PRINCIPLES OF SCIENCE. 1 1 



shall always correspond to the nature of the 

 producing cause ; that we should separate 

 partial from general facts, accidental and tran- 

 sient attributes from those that are permanent 

 and essential. It is by a process, such as this, 

 that we become possessed of those individual 

 facts which form the base and the source of 

 every science, the immediate and proximate 

 cause whence effects are derived : it is by the 

 enumeration of these attributes, which, always 

 abiding in the subject to which they belong, 

 apply universally to every individual of the 

 species, characterise its nature, and distinguish 

 it from a body belonging to every other class. 

 Without the full possession of these permanent 

 and universal facts, a general, not a particular 

 knowledge of any subject can ever be obtained : 

 without history, we can never have definition ; 

 and without axiom, there can be no science. 



It is on principles such as these, of self- 

 evident truth, that the whole of mathematical 

 science is founded, as well as every other 

 branch which deserves the name of science. 

 Without the possession of these first principles, 

 it has ever appeared to me impossible, that we 

 can obtain any science of the phenomena which 

 are produced ; without them, a general, not a 

 particular knowledge may be acquired; we 

 may become historians, but not philosophers ; 

 good artists, but not men of science. Know- 



