40 DISCOVERY 



everv available source, and to arrive at conclusions from 



if 



it. But clear and complete testimony is difficult to 

 obtain even of the events and occurrences of everyday 

 life ; and it can only be elicited from Nature by the mind 

 that hesitates to believe and requires positive impressions 

 in order to be convinced. The man of science, by virtue 

 of his training, is alone capable of realising the difficulties 

 often enormous of obtaining accurate data upon 

 which just judgment may be based. 



It is only the active worker the original investigator who, 

 by personal appeal to Nature through artificially imposed con- 

 ditions, i.e. experiment, or through observation, i.e. ready-made 

 phenomena, has come to understand fully what a fact really 

 means in the scientific sense ; to realise how laborious is the 

 process of wooing truth and how ambiguous are the answers often 

 given by Nature to his cross-examinations. I have elsewhere 

 recorded a humorous rejoinder by Darwin on one of the very 

 few occasions when it was my never- forgotten privilege to have 

 met him ; as this reply bears so closely upon the present topic 

 I will venture to repeat it. I had been dwelling upon this very 

 point of the difficulty of getting Nature to give a definite answer 

 to a simple question, when, with one of those mirthful flashes 

 that occasionally lighted up his features, he retorted, " She will 

 tell you a direct lie if she can." Prof. R. Meldola. 



The great historian, Hume, referring to the inception 

 of the Royal Society, said that it is the part of scientific 

 men to lift the veil from the mysteries of Nature. The 

 only mysteries with which the natural philosopher is 

 concerned are those belonging to the material universe. 

 In untramundane matters conviction takes the place 

 of observation. The poet and the metaphysician feel 

 that certain thoughts are true, and the ideas thus 

 conceived are to them as definite facts as any inferences 

 depending upon the use of the senses. Such feelings 

 do not admit of objective demonstration and cannot, 

 therefore, be measured by the standards of natural or 



