accomplished'courtier, this cunning lawyer, this consummate orator, this leader in the affairs of the world, appears on the stage of philosophical thought, with a more comprehensive grasp of thinking and a greater forecast, than any one of even the many trained, especially to philosophy, who had preceded him. It is, at once, manifest to the eye of history, that a great revolution in the modes of philosophical thinking has been accomplished; and that henceforth philosophy is to pursue new paths. The power of the schools is gone, and that of the individual is asserted and established. Authority can no longer prevail against reason.

The revolution which Bacon effected is analogous to that accomplished by Socrates; for as the latter was said to bring down philosophy from heaven to earth, so the former may be said to have brought philosophy from books and tradition to nature. The philosophy of antiquity, Bacon showed, leaped at once to the highest generalizations or laws, without attending to those intervening particulars, through which we must pass to arrive at a perfect generalization. Its method was a treacherous logic, as we have shown, which limited everything to the mechanism of language; and as words serve only as registers of our thoughts, our doctrines cannot be exempt from error, unless we determine the original notions for ourselves. It is, therefore, says Bacon, necessary to purge the mind of these errors which it has imbibed. He therefore, attempted, what was never attempted before, a systematic classification of the kinds of error. Of these he enumerates four, and calls them Idols. The first, he calls Idols of the Tribe, being inherent in human nature; the second he calls Idols of the Den, being those of each individual; the third he calls Idols of the Market, being those formed from the society of men; the fourth he calls Idols of the Theatre, being false notions derived from systems of poilosophy, and the contents of popular language. Bacon makes philosophy a mere interpretation of nature, and says: "The doctrine of idols bears the same relation to the interpretation. of nature as that of the confutation of sophisms does to common logic." Therefore, the first step in a true method of philosophizing (interpreting nature) is to point out "the idols and false notions which have already preoccupied the human understanding, and are deeply rooted in it." The second step is, "the formation of notions and axioms on the foundation of true induction, which is the only fitting remedy by which we can ward off and expel these idols."

Bacon points out the difference between the ancient method and his own in these words: "There are and can exist but two ways of investigating and discovering truth. The one hurries on rapidly from the senses and particulars to the most general axioms; and from them as principles, and their supposed indisputable truth, derives and discovers the intermediate axioms. This.

is the way now in use. The other constructs its axioms from the senses and particulars, by ascending continually and gradually, till it finally arrives at the most general axioms, which is the true but unattempted way." It is important to have distinctly in mind the precise end which Bacon designed to accomplish by his new method, or Novum Organum. It was manifestly intended to supersede the old method, or Organon of Aristotle. Its very name evinces this. Much difficulty, however, has been created in regard to this question, by making distinctions in logic, which neither Aristotle nor Bacon understood. Logic has very properly come to be distinguished into pure and concrete or modified logic. Pure logic is conversant about the form of thought; concrete logic is conversant about the form of thought as modified by the empirical circumstances, external and internal, under which man exerts his faculties. Pure logic, therefore, proposes as its end, the formal or logical perfection of thought, and has nothing to do with its real truth; while the end of concrete logic is real or material truth. Now, it has been contended that Aristotle's logical treatises are of pure logic, while Bacon's treatise is of concrete logic; and that consequently their scopes are entirely different, and the ends intended to be accomplished by Aristotle and Bacon are different also. In this opinion there is some truth and much error. Aristotle had no definite, certainly no adequate, notion of the distinction between pure and concrete logic; and therefore has, throughout the logical treatises which have come down to us, confounded the two. The end of his logical treatises was not merely formal or logical truth, but real or material truth also; the two not, in fact, being discriminated. It was as a means towards real or material truth, that Bacon considered the Aristotelic logic; and it was in this aspect he designed to supersede them. The whole force of the Novum Organum rests upon this fact. The Aristotelic logic had in fact confounded the distinction between formal and material truth; and it was this very confusion which constituted its vice. In consequence of this confusion, it was considered a method of philosophising, a means by which new truths could be elicited or gathered in. It was, in other words, considered creative, and not merely plastic. It is true, that Aristotle hangs the whole chain of our mediate knowledge upon a comprehensive belief, and maintains that the ultimate or primary principles of knowledge are incomprehensible, and rest in a blind, passive faith. Yet, such seems to have been his notion of the scope of syllogistic reasoning, that, somehow or other, as we have already said, he makes it independent of induction; and in this seems to ignore his principle of primary beliefs. Át all events, he has left the relation and correlation of syllogism and induction so confused, and his psychological, metaphysical, and logical doctrines so ill adjusted, that we feel warranted in saying that Aristotle con

founded formal and concrete logic, and formal and material truth. Bacon, therefore, viewing the Aristotelic logic as a method of philosophising, of searching for material truth, attempted to supersede it in that purpose; but to leave it as a means of formal truth, of discussing questions about which there was no dispute as to the data. This was certainly Bacon's view and purpose. His whole doctrine of method is directed to the contents, and not to the form of thought-to the matter, and not to the consecution of our thinking. It is from this point of view we must look at the Novum Organum to appreciate it.

