Yes; but the next time you see such a stone, believe that the wonder
has been solved, and found to be, like most wonders in Nature, more
wonderful than we guessed it to be. It is not a sea-beast which has
crawled forth, but an ice-beast which has been left behind; lifted up
thither by the ice, as surely as the famous Pierre-a-bot, forty feet
in diameter, and hundreds of boulders more, almost as large as
cottages, have been carried by ice from the distant Alps right across
the lake of Neufchatel, and stranded on the slopes of the Jura, nine
hundred feet above the lake. {4}
Thus, I think, we have accounted for facts enough to make it probable
that Britain was once covered partly by an ice-sheet, as Greenland is
now, and partly, perhaps, by an icy sea. But, to make assurance more
sure, let us look for new facts, and try whether our ice-dream will
account for them also. Let us investigate our case as a good medical
man does, by "verifying his first induction."
He says: At the first glance, I can see symptoms a, b, c. It is
therefore probable that my patient has got complaint A. But if he
has he ought to have symptom d also. If I find that, my guess will
be yet more probable. He ought also to have symptom e, and so forth;
and as I find successively each of these symptoms which are proper to
A, my first guess will become more and more probable, till it reaches
practical certainty.
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