2 FROM AN EASY CHAIR 



long study and special training, yet there is a vast deal 

 of healthy excitement and pleasure connected with the 

 progress of science, in which all can share by receiving, as 

 it were, messages from the front. By contributing true 

 records and observations of fact which serve, in however 

 small a way, as ammunition and material of war for the 

 use of the fighting line, we can all help and take part in 

 the advance of science. 



A great feature of what is called science is that it is 

 true. The actual result achieved by science is the 

 record of " that which is " it can be examined, tested, 

 and proved. But science does not merely collect 

 accurate records of fact. In order to discover new 

 things, new relations, and hidden causes she has to 

 make use of guesses and flights of imagination. The 

 " hypotheses " or guesses are not wild ones, but reason- 

 able suppositions based on careful consideration of 

 existing knowledge. They are never mistaken by 

 trained workers in science for " facts," nor put forward 

 as such. On the contrary, they are tested and so con- 

 firmed or rejected by experiment or trial. Hence the 

 necessity of accuracy in observation for the purposes of 

 science ; hence the proverbial " scientific accuracy." It 

 is of no use to form a guess based upon erroneous state- 

 ments. It is mere waste of time to accept and build 

 theories upon loose wonder-mongers'* gossip. And, 

 further, the evidence which you obtain in order to con- 

 firm or dismiss your " guess " must be equally beyond 

 suspicion as to its accuracy. It must be an observation 

 of fact free from prejudice and illusion. 



Your guess, if proved to be true, adds to the solid 

 record of science new facts and new proofs of relation- 

 ships, which again lead on the imagination of men of 

 science to new guesses, and so to new confirmation or 

 rejection, and to the growth of the vast record of 

 accurate knowledge. To seek out in the endless whirling 

 complexity of things which surround us in earth, sky, 



