FEBRUARY 
*97—) [is perhaps impossible for an intel- 
*#a| ligent person to prosecute any line 
& of research, without finding himself 
sa@S instinctively grouping his newly ac- 
aihired facts according to some system, it may 
be merely fanciful and erroneous, or it may 
be more or less scientific and accurate. ‘The 
human mind has an innate propensity to sys- 
tematic arrangement, which doubtless has its 
ground in this, that any fact, pure and simple, 
is of very little interest, except as considered 
in its relation to other facts. It is as true of 
every fact as of a human being, that none liveth 
unto itself. And even without any distinct sense 
of this truth which prevails throughout the uni- 
verse, the mind, by its very constitution fitted 
to the state of the case, governs itself according 
to this principle. Without such relationship, 
science, as we understand it, would be impossi- 
ble, or at best only a heterogeneous accumula- 
tion of isolated facts, as devoid of all utility 
45 
