NON-MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES 171 



of a thundercloud on the horizon, the petal as 

 it unfolds, or the swarming of a hive of bees. 

 And yet sometimes I think that our laboratories 

 are but little earthworks which men build about 

 themselves, and whose puny tops too often con- 

 ceal from view the Olympian heights; that we 

 who work in these laboratories are but skilled 

 artisans compared with the man who is able to 

 observe, and to draw accurate deductions from 

 the world about him. 



In the snobbery of science each branch at- 

 tempts to rise in the social scale by imitating 

 the methods of the next higher science and by 

 ignoring the methods and phenomena of the 

 sciences beneath. Indeed, it is a common fault 

 of mankind to refuse to recognize the existence 

 of a phenomenon unless some mechanism has 

 been devised or, as we say, some explanation is 

 offered. Boswell,^ speaking of Kenneth Macau- 

 ley's History of St. Kilda, says: "Macauley 

 told me he was advised to leave out of his book 



2 Boswell, Life of Johnson. In this connection Mr. Chris- 

 tian remarked: "The situation of St. Kilda renders a north- 

 east wind indispensably necessary before a stranger can 

 land. The wind, not the stranger, occasions an epidemic 

 cold." We have so great an instinct to seek out cause and 

 effect that we often admit a phenomenon only after some 

 explanation is offered, although the explanation may be a 

 little more incredible than the phenomenon itself. 



