34 ESSAYS IN PHILOSOPHY 



science, unanalysed to its true presuppositions, con- 

 sistently interprets this connexion into the merely 

 regular succession of the past — a sequence merely 

 de facto ; but if we thoroughly consider what is 

 logically presupposed in scientific method as actually 

 used by the competent, we shall readily see that it 

 should be interpreted as necessary and irreversible 

 succession, a sequence inevitable forever. For the 

 vital process in scientific method is induction, or 

 generalisation ; and the secret of it, as actually em- 

 ployed in scientific practice, lies in taking observed 

 successions in phenomena, and when with the help 

 of the various methods of precision — agreement, 

 difference, joint agreement, concomitant variation 

 — they are brought to represent exactly what occurs, 

 then suddenly giving to these merely historical suc- 

 cessions the value of universal laws, having a pre- 

 dictive authority over the future in perpetinini. 



If in this process there is always a cautious reserve 

 in the mind of the practised and sedate man of 

 science, — as indeed there is, — the reserve has no 

 reference to the amazing final act of generalisation: 

 all the anxieties of the expert are about the pre- 

 cision of his facts. His instinctive assumption 

 about the generalisation is, that, when once the 

 particulars are settled, this process takes place of 

 itself, is matter-of-course, is resistless and flawless : 

 if there is error anywhere in the scientific proced- 



