XI PHENOMENA OF ORGANIC NATURE 363 



a very great man, let people say what they will of 

 him ; but notwithstanding all that he did for 

 philosophy, it would be entirely wrong to suppose 

 that the methods of modern scientific inquiry 

 originated with him, or with his age ; they origin 

 ated with the first man, whoever he was; and 

 indeed existed long before him, for many of the 

 essential processes of reasoning are exerted by the 

 higher order of brutes as completely and effectively 

 as by ourselves. We see in many of the brute 

 creation the exercise of one, at least, of the same 

 powers of reasoning as that which we ourselves 

 employ. 



The method of scientific investigation is nothing 

 but the expression of the necessary mode of work 

 ing of the human mind. It is simply the mode 

 at which all phenomena are reasoned about, ren 

 dered precise and exact. There is no more differ 

 ence, but there is just the same kind of difference, 

 between the mental operations of a man of science 

 and those of an ordinary person, as there is between 

 the operations and methods of a baker or of a 

 butcher weighing out his goods in common scales, 

 and the operations of a chemist in performing a 

 difficult and complex analysis by means of his 

 balance and finely-graduated weights. It is not 

 that the action of the scales in the one case, and 

 the balance in the other, differ in the principles of 

 their construction or manner of working ; but the 

 beam of one is set on an infinitely finer axis than 



