Ιθ6 GENIUS AND STUDY. to teachers nor to learners, neither to statesmen nor to scholars ; and even with patient study, what results ? Surely that scientific generalisations are but by-play, diversions and amusements, not real lessons : formulae that are convenient for a moment now and then, but quite unsafe as implements of investigation or even as helps for memory: truisms, or fallacies, or both : or if containing truth, or aiming at universality, diluting the truth until it is useless; assuming a universality of rule which, when it comes to be applied, is met with a universality of exception. There is a ' One in History' as a One in Nature, but it is not shown to the man whose idea of science is confined to making his inventory or ticketing compartments of his cabinet, even if the mechanism of his museum be ever so complete, unless he has studied and learned well the conformation and individual histories of the specimens which he attempts to classify. Sometimes men classify the specimens which other men have collected, and claim the character of philosophers without any direct acquaintance with materials at all.