SCIENCE AND CULTURE 41 



which gives the knowledge of scientific method. The 

 discovery of scientific method, except in pure mathe- 

 matics, is a thing of yesterday ; speaking broadly, we 

 may say that it dates from Galileo. Yet already it has 

 transformed the world, and its success proceeds with 

 ever-accelerating velocity. In science men have dis- 

 covered an activity of the very highest value in which 

 they are no longer, as in art, dependent for progress 

 upon the appearance of continually greater genius, for 

 in science the successors stand upon the shoulders of 

 their predecessors ; where one man of supreme genius 

 has invented a method, a thousand lesser men can apply 

 it. No transcendent ability is required in order to make 

 useful discoveries in science ; the edifice of science needs 

 its masons, bricklayers, and common labourers as well 

 as its foremen, master-builders, and architects. In art 

 nothing worth doing can be done without genius ; in 

 science even a very moderate capacity can contribute to 

 a supreme achievement. 



In science the man of real genius is the man who 

 invents a new method. The notable discoveries are 

 often made by his successors, who can apply the method 

 with fresh vigour, unimpaired by the previous labour of 

 perfecting it ; but the mental calibre of the thought 

 required for their work, however brilliant, is not so great 

 as that required by the first inventor of the method. 

 There are in science immense numbers of different 

 methods, appropriate to different classes of problems ; 

 but over and above them all, there is something not 

 easily definable, which may be called the method of 

 science. It was formerly customary to identify this 

 with the inductive method, and to associate it with the 

 name of Bacon. But the true inductive method was 

 not discovered by Bacon, and the true method of science 



