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Show .l92 EXPLANATIONS . to bring to his remembrance the impressions which h1Ve been nsually made upon hirr1 by the transactions of l~arned societies and the pursuits of individual men of sctence. Did he not ahvays feel that, '\vhile there were laudable industry and zeal, there wJs also an intellectual timidity render] ng all the results philosop hicaliy barren? l)~rhaps a more lively illustration of thei1· deficiency in the hfe and soul of Nature-seeking could not be presented than in the view '\Yhich Sir John Herschel gives of the uses of science, in a treatise reputed a one of the most philosophical ever produced in our country. These uses, according to the learned knight, are trictly material-it m~ght even .be said ' sordid, namely, " to show us how to avmd attemptmg -.. . . inP1os--ibiliti s-to secure n from important mistakes, 1n att~rnptinv \Yhat is, in its lf, pos ible, by 1neans either inadequate, ~r actually opposed to the end in view-to enable u-; to accomplish our nds in the easi st,. shortest, most economical and mo t :-.ffcctual manner-to Induce us to att mpt. and enable us to accompli ·h object , which but for such know ledae \V ~hould never have thou~ht of undertaking. '* uch r ult ·, it will be fel~, may occasionally be of importance in ·avinrr a conntry-g ntlema.u fron1 a hopeI mining p culation, or adding ~o the pow r ~nd profits of an iron-foundry or a cotton-mill ; but notlnng more. \Vhen the awakin~ and cravincr mind a ks what science can d for u in explainina th g:·eat end of the Author of nature and onr r lations to IIim, to good and evil, to life, and to )ternity the man of sci nee turn~ to his collection of ·hell or butterfli , to hi ·1 ctrical machine, or his t·etort, and i mut a cltild who, portincr on th beach, is a~k d what land lie b yond th crr at ocean which tretchc b for him. Th natural scmm of m n who do not happen to have taken at • ._ tc for t~1 : ol opt era or for ~he laws of fluid ·, r volt. at th t •nlt ty of ·nch pur "'tHis. anrl, t ho\Jtrh Jc, rf ul of om rror on its own part. can hardly h lp ond tnning th • wbol to ridicul •. Can we vrcnd r that tch to "Teat an ·• tent, is their fate in public OJ inion, \~hen we read th app al pr !'"' nte<l in their b h. f by th ver prince of mod ·rn philosophers? .. or '·an w . tl\' t1, t, ·h .. r such vic\'\'. of" the u~es of d1~me phil< ·>ph. • ' ar. nt rt i1~ d, th. re could be any nght pr paration f n1in l to 1· .. ivc wJth canclm> or treat ~1th ·usfc a 1lan of natt re lil·c that present .d 1n the Vest1ges .I , • Di cou , on the tu..:ly of ~nturnl Philo!iophy, p. 4-1. ALLEGED USES OF NATURAL SCIENCE. 293 of Creation? No, it must be before anothe_r tribunal that thiA new philosophy is to be truly and nghteously judged. . It is important that these s~ntences be not :n:Isundcr· stood. There is both a necessity for the ascertainment of detachPd facts that we mav attain to the elimination of principles, and a danger iri premature generalization, as tendino· to mislead men from the true road to that result. But o~ the other hand, scientific men are seen spending their time in wrong pursuits, merely for want of the tracings which are often supplied for their direction by happy hypotheses: It is to the chilling repression of all .saliency in investigation, which characterizes the scientific men of our country and age, that I object not to a <!ue caution in selecting proper paths in which to venture. The function of hypothesis in suggesting observations and experiments is admitted by one of the most vigorous thinkers of our titne. " Without such as£umptions, science could never have attained its present state: they are necessary steps in the progress to something more certain. . . . The process of tracing regularity in any com?licated and at first sight confused set of appearance:>s, is necessarily tentative: we begin by making any supposition, even a false one, to see what consequences '\-Yill follow from it; and by observing how the e differ from the real phenomena, we learn what corrections to mat~e in our assumption. . . ' Some fact,' says 1\L Comte, 'is as yet little understood, or some law i unknown : \Ve frame on the subject an hypothesis as accordant ~s pos ibl~ with th~ whole of the data aheady pos essed ; and the science, being thus enabled to move forward freely always ~nels by ~eadi~1g to new consequences capable of observatwn, whtc~1.e1thcr confirm or refute, unequivocally, the fi~·st sup.pos1tion.' .. . . Let any one \vatch the man ... ncr In wl?ICh he hn~self unravels any complicated mass of evidence ; let hun observe how for in tance he elicits the true history of any concnrre;1ce from the' involved statements of one or many witnesse · he will find th~t he does not take all the ilems of evid~nc into his rrund at once,. and attempt to weave them together: the hu~an fa<:ulhes are not equal to such an unde~tnkino-; he extempor!Zt>R, froiD: a fe~r of the particuL rs, a. first rude theory of the mode In which the facts took place, ancJ then took-; a.t the othet· ~tatements one by one, to try whether |
