III. CHAP. nerally conversant. It is the history of analytical investigation, and many beautiful illustrations of it have been given since the days of Bacon in all subjects to which that method of inquiry has been applied. Fifth part : losophiæ. 40. In a fifth part of the Instauratio Magna tiones Phi- Bacon had designed to give a specimen of the new philosophy which he hoped to raise after a due use of his natural history and inductive method, by way of anticipation or sample of the whole. He calls it Prodromi, sive Anticipationes Philosophiæ Secundæ. And some fragments of this part are published by the names Cogitata et Visa, Cogitationes de Natura Rerum, Filum Labyrinthi, and a few more, being as much, in all probability, as he had reduced to writing. In his own metaphor, it was to be like the payment of interest, till the principal could be raised; tanquam fœnus reddatur, donec sors haberi possit. For he despaired of ever completing the work by a Sixth part sixth and last portion, which was to display a perfect system of philosophy, deduced and confirmed by a legitimate, sober, and exact inquiry according to the method which he had invented and laid down. "To perfect this last part is above our powers and beyond our hopes. We may, as we trust, make no despicable beginnings, the destinies of the human race must complete it; in such a manner, perhaps, as men, looking only at the present, would not readily conceive. For upon this will depend not only a speculative good, but all the fortunes of mankind, and all their power.' And with an eloquent prayer that his exertions Philosophia Secunda. III. may be rendered effectual to the attainment of CHAP. truth and happiness, this introductory chapter of the Instauratio, which announces the distribution of its portions, concludes. Such was the temple, of which Bacon saw in vision before him the stately front and decorated pediments, in all their breadth of light and harmony of proportion, while long vistas of receding columns and glimpses of internal splendour revealed a glory that it was not permitted him to comprehend. In the treatise De Augmentis Scientiarum, and in the Novum Organum, we have less, no doubt, than Lord Bacon, under different conditions of life, might have achieved; he might have been more emphatically the high-priest of nature, if he had not been the chancellor of James I.; but no one man could have filled up the vast outline which he alone, in that stage of the world, could have so boldly sketched. 41. The best order of studying the Baconian philosophy would be to read attentively the Advancement of Learning; next, to take the treatise De Augmentis, comparing it all along with the former, and afterwards to proceed to the Novum Organum. A less degree of regard has usually been paid to the Centuries of Natural History, which are the least important of his writings, or even to the other philosophical fragments, some of which contain very excellent passages; yet such, in great measure, as will be found substantially in other parts of his works. The most remarkable are the Cogitata et Visa. It must be said, that one who thoroughly venerates Lord Course of studying Lord Bacon. III. CHAP. Bacon will not disdain his repetitions, which sometimes, by variations of phrase, throw light upon each other. It is generally supposed that the Latin works were translated by several assistants, among whom Herbert and Hobbes have been named, under the author's superintendence.* The Latin style of these writings is singularly concise, energetic and impressive, but frequently crabbed, uncouth and obscure; so that we read with more admiration of the sense than delight in the manner of delivering it. But Rawley in his Life of Bacon informs us that he had seen about twelve autographs of the Novum Organum, wrought up and improved year by year, till it reached the shape in which it was published, and he does not intimate that these were in English, unless the praise he immediately afterwards bestows on his English style may be thought to warrant that supposition. I do not know that we have evidence as to any of the Latin works being translations from English, except the treatise De Augmentis. *The translation was made, as Archbishop Tenison informs us, "by Mr. Herbert and some others, who were esteemed masters in the Roman eloquence." tIpse reperi in archivis dominationis suæ, autographa plus minus duodecim Organi Novi de anno in annum elaborati, et ad incudem revocati, et singulis annis, ulteriore lima subinde politi et castigati, donec in illud tandem corpus adoleverat, quo in lucem editum fuit; sicut multa ex animalibus fœtus lambere consuescunt usque quo ad mem brorum firmitudinem eos perducant. In libris suis componendis verborum vigorem et perspicuitatem præcipuè sectabatur, non elegantiam aut concinnitatem sermonis, et inter