CHAPTER II.
PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS.
1.

We need a survey of the missionary situation in the world which will express the facts in terms of the relationships between the different missionary activities and between them all in relation to a dominant idea or purpose.

Such a survey is strictly scientific.

All scientific survey is properly governed by the end or purpose for which it is made.
It is this purpose or end which decides what is to be included and what is to be excluded from the survey.

If, for instance, we are making a survey of the acoustic properties of church buildings in England, it is not scientific to introduce questions as to the character of the gospel preached in them.