SIMULTANEO US DISCO VER Y 67 



For convenience' sake, we will deal with these Booki 

 two latter arguments first, and put them out of the 

 way before we approach the others. We will begin simultaneous 



. , i r i r i discovery only 



with the argument drawn from the tact that the shows that 



same discovery is often made simultaneously by fnstead oTone, 



independent workers. This would perhaps hardly be 



worth discussing if it were not used so constantly 



by such a variety of serious writers. The fact is 



true enough, but what is the utmost that it proves ? 



If two or three men make the same discovery at 



once, this does not prove, as it is supposed to do, 



that all men are approximately equal, but that two 



or three men, instead of one man, are greater than 



the rest of their fellow- workers. If three horses at 



a race out-distance all competitors, and pass the 



winning-post within the same three seconds, this 



does not prove that a cart-horse is as swift as the 



Derby favourite. As a matter of fact, that more 



men than one should reach at the same time the 



same discovery independently is precisely what we 



should be led to expect, when we consider what 



discovery is. The facts of nature which form the 



subject-matter of the discoverer are in themselves 



as independent of the men who discover them as 



an Alpine peak is of the men wjio attempt to scale 



it. They are indeed precisely analogous to a peak 



which all discoverers are attempting to scale at 



once ; and the fact that three men make the same 



discovery simultaneously does no more to show 



that any of their neighbours could have made it, 



and that it is made in reality, not by them, but by 



