in.] ORIGIN OF TASTE FOR SCIENCE. 231 



be deficient, success becomes impossible, unless 

 its absence be appropriately supplemented by 

 other qualities or conditions. Cases may be spe- 

 cified, in which too few of the above-mentioned 

 qualities were present, and which consequently 

 ended in an abortive career. One, is the pos- 

 session of energy, health, and independence of 

 character in excess, and little else to control 

 them. These are dangerous gifts. Those who 

 have them are apt to renounce guidances by 

 which the great body of mankind move safely, 

 and to follow out a career in which they are 

 almost certain to blunder and fail egregiously. 

 Probably every large emigrant ship takes 

 out many such men, full of unjustifiable self- 

 confidence, who, to use a current phrase, 

 " knock about in the world," waste their 

 health, youth, and opportunities, and end bro- 

 ken down, f Another case, is that in which a 

 strong innate taste for science is accompanied 

 by independence of character and steadiness 

 of pursuit, but with no other quality helpful 

 to success, and which therefore leads to no useful 

 result. There is hardly a village where some 



