SCIENTIFIC METHOD 59 



it is the only alternative, but it should be used 

 with restraint in arguing from the present to re- 

 mote antiquity, for it is obvious that some impor- 

 tant difference between the conditions then and 

 those of to-day may invalidate the argument. 



(b) Inductive Reasoning. This is argument 

 from particulars to the universal, and science is 

 full of illustrations. " Galileo had smooth inclined 

 planes made; and then, by rolling balls down 

 them and measuring the times and squares of 

 descent, he discovered inductively that the space 

 fallen is always as the square of the time of fall- 

 ing; so that, if a body in one second of time falls 

 about sixteen feet, in two seconds it will have 

 fallen sixty-four feet, four times as far (time 2- 

 squared), in three seconds one hundred and forty- 

 four feet, nine times as far (time 3-squared)." 



The inductive method may almost be called 

 Baconian, for Bacon was the first to show that 

 the sound way of studying Nature was to work 

 up from particulars to principles. He called his 

 method the new instrument the Novum Orga- 

 num. It was founded on the principle that things 

 which are always present, absent, or varying 

 together, are casually connected. 



(c) Deductive Reasoning. This is argument 

 from the universal to particulars, the kind of 

 inference which enables the long arm of science 

 to reach back through the ages that are past and 



