364 THE CAUSES OF THE xi 



the other, and of course turns by the addition of 

 a much smaller weight. 



You will understand this better, perhaps, if I 

 give you some familiar example. You have all 

 heard it repeated, I dare say, that men of science 

 work by means of induction and deduction, and 

 that by the help of these operations, they, in a sort 

 of sense, wring from Nature certain other things, 

 which are called natural laws, and causes, and 

 that out of these, by some cunning skill of their 

 own, they build up hypotheses and theories. 

 And it is imagined by many, that the operations 

 of the common mind can be by no means com- 

 pared with these processes, and that they have to 

 be acquired by a sort of special apprenticeship to 

 the craft. To hear all these large words, you 

 would think that the mind of a man of science 

 must be constituted differently from that of his 

 fellow men ; but if you will not be frightened by 

 terms, you will discover that you are quite wrong, 

 and that all these terrible apparatus are being 

 used by yourselves every day and every hour of 

 your lives. 



There is a well-known incident in one of 

 Moliere's plays, where the author makes the hero 

 express unbounded delight on being told that he 

 had been talking prose during the whole of his 

 life. In the same way, I trust, that you will take 

 comfort, and be delighted with yourselves, on the 

 discovery that you have been acting on the prin- 



