cess Bacon has, in the second book of the No-l ham Grenville would have been sufficient to vum Organum, done for the inductive process; do the work. that is to say, he has analyzed il well. His It appears to us, then, that the difference be. rules are quite proper; but we do noi need iween a sound and an unsound induction, or, them, because they are drawn from our own to use the Baconian phraseology, between the constant practice.

interpretation of nature and the anticipation But though everybody is constantly perform- of nature, does not lie in this—that the intering the process described in the second book preter of nature goes through the process anaof the Novum Organum, some men perform it lyzed in the second book of the Novum Organum well and some perform it ill. Some are led and the anticipator through a different process by it to truth and some to error. It led Frank- They may both perform the same process. But lin to discover the nature of lightning. It led the anticipator performs it foolishly or carethousands who had less brains than Franklin lessly; the interpreter performs it with patience, to believe in animal magnetism. But this was attention, sagacity, and judgment. Now, prenot because Franklin went through the process cepts can do little towards making men patient described by Bacon and the dupes of Mesmer and attentive, and still less towards making through a different process. The comparentie them sagacious and judicious. It is very well and rejectiones, of which we have given exam- to tell men to be on their guard against prejuples, will be found in the most unsound deduc- dices, not to believe facts on slight evidence, tions. We have heard that an eminent judge not to be content with a scanty collection of of the last generation was in the habit of facts, to put out of their minds ihe idola which jocosely propounding after dinner a theory, Bacon has so finely described. But these rules that the cause of the prevalence of Jacobinism are too general to be of much practical use. was the practice of bearing three names. He The question is, what is a prejudice? How quoted on the one side Charles James Fox, long does the incredulity with which I hear a Richard Brinsley Sheridan, John Horne Tooke, new theory propounded continue to be a wise John Philpot Curran, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and salutary incredulity? When does it be'I'heobald Wolfe Tone. These were instantia come an idolum specus, the unreasonable perticonvenientes. He then proceeded to cite instances nacity of a too skeptical mind? What is slight absentia in proxime :-William Pitt, John Scott, evidence? What collection of facts is scanty? William Wyndham, Samuel Horsley, Henry Will ten instances do, or fifty, or a hundred ? Dundas, Edmund Burke. He might have gone In how many months would the first human on to instances secundum magis et minus. The beings who settled on the shores of the ocean practice of giving children three names has been have been justified in believing that the moon for some time a growing practice, and Jacobin- had an influence on their tides? After how ism has also been growing. The practice of many experiments would Jenner have been giving children three names is more common in justified in believing that he had discovered America than in England. In England we still a safeguard against the small-pox ? These have a king and a House of Lords, but the are questions to which it would be most desi. Americans are republicans. The rejectiones are rable to have a precise answer; but unhappily obvious. Burke and Theobald Wolfe Tone they are questions to which no precise answer were both Irishmen; therefore the being an can be returned. Irishman is not the cause of Jacobinism. We think, then, that it is possible to lay Horsley and Horne Tooke are both clergy- down accurate rules, as Bacon has done, for men; therefore the being a clergyman is not the performing of that part of the inductive the cause of Jacobinism. Fox and Wyndham process which all men perform alike; but that were both educated at Oxford; and therefore these rules, though accurate, are not wanted, the being educated at Oxford is not the cause because in truth they only tell us to do what of Jacobinism. Pitt and Horne Tooke were we are all doing. We think that it is impossiboth educated at Cambridge; therefore the be- ble to lay down any precise rule for the pering educated at Cambridge is not the cause forming of that part of the inductive process of Jacobinism. In this way our inductive phi- which a great experimental philosopher perlosopher arrives at what Bacon calls the vin- forms in one way and a superstitious old wotage, and pronounces that the having three man in another. narnes is the cause of Jacobinism.

