set about inferring them, much less does it reach the
inference. We have to take its facts, and to give them a meaning, and to draw our own conclusion from them." In a very closely reasoned but easily intelligible pamphlet, The Ideal Aim of Physical Science (Cambridge University Press), Professor E. W. Hobson argues the independence of science : it is the duty of science to describe phenomena, not to interpret them, he thinks ; the impulse to scientific research is curiosity, not utility. The question of how far even description is dependent upon preconception, upon the choice of what you wish to see, is not thoroughly discussed ; but this is a stimulating book and it contains, incidentally, a lucid state- ment of the Einstein theory. Mr. W. F. F. Shearcroft recounts The Story of the Atom simply and without equations or technical terms for the general reader (Benn).
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