Is induction, great as it is, especially in the explorations of Nature and science, always certain?  Are not most of the sciences which are based upon it progressive?  Have we yet learned the ultimate principles of political economy, or of geology, or of government, or even of art?  The theory of induction, though supposed by Dr. Whewell to lead to certain results, is regarded by Professor Jevons as leading to results only “almost certain.”  “All inductive inference is merely probable,” says the present professor of logic, Thomas Fowler, in the University of Oxford.

And although it is supposed that the inductive method of Bacon has led to the noblest discoveries of modern times, is this strictly true?  Galileo made his discoveries in the heavens before Bacon died.  Physical improvements must need follow such inventions as gunpowder and the mariners’ compass, and printing and the pictures of Italy, and the discovery of mines and the revived arts of the Romans and Greeks, and the glorious emancipation which the Reformation produced.  Why should not the modern races follow in the track of Carthage and Alexandria and Rome, with the progress of wealth, and carry out inventions as those cities did, and all other civilized peoples since Babel towered above the plains of Babylon?  Physical developments arise from the developments of man, whatever method may be recommended by philosophers.  What philosophical teachings led to the machinery of the mines of California, or to that of the mills of Lowell?  Some think that our modern improvements would have come whether Bacon had lived or not.  But I would not disparage the labors of Bacon in pointing out the method which leads to scientific discoveries.  Granting that he sought merely utility, an improvement in the outward condition of society, which is the view that Macaulay takes, I would not underrate his legacy.  And even supposing that the blessings of material life—­ “the acre of Middlesex”—­are as much to be desired as Macaulay, with the complacency of an eminently practical and prosperous man, seems to argue, I would not sneer at them.  Who does not value them?  Who will not value them so long as our mortal bodies are to be cared for?  It is a pleasant thing to ride in “cars without horses,” to feel in winter the genial warmth of grates and furnaces, to receive messages from distant friends in a moment of time, to cross the ocean without discomfort, with the “almost certainty” of safety, and save our wives and daughters from the ancient drudgeries of the loom and the knitting-needle.  Who ever tires in gazing at a locomotive as it whirls along with the power of destiny?  Who is not astonished at the triumphs of the engineer, the wonders of an ocean-steamer, the marvellous tunnels under lofty mountains?  We feel that Titans have been sent to ease us of our burdens.