he subtilty
of the schools, nor ready to accept big words for sterling coin; they
penetrate, as far as they can, into the principal parts of the subject
which engages them, and they expound them in the vernacular tongue.
Scientific pursuits then follow a freer and a safer course, but a less
lofty one.

The mind may, as it appears to me, divide science into three parts. The
first comprises the most theoretical principles, and those more abstract
notions whose application is either unknown or very remote. The second
is composed of those general truths which still belong to pure theory,
but lead, nevertheless, by a straight and short road to practical
results. Methods of application and means of execution make up the
third. Each of these different portions of science may be separately
cultivated, although reason and experience show that none of them can
prosper long, if it be absolutely cut off from the two others.

In America the purely practical part of science is admirably understood,
and careful attention is paid to the theoretical portion which is
immediately requisite to application. On this head the Americans always
display a clear, free, original, and inventive power of mind. But
hardly anyone in the United States devotes himself to the essentially
theoretical and abstract portion of human knowledge. In this respect
the Americans carry to excess a tendency which is, I think, discernible,
though in a less degree, amongst all democratic nations.

Nothing is more necessary to the culture of the higher sciences, or of
the more elevated departments of science, than meditation; and nothing
is less suited to meditation than the structure of democratic society.
We do not find there, as amongst an aristocratic people, one class which
clings to a state of repose because it is well off; and another which
does not venture to stir because it despairs of improving its condition.
Everyone is actively in motion: some in quest of power, others of
gain. In the midst of this universal tumult--this incessant conflict of
jarring interests--this continual stride of men after fortune--where is
that calm to be found which is necessary for the deeper combinations
of the intellect? How can the mind dwell upon any single point, when
everything whirls around it, and man himself is swept and beaten onwards
by the heady current which rolls all things in its course? But the
permanent agitation which subsists in the bosom of a peaceable and
es