THE HISTORY OF THE INVESTIGATION 17 



Itself has but few attractions for me. That knowledge which 

 brings one into touch with the life around one and enables the 

 observer and the observed to tell their common story is the 

 only thing that charms. I should feel no interest in inquiries 

 that led one to the confines of habitable space and left one 

 looking out on a dreary, cold, grey universe of nothingness. I 

 would instead get quickly home to my cosy terrestrial sur- 

 roundings and revel in thoughts that were comforting and 

 consoling. 



Yet the fancy must always play a part if we wish to profit 

 by and to make a real advance in any investigation. It would 

 be easy to sustain the view that mere digging for facts is like 

 digging into the ground. Under such conditions one does 

 not see much beyond the length of one's nose. It is doubtful 

 whether the progress of knowledge thus effected resolves itself 

 into much more than the splitting up of phenomena, or into a 

 process of differentiation that can only end in a relative zero. 

 On the other hand, if at times we leave the solid ground of 

 fact and rise into the air on the wings of fancy, we can at all 

 events greatly extend our range of mental vision, and can 

 mark down points for investigation which never would have 

 come under our notice whilst adopting the mole's method of 

 inquiry. It is the man in the air that gives the directions, and 

 the man on the ground that does the work. By Hmiting our 

 field of inquiry and excluding the play of fancy we are groping 

 about as blindly as an army without its air-men. The dreamers 

 figure in my mind as the leaders of the world. 



