PREFACE. ix
lowing passage in the " Sartor Resartus" of Carlyle (Bk. ii., ch. 2). It expresses sentiments so nearly akin to those which induced me to write this book, that I am glad to quote it:
" It is maintained by Helvetius and his set, that an infant of genius is quite the same as any other infant, only that certain surprisingly favourable influences accompany him through life, especially through childhood, and expand him, while others lie close folded and continue dunces With which opinion, cries Teufelsdrockh, ` I should as soon agree as with this other-that an acorn might, by favourable or unfavourable influences of soil and climate, be nursed into a cabbage, or the cabbage-seed into an oak. Nevertheless,' continues he, ' I too acknowledge the all-but omnipotence of early culture and nurture hereby we have either a doddered dwarf bush, or a high-towering, wide-shadowing tree ; either a sick yellow cabbage or an edible luxuriant green one. Of a truth, it is the duty of all men, especially of all philosophers, to note down with accuracy the characteristic circumstances of their Education, what furthered, what hindered, what in any way modified
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