The course which he marked
out so laboriously and so ingeniously for Induction to follow was one
which was found to be impracticable, and as barren of results as those
deductive philosophies on which he lavished his scorn. He has left
precepts and examples of what he meant by his cross-examining and
sifting processes. As admonitions to cross-examine and to sift facts and
phenomena they are valuable. Many of the observations and
classifications are subtle and instructive. But in his hands nothing
comes of them. They lead at the utmost to mere negative conclusions;
they show what a thing is not. But his attempt to elicit anything
positive out of them breaks down, or ends at best in divinations and
guesses, sometimes--as in connecting Heat and Motion--very near to later
and more carefully-grounded theories, but always unverified. He had a
radically false and mechanical conception, though in words he earnestly
disclaims it, of the way to deal with the facts of nature. He looked on
them as things which told their own story, and suggested the questions
which ought to be put to them; and with this idea half his time was
spent in collecting huge masses of indigested facts of the most various
authenticity and value, and he thought he was collecting materials
which his method had only to touch in order to bring forth from them
light and truth and power.
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