It has already been seen that the practice of all our arts and industries depends upon our knowing the properties of natural objects which we can get hold of and put together; and though we may be able to exert no direct control over the greater natural objects and the general succession of causes and effects in nature, yet, if we know the properties and powers of these objects, and the customary order of events, we may elude that which is injurious to us, and profit by that which is favourable.
Thus, though men can nowise alter the seasons or change the process of growth in plants, yet having learned the order of nature in these matters, they make arrangements for sowing and reaping accordingly; they cannot make the wind blow, but when it does blow they take advantage of its known powers and probable direction to sail ships and turn windmills; they cannot arrest the lightning, but they can make it harmless by means of conductors, the construction of which implies a knowledge of some of the laws of that electricity, of which lightning is one of the manifestations. Forewarned is forearmed, says the proverb; and knowledge of the laws of nature is forewarning of that which we may expect to happen, when we have to deal with natural objects.
11. Science: the Knowledge of the Laws of Nature obtained by Observation, Experiment, and Reasoning.
No line can be drawn between common knowledge of things and scientific knowledge; nor between common reasoning and scientific reasoning. In strictness all accurate knowledge is Science; and all exact reasoning is scientific reasoning. The method of observation and experiment by which such great results are obtained in science, is identically the same as that which is employed by every one, every day of his life, but refined and rendered precise. If a child acquires a new toy, he observes its character and experiments upon its properties; and we are all of us constantly making observations and experiments upon one thing or another.
But those who have never tried to observe accurately will be surprised to find how difficult a business it is. There is not one person in a hundred who can describe the commonest occurrence with even an approach to accuracy. That is to say, either he will omit something which did occur, and which is of importance; or he will imply or suggest the occurrence of something which he did not actually observe, but which he unconsciously infers must have happened. When two truthful witnesses contradict one another in a court of justice, it usually turns out that one or other, or sometimes both, are confounding their inferences from what they saw with that which they actually saw. A swears that B picked his pocket. It turns out that all that A really knows is that he felt a hand in his pocket when B was close to him; and that B was not the thief, but C, whom A did not observe. Untrained observers mix up together their inferences from what they see with that which they actually see in the most wonderful way; and even experienced and careful observers are in constant danger of falling into the same error.
Scientific observation is such as is at once full, precise, and free from unconscious inference.
Experiment is the observation of that which happens when we intentionally bring natural objects together, or separate them, or in any way change the conditions under which they are placed. Scientific experiment, therefore, is scientific observation performed under accurately known artificial conditions.
It is a matter of common observation that water sometimes freezes. The observation becomes scientific when we ascertain under what exact conditions the change of water into ice takes place. The commonest experiments tell us that wood floats in water. Scientific experiment shows that, in floating, it displaces its own weight of the water.
Scientific reasoning differs from ordinary reasoning in just the same way as scientific observation and experiment differ from ordinary observation and experiment—that is to say, it strives to be accurate; and it is just as hard to reason accurately as it is to observe accurately.
In scientific reasoning general rules are collected from the observation of many particular cases; and, when these general rules are established, conclusions are deduced from them, just as in every-day life. If a boy says that “marbles are hard,” he has drawn a conclusion as to marbles in general from the marbles he happens to have seen and felt, and has reasoned in that mode which is technically termed induction. If he declines to try to break a marble with his teeth, it is because he consciously, or unconsciously, performs the converse operation of deduction from the general rule “marbles are too hard to break with one’s teeth.”