It is plain common sense, as all truth, in the long
run, is only common sense clarified. If you want a man to be a tea
merchant, you don't tell him to read books about China or about tea, but
you put him into a tea-merchant's office where he has the handling, the
smelling, and the tasting of tea. Without the sort of knowledge which
can be gained only in this practical way, his exploits as a tea merchant
will soon come to a bankrupt termination. The "paper-philosophers" are
under the delusion that physical science can be mastered as literary
accomplishments are acquired, but unfortunately it is not so. You may
read any quantity of books, and you may be almost as ignorant as you
were at starting, if you don't have, at the back of your minds, the
change for words in definite images which can only be acquired through
the operation of your observing faculties on the phenomena of nature.
It may be said:--"That is all very well, but you told us just now that
there are probably something like a quarter of a million different kinds
of living and extinct animals and plants, and a human life could not
suffice for the examination of one-fiftieth part of all these." That is
true, but then comes the great convenience of the way things are
arranged; which is, that although there are these immense numbers of
different kinds of living things in existence, yet they are built up,
after all, upon marvellously few plans.
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