266 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pt. «• 



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 concerning particular groups of 

 concrete phenomena which might otherwise escape our 

 scrutiny. 



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 required to deal is so vast and so heterogeneous, the 

 various generalizations which we are required 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 illustrations — 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 phenomena to be explained are 

 numerous and complicated. A simple tabulation and analysis 

 of the planetary movements would never have disclosed, 

 even to Newton's penetrating gaze, the law of dynamics to 

 which those movements conform. But in these complicated 

 cases, where induction has remained hopelessly embarrassed, 

 the most brilliant success has often resulted from the adop- 

 tion of a hypothesis by which the phenomena have been 

 deductively interpreted, and which has been uniformly 

 corroborated by subsequent inductions. The essential 

 requisite in such an hypothesis is that it must have been 

 framed in rigorous conformity to the requirements of the 

 objective method. It must be based upon properties of 

 matter or principles of dynamics that have previously been 

 established or fully confirmed by induction ; it must appeal 

 to no unknown agency, nor invoke any unknown attribute of 

 matter or motion ; and it must admit ultimately of inductive 



