hypothesis ; be of no school ; and in doctrine 

 have no master. He should not be a respecter of persons, 

 but of things. Truth should be his primary object. If to 

 these qualities be added industry, he may indeed hope to 

 walk within the veil of the temple of nature." 



1 Life of Faraday, vol. i. p. 225. 



Q si 



