greatest harm to his fellow-men.

But now, assuming, as we all do, I hope, that these phenomena are
properly accessible to inquiry, and setting out upon our search into
the causes of the phenomena of organic nature, or, at any rate, setting
out to discover how much we at present know upon these abstruse
matters, the question arises as to what is to be our course of
proceeding, and what method we must lay down for our guidance. I reply
to that question, that our method must be exactly the same as that
which is pursued in any other scientific inquiry, the method of
scientific investigation being the same for all orders of facts and
phenomena whatsoever.

I must dwell a little on this point, for I wish you to leave this room
with a very clear conviction that scientific investigation is not, as
many people seem to suppose, some kind of modern black art. I say that
you might easily gather this impression from the manner in which many
persons speak of scientific inquiry, or talk about inductive and
deductive philosophy, or the principles of the "Baconian philosophy." I
do protest that, of the vast number of cants in this world, there are
none, to my mind, so contemptible as the pseudoscientific cant which is
talked about the "Baconian philosophy."

To hear people talk about the great Chancellor--and a very great man he
certainly was,--you would think that it was he who had invented
science, and that there was no such thing as sound reasoning before the
time of Queen Elizabeth. Of course you say, that cannot possibly be
true; you perceive, on a moment's reflection, that such an idea is
absurdly wrong, and yet, so firmly rooted is this sort of
impression,--I cannot call it an idea, or conception,--the thing is too