THE ART OF SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION 



Willis, says he possessed in a remarkable degree the power of 

 persuading and conciliating those with whom he came in contact. 

 Harvey said : 



" Man comes into the world naked and unarmed, as if nature 

 had destined him for a social creature and ordained that he 

 should live under equitable laws and in peace; as if she had 

 desired that he should be guided by reason." 



In discussing his critics he remarked : 



" To return evil speaking with evil speaking, however, I hold 

 to be unworthy in a philosopher [i.e. scientist] and searcher 

 after the truth." *°^ 



Writing on the same subject Michael Faraday said : 



" The real truth never fails ultimately to appear : and opposing 

 parties, if wrong, are sooner convinced when replied to for- 

 bearingly than when overwhelmed."^^ 



The discoverer requires courage, especially if he is young and 

 inexperienced, to back his opinion about the significance of his 

 finding against indifferences and scepticism of others and to 

 pursue his investigations. We take joy in reading of the courage 

 displayed by men like Harvey, Jenner, Semmelweis and Pasteur 

 in the face of opposition, but how often have profitable lines 

 of investigation been dropped and lost in oblivion when the 

 discoverer lacked the necessary zeal and courage ? Trotter relates 

 the story of J. J. Waterston who in 1845 wrote a paper on the 

 molecular theory of gases anticipating much of the work of 

 Joule, Clausius and Clerk Maxwell. The referee of the Royal 

 Society to whom the paper was submitted said : " The paper is 

 nothing but nonsense ", and the work lay in utter obhvion until 

 exhumed forty-five years later. Waterston lived on disappointed 

 and obscure for many years and then mysteriously disappeared 

 leaving no sign. As Trotter remarks, this story must strike a 

 chill upon anyone impatient for the advancement of knowledge. 

 Many discoveries must have thus been stillborn or smothered at 

 birth. We know only those that survived. 



Although in most countries to-day there is no risk attached to 

 pursuing what are now orthodox scientific fields, it would be 

 wrong to conclude that obscurantism and reaction are things 

 only of the past. Barely thirty years ago Einstein suffered a 

 virulent and organised campaign of persecution and ridicule 



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