The Scientific Method. 73 



subjects every inference to the test of verification by fresh 

 observation. No scientific individual ever aspires, as the 

 idealist invariably does, to begin with himself alone and 

 merely infer his way to real knowledge of a real universe ; 

 the first step he takes is to recognize the existence of a vast 

 accumulation of universal human knowledge, acquired be- 

 fore he was born, and now to be enlarged a little by him, if 

 he can only add a little new knowledge to the world's great 

 stock of it. He observes, he hypothesizes, he verifies by 

 observing once more how far his hypothesis agrees with the 

 real world ; and then he is ready to offer his modest con- 

 tribution of discovery to his fellow-men. 



Now begins a process, a most important process, of which 

 no idealist can conceive even the possibility ; for, denying 

 that the individual can acquire one iota of knowledge of an 

 external world, he, of course, denies that the individual can 

 contribute one iota of it to any general treasury of world- 

 knowledge. But the scientific man, when he has made a 

 real discovery and verified it carefully and conscientiously, 

 knows well that verification for himself is by no means 

 verification for mankind. Convinced as he may be of the 

 truth of his new observation, he nevertheless knows well 

 that it can not yet be declared or treated as a part of uni- 

 versal human knowledge. The new discovery must be flung 

 into the arena of the world, and battle for its life against 

 the wild beasts of ignorance, indifference, incredulity, preju- 

 dice, jealousy, envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitable- 

 ness. Before the new truth, no matter how well verified 

 to the discoverer's own mind, can become verified to the 

 world's mind, it must run the gantlet of universal criti- 

 cism ; it must be doubted, denied, assailed, maligned, and 

 hustled about unmercifully ; it must be subjected to fresh 

 verification by every trained investigator who suspects that 

 it may be indeed a truth ; it must thereby conquer here 

 and there a new adherent, and prove itself to be a truth in- 

 deed by conquering at last the adhesion of all who are com- 

 petent to be its judge. 



This process by which a new discovery, after meeting suc- 

 cessfully the severest tests of fresh examination, and after 

 being confirmed by the independent investigations of all 

 whose judgment is entitled to weight, passes gradually into 

 the category of established truths this process by which 

 verification for the individual is slowly deepened and ex- 

 tended into verification for the race, through the slowly 



