man must stick to one business alone, and that to attempt to know more is to know none.

A clergyman who is an adept in geology is too frequently considered little better than an infidel, and if he adopts chemistry he is supposed to have dealings with the devil; as was Friar Bacon in days gone by. If a lawyer shows a familiar acquaintance with the laws of physics he is at once considered to be an unsound jurist; and Lord Bacon, the prince of all philosophers, is supposed to have fallen by bribery and corruption only because he presumed to quarrel with Aristotle and the schoolmen. If a schoolmaster is known as a naturalist he is in danger of losing his pupils. Roscoe was by some of his contemporaries supposed to have been unfortunate in business because he was successful as an author; and there are some who believe that Rogers' bank would never have been robbed if he had not written poetry in his younger days. Dr. Mantell lost almost all his practice because he was known to be an ardent geologist; and a physician is supposed to be lost to his profession when he writes upon metaphysics.

We may even go further, and say that if a man is known to enjoy field sports as a relaxation, he is supposed to be even worse than a philosopher. The world allows to the professional man no pleasures of this kind, and considers that a man is better fitted for the active duties of life by the pleasures of sense than by mental culture, or bodily exercise in a pure atmosphere. Yet experience shows, even to the meanest intellect, that it is not the man who sticks to his business, and that alone ("the practical man," as he is par excellence designated), who is the one to attain the greatest knowledge of his art or craft, and exercise the highest influence over its progress.

It was not a seaman who worked out the law of storms, but a general in the army; nor, when adopted, were seamen the first to test it thoroughly. The architects of England tried in vain to produce a gigantic building worthy of the Great Exhibition, and were taught a new phase of their art, by a gardener. Iron shipbuilders and experienced captains lost many of their ships without any advance in the knowledge of how to adjust their compasses, and were at length taught by a clergyman; and, in Liverpool, by a committee of merchants, naval officers, engineers, physicians, and others. It was not a bellfounder, but a barrister, who made " Big Ben" of Westminster. Our generals campaigned in the Crimea in the style of two hundred years ago, and made no improvements till shown the way by the Crystal Palace Company. Doctors were contented with their miserable hospitals till shown how to improve them by Florence Nightingale, a gentle country lady. Dockyard-masters could give no explanation of mysterious fires till

their Emperor put them on the scent; and I know that in some of the trials of the "big gun" an artillery officer declared it to be an impossibility to traverse it on its temporary carriage, a thing which was done in a few minutes by the man who forged it. Gunpowder was not invented by a soldier. The laws of combustion have received no attention from insurance offices. It was not a pit owner who discovered the safety-lamp; nor a mine owner who improved pumping engines. Agriculture has not been improved scientifically by farmers. It is not to the well-sinkers that we go for an unlimited supply of water; and the sanitary movements, by which the health and comfort of the lower orders have already been increased, did not originate with the guardians of the poor.

Not only are these things generally true, it is equally certain that those who excel in an extraneous study which requires a constant stretch and exertion of the mind, excel also in their own peculiar

vocation.

Williams, the celebrated and most successful missionary, was an adept at shipbuilding, could frame alphabets, and write grammars for languages yet unwritten, and could pen as readable a book as any accomplished author. Napoleon was as conspicuous as a statesman and lawgiver as he was successful as a warrior. Wellington was a keen sportsman as well as a skilful general, and we often meet with proofs in his despatches that had he not been acquainted with more than his simple business as leader he would have failed as others have done. Sir Charles Napier, renowned as a commander in the field, was equally astute in council, and excelled in his organising powers those whose attention had been called solely to civil government, and had no mind beyond. Lord Brougham, who surpasses in mental activity all ordinary men, and who has shone as an author in physics, biography, and philosophy, has done more to improve the profession of the law than any other individual.

In fine, we may sum up by saying that the mind of the routine and practical man is like a railroad carriage which confines itself to a line of rails from which it cannot go with safety; while the mind of the scientific man possesses the character of a horseman who can make excursions in all directions, and strike out new sources of interest, comfort, or wealth, to which rails may afterwards be laid down.

There are few ideas which are more generally entertained than that science is making, and has been making, great strides; and, in the main, there is no doubt that the idea is correct, though it cannot be adopted without many restrictions. Knowledge is like money; he who has much not only wishes to obtain, but actually obtains more. As

there seems to be a natural tendency in "capital" to accumulate in the hands of a few who already possess an abundance, and to leave those who have little-so it is with science. The great men become greater, for they have more to think of, examine, and explain; but the small men become smaller, for they lean on the minds of others. The majority prefer to learn the results that others have arrived at, rather than examine the soundness of the reasonings and the correctness of the conclusions. A system of mental "cramming" is a substitute for thought; and a place in the memory is considered equivalent to a place in the understanding. When so much has to be learned, attention is not paid to learning well. Every one who styles himself a "professor" demands and receives implicit confidence, and the charlatan has an authority equal to, if not greater, than the real philosopher. If a new system is promulgated by a forward man, which, after being examined, is opposed by sounder heads, he and his disciples shelter themselves under the idea that as Harvey and Jenner were decried in their day, so they, by being similarly attacked, are placed on the same level with those illustrious men.

