I must begin with a good body of facts and not from a principle (in which I always suspect some fallacy) and then as much deduction as you please.

For I am well aware that scarcely a single point is discussed in this volume on which facts cannot be adduced, often apparently leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I arrived.

False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often endure long; but false views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, for everyone takes a salutary pleasure in proving their falseness; and when this is done, one path towards error is closed and the road to truth is often at the same time opened.

I am turned into a sort of machine for observing facts and grinding out conclusions.

My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts.

False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often endure long; but false views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, for every one takes a salutary pleasure in proving their falseness.