EDUCATION AND ART OF REASONING. 2$ 



what steps they arrived at facts and conclusions, 

 are extremely rare. 



Several reasons have led to the following 

 study of Darwin's method: first, conviction of 

 the supreme practical importance of the direct 

 study of scientific method; secondly, the fact 

 that logicians and scientific philosophers draw 

 their illustrations of scientific method almost 

 exclusively from the physical sciences; thirdly, 

 while those illustrations are fascinating on 

 account of their brilliancy and their approach 

 toward mathematical certainty, the biological 

 sciences are much better adapted to furnish 

 models for the average student, because in the 

 nature of their logical difficulties they approach 

 more nearly to the experiences of common 

 life; fourthly,f Darwin's custom of presenting 

 all sides of a case very frequently led him to 

 expose the original course of his thought and 

 the order of his discoveries so clearly as to 

 make the reader almost feel that he and Dar- 

 win are making the discovery together. Dar- 

 win consciously recognized or unconsciously 

 felt that there was considerable power to pro- 

 duce conviction in an understanding of the 

 particular way in which the truth was first 

 reached. He so habitually took the reader 

 into his confidence that he will probably always 



