"idola of the world and the cave" expose us, we shall rather be astonished that so many probable rules of civil prudence have been treasured up and confirmed by experience, than disposed to give them a higher place in philosophy than they can claim.

Consider

other side.

73. It might be alleged in reply to these considerations, that admitting the absence of a strictly scientific certainty in moral reasoning, we have yet, as seems ations on the acknowledged on the other side, a great body of probable inferences, in the extensive knowledge and sagacious application of which most of human wisdom consists. And all that is required of us in dealing either with moral evidence or with the conclusions we draw from it, is to estimate the probability of neither too high; an error from which the severe and patient dicipline of the inductive philosophy is most likely to secure us. It would be added by some, that the theory of probabilities deduces a wonderful degree of certainty from things very uncertain, when a sufficient number of experiments can be made; and thus, that events depending upon the will of mankind, even under circumstances the most anomalous and apparently irreducible to principles, may be calculated with a precision inexplicable to any one who has paid little attention to the subject. This, perhaps, may appear rather a curious application of mathematical science, than one from which our moral reasonings are likely to derive much benefit, especially as the conditions under which a very high probability can mathematically be obtained involve a greater number of trials than experience will generally furnish. It is nevertheless a field that deserves to be more fully explored: the success of those who have attempted to apply analytical processes to moral probabilities has not hitherto been very encouraging, inasmuch as they have often come to results falsified by experience; but a more scrupulous regard to all the conditions of each problem may perhaps obviate many

sources of error.*

A calculation was published not long since, said to be on the authority of an eminent living philosopher, according to which, granting a moderate probability that each of twelve jurors would decide rightly, the chances in favour of

the rectitude of their unanimous verdict were made something extravagantly high, I think about 8000 to 1. It is more easy to perceive the fallacies of this pretended demonstration, than to explain how a man of great acuteness should

74. It seems, upon the whole, that we should neither conResult of ceive the inductive method to be useless in regard the whole. to any subject but physical science, nor deny the peculiar advantages it possesses in those inquiries rather than others. What must in all studies be important, is the habit of turning round the subject of our investigation in every light, the observation of every thing that is peculiar, the exclusion of all that we find on reflection to be extraneous. In historical and antiquarian researches, in all critical examination which turns upon facts, in the scrutiny of judicial evidence, a great part of Lord Bacon's method, not, of course, all the experimental rules of the Novum Organum, has, as I conceive, a legitimate application.* I would refer any one who may doubt this to

have overlooked them. One among many is that it assumes the giving an unanimous verdict at all to be voluntary; whereas, in practice, the jury must decide one way or the other. We must deduct therefore a fraction expressing the probability that some of the twelve have wrongly conceded their opinions to the rest. One danger of this rather favourite application of mathematical principles to moral probabilities, as indeed it is of statistical tables (a remark of far wider extent), is that, by considering mankind merely as units, it practically habituates the mind to a moral and social levelling, as inconsistent with a just estimate of men as it is characteristic of the present age.

The principle of Bacon's prerogative instances, and perhaps in some cases a very analogous application of them, appear to hold in our inquiries into historical evidence. The fact sought to be ascertained in the one subject corresponds to the physical law in the other. The testimonies, as we, though rather laxly, call them, or passages in books from which we infer the fact, correspond to the observations or experiments from which we deduce the law. The necessity of a sufficient induction by searching for all proof that may bear on the question, is as manifest in one case as in the other. The exclusion of precarious and inconclusive evidence is alike indispensable in both. The selection of prerogative instances, or such as carry with them satisfactory conviction, requires the same sort of inventive and reasoning powers.

It is easy to illustrate this by examples. Thus, in the controversy concerning the Icon Basilike, the admission of Gauden's claim by Lord Clarendon is in the nature of a prerogative instance; it renders the supposition of the falsehood of that claim highly improbable. But the many second-hand and hearsay testimonies which may be alleged on the other side, to prove that the book was writen by King Charles, are not prerogative instances, because their falsehood will be found to involve very little improbability. So, in a different controversy, the silence of some of the fathers as to the text, commonly called, of the three heavenly witnesses, even while expounding the context of the passage, may be reckoned a prerogative instance; a decisive proof that they did not know it, or did not believe it genuine; because if they did, no motive can be conceived for the omission. But the silence of Laurentius Valla as to its absence from the manuscripts on which he commented is no prerogative instance to prove that it was contained in them; because it is easy to perceive that he might have motives for saying nothing; and, though the negative argument, as it is called, or inference that a fact is not true, because such and such persons have not mentioned it, is, taken generally, weaker than positive testimony, it will frequently supply prerogative instances where the latter does not. Launoy, in a little treatise, De Auctoritate Negantis Argumenti, which displays more plain sense than ingenuity or philosophy, lays it down that a fact of a public nature,

his History of Winds, as one sample of what we mean by the Baconian method, and ask whether a kind of investigation, analogous to what is therein pursued for the sake of eliciting physical truths, might not be employed in any analytical process where general or even particular facts are sought to be known. Or if an example is required of such an investigation, let us look at the copious induction from the past and actual history of mankind upon which Malthus established his general theory of the causes which have retarded the natural progress of population. Upon all these subjects before mentioned, there has been an astonishing improvement in the reasoning of the learned, and perhaps of the world at large, since the time of Bacon, though much remains very defective. In what degree it may be owing to the prevalence of a physical philosophy founded upon his inductive logic, it might not be uninteresting to inquire.*

eye-witness is the prerogative instance. It would carry us too far to develop this at length, even if I were fully prepared to do so; but this much may lead us to think, that whoever shall fill up that lamentable desideratum, the logic of evidence, ought to have familiarised himself with the Novum Organum.

