We Cannot Begin With Complete Doubt.

Upon This First, And In One Sense This Sole, Rule Of Reason, That In Order To Learn You Must Desire To Learn, And In So Desiring Not Be Satisfied With What You Already Incline To Think, There Follows One Corollary Which Itself Deserves To Be Inscribed Upon Every Wall Of The City Of Philosophy: Do Not Block The Way Of Inquiry.

In All The Works On Pedagogy That Ever I Read — And They Have Been Many, Big, And Heavy — I Don't Remember That Any One Has Advocated A System Of Teaching By Practical Jokes, Mostly Cruel. That, However, Describes The Method Of Our Great Teacher, Experience.

True Science Is Distinctively The Study Of Useless Things. For The Useful Things Will Get Studied Without The Aid Of Scientific Men. To Employ These Rare Minds On Such Work Is Like Running A Steam Engine By Burning Diamonds.

For Example, There Are Numbers Of Chemists Who Occupy Themselves Exclusively With The Study Of Dyestuffs. They Discover Facts That Are Useful To Scientific Chemistry; But They Do Not Rank As Genuine Scientific Men. The Genuine Scientific Chemist Cares Just As Much To Learn About Erbium-the Extreme Rarity Of Which Renders It Commercially Unimportant-as He Does About Iron. He Is More Eager To Learn About Erbium If The Knowledge Of It Would Do More To Complete His Conception Of The Periodic Law, Which Expresses The Mutual Relations Of The Elements.

The A Priori Method Is Distinguished For Its Comfortable Conclusions. It Is The Nature Of The Process To Adopt Whatever Belief Weare Inclined To, And There Are Certain Flatteries To The Vanity Of Man Which We All Believe By Nature, Until We Are Awakened From Our Pleasing Dream By Rough Facts.