“Investigation is a sentiment, an instinct, a habit of mind; it is man’s effort at knowing and enjoying the universe. The productive investigator desires knowledge for a purpose; he may not be eager for knowledge in general, nor for new knowledge in particular. He values details for their bearing on the problem he hopes to solve. He can gather and sift them to advantage only in the light of a radiant interest, and his ability to utilize them for correct information depends on the delicacy of his perception and the strength of his mental grasp. The investigator, like the athlete, must first be born; he can not be made to order, but his training determines the degree of excellence to which he can attain. No amount of training can remove organic defects, but bad training may be worse than none in lessening the attainment of the most capable. That education is false and injurious which puts the matter first and retards or prevents the development of constructive mental ability, a power not peculiar to the investigator, but in him reaching the greatest scope and freedom of action.” Aid from Picturing Power. A picturing faculty such as comes to the flower in an inventor may often be observed in a skilful workman. In a shoe factory a veteran will lift a hide, utterly irregular in form, and cut soles and heels from it, so that the remaining scraps are a mere trifle, while flaws have been avoided. Hugh Miller, in “My Schools and Schoolmasters,” thus speaks of a fellow stone-mason:--“John Fraser’s strength had never been above the average of that of Scotchmen, and it was now considerably reduced; nor did his mallet deal more or heavier blows than that of the common workman. He had, however, an extraordinary power of conceiving of the finished piece of work, as lying within the rude stone from which it was his business to disinter it; and while ordinary stone-cutters had to repeat and re-repeat their lines and draughts, and had in this way virtually to give their work several surfaces in detail ere they reached the true one, old John cut upon the true figure at once, and made one surface serve for all. In building, too, he exercised a similar power; he hammer-dressed his stones with fewer strokes than other workmen, and in fitting the interspaces between the stones already laid, always picked from out the heap at his feet the stone that exactly filled the place; while other operatives busied themselves in picking up stones that were too small or too large; or, if they set themselves to reduce the too large ones, reduced them too little or too much, and had to fit and fit again. Whether building or hewing, John never seemed in a hurry. He has been seen, when far advanced in life, working very leisurely, as became his years, on one side of a wall, and two stout young fellows building against him on the other side--toiling, apparently, twice harder than he, but the old man always contriving to keep a little ahead of them both.”