144 NULLIUS IN VERBA 



IV Lastly, a boy may learn science because 

 he wants to ; because he finds it enter- 

 taining ; because it satisfies an un- 

 reasoning desire to know how things in 

 general work. 



This is the best possible reason and the most 

 efficient, and what I propose, is to inquire whether 

 this wish to know something of science can be 

 justified. 



The word 'science' simply means knowledge, 

 but it is usually applied to knowledge that can be 

 verified. Thus we learn by heart that Queen Anne 

 died in 1 714. I believe this to be a fact, but I havej 

 no means of verifying it. But if I am told that! 

 putting chalk into acid will produce a heavy gas 

 having the quality of extinguishing a lighted match, ,] 

 I can verify it. I can do the thing and see the 

 results. I am now the equal of my teacher ; Ij 

 know it in the same way that he does. It has^ 

 become my very own fact, and it seems to have the] 

 satisfactory quality that possession gives. This 

 characteristic of scientific knowledge is not always 

 recognised. I mean the profound difference between / 

 what we know and what we are told. When 

 science began to flourish at Cambridge in the 

 'seventies, and the University was asked to supply 

 money for buildings, an eminent person objected 

 and said, "What do they want with their labora- 

 tories? — ^why can't they believe their teachers, who 

 are in most cases clergymen of the Church of 

 England ? " This person had no conception of what 

 the word * knowledge ' means as understood in 

 science. 



