56 METHOD OF DISCOVERY. 



neither the one nor the other having the slightest idea 

 of what they mean when they speak of the " Baconian 

 philosophy." 



You will understand, I hope, that I have not the 

 slightest desire to join in the outcry against either the 

 morals, the intellect, or the great genius of Lord Chan- 

 cellor Bacon. He was undoubtedly a very great man, 

 let people say what they will of him ; but notwith- 

 standing all that he did for philosophy, it would be 

 entirely wrong to suppose that the methods of modern 

 scientific inquiry originated with him, or with his age ; 

 they originated with the first man, whoever he was ; 

 and indeed existed long before him, for many of the 

 essential processes of reasoning are exerted by the 

 higher order of brutes as completely and effectively as 

 by ourselves. We see in many of the brute creation 

 the exercise of one, at least, of the same powers of 

 reasoning as that which we ourselves employ. 



The method of scientific investigation is nothing 

 but the expression of the necessary mode of working 

 of the human mind. It is simply the mode at which 

 all phenomena are reasoned about, rendered precise 

 and exact. There is no more difference, but there is 

 just the same kind of difference, between the mental 

 operations of a man of science and those of an ordinary 

 person, as there is between the operations and methods 

 of a baker or of a butcher weighing out his goods in com- 

 mon scales, and the operations of a chemist in perform- 

 ing a difficult and complex analysis by means of his 

 balance and finely-graduated weights. It is not that 

 the action of the scales in the one case, and the balance 

 in the other, differ in the principles of their construc- 

 tion or manner of working ; but the beam of one is set 



