CH. in THE SCIENTIFIC MIND 37 



commanded or deserved success in other departments 

 of intellectual activity. Science, as Huxley said, is 

 organised common sense ; and all men who have been 

 drilled in the ways of common sense should, therefore, 

 possess the characteristics of a fruitful scientific mind 

 as defined by one in whom it was clearly manifest : 



In the first place, above all things, his nature must be one which 

 vibrates in unison with that of which he is in search ; the seeker 

 after truth must himself be truthful, truthful with the truthful- 

 ness of Nature. For the truthfulness of Nature is not wholly the 

 same as that which man sometimes calls truthfulness. It is far 

 more imperious, far more exacting. Man, unscientific man, is 

 often content with "the nearly," and "the almost/' Nature 

 never is ... In the second place, he must be alert of mind. 

 Nature is ever making signs to us, she is ever whispering to us 

 the beginnings of her secrets ; the scientific man must be ever 

 on the watch, ready at once to lay hold of Nature's hint, however 

 small, to listen to her whisper, however low. 



In the third place, scientific inquiry, though it be pre-eminently 

 an intellectual effort, has need of the moral quality of courage 

 not so much the courage which helps a man to face a sudden diffi- 

 culty as the courage of stedfast endurance. Sir Michael Foster. 



Love of truth creates the habit of accuracy and 

 exactness in matters of fact which characterises a 

 scientific mind. Conviction counts for nothing, and any 

 knowledge arrived at as the result of observation or 

 experiment must be capable of being verified by other 

 investigators who will follow the same road. Scientific 

 truth is thus objective and not subjective ; it must be 

 open to all eyes and not a vision limited to the conscious- 

 ness of one mind. The distinction between this kind of 

 truth which we can all examine for ourselves if we wish, 

 and the truth which is a matter of personal conviction, 

 is fundamental. Knowing that others may repeat his 

 observations and that by the confirmation of them or 

 otherwise will he be judged, the student of science learns 



