Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 67.djvu/156

150 mechanical manipulations, that they are oblivious to underlying truths shared in common with their own and other subjects, or perhaps fail to appreciate the individual characteristics of a particular subject or group of allied subjects.

It can not be gainsaid that "a scientific habit of mind can be acquired only by the methodical study of some part at least of what the human race has come scientifically to know." But logic may supplement this indispensable kind of training. In it the methods themselves are made the direct objects of study. Brought together from near and far they may be compared, analyzed and classified with the attention focused upon them in their broad outlines. So presented, with a good body of illustrations, they may be above criticism as too formal or abstract, and furnish both layman and specialist with means of cultivating the sense of discrimination and widening their interests and sympathies.