independent investigation had for many centuries given way in every department of thought before the spirit of submission to authority and acquiescence in dogmas and creeds of old establishment. It was not more the case in science than in literature. Even for a considerable time after what is called the revival of letters in the fifteenth century, the imitation of the ancient models was the only thing attempted or dreamed of by the most aspiring genius. The habit of thought was universal; in every thing men looked only to the mighty and glorious past. And the immense superiority of that past might almost be said to justify them; it was little to be wondered at that the writers and philosophers of classic Greece and Rome should be looked back to as almost a race of superior beings by all the generations that had succeeded them. Least of all was a thought of questioning their authority likely to occur to that generation upon whom the sunlight of their genius first re-emerged in full effulgence from the clouds that had obscured it for a thousand years. But by the time that Bacon's great work appeared, in the early part of the seventeenth century, this all-believing reverence for antiquity had long begun to pass away. The true spirit of scientific inquiry had fairly re-awakened, and discoveries which had already wrought a complete revolution in physical science had been made by Copernicus, by Tycho Brahe, by Kepler, by Galileo, by Bacon's own countryman Gilbert, and others. Bacon, indeed, does not appear to have been aware of this; he speaks with contempt repeatedly of the new views both of Gilbert and of Copernicus; the others, we believe, he nowhere mentions. But that makes no difference it is indisputable that the very thing which he is supposed to have been the first to teach, men were already busy doing in all directions. And of the illustrious succession of inventors and discoverers who have since appeared in every department of the field of science, it is equally certain that very few, if any, have either been distinguished as students of Bacon's writings, or can reasonably be supposed to have even indirectly acquired much knowledge of the spirit or principles of what is : called his method. Where is the case in which it can be clearly or even probably made out that any discovery of mark has been arrived at through that method, followed more closely than it would necessarily have been in the particular instance although Bacon had never expounded it or had never lived? If the history of all the great inventions and discoveries of the last two hundred years were to be traced, we doubt if the proportion of them that would be found to be fairly attributable to the inspiration of Bacon would turn out to be much more considerable than that of the great poems of the last two thousand years that may be attributed to the inspiration of Aristotle. The Preface to the Instauratio Magna is followed by a longer discourse entitled Distributio Operis, or The Distribution of the Work. It consists, or rather will consist, it is intimated, of Six Parts; entitled, the 1st, The Partitions, or Divisions, of the Sciences; the 2nd, The Novum Organum (that is, The New Organ or Instrument), or Directions respecting the Interpretation of Nature; the 3rd, Phenomena of the Universe, or Natural and Experimental History for the building up of a Philosophy; the 4th, The Scala Intellectus (or Ladder for the Understanding); the 5th, Prodromi (that is, Precursors), or Anticipations of the Second Philosophy; the 6th, The Second Philosophy, or Active Science. We will translate so much as will suffice to explain what the author contemplated setting forth under each of these divisions : "The First Part exhibits the sum, or universal description, of that knowledge or doctrine in possession of which the human race is up to this time. ... And our Partitions include not only those things that have been found out and are known, but those also which have been hitherto passed over and may be said to be owing.... And it will be our constant care to subjoin either instructions for the supplying of such deficiencies, or even sometimes a portion of the work completed by ourselves, by way of example for the whole. For we have undertaken, not to measure out regions in our mind, like augurs for the purpose of taking the auspices, but to enter them as military commanders with the design of doing actual service.* And this is the First Part of the work. “Next, having been carried through the ancient arts, we will prepare the human intellect for passing onward. Accordingly what is assigned to the Second Part is the doctrine respecting a better and more perfect employment of the reason in the investigation of things, and respecting the true helps of the understanding; in order that thereby (in so far as the condition of humanity and of mortality allows) the understanding may be exalted, and endowed with more ample powers for conquering the steeps and obscurities of nature. And that art which we adduce (and which we are wont to call the interpretation of nature) is a kind of logic; although the dif ference between it and the common logic is very great, and may indeed be described as something passing measure. For that vulgar logic also indeed professes to contrive and furnish