You will learn more about the process of reasoning when you study logic, which treats of that subject in full. At present, it is sufficient to know that the laws of nature are the general rules respecting the behavior of natural objects, which have been collected from innumerable observations and experiments; or, in other words, that they are inductions from those observations and experiments. The practical and theoretical results of science are the products of deductive reasoning from these general rules. Thus science and common sense are not opposed, as people sometimes fancy them to be, but science is perfected common sense. Scientific reasoning is simply very careful common reasoning, and common knowledge grows into scientific knowledge as it becomes more and more exact and complete. The way to science then lies through common knowledge; we must extend that knowledge by common observation and experiment, and learn how to state the results of our investigations accurately, in general rules or laws of nature; finally, we must learn how to reason accurately from these rules, and thus arrive at rational explanations of natural phenomena, which may suffice for our guidance in life. FOOTNOTES [C] From Science Primers. Introductory. By Prof. T. H. Huxley, F.R.S. THE CIRCLE OF THE SCIENCES. Science means classified knowledge. There may be much general knowledge that is not science. It attains to that dignity only when the particular facts known are generalized, and arranged in some order, instead of being jumbled together, and lying about loosely in the memory, to be taken up at random. Especially must the basal facts of the science be verified, not assumed. Information that is general and assured, though as yet lacking system and a proper ordering of the elementary facts, may, and usually will in time advance to the dignity of science. History warrants this expectation. Only let not the boast be made, or the honor conferred prematurely. Geography, chemistry, and political economy are all now sciences. The first has been recognized among the sciences from an early day, though it has advanced rapidly during the present century. The last two are comparatively new members, having held their place in the “Circle” scarcely a hundred years. True, many of the facts of chemistry, and the principles of political economy had been known for ages, but the knowledge men had of them lacked either system or certainty, or both. So, also, in respect to mineralogy, botany, and zoölogy, a store of known facts had been for ages accumulating, before they could rightly be called sciences. To reach that distinction the quality and orderly arrangement of the things known are as necessary as the quantity.