232 ENGLISH MEN OF SCIENCE. [CHAP. 



ingenious man may not be found who has ideas 

 and much shrewdness, but is crotchety and im- 

 practicable. He wants energy and business 

 habits, so he never rises. Many of these men 

 brood over subjects like perpetual motion : their 

 peculiarities are well illustrated in De Morgan's 

 Book of Paradoxes. Again we frequently 

 meet persons of a stamp that justifies the old- 

 fashioned caricature of scientific men, who are 

 absorbed in some petty investigation, utterly 

 deficient in business habits, and noted for ab- 

 sence of mind. Even idiots have often strongly 

 quasi-scientific tastes, as love for simple me- 

 chanism, or objects of natural history ; and they 

 have, as already remarked, a pleasure in collect- 

 ing. Madmen have often persistency, as is 

 shown by their brooding on a single topic. We 

 all of us must have met with curious cases of 

 failures, where a mind and disposition that pro- 

 mise much for success, never achieve it. It 

 may be that some mental screw is loose, or 

 there is some irreparable weakness of judgment, 

 or some untimely irresolution or rashness ; any 

 fault of this kind is sufficient to mar a man's 



