366 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 
amply rewarded by being privileged to solve, at its close, 
these infinitesimal motions. 
The inductive principle is founded in man's desire to 
know a desire arising fro in his position among phenomena 
which are reducible to order by his intellect. The material 
universe is the complement of the intellect; and, without 
the study of its laws, reason could never have awakened to 
the higher forms of self-consciousness at all. It is the 
Non-ego through and by which the Ego is endowed with 
self-discernment. AVe hold it to be an exercise of reason 
to explore the meaning of a universe to which we stand 
in this relation, and the work we have accomplished is the 
proper commentary on the methods. we have pursued. 
Before these methods were adopted the unbridled imag- 
ination roamed through nature, putting in the place of 
law the figments of superstitious dread. For thousands 
of years witchcraft, and magic, and miracles, and special 
providences, and Mr. Mozley's " distinctive reason of man," 
had the world to themselves. They made worse than 
nothing of it worse, I say, because they let and hindered 
those who might have made something of it. Hence it is, 
that during a single lifetime of this era of " unintelligent 
impulse," the progress in knowledge is all but infinite as 
compared with that of the ages which preceded ours. 
The believers in magic and miracles of a couple of cen- 
turies ago had all the strength of Mr. Mozley's present 
logic on their side. They had done for themselves what 
he rejoices in having so effectually done for us cleared 
the ground of the belief in theorder of nature, and declared 
magic, miracles, and witchcraft to be matters for " ordinary 
evidence" to decide. "The principle of miracles" thus 
"befriended" had free scope, and we know the result. 
Lacking that rock-barrier of natural knowledge which we 
now possess, keen jurists and cultivated men were hurried 
on to deeds, the bare recital of which makes the blood run 
cold. Skilled in all the rules of human evidence, and 
versed in all the arts of cross-examination, these men, 
nevertheless, went systematically astray, and committed 
the deadliest wrongs against humanity. And why? Be- 
cause they could not put Na,ture into the witness-box, and 
question her of her voiceless "testimony" they knew 
nothing. In all cases between man and man, their judg- 
