was conclusive. You remember, if you have read Walter
Scott, the learned demonstration of the antiquary who is settling the
date of a Roman or Celtic ruin, I forget which; and the intervention of
the beggar, who has no archaeological system, but who has seen the
edifice in question both built and fall to decay. Reason as much as you
like; if your reasonings do not accord with facts, you will have woven
spider's webs, of admirable fineness perhaps, but wanting in solidity.

It is time to sum up these lengthened considerations. Science does not
originate solely from experiment, nor does it proceed solely from
reason; it results from the meeting together of experience and reason.
Experience prepares the discovery, genius makes it, experience confirms
it. What distinguishes the sciences is not the process of invention,
which is everywhere the same; but the process of control over supposed
truths. A mathematical discovery is confirmed by pure reasoning. A
physical discovery is confirmed by sensible observation joined with
calculation. A discovery in the order of morals is confirmed by
observation of the facts of consciousness. Therefore it is that between
the physical and moral sciences there exists a broad line of
demarcation. Moral facts have not less certainty than physical
phenomena; but moral facts falling under the influence of liberty, all
men cannot perceive them equally under all conditions. An optical
experiment presents itself to the eyes, and all the spectators see it
alike, if at least they have one and the same visual organization; but a
case of moral experience has a personal character, and is only
communicated to another person on condition that he puts faith in the
testimony of his fellow. In this order of things a man can observe
directly only what he concurs in producing. With this reservation, we
may say that the control of moral truths is made by experience like that
of physical truths. In all departments of knowledge, a thought may be
held as true when it accounts for facts.

And so, Gentlemen, we conclude that every scientific truth is, in its
origin, a supposition of the mind, the result of which is to produce the
meeting together of experience and reason, and so to permit the rational
reconstruction of the facts.

Every system is shown to be at fault by facts, if facts contradict it.

When a system explains the facts, we hold it as proved just to the
extent to which it explains them. This accordan