uman mind in its ordinary condition. Nay, he who has
practised self-culture in the higher sense may always reckon upon
meeting an adverse majority.

What is a musical string, and all its mechanical division, in comparison
with the musician's ear? May we not also say, what are the elementary
phenomena of nature itself compared with man, who must control and
modify them all before he can in any way assimilate them to himself?

Everything that we call Invention or Discovery in the higher sense of
the word is the serious exercise and activity of an original feeling for
truth, which, after a long course of silent cultivation, suddenly
flashes out into fruitful knowledge. It is a revelation working from
within on the outer world, and lets a man feel that he is made in the
image of God. It is a synthesis of World and Mind, giving the most
blessed assurance of the eternal harmony of things.

A man must cling to the belief that the incomprehensible is
comprehensible; otherwise he would not try to fathom it. A man does not
need to have seen or experienced everything himself. But if he is to
commit himself to another's experiences and his way of putting them, let
him consider that he has to do with three things--the object in question
and two subjects.

If we look at the problems raised by Aristotle, we are astonished at his
gift of observation. What wonderful eyes the Greeks had for many things!
Only they committed the mistake of being overhasty, of passing
straightway from the phenomenon to the explanation of it, and thereby
produced certain theories that are quite inadequate. But this is the
mistake of all times, and still made in our own day.

Hypotheses are cradle-songs by which the teacher lulls his scholars to
sleep. The thoughtful and honest observer is always learning more and
more of his limitations; he sees that the further knowledge spreads,
the more numerous are the problems that make their appearance.

If many a man did not feel obliged to repeat what is untrue, because he
has said it once, the world would have been quite different.

There is nothing more odious than the majority; it consists of a few
powerful men to lead the way; of accommodating rascals and submissive
weaklings; and of a mass of men who trot after them, without in the
least knowing their own mind.

When I observe the luminous progress and expansion of natural science in
modern times, I seem to myself like a traveler going eastward at dawn,