CHAPTER VII. 



OF OBSERVATION AND EXPERIMENT. 



1. IT results from the preceding exposition, that the 

 process of ascertaining what consequents, in nature, are inva- 

 riably connected with what antecedents, or in other words 

 what phenomena are related to each other as causes and 

 effects, is in some sort a process of analysis. That every 

 fact which begins to exist has a cause, and that this cause 

 must be found somewhere among the facts which imme- 

 diately preceded the occurrence, may be taken for certain. 

 The whole of the present facts are the infallible result of all 

 past facts, and more immediately of all the facts which 

 existed at the moment previous. Here, then, is a great 

 sequence, which we know to be uniform. If the whole prior 

 state of the entire universe could again recur, it would again 

 be followed by the present state. The question is, how to 

 resolve this complex uniformity into the simpler uniformities 

 which compose it, and assign to each portion of the vast 

 antecedent the portion of the consequent which is attendant 

 on it. 



This operation, which we have called analytical, inasmuch 

 as it is the resolution of a complex whole into the component 

 elements, is more than a merely mental analysis. No mere 

 contemplation of the phenomena, and partition of them by 

 the intellect alone, will of itself accomplish the end we have 

 now in view. Nevertheless, such a mental partition is an 

 indispensable first step. The order of nature, as perceived at 

 a first glance, presents at every instant a chaos followed by 

 another chaos. We must decompose each chaos into single 

 facts. We must learn to see in the chaotic antecedent a mul- 

 titude of distinct antecedents, in the chaotic consequent a 

 multitude of distinct consequents. This, supposing it done, 



