SIGNS AND SIGNS OF MIND 3 



They investigate carefully. They conduct their researches 

 accurately. They collect facts ; they classify them. They 

 make experiments. They deduce laws. They form 

 theories. They test them. They prove them. They pass 

 them through the fire till they come forth as gold. And the 

 results of scientific work are magnificent. The structures 

 which science has built up are of supreme grandeur. 

 They have revolutionised the world. They have 

 advanced and glorified civilisation. They have scattered 

 wonders among the nations, brought them to the doors 

 of the peoples, quickened their life, elevated their intel- 

 ligence. And the whole work of science is the study of 

 signs. It is the interpretation of their meaning. Its 

 truths and laws are inductions from them. They are 

 signs generalised. And science has no hesitation, when 

 it perceives the clear signs of the presence and action of 

 any substance and force, in saying that that entity and 

 force are or have been present. There are circumstances 

 in which the conclusion is that they are present ; there 

 are circumstances in which it is that they have been 

 present. They have been present, for they have acted. 

 They have left their marks, they have imprinted their 

 characteristics, they have impressed their seal and image. 

 The science of geology is built on the signs of the past 

 action of forces; it endeavours to read the meaning of 

 the present condition of the crust of the earth, the 

 meaning of the phenomena now existing, and to come to 

 conclusions as to the causes which operated before the 

 ages and generations in producing thDse phenomena. 

 Here, they say, are the signs of the operation of water ; 

 these are water-formed rocks. Here are the signs of the 

 operation of fire ; these are fire-formed. And so when 

 the Dervish was asked, " How do you know that there 

 is a God ? " he answered, " How do I know that it was a 



