CHAPTER X

UNITED effort through geological time in front is but the beginning of an idea. I am convinced that much more can be done, and that the length of time may be almost immeasurably shortened. The general prin- ciples that are now in operation are of the simplest and most elementary character, yet they have already made considerable difference. I am not content with these, There must be much more—there must be things which are at present unknown by whose aid advance may be made. Research proceeds upon the same old lines and runs in the ancient grooves. Further, it is re- stricted by the ultra-practical views which
are alone deemed reasonable. But there 161 Te
162 THE STORY OF MY HEART
should be no limit placed on the mind. The purely ideal is as worthy of pursuit as the practical, and the mind is not to be pinned to dogmas of science any more than to dogmas of superstition. Most injurious of all is the continuous circling on the same path, and it is from this that I wish to free my mind.
The pursuit of theory—the organon of pure thought—has led incidentally to great discoveries, and for myself I am convinced it is of the highest value. The process of experiment has produced much, and has applied what was previously found. Em- piricism is worthy of careful re-working out, for it is a fact that most things are more or less empirical, especially in medicine. Denial may be given to this statement, nevertheless it is true, and I have had practical exemplification of it in my own
experience, Observation is perhaps more
THE STORY/“OF MY HEART 163
_ powerful an organon than either experiment or empiricism. If the eye is always watch- ing, and the mind on the alert, ultimately chance supplies the solution.
The difficulties I have encountered have generally been solved by chance in this way. When I took an interest in archeological matters—an interest long since extinct—I considered that a part of an army known to have marched in a certain direction during the Civil War must have visited a town in which I was interested. But I exhausted every mode of research in vain; there was no evidence of it. If the knowledge had ever existed it had dropped again. Some years afterwards, when my interest had ceased, and I had put such inquiries for ever aside (being useless, like the Egyptian papyri), I was reading in the British Museum. Pre- sently I returned my book to the shelf, and
then slowly walked along the curving wall
164 THE STORY OF MY HEART
lined with volumes, looking to see if I could light on anything to amuse me. I took out a volume for a glance; it opened of itself at a certain page, and there was the information I had so long sought—a reprint of an old pamphlet describing the visit of the army to the town in the Civil War. So chance answered the question in the course of time.
And I think that, seeing how great a