is the adoption of a definite and acknowledged purpose for which the
survey is to be made and the collection of all the facts which bear upon
the subject in hand. The facts are selected, but they are selected not
by the prejudices or partiality of the surveyor, but by their own innate
and inherent relationship to the subject.

A scientific survey can only be a collection of facts; but inferences
will certainly be drawn from the facts which will direct the policy of
those who administer foreign missionary societies. The drawing of these
inferences from the material collected must be carefully distinguished
from the collection of the material (i.e. the making of the survey). The
latter precedes the former and is independent of it. Inferences hastily
drawn, or prematurely adopted, would only tend to discredit missionary
survey as a means to the attainment of truth. The adoption of a
hypothesis and the making of a survey in order to prove it by a careful
selection and manipulation of facts would not discredit survey as a
means to the attainment of truth; it would only discredit and debase the
moral character of the man who made such a survey.

2. The survey here treated of is missionary survey, that is to say, it
treats of missions and is governed by a missionary purpose. And it is a
survey of Christian missions; therefore it is governed by the purpose of
spreading the knowledge of Christ. This statement is of great importance
and needs to be carefully conned before it is accepted, because by it
missionary survey will be distinguished from all other survey. For
instance, medical boards survey medical institutions. Their sole
concern is whether those institutions are well found and efficient.[1]
But when a missionary surveys a missionary hospital (if the principle
which we propound is accepted), he surveys it not _qua_ medical
establishment but _qua_ missionary utensil. The object is not to find