COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



might seek the ultimate axiom by which the 

 validity of our conclusions is certified. Or, on 

 the other hand, we might begin by searching 

 directly for this ultimate axiom ; and having 

 found it, we might proceed to deduce from it 

 that widest generalization which interprets the 

 most general truths severally formulated by the 

 concrete sciences ; and finally, by the help of 

 these universal principles, we might perhaps 

 succeed in eliciting sundry generalizations con- 

 cerning particular groups of concrete pheno- 

 mena which might otherwise escape our scru- 

 tiny. 



The latter, or synthetic method of procedure, 

 is much better adapted for our present purpose 

 than the former, or analytic method. Indeed 

 the mass of phenomena with which we are re- 

 quired to deal is so vast and so heterogeneous, 

 the various generalizations which we are re- 

 quired to interpret in common are apparently so 

 little related to one another, that it may well be 

 doubted if the appliances of simple induction and 

 analysis would ever suffice to bring us within 

 sight of our prescribed goal. The history of 

 scientific discovery affords numerous illustra-. 

 tions — and nowhere more convincingly than in 

 the sublime chapter which tells the triumph of 

 the Newtonian astronomy — of the comparative 

 helplessness of mere induction where the phe- 

 nomena to be explained are numerous and com- 

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