526 



*' • 



ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE 



458. It is therefore hurtful to the progrefs of 

 phjfical fcience to reprefent obfervation and 

 theory as ftanding oppofed to one another. Berg- 

 man has faid, *' Obfervationes veras quara in- 



r 



genioliffiraas fidiones fequi praeftat ; naturae my- 

 fteria potius indagare quam divinare." 



If it is meant by this merely to fay, that it is 

 better to have fadls without theory, than theory 



•without fads, and that it is wife 



nqu 



the fecrets of nature, than to guefs at them, the 

 truth of the maxim will hardly be controverted. 



But if we are to ui 



derftand by 



fome may 



perhaps have done, that all theory is mere fidion, 

 and that the only alternative a philofopher has, is 

 to devote himfelf to the ftudy of fads unconned- 

 ed by theory, or of theory unfupported by fads, 

 the maxim is as far from the truth, as I am con- 

 vinced it is from the real fenfe of Bergman, 

 Such an oppolition between the bulinefs of the 

 theorift and the obferver, can only occur when 

 the fpeculations of the former are vague and in- 



7 



diftind, and cannot be fo embodied as to become 

 vilible to the latter. But the philofopher who 

 has afcended to his theory by a regular genera- 

 lization of fads, and who defcends from it again 

 by drawing fuch palpable conclulioris as may be 

 compared with experience, furniflies the infalli- 

 ble means of diftinguifhing between perfeci fci- 

 ence and ingenious Ji^ion, Of a geological theory 



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