48 THE FIELD OF DISCOVERY. 



of causes, just as certainly as burning is the effect 

 of throwing a lighted brand among dry straw or 

 chips of wood, or as pain in the fingers is the con- 

 sequence of taking hold of a live coal with them ; 

 and the persons who have made those discoveries 

 every discovery that has been hitherto made, as 

 well as all those who shall make future ones, have 

 done so, not by any thing that can in any way be 

 called chance, but simply because they were in 

 the right road to the discovery a road which all 

 the rest of mankind had missed. No man can go 

 a determinate way to the discovery of that which 

 is not known, because, before he can go to it he 

 must know both what and where it is ; but, where 

 all is unknown, no man can tell what he may not 

 discover, if he has but field enough. The field for 

 all discovery is nature ; and, therefore, he whose 

 observation commands the most of that, is the 

 man most in the way of useful discovery, what- 

 ever that discovery may be. 



Now, the man who has it in his power to make 

 useful discoveries, is placed in the very highest and 

 happiest situation in which a man can be placed. 

 The object of all our honourable exertions is that 

 we may stand higher than our fellows, not by 

 thrusting them down, but by raising ourselves up; 

 and we nowhere get the vantage ground so much 

 or so certainly, as when we are in a condition for 

 making discoveries that may, and must, be useful 

 to them. The making of the discovery, so far 

 from impoverishing us, puts us more in the way 

 of making fresh discoveries ; and when we com- 

 municate it to others, that takes nothing from us, 

 while it gives us the highest of all pleasures, 

 that of being benefactors, and benefactors, in a 



