1855.] On Mental Education. 471 



it ; but as far as my observation has gone, they will not apply 

 it. The law affords the simplest means of testing the fact ; and 

 if there be, indeed, anything in the latter new to our knowledge 

 (and who shall say that new matter is not presented to us daily, 

 passing away unrecognized?), it also affords the means of placing 

 that before us separately in its simplicity and truth. Then 

 why not consent to apply the knowledge we have to that which 

 is under development ? Shall we educate ourselves in what is 

 known, and then casting away all we have acquired, turn to our 

 ignorance for aid to guide us among the unknown? If so, in- 

 struct a man to write, but employ one who is unacquainted 

 with letters to read that which is written ; the end will be just 

 as unsatisfactory, though not so injurious; for the book of nature, 

 which we have to read, is written by the finger of God. Why 

 should not one who can thus lift a table, proceed to verify and 

 simplify his fact, and bring it into relation with the law of 

 Newton? Why should he not take the top of his table (it may 

 be a small one), and placing it in a balance, or on a lever, pro- 

 ceed to ascertain how much weight he can raise by the draught 

 of his fingers upwards ; and of this weight, so ascertained, how 

 much is unrepresented by any pull upon the fingers downward? 

 He will then be able to investigate the further question, whether 

 electricity, or any new force of matter, is made manifest in his 

 operations ; or whether action and reaction being unequal, he 

 has at his command the source of a perpetual motion. Such a 

 man, furnished with a nicely constructed carriage on a railway, 

 ought to travel by the mere draught of his own fingers. A 

 far less prize than this would gain him the attention of the 

 whole scientific and commercial world ; and he may rest assured, 

 that if he can make the most delicate balance incline or decline 

 by attraction, though it be only with the fourth of an ounce, 

 or even a grain, he will not fail to gain universal respect and 

 most honourable reward. 



When we think of the laws of nature (which by continued 

 observation have become known to us) as the proper tests to 

 which any new fact or our theoretical representation of it should 

 in the first place be subjected, let us contemplate their assured 

 and large character. Let us go out into the field and look at 

 the heavens with their solar, starry, and planetary glories ; the 

 sky with its clouds ; the waters descending from above or 



