

DEDUCTIVE HABITS. 331 



ledge ; the very imperfection of the light in 

 which he works his way, suggests to him that 

 there must be a source of clearer illumination at 

 a distance from him. 



We must allow that it is scarcely possible to 

 describe in a manner free from some vagueness 

 and obscurity, the effect thus produced upon the 

 mind by the efforts which it makes to reduce 

 natural phenomena to general laws. But we 

 trust it will still be allowed that there is no diffi- 

 culty in seeing clearly that a different influence 

 may result from this process, and from the pro- 

 cess of deductive reasoning which forms the 

 main employment of the mathematical cultivators 

 and systematic expositors of physical science in 

 modern times. Such persons are not led by 

 their pursuits to any thing beyond the general 

 principles, which form the basis of their explana- 

 tions and applications. They acquiesce in these ; 

 they make these their ultimate grounds of truth ; 

 and they are entirely employed in unfolding the 

 particular truths which are involved in such gene- 

 ral truths. Their thoughts dwell little upon the 

 possibility of the laws of nature being other than 

 we find them to be, or on the reasons why they 

 are not so; and still less on those facts and 

 phenomena which philosophers have not yet 

 reduced to any rule ; which are lawless to us, 

 though we know that, in reality, they must be 

 governed by some principle of order and harmony. 



