Such, then, were some of the scientific results which followed in this case from bringing together mathematical power, experimental sagacity, and manipulative skill, to direct and assist the labours of a body of zealous observers.  If therefore we desire, for our own advantage and for the honour of our University, that the Devonshire Laboratory should be successful, we must endeavour to maintain it in living union with the other organs and faculties of our learned body.  We shall therefore first consider the relation in which we stand to those mathematical studies which have so long flourished among us, which deal with our own subjects, and which differ from our experimental studies only in the mode in which they are presented to the mind.

There is no more powerful method for introducing knowledge into the mind than that of presenting it in as many different ways as we can.  When the ideas, after entering through different gateways, effect a junction in the citadel of the mind, the position they occupy becomes impregnable.  Opticians tell us that the mental combination of the views of an object which we obtain from stations no further apart than our two eyes is sufficient to produce in our minds an impression of the solidity of the object seen; and we find that this impression is produced even when we are aware that we are really looking at two flat pictures placed in a stereoscope.  It is therefore natural to expect that the knowledge of physical science obtained by the combined use of mathematical analysis and experimental research will be of a more solid, available, and enduring kind than that possessed by the mere mathematician or the mere experimenter.

But what will be the effect on the University, if men Pursuing that course of reading which has produced so many distinguished Wranglers, turn aside to work experiments?  Will not their attendance at the Laboratory count not merely as time withdrawn from their more legitimate studies, but as the introduction of a disturbing element, tainting their mathematical conceptions with material imagery, and sapping their faith in the formulae of the textbook?  Besides this, we have already heard complaints of the undue extension of our studies, and of the strain put upon our questionists by the weight of learning which they try to carry with them into the Senate-House.  If we now ask them to get up their subjects not only by books and writing, but at the same time by observation and manipulation, will they not break down altogether?  The Physical Laboratory, we are told, may perhaps be useful to those who are going out in Natural Science, and who do not take in Mathematics, but to attempt to combine both kinds of study during the time of residence at the University is more than one mind can bear.

No doubt there is some reason for this feeling.  Many of us have already overcome the initial difficulties of mathematical training.  When we now go on with our study, we feel that it requires exertion and involves fatigue, but we are confident that if we only work hard our progress will be certain.