For pseudo-scientific collections of facts which never rise to be classifications of phenomena forms to his idea the acme of erudition.

His mathematics, for example, consists of a set of empiric rules, of which no explanation is ever vouchsafed the taught for the simple reason that it is quite unknown to the teacher.

It is not even easy to decide how much of what there is is Jesuitical.

Of more recent sciences he has still less notion, particularly of the natural ones.

Physics, chemistry, geology, and the like are matters that have never entered his head.