COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



alike in kind, while different in degree. While 

 the processes gone through by the child, the 

 savage, and the astronomer are manifestly the 

 same, the immeasurable difference in the com- 

 plication of the processes is equally manifest. 

 While the inference in the one case is made in- 

 stantaneously, so as almost to seem a part of 

 the original perception, and while it admits of 

 verification by a series of simple acts — in the 

 other case the inference is one which depends 

 ultimately upon a long chain of dependent pro- 

 positions, and the task of verifying it mathe- 

 matically is exceedingly complicated and diffi- 

 cult. Thus to our statement that science differs 

 from ordinary knowledge in the definiteness of 

 its previsions, we have to add that it differs also 

 in the remoteness and complexity of its previ- 

 sions. 



Thirdly, science differs from ordinary know- 

 ledge in the greater generality of the relations 

 which it classifies ; 'and this continuous increase 

 in generality is one of the most striking char- 

 acteristics of advancing science. " From the 

 particular case of the scales, the law of equilib- 

 rium of which was familiar to the earliest nations 

 known, Archimedes advanced to the more gen- 

 eral case of the unequal lever with unequal 

 weights ; the law of equilibrium of which in- 

 cludes that of the scales. By the help of Gal- 

 ileo*s discovery concerning the composition of 



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