12 Astronomy and Geology compared. PT. i. 



gather in principle from the second, in the same 

 manner as they both differ from the first. The second 

 and third methods are both founded upon the evidence 

 of fact and the relations traced between cause and 

 effect. They differ from each other in the manner 

 of attaining this evidence and of tracing these rela- 

 tions of cause and effect. In the second method the 

 inquirer merely observes ; he watches, and notes, and 

 chronicles the operations of nature as he witnesses 

 them ; but in the process of experimental philosophy 

 the enterprising and inquiring spirit of Man takes a 

 bolder step. He is not satisfied with the mere passive 

 part of an observer, he renders himself an active 

 agent ; he not only observes but directs, he brings 

 into exercise that highest gift accorded by his Creator 

 to Man, the -faculty of imitating in however faint 

 and imperfect a manner the acts of Omnipotence, 

 and becoming in a remote and secondary degree an 

 Intelligent Cause. He is no longer satisfied merely 

 to observe : he interrogates nature by the means of 

 experiments, he asks questions of her, he twists the 

 materials in his hands into new and artificial com- 

 binations, he brings substances together which would 

 naturally have always remained apart, he probes 

 the depths hitherto unrevealed. Sometimes he 



