20 GENERAL VIEW AND BASIS OF SCIENTIFIC EESEARCH. 



arrived at when science was in its infancy. From evidence 

 also obtained in solar spectroscopy, by various investigators, 

 Lockyer has recently suggested as probable that some of 

 the c elementary bodies ' (viz. chlorine, iodine, bromine, 

 calcium, &c.) are decomposable. 



In scientific research, men must be guided entirely by 

 the pure light of truth and reason, as far as they can 

 obtain it, otherwise they will succeed but little in making 

 discoveries. They must also bestow some consideration 

 upon the questions, what is impossible, what is improbable, 

 and what is at the time unattainable. Scientific dis- 

 coverers, therefore, do not usually select for investigation 

 questions which they have strong reasons beforehand to 

 believe are beyond their power to solve. It appears to be 

 useless to search for instances of creation or destruction 

 of matter or energy, by human agency. The tens of 

 thousands of elaborate researches, and the hundreds of 

 thousands of chemical analyses, and of experiments and 

 observations already made in the sciences of physics and 

 chemistry, have not disclosed to us a single example of 

 creation or destruction of matter or energy by human 

 power ; nor have they made known to us a single such act 

 effected by occult means, and proved by evidence equal in 

 strength to that supplied by ordinary experiments in those 

 sciences. Faraday, a devout man, was a firm believer in 

 this doctrine of Conservation of Energy and of Matter. 



The minds of many men are ever restless, and man's 

 desire to solve questions which are at present quite in- 

 solvable by his limited powers, is probably as great as it 

 ever was. Some of the questions still propounded are 

 quite as impenetrable as those discussed by the schoolmen 

 in former times, when they serious] y debated whether, 

 'when angels move from place to place, do they pass 

 through the intermediate space ? ' &c. Dissatisfaction 