If it were not that general observation showed us that a love of the marvellous was a common failing in mankind, we might well express surprise that a mysterious cause is always assumed whenever any unusual phenomenon occurs, instead of a common and well-known agency. Thus, ten people all lay their hands on a table with a wish that it shall move in a certain direction, and yet a will not to push it, and when they see it move in the intended manner they assume at once that it is started by some previously unknown law of magnetism, rather than by their wish being stronger than their will. So general was the belief in a new force that Faraday took steps to demonstrate its absurdity, and yet, in spite of his experimental proofs, there are still vast numbers who refuse credence to them, and these (some of whom I know) are considered men of sound common sense. A ring suspended by a silken. thread passed over the thumb, the elbow resting on the table, is found to vibrate in a certain direction, even though the hand is supposed to be still. It would be easy to explain this, by pointing out that the thumb was moved at every beat of the pulse, and to try what the effect would be by steadying the thumb on a solid support; but that would be too simple. A new force must be looked for, and we see men of genius finding it at once, giving it the curious name of Od, or the odyllic force.

But this is not all. If a "professor" comes before us, declaring that he does certain things by a certain agency or power, we investigate his pretensions, we satisfy ourselves of his facts, we find ourselves

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unable to explain them, and then, as we are unable to give a satisfactory explanation of them ourselves, we commonly consider we are bound to accept his. And it is particularly in the countenance given to all sorts of pseudo-professors that we are enabled to contrast the multitude of to-day with that of days gone by. In Pompeii we see the shrine of the goddess Isis, and the contrivance by which her priests could give a response apparently from the lips of divinity. We smile at the superstition of the votaries, and think we are far better than they, till we see by advertisement that some lady is coming from America who will enable us to hold familiar discourse with Plato, Socrates, St. Paul, Julius Cæsar, St. Peter, and Sir Robert Peel. A rap on the table supplants the voice of the goddess, and the oracle is spelled letter by letter, and knock after knock, rather than under the inspiration of a feigned insanity, and by an audible voice. We smile at the conceit of the prophets of Ahab, who, to please the king, told him to go on and prosper; and we ponder on the expression of one who declares before God that he will be a lying spirit in the mouths of the false ones, to bring about a particular end; and we pity Ahab for believing what he wished to come to pass, rather than what he knew would do so; yet we give credit for prophetic power to those spirit rappers who, whenever they are wrong, complain of their inability to discriminate between their lying and truth-telling visitors-a flimsy excuse for a transparent cheat. There is not a schoolboy who does not pity the celebrated Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, for sending to an oracle for directions, or some indication of his policy, and who does not wonder that the very transparency of the cheat did not open his eyes to the absurdity of trusting to such prophecies as he received; and yet that same schoolboy, when he grows to be a man, will himself believe in clairvoyance, and go to a wise woman for information as to whether Sir John Franklin would come back to England, or whether his own wife lost her purse in the mud of a street or by the hand of a thief. We smile when we hear of the King of Israel, who sent to Baal-Zebub to know whether he would recover of his disease; and yet some think that the individual who sends a lock of hair to Alexis, the Parisian mesmerist, and demands an account of his disease and cure, is in advance of his times. We talk with "bated breath" of the credulity of Dr. Dee, who allowed himself to be gulled by his ball of crystal and his man Kelly, and say the world is wiser now; yet we sympathise with electro-biologists, who fancy they feel the rain because a professor wonders they do not put up their umbrellas, or that they are statues because they are told they are made of stone.

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ransition from a comparison between the mental condition of

our modern multitude and those of ancient times to a comparison of the substantial comforts would be comparatively easy, were it not that the standard of luxury and enjoyment is by no means a fixed one. We admire the magnificence of the wealthy Etruscans, and form a high opinion of their luxurious habits. Yet they had no sugar or tea; and milliners and dressmakers were almost unknown. We gaze with interest on those lovely statues reclining on their couches, and praise the artist for his skill. Yet those couches were not equal to our sofas, with their delicious spring cushions. We, with our well-tempered razors and scissors, wonder why beards were so common in a warm country, and why the dying gladiator had not his hair properly trimmed ere he came to the fight, until we remember that Sheffield is a town of modern times, and that Roman cutlers thought more of arms than articles for the toilet. We puzzle over the great varieties of hair-dressing practised among the matrons and maidens of the imperial city, and only find a clue in the almost total absence of anything like good combs and brushes. We feel for the old senators who did not know the value of a good tailor, and the warmth during winter of a pair of breeches; and for the classic females, whose chief clothing was a petticoat and a sort of shepherd's plaid. We discuss the taste that induced the Romans to personify in stone their great men as naked heroes; and while they clothed in artistic drapery the Messalinas and Agrippinas, erected statues to the more noble and religious matrons, representing them as Venus, carrying out the idea that loveliness needs not the foreign aid of ornament, but is, when " unadorned adorned the most." We have in our own day many admirers of ancient art, and many who would wish to copy it, yet few would venture to place Prince Albert in the Royal Academy's exhibition as the Apollo Belvedere, and Queen Victoria as the Venus de Medicis.

We pity the ancients who did not know the luxury of Argand burners, Sinumbra lamps, and gas in their streets and houses; we wonder how they got along without a better style of glass; and yet, when we look round upon the population of our colonies, we find the Indian preferring a mocassin to a pair of brogues; the Australian using the trousers for a cloak, and not caring for more clothing. The Canadian has to do without Parisian lamps; our beaux are beginning to despise the razor, and our belles at one period were little more than half draped; and the Highland soldier can yet do without his breeches : nevertheless, these have their own enjoyments, and it would be presumptuous to say that they are not as great as those of the richest noble, who has everything around him that wealth can buy.

A comparison between the engineering powers of ancient and