158 GENERAL YIEW AND BASIS OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



THE GREAT PRINCIPLES OF SCIENCE. 



The keys for unlocking the secrets of nature are the great 

 principles of science. 



DISCERNING men in all ages have had glimpses of some of 

 the great truths which underlie all nature and all art, and 

 have shadowed them forth in sayings which have been 

 handed down from generation to generation ; or have 

 transmitted them as indistinct germs of truth, incorpo- 

 rated with much error, in their various writings. 



It is the great fundamental principles of science which 

 have rendered possible photography, electric telegraphs 

 and telephones, and all the present and future inventions 

 of men. If these and other modern scientific inventions 

 are so wonderful, and if the beauties of nature are so 

 charming, how much more so must be those principles, of 

 the unerring action of which they are merely some of the 

 products or results ! 



Great truths are represented by great ideas ; but 

 although some of the greatest ideas are amongst the most 

 certain of human beliefs, they are, in our minds, only in- 

 ferences drawn from our finite experience ; and the greater 

 the idea is, to a greater extent is it usually a result of in- 

 ference. Even one of the greatest of them, viz. that all 

 matter and energy must have been created at some time, 

 is only an inference, and neither science nor the universal 

 experience of mankind through all time has furnished us 

 with verifiable knowledge respecting it, i.e. no person has 

 ever witnessed a single act of creation of matter or energy. 

 Of the Infinite, also, we have not the least comprehension. 



