TRUK POSITION OF VETERINARY SCIENCE. 
309 
of thought of common life. They are in the end the same, ex¬ 
cept that there is more precision, and it is preciseness that is re¬ 
quired. In ordinary life we use our common sense carelessly and 
unconsciously; in science we use it with careful exactitude. A sim¬ 
ple analysis of any scientific problem suffices to show the similar¬ 
ity and the difference. If you were to go home from here and 
find that certain articles, which you had left in particular places in 
your room, were turned or moved from their position, your com¬ 
mon sense would tell you that some one had been there in your ab¬ 
sence and disturbed them. If you did not expect anyone, you would 
naturally endeavor to find out who it was, by enquiry. By the 
very same process of reasoning Adams and Leverier, independent 
of each other, made their grand discovery of the planet Neptune. 
They were engaged in observing Uranus, which, according to the 
established law of gravitation, should have been in a certain place 
in the heavens at a given time. It was not there, it had been dis¬ 
turbed from its position, and consequently something must have 
caused this disturbance. According to the same law’, another 
body of a certain magnitude and position would be an adequate 
explanation of the perturbation. They inquired for the cause, and 
locking at the point predicted, their assertions were verified, and 
the new’ planet discovered. 
The actual process of reasoning involved in the two cases is 
identical, the conclusion is arrived at by the same method, but in 
the latter instance there is a careful precision. Scientific methods 
are essentially scrupulously exact; they therefore require exact 
minds to follow them. Exactness can only be attained by a care¬ 
ful process of training. This kind of mental culture, like the re¬ 
sult of any other species of discipline, is not an inborn characteris¬ 
tic ; it requires time and labor for its development, and should be 
the chief object of general education, aside from the special facts 
that such education affords. 
An untrained mind sees nothing beyond the object before it. 
A trained one sees something more than this, and is perhaps able 
to form a theory as to what is its nature, and how it got in such a 
position. If a common workman was digging in a field and his 
shovel turned up a piece of old bone, he might perhaps recognize 