On this subject, we think, Bacon was in an Here is an induction corresponding with error. He certainly attributed to his rules a Bacon's analysis, and ending in a monstrous value which did not belong to them. He went absurdity. In what, then, does this induction so far as to say, that if his method of making differ from the induction which leads us to the discoveries were adopted, little would depend conclusion that the presence of the sun is the on the degree of force or acuteness of any incause of our having more light by day than tellect; that all minds would be reduced to one by night? The difference evidently is not in level ; that his philosophy resembled a comthe kind of instances, but in the number of in- pass or a rule which equalizes all hands, and stances; that is to say, the difference is not in enables the most unpractised person to draw that part of the process for which Bacon has a more correct circle or line than the best given precise rules but in a circumstance for draughtsman can produce without such aid. which no precise roe can possibly be given. This really seems to us as extravagant as it If the learned author of the theory about Ja. would have been in Lindley Murray to an cobinism had enlarged either of his tables a nounce that everybody who should learn his Little, his system would have been destroyed. The names of Tom Paine and William Wynd- * Novum Organum, Præf. and Lib. 1, Aph. 122

grammar would write as good English as and carefully. His predecessors had been an. Dryden; or in that very able writer, Dr. ticipators of nature. They had been content Whately, to promise that all the readers of his with first principles, at which they had arrived logic would reason like Chillingworth, and by the most scanty and slovenly induction. that all the readers of his rhetoric would And why was this? It was, we conceive, bespeak like Burke. That Bacon was altogether cause their philosophy proposed to itself no mistaken as to this point will now hardly be practical end, because it was merely an exerdisputed. His philosophy has flourished dur- cise of the mind. A man who wants to coning two hundred years, and has produced none trive a new machine or a new medicine has a of this levelling. The interval between a man strong motive to observe accurately and paof talents and a dunce is as wide as ever; and tiently, and to try experiment after experiment. is never more clearly discernible than when But a man who merely wants a theme for disthey engage in researches which require the putation or declamation has no such motive. constant use of induction.

He is therefore content with premises groundIt will be seen that we do not consider Ba-ed on assumption, or on the most scanty and con's ingenious analysis of the inductive me-hasty induciion. Thus, we conceive, the thod as a very useful performance. Bacon schoolmen acted. On their foolish premises was not, as we have already said, the inventor they often argued with great ability; and as of the inductive method. He was not even the their object was “assensum subjugare, non res person who first analyzed the inductive method to be victorious in controversy, not to be correctly, though he undoubtedly analyzed it victorious over nature—they were consistent. more minutely than any who preceded him. For just as much logical skill could be shown He was no: the person who first showed that in reasoning on false as on true piemises. by the inductive method alone new truth could But the followers of the new philosophy, probe discovered. But he was the person who posing to themselves the discovery of useful first turned the minds of speculative men, truth as their object, must have altogether faillong occupied in verbal disputes, to the dis- ed of attaining that object, if they had been covery of new truth; and, by doing so, he at content to build theories on superficial induu once gave to the inductive method an import- tion. ance and dignity which had never before be- Bacon has remarkedt that in all ages when longed to it. He was not the maker of that philosophy was stationary, the mechanical aris road; he was not the discoverer of that road; went on improving. Why was this? Evidenthe was not the person who first surveyed and ly because the mechanic was not content with mapped that road. But he was the person so careless a mode of induction as served who first called the public attention to an in- the purpose of the philosopher. And why was exhaustible mine of wealth, which had been the philosopher more easily satisfied than the utterly neglected, and which was accessible by mechanic ? Evidently because the object of that road alone. By doing so, he caused that the mechanic was to mould things, whilst the road which had previously been trodden only object of the philosopher was only to mouid by peasants and higglers, to be frequented by a words. Careful induction is not at all neceshigher class of travellers.

