396 ACTUAL WORKING IN ORIGINAL RESEARCH. 



of the various methods of measuring substances, forces, 

 conditions, and actions ; of weighing, and taking the 

 specific gravities of solids, liquids, and gases; of deter- 

 mining the coefficients of elasticity and of numerous 

 other properties, the positions of spectral lines, the degrees 

 of conduction-resistance to heat and electricity, also of 

 paramagnetic and diamagnetic capacity, and a multitude 

 of other phenomena, at all temperatures and pressures, 

 form a portion of the subject of quantitative research, and 

 may be found in the various text-books of the different 

 sciences. 1 



CHAPTER XLIII. 



COMPLETION OF RESEARCHES. 



IT is desirable that researches which have been commenced 

 should be completed. Not unfrequently they are aban- 

 doned when only partly made. The difficulty of complet- 

 ing them arises partly from the immensity and complexity 

 of nature. The most trifling fact, when exhaustively 

 investigated, gives rise to many varied questions, each 

 of which requires a separate research, and these separate 

 researches in their turn give rise to others, so that it 

 appears impossible to exhaust the subject, or make the 

 first research complete, and thus the results of valuable 

 investigations are in consequence often withheld from 

 publication : this is a common case. Researches are also 



1 For illustrations of the great value of mathematics in scientific 

 discovery, see WhewelPs Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, vol. i. 

 pp. 150-156 ; Whewell's History of Scientific Ideas, vol. i. 3rd edition, 

 chap. xiv. pp. 153-167 ; also G. C. Foster's Address to Physics Section 

 of the British Association, 1877. 



