THE METHOD OF SCIENCE 45 



to classify facts into patterns, to associate facts ^vith each 

 other and thus understand, as they ^vould say, the connections 

 bet^veen the facts. This understanding usually arises from 

 repetition of the same facts in the same order. There is no 

 difficulty, for instance, in associating the phenomenon of rain 

 with the presence of clouds, and one of the earliest facts of 

 Tvhich man ^vas a^vare must have been that rain comes from 

 the clouds. It was much later, however, w^hen he realized 

 that lightning and thunder were also natural phenomena 

 associated with the clouds; and primitive man does not seem 

 to have associated them at all ^\dth rain. 



The beginnings of science, then, are to be found in a system 

 of classification in ^vhich different facts are associated and 

 regarded as being in the same classification or, as it is usually 

 put, as being due to the same cause. Very often, early man 

 was ^vrong in his classification, and his association of facts 

 proved later to be incorrect; such incorrect associations have 

 persisted through the ages. AVhen such incorrect associations 

 have been held by many men for many years, w^e often call 

 them superstitions^ and they become so rooted in our minds 

 that they are very difficult to eradicate. 



One of the most interesting systems of incorrect associa- 

 tion of facts is known as magic. One of the earliest facts of 

 which an animal becomes conscious is that its o^vn body is 

 not functioning normally. Usually the trouble corrects it- 

 self and the animal recovers. As soon as man began to reason, 

 he must have tried to find remedies for his bodily disorders; 

 and those remedies were associated ^\ ith his daily routine and 

 especially, perhaps, with food. If a plant can make you ill, 

 cannot the same plant or another make you well? If you eat 

 the same plant, you are using a homeopathic medicine; if you 

 eat a different plant, an allopathic medicine. If you simply 

 hang the plant around your neck, you are employing magic. 

 In so far as men have kno^vledge, they use that knowledge. 

 AVhere knowledge fails, they attempt to supply it, and ^ve 

 term the attempt magic. Thus, in the medical w^orks of the 

 Egyptians, anatomical and surgical knowledge and the diag- 