scribendum aut dictandum sæpe interrogavit, num sensus ejus clare admodum et perspicuè redditus esset? Quippe qui sciret æquum esse ut verba famularentur rebus, non res verbis. Et si in stylum forsitan politiorem incidisset, siquidem apud nostrates eloquii Anglicani artifex habitus est, id evenit, quia evitare arduum ei erat. III. 42. The leading principles of the Baconian CHAP. philosophy are contained in the Advancement of Learning. These are amplified, corrected, illustrated and developed in the treatise De Augmentis Scientiarum, from the fifth book of which, with some help from other parts, is taken the first book of the Novum Organum, and even a part of the second. I use this phrase, because, though earlier in publication, I conceive that the Novum Organum was later in composition. All that very important part of this fifth book which relates to Experientia Litterata, or Venatio Panis, as he calls it, and contains excellent rules for conducting experiments in natural philosophy, is new, and does not appear in the Advancement of Learning, except by way of promise of what should be done in it. Nor is this, at least so fully and clearly, to be found in the Novum Organum. The second book of this latter treatise he professes not to anticipate. De Novo Organo silemus, he says, neque de eo quicquam prælibamus. This can only apply to the second book, which he considered as the real exposition of his method, after clearing away the fallacies which form the chief subject of the first. Yet what is said of Topica particularis, in this fifth book De Augmentis, (illustrated by "articles of inquiry concerning gravity and levity,") goes entirely on the principles of the second book of the Novum Organum. 43. Let us now see what Lord Bacon's method really was. He has given it the name of induction, Nature of nian in the Baco duction. III. CHAP. but carefully distinguishes it from what bore that name in the old logic, that is, an inference from a perfect enumeration of particulars to a general law of the whole. For such an enumeration, though of course conclusive, is rarely practicable in nature, where the particulars exceed our powers of numbering. Inductio quæ procedit per enumerationem simplicem, res puerilis est, et precario concludit, et periculo exponitur ab instantia contradictoria, et plerumque secundum pauciora quam par est, et ex his tantuminodo quæ præsto sunt, pronuntiat. At inductio quæ ad inventionem et demonstrationem scientiarum et artium erit utilis, naturam separare debet, per rejectiones et exclusiones debitas; ac deinde post negativas tot quot sufficiunt, super affirmativas concludere; quod adhuc factum non est, nec tentatum certe, nisi tantummodo a Platone, qui ad excutiendas definitiones et ideas, hac certe forma inductionis aliquatenus utitur. Nov. Org. i. 105. In this passage Bacon seems to imply that the enumeration of particulars in any induction is or may be imperfect. This is certainly the case in the plurality of physical inductions; but it does not appear that the logical writers looked upon this as the primary and legitimate sense. Induction was distinguished into the complete and incomplete. "The word," says a very modern writer, "is perhaps unhappy, as indeed it is taken in several vague senses; but to abolish it is impossible. It is the Latin translation of ewaywyn, which word is used by Aristotle as a counterpart to ovoyiopoc. He seems to consider it in a perfect, or dialectic, and in an imperfect or rhetorical sense. Thus if a genus (G.) contained four species (A. B. C. D.), syllogism would argue, that what is true of G. is true of any one of the four; but perfect induction would reason, that what we can prove true of A. B. C. D. separately, we may properly state as true of G., the whole genus. This is evidently a formal argument, as demonstrative as syllogism. But the imperfect or rhetorical induction will perhaps enumerate three only of the species, and then draw the conclusion concerning G., which virtually includes the fourth, or what is the same thing, will argue, that what is true of the three is to be believed true likewise of the fourth." Newman's Lectures on Logie, p. 73. (1837.) The same distinction between perfeet and imperfect induction is made in the Encyclopédie Françoise, art. Induction, and apparently on the authority of the ancients. It may be observed, that this imperfect induction may be put in a regular logical form, and is only vicious in syllogistic reasoning when the conclusion asserts a higher probability than the premises. If, for example, we reason thus: Some serpents are venomous. This unknown animal is a serpent-Therefore this is venomous; we are guilty of an obvious paralogism. If we infer only, This may be venomous, our reasoning is perfectly valid in itself, at least in the common apprehension of all mankind, except |