A UNIVERSE OF MIND-STUFF 



and discerned it more clearly, in his score and 

 a half of years than most men discern in four- 

 score. In pure mathematics he was admitted, 

 at the age of twenty-five, to be one of the first 

 five or six original thinkers of Europe. I say 

 this from hearsay, for my own knowledge of the 

 subject is not sufficient to enable me to compre- 

 hend his mathematical achievements or to appre- 

 ciate their bearing. But the power and acuteness 

 with which he treated questions in physics and 

 in general philosophy were very marvellous, 

 and his suggestiveness was so great as already 

 to have entitled him to a high rank among con- 

 temporary philosophers. It was impossible for 

 him to touch upon any subject without throw- 

 ing some new light upon it, for the mere re- 

 statement of an old truth in his powerful and 

 luminous language was sure to invest it with 

 fresh and beautiful significance. His skill in sci- 

 entific exposition was, accordingly, very remark- 

 able. For taking the most hopelessly compli- 

 cated and abstruse subjects and making them 

 seem perfectly simple and almost self-evident to 

 ordinary minds, I do not know who could be 

 found to compare with him. This rare power 

 he owed largely to the extreme vividness of his 

 imagination. What he saw "with his mind's 

 eye," he saw as accurately and distinctly as only 

 keen observers see things when they look with 

 the physical eye. This is well illustrated in his 

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