O GENERAL VIEW AND BASIS OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH. 



determines what is true ; and, therefore, the original 

 source of morality is the same as that of truth. By the 

 discovery of new truth, the scientific investigator is 

 gradually enabling mankind to approach and imitate the 

 source of all Truth. As the greatest practical rule of 

 righteousness is to try our utmost to make the best use of 

 all the powers and opportunities entrusted to us, and as 

 extended knowledge is necessary in order to enable us to 

 effect that object, so far is science gradually proving itself 

 to be a basis of true religion. 



Original research, however, is not a science ; it is not 

 a collection of laws. It is an art, because it is composed 

 of rules which must be followed. It is the method of 

 finding new truths of nature by means of study, observa- 

 tion, travel, or other means. The art of research is based 

 upon the laws and principles of nature, and upon the rela- 

 tions of the human mind and senses to the external world. 

 Nature on the one hand, and the human faculties on the 

 other, are the only agents concerned in scientific research. 

 Original discovery has its origin usually in the love of 

 knowledge for its own sake, and in a desire to confer its 

 benefits upon mankind. 



Scientific^researcji deals fearlessly, not only with things 

 that lie bejond our senses and observation, but also with 

 those which altogether surpass even our conception or 

 imagination ; such as extremely minute and immensely 

 great magnitudes, distances and velocities. Who can con- 

 ceive, for example, the minuteness of the atoms of matter 

 on the one hand, or the magnitude of universal space on 

 the other ? Who can even imagine the distance of the 

 Celestial nebulae, the velocity of gravity or of light, or 

 even the number of molecules, which has been calculated 

 to be about 100 million million million millions, in a 

 single drop of water. 



