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Rh The History of Inductive Science is a not unimportant chapter in the History of Human Error. The conviction that rest is the natural condition of matter and contradictory to that of Motion,—that Nature abhors a vacuum,—that antipodes are impossible,—were not less certain and self-evident to the most thoughtful men of antiquity, than are the distinction between necessary and experiential truths, the indestructibility of matter and force, or the invariability of the earth’s motion to many philosophers of the present day. The thoughtless may laugh with scorn at the credulity of these old intellectual giants ; and vaunt their own shallow superiority to the simple errors of antiquity. The thoughtful man will turn to the present day, and note one of the most eminent and philosophical of English naturalists, restating and insisting on the evidence of an avowedly erroneous picture, rather than admit the independent and unquestionably truthful testimony of a number of original observers to the fact that a monkey’s brain is not so different from a man’s as he had originally believed ; or another not less eminent Englishman, eminent in intellect, however his adherence to an ancient faith may to the sight of some of us cloud the lustre of his merits,—decrying all Science, because it fails to attain,—that which the human mind is incapable of ever attaining—absolute and certain truth. Truly we see prejudice in high places. Are we so much wiser than our forefathers?

The History of man in his social and political relations, will ever remain one of the most important branches of the education of youth. Studied conscientiously and in a philosophical spirit, its influence will be more powerful and generally salutary than perhaps any other kind of mental discipline. The bearing of its lessons on our own experience are direct and apprehensible ; while it combines in a great measure the charms both of Literature and Science. It is the storehouse whence must be drawn the materials for all Moral and Political Science, and it appeals to the imagination with all the vivid interest of drama on the grandest scale. But these are the pleasures and profit of the adept, not the tyro. It boots but little to commit to memory, the hard pedantic outlines of what has been, simply as a series of events that happened in a certain chronological sequence : to know for instance the names and order of the Roman Emperors, and which of them were the chief persecutors of the Christians, or to remember the dates of the Punic wars, and how many years the Long Parliament legislated. There are but the data of History treated as a Science,——data which must be familiar to the mind ere its reasoning faculties can be brought to bear on the study : yet they are in most cases all that the students of our