8S 

 7 



toil. In their case it is the natural half- 

 sleep following upon mental activities 

 wherein at times the great and beautiful 

 generic truths of poesy and parable have 

 their birth. It need not be pointed out, 

 however, that there are many indolent 

 of mind amongst us, while the group of 

 earnest and thorough thinkers are few. 

 It is not surprising, therefore, that the 

 aims and methods of the scientific 

 worker should so frequently be misunder- 

 stood and misrepresented. 



Of course it is not meant that the 

 opponents of scientific work and methods 

 of investigation are so unjust as to sup- 

 pose that the alleged tendency to 

 scepticism, on the part of the men of 

 science, woold be blameable in matters 

 which are false or which appear to be so ; 

 for in such case there would be no room 

 for discussion. 



To oppose even the appep ranee of 

 falsehood or vice is a healthy attitude, 

 and can only be considered objectionable 

 by those minds antagonistic to truth 

 and virtue. 



As a matter of fact, the charge as 

 regards scientific observers is manifestly 

 absurd. Science is simply carefully proved 

 knowledge. True men of science are 

 those who are ever actually engaged in 

 wresting the fruits of knowledge from the 

 vast unexplored regions of nature, and 

 whose highest reward is the feeling that, 

 by their labors and discoveries, they have 

 conquered some part of the region of 

 chaos, doubt and obscurity, to the great 

 benefit of their kind. The railway train 

 in rapid motion may cause the illusion 

 that the increased resisting current of air 

 is in itself moving more swiftly than 

 when the same tram is at rest. 



In like manner inexperienced minds see 

 only in the active forward advance of 

 scientific investigation, the sifting, weigh- 

 ing, and measuring processes, and often 

 labor under the illusion that because in 

 this pioneer work the workers are obliged 

 to reject large quantities of truth husks, 

 the latter process — and not the acquire- 

 ment of the fewer and less conspicuous 

 truth grains— is the particular object of 

 their remarkable activities. Their posi- 

 tive advance, and greater neod to dis- 

 criminate and to reject, being a mere con- 

 sequence of their relatively greater love 

 for the acquisition of more truth or know- 



ledge. Kelative to the indolent they 

 appear to reject more — nay, blunder more 

 — but ifc is altogether due to the fact that 

 their love for knowledge is more active. 

 Those who can endure an imperfect mix- 

 ture, or do not love purity, need not reject 

 much dross ; but it is hard that the refiner 

 fehould be blamed for the unavoidable 

 accumulations of the conserving and re- 

 fining processes. 



ILLUSIONS DUB TO INEXPERIENCE OR 

 DEFECTIVE EQUIPMENT ON THE PART OF 

 THE ACTIVE OBSERVER. 



Thoughtful men are well aware of the 

 danger of being over-sure about matters 

 which many able men have arrived at 

 profoundly opposite conclusions. The 

 thoughtless have no such dread. And yet, 

 though all our observaiions are so apt to 

 be faulty if not properly directed, few 

 think that for exact observation in any 

 special branch of knowledge, special 

 aptitude, and a long, careful training in 

 the instruments of observation are abso- 

 lutely necessary. For example : — Look 

 what long years of patient training of the 

 muscles of the hand, ear, and eye, is 

 necessary before the musician can render 

 with skill and feeling the masterpieces of 

 a Mendelssohn or a Schumann. The 

 skilled botanist may be called upon at any 

 time to distinguish a new plant, and to 

 describe its characters But in order to 

 do this satisfactorily he must be prepared 

 to show in what respect it is related, and 

 in what respect it differs from, say, about 

 85,000 flowering plants already scientifi- 

 cally described and classified. When 

 we learn also that prior to the proper 

 study of botany and zoology, the 

 student, by laborious training in mor- 

 phology and physiology, must equip 

 himself for the special work, we can have 

 some notion of the pains taken by men of 

 science that observations, in the line of 

 their studies are not marred by lack of 

 skill or of previous training. Nay, so 

 necessary is it that all scientific observa- 

 tion should be carried out with the 

 greatest rigor and exactness, that the 

 greatest pioneers in scientific investigation 

 have been the foremost in the discovery 

 of more perfect instrumental aids designed 

 to further extend the range and neutralise 

 the errors of our senses, and in this way 

 secure that precision which modern 

 science demands of its followers. 



