EAST AND WEST 161 



maining constant. Multiply such experiments as much as you can, 

 and make them with the utmost precision in your power. Draw 

 your conclusions and express them in mathematical language if 

 possible. Apply all your mathematical resources to the transforma- 

 tion of the equations; confront the new equations thus obtained 

 with reality. That is, see what they mean, which group of facts 

 they represent. Make new experiments on the basis of these new 

 facts, etc., etc. 



All the triumphs of modern science have been due to the appli- 

 cation, more or less deliberate, of that method. Moreover experi- 

 mental scientists have laid more and more emphasis on the needs 

 of objective verification. Truth is relative but it becomes less and 

 less so, and more and more reliable, in proportion as it has been 

 checked oftener and in a greater variety of ways. The experi- 

 mental method, simple as it may seem to anyone who approaches 

 it with an open mind, developed only very gradually. Little by 

 little, scientists learned by experience to trust their reason more 

 than their feelings, but also not to trust their reason too much. 

 The results of any argument, just like the results of any mathe- 

 matical transformation, are not entirely valid until they have been 

 checked and re-checked in many ways. Facts can only be ex- 

 plained by theories, but they can never be explained away; thus, 

 however insignificant in themselves, they remain supreme. They 

 are like the stones of a building; individual stones are worthless 

 but the building would have no reality without them. 



It is amusing to hear the old humanists speak of restraint and 

 discipline as if they had the monopoly of these qualities, when the 

 experimental method is itself the most elaborate discipline of 

 thought which has ever been conceived. To be sure, it does not 

 apply to everything; nor does it claim any monopoly for itself ex- 

 cept within its own domain. 



It is the experimental method which has given to human reason 

 its full potency, but at the same time it has clearly shown its limi- 

 tations and provided means of controlling it. It has proved the 

 relativity of truth, but at the same time has made it possible to 



