SCIENTIFIC METHOD AND THE BIBLE. 295 



bers were found to welcome the new truths; and at ahnost the same 

 time Descartes bj his essay on Scientific Method, and Bacon by the 

 Novum Organum, were able to give an impetus to scientific in- 

 vestigation such as the world had never felt before. 



The history of the progress of science from that time to this 

 is too complex to receive any treatment in a paper of this charac- 

 ter. How it has been throughout a record of successive triumphs; 

 how gradually one department after another of Nature's workings 

 has been mastered and reduced to orderly system; how all systems 

 liave been themselves reduced to one, harmonious and complete, in 

 the magnificent generalization of evolution; how all the time not 

 only has the sum of knowledge been steadily augmented, but the 

 power of acquiring knowledge marvelously enlarged — all of that 

 we know. That which has accomplished such results is science, 

 and the process employed has been scientific method. We are 

 in a position now to have a fairly intelligent idea of it. Look at 

 it and see. 



" Scientific method " is not, of course, a technical expression, as 

 are induction, deduction, etc. Yet it means something very definite. 

 It is that method of dealing with phenomena which reason declares 

 and experience has shown to insure the greatest accuracy in results. 

 There are in the complete process four necessary steps: 1. Observa- 

 tion of facts. 2. Comparison and classification, or generalization. 

 3. Deduction. 4. Verification. 



We can see these steps alike in the simplest scientific attempt 

 of our remote ancestors, and in the work of a Newton or a 

 Darwin. 



To use an illustration of the former suggested by the book of 

 Leviticus. In very early times it was noticed that animals that 

 had both the characteristics of being cloven-hoofed and of chewing 

 the cud were good for food. A new animal is discovered having 

 those characteristics. It is argued from the general principle laid 

 down that this new animal is good for food, and the matter is veri- 

 fied by experiment. There are the four distinct steps: observation 

 of the facts, drawing a principle from the comparison of the facts, 

 deducing as to the particular case, verifying. The result is, of 

 course, not only a classifying of the particular case, but also the 

 extension of the principle. So with the generalization of the law 

 of gravitation. Numberless facts were observed with the greatest 

 care; from them the principle was generalized; from that again de- 

 ductions were made as to particular cases; and the results were veri- 

 fied. But though the steps of the process are the same in both in- 

 stances, yet what a vast difference between them! Take the first 

 step, the observation of facts. All that the thought of the earlier 



