NATURE OF INTERPRETATION. 47 
can see no more, and then, according to certain rules, we 
invent. It is because of the necessity of invention that the 
very useful little interrogative ““ Why” comes into being. 
Strictly speaking, there is no such question as Why ; the only 
question to science is How. And I venture to think that were 
complete description a possibility to us, the question Why would 
appear as meaningless as it really is. True interpretation, 
then, is complete description, and the completeness of descrip- 
tion is dependent on the closeness of contact. Now, the more 
we interpret Nature on the true lines, the deeper may we be 
said to see into phenomena. But to what extent can we 
interpret on the true lines? Consider that clock for one 
moment. You can describe its actions from where you sit with 
considerable ease ; you may calculate that the bigger hand 
moves twelve times as fast as the smaller ; further investiga- 
tions may show you that this 12 : 1 ratio is only approximate, 
and that the clock is running slow, or fast, compared with 
another clock, as the case may be. Then you might theorize 
about the works of the clock, and attempt to decide why it 
is that one hand moves faster than the other, but if you really 
wanted to discover how it worked, you would wait till the 
librarian had gone out to lunch and take the clock to pieces ; 
with luck you might succeed in reconstructing the clock 
before the librarian returned ; in any case you would have 
handled the various wheels and springs, and would be able 
after your careful study to describe just how the clock works, 
and considered as a piece of mechanism you could describe it 
perfectly. Now, this is because the mechanism of the clock 
bears a certain definite relation to yourself in point of size, for 
the reason that it is of human manufacture. But do we ever 
see the mechanism of Nature ? Surely there is but one answer 
to this question, and that is No ; most decidedly No. 
In the case of the library clock we need not bother with 
interpretation, for under favourable circumstances we can 
examine its works and describe its workings in detail. Not 
so with Nature. Nature has a special watcher for her clock, 
who never by any chance goes out to tiffin. He sits under the 
greater chronometer of the Universe, which was wound up at 
the beginning of time, and goes on merrily ticking off the 
