554 SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



and other casualties. The daily newspapers bring us 

 weather charts with isothermic, isobaric, and other lines, 

 on which they found weather predictions or storm 

 warnings. Surely, if counting, measuring, and calculat- 

 ing are the elementary processes of the scientific method, 

 it must be admitted that the latter has permeated our 

 practical life to an enormous extent. Thus the question 

 can be asked, If the calculating spirit is so general, how 

 does it come about that in its application to life and 

 commerce it has led to so much grasp but to so little 

 certainty ; whereas in science itself it has led to so much 

 actual and reliable knowledge ? How does its application 

 in practice differ from that in theory ? The answer to 

 this question is not far to seek, and it will introduce us to 

 a special branch of science, to a special form of scientific 

 thought which again is, if not a creation of the nineteenth 

 century, yet one of its characteristic developments. 



That which everywhere oppresses the practical man 

 is the great number of things and events which pass 

 ceaselessly before him, and the flow of which he cannot 

 arrest. What he requires is the grasp of large numbers. 

 The successful scientific explorer has always been the man 

 who could single out some special thing for minute and 

 detailed investigation, who could retire with one definite 

 object, with one fixed problem into his study or labor- 

 atory and there fathom and unravel its intricacies, rising 

 by induction or divination to some rapid generalisation 

 which allowed him to establish what is termed a law 

 or general aspect from which he could view the whole 

 or a large part of nature. The scientific genius can 

 " stay the moment fleeting " ; he can say to the object 



