116 DISCOURSE ON THE STUDY 



and from experiment to experiment, without a 

 moment's intermission, and with a sort of undistin- 

 guishing appetite ; while Hooke (the great contem- 

 porary, and almost the worthy rival, of Newton) 

 carried a keener eye of scrutinizing reason into a 

 range of research even yet more extensive. As 

 facts multiplied, leading phenomena became pro- 

 minent, laws began to emerge, and generalizations 

 to commence ; and so rapid was the career of dis- 

 covery, so signal the triumph of the inductive phi- 

 losophy, that a single generation and the efforts 

 of a single mind sufficed for the establishment of 

 the system of the universe, on a basis never after 

 to be shaken. 



(108.) We shall now endeavour to enumerate and 

 explain in detail the principal steps by which legiti- 

 mate -and extensive inductions are arrived at, and 

 the processes by which the mind, in the investi- 

 gation of natural laws, purges itself by successive 

 degrees of the superfluities and incumbrances which 

 hang about particulars, and obscure the perception 

 of their points of resemblance and connection. We 

 shall state the helps which may be afforded us, in 

 a work of so much thought and labour, by a metho- 

 dical course of proceeding, and by a careful notice 

 of those means which have at any time been found 

 successful, with a view to their better understanding 

 and adaptation to other cases : a species of mental 

 induction of no mean utility and extent in itself; 

 inasmuch as by pursuing it alone we can attain a 

 more intimate knowledge than we actually possess 

 of the laws which regulate our discovery of truth, 



