THE CULTURE OF THE SCIENTIFIC MOOD. 127 
A PASSION FOR FActs. 
As a first characteristic of the scientific mood I would 
emphasise a passion for facts. The satire has it that the 
scientific motto is “ first make sure of your facts, and then 
distort them into a theory,” but this is too cynical. Our 
motto is “ make sure of the facts,” and he must be very 
charitable who thinks that this is a common habit; he must be 
very slack with himself who thinks that it is easy. How 
difficult it often is to get anything near the truth, how 
difficult it is for anyone with even a dash of the artistic 
mood to relate an occurrence accurately. Many children 
pass through an interesting stage in which they fail to dis- 
criminate between their dream-pictures and actual pictures. 
Similarly, people who look a great deal at photographs 
of places, may quite unconsciously say, “I was charmed 
with the beauty of Aviemore,” though they never were 
near it. We can thus understand the old naturalist- 
travellers who mixed up in their diary what they really 
saw and what the natives told them was to be seen. 
Nor do we need to go back to ancient history to find 
examples. But these are vices which the scientific mood 
must fight against tooth and nail. There can be no 
scientific progress without a passion for facts. Wasn’t it Dr 
Chalmers with his big brain who used to interrupt a verbal 
discussion, with the words “Give us a fact, man, give us 
a fact!” 
Apart altogether from its value intellectually, the dis- 
cipline of the chemical balance, of analysis, of dissection, 
of faithful drawing, is one of the most effective factors in 
the evolution of truthfulness. Is not the scientific laboratory 
one of the few places where it is perfectly good form to 
tell one’s neighbour—even one’s senior—that the truth is 
not in him ? 
I believe with Agassiz that even a few weeks’ training 
in natural science is one of the best preparations a man can 
have for work in any department of life where accurate 
carefulness and adherence to the facts of the case mean 
anything. 
