1 877.] 
On Scientific Method. 
477 
thoughts), in finding the common link which binds together 
those things at first sight appearing so widely separated. 
This, then is the aim of Science — to know. And to attain 
this aim she must find the agreements and differences be- 
tween all things ; in other words, she must classify. When 
we have arrived at a complete system of classification of all 
phenomena we shall have attained the purely scientific aim 
of our intellectual existence. 
To awaken consciousness there must be more than one 
phenomenon. Object is compared and contrasted with 
object, and hereby resemblances and differences are 
discovered : these are retained in the memory, and com- 
pared with other resemblances and differences, as these 
may be discovered, until at last we are able to find identity 
amid diversity, to group together a number of objects 
by means of some great common property, and from this 
identity to draw inferences which rest on some point of 
resemblance, and which have for their basis the law that 
“ that which is true of one thing is true of its equivalent.” 
We gradually leave behind us the old idea that ceaseless 
change is the order of all things : we learn to believe that 
what we to-day know as Iron will yet be Iron a thousand 
years hence ; we get something definite to reason on, and, 
step by step, the varied and strange phenomena of Nature 
are found to be lawful phenomena — are found to have a fixed 
basis underlying them ; until at last we arrive at a general 
expression for so many and so varied phenomena that we 
give it the name of a law of Nature. Thus we rise from the 
trivial to -the abiding, from the changing to the changeless, 
from the passing to that which endures, and from that 
which was capricious to that which is governed by law. 
But even here, even in these natural Iclws, we have not 
attained absolute certainty ; they are but general expressions, 
including a vast number of else isolated phenomena. But 
what is beyond these phenomena ? What is the cause of 
all these causes ? Science, strictly so-called, gives no reply. 
It may be urged that modern science teaches that all 
things are in a continual state of change ; that there is no 
such thing as rest in the physical universe ; that every form 
of energy is but the expression of a change of material par- 
ticles : but Science, we answer, has gained this knowledge 
only by grasping the changeless facts underlying the 
changing phenomena. We do not now simply know that 
the material universe is constantly undergoing change : we 
are able, to some extent, to follow the steps of this change ; 
we have reduced the very mutability of Nature to law; we 
have compared change with change, and in some instances 
