But however badly I set down conclusions, they've all rested on data,
they've all grown up on data, and I haven't the data. . . . I wrote
out half a dozen pages and then asked myself, 'What would _you_ say
if a man came along professing to have made this discovery?
You'd demand his evidence, and you'd be right. Of course you'd be
right. And if he didn't produce it, you'd call him a quack.
Right again.' . . . From this personal point of view, to be sure, I
might take this sorry way out--print my conclusions, and anticipate
the demand for evidence by throwing myself overboard. . . . In the
dim and distant future some fellow might strike the lost path, take
the pains that I've taken, work out the theory, yes, and (it's even
possible) be generous enough to add that, by some freak of guessing,
in the year 1907, a certain Dr. John Foe, of whom nothing further is
known, did, in unscientific fashion, hit on the truth, or a part of
the truth. Oh, damn! _Why_ should I burn in the pit, or throw myself
overboard, or go down to the shades for a quack, because a thing like
you has crawled out of the Tottenham Court Road.
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