METHOD OF DISCOVERY. 57 



on an infinitely finer axis than 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 re- 

 peated, 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 cun- 

 ning skill of their own, they build up Hypotheses and 

 Theories. And it is imagined by many, that the opera- 

 tions 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 dif- 

 ferently 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 un- 

 bounded delight on being told that he had been talk- 

 ing prose during the whole of his life. In the same 

 way, I trust, that you will take comfort, and be de- 

 lighted with yourselves, on the discovery that you 

 have been acting on the principles of inductive and 

 deductive philosophy during the same period. Prob- 

 ably there is not one here to-night who has not in the 

 course of the day had occasion to set in motion a com- 

 plex train of reasoning, of the very same kind, though 

 difFerinor of course in decree, as that which a scientific 

 3* 



