EXAMPLES OF THE EXPLANATION OF LAWS. 579 



and place in its due position of importance, the De- 

 ductive Method ; which in the present state of know- 

 ledge is destined irrevocably to predominate in the 

 course of scientific investigation from this time forward. 

 A revolution is peaceably and progressively effecting 

 itself in philosophy, the reverse of that to which 

 Bacon has attached his name. That great man 

 changed the method of the sciences from deductive to 

 experimental, and it is now rapidly reverting from 

 experimental to deductive. But the deductions 

 which Bacon abolished were from premisses hastily 

 snatched up, or arbitrarily assumed. The principles 

 were neither established by legitimate canons of expe- 

 rimental inquiry, nor the results tested by that indis- 

 pensable element of a rational Deductive Method, 

 verification by specific experience. Between the 

 primitive Method of Deduction and that which I have 

 attempted to define, there is all the difference which 

 exists between the Aristqtelian physics and the New- 

 tonian theory of the heavens. 



That the advances henceforth to be expected even 

 in physical, and still more in mental and social science, 

 will be chiefly the result of deduction, is evident from 

 the general considerations already adduced. Among 

 subjects really accessible to our faculties, those which 

 still remain in a state of dimness and uncertainty (the 

 succession of their phenomena not having yet been 

 brought under fixed and recognisable laws) are mostly 

 those of a very complex character, in which many 

 agents are at work together, and their effects in a 

 constant state of blending and intermixture. The 

 disentangling of these crossing threads is a task 

 attended with difficulties which, as we have already 

 shown, are susceptible of solution by the instrument of 



