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constantly in our hands ? Chemistry, too, furnishes us with 
a key which enables us to unlock vast stores of knowledge 
contained in physics, geology, mineralogy, physiology, and 
astronomy. 
With regard to the mental discipline, the mind of the 
student is, continued Professor Simpson, exercised in both 
the indiuftive and deduftive methods of reasoning. His 
original faculties are stimulated by the consciousness that 
he can in many cases readily test the worth of his ideas 
by experiment. With inexpensive apparatus and a good 
balance, the intelligent student can make out for himself some 
of the laws and many of the fadts of science, and, it may be, 
also add to them. He glides insensibly from the known to the 
unknown. The student of chemistry can reach the field of 
original work sooner than the student of most other sciences; 
Once he commences original research the development of 
his intellectual faculties rapidly progresses. His imagina- 
tion is daily exercised in propounding new theories, and 
devising experiments in order to ascertain their truth or 
falsehood. Laboratory work teaches us to use our senses 
aright, sharpens our powers of observation, and prevents us 
from reasoning rashly from appearances. It also promotes 
manual dexterity, and trains the hands to work in subor- 
dination to the head. With regard to the efifecft of original 
work on the character, many virtues were necessary to the 
chemist — courage, resolution, truthfulness, and patience. 
He is often obliged to perform experiments which are 
attended with great danger. But the chemist must not be 
discouraged by fear of accident, neither must he be dis- 
heartened by the temporary failure of his experiments, nor 
at the slowness of his processes. Bunsen was obliged to 
evaporate 44 tons of the waters of the Durcheim springs in 
order to obtain 200 grains of his new metal caesium. It 
took Berthelot several months to form, by a series of synthe- 
tical operations, an appreciable quantity of alcohol from 
water and carbon, derived from carbonate of baryta. Many 
years ago, in the laboratory of Wurtz, a poor student was 
carrying from one room to another a glass globe which con- 
tained the product of a month’s continuous labour, when 
the bottom of the globe fell out, and the contents were lost. 
Nothing daunted, he recommenced his month’s work, and 
brought his research to a successful issue. Above all things 
the chemist must be true. He must not allow his wishes to 
bias his judgment or prevent him from seeing his researches 
in their true light. 
He was glad that the importance of original research, as 
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