But, in seeking a solution of this problem, Kant was led to 

 investigate the nature of the method which the sciences were 

 using. And here a state of affairs presented itself, which, to an 

 acute thinker like Kant, could not have been otherwise than very 

 significant. In philosophy, deduction and induction, as methods, 

 had become so opposed one to the other, that the era, so far as 

 philosophy was concerned, could well be described as the age of 

 the battle of world-views. But, in the natural sciences, conditions 

 were quite otherwise. There, both methods of investigation, 

 though differentiated to a degree, were to be seen working har- 

 moniously side by side in the treatment of different data or in 

 the different treatment of the same data. Indeed, frequently, 

 induction and deduction were both exhibited in the work of one 

 single investigator. Between the work of Galilei, obtaining the 

 law of falling bodies, and that of Newton, obtaining fthe law of 

 gravitation, there is no question of opposition, and yet one em- 

 ployed, mainly, a process of deduction and the other, mainly, a 

 process of induction. Furthermore, as Wundt 1 points out, it is 

 quite conceivable that these laws might just as easily have been 

 determined, in each case, by the reverse process. Moreover, though 

 it is generally said that Galilei used the method of deduction in 

 discovering the law of falling bodies, yet it must be recognized that 

 he used, too, the method of induction. Certain facts were observed, 

 certain experiments made and then certain hypotheses or induc- 

 tions made. Galilei first assumed that the speed of fall of any 

 object is proportional to the distance through which the object 

 has fallen. But by deduction, that is, by determining by experi- 

 ment or otherwise the consequences of the general law assumed 

 for the time being as valid, he found that this theory was in- 

 correct. Galilei then tried the supposition that the speed of falling 

 bodies varies proportionately to the time of fall and, this time, 

 experimental verification of the supposition resulted, so that the 

 law of falling bodies became formulated. The law, it is generally 

 said, is a result of deduction, but it can be seen that in this ex- 

 periment deduction followed induction and that both were mutually 

 complementary. 



It is interesting to note that Galilei not only made use of both 

 induction and deduction in his scientific work, but that he, likewise, 



, II Bd., P. 30. 



99 



