for the investigation of natural phenomena and processes as a new logic, and designating it by the term induction. It has become common to distinguish it as the Inductive Logic.

Whatever else may be new in the Baconian method, there most certainly neither is, nor can be, any novelty in its logic. If there were, it would only be an illogical, that is, an unreasonable or absurd method. For nobody has ever pretended that the old logic is false; the worst charge that has been brought against it is that it is useless or inefficient. To talk of a new logic, differing in its principles from the old, is tantamount to talking of a new geometry, or a new species of square or circle.

But what Bacon understands by Induction is not a logic at all, or anything of the nature of a logic. Induction is the name given by the logicians to that kind of syllogism in which a universal conclusion is obtained from premisses relating to particulars, instead of a particular conclusion being derived from a universal proposition, as is more commonly the case. But the enumeration of particulars in such an induction is complete; and the conclusion, therefore, is as necessary as in the common syllogism. Thus, John, Thomas, and Henry, are each dark-haired; John, Thomas, and Henry make up all the family of the Smiths; therefore the Smiths are all dark-haired; is an example of logical induction. Bacon's induction is altogether different. In that, from a number of particular instances, examined by means of observation and experiment, and sifted by the proper rejections or exclusions, we infer, not by the necessary laws of thought (with which alone logic concerns itself), but on our experience of the uniformity of the operations of nature, on grounds of analogy, or on other such considerations, that a certain thing is probably universally true. This is not such a process as comes within the domain of logic, which, as already explained, undertakes to teach nothing more than how two propositions having a certain relation combine to generate a third, and in so teaching is entirely indifferent as to whether the generating propositions be true or false. A logical induction does not, any more than a logical deduc

tion, look beyond the mind itself: logic is the science of a certain mental process, not the science or art of the collection and examination of material facts. Its conclusions are, in all cases, necessary and irresistible, the premisses being admitted; and depend for their reception by the mind in no degree upon its knowledge or experience of any kind, or even upon the degree of its judgment, or capacity of weighing evidence. There is no evidence to be weighed or balanced in a syllogism, whether deductive or inductive all the evidence is upon one side.

It is true that so much of the Baconian Induction as consists in drawing the conclusion may be resolved into a logical form, by introducing, or assuming that there is always present to the mind, as one of the premisses, a proposition asserting the uniformity of the operations of nature. In this way the major proposition will be, What is found in examined instances will be found in all instances; the minor, A certain thing is what is found in examined instances; the conclusion, Therefore the same thing will be found in all instances. The middle term, (that by which the two premisses are connected so long as they continue distinct, and which like a bridge becomes unnecessary, and is removed, when they are in the conclusion brought together into one affirmation) will be, What is found in examined instances. But this only proves that, in so far as the Baconian Induction is a logical process, its logic is merely the common logic. As the term is used by Bacon, however, it includes also, and that, we may say, as its principal part, another process, the collection and examination of the instances, which, as we have seen, is not a logical process at all.

SECTION II.

THE TREATISE DE DIGNITATE ET AUGMENTIS SCIENTIARUM; FORMING THE FIRST PART OF THE INSTAURATIO

MAGNA.

WHEN the treatise De Augmentis Scientiarum was published, by itself, in 1623, it was introduced by a short advertisement from Dr. Rawley, Bacon's chaplain, the more essential portion of which is to the following effect :

