24 SCIENTIFIC METHOD 



from experience and systematic experience ; transcend 

 experience by inference and the generalizing power of 

 reason ; but return to experience for fresh data to induce 

 and deduce ; in order to discover truth, which is the 

 coincidence of what we judge and say with the objects 

 capable of being apprehended by sense and reason 

 united 1 ; in order to construct works, as monuments of 

 the reign of man over nature ; in order, above all, to act 

 for the general good, and the reign of man over himself. 



1 It has become a fashion to doubt the possibility of discovering the 

 truth of things, on the Kantian ground that we cannot compare things 

 known with things beyond knowledge. But truth is not in this parlous 

 condition : it only requires us to compare our judgements with things 

 known a condition practicable enough. Sense and reason are the origin 

 of our knowledge of things within and without ; we constantly compare 

 our judgements with what we discover by these faculties of apprehending 

 reality; and there is an appeal from judgement to the things which 

 become objects of sentient and rational knowledge, though without 

 appeal, and without the necessity of it, to another set of things, ex hypo- 

 thesi unknown, beyond. Truth, therefore, is not an impracticable agree- 

 ment of knowledge with things beyond, but the actual coincidence of 

 judgements and propositions with things capable of being apprehended 

 by sense and reason united in knowledge and especially in scientific 

 knowledge acquired by scientific methods. 



