WANT OF ESTABLISHED FACTS. 66 



the reason why they are so, by referring them, if possible, to 

 more general principles, and secondly, the drawing of conclu- 

 sions from them for our guidance in practical life. 



The last work seems to be the most immediately profitable, 

 but the human mind is so constituted that it always seeks for 

 the reason of a thing, and in doing this it often gains new views 

 that aid in securing either other facts or some general princi- 

 ple from those already known. This is illustrated many times 

 in the history of the inductive sciences. 



If asked why bodies fall to the earth, we can only speak of 

 gravitation, which is simply giving name to a force of which the 

 fact of the falling of the body was the expression. If asked why 

 cucumbers are killed by frost and spruce trees are not, we can 

 only answer that such is the nature of the plants. We have 

 gone as far in our explanations as we can go. 



If asked why water will rise only so many feet in a pump, we 

 reply that the water is forced up by the weight of the air. This 

 is such an explanation of the fact as will enable us to guide our 

 actions in other cases. For knowing that the weight of the col- 

 umn of water in the pump balances by its weight the column 

 of air, we infer that a heavier fluid cannot be raised so high, and 

 that a pump upon a lofty mountain will not raise water as high 

 as the same pump would in the valley. 



By knowing the cause of these phenomena then, we gain an 

 advantage because we modify results by changing the conditions 

 under which the cause acts, and may thus be said to have power 

 over the causes. 



In regard to other phenomena we cannot affect the causes 

 or their conditions of action at all, but we can do much in mod- 

 ifying their results. We cannot control the movements of the 

 sun in the heavens, but we can learn to protect our plants from 

 his scorching heat in summer, and from the intense cold of win- 

 ter. We cannot control the falling of the barometer, but we can 

 do something to protect ourselves and property from the storm 

 which it indicates. It is wonderful what power, offensive and 

 defensive, in securing the good things of life, a knowledge of the 

 facts of nature and their interpretation will give us. 



As agriculturists then, I say, we ivant certain facts established. 

 We want those facts traced back to their producing cause in every 



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