14 THE FOUNDATIONS OF SCIENCE 



We examine objects in the room by light which 

 comes through the window, and we look at the land- 

 scape without through the same coloured glass. 

 Before the ages of accurate scientific experiment, no 

 precautions were taken to isolate different coloured 

 lights, or to look steadily for a time through one part 

 of the window. But gradually it was found that the 

 confusion of colour and light which had disturbed 

 man's vision could be obviated. By covering all 

 the window with a movable shutter in which a 

 single small hole was cut, and placing the hole at the 

 point corresponding to any one science, a view both 

 of the room and of the world without was obtained 

 by the light of that one science only things were 

 seen steadily in one aspect. 



Moreover, men slowly invented methods of exami- 

 nation of greater and greater power. These methods 

 we may illustrate in our analogy by the idea of 

 telescopes of gradually increasing magnification, with 

 which we may look through the hole in the shutter 

 at the outside world, and slowly improving lenses 

 and microscopes for the investigation of objects 

 within the room. 



" To see life steadily and see it whole," we must 

 use successively light from all available sciences. 

 If we use but one colour we get a mental picture of 

 creation tinted by that light alone. If we use the 

 white light of the central metaphysical region only, 

 we fail to detect the complex nature of that white 



