194 Mr, Huxley^ on Natural History, [Feb. 15, 



For the successful carrying on of the business of life, no less 

 than for the pursuit of science, it is essential that the mind should 

 easily and accurately perform the four great intellectual processes 

 of observation, experiment, induction, and deduction. No training 

 can be so well adapted to develope the first of these faculties as that 

 of the naturalist, the very foundation of whose studies lies in exact 

 observation of characters and nice discrimination of resemblances 

 and differences. In fact, the skilled naturalist is the only man who 

 combines the moral and intellectual advantages of civilization with 

 that acuteness and minute accuracy of perception which distinguish 

 the savage hunter ; and if man's senses are to keep pace with his 

 intellect as the world grows older, natural history observation must 

 be made a branch of ordinary education. 



Again, what science can present more perfect examples of the 

 application of the methods of experiment than physiology ? All that 

 we know of the physiology of the nervous system rests on experiment ; 

 and if we turn to other functions, the investigations of Bernard 

 might be cited as striking specimens of experimental research. 



To say that natural history as a science is equivalent to the 

 assertion that it exercises the inductive and deductive faculties ; but 

 it is often forgotten that the so-called "natural classification" of 

 living beings is, in reality, not mere classification, but the result of 

 a great series of inductive investigations. In a " natural classifica- 

 tion " the definitions of the classes are, in fact, the laws of living 

 form, obtained, like all other laws, by a process of induction from 

 observed facts. 



For examples of the exercise of deduction, of the arguing 

 from the laws of living form obtained by induction, to their legiti- 

 mate consequences, the whole science of palaeontology may be cited. 

 As has been already shown, the whole process of palseontological 

 restoration depends — First, on the validity of a law of the invariable 

 coincidence of certain organic peculiarities established by induction ; 

 Secondly, on the accuracy of the logical process of deduction from 

 this law. Professor Owen's determination of the nature of the famous 

 Stonesfield mammal is a striking illustration of this. A small jaw 

 of a peculiar shape, was found, containing a great number of teeth 

 some of which were imbedded by double fangs in the jaw. 



Now these laws have been inductively established — 



(a) That only mammals have teeth imbedded in a double 

 socket. 



(Jb) That only marsupials have teeth in so great a number, 

 imbedded in so peculiarly formed a jaw. 



By deduction from these laws to the case in question, the legiti- 

 mate conclusion was arrived at, that the jaw belonged to a marsupial 

 mammal. 



The naturalist then, who faithfully follows his calling leaves no 

 side of his intellect untrained ; but, after all, intellect, however 

 gigantic, confers but half the qualifications required by one who 



