90

[1908 Nov. 19 Logic I. i. 9]
the public do not understand the condition the statement of
which I have italicized above is shown by their often demanding that the
'scientists' should investigate this or that phenomenon not to ascertain
whether it accords with established principles (which can always be
done,) but to discover what new secret it involves; and now and then
we hear scientific men themselves acknowledge the reasonableness of such
demand. Yet that the italicized statement is true, several great discoverers have
virtually declared; and a much stronger argument for
it, as not depending upon any fallible opinion is the frequency
with which, in the history of science, epochal discoveries of the most
astounding novelty have been discovered simultaneously by more
men up to half a dozen. For this is an inevitable consequence of the
italicized condition, which otherwise seems inexplicable. If the substance