consequence of more laborious and accurate calculations from these principles, than had been instituted before. And even we, while we have been endeavouring to represent all philosophical systems as mere inventions of the imagination, to connect together the otherwise disjointed and discordant phenomena of nature, have insensibly been drawn in to make use of language expressing the connecting principles of this one, as if they were the real chains which nature makes use of to bind together her several operations."

If the view which I have given of Lord Bacon's plan of investigation be just, it will follow, That the Newtonian theory of gravitation can, in no respect whatever, admit of a comparison with those systems which are, in the slightest degree, the offspring of imagination; inasmuch as the principle employed to explain the phenomena is not a hypothesis, but a general fact established by induction; for which fact we have the very same evidence as for the various particulars comprehended under it. The Newtonian theory of gravitation, therefore, and every other theory which rests on a similar basis, is as little liable to be supplanted by the labours of future ages, as the mathematical conclusions of Euclid and Archimedes. The doctrines which it involves may be delivered in different, and perhaps less exceptionable forms; but till the order of the universe shall be regulated by new physical laws, their substance must for ever remain essentially the same. On the chains, indeed, which nature makes use of to bind together her several operations, Newton has thrown no light whatever; nor was it the aim of his researches to do so. The subjects of his reasonings were not occult connexions, but particular phenomena and general laws; both of them possessing all the evidence which can belong to facts ascertained by observation and experiment. From the one or the other of these all his inferences, whether analytical or synthetical, are deduced. Nor is a single hypothesis involved in his data, excepting the authority of that Law of Belief, which is tacitly and necessarily assumed in all our physical conclusions,-The stability of the order of nature.

SECTION II.-CONTINUATION OF THE SUBJECT. THE INDUCTION OF ARISTOTLE COMPARED WITH THAT OF BACON.

In this section I intend to offer a few slight remarks upon an assertion which has been hazarded with some confidence in various late publications, that the method of investigation, so much extolled by the admirers of Lord Bacon, was not unknown to Aristotle. It is thus very strongly stated by the ingenious author of a memoir in the Asiatic Researches.1

"From some of the extracts contained in this paper, it will appear, 1st, That the mode of reasoning by induction, illustrated and improved by the great Lord Verulam in his Organum Novum, and generally considered as the cause of the rapid progress of science in later times, was perfectly known to Aristotle, and was distinctly delineated by him as a method of investigation that leads to certainty or truth; and 2dly, That Aristotle was likewise perfectly acquainted, not merely with the form of induction, but with the proper materials to be employed in carrying it on-facts and experiments. We are therefore led to conclude, that all the blame of confining the human mind for so long a time in chains, by the force of syllogism, cannot be fairly imputed to Aristotle; nor all the merit of enlarging it, and setting it free, ascribed to Lord' Verulam."

The memoir from which this passage is copied, consists of extracts translated (through the medium of the Persian) from an Arabic treatise entitled the Essence of Logic. When it was first presented to the Asiatic Society, the author informs us that he was altogether ignorant of the coincidence of his own conclusions with those of Dr. Gillies; and he seems to have received much satisfaction from the subsequent perusal of the proofs alleged in support of their common opinion by that learned writer. "From the perusal of this wonderful book," Dr. Gillies's Exposition of the Ethics and Politics of Aristotle, "I have now the satisfaction to discover, that the conjectures 1 Asiatic Researches, vol. viii. pp. 89, 90. London Edition.

I had been led to draw from these scanty materials, are completely confirmed by the opinion of an author, who is probably better qualified than any preceding commentator on Aristotle's works, to decide on this subject."

"1

It is observed by Bailly, in his History of Astronomy, that although frequent mention is made of attraction in the writings of the ancients, we must not therefore "conclude that they had any precise or just idea of that law into which Newton has resolved the phenomena of the planetary revolutions. To their conceptions, this word presented the notion of an occult sympathy between different objects; and if any of them extended it from the descent of terrestrial bodies to explain the manner in which the moon was retained in her orbit, it was only an exhibition upon a larger scale of the popular error.”2 The same author has remarked, on a different occasion, that in order to judge of the philosophical ideas entertained at a particular period, it would be necessary to possess the dictionary of the age-exhibiting the various shades of meaning derived from fashion or from tradition. "The import of words," he adds, "changes with the times; their signification enlarging with the progress of knowledge. Languages are every moment perishing in detail from the variations introduced by custom; they grow old like those that speak them, and, like them, gradually alter their features and their form.”3

If this observation be just, with respect to the attraction of the ancients, when compared with the attraction of Newton, it will be found to apply with still greater force to the induction of Aristotle, considered in contrast with the induction of Bacon.

