Page:A philosophical essay on probabilities Tr. Truscott, Emory 1902.djvu/192

182 for all the bodies of the solar system, and for their smallest molecules, it appears to appertain to all matter. Already the movements of the small stars, which have been called double, on account of their conjunction, appear to indicate it; a century at most of precise observations, by verifying their movements of revolution, the ones about the others, will place beyond doubt their reciprocal attractions.

The analogy which leads us to make each star the centre of a planetary system is far less strong than the preceding one; but it acquires probability by the hypothesis which has been proposed in regard to the formation of the stars and of the sun; for in this hypothesis each star, having been like the sun, primitively environed by a vast atmosphere, it is natural to attribute to this atmosphere the same effects as to the solar atmosphere, and to suppose that it has produced, in condensing, planets and satellites.

A great number of discoveries in the sciences is due to analogy. I shall cite as one of the most remarkable, the discovery of atmospheric electricity, to which one has been led by the analogy of electric phenomena with the effects of thunder.

The surest method which can guide us in the search for truth, consists in rising by induction from phenomena to laws and from laws to forces. Laws are the ratios which connect particular phenomena together: when they have shown the general principle of the forces from which they are derived, one verifies it either by direct experiences, when this is possible, or by examination if it agrees with known phenomena; and if by a rigorous analysis we see them proceed from this