"Since it hath pleased my lord to do me the honour of making use of my assistance in setting forth his works, I have thought that it would not be improper for me briefly to inform the reader of some things which concern this First Volume. The present treatise, on the Dignity and Advancement of the Sciences, was published by his lordship eighteen years ago, in the English language, and in two Books only; and was addressed to his majesty, as it still is. Not long afterwards he became anxious to have it translated into Latin; having heard that that was desired in foreign countries, and being, moreover, himself wont often to say that books written in the modern tongues would ere long become bankrupt. He now, accordingly, publishes such a translation, executed by persons distinguished for their eloquence, and revised and corrected, besides, by himself. The First Book is merely a translation, and is very little changed; but the remaining eight, which declare the partitions of learning, and formerly made only one Book, come forth now as a new work. The principal reason which moved his lordship thus to rewrite and amplify the work was this; that, in publishing long afterwards his Instauratio Magna, he appointed the Partitions of the Sciences to be the first part of that work; and to be followed first by the Novum Organum, then by the Historia Naturalis, and so forth. Finding, then, the said

part relating to the Partitions of the Sciences already executed (though less solidly than the dignity of the argument demanded), he thought the best thing he could do would be to go over again what he had written, and to bring it to the state of a satisfactory and completed work. And in this way he considers that he fulfils the promise which he has given respecting the First Part of the Instauration." It had been noted at the end of the Distributio, published with the Novum Organum, that the First Part of the Instauration, comprehending the Partitions of the Sciences, was wanting; but that the said Partitions might in part be gathered from the Second Book of The Proficience and Advancement of Learning, Divine and Human.'

In his Life of Bacon prefixed in English to_the Resuscitatio (1657), and in Latin to the Opuscula Posthuma (1658), Rawley speaks of the translation of the 'Advancement of Learning' into Latin somewhat differently from what he does in this advertisement. In the English Life, in enumerating in their order the "books and writings, both in English and Latin," written by Bacon after his retirement, he merely mentions the "De Augmentis Scientiarum, or The Advancement of Learning, put into Latin, with several enrichments and enlargements," as if the translation had been wholly Bacon's own. In the Latin Life he expresses himself more emphatically in there noticing the De Augmentis he describes it as a work which the author bestowed much labour in turning from English into Latin by his own exertions, or as the phrase might almost be rendered, without assistance;" in quo e lingua vernacula, proprio marte, in Latinam transferendo honoratissimus auctor plurimum desudavit." We must probably, however, understand the meaning of the worthy chaplain to be only that the translation was in part done by Bacon himself; and his words, in truth, strictly taken, do not assert more. In the Resuscitatio Rawley has printed among other Letters of Bacon's one entitled A Letter of Request to Doctor Playfer to translate the book of Advancement of Learning into Latin.' There Bacon,

after some explanation of his design in writing the Advancement-in which, he says, he had only taken upon him "to ring a bell to call other wits together, which is the meanest office," adds, "It cannot but be consonant to my desire to have that bell heard as far as can be.... And therefore, the privateness of the language considered, wherein it is written, excluding so many readers; as on the other side, the obscurity of the argument, in many parts of it, excludeth many others; I must account it a second birth of that work if it may be translated into Latin, without manifest loss of the sense and matter. For this purpose I could not represent to myself any man into whose hands I do desire more earnestly that work should fall than yourself; for, by that I have heard and read, I know no man a greater master in commanding words to serve matter. Nevertheless I am not ignorant of the worth of your labours; whether such as your place and profession imposeth, or such as your own virtue may, upon your voluntary election, take in hand. But I can lay before you no other persuasions than either the work itself may affect you with, or the honour of his majesty, to whom it is dedicated; or your own particular inclination to myself; who, as I never took so much comfort in any labour of mine own, so I shall never acknowledge myself more obliged in anything to the labour of another than in that which shall assist it; which your labour, if I can by my place, profession, means, friends, travail, work, deed, requite unto you, shall esteem myself so straitly bound thereunto as I shall be ever most ready to take and seek occasion of thankfulness." Doctor Thomas Playfer, or Playfere, who was Margaret Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge, died in the beginning of the year 1608; so that the letter must have been written before then. Tenison relates, in the Introduction to the Baconiana (1679), that the translation was undertaken and actually begun by Playfer. "The Doctor," he says, was willing to serve so excellent a person, and so worthy a design; and within a while sent him a specimen of a Latin translation. But men generally come short

I