METHOD OF DISCOVERY. 63 



at all ; it is only rendered highly probable by a series 

 of inductive and deductive reasonings. 



I suppose your first action, assuming you are a man 

 of ordinary common sense, and that you have estab- 

 lished this hypothesis to your own satisfaction, will 

 very likely be to go off for the police, and set them on 

 the track of the burglar, with the view to the recovery 

 of your property. But just as you are starting with 

 this object, some person comes in, and on learning what 

 you are about, says, " My good friend, you are going 

 on a great deal too fast. How do you know that the 

 man who really made the marks took the spoons ? It 

 might have been a monkey that took them, and the 

 man may have merely looked in afterwards." You 

 would probably reply, " Well, that is all very well, 

 but you see it is contrary to all experience of the way 

 tea-pots and spoons are abstracted ; so that, at any rate, 

 your hypothesis is less probable than mine." While 

 you are talking the thing over in this way, another 

 friend arrives, one of that good kind of people that I 

 was talking of a little while ago. And he might say, 

 " Oh, my dear sir, you are certainly going on a great 

 deal too fast. You are most presumptuous. You ad- 

 mit that all these occurrences took place when you 

 were fast asleep, at a time when you could not possibly 

 have known anything about what was taking place. 

 How do you know that the laws of Nature are not sus- 

 pended during the night ? It may be that there has 

 been some kind of supernatural interference in this 

 case." In point of fact, he declares that your hypoth- 

 esis is one of which you cannot at all demonstrate the 

 truth, and that you are by no means sure that the 



