THE METHOD OF ARGUMENT

The Method of Argument ~ 80 ~ inference, and not by direct observation that I can grasp the fact that each molecule of water is composed of two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen. A.E. Mander, in his book Clearer Thinking, observes with great pertinence: It is useful to reflect that, if we were equipped with different senses, all that we now perceive would be unknowable to us by direct perception. For example, if our eyes were as powerful as a microscope, we should be able to see bacteria. But we could not then perceive elephants. We should be obliged to infer their existence. Similarly, we now perceive the phenomena, which, being of wavelengths lying within certain limits, are registered by our sense of sight. There are millions of facts we see. Yet if our eyes were differently constructed so that they were turned to long wavelengths instead of very short ones, then we should have direct sense perceptions of wireless waves, which now we know only by inference, but we