4

It is well known to those who are at all conversant with Bacon's writings, that although he borrowed many expressions from the scholastic phraseology then in vogue, he has, in general, not only employed them in new acceptations consonant to the general spirit of his own logic, but has, by definitions or

1 Ibid.

Hist. de l'Astronomie Moderne, tom. ii. pp. 555, 556.

Ibid. P. 184.

'Exay. Translated Inductio by

Cicero.

explanations, endeavoured to guard his readers against the mistakes to which they might be exposed, from a want of attention to the innovations thus introduced in the use of consecrated terms. How far he judged wisely in adopting this plan, (which has certainly much injured his style in point of perspicuity,) I do not presume to decide; I wish only to state the fact his motives may be judged of from his own words.

"Nobis vero ex altera parte (quibus, quantum calamo valemus, inter vetera et nova in literis fœdus et commercium contrahere, cordi est) decretum manet, antiquitatem comitari usque ad aras; atque vocabula antiqua retinere, quanquam sensum eorum et definitiones sæpius immutemus; secundum moderatum illum et laudatum, in Civilibus, novandi modum, quo rerum statu novato, verborum tamen solennia durent; quod notat Tacitus; eadem magistratuum vocabula.”1

Of these double significations, so common in Bacon's phraseology, a remarkable instance occurs in the use which he makes of the scholastic word forms. In one passage he approves of the opinion of Plato, that the investigation of forms is the proper object of science; adding, however, that this is not true of the forms which Plato had in view, but of a different sort of forms more suited to the grasp of our faculties. In another passage, he observes, that when he employs the word forms, in speaking of natural philosophy, he is always to be understood as meaning the laws of nature.3 Whether so accurate a rea

1 De Aug. Scient. lib. iii. cap. iv. The necessity under which the antiAristotelians found themselves, in the earlier part of the seventeenth century, of disguising their attack on the prevailing tenets, is strongly illustrated in a letter from Descartes to Regius,

Pourquoi rejettez vous publiquement les qualités réelles et les formes substantielles, si cheres aux scholastiques: J'ai déclaré, que je ne pretendois pas les nier, mais que je n'en avois pas besoin pour expliquer mes pensées."

"Manifestum est, Platonem, virum sublimis ingenii (quique veluti ex rupe

excelsa omnia circumspiciebat) in sua de ideis doctrina, formas esse verum scientiæ objectum, vidisse; utcunque sententiæ hujus verissimæ fructum amiserit, formas penitus à materia abstractas, non in materia determinatas contemplando et prensando. Quod si diligenter, serio, et sincere, ad actionem, et usum, et oculos convertamus; non difficile erit disquirere, et notitiam assequi, quæ sint illæ formæ, quarum cognitio res humanas meris modis locupletare et beare possit."-De Augment. Scient. lib. iii. cap. iv.

soner as Locke would have admitted Bacon's general apology for so glaring an abuse of words, may perhaps be doubted; but after comparing the two foregoing sentences, would Locke (notwithstanding his ignorance of the syllogistic art) have inferred, that Bacon's opinion of the proper object of science was the same with that of Plato? The attempt to identify Bacon's induction with the induction of Aristotle, is (as I trust will immediately appear) infinitely more extravagant. It is like confounding the Christian Graces with the Graces of Heathen Mythology.

The passages in which Bacon has been at pains to guard against the possibility of such a mistake are so numerous, that it is surprising how any person, who had ever turned over the pages of the Novum Organon, should have been so unlucky as not to have lighted upon some one of them. The two following will suffice for my present purpose :

"In constituendo autem axiomate, forma inductionis alia quam adhuc in usu fuit, excogitanda est. Inductio enim quæ procedit per enumerationem simplicem res puerilis est, et precario concludit. 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. Verum ad hujus inductionis, sive demonstrationis instructionem bonam et legitimam, quamplurima adhibenda sunt, quæ adhuc nullius mortalium cogitationem subiere; adeo ut in ea major sit consumenda opera, quam adhuc consumpta est in syllogismo. Atque in hac certe inductione, spes maxima sita est."1

"Cogitavit et illud-Restare inductionem, tanquam

nil aliud intelligimus, quam leges illas, quæ naturam aliquam simplicem ordinant et constituunt; ut calorem, lumen, pondus, in omnimoda materia et subjecto susceptibili. Itaque eadem res est

forma calidi, aut forma luminis, et lex calidi, sive lex luminis."-Nov. Org. lib. ii. aph. xvii.

1 Nov. Org. lib. i. aph. cv,