METHOD OF DISCOVERY. 51) 



There is a well-known incident in one of Moliere's 

 plays, where the author makes the hero express 

 unbounded delight on being told that he had been 

 talking prose during the whole of his life. In the 

 same way, I trust, that you will take comfort, and 

 be delighted with yourselves, on the discovery that 

 you have been acting on the principles of induc- 

 tive and deductive philosophy during the same period. 

 Probably there is not one here to-night who has not 

 in the course of the day had occasion to set in motion 

 a complex train of reasoning, of the very same kind, 

 though differing of course in degree, as that which a 

 scientific man goes through in tracing the causes of 

 natural phenomena. 



A very trivial circumstance will serve to exemplify 

 this. Suppose you go into a fruiterer's shop, wanting 

 an apple, — you take up one, and, on biting it, you find 

 it is sour; you look at it, and see that it is hard and 

 green. You take up another one, and that too is hard, 

 green, and sour. The shopman offers you a third ; but, 

 before biting it, you examine it, and find that it is 

 hard and green, and you immediately say that you will 

 not have it, as it must be sour, like those that you have 

 already tried. 



Nothing can be more simple than that, you think ; 

 but if you will take the trouble to analyze and trace 

 out into its logical elements what has been done by 

 the mind, you will be greatly surprised. In the first 

 place, you have performed the operation of Induc- 

 tion. You found that, in two experiences, hardness 

 and greenness in apples go together with sourness. 



