366 FRAGMENTS OF SC1KNCE. 



amply rewarded by being privileged to -solve, at its close, 

 these infinitesimal motions. 



The inductive principle is founded in man's desire to 

 know a desire arising from his position among phenomena 

 which are reducible to order by his intellect. The material 

 universe is the complement of the intellect; and, without 

 the study of its laws, reason could never have awakened to 

 the higher forms of self-consciousness at all. It is the 

 Non-ego through and by which the Ego is endowed with 

 self-discernment. We hold it to be an exercise of reason 

 to explore the meaning of a universe to which we stand 

 in this relation, and the work we have accomplished is the 

 proper commentary on the methods we have pursued. 

 Before these methods were adopted the unbridled imag- 

 ination roamed through nature, putting in the place of 

 law the figments of superstitious dread. For thousands 

 of years witchcraft, and magic, and miracles, and special 

 providences, and Mr. Mozley's " distinctive reason of man," 

 had the world to themselves. They made worse than 

 nothing of it worse, I say, because they let and hindered 

 those who might have made something of it. Hence it is, 

 that during a single lifetime of this era of " unintelligent 

 impulse," the progress in knowledge is all but infinite as 

 compared with that of the ages which preceded ours. 



The believers in magic and miracles of a couple of cen- 

 turies ago had all the strength of Mr. Mozley's present 

 logic on their side. They had done for themselves what 

 he rejoices in having so effectually done for us cleared 

 the ground of the belief in the order of nature, and declared 

 magic, miracles, and witchcraft to be matters for " ordinary 

 evidence" to decide. " The principle of miracles" thus 

 "befriended" had free scope, and we know the result. 

 Lacking that rock-barrier of natural knowledge which we 

 now possess, keen jurists and cultivated men were hurried 

 on to deeds, the bare recital of which makes the blood run 

 cold. Skilled in all the rules of human evidence, and 

 versed in all the arts of cross-examination, these men, 

 nevertheless, went systematically astray, and committed 

 the deadliest wrongs against humanity. And why? Be- 

 cause they could not put Nature into the witness-box, and 

 question her of her voiceless "testimony" they knew 

 nothing. In all cases between man and man, their jndg- 