sary to the making of a good syllogism. Bu: That which was eminently his own in his it is indispensable to the making of a good system was the end which he proposed to him-shoe. Mechanics, therefore, have always been, self. The end being given, the means, as it ap- as far as the range of their humble but userui pears to us, could not well be mistaken. If others callings extended, not anticipators but inter. had aimed at the same object with Bacon, we preters of nature. And when a philosophy hold it to be certain that they would have em- arose, the object of which was to do on a large ployed the same method with Bacon. It would scale what the mechanic does on a small scale have been hard to convince Seneca that the —to extend the power and to supply the wants inventing of a safety-lamp was an employ- of man—the truth of the premises, which logicment worthy of a philosopher. It would have ally is a matter altogether unimportant, he. been hard to persuade Thomas Aquinas to de- came a matter of the highest importance; and scend from the making of syllogisms to the the careless induction with which men of making of gunpowder. But Seneca would learning had previously been satisfied, gave never have doubted for a moment that it was place, of necessity, to an induction far more only by a series of experiments that a safety- accurate and satisfactory. lamp could be invented. Thomas Aquinas What Bacon did for the inductive philusowould never have thought that his barbara and phy may, we think, be fairly stated thus. The baralipton would enable him to ascertain the objects of preceding speculators were objects proportion which charcoal ought to bear to which could be obtained without careful insaltpetre in a pound of gunpowder. Neither duction. Those speculators, therefore, did common sense nor Aristotle would have suf- not perform the inductive process carefully. fered him to fall into such an absurdity. Bacon stirred up men to pursue an object

By stimulating men to the discovery of which c.uld be attained only by induction, new truth, Bacon stimulated them to employ and by induction carefully performed; and con the inductive method, the only method, even sequently induction was more carefully perthe ancient philosophers and the schoolmen formed. We do not think that the importance themselves being judges, by which new truth of what Bacon did for inductive philosophy can be discovered. By stimulating men to the discovery of useful truth, he furnished them with

Which I will have invented ; and thyself

has ever been overrated. But we think that lectual universe resembled that which the arch. the nature of his services is often mistaken, angel, from the golden threshold of heaven, and was not fully understood even by himself. daried down into the new creation. It was not by furnishing philosophers with

“Round he surveyed-and well might, where he stood rules for performing the inductive process So high above the circling canopy well, but by furnishing them with a motive for

Of night's extended shade-from eastern point

of Libra, 1o the Heecy star which bears performing it well, that he conferred so vast a

Andromeda far off Atlantic seas benefit on society.

Beyond the horizon." To give to the human mind a direction

His knowledge differed from that of other which it shall retain for ages is the rare pre-men as a Terrestrial Globe differs froin an Alrogative of a few imperial spirits. It cannot, las which contains a different country on every therefore, be uninteresting to inquire, what leaf. The towns and roads of England, France, was the moral and intellectual constitution and Germany are better laid down in the atlas which enabled Bacon to exercise so vast an than in the globe. But while we are looking at insluence on the world. In the temper of Bacon—we speak of Bacon England we see nothing of France; and while

we are looking at France we see nothing of the philosopher, not of Bacon the lawyer and Germany. We may go to the atlas to learn politicianthere was a singular union of au- the bearings and distances of York and Bristol, dacity and sobriety. The promises which he or of Dresden and Prague. But it is useless made to mankind 'might, to a superficial read- if we want to know the bearings and distances er, seem to resemble the rants which a great of France and Martinique, or of England and dramatist has put into the mouth of an Oriental Canada. On the globe we shall not find all conqueror, half-crazed by good fortune and by the market-towns in our own neighbourhood; violent passions:

but we shall learn from it the comparative ex“He shall have chariots easier than air,

tent and the relative position of all the king.

doms of the earth. “I have taken," said BaThat art the messenger shall ride before him On a horse cut out of an entire diamond,

con, in a letter written when he was only thirtyThat shall be made to go with golden wheels, one, to his uncle, Lord Burleigh, “I have I know not how yet."

taken all knowledge to be my province.” In But Bacon performed what he promised. In any other young man, indeed in any other man, truth, Fletcher would not have dared to make this would have been a ridiculous flight of preArbaces promise, in his wildest fits of excite- sumption. There have been thousands of ment, the tithe of what the Baconian philoso- better mathematicians, astronomers, chemists, phy has performed.

