“Have you ever given any attention to the Science of Evidence?” said Mr. Grodman. “How do you mean?” asked the Home Secretary, rather puzzled, but with a melancholy smile. “I should hardly speak of it as a science; I look at it as a question of common sense.”

“Pardon me, sir. It is the most subtle and difficult of all the sciences. It is indeed rather the science of the sciences. What is the whole of inductive logic, as laid down (say) by Bacon and Mill, but an attempt to appraise the value of evidence, the said evidence being the trails left by the Creator, so to speak? The Creator has (I say it in all reverence) drawn a myriad red herrings across the track. But the true scientist refuses to be baffied by superficial appearances in detecting the secrets of Nature.”