herto the _true_ Deductive Method has prevailed; a second,
in which Principles are assumed to reason from, without any previous
effort at Induction, such as existed, being unconsciously made from the
supposed Facts or Knowledge which the mind was in possession of; and a
third, in which Facts were collected, classified, and Induction
therefrom as a basis of further investigation attempted, but in which
the Laws or Principles assumed as established by the Facts were not
rigorously and accurately derived from Facts; or, in other words, in
which the Facts were not strictly used for the purpose of deriving from
them just such Laws or Principles only as they actually established, but
were wrenched to the attempted support of Laws, Principles, or Ideas
more or less fanciful or unrelated to the Facts. These two last phases
are included in what is known among Scientists as the Anticipative or
Hypothetical Method; while the three phases are commonly undiscriminated
and collectively termed the Deductive Method. It was also developed that
the results of this period of intellectual activity were fruitless of
definite Scientific achievements, _except so far as the true Deductive
Method_ had been employed. It was furthermore seen that since Bacon's
time, the opposite Method of procedure, namely, from Facts to
Principles, has been chiefly in vogue; that under its impulse
distinctness and clearness have been brought to pervade those stores of
knowledge which were already in our possession, thus fulfilling _one_ of
the requisites of a perfect Scientific Method, while, however, the other
necessary requirement, that of furnishing a _certain_ guide to future
discoveries, has been only proximately attained by it.

It is obvious from this exhibition of the characteristics of the two
leading Scientific Methods, or the two leading Processes of the one
Method, in whichever light we may choose to view them, that so far from
being the best or the only true Method or Process of intellectual
investigation, the Inductive is far inferior to the _true Deductive_
Method or Process, in all the essentials of a Scientific guide. The
Inductive can give us only a _high degree_ of precision and
definiteness, with only proximate certainty for the future as the result
of a slow mode of procedure; while the true Deductive Method gives us
perfect precision, exactitude, and complete certainty, as the result of
a rapid mode. The true Deductive Method--brought into d