v BELIEF AND EVIDENCE 93 



examination of observed facts. No subject is too 

 trivial for inquiry, and no relationship must be regarded 

 as impossible from a priori considerations, but the 

 scientific mill must have material to work upon before 

 the value of the product can be estimated. It is per- 

 missible to doubt whether the grain is worth grinding, 

 but not to deny it a trial ; for without a test any belief 

 may be held as to its quality. Whether you doubt or 

 believe is of no consequence whatever in scientific 

 things if you cannot give reason for the position you 

 occupy. There must be facts and there must be thought 

 about them before any statement of substantial value 

 can be made as to natural objects and phenomena. 



Popular impressions and beliefs relating to weather 

 are often based upon casual observations, and have 

 little foundation in fact. Yet every belief of this kind is 

 worthy of examination, and if it has not been investi- 

 gated no man of science is justified in asserting that it 

 is untrue. But when such an inquiry has been made, 

 and the evidence has failed to support popular opinion, 

 we cannot do other than state that the case has not 

 been proved. Two such examples may here be given ; 

 one as to alleged change of climate and the other as to 

 a connection between the moon and the weather. 



Many people believe that the British climate has 

 undergone considerable changes in comparatively modern 

 times. " The winters (or the summers) are not what 

 they were when I was young," is a statement frequently 

 made ; but when meteorological records are examined, 

 they show that the temperature, rain, snow, frost and 

 like atmospheric phenomena are much the same at the 

 present time as they were in the early days of the 

 declining generation. Going back so far as trustworthy 

 observations with meteorological instruments exist, no 



