An Unwearied And
Systematic Application Of Known Laws To Nature, Causes The
Unknown To Reveal Themselves.
Almost any _mode_ of observation
will be successful at last, for what is most wanted is method.
Only let something be determined and fixed around which
observation may rally.
How many new relations a foot-rule alone
will reveal, and to how many things still this has not been
applied! What wonderful discoveries have been, and may still be,
made, with a plumb-line, a level, a surveyor's compass, a
thermometer, or a barometer! Where there is an observatory and a
telescope, we expect that any eyes will see new worlds at once.
I should say that the most prominent scientific men of our
country, and perhaps of this age, are either serving the arts and
not pure science, or are performing faithful but quite
subordinate labors in particular departments. They make no
steady and systematic approaches to the central fact. A
discovery is made, and at once the attention of all observers is
distracted to that, and it draws many analogous discoveries in
its train; as if their work were not already laid out for them,
but they had been lying on their oars. There is wanting constant
and accurate observation with enough of theory to direct and
discipline it.
But, above all, there is wanting genius. Our books of science,
as they improve in accuracy, are in danger of losing the freshness
and vigor and readiness to appreciate the real laws of Nature,
which is a marked merit in the ofttimes false theories of the
ancients.
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