8 HISTORY OF INDUCTIVE SCIENCES. 



nomy and mechanics: but the "diviner mind" was 

 still absent ; the act of thought had not been ex- 

 erted, by which these facts were bound together 

 under the form of laws and principles. And even 

 at this day, the tribes of uncivilized and half-civilized 

 man over the whole face of the earth, have before 

 their eyes a vast body of facts, of exactly the same 

 nature as those with which Europe has built the 

 stately fabric of her physical philosophy; but, in 

 almost every other part of the earth, the process of 

 the intellect by which these facts become science, is 

 unknown. The scientific faculty does not work. 

 The scattered stones are there, but the builder's 

 hand is wanting. And again, we have no lack of 

 proof that mere activity of thought is equally ineffi- 

 cient in producing real knowledge. Almost the 

 whole of the career of the Greek schools of philo- 

 sophy ; of the schoolmen of Europe in the middle 

 ages ; of the Arabian and Indian philosophers ; 

 shows us that we may have extreme ingenuity and 

 subtlety, invention and connexion, demonstration 

 and method ; and yet that out of these germs, no 

 physical science may be developed. "We may ob- 

 tain, by such means, logic and metaphysics, and 

 even geometry and algebra ; but out of such mate- 

 rials we shall never form mechanics and optics, 

 chemistry and physiology. How impossible the 

 formation of these sciences is without a constant 

 and careful reference to observation and experi- 

 ment; how rapid and prosperous their progress 



