SCIENCE AND PROGRESS 



dynamo, the gas machine, supplying the investigator 

 with unlimited quantities of power, heat, light, and 

 electricity, have made possible investigations which 

 were hitherto impossible ; and pure invention hav- 

 ing often preceded theory, the study of these in- 

 ventions has powerfully stimulated research. Even 

 the commercial telephone has added to the lab- 

 oratory one of its most delicate and resourceful 

 instruments. 



These mechanical aids and appliances are the 

 pillars of modern science and of modern civiliza- 

 tion. The whole extension of our knowledge be- 

 yond that of the savage depends upon the means of 

 supplementing artificially our primitive senses. As 

 I have endeavored to make clear in the pages that 

 follow, 1 the native senses give us but a slight notion 

 of the real world about us ; they are crude, coarse, 

 inaccurate, unreliable, prone to delude. For the 

 upbuilding of the vast body of verified and unified 

 experience and experiment which we call science, 

 there was required the invention of tools of deli- 

 cate instruments, and mechanical constructions of 

 every sort. It is the acquirement and possession 

 of these that alone differentiates us from the old 

 days. Without them we should be no further ad- 



1 See especially "The World Beyond Our Senses," p. 41; 

 and ' The Spirit- Rappers, the Telepaths, and the Galvanom- 

 eter," p. 291. 



25 



