Darwiniana : Essays — Volume 02Huxley, Thomas Henry
Science
Darwiniana : Essays — Volume 02
Huxley, Thomas Henry
Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882; Evolution (Biology)
The evidence brought forward by Mr. Darwin in support of his hypothesis is
of three kinds. First, he endeavours to prove that species may be
originated by selection; secondly, he attempts to show that natural causes
are competent to exert selection; and thirdly, he tries to prove that the
most remarkable and apparently anomalous phænomena exhibited by the
distribution, development, and mutual relations of species, can be shown to
be deducible from the general doctrine of their origin, which he propounds,
combined with the known facts of geological change; and that, even if all
these phænomena are not at present explicable by it, none are necessarily
inconsistent with it.
There cannot be a doubt that the method of inquiry which Mr. Darwin has
adopted is not only rigorously in accordance with the canons of scientific
logic, but that it is the only adequate method. Critics exclusively trained
in classics or in mathematics, who have never determined a scientific fact
in their lives by induction from experiment or observation, prate learnedly
about Mr. Darwin's method, which is not inductive enough, not Baconian
enough, forsooth, for them. But even if practical acquaintance with the
process of scientific investigation is denied them, they may learn, by the
perusal of Mr. Mill's admirable chapter "On the Deductive Method," that
there are multitudes of scientific inquiries in which the method of pure
induction helps the investigator but a very little way.
"The mode of investigation," says Mr. Mill, "which, from the proved
inapplicability of direct methods of observation and experiment, remains to
us as the main source of the knowledge we possess, or can acquire,
respecting the conditions and laws of recurrence of the more complex
phænomena, is called, in its most general expression, the deductive method,
and consists of three operations: the first, one of direct induction; the
second, of ratiocination; and the third, of verification."
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