xl REPORT-—1845. 
possible to over-estimate the effect of this fiscal change on a variety of other 
sciences to which the costliness of glass apparatus has been hitherto an ex- 
ceeding drawback, not only from the actual expense of apparatus already in 
common use, but as repressing the invention and construction of new appli- 
cations of this useful material. 
A great deal of attention has been lately, and I think very wisely, drawn 
to the philosophy of science and to the principles of logic, as founded, not on 
arbitrary and pedantic forms, but on a careful inductive inquiry into the 
grounds of human belief, and the nature and extent of man’s intellectual 
faculties. If we are ever to hope that science will extend its range into the 
domain of social conduct, and model the course of human actions on that 
thoughtful and effective adaptation of means to their end, which is its funda- 
mental principle in all its applications (the means being here the total devo- 
tion of our moral and intellectual powers—the end, our own happiness and 
that of all around us)—if such be the far hopes and long-protracted aspira- 
tions of science, its philosophy and its logic assume a paramount importance, 
in proportion to the practical danger of erroneous conceptions in the one, and 
fallacious tests of the validity of reasoning in the other. 
On both these subjects works of first-rate importance have of late illustrated 
the scientific literature of this country. On the philosophy of science, we 
have witnessed fhe production, by the pen of a most distinguished member 
of this University, of a work so comprehensive in its views, so vivid in its 
illustrations, and so right-minded in its leading directions, that it seems to 
me impossible for any man of science, be his particular department of inquiry 
what it may, to rise from its perusal without feeling himself strengthened and 
invigorated for his own especial pursuit, and placed in a more favourable 
position for discovery in it than before, as well as more competent to estimate 
the true philosophical value and import of any new views which may open 
to him in its prosecution. From the peculiar and @ priori point of view in 
which the distinguished author of the work in question has thought proper to 
place himself before his subject, many may dissent; and I own myself to be 
of the number ;—but from this point of view it is perfectly possible to depart 
without losing sight of the massive reality of that subject itself: on the con- 
trary, that reality will be all the better seen and understood, and its magni- 
tude felt when viewed from opposite sides, and under the influence of every 
accident of light and shadow which peculiar habits of thought may throw 
over it. 
Accordingly, in the other work to which I have made allusion, and which, 
under the title of a ‘System of Logic,’ has for its object to give “a con- 
nected view of the princyples of evidence and the methods of scientific investi- 
gation,” its acute, and in many respects profound author, taking up an 
almost diametrically opposite station, and looking to experience as the ulti- 
mate foundation of all knowledge—at least, of all scientific knowledge, in 
its simplest axioms as well as in its most remote results—has presented us 
with a view of the inductive philosophy, very different indeed in its general 
aspect, but in which, when carefully examined, most essential features may 
be recognised as identical, while some are brought out with a salience and 
effect which could not be attained from the contrary point of sight. It cannot 
be expected that I should enter into any analysis or comparison of these re- 
markable works ; but it seemed to me impossible to avoid pointedly mention- 
ing them on this occasion, because they certainly, taken together, leave 
the philosophy of science, and indeed the principles of all general reasoning, 
in avery different state from that in which they foundthem. Their influence 
indeed, and that of some other works of prior date, in which the same gene- 
ral subjects have been more lightly touched upon, has already begun to be fe 
