SKCTION .9. - OBSER VA TION. 61 



tiny mites and crawling creatures. Even if we take into consideration 

 only the plants and animals visible to the naked eye, this soil beneath 

 our feet is one heaving, seething, moving mass of living organisms; it 

 has its jungle-law and its penalties, its feuds and its alliances, its fierce 

 struggle for life and its unspeakable tragedies. 



"But when we pass from the visible to the invisible world, the 

 variety and fertility are even more conspicuous." (Grant Allen, The Hand 

 of God and other 'Posthumous Essays, 1909, pp. 96-97.) 



A second illustration by Jevons indicates how observation 

 and generalisation melt into each other. Examining the problem 

 of the rainbow, he concludes that "a beam of light and par- 

 ticles of water, in a particular position, are the necessary 

 antecedents or causes of the bow of colours"; and he adds 

 that "this is nearly all that simple observation can tell us, and 

 it forms merely the first step of preliminary observation". 

 (Primer of Logic, p. 96.) Yet to many persons this statement 

 will appear to be a broad generalisation, since it comprises not 

 only all coloured bows due to rain, but all coloured bows 

 whether due to rain or to other states of water. The fact is 

 that by observation we scarcely ever mean the examination 

 of an individual object at one particular moment from one 

 particular angle, but a process involving the examination of 

 individual objects under different conditions and the conscious 

 comprehension of all material resemblances to other similar 

 objects, accompanied by the studied neglect of all immaterial 

 divergences. Not infrequently, however, men of science proceed 

 even further, and include the examination of a series of classes, 

 as Jevons' illustration indicates. 



Telepathic theories offer an example of how seldom the 

 complexity of the process of observation is recognised. De- 

 sirous of verifying a passage in a volume which I am reading, 

 I betake myself to the sitting room of the lady at whose resi- 

 dence I am temporarily staying in order to borrow a Bible. 

 As I leave my apartment, I meet the lady with a Bible in her 

 hand. Did she divine my thought? Perhaps I determine to 

 note kindred instances, and, after collecting a certain number, 

 I possibly reach the conclusion, as so many individuals have 

 done before me, that telepathy represents a proved mode of 

 human communication. Yet, scientifically, the problem is not 

 simple at all, for we must search for instances which resemble 

 this one, except for the peculiarity of the arresting coincidence. 

 That is, I must ask myself : Do I often require a book, another 

 person, a thought, without the book, other person, or thought 

 being encountered unexpectedly? The self-evident answer to 

 this query at once casts doubt on the first interpretation, for 

 the number of possible to real and impressive coincidences is 

 almost as infinity to one. In fact, if we are thorough, as it is 

 our duty to be, we shall institute a systematic enquiry into 

 the nature and frequency of coincidences, and it is much to 

 be hoped that this will be undertaken by some learned body. 



