§ 5, 6. FACTS AND THEIR RESULTS. 7 



We have now to deal with facts and their results, not with 

 reasons. The elements of ornament may be combined in 

 various ways, and may be equally beautiful in many different 

 combinations, without its being necessary to discover the laws 

 or reasons for that agreement, or to impede our progress at 

 the commencement by speculations which are quite as likely 

 to lead into error as to assist our study. So again with 

 colours : and though the three primaries, blue, red, and yel- 

 low, in certain proportions, constitute white light, all inquiries 

 respecting the proper quantities required for it, and every 

 appeal to philosophical experiments, in seeking the proper 

 method of ornamenting with colour, are quite irrelevant ; 

 and the Arabs attained to the great perfection we admire in 

 the Alhambra and elsewhere without theories. It was the 

 practice which gave them their success ; and we shall do well 

 to imitate their example by beginning at the beginning ; and 

 when we have obtained the necessary experience it will be 

 time to promulgate theories based on actual and sound ob- 

 servation. We want experience and facts, not conclusions 

 derived from uncertain premises ; and it too often happens, 

 when speculations are allowed to interfere, that the judgment 

 is warped, and practice is made to conform to preconceived 

 notions as erroneous as they are arbitrary. We are too apt 

 to substitute memory for observation, and to teach by rote 

 rather than by conviction or the contemplation of good ex- 

 amples ; and many prefer to lay down fanciful rules than to 

 convince by facts. 



6. To begin with theory is contrary to all inductive reason- 

 ing; which proceeds " from facts to laws, and from laws to 

 causes;" and it is equally inconsistent to seek some difficult 

 explanation while a simple one is within our reach. Yet 

 this is of daily occurrence, and the obvious is overlooked in 

 the search for some recondite reason.* 



* Thus the learned are more pleased to derive the names Pa (or Ba) 



B 4 



