vii.j UJRKIED LIFE. 103 



ideas they disclose, the power they call forth, the light they 

 spread, the usefulness they generate. It is in the indi- 

 vidual mind in the mental power, which originates and 

 grasps the knowledge that the greatness truly dwells. 



A man may deduce truth entirely for himself, as 

 Kepler did when he deduced the primary laws of the 

 plane -tary motions, or he may be led to perceive and 

 apprehend it as an act of his understanding, by receiv- 

 ing a mere indication or hint from another, as Galileo 

 constructed a telescope from a hint of the toy of Jansens. 

 Or he may extend and enlarge the knowledge which 

 another has added to the common stock, as did the 

 r mathematicians of the eighteenth century working 

 upon Newton's theory of gravity. Or he may passively 

 assent as an intelligent reader to the truth of what is set 

 before him, as does every day the competent student of 

 Euclid's Elements. Or finally .he may receive on trust 

 the conclusions of another without attempting to analyse 

 the proof or comprehend the reasoning ; and this last is 

 the humble acquisition of many of the readers of popular 

 science of our own time. All these are various ways in 

 which the knowledge of the same facts may be attained 

 by the understanding. It were childish to suppose that 

 the effects of this knowledge could be the same, either in 

 kind or degree, in all these cases, or on the character 

 and habits of thought of the person acquiring it/ 



After showing how false and arrogant are the pre- 

 tensions of those who disparage the great thinkers of 

 early time, because they knew not many facts and 

 processes which we now know, and who hold that the 

 intellectual giants of the past become the intellectual 

 pigmies of the present, he points out that this temptation 

 is greatest in sciences especially progressive as are the 

 physical. 



Macaulay had said, 'The knowledge of geography which 

 entitled Strabo to be called the Prince of Geographers 

 would now be considered mere shallou -n < .- i>n th- part of 

 a girl at a boarding-school. 1 * The contrary is the IV 

 Forbes replies : c the knowledge of Strabo was a profound 



o 



