8i GENERAL YIEW AND BASIS OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH, 



material of science. They may be divided into generalised 

 and empirical. Generalised facts are those which have 

 been partly digested, and been reduced to class and order, 

 and are frequently capable of being explained by some 

 known law or principle. Empirical facts are those which are 

 undigested, and which we cannot as yet explain or refer to 

 any known cause. An immense number of facts remain in 

 an empirical state ready for the discovery of laws to explain 

 them ; for instance, why is copper ductile, lead soft, steel 

 elastic, glass brittle and transparent ? &c. The great bulk 

 of the facts relating to those properties of bodies which 

 depend upon molecular structure, are still largely em- 

 pirical for want of knowledge of the principles of that 

 structure by which to explain them. Empirical facts (and 

 sometimes even generalised ones) are often comparatively 

 useless for the purposes of science until we can draw 

 general inferences from them. They are, however, often ot 

 the very greatest practical use in daily life, arts, manu- 

 factures, making experiments, &c. 



As facts are the original source of all kinds of scientific 

 knowledge, they are as varied as that knowledge, and 

 may therefore be classed under a great variety of headings, 

 such as qualitative and quantitative, the names of various 

 sciences, the different forces of nature, the numerous 

 elementary and compound substances, &c., as may be seen 

 in the various text-books of science. 



Different empirical facts possess widely different 

 degrees of intrinsic importance, because they contain a 

 greater or less amount of potential truth. General state- 

 ments are the concentrated essence of knowledge. Different 

 facts also possess different degrees of intrinsic value. 

 For instance, an anomalous fact may be an instance of 

 an unknown and great general law, and thus prove ex- 

 tremely valuable by leading to the discovery of a whole 



