calculated to afford of some of the phenomena; but they are supposed to produce their effects according to known laws; the ordinary laws of continued locomotion in the one case, and in the other, those of the propagation of undulatory movements among the particles of an elastic fluid. According to the foregoing remarks, hypotheses are invented to enable the Deductive Method to be earlier applied to phenomena. But[2] in order to discover the cause of any phenomenon by the Deductive Method, the process must consist of three parts; induction, ratiocination, and verification. Induction, (the place of which, however, may be supplied by a prior deduction,) to ascertain the laws of the causes; ratiocination, to compute from those laws, how the causes will operate in the particular combination known to exist in the case in hand; verification, by comparing this calculated effect with the actual phenomenon. No one of these three parts of the process can be dispensed with. In the deduction which proves the identity of gravity with the central force of the solar system, all the three are found. First, it is proved from the moon's motions, that the earth attracts her with a force varying as the inverse square of the distance. This (though partly dependent on prior deductions) corresponds to the first, or purely inductive, step, the ascertainment of the law of the cause. Secondly, from this law, and from the knowledge previously obtained of the moon's mean distance from the earth, and of the actual amount of her deflexion from the tangent, it is ascertained with what rapidity the earth's attraction would cause the moon to fall, if she were no further off, and no more acted upon by extraneous forces, than terrestrial bodies are: that is the second step, the ratiocination. Finally, this calculated velocity being compared with the observed velocity with which all heavy bodies fall, by mere gravity, towards the surface of the earth, (sixteen feet in the first second, forty-eight in the second, and so forth, in the ratio of the odd numbers, 1, 3, 5, &c.,) the two quantities are found to agree. The order in which the steps are here presented, was not that of their discovery; but it is their correct logical order, as portions of the proof that the same attraction of the earth which causes the moon's motion, causes also the fall of heavy bodies to the earth: a proof which is thus complete in all its parts. Now, the Hypothetical Method suppresses the first of the three steps, the induction to ascertain the law; and contents itself with the other two operations, ratiocination and verification; the law which is reasoned from, being assumed, instead of proved.