Lamphigh : Man as an Instrument of Research. 193 



cussions among scientific workers over apparently contradictory 

 results owe their origin to some obscure yet radical misunder- 

 standing arising from a faulty medium of expression. 



I suppose that one of the chief difficulties experienced by 

 everyone using language for the description of phenomena 

 is that the observed facts form, as it were, an entangled mass, 

 with innumerable threads, interlacing, converging, diverging 

 around their common centre in all directions ; whereas their 

 expression in language necessitates that the corresponding ideas 

 shall be spun off in linear sequence on a single plane. Hence 

 it is well-nigh impossible to reproduce the original massed effect 

 picturing all the facts in their complicated relations. We can 

 only strive to select and arrange the material in such order as 

 is most likely to enable another mind to reconstruct the dimen- 

 sional relations from our consecutive statement. But we 

 know that our intention is often very imperfectly attained, and 

 that the process of transferrence entails the loss of many factors 

 of consequence and the severance of many interlacing links. 



There is, of course, great variation of individual faculty 

 in this particular ; but even the clearest exponent is able to 

 convey only a part of his impressions. Though he may arrange 

 this part so skilfull}^ that the rest of the picture is implied, 

 through suggestion and association ; yet he can never be assured 

 of the precise effect of his exposition, since the minds which are 

 the receiving instruments conform to no fixed standard and 

 are of varied range. 



To realise the measure of this obstacle to our fitness as 

 instruments of research, let anyone recall for a moment any 

 instance wherein he brought his own senses to bear for the 

 first time upon some object (a geological section supplies me 

 personally with a good example) of which he had previously 

 formed a mental image from description. How rare is it in 

 such cases that the previous idea coincides with the actual 

 impression and remains unchanged by it ! In main outlines, 

 the two may conform ; but the details have generally to 

 undergo kaleidoscopic rearrangement. 



n this be so in the domain of science where every effort is 

 made to ensure faithfulness in the record, it is no wonder that 

 the discrepancy between the fact and its description should 

 often be so wide in other fields where there is no such striving 

 after accuracy. Do not our newspapers provide us daily with 

 evident examples ? 



J1910 May I. 