physicians, botanists, mineralogists, than BaThe true philosophical temperament may, con. No man would go to Bacon's works to we think, be described in four words-much | learn any particular science or art; any more hope, little faith ; a disposition to believe that than he would go to a twelve-inch globe in any thing, however extraordinary, may be order to find his way from Kennington Turndone; an indisposition to believe that any pike to Clapham Common. The art which thing extraordinary has been done. In these Bacon taught was the art of inventing arts. points the constitution of Bacon's mind seems | The knowledge in which Bacon excelled all to us to have been absolutely perfect. He was men, was a knowledge of the mutual relations at once the Mammon and the Surly of his friend of all departments of knowledge. Ben. Sir Epicure did not indulge in visions The mode in which he communicated his more magnificent and gigantic. Surly did not thoughts was exceedingly peculiar. He had sist evidence with keener and more sagacious no touch of that disputatious temper which he incredulity.

often censured in his predecessors. He effected Closely connected with this peculiarity of a vast intellectual revolution in opposition to Bacon's temper was a striking peculiarity of a vast mass of prejudices; yet he never enhis understanding. With great minuteness of gaged in any controversy; nay, we cannot al observation he had an amplitude of compre, present recollect, in all his philosophical works, hension such as has never yet been vouchsafed a single passage of a controversial character. to any other human being. The small fine All those works might with propriety have mind of Labruyère had not a more delicate been put into the form which he adopted in the tact than the large intellect of Bacon. The work entitled Cogitata et visa ; " Franciscus Ba. “Essays” contain abundant proofs that no conus sic cogitavit.” These are thoughts which uice feature of character, no peculiarity in the have occurred to me: weigh them well, and urdering of a house, a garden, or a court- take them or leave them. inasque, could escape the notice of one whose Borgia said of the famous expedition of mind was capable of taking in the whole world Charles the Eighth, that the French had con. of knowledge. His understanding resembled the quered Italy, not with steel, but with chalk; for tent which the fairy Paribanou gave to Prince that the only exploit which they had found neAhmed.

Fold it, and it seemed a toy for the cessary for the purpose of taking military ocnand of a lady. Spread it, and the armies of cupation of any place, had been to mark the powerful sulians might repose beneath its doors of the houses where they meant to quarshade.

ter. Bacon often quoted this saying, and lored 1 In keenness of observation he has been to apply it to the victories oi' nis own inter

raualled, thonigh perhaps never surpassed. lect. His philosophy, he said, came as a Bu the largeness of his mind was all his own. The glauce with which he surveyed the intel- * Novum Organum, Lib. 1, Aph. 35, and elsewhere

guest, not as an enemy. She found no difficulty factions. If this be indeed the philosophia prima, in obtaining admittance, without a contest, into we are quite sure that the greatest philosoevery understanding fitted, by its structure, and phical work of the nineteenth century is Mr. by its capacity, to receive her. In all this we Moore's “Lalla Rookh.” The similitudes think that he acted most judiciously; first, be- which we have cited are very happy similicause, as he has himself remarked, the differ- tudes. But that a man like Bacon should ence between his school and other schools was a have taken them for more, that he should have difference sofundamental, that there was hardly thought the discovery of such resemblances as any common ground on which a controversial these an important part of philosophy, has albaitle could be fought; and, secondly, because ways appeared to us one of the most singular his mind, eminently observant, pre-eminently facts in the history of letters. discursive and capacious, was, we conceive, The truth is, that his mind was wonderfully neither formed by nature, nor disciplined by quick in perceiving analogies of all sorts. But habit, for dialectical combat.

like several eminent men whom we could Though Bacon did not arm his philosophy name, both living and dead, he sometimes apwith the weapons of logic, he adorned her pro- peared strangely deficient in the power of dissusely with all the richest decorations of rhe- iinguishing rational from fanciful analogies, toric. His eloquence, though not untainted analogies which are arguments from analowith the vicious taste of his age, would alone gies which are mere illustrations—analogies have entitled him to a high rank in literature. like that which Bishop Butler so ably pointed He had a wonderful talent for packing thought out between natural and revealed religion, close and rendering it portable. In wit, if by from analogies like that which Addison diswit be meant the power of perceiving analo- covered between the series of Grecian gods gies between things which appear to have no carved by Phidias, and the series of English thing in common, he never had an equal—not kings painted by Kpeller. This want of dis. even Cowley-not even the author of Hudibras. crimination has led to many strange political Indeed. he possessed this faculty, or rather this speculations. Sir William Temple deduced a faculty possessed him, to a morbid degree. theory of government from the properties of When he abandoned himself to it without re- the pyramid. Mr. Southey's whole system of serve, as he did in the Sapientia Veterum, and at finance is grounded on the phenomena of eva. the end of the second book of the De Augmentis, poration and rain. In theology this perverted the feats which he performed were not merely ingenuity has made still wilder work. From admirable, but porientous, and almost shock- the time of Irenæus and Origen, down to the ing. On those occasions we marvel at him as present day, there has not been a single geneclowns on a fair-day marvel at a juggler, and ration in which great divines have not been can hardly help thinking that the devil must led into the most absurd expositions of Scrip be in him.

