OBSERVATION. 17 



tended and careful examination has often proved their 

 falsity. Not many years since it was quite a well credited 

 conclusion in geology that no remains of man were found 

 in connexion with those of extinct animals, or in any de- 

 posit not actually at present in course of formation. Even 

 Babbage accepted this conclusion as strongly confirmatory 

 of the Mosaic accounts 8 . But when the opinion was yet 

 universally held, flint implements had been found dis- 

 proving any such conclusion, and overwhelming evidence 

 of man's long continued existence has since been found. 

 At the end of the last century when Herschel had searched 

 the heavens with his powerful telescopes, there seemed 

 little probability that planets yet remained unseen within 

 the orbit of Jupiter. But on the first day of this century 

 such an opinion was overturned by the discovery of Ceres, 

 and more than a hundred other small planets have since 

 been added to the lists of the planetary system. 



The discovery of the Eozoon Canadense in strata of 

 much greater age than any previously known to contain 

 organic remains, has given a severe shock to many 

 groundless opinions concerning the origin of organic 

 forms ; and the oceanic dredging expeditions, under Dr. 

 Carpenter and Professor Wyville Thompson, have further 

 disconcerted geologists by disclosing the continued ex- 

 istence of forms long supposed to be extinct. These 

 and many other cases which might be quoted show the 

 extremely unsafe character of negative inductions. 



It must not be supposed that negative arguments are 

 of no force and value. The earth's surface, for instance, 

 has been sufficiently searched to render it highly impro- 

 bable that any terrestrial animals of the size of a camel 

 remain to be discovered. It is believed that no new large 

 animal has been encountered in the last eighteen or twenty 



s Babbage, ' Nintli Bridgewater Treatise/ p. 67. 

 VOL. II. C 



