It is a game which has been played for
untold ages, every man and woman of us being one of the two
players in a game of his or her own. The chess-board is the
world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of
the game are what we call the laws of nature. The player on the
other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always
fair, just, and patient. But also we know, to our cost, that he
never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for
ignorance. To the man who plays well, the highest stakes are
paid, with that sort of overflowing generosity with which the
strong shows delight in strength, and one who plays ill is
checkmated--without haste, but without remorse."
Huxley wished that this scientific education should begin at an early
period of every child's training. In 1869 he wrote:
"Let every child be instructed in those general views of the
phaenomena of nature for which we have no exact English name. The
nearest approximation to a name for what I mean which we possess
is physical geography; the Germans have a better, 'Erdkunde'
(earth knowledge or geology in its etymological sense), that is
to say, a general knowledge of the earth, and what is on it and
in it and about it.
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