28 



thought number the ultimate principle of the uni- 

 verse ; and the latter liked going to a play, because 

 it amused him to count the words the actors 

 spoke, and the number of steps of the dancers; 

 but he did not like Garrick, because he spoke so 

 quick he could not count the words; and he 

 would answer in a second an arithmetical question^ 

 that would take most people a quarter of an hour 

 to calculate. Analyzing minds can only see distinc- 

 tions in things ; synthesizing minds can only see 

 resemblances. So, as I say, the mere critical and 

 negative mind can see nothing in the universe but 

 imitation, repetition, and non-spontaneity. 



Jt seems generally thought that the question of 

 contagion or non-contagion in any case is very easy 

 of proof; but it is on the contrary almost impossible 

 to prove one way or the other. 



A boy at a school has the measles. Now l^s 

 at school live such similar lives, and are subject to 

 such similar influences, that I should naturally 

 expect that the same atmospheric and other condi- 

 tions that gave it to one boy would give it to 

 many others. And yet when they do take it, 

 everybody concludes at once that they all caught 

 the complaint from the first one that had it. 



No doubt absolute proof is impossible one way or 

 another. Still there is one thing quite certain, that 

 every disease has originated spontaneously at some- 

 time; so in the question whether a disease, say 

 small-pox, is or is not ever taken spontaneously ; 