The great fallacy which Bacon directed his hostility against, as the one which especially vitiated ancient philosophy, is the commutation of the subjective with the objective. All the errors which Bacon classified as Idols are subjective illusions, which had been commuted in the ancient philosophy with objective realties. This fallacy manifests itself in two ways. The one is to assume that the notions of things contained in common language are correct and complete interpretations of nature, and that the true mode of building up science is to analyze these notions, and combine them in their logical relations, because the logical relations of the notions will correspond with the physical relations of theirobjects. The other way is to assume that there are general notions or principles, which are an original furniture of the mind, or are remembered from another state of existence, and that nature must conform in its manifestations to these ideas, and that by considering these ideas we can interpret nature. Both of these manifestations of this cardinal error are, as we have shown in our review of ancient philosophy, at bottom the same. That its true character is the commuting of the subjective with the objective, is manifest in the consideration, that as a notion is the joint product of the action of the subject and object, it follows that whatever a notion contains not corresponding with the object, must be the contribution of the thinking subject alone; and if the notion be only a partial interpretation of the object, but is considered complete, it is still mistaking an ideal illusion for a real object. The grand error of the ancient philosophy was to combine, and by syllogistic or deductive reasoning develope, these subjective illusions into systems supposed to be explanations of objective realities.

The whole scope and end of Bacon's method was, therefore, real or material truth. And here the question arises, what is truth? The schoolmen, as we have already shown, have given an answer which is now acquiesced in as correct. Truth is the correspondence or agreement between our thought and its objectbetween our thought and what we think about. The Baconian method was especially directed to maintain this view of truth. "For we are founding (says Bacon) a real model of the world in the understanding; such as it is found to be, not such as man's

reason has distorted." Again he says: "We neither dedicate nor raise a capitol or pyramid to the pride of man, but rear a holy temple in his mind, on the model of the universe, which model we imitate." And still further: "Let men learn the difference that exists between the idols of the human mind and the ideas in the divine mind. The former are mere arbitrary abstractions; the latter, the true marks of the Creator on his creatures, as they are imprinted on and defined in matter by true and exquisite touches." It was, therefore, to the objective world that Bacon especially · directed attention, so as to secure the mind from the vice of the ancient philosophy-of commuting the subjective with the objective of substituting the fictions of the imagination for the realities of nature.

As, then, Bacon's method has in view the advancement of the real sciences, it may be well, for the sake of precision, to state what are the objects of these sciences, as, according to the view of truth above given, the correspondence between these sciences and their respective objects constitute their truth.

The real sciences are sciences of fact; for the point of departure from which they set out is always a fact, a presentation of mind. Some of these rest upon the presentations of self-consciousness, and these are facts of mind. Others rest upon presentations of sensitive perception, and these are facts of nature. The former are the mental sciences; the latter are the natural sciences. The facts of mind are given partly as contingent and partly as necessary. The latter, the necessary, are universal virtually and in themselves; the former only obtain a factitious universality by a process of generalization. The facts of nature, whether necessary in themselves or not, are given to us only as contingent and isolated phenomena, and therefore have only that empirical generality which we bestow on them by classification.

Now, it is with the facts of nature that Bacon's method, as developed by himself, more especially deals. The great end of his Novum Organum, therefore, is to ascertain that empirical generality, or factitious universality, amongst isolated phenomena of nature, which is accomplished by classification; for it is only in this way, according to Bacon, that man can bring the immensity of nature within the scope of his knowledge.

In accordance with this view of philosophy, particulars or individuals become the important objects of consideration in the Baconian method. And Bacon, in the face of ancient philosophy, which busied itself about universals, had to defend the study of particulars in these words: "With regard to the meanness or even filthiness, of particulars, for which (as Pliny observed) an apology is requisite, such subjects are no less worthy of admission into natural history than the most magnificent and costly; nor do they at all pollute natural history, for the sun enters alike the palace

and the privy, and is not thereby polluted. For that which is deserving of existence is deserving of knowledge, the image of existence."

As, then, particulars are the primary objects of the Baconian method, this method must begin with the senses. Accordingly, Bacon says, "We must guide our steps by a clue, and the whole path, from the very first perceptions of our senses, must be secured by a determined method." And he enounces his method in these words: "It ought to be eternally resolved and settled, that the understanding cannot decide otherwise than by induction, and a legitimate form of it."

Here the question emerges, what is induction? Bacon had not a very discriminate notion of it. In the procedure which he calls induction, or rather by which he exemplifies it, he confuses analysis and synthesis, and does not even sufficiently discriminate between observation and induction; as he includes, in what he calls induction, the objective process of investigating individual facts as preparatory to illation, as well as the illation from the singular to the universal. Nor has any writer, as far as we know, sufficiently explained and exemplified__induction. The loosest notions are entertained on the subject. By the best writers, induction is said to be analytical, whereas it is synthetical. This confu sion, however, often arises from the confused and even contradictory notions which are entertained of analysis and synthesis. The process, which by some is called analysis, is called synthesis by others, and vice versa. These discrepancies and contradictions we will endeavour to explain, and found upon the explanation a more accurate determination of induction.

There is and can be but one method in philosophy; and what have been called the different and more or less perfect methods, are merely different applications of this one method to the objects of knowledge. Method is a rational progress-a progress of the faculties towards an end; and method in philosophy signifies the progress conducive to the end which philosophy proposes. The ends of philosophy are two-the first being the discovery of causes; and the second, the resolution of things into unity. These ends, however, fall into one; as the higher we ascend in the discovery of causes, we approximate the nearer to unity. The detection of the one in the many is, therefore, the end to which philosophy tends continually to approximate. What the method in philosophy is, will appear the more clearly, if, in the first place, we consider philosophy in relation to its first end-the discovery of

causes.

Causes, taking the name for a synonym of that without which their effect would not be-and they are only coëfficient elements of their effect; and effect is the combination of these primary elements to which we give the naine of causes, and the concurrence