On the Optical and Physiological Discoveries, #c. 259 



Art. XIII. — Farther Observations on the supposed Optical 

 and Physiological Discoveries of Mr Charles Bell 



" Que d'ecueils doit craindre celui qui prend son imagination pour guide ! 

 Prevenu pour la cause quelle lui presente, loin de la rejeter lorsque les 

 t'aits lui sont contraire, il les altere pour les plier a ses hypotheses ; il inu- 

 tile, si je puis ainsi dire, l'ouvrage de la nature, pour le faire ressembler a 

 celui de son imagination ; sans reflechir que le temps detruit d'une main 

 ces vaines phan tomes, et de l'autre affermit les resultats du calcul et de 

 l'experience." Laplace, Expos, du Syst. du Monde, liv. v. chap. iv. 



The superiority of physical over metaphysical science has 

 been generally held to consist in the superior evidence of its 

 facts and reasonings. We accordingly find that scientific 

 controversies have related principally to technical questions 

 respecting priority of inventions and discoveries, and that, 

 in those cases where they have involved points of pure sci- 

 ence, either one or both of the combatants have been un- 

 able to discover the truth themselves, or incapable of re- 

 cognizing it when it has been brought before them with all 

 the fulness of demonstration. Those who have once ventured 

 to publish extravagant opinions on the authority of hasty 

 observations, and ill-devised experiments, are not likely to 

 renounce them, even when their absurdity has been calmly 

 and courteously pointed out. The love of truth is not the mov- 

 ing principle of such minds. A feverish thirst of fame alone 

 impels them, and, under the influence of this passion, they 

 seek to involve truth in an ambuscade, or to get possession of 

 her by storm, — while humbler and less ambitious spirits are on- 

 ly rearing the redoubts by which her outworks can be ap- 

 proached, and her strong holds secured. When a controver- 

 sy, therefore, arises between these two classes of inquirers, 

 between those who, as Laplace elegantly expresses it, muti- 

 late, as it were, the work of nature, in order to make it re- 

 semble that of their own imagination, and those who found 

 their results on calculation and experiment, we must not sup- 

 pose that the empire of science is divided against itself, or that 

 her eternal and immutable laws can be thus brought into doubt 

 These observations have been suggested by some controver- 

 sial discussions, to which we have had occasion to direct the at- 



VOL. V. NO. II. OCTOBER 826. S 



