IQ2 PART IV.- PREPARATORY STAGE. 



Mill's text. Just as any science progresses, so in inductive 

 logic progress would be clearly perceptible when we compared 

 a recent work on logic with Mill's Logic. Here, as with deduc- 

 tion, one notices the surprising fact that the expounders of 

 inductive logic are as nearly as possible complete strangers to 

 their subject, if a scientific standard be applied. They offer 

 unintentionally a fundamentally inadequate presentment of the 

 scientific process, and, in this respect, therefore, mislead their 

 readers instead of guiding them aright. Insistence on theo- 

 retical certainty, and a conviction that this can be compassed 

 by speculation, mark perhaps every one of these manuals, and 

 render them useless for promoting an understanding of scienti- 

 fic method, for scientific method is no more concerned with 

 theoretical certainty than with pure speculation, but is con- 

 tinuously controlled and guided by carefully ascertained facts, 

 and by the belief that theoretical certainty is an ideal which 

 can only be distantly approached in practice." 



71. Even in the physical sciences the lack of a methodo- 

 logy is sometimes strikingly exemplified, witness the works 

 relating to Sound. Here there has been a steady flow of text- 

 books from year to year during the last quarter of a century, 

 with scarcely any perceptible progress, precisely as if the 

 science of sound had already attained to the pinnacle of perfec- 

 tion. Yet on examining these text-books, they as a rule appear 

 plainly to bear the marks of patch-work knowledge, with little 

 order, many lacunae, not a little of questionable authenticity, 

 and no consciousness of the need of improvement. Surely, in 

 a methodological age, a writer on Sound would make an unr 

 prejudiced and exhaustive study of the subject, and appreciably 

 advance the science by filling in gaps,, correcting errors, and 

 clarifying concepts. By this day we ought to possess text-books 

 that are virtually complete so far as the main categories are 

 concerned, and that conveyed the truths in question in a lucid 

 and organic manner. Mechanical repetitions, where the problems 

 themselves are not abstruse, should be regarded as reflecting 

 small credit on a work. Nor should the occasional revision or 

 addition of a point or two be deemed adequate. The result 

 of such a poor conception of the role of a writer is that too 

 frequently scientific works are overloaded with traditional 

 matter, and offer little encouragement to the student to pursue 

 the paths of original research. Broadly speaking, he learns 

 his text-book by rote ; by rote he later teaches it ; and by rote 

 he writes a new text-book. In fact, leaving aside musical- 

 acoustics, which has been assiduously cultivated, the last gene- 

 ration or so appears only to muster in England two decidedly 

 stimulating books on Sound TyndalPs deservedly popular work 

 and Lord Raleigh's masterly treatise. 



If traditionalism be one cause of comparative stagnation in 

 science, another is over-specialisation. Like bees fly indefati- 