helps and guards for the understanding; and in this alone they agree. But that which we bring forward plainly differs from the vulgar, principally in three things; namely, in its end, the order of demonstration, and the beginnings of the inquisition. "For the end which this science of ours proposes is, to find out not arguments, but arts; and not what may be accordant with principles, but principles themselves; and not probable reasons, but designations, and indications of effects. And so from a different purpose follows a dif ferent result. For there an adversary is vanquished and constrained by disputation; here nature by operation. "And with the diverse ends agree the nature and order of demonstration in the two. For in the vulgar logic almost the whole labour is spent about the Syllogism. Respecting Induction the dialecticians seem to have *The Latin is, "ut duces, promerendi causa." Mr. Wood's translation" like generals to invade them for conquest"-is hardly authorized by the original. It seems to be founded upon that of Wats" as captains to invade them for a conquest." Shaw omits the passage. scarcely ever seriously thought; merely passing it over with slight mention as they hasten on to their formulas of disputation. But we reject demonstration by syllogism, as proceeding too confusedly and allowing nature to escape from our hands. For, although it cannot be doubted by any one that those things which agree in the middle term, agree also with one another (which is a sort of mathematical certainty), nevertheless there is this of fallacy in the method, that the syllogism consists of propositions, the propositions of words, and that words are but the tokens and signs of opinions.*. . . . . We therefore reject the syllogism; and that not only with regard to principles (to which the logicians themselves do not apply it), but with regard also to middle propositions ; which indeed the syllogism in some way or other educes and brings forth; but they are such as are barren of effects, and remote from practice, and plainly unsuited to the active part of the sciences. Although, therefore, we leave to the syllogism, and to such celebrated and applauded demonstrations, the jurisdiction over popular arts and those that depend upon mere opinion (for in that department we stir nothing), yet for inquiring into the nature of things we use induction throughout, for the minor propositions as well as for the major. "Wherefore also the order of the demonstration is altogether inverted. For hitherto the matter has been wont to be managed in this wise; that from the intimations of the senses and from particular objects flight is taken at once up to the widest generalizations, as if to fixed poles around which disputation may revolve; and from them other propositions are derived by means of middle terms.†.... But, in our method, axioms are raised up continuously and step by step, so that the most general statements are only arrived at in the last stage; and these most comprehensive generalizations, moreover, come out, not notional, but well defined, and such as * "Notionum tesseræ et signa." Both Wats and Mr. Wood have "of things." "Per media." Mr. Wood translates "intermediately " nature really acknowledges to be known to her, and as enter into the very marrow of things. "But by far the greatest work which we set in motion is in the form of the induction, and in the conclusion which is attained to by means of it. For that form, of which the dialecticians speak, which proceeds by mere enumeration, is a puerile thing, precarious in its conclusions, exposed to danger from any contrary instance, and occupying itself only with matters generally known; nor does it lead to any result. But science requires an induction of such a form as may solve and separate experiments, and by means of due exclusions and rejections may bring out conclusions which shall be necessarily "Nor is even this all. For we carry down the foundations of the sciences to a greater depth, and construct them with greater solidity, and begin our investigations from a higher point, than has been hitherto done; subjecting to examination those things which the vulgar logic takes on trust. . . . We have resolved that true logic should force even supposed first principles to give reasons for themselves, until they are clearly evident. And, in so far as respects the first notions of the understanding, there is no one of those things which the understanding, left to itself, has collected, but is held by us in suspicion. . . . Nay we sift in many ways the information of the senses themselves. . . . To obviate the risks thence arising, we have with much and faithful service sought and collected helps for the senses from all quarters; that substitutions may make up for their deficiencies and rectifications for their variations. we attempt that so much by instruments as by experiments. For the subtilty of experiments is far greater than that of the senses, assisted even by the most exquisite instruments; we speak of such experiments as are skilfully and artistically imagined and applied in accordance with the design of the inquiry. Nor do "Such are the means which we prepare for the kindling and immission of the light of nature; and they might of themselves be sufficient if the human under |