- It has been the tendency, and, as might be proved, a necessity for science to seek the explanation of everyday facts by a generalization of those others which are less frequent and form the exception. Thus does the eruption of the volcano manifest the heat which is continually at work in the interior of the earth and to which the latter owes much of its configuration.
- Thus does the lightning reveal a subtle power constantly busy to produce changes in the inorganic world, and, as dead languages now seldom heard were once ruling among the nations, so does a giant tooth in Siberia, or a fossil in the depth of the earth, bear record of the evolution of past ages, and thereby explains to us the origin of the hills and valleys which we inhabit today.
- In this way a generalization of facts which are rare, strange, or form the exception, has been the magnetic needle guiding to all the discoveries of inductive science.
- This method is founded upon reason and experience and thereby created rationality, logic and science.
- It is almost four-hundred years since Lord Bacon recommended this method of study, to which the civilized nations owe the greater part of their prosperity and the more valuable part of their knowledge; filling the mind with broad understanding, nominated theories, as effectually as possible; calling the attention of people from heaven to earth more successfully by surprising experiments and by the most enticing demonstration of their intelligence; educating the inventive faculties more powerfully by the near prospect of useful discoveries thrown open to all, and by talk of bringing to light the innate laws of our mind.
