xviii Introduction 



him by their visibiHty and tangibility — a working 

 hypothesis of how things happen in the world, 

 which, while not infallibly applied — while, indeed, 

 often landing the boy into mistakes — is far more 

 trustworthy as a rule than that formed by the 

 learned judge reasoning incorrectly from an 

 immense number of facts." 



Such is the simple basis of this very amazing 

 miracle, the great fact which is at the bottom 

 of the main difference between the modern and 

 mediaeval world, between the Western and Eastern 

 civilizations. 



It has two outstanding lessons for us: it shows 

 the incalculable service that the correction of a 

 fundamental misconception or wrong principle 

 may achieve; and it shows that such correction of 

 general principle may be the unintended but in- 

 evitable by-product of the correction of error in 

 some special case. 



For the revival of the inductive method and all 

 that it has involved was in large part the unin- 

 tended result of the religious reformation. And 

 it has had these immense results because, like the 

 views which the author of this book is urging, it 

 was a readjustment of ideas concerning the place 

 of force in certain activities of life. 



A further and very profound readjustment of 

 those same ideas followed upon the work of one 

 man, Charles Darwin. But his work and message 

 have, as he himself so pathetically declared, been 

 misinterpreted and misunderstood even by his 



