PREFACE. ix 



lowing passage in the " Sartor Kesartus" of 

 Carlyle (Bk. ii., ch. 2). It expresses sentiments 

 so nearly akin to those which induced me to 

 write this book, that I am glad to quote it : 



" It is maintained by Helvetius and his set, that an 

 infant of genius is quite the same as any other infant, 

 only that certain surprisingly favourable influences 

 accompany him through life, especially through child- 

 hood, and expand him, while others lie close folded 



and continue dunces With which opinion, cries 



Teufelsdrockh, ' I should as soon agree as with this 

 other that an acorn might, by favourable or un- 

 favourable influences of soil and climate, be nursed 

 into a cabbage, or the cabbage-seed into an oak. 

 Nevertheless,' continues he, ' I too acknowledge the 

 ail-but omnipotence of early culture and nurture : 

 hereby we have either a doddered dwarf bush, or a 

 high-towering, wide-shadowing tree ; either a sick 

 yellow cabbage or an edible luxuriant green one. 

 Of a truth, it is the duty of all men, especially of 

 all philosophers, to note down with accuracy the 

 characteristic circumstances of their Education, what 

 furthered, what hindered, what in any way modified 

 it. , , .'" 



