METHOD OF DISCOVERY 47 



that the methods of modern scientific inquiry originated 

 with him, or with his age ; they originated with the first 

 man, whoever he was ; and indeed existed long before him, 

 for many of the essential processes of reasoning are exerted 

 by the higher order of brutes as completely and effectively 

 as by ourselves. We see in many of the brute creation the 

 exercise of one, at least, of the same powers of reasoning as 

 that which we ourselves employ. 



The method of scientific investigation is nothing but the 

 expression of the necessary mode of working of the human 

 mind. It is simply, the mode at which all phenomena are 

 reasoned about, rendered precise and exact. There is no 

 more difference, but there is just the same kind of difference, 

 between the mental operations of a man of science and those 

 of an ordinary person, as there is between the operations 

 and methods of a baker or of a butcher weighing out his 

 goods in common scales, and the operations of a chemist 

 in performing a difficult and complex analysis by means of 

 his balance and finely-graduated weights. It is not that 

 the action of the scales in the one case, and the balance in 

 the other, differ in the principles of their construction or 

 manner of working ; but the beam of one is set on an 

 infinitely finer axis than the other, and of course turns by 

 the addition of a much smaller weight. 



You will understand this better, perhaps, if I give you 

 some familiar example. You have all heard it repeated, I 

 dare say, that men of science work by means of Induction 

 and Deduction, and that by the help of these operations, 

 they, in a sort of sense, wring from Nature certain other 

 things, which are called Natural Laws, and Causes, and 

 that out of these, by some cunning skill of their own, they 

 build up Hypotheses and Theories. And it is imagined 

 by many, that the operations of the common mind can be 

 by no means compared with these processes, and that 

 they have to be acquired by a sort of special apprenticeship 

 to the craft. To hear all these large words, you would think 

 that the mind of a man of science must be constituted 

 differently from that of his fellow men ; but if you will 

 not be frightened by terms, you will discover that you are 

 quite wrong, and that all these terrible apparatus are 

 being used by yourselves every day and every hour of 

 your lives. 



There is a well-known incident in one of Moliere's plays, 

 where the author makes the hero express unbounded 



