ies.
My father was remarkable for not letting what seem to be trifling facts
pass without suggesting to him a theory. The flies that are caught on
the sundew must have been seen by innumerable people--but it remained for
him to prove the truth of his guess that some plants possess digestive
ferments like our own, and live on the insects they catch and digest.

The art of being guided by slight indications is sometimes called the
method of Zadig, which I learn from Mr. Huxley's essay and not from
Voltaire. Mr. Huxley points out that it is not only possible thus to
prophesy what will happen, but also to determine what has happened; and
he suggests that there should be a word 'backtell' as well as foretell.
Zadig, who was an oriental philosopher, met one day the King's servants
in great trouble about the loss of their master's favourite horse. When
asked whether he had seen it he said, "A fine galloper, is it not? small
hoofed, five feet high, tail 3.5 feet long. Cheek-pieces of the bit
23-carat gold, shoes silver." They of course begged to know where it
was, and he said he had not seen it.

This will be recognised as the method of Sherlock Holmes, but it is also
the method of science. Surely you would like to become scientific under
the guidance of that great man. Of course you are not to be Watsons, but
actual detectives, with Watsons of your own to admire you. And lest you
should fear that the scientific method is alarmingly difficult, I may add
that the method of Zadig or Sherlock Holmes, or of science in general, is
nothing more than glorified common-sense.

It is difficult to talk about a subject which interests one without
seeming to claim that it is superior to all others. I have not meant to
imply this. I have only tried to explain in what way science differs
from some other sort of knowledge. Nor do I wish to imply that the mind
that excels in science is better or worse than that which one finds in a
great literary man. An eminent oar is worthy of as much respect as a
great cricketer, but he is eminent in a different way.

I am glad to think that there are points in which science, literature,
and art are equally excellent--namely, in giving to mankind some of the
deepest pleasures of which he is capable, in making him realise the
wonder, the beauty and the romance of the world. I spoke of the power of
science in knitting together isolated facts into a theory. And such a
theory may become so all e