794 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



cording a fact of the commonest experience when he says that 

 " there are found some minds given to an extreme admiration of 

 antiquity, others to an extreme love and appetite for novelty, but 

 few so duly tempered that they can hold the mean, neither carping 

 at what has been well laid down by the ancients nor despising what 

 is well introduced by the moderns." Many instinctively brace 

 themselves against authority and tradition; by others again, what- 

 ever is handed down to us by authority and tradition is for this rea- 

 son alone treated with contempt. That the crowd believes a thing 

 is enough to convince this man of its truth, and that of its falsehood. 



" The vulgar thus through imitation err ; 

 As oft the learned by being singular." 



These and similar congenital differences in men's intellectual 

 constitutions might be illustrated indefinitely if it were necessary. 

 A further remark of Bacon's must, however, be quoted, for it goes 

 deeper in mental analysis and touches a less obvious point. " There 

 is one principal and, as it were, radical distinction between differ- 

 ent minds in respect of philosophy and the sciences, which is this: 

 that some minds are stronger and apter to mark the differences of 

 things, others to mark their resemblances. The steady and acute 

 mind can fix its contemplations and dwell and fasten on the sub- 

 tlest distinctions; the lofty and discursive mind recognizes and 

 puts together the finest and most general resemblances." Men 

 belonging to the former class we should call logical and criti- 

 cal; those belonging to the latter, imaginative and constructive. 

 Each class tends to the excesses of its own predominant powers, 

 and in each case excess interferes with calm reasoning and sound 

 judgment. 



To correct the personal equation it is imperative that we should 

 study ourselves conscientiously, consider dispassionately the natural 

 tendencies of our birth, early surroundings, education, associations, 

 and interests, and do our utmost to conquer, or at least to make 

 allowance for, every individual peculiarity, temperamental or ac- 

 quired, likely to turn the mind aside from the straight line of 

 thought. Such self-discipline every one must strenuously under- 

 take on his own account if he would wish to see things as they really 

 are. Stated in more general terms, our aim must be to rise above 

 all kinds of provincialism and personal prejudice, and to overcome 

 our natural proneness to rest content in our own particular point 

 of view. Bacon quotes with approval the words of Heraclitus: 

 " Men look for sciences in their own lesser worlds, and not in the ' 

 greater or common world." We must strive to escape from our 

 own lesser world, and to make ourselves citizens of the greater, com- 