ture, by mere incapacities to distinguish ana. These, however, were freaks in which his logies proper, to use the scholastic phrase, ingenuity now and then wantoned, with scarce- from analogies metaphorical.* It is curious ly any other object than to astonish and amuse. that Bacon has himself mentioned this very But it occasionally happened that, when he kind of delusion among the idola specus; and was engaged in grave and profound investiga- has mentioned it in language which, we are intions, his wit obtained the mastery over all his clined to think, indicates that he knew himself other faculties, and led him into absurdities to be subject to it. It is the vice, he tells us, into which no dull man could possibly have of subtle minds to attach too much importance fallen. We will give the most striking instance to slight distinctions; it is the vice, on the other which at present occurs to us. In the third hand, of high and discursive intellects to atbook of the De Augmentis he tells us that there tach too much importance to slight resem. are some principles which are not peculiar to blances; and he adds, that when this last proone science, but are common to several. That pensity is indulged to excess, it leads men to part of philosophy which concerns itself with catch at shadows instead of substances.t. these principles is, in his nomenclature, de- Yet we cannot wish that Bacon's wit had signated as philosophia prima. He then pro- been less luxuriant. For, to say nothing of ceeds to mention some of the principles with the pleasure which it affords, it was in the which this philosophia prima is conversant. One vast majority of cases employed for the purof them is ihis: An infectious disease is more pose of making obscure truth plain, of making likely to be communicated while it is in pro- repulsive truth attractive, of fixing in the gress than when it has reached its height. mind forever truth which might otherwise This, says he, is true in medicine. It is also have made but a transient impression. true in morals; for we see that the example of The poetical faculty was powerful in Bacon s very abandoned men injures public morality mind; but not like his wit, so powerful as ocless than the example of men in whom vice casionally to usurp the place of his reason, has not yet extinguished all good qualities. and to tyrannize over the whole man. No Again, he tells us that in music a discord end- imagination was ever at once so strong and su ing in a concord is agreeable, and that the thoroughly subjugated. It never stirred but al same thing may be noted in the affections. a signal from good sense. It stopped at the Once more he tells us, that in physics the energy with which a principle acts is often * See some interesting remarks on this subject in increased by the antiperistasis of its opposite; Bishop Berkeley's “Minute Philosopber." Dialogue and that it is the same in the contests of

Nodum Organum, Lib. 1, Aph. 55.

