TWO KINDS OF GENERALIZATIONS. 27 



tional Generalization is meant a method which goes 

 around a whole subject, striving to embrace it ; as it 

 were, in the arms. By Analytical Generalization the 

 opposite method is intended, that of piercing di- 

 rectly to the centre, as by the vision of a sharp eye, 

 or the blade of a cutting instrument. If a child 

 has an apple and wishes to find what is at the middle 

 of it, he may cut continually around it, on all sides, 

 gradually reducing it in size, and arriving at the 

 core only by this tedious and exhaustive process ; or, 

 if he have acquired the necessary strength and skill 

 in the use of his knife, he may, at a single cut, lay 

 open the apple to the centre, and begin his future 

 observations from the core of the subject. The Uni- 

 verse is our apple, the knife in the hand of a child is 

 Scientific Procedure or Method, the gradual paring 

 away process is Inductive, Observational, or Encyclo- 

 pedic Generalization. The cut to the centre is Ana- 

 lytical Generalization. 



38. It is by this latter method, that Universality 

 of Knowledge, of the kind which is possible, may for- 

 tunately be acquired at a comparatively early period 

 in the development of the career of our particular 

 knowledge, and may be, thenceforward, the grand 

 weapon to be employed in the conquest of the de- 

 tails, outward upon every radius, from the centre of 

 knowledge so attained to. The discovery of the 

 Multiplication Table, of an Alphabet, and of Numer- 

 ical Notation, though they had to be preceded by 

 more embryonic stages of development tending to 

 produce them, were not themselves the culmination 



