[4r] 



It is important to recognize that there is 

 nothing mysterious in the method of science, 

 or apart from the ordinary routine of life. 

 Science has been defined as the habit or 

 faculty of observation. By such the child 

 grows in knowledge, and in its daily exer- 

 cise an adult lives and moves. Only a quan- 

 titative difference makes observation scien- 

 tific — accuracy ; in that way alone do we 

 discover things as they really are. This is 

 the essence of Plato's definition of science 

 as " the discovery of things as they really 

 are," whether in the heavens above, in the 

 earth beneath, or in the observer himself. 

 As a mental operation, the scientific method 

 is equally applicable to deciphering a bit 

 of Beneventan script, to the analysis of the 

 evidence of the Commission on Coal-Mines, 

 a study of the mechanism of the nose-dive, 

 or of the colour-scheme in tiger-beetles. 

 To observation and reasoned thought, the 

 Greek added experiment, but never fully 



