Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 55.djvu/309

Rh were found to welcome the new truths; and at almost the same time Descartes by his essay on Scientific Method, and Bacon by the Novum Organum, were able to give an impetus to scientific investigation such as the world had never felt before.

The history of the progress of science from that time to this is too complex to receive any treatment in a paper of this character. How it has been throughout a record of successive triumphs; how gradually one department after another of Nature's workings has been mastered and reduced to orderly system; how all systems have been themselves reduced to one, harmonious and complete, in the magnificent generalization of evolution; how all the time not only has the sum of knowledge been steadily augmented, but the power of acquiring knowledge marvelouslymarvellously [sic] enlarged—all of that we know. That which has accomplished such results is science, and the process employed has been scientific method. We are in a position now to have a fairly intelligent idea of it. Look at it and see.

"Scientific method" is not, of course, a technical expression, as are induction, deduction, etc. Yet it means something very definite. It is that method of dealing with phenomena which reason declares and experience has shown to insure the greatest accuracy in results. There are in the complete process four necessary steps: 1. Observation of facts. 2. Comparison and classification, or generalization. 3. Deduction. 4. Verification.

We can see these steps alike in the simplest scientific attempt of our remote ancestors, and in the work of a Newton or a Darwin.

To use an illustration of the former suggested by the book of Leviticus. In very early times it was noticed that animals that had both the characteristics of being cloven-hoofed and of chewing the cud were good for food. A new animal is discovered having those characteristics. It is argued from the general principle laid down that this new animal is good for food, and the matter is verified by experiment. There are the four distinct steps: observation of the facts, drawing a principle from the comparison of the facts, deducing as to the particular case, verifying. The result is, of course, not only a classifying of the particular case, but also the extension of the principle. So with the generalization of the law of gravitation. Numberless facts were observed with the greatest care; from them the principle was generalized; from that again deductions were made as to particular cases; and the results were verified. But though the steps of the process are the same in both instances, yet what a vast difference between them! Take the first step, the observation of facts. All that the thought of the earlier