INDUCTION AND DEDUCTION.

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The Baconian Induction proceeds from experiment to axiom; the Baconian deduction from axiom to experiment. The former is the me

thod of interpretation, the latter that of application. The former ends with the discovery of a law, the latter with an invention. Thus does Bacon's philosophy, like his life, terminate with the triumph of experiment.

in rerum massam absque ordine operatum sit. Itaque desinant homines mirari si spatium scientiarum non confectum sit, cum a via omnino aberraverint; relicta prorsus et deserta experientia, aut in ipsa (tanquam in labyrintho) se intricando et circumcursando; cum rite institutus ordo per experientiæ sylvas ad aperta axiomatum tramite constanti ducat.". - Nov. Org. I. 82. (With respect to the curious expression, "Scopa dissolutæ," which occurs in this passage, and which is rendered above, a broom without a band," Mr. Spedding remarks; "I do not remember any proverbial expression which answers to this in English; but the allusion is to the want of combination and coherency in these experiments.”—J. O.)

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* Compare these words: "Indicia de Interpretatione Naturæ complectuntur partes in genere duas; primam de educendis aut excitandis axiomatibus ab experientia; secundam de deducendis aut derivandis experimentis novis ab axiomatibus." - Nov. Org. II. 10. (In the places marked by italics, Dr. Fischer respectively reads “ Judicia” and “experimentis.” —J. O.)

CHAP. V.

PREROGATIVE INSTANCES AS AIDS TO INDUCTION.-NATURAL ANALOGIES AS PREROGATIVE INSTANCES.

THE difficulties to which the method of induction is exposed from a scientific point of view are obvious; and Bacon was not the man to conceal from himself the difficulties of his subject, either through fear or negligence. Indeed, difficulties that terrify others are to him no more than incitements that stimulate his enterprising and circumspect mind. He seeks them out, and makes them conspicuous in order to remove them by as many expedients as he can discover. In such expedients, when he has found them, Bacon really triumphs. Here he is in his proper element ;endowed, not with a systematic, but with an inventive intellect. To judge him as a systemmaker (a character to which he does not aspire), is simply to misunderstand him; he is not to be in the least confuted by the proof that his method is fragmentary, and leads to no final result. Such a proof would be as easy as it would be valueless. Bacon himself would willingly bear the

EXPEDIENTS AGAINST DIFFICULTIES.

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reproach, and would convert it into a defence. "It is the very nature of my method," he would say, "that it neither seeks nor desires a final result. If I have indicated the necessary goals, shown the right way, travelled part of this way myself, removed difficulties, and devised expedients, I have done enough, and may leave the rest to future generations. They will go further than I; but it is to be hoped they will not arrive at an absolute conclusion. It is sufficient, to guide men into the path of progressive cultivation, to furnish them with means for the extension of their knowledge, and consequently of their dominion. On this path every point affords a triumph, and constitutes a goal in itself. As for the last goal, -the conclusion of all toil,-those alone can reach it who take no part in the great race of human faculties." Thoroughly to understand such minds as that of Bacon, we must look for them where their own method leaves them in the lurch; where they are forced to exert their own personal faculties; where they are compelled to fill up the gaps in their theory by means of their genius, of their individual tact, of that something which I may call the generalship of philosophy. If Bacon's historical importance is most conspicuous when he formulises his problem, and propounds his method, his personal peculiarity,

his own especial talent is most visibly shown when, with expedients of his own invention, he defends himself against the difficulties by which his method is impeded. Here we can see who is master and who is disciple; for it commonly happens that a gap in the master's method is also a gap in the head of the scholar, but none at all in the head of the master. Thus, even at the present day, the disciples of Bacon boast much of Bacon's method when they oppose the contrary tendency, which is its complement. They do not know how much this tendency was akin to the mind of Bacon; how he grasped it involuntarily and instinctively when his method abandoned him. They do not know that he, the master, clearly perceived those defects in his method which they, the disciples, would willingly ignore. When Bacon can proceed no further as an experimental investigator of nature, he becomes, in spite of his method, a speculative natural philosopher. We have designedly pointed out the affinity between Bacon and his intellectual antipodes, that we may show how comprehensively he thought, and how he could complete himself from his own resources. Thus, in the foundation of philosophy, he agreed with Descartes; in his physical views, with Spinoza; and even in the auxiliary forces (Hülfstruppen) of his

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philosophy a similarity to the speculative ideas of Leibnitz, Herder, and Schelling may be discovered.

I. THE DEFECTS OF THE BACONIAN METHOD.

What is the purpose of the inductive method in Bacon's sense of the word? It would reduce natural science to axioms as indisputable as those of mathematics, and these axioms it would discover on the path of critical experience by an unremitting observation of negative instances. Now here arises a double difficulty:

1. The observation of negative instances by no means implies their exhaustion; and yet they must be exhausted if an axiom is to be established. Against the axiom it must no longer be possible to oppose a single negative instance; and this impossibility must be capable of demonstration.* That we cease to find negative instances is not enough; we must also be able to prove that there are really no more. Now this proof can never be furnished by experience, which cannot even assert, much less prove, that a contradictory instance is impossible; for nature is richer than experience. Bacon rightly desires that science

* Vide p. 104.