64 
Blaisdell—The Methods of Science , 
viduals, each with its several life, the constructing of a uni¬ 
verse by blurring of life in order to construct it more conveni¬ 
ently, and the constructing of it more vitally by delivering it 
from the blur which convenience has allowed, is all along the 
lines of a sufficient reason on which logic insists as the guar¬ 
antee of all thought whether divine or human. Put a neutraliz¬ 
ing touch on logic as the science of the guarantee which reason 
furnishes to your processes, and the whole fabric of your science 
will have no fixedness and tumble into meaningless jargon. 
For what now, precisely, is logic but the ordering assertion of 
those laws out of the domain of reason in virtue of which thinking 
is reasonable and has any allowance . Its domain, therefore is all 
human thought. Starting with simple judgment, the one ulti¬ 
mate form which all thinking sooner or later may be reduced 
to, and following it through its many variations from the essen¬ 
tial type, in concept and reasoning in its various modes and 
figures, and in all the modes in which it employs elemental 
energy in transcribing the outer into the inner world, it pre¬ 
scribes to each of them the ultimate condition on which its 
transcription of things is certain or probable, or has anything 
to do with reality. It gives law to our simple judgments, pre¬ 
scribing their form and variations and conditions of truthful¬ 
ness. It compels our notions of things to be clear, distinct and 
adequate, in order to their perfection. It weighs reasoning in 
its balances, and insists upon the types to which it must conform 
or be nugatory. Not one step of science is taken save under her 
sanction. Science is not irresponsible. The hand of science 
must be in her hand. Logic is her mistress, all the way up from 
the feebleness of childhood’s thinking to the vision of the seer 
as he stands in front of the universe in reverent and deliberate 
awe. 
» 
I speak of awe and reverence as the quality of the man of 
science, for, after all, this law which logic proclaims as put by 
reason upon thought has its seat in that absolute sphere where all 
venerableness abides , a kind of awful government of intelligences 
which are liable to err. There is one law for the underlying 
purposes which constitute character, the law of right, to break 
