WAYS OF NATURE 
ferring the deductive method of reasoning to the 
more modern and more scientific inductive method ? 
But I doubt if the inductive method would avail 
one in trying to prove that the old cow really jumped 
over the moon. We do deny certain things upon 
general principles, and affirm others. I do not 
believe that a rooster ever laid an egg, or that a 
male tiger ever gave milk. If your alleged fact con- 
tradicts fundamental principles, I shall beware of 
it; if it contradicts universal experience, I shall 
probe it thoroughly. A college professor wrote me 
that he had seen a crow blackbird catch a small 
fish and fly away with it in its beak. Now I have 
never seen anything of the kind, but I know of no 
principle upon which I should feel disposed to 
question the truth of such an assertion. I have 
myself seen a crow blackbird kill an English spar- 
row. Both proceedings I think are very unusual, 
but neither is antecedently improbable. If the pro- 
fessor had said that he saw the blackbird dive head 
first into the water for the fish, after the manner of 
the kingfisher, I should have been very skeptical. 
He only saw the bird rise up from the edge of the 
water with the wriggling fish in its mouth. It had 
doubtless seized it in shallow water near the shore. 
But I should discredit upon general principles the 
statement of the woman who related with much de- 
tail how she and her whole family had seen a pair 
“of small brown birds” carry their half-fledged 
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