first check from good sense. Yet, though dis- | as it is first to ripen, it is also first to fade. It ciplined to such obedience, it gave noble proofs has generally lost something of its bloom and of its vigour. In truth, much of Bacon's life freshness before the sterner faculties have was passed in a visionary world—amidst things reached maturity : and is commonly withered as strange as any that are described in the and barren while those faculties still retain all “ Arabian Tales," or in those romances on their energy. It rarely happens that the fancy which the curate and barber of Don Quixote's and the judgment grow together. It happens village performed so cruel an auto-da-fe- still more rarely that the judgment grows faster amidst buildings more sumptuous than the than the fancy. This seems, however, to have palace of Aladdin, fountains more wonderful been the case with Bacon. His boyhood and than the golden water of Parizade, conveyances youth appear to have been singularly sedate. more rapid than the hippogryph of Ruggiero, His gigantic scheme of philosophical reform is arms more formidable than the lance of As- said by some writers to have been planned tolfo, remedies more efficacious than the balsam before he was fisteen ; and was undoubtedly of Fierabras. Yet in his magnificent day- planned while he was still young. He observed dreams there was nothing wild—nothing but as vigilantly, meditated as deeply, and judged what sober reason sanctioned. He knew that as temperately, when he gave his first work to all the secrets seigned by poets to have been the world as at the close of his long career. written in the books of enchanters, are worth. But in eloquence, in sweetness, and variety of less when compared with the mighty secrets expression, and in richness of illustration, bis which are really written in the book of nature, later writings are far superior to those of his and which, with time and patience, will be youth. In this respect the history of his mind read there. He knew that all the wonders bears some resemblance to the history of the wrought by all the talismans in fable, were mind of Burke. The treatise on the “Sublime trifles, when compared to the wonders which and Beautiful,” though written on a subject might reasonably be expected from the phi- which the coldest metaphysician could hardly losophy of fruit; and, that if his words sank treat without being occasionally betrayed into deep into the minds of men, they would pro- florid writing, is the most unadorned of all duce effects such as superstition had never Burke's works. It appeared when he wa: ascribed to the incantations of Merlin and Mi- twenty-five or twenty-six. When at forty, chael Scot. It was here that he loved to let his wrote the “Thoughts on the Causes of the ex imagination loose. He loved to picture to him- isting Discontents,” his reason and his judg selt the world as it would be when his philoso- ment had reached their full maturity ; but his phy should, in his own noble phrase, “have eloquence was still in its splendid dawn. At enlarged the bounds of human empire."* We fifty, his rhetoric was quite as rich as good might refer to many instances. But we will taste would permit; and when he died, at content ourselves with the strongest, the de-almost seventy, it had become ungracefully scription of the “House of Solomon” in the gorgeous. In his youth he wrote on the emo“New Atlantis.” By most of Bacon's contem- tions produced by mountains and cascades; by poraries, and by some people of our time, this the masterpieces of painting and sculpture; by remarkable passage would, we doubt not, be the faces and necks of beautiful women, in the considered as an ingenious rodoinontade—a style of a parliamentary report. In his old age, counterpart to the adventures of Sinbad or Ba- he discussed treaties and tariffs in the most ron Munchausen. The truth is, that there is fervid and brilliant language of romance. Jt not to be found in any human composition a is strange that the essay on the “Sublime and passage more eminently distinguished by pro- Beautiful," and the “ Letter to a Noble Lord,“ found and serene wisdom. The boldness and should be the productions of one man. But it originality of the fiction is far less wonderful is far more strange that the essay should have than the nice discernment which carefully ex- been a production of his youth, and the letter cluded from that long list of prodigies every of his old age. thing that can be pronounced impossible; We will give very short specimens of Ba every thing that can be proved to lie beyond con's two styles. În 1597, he wrote thus the mighty magic of induction and of time. “Crafty men contemn studies ; simple mer Already some parts, and not the least startling admire them; and wise men use them ; for parts, of this glorious prophecy have been ac- they teach not their own use: that is a wisdoir complished, even according to the letter; and without them, and won by observation. Read the whole, construed according to the spirit, is not to contradict, nor to believe, but to weigt. daily ace unplishing all around us.

and consider. Some books are to be tasted One of the most remarkable circumstances others to be swallowed, and some few to be in the history of Bacon's mind, is the order in chewed and digested. Reading maketh a full which its powers expanded themselves. With man, conference a ready man, and writing an him the fruit came first and remained till the exact man. And therefore if a man wrile last: the blossoms did not appear till late. In little, he had need have a great memory; if he general the development of the fancy is to the confer little, have a present wit; and if he read development of the judgment, what the growth little, have much cunning to seem to know that of a girl is to the growth of a boy. The fancy he doth not. Histories make men wise, poets atlains at an earlier period to the perfection of witty, the mathematics subtle, natural philosoiis beauty, its power, and its fruitfulness. and, phy deep, morals grave, logic and rhetoric able

io contend.” It will hardly be disputed that "New Atlantis.”

this is a passage to be "chewed and digested."