SCIENTIFIC METHOD 67 



Church, Lord Kelvin said in an address at Bangor: 

 "There is one thing I feel strongly in respect to 

 investigation in physical or chemical laboratories 

 it leaves no room for shady, doubtful distinc- 

 tions between truth, half-truth, whole falsehood. 

 In the laboratory everything tested or tried is 

 found either true or not true. Every result is 

 true. Nothing not proved true is a result; there 

 is no such thing as doubtfulness." It is very 

 interesting that Clerk Maxwell should speak in 

 one sentence of "those aspirations after accuracy 

 in measurement, and justice in action, which we 

 reckon among our noblest attributes as men." 



ARRANGEMENT OF DATA. In many cases the 

 accumulation of data has to be followed by not 

 less laborious arrangement. The facts have to 

 be classified, and that from different points of 

 view, and without prejudice. The object of this 

 is to discover correlations and uniformities of 

 sequence. In dealing with an enormous mass 

 of facts in regard to the Migration of Birds, 

 one of the leading inquirers into this fascinat- 

 ing subject, Mr. Eagle Clarke, of the Royal Scot- 

 tish Museum, required more time for the orderly 

 classification of the data than was required for 

 their collection. 



Just as observation is made incalculably more 

 effective by the use of instruments, so in classify- 

 ing and registering facts, the use of statistical 



