x INTRODUCTION 



They are conscious that their work deals with 

 matters so abstruse as to be fully understood by 

 those only who have themselves studied the sub- 

 ject and hence they conceive that members of the 

 general public can feel no interest in it. But this 

 is not so. From time to time so many marvels 

 have been suddenly sprung upon us in the past 

 which have owed their birth to research carried 

 on in silence in laboratories and the like that the 

 general public is quite ready to treat such homes 

 of research as mysterious workshops, the methods 

 and aims of which are beyond them but from 

 which great discoveries may at any moment arise. 

 It looks forward with hope to these future dis- 

 coveries and it feels too much in awe of the secrets 

 of Science to desire to control or criticise the 

 methods by which they are arrived at. 



The word "research" has of late years been 

 used too frequently as little more than a cant 

 phrase dear to educationalists but carrying with it 

 no clear or definite meaning, and if there is any 

 patent or latent hostility to research it is mainly 

 due to the way in which the word has thus been 

 treated by its self-styled champions. But (as I 

 am glad to say is frequently the case even in 

 the arena of legal conflicts) the blunders of the 

 advocate have not been sufficient to hide the 

 merits of his case. Not only thoughtful educated 

 men but even the members of the general public 

 are beginning to realise that it is to research in 



