120 DISCOURSE ON THE STUDY 



circumstances, so far as we have been able to collect 

 them, co-exist ? 



(111.) The circumstances, then, which accompany 

 any observed fact, are main features in its ob- 

 servation, at least until it is ascertained by sufficient 

 experience what circumstances have nothing to do 

 with it, and might therefore have been left unob- 

 served without sacrificing the fact. In observing and 

 recording a fact, therefore, altogether new, we ought 

 not to omit any circumstance capable of being noted, 

 lest some one of the omitted circumstances should 

 be essentially connected with the fact, and its 

 omission should, therefore, reduce the implied state- 

 ment of a law of nature to the mere record of an 

 historical event. For instance, in the fall of meteoric 

 stones, flashes of fire are seen proceeding from a 

 cloud, and a loud rattling noise like thunder is 

 heard. These circumstances, and the sudden stroke 

 and destruction ensuing, long caused them to be 

 confounded with an effect of lightning, and called 

 thunderbolts. But one circumstance is enough to 

 mark the difference : the flash and sound have 

 been perceived occasionally to emanate from a very 

 small cloud insulated in a clear sky ; a combination 

 of circumstances which never happens in a thunder 

 storm, but which is undoubtedly intimately con- 

 nected with their real origin. 



(112.) Recorded observation consists of two dis- 

 tinct parts : 1st, an exact notice of the thing 

 observed, and of all the particulars which may be 

 supposed to have any natural connection with it ; 

 and, 2dly, a true and faithful record of them. As our 

 senses are the only inlets by which we receive im- 