which is not mentioned by any writer within 200 years of the time, supposing, of course, that there is extant a competent number of writers who would naturally have mentioned it, is not to be believed. The period seems rather arbitrary, and was possibly so considered by himself; but the general principle is of the highest importance in historical "The effects which Bacon's writcriticism. Thus, in the once celebrated ings have hitherto produced, have indeed question of Pope Joan, the silence of all been far more conspicuous in physics writers near the time, as to so wonderful than in the science of mind. Even a fact, was justly deemed a kind of pre- here, however, they have been great and rogative argument, when set in opposi- most important, as well as in some coltion to the many repetitions of the story lateral branches of knowledge, such as in later ages. But the silence of Gildas natural jurisprudence, political economy, and Bede as to the victories of Arthur is criticism, and morals, which spring up no such argument against their reality, from the same root, or rather which are because they were not under an histo- branches of that tree of which the science rical obligation, or any strong motive of mind is the trunk." Stewart's Phiwhich would prevent their silence. Ge- losophical Essays, Prelim. Dissertation. nerally speaking, the more anomalous The principal advantage, perhaps, of and interesting an event is, the stronger those habits of reasoning which the Bais the argument against its truth from conian methods, whether learned directly the silence of contemporaries, on account or through the many disciples of that of the propensity of mankind to believe school, have a tendency to generate, is and recount the marvellous; and the that they render men cautious and pains. weaker is the argument from the testi- taking in the pursuit of truth, and theremony of later times for the same reason. fore restrain them from deciding too soon, A similar analogy holds also in jurispru- Nemo reperitur qui in rebus ipsis et dence. The principle of our law, reject. experientia moram fecerit legitimam. ing hearsay and secondary evidence, is These words are more frequently true of founded on the Baconian rule. Fifty moral and political reasoners than of any persons may depose that they have heard others. Men apply historical or personal of a fact or of its circumstances; but the experience, but they apply it hastily,

Bacon's

aptitude for

75. It is probable that Lord Bacon never much followed up in his own mind that application of his method moral sub to psychological, and still less to moral and political jects. subjects, which he has declared himself to intend. The distribution of the Instauratio Magna, which he has prefixed to it, relates wholly to physical science. He has in no one instance given an example, in the Novum Organum, from moral philosophy, and one only, that of artificial memory, from what he would have called logic. But we must constantly remember that the philosophy of Bacon was left exceedingly incomplete. Many lives would not have sufficed for what he had planned, and he gave only the leisure hours of his own. It is evident that he had turned his thoughts to physical philosophy rather for an exercise of his reasoning faculties, and out of his insatiable thirst for knowledge, than from any peculiar aptitude for their subjects, much less any advantage of opportunity for their cultivation. He was more eminently the philosopher of human, than of general nature. Hence he is exact as well as profound in all his reflections on civil life and mankind, while his conjectures in natural philosophy, though often very acute, are apt to wander far from the truth in consequence of his defective acquaintance with the phænomena of nature. His Centuries of Natural History give abundant proof of this. He is, in all these inquiries, like one doubtfully, and by degrees, making out a distant prospect, but often deceived by the haze. But if we compare what may be found in the sixth, seventh, and eighth books De Augmentis, in the Essays, the History of Henry VII., and the various short treatises contained in his works, on moral and political wisdom, and on human nature, from experience of which all such wisdom is drawn, with the Rhetoric, Ethics, and Politics of Aristotle, or with the historians most celebrated for their deep insight into civil society and human

and without giving themselves time for either a copious or an exact induction; the great majority being too much influenced by passion, party-spirit, or vanity, or perhaps by affections morally right, but not the less dangerous in reasoning, to maintain the patient and dispassionate suspense of judgment,

which ought to be the condition of our inquiries.

Nov. Organ. ii. 26. It may however be observed, that we find a few passages in the ethical part of De Augmentis, lib. vii. cap. 3., which show that he had some notions of moral induction germinating in his mind.

character, with Thucydides, Tacitus, Philip de Comines, Machiavel, Davila, Hume, we shall, I think, find that one man may almost be compared with all of these together. When Galileo is named as equal to Bacon, it is to be remembered that Galileo was no moral or political philosopher, and in this department Leibnitz certainly falls very short of Bacon. Burke, perhaps, comes, of all modern writers, the nearest to him; but though Bacon may not be more profound than Burke, he is more copious and comprehensive.

Comparison

Galileo.

76. The comparison of Bacon and Galileo is naturally built upon the influence which, in the same age, they exerted in overthrowing the philosophy of the of Bacon and schools, and in founding that new discipline of real science which has rendered the last centuries glorious. Hume has given the preference to the latter, who made accessions to the domain of human knowledge so splendid, so inaccessible to cavil, so unequivocal in their results, that the majority of mankind would perhaps be carried along with this decision. There seems, however, to be no doubt that the mind of Bacon was more comprehensive and profound. But these comparisons are apt to involve incommensurable relations. In their own intellectual characters, they bore no great resemblance to each other. Bacon had scarce any knowledge of geometry, and so far ranks much below not only Galileo, but Descartes, Newton, and Leibnitz, all signalised by wonderful discoveries in the science of quantity, or in that part of physics which employs it. He has, in one of the profound aphorisms of the Novum Organum, distinguished the two species of philosophical genius, one more apt to perceive the differences of things, the other their analogies. In a mind of the highest order neither of these powers will be really deficient, and his own inductive method is at once the best exercise of both, and the best safeguard against the excess of either. But, upon the whole, it may certainly be said, that the genius of Lord Bacon was naturally more inclined to collect the resemblances of nature than to note her differences. This is the case with men like him of sanguine temper, warm fancy, and brilliant wit; but it is not the frame of mind which is best suited to strict reasoning.

77. It is no proof of a solid acquaintance with Lord