There are many voices in the world, some powerful, and others weak; but there is not yet a consensus of thoughtful observers sufficiently strong to demonstrate any one system of science to be absolutely true. The inductive process of Bacon, no doubt, yields the nearest approach to certainty; but even this cannot raise a deduction beyond question, for no man of science knows all the instances that can be adduced, and his deduction from what he knows may be upset by equally sure inferences from what he does not know. The time over which scientific observations can travel, even if it be extended into ages, is but as a watch in the night compared with the eternity of God; and the range of human observation is but as drop of the bucket compared with the circle of the heavens; and, therefore, it may turn out, in a thousand instances, that there are more things in heaven and earth than were ever dreamed of in the most accurate philosophy of scientists. These good people have done their best, from Aristotle downwards, but they have hardly accomplished more than to prove us all dunces, and themselves scarcely a fig better than the rest of us.