brandy for years without being the worse for it.' This is the rejectio naturarum. We might easily proceed, but we have already sufficiently explained our meaning."

The answer to this is, that induction being the type of reasoning, of course so long as men have reasoned they have reasoned inductively. But there is correct induction, and incorrect induction; that is to say, even in ordinary cases men frequently pursue the induction per enumerationem simplicem,

instead of the correct method; and at the time Bacon wrote, almost all philosophical and scientific speculations were vitiated by the incorrect method.

"Those who object to the importance of Bacon's precepts in philosophy," says Mr. Hallam, "that mankind have practised many of them immemorially, are rather confirming their utility than taking off much from their originality, in any fair sense of the term. Every logical method is built on the common faculties of human nature which have been exercised since the creation in discerning, better or worse, truth from falsehood, and inferring the unknown from the known. That men might have done this more correctly is manifest from the quantity of error into which, from want of reasoning well on what came before them, they have habitually fallen. In experimental philosophy, to which the more special rules of Lord Bacon are generally referred, there was a notorious want of that very process of reasoning which he supplied."* "Nothing can be more certain," as Professor Napier observes, "than that Bacon rests the whole hopes of his philosophy on the novelty of his

*Hist. of Lit. of Europe,' vol. iii.

p. 182.

logical precepts; and that he uniformly represents the ancient philosophers, particularly Aristotle, as having been wholly regardless of the inductive method in their physical inquiries. Bacon does not indeed say that the ancient philosophers never employed themselves in observing Nature; but he maintains that there is a wide difference between observation as it was employed by them, and the art of observing for the purposes of philosophical discovery."*

He

Men in Bacon's time reasoned like the facetious judge in Mr. Macaulay's anecdote, "who was in the habit of jocosely propounding after dinner a theory, that the cause of the prevalence of Jacobinism was the practice of bearing three names. quoted on the one side Charles James Fox, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, John Horne Tooke, John Philpot Curran, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Theobald Wolfe Tone. These were instantiæ convenientes. He then proceeded to cite instances absentia in proximo William Pitt, John Scott, William Wyndham, Samuel Horsley, Henry Dundas, Edmund Burke. He might have gone on to instances secundum magis et minus. The practice of giving children three names has been for some time a growing practice, and Jacobinism has also been growing. The practice of giving children threenames is more common in America than in England. In England we have still a king and a House of Lords; but the Americans are repub

* 'Dissertation on the Scope and Influence of Bacon's Writings, p. 13. See also a splendid passage to the same effect in Herschel's 'Discourse, pp. 113, 114, which we do not quote, because the work is in everybody's hands, or ought to be.

licans. The rejectiones are obvious. Burke and Wolfe Tone were both Irishmen; therefore the being an Irishman is not the cause. In this way our inductive philosopher arrives at what Bacon calls the vintage, and pronounces that having three names is the cause of Jacobinism."

This is a very good theory for a jocular one; but we are surprised at so acute a writer as Mr. Macaulay speaking of it in the terms he does : "Here is an induction corresponding with Bacon's analysis, and ending in a monstrous absurdity. In what then does this induction differ from the induction which leads us to the conclusion that the presence of the sun is the cause of our having more light by day than by night? The difference evidently is, not in the kind of instances but in the number of instances; that is to say, the difference is not in that part of the process for which Bacon has given precise rules, but in a circumstance for which no precise rule can possibly be given. If the learned author of the theory about Jacobinism had enlarged either of the tables a little, his system would have been destroyed. The names of Tom Paine and William Windham Grenville would have been sufficient to do the work."

We especially dissent from the clause printed in italics, which seems to us at variance with all sound induction. It is precisely the kind of instances adduced in the theory which makes the theory absurd.. The whole theory is a gross example of "causation inferred from casual conjunction, without any presumption arising from known properties of the supposed agent, which is the characteristic of empiricism." Although in this theory there has been a certain superficial elimination em

ployed, yet that is obviously too incomplete for any satisfactory result. Mr. Macaulay subsequently asks-What number of instances is sufficient to justify belief? After how many experiments would Jenner have been justified in believing vaccination to be a safeguard against the smallpox? We answer that the number of instances depends on the kind of instances, and on the theory which presides over their collection. In proportion as the facts adduced are complex, must the theory which would explain them be consistent with all other known truths, before the facts themselves can have any significance. Thus the facts brought forward to support the theory of clairvoyance are utterly insignificant, although they have been collected by hundreds. One or two simple facts would be decisive. Thus it is pretended that during the state of coma, the patient can read with his eyes completely guarded from the light. To prove this, bandages are tied across his eyes, and books and letters are presented to him. He reads these, and people are amazed. Now we would suggest a very simple and decisive experiment. Do not bandage the patient's eyes; let them be open, but let the book be shut. If the patient can read in spite of the bandage, he can surely read in spite of the book-cover? The only precaution necessary is that neither the person holding the book, nor the patient reading it, should have any previous knowledge of its contents.

Bacon's originality is in no way affected by proving that all men at all times, when they reasoned correctly, reasoned inductively. Moreover, in Bacon's particular department, men had notoriously pursued a wrong method: they were not

aware of the necessity which he declared there was in all investigations, to proceed upon a graduated and successive induction. Bacon first made them aware of this; and, as Dr. Whewell says, "the truly remarkable circumstance is to find this recommendation of a continuous advance from observation by limited steps, through successive gradations of generality, given at a time when speculative men in general had only just begun to perceive that they must begin their course from experience in some way or other. . . . . In catching sight of this principle, and in ascribing to it its due importance, Bacon's sagacity, so far as I am aware, wrought unassisted and unrivalled.'

We cite this to support our assertion of Bacon's originality, but we do not coincide in its admiration of Bacon's principle of " graduated induction," which is an imperfect process, as will be shown presently in treating of the utility of Bacon's method.

After the foregoing testimonies we shall take for granted that the reader is prepared to admit the originality of Bacon's method.

The second question now presents itself. Was the method useful as a guide in investigation? Many persons have declared it to be useless. Mr. Macaulay is of the same opinion. He says, with great truth, "By stimulating men to the discovery of new truth, Bacon stimulated them to employ the inductive method-the only method by which truth can be discovered. By stimulating men to the discovery of useful truth, he furnished them with a motive to perform the inductive process well and

*Philos. of Inductive Sciences,' vol. ii. pp. 395, 396.