9. This comparison of the process by which we verify scientific truth to the process of Book-keeping in a large commercial establishment, may appear to some persons not sufficiently dignified for the subject. But, in fact, the possibility of giving this formal and business-like aspect to the evidence of science, as involved in the process of successive generalization, is an inestimable advantage. For if no one could pronounce concerning a wide and profound theory except he who {105} could at once embrace in his mind the whole range of inference, extending from the special facts up to the most general principles, none but the greatest geniuses would be entitled to judge concerning the truth or errour of scientific discoveries. But, in reality, we seldom need to verify more than one or two steps of such discoveries at one time; and this may commonly be done (when the discoveries have been fully established and developed,) by any one who brings to the task clear conceptions and steady attention. The progress of science is gradual: the discoveries which are successively made, are also verified successively. We have never any very large collections of them on our hands at once. The doubts and uncertainties of any one who has studied science with care and perseverance are generally confined to a few points. If he can satisfy himself upon these, he has no misgivings respecting the rest of the structure; which has indeed been repeatedly verified by other persons in like manner. The fact that science is capable of being resolved into separate processes of verification, is that which renders it possible to form a great body of scientific truth, by adding together a vast number of truths, of which many men, at various times and by multiplied efforts, have satisfied themselves. The treasury of Science is constantly rich and abundant, because it accumulates the wealth which is thus gathered by so many, and reckoned over by so many more: and the dignity of Knowledge is no more lowered by the multiplicity of the tasks on which her servants are employed, and the narrow field of labour to which some confine themselves, than the rich merchant is degraded by the number of offices which it is necessary for him to maintain, and the minute articles of which he requires an exact statement from his accountants.