6 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE M ON TEL Y. 



As here, then, so in other eases meeting us in the present and all 

 through the past, we have to contend with the difficulty that the 

 greater part of the evidence supplied to us, as of chief interest and im- 

 portance, is really of value only for what it -indicates. We have to re- 

 sist the temptation to dwell in those trivialities which make up nine- 

 tenths of our records and histories ; and which are worthy of attention 

 solely because of the things they indirectly imply or the things tacitly 

 asserted along with them. 



Beyond those vitiations of evidence due to random observations, to 

 the subjective states of the observers, to their enthusiasms, or prepos- 

 sessions, or self-interests beyond those that arise from the general 

 tendency to set down as a fact observed what is really an inference 

 from an observation, and also those that arise from the general ten- 

 dency to omit the dissection by which small surface results are traced 

 to large interior causes there come those vitiations of evidence con- 

 sequent on its distribution in Space. Of whatever class, political, 

 moral, religious, commercial, etc., may be the phenomena we have to 

 consider, a society presents them in so diffused and multitudinous a 

 way, and under such various relations to us, that the conceptions we 

 can frame are at best extremely inadequate. 



Consider how impossible it is truly to conceive so relatively simple 

 a thing as the territory which a society covers. Even by the aid of 

 maps, geographical and geological, slowly elaborated by multitudes of 

 surveyors even by the aid of descriptions of towns, counties, moun- 

 tainous and rural districts even by the aid of such personal observa- 

 tions as we have made here and there in journeys during life ; we can 

 reach nothing approaching to a true idea of the actual varied surface 

 arable, grass-covered, wooded ; fiat, undulating, rocky ; drained by 

 rills, brooks, and slow rivers ; sprinkled with cottages, farms, villas, 

 cities. Imagination simply rambles hither and thither, and fails utterly 

 to frame an adequate thought of the whole. How, then, shall we frame 

 an adequate thought of a diffused moral feeling, of an intellectual 

 state, of a commercial activity, pervading this territory ; unaided by 

 maps, and aided only by the careless statements of careless observers? 

 Respecting most of the phenomena, considered as displayed by a whole 

 nation, only the dimmest apprehensions are possible ; and how untrust- 

 worthy they are, is shown by every parliamentary debate, by every 

 day's newspapers, and by every evening's conversations ; which sev- 

 erally disclose quite conflicting estimates. 



See how various are the statements made respecting any nation in 

 its character and actions by each traveller visiting it. There is a 

 story, apt if not true, of a Frenchman who, having been three weeks 

 here, proposed to write a book on England ; who, after three months, 

 found that he was not quite ready ; and who, after three years, con- 

 cluded that he knew nothing about it. And every one, who looks 



