“Bx PHENOMENA OF ORGANIC NATURE 361 
rate, setting out to discover how much we at 
present know upon these abstruse matters, the 
question arises as to what is to be our course of 
proceeding, and what method we must lay down 
for our guidance. I reply to that question, that 
our method must be exactly the same as that which 
is pursued in any other scientific inquiry, the 
method of scientific investigation being the same 
for all orders of facts and phenomena whatsoever. 
I must dwell a little on this point, for I wish you 
to leave this room with a very clear conviction that 
scientific investigation is not,as many people seem 
to suppose, some kind of modern black art. I say 
that you might easily gather this impression from 
the. manner in which many persons speak of 
scientific inquiry, or talk about inductive and 
deductive philosophy, or the principles of the 
_“Baconian philosophy.” I do protest that, of the 
-yast number of cants in this world, there are 
none, to my mind, so contemptible as the pseudo- 
scientific cant which is talked about the “ Baconian 
_ philosophy.” 
To hear people talk about the great Chancellor 
_—and a very great man he certainly was,—you 
would think that it was he who had invented 
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| ¥ 
science, and that there was no such thing as 
sound reasoning before the time of Queen 
Elizabeth! Of course you say, that cannot 
possibly be true; you perceive, on a moment’s 
reflection, that such an idea is absurdly wrong, 
