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which he has to deal as to weave them into a definite 

 problem at all. He is not like a candidate at an 

 examination with a precise set of questions placed 

 before him; he must first himself act the part of the 

 examiner and select questions from the repertory of 

 Nature, and upon them found others, which in some 

 sense are capable of definite solution. If his eye 

 seem dim, he must look steadfastly and with hope 

 into the misty vision, until the very clouds wreath 

 themselves into definite forms. If his ear seem dull, 

 he must listen patiently and with sympathetic trust 

 to the intricate whisperings of Nature,— the goddess, 

 as she has been called, of a hundred voices, — until 

 here and there he can pick out a few simple notes 

 to which his own powers can resound. If, then, at 

 a moment when he finds himself placed on a pinnacle 

 from which he is called upon to take a perspective 

 survey of the range of Science, and to tell us what 

 he can see from his vantage ground; if, at such a 

 moment, after straining his gaze to the very verge of 

 the horizon, and after describing the most distant of 

 well defined objects, he should give utterance also to 

 some of the subjective impressions which he is conscious 

 of receiving from regions beyond ; if he should depict 

 possibilities which seem opening to his view ; if he 

 should explain why he thinks this a mere blind alley 

 and that an open path; then the fault and the loss 

 would be alike ours if we refused to listen calmly, and 

 temperately to form our own judgment on what we 

 hear ; then assuredly it is we who would be commit- 

 ting the error of confounding matters of fact and 

 matters of opinion, if we failed to discriminate between 

 the various elements contained in such a discourse, 



B 2 



