The Domain of Physical Science 191 



yourself with false conceptions of things — an atmosphere of lies. 

 More particularly in religion anything but the highest truth is a 

 lie." But surely there must be something wrong if reverence 

 for the highest truth demands that we should make the ludicrous 

 exhibition of it described in our opening paragraphs. Nay, stern 

 moralist ! You are begging the question with your higher truths 

 and lower truths. Truth is a diamond of many facets, darting 

 now one ray, now another, into our lives. The scientist may 

 find the pure element within and express its essence by the pre- 

 cise formula of a cubic lattice — it is his business to make such 

 analyses. But is the dull carbon to be prized higher than the 

 radiant lustre } 



We ask the method and purpose of the scientist in seeking out 

 a conception of the things around us so much at variance with our 

 usual conception of them. To a certain extent the answer is 

 simple ; the scientist looks at the world through a magnifying 

 glass. Under magnification the plank dissolves into atoms ; 

 these in turn under higher power of scrutiny dissolve into still 

 smaller electric charges. The original plank is lost ; as the saying 

 is, we cannot see the wood for the trees. Magnification gives us 

 the world as we might suppose it to appear to creatures built on a 

 smaller scale than ourselves, capable of appreciating smaller dis- 

 tances, shorter moments of time. Do we really get nearer to the 

 truth of things by changing from the point of view of a man to that 

 of a microbe ? Attention has often been called to the insignifi- 

 cance of the human creature in the great universe ; he strives for 

 knowledge as an atom battling with immensity. It would be 

 strange indeed if the efforts of science were solely to secure the 

 vantage-point of greater insignificance. 



Before we can state the truth about the external world, before 

 we can quarrel as to whether it is like this or like that, we must 

 agree on some kind of definition of what is to be understood by the 

 phrase " external world." I do not think there ought to be much 

 difficulty in coming to an understanding. The reader should 

 perhaps first be warned against such definitions as " the external 

 world consists of those things which really exist," a statement 

 which merely provokes the much more difficult question of 

 whether you or I have the faintest notion of how the process of 

 " existing " is performed. The idea of an external world suggests 

 something that can be looked at from a point of view other than 



