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The method of scientific investigation is nothing but the expression of the necessary mode of working of the human mind; it is simply the mode by which all phenomena are reasoned about and given precise and exact explanation.
科学研讨的办法不过是人类思维活动的必要表达方法，也就是对悉数表象进行思索并处以精确而稳重说明的表达方法。
There is no more difference, but there is just the same kind of difference, between the mental operations of a man of science and those of an ordinary person,
as there is between the operations and methods of a baker or of a butcher weighing out his goods in common scales, and the operations of a chemist in performing a difficult and complex analysis by means of his balance and finely graded weights.
他们之间没有其他不一样，不过是科学家的思维操作方法与正常人的思维操作方法之间的相同，这种不一样有如面包师或卖肉者用一般磅秤称他们物品的分量的操作办法与化学家用天平以及精确衡量的分量单位进行一个困难且凌乱的分析之间的不一样。
It is not that the scales in the one case, and the balance in the other, differ in 
the principles of their construction or manner of working; but that the latter is a much finer apparatus and of course much more accurate in its measurement than the former.
这并不是说面包师或卖肉者所用的磅秤和化学家所用的天平的规划原理或作业方法上存在不一样，而是说与前者比较，后者是一种更精密的设备，因而在计量上必定更精确。
You will understand this better, perhaps, if I give you some familiar examples.
假定我给你一些了解的比方，或许，你可以非常好地了解这点差异。
Youhave all heard it repeated that men of science work by means of induction (归纳法) and deduction,that by the help of these operations, they, in a sort of sense, manage to extract from Naturecertain natural laws, and that out of these, by some special skill of their own, they buildup their theories.
你们都多次传闻过，科学家是用归纳法和演绎法作业的，他们用这些办法，在某种意义上说，力求从天然界找出某些天然规则，然后他们根据这些规则，用自个的某种非同一般的身手，树立起他们的理论。
And it is imagined by many that the operations of the common mind canbe by no means compared with these processes, and that they have to be acquired by a sort ofspecial training.
许多人认为，一般人的思维活动根柢无法与科学家的思维进程比较，认为这些思维进程有必要经过某种专门练习才干获得。
To hear all these large words, you would think that the mind of a man of science must be constituted differently from that of his fellow men;
听了那些夸大的言语，你可以会认为科学家的脑筋必定和其别人的大脑规划不一样；
but if you will not be frightened by terms, you will discover that you are quite wrong, and that all these terrible apparatus are being used by yourselves every day and every hour of your lives.
可是假定你没有被这些言词所吓倒，你会发现，你完全错了；你还会发现，一切这些可怕的仪器你自个每天每时也在运用。
There is a well-known incident in one
of Moliere’s plays, where the author makes the hero express unbounded delight on being told that he had been talking prose (散文) during the whole of his life.
在莫里哀的一个剧本中有这样一个闻名的插曲：作者让主人公得知他整个终身中一向在说散文后，体现出无限的高兴。
In the same way, I trust that you will take comfort, and be delighted with yourselves, on the discovery that you have been acting on the principles of inductive and deductive philosophy during the same period.
相同，我认为，当你一旦发现你终身中一向在按归纳法和演绎法的道理就事时，你也会感到抚慰和欢欣的。
Probably there is not one here who has not in the courseof the day had occasion to set in motion a complex train of reasoning, of the very same kind,though differing in degree, as that which a scientific man goes through in tracing the causesof natural phenomena.
在座的诸位中，大约不会有人一整天都没有机缘进行一连串凌乱的思考活动，这些思考活动与科学家在探究天然表象缘由时所阅历的思考活动，尽管凌乱程度不一样，但在类型上是完全相同的。
