and succession, usually named Laws, by the name of Methods.

Etymologically, Method is a path leading onwards, a way of transit. The Methods of Nature would therefore express the paths along which the activities of Nature travelled to results (phenomena). (p. 55.)

What we call Laws are nothing but the paths, or Methods, along which the Forces (of Nature) move. (p. 57.)

Astronomy is more truly scientific and has attained the highest degree of philosophical perfection that any science can ever pretend to, as respects Method, the exact reduction of all phenomena, both in kind and in degree, to one general law (solar astronomy). (p. 83.)

A law of Nature can only be discovered by Induction or Deduction. Often, however, neither method is of itself sufficient. (p. 105.)

The Methods in which these masses (suns, planets, etc.) move, science attempts to ascertain; but in Astronomy we speak of Motion, in Chemistry of Combination; both are Methods of the unknown unknowable Force. (p. 113.)

The methods by which the construction of science is promoted are, Methods of Observation, Methods of obtaining clear Ideas, and Methods of Instruction. (p. 141.) (Whewell.)

The methods of observation of quantity in general are, Numeration, which is precise by the nature of number: the Measurement of Space and Time, by which aids the Measurement of the other; the Method of Repetition; the Method of Coincidences or Interferences. (p. 145.) (Whewell.)

QUOTATIONS ON SYSTEM.

APPENDIX B.

226. From Fleming- Vocabulary of Philosophy, ed. 1867.

SYSTEM is a full and connected view of all the truths of some department of knowledge. An organized body of truth, or truths arrange under one and the same idea, which idea is as the life or soul which assimilates all those truths. No truth is altogether isolated. Every truth has relation to some other. And we should try to unite the facts of our knowledge so as to see them in their several bearings. This we do when we frame them into a system. To do so legitimately we must begin by analysis and end with synthesis. But system applies not only to our knowledge, but to the objects of our knowledge. Thus we speak of the planetary system, the muscular system, the nervous system. We believe that the order to which we would reduce our ideas has a foundation in the nature of things. And it is this belief that encourages us to reduce our knowledge of things into a systematic order. The doing so is attended with many advantages. At the same time a spirit of systematizing may be carried too far. It is only in so far as it is in accordance with the order of na

Condillac

ture that it can be useful or sound. has a Traite des Systemes, in which he traces their causes and their dangerous consequences.

"A

SYSTEM, ECONOMY, OR CONSTITUTION, System, Economy, or Constitution, is a one or a whole, made up of several parts, but yet that the several parts even considered as a whole do not complete the idea, unless in the notion of the whole you include the relations and respects which these parts have to each other. Every work, both of nature and of art, is a system; and as every particular thing, both natural and artificial, is for some use or purpose out of and beyond itself, one may add to what has been already brought into the idea of a system, its conduciveness to this one or more ends. Let us instance in a watch-suppose the several parts of it taken to pieces, and placed apart from each other; let a man have ever so exact a notion of these several parts, unless he considers the respects and relations which they have to each other, he will not have anything like the idea of a watch. Suppose these several parts brought together and anyhow united : neither will he yet, be the union ever so close, have an idea which will bear any resemblance to that of a watch. But let him view these several parts put together, or consider them as to be put together in the manner of a watch; let him form a notion of the relations which these several parts have to each other-all conducive in their respective ways to this purpose, showing the hour of the day; and then he has the idea of a watch. Thus it is with regard to the inward frame of

man. Appetites, passions, affections, and the principle of reflection, considered merely as the several parts of our inward nature, do not give us an idea of the system or constitution of this nature; because the constitution is formed by somewhat not yet taken into consideration, namely, by the relations which these several parts have to each other, the chief of which is the authority of reflection or conscience. It is from considering the relations which the several appetites and passions in the inward frame have to each other, and, above all, the supremacy of reflection or conscience, that we get the idea of the system or constitution of human nature. And from the idea itself it will as fully appear, that this our nature, i.e., constitution, is adapted to virtue, as from the idea of a watch it appears that its nature, i.e., constitution or system, is adapted to measure time."

QUOTATIONS ON ANALYSIS.

APPENDIX C.

227. From Fleming's Vocabulary of Philosophy, ed. 1867.

ANALYSIS and SYNTHESIS, or decomposition and recomposition. Objects of sense and of thought are presented to us in a complex state, but we can only, or at least best, understand what is simple. Among the varied objects of a landscape, I behold a tree, I separate it from the other objects, I examine separately its different parts-trunk, branches, leaves, etc., and then reuniting them into one whole I form a notion of the tree. The first part of this process is analysis, the second is synthesis. If this must be done with an individual, it is more necessary with the infinitude of objects which surround us, to evolve the one out of many, to recall the multitude to unity. We compare objects with one another to see wherein they agree; we next, by a synthetical process, infer a general law, or generalize the coincident qualities, and perform an act of induction which is purely a synthetical process, though commonly called analytical. Thus, from our experience that bodies attract within certain limits, we infer that all bodies gravitate towards each other. The antecedent here only says that cer