A HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



that he must also have been a classifier of his ob- 

 servations an organizer of knowledge. Yet the more 

 we consider the case, the more clear it will become that 

 the two methods are too closely linked together to 

 be dissevered. To observe outside phenomena is not 

 more inherent in the nature of the mind than to draw 

 inferences from these phenomena. A deer passing 

 through the forest scents the ground and detects a 

 certain odor. A sequence of ideas is generated in 

 the mind of the deer. Nothing in the deer's experience 

 can produce that odor but a wolf ; therefore the scien- 

 tific inference is drawn that wolves have passed that 

 way. But it is a part of the deer's scientific knowledge, 

 based on previous experience, individual and racial, 

 that wolves are dangerous beasts, and so, combining 

 direct observation in the present with the application 

 of a general principle based on past experience, the 

 deer reaches the very logical conclusion that it may 

 wisely turn about and run in another direction. All 

 this implies, essentially, a comprehension and use of 

 scientific principles; and, strange as it seems to speak 

 of a deer as possessing scientific knowledge, yet there 

 is really no absurdity in the statement. The deer 

 does possess scientific knowledge; knowledge differing 

 in degree only, not in kind, from the knowledge of a 

 Newton. Nor is the animal, within the range of its 

 intelligence, less logical, less scientific in the application 

 of that knowledge, than is the man. The animal that 

 could not make accurate scientific observations of its 

 suiToundings, and deduce accurate scientific conclu- 

 sions from them, would soon pay the penalty of its lack 

 of logic, 



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