48 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. 
zeons of eternity, and displaying on its wonderful dial all that 
ever was and is. But nobody can read all the strange figures 
and signs of the great chronometer face, and a great deal of 
study is required to understand any of them. If we would 
know whether Mars is inhabited, or to what extent the prin- 
ciple of relativity is applicable to gravitation, or anything else 
about the Universe, we are answered by the rooted watcher in 
those ominous words of Winifred Pryce, “ Just look at the 
clock.” 
All that we can see, and hear, and feel constitute the great 
dial of Nature. The limit of human sensation is the ever- 
present watcher, who prevents us from meddling with the 
works. Improved instruments enable us to observe the dial 
with greater ease than was formerly the case, and have, indeed, 
revealed hordes of previously unsuspected hieroglyphs upon it. 
We are getting to know and read the clock more accurately as 
days go on, and we are better able as time proceeds to formulate 
theories about the works. But, of course, formulating theories 
about works is one thing, seeing and handling works is quite 
another. 
I would like at this point to call your attention to a diagram 
invented by Mr. Darbishire to illustrate this position :— 
I E P 
Let E P represent the distance between the eye and the 
phenomenon, when the latter is just so far away that it can 
be merely perceived and nothing more, as 10 units of linear 
measurement ; and EK I between the eye and that part of the 
brain which imagines (whatever it may be) 2 units. The inter- 
pretation of the clock (the real one in the library) consists 
in decreasing the line E P by dividing it by 1,000, say. But 
what about the interpretation of a natural phenomenon ? 
Does it consist in the decrease of the length E P? No; it 
consists in increasing it by the length of the lime EI. So that 
whilst we think that the more we interpret a phenomenon the 
more we are getting at close quarters with it, as a matter of 
fact, the inverse relation is what really obtains. If we admit 
that interpretation consists in going beyond the limits of our 
vision, we have to admit that what we do on the other side of 
