576 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENCE. [chap. 



explanation. Even definition is out of the question. Buffon 

 said that " genius is patience," and certainly patience is one 

 of its most requisite components. But no one can suppose 

 that patient labour alone will invariably lead to those con- 

 spicuous results which we attribute to genius. In every 

 branch of science, literature, art, or industry, there are 

 thousands of men and women who work with unceasing 

 patience, and thereby ensure moderate success ; but it 

 would be absurd to suppose that equal amounts of intellec- 

 tual labour yield equal results. A Newton may modestly 

 attribute his discoveries to industry and patient thought, 

 and there is reason to believe that genius is unconscious 

 and unable to account for its own peculiar powers. As 

 genius is essentially creative, and consists in divergence 

 from the ordinary grooves of thought and action, it must 

 necessarily be a phenomenon beyond the domain of the 

 laws of nature. Nevertheless, it is always an interesting 

 and instructive work to trace out, as far as possible, the 

 characteristics of mind by which great discoveries have 

 been achieved, and we shall lind in the analysis much to 

 illustrate the principles of scientific method. 



Error of the Baconian Method. 



Hundreds of investigators may be constantly engaged in 

 experimental inquiry ; they may compile numberless note- 

 books full of scientific facts, and endless tables of numerical 

 results ; but, if the views of induction here maintained be 

 true, they can never by such work alone rise to new and 

 great discoveries. By a system of research they may work 

 out deductively the details of a previous discovery, but to 

 arrive at a new principle of nature is another matter. 

 Francis Bacon spread abroad the notion that to advance 

 science we must begin by accumulating facts, and then 

 draw from them, by a process of digestion, successive laws 

 of higher and higher generality. In protesting against the 

 false method of the scholastic logicians, he exaggerated a 

 partially true philosophy, until it became as false as that 

 wliicli preceded it. His notion of scientific method was a 

 kind of scientific bookkeeping. Facts were to be indis- 

 criminately gathered from every source, and posted in a 

 ledger, from which would emerge in time a balance of 



