“This activity itself of inventing brief formulae to resume the routine of our perceptions?”

“Yes.”

“Well, but what is the Good of it?  That is what it is so hard for a layman to get hold of.  Does it consist in the discovery of Reality?  For that, I could understand, would be good.”

“No,” he said, “for we do not profess to touch Reality.  We deal merely with our perceptions.”

“So that when, for example, you conceive such and such a perfect fluid, or whatever you call it, and such and such motions in it, you do not suppose this fluid to be real.”

“No.  It is merely a conception by means of which we are enabled to give an account of the order in which certain of our perceptions occur.  But it is very satisfactory to be able to give such an account.”

“I suppose it must be,” I said, “but once more, could you say more precisely wherein the satisfaction consists?  Is it, perhaps, in the discovery of necessary connections?”

“No,” he said, “we don’t admit necessity.  We admit only an order which is, as a matter of fact, regular.”

“You say, for example, that it so happens that all bodies do move in relation to one another in the way summed up in the law of gravitation; but that you see no reason why they should?”

“Yes.”

“But ...” began Dennis, who had found difficulty all this time in restraining himself.

“One moment!” I pleaded, “let Wilson have his say.”  And turning to him I continued:  “If, then, the satisfaction to be derived from scientific activity does not consist in the discovery of Reality, nor yet in that of necessary connection, wherein should you say, does it consist?  Perhaps in the regulating of expectation?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean, that it is painful for us to live in a world in which we don’t know what to expect; it excites not only our fears and apprehensions, but also a kind of intellectual disgust.  And, conversely, it is a relief and a pleasure to discover an order among our experiences, not only because it enables us the better to utilize them for our ends (for that belongs to the practical results of science), but because in itself we prefer order to disorder, even if no other advantage were to be got out of it.”

“I don’t know that we do!” objected Ellis, “it depends on the kind of order.  An order of dull routine is far more intolerable than a disorder of splendid possibilities!  Ask the Oriental why he objects to British rule!  Simply because it is regular!  He prefers the chances of rapine, violent and picturesque, to the dreary machine-like depredations of the tax-collector.”

“Yes,” I said, “but there you take in a number of complex factors.  I was thinking merely of the Good to be got out of scientific activity as such.  And I think there is an intellectual satisfaction in the discovery of order, even though it be dissociated from necessity.”