Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/474

 452 HISTORY OF GREECE. there is a close pressure on the hearer's mind, to keep it in ttw distinct tract of particulars, as conditions of every just and con- sistent generalization ; and to divert it from becoming enslaved to unexamined formulae, or from delivering mere intensity of persuasion under the authoritative phrase of reason. Instead of anxiety to plant in the hearer a conclusion ready-made and accepted on trust, the questioner keeps up a prolonged suspense with special emphasis laid upon the particulars tending botl affirmatively and negatively ; nor is his purpose answered, until that state of knowledge and apprehended evidence is created, out of which the conclusion starts as a living product, with its own root and self-sustaining power consciously linked with its premises. If this conclusion so generated be not the same as that which the questioner himself adopts, it will at least be some other, worthy of a competent and examining mind taking its own redargutione philosophiarum, rcdargutione demonstrationum. et redargutiont rationis humance natives." (Nov. Organ. Distributio Opcris, p. 170, cd. Montagu ) To show further how essential it is, in the opinion of the best judges, that the native intellect should be purged or purified, before it can properly apprehend the truths of physical philosophy. I transcribe the introductory passage of Sir John Herschel's " Astronomy : " "In entering upon any scientific pursuit, one of the student's first endeavors ought to be to prepare his mind for the reception of truth, by dismissing, or at least loosening his hold on, all such crude and hastily adopted notions respecting the objects and relations he is about to examine, as may tend to embarrass or mislead him; and to strengthen himself, by something of an effort and a resolve, for the unprejudiced admission of any conclusion which shall appear to be supported by careful observation and logical argument ; even should it prove adverse to notions he may have previously formed for himself, or taken up, without examination on the credit of others. Such an effort is, in fact, a commencement of that intellectual discipline which forms one of the most important ends of all science. It is the first movement of approach towards that state of mental purity which alone can fit us for a full and steady perception of moral beauty as well as physical adaptation. It is the " euphrasy and rue," with which we must purge our siyht before we can receive, and contemplate as they are, the lineaments of truth and nature." (Sir John Herschel, Astronomy ; Introduction.) I could easily multiply citations from other eminent writers on physical philosophy, to the same purpose. All of them prescribe this intellectual purification : Sokrates not only prescribed it, but actually administered it, by means of his elenchus, in reference to t^e subjects on which lie talked.