278 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENCE. 



seems to fail at several points. If past time be infinite, 

 why may not matter have been created infinite also 1 It 

 would be most reasonable, again, to suppose the matter 

 destroyed in any time to be proportional to the matter 

 then remaining, and not to the original quantity ; under 

 this hypothesis even a finite quantity of original matter 

 could never wholly disappear from the universe. For like 

 reasons we cannot hold that the doctrine of the Conserva 

 tion of Energy is really proved, or can ever be proved to 

 be absolutely true, however probable it may be regarded 

 on many grounds. 



Tendency to Hasty Generalization. 



In spite of all the powers and advantages of generali 

 zation, men require no incitement to generalize ; they are 

 too apt to draw hasty and ill-considered inferences. As 

 Francis Bacon said, our intellects want not wings, but 

 rather weights of lead to moderate their course 1 . The 

 process is inevitable to the human mind ; it begins with 

 childhood and lasts through the second childhood. The 

 child that has once been hurt fears the like result on all 

 similar occasions, and can with difficulty be made to dis 

 tinguish between case and case. It is caution and dis 

 crimination in the adoption of general conclusions that we 

 chiefly have to learn, and the whole experience of life is 

 one continued lesson to this effect. Baden Powell has 

 excellently described this strong natural propensity to 

 hasty inference, arid the fondness of the human mind for 

 tracing resemblances real or fanciful. Our first induc 

 tions, he says k , are always imperfect and inconclusive ; 

 we advance towards real evidence by successive approxi 

 mations : and accordingly we find false generalization the 



i Novum Organum, bk. I. Aphorism 104. 



k The Unity of Worlds and of Nature/ 2nd edit. p. 16. 



