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the sciences (especially in the practical part of them) unless Natural Philosophy be applied to each individual science, and each particular science be referred again to Natural Philosophy. Hence it is that astronomy, optics, music, most of the mechanical arts, medicine itself, and-what one might more wonder atMORAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY, logical sciences have scarcely any depth, but only glide over the surface of a multitude of things, because, after these separate sciences have been once distributed and erected, they are no longer nourished by Natural Philosophy. Therefore it is not the least strange if sciences make no progress when they are torn from their roots." 1

4. So also " And here it may be repeated what was said above, about the application of Natural Philosophy, and that each separate science must be referred to that again that the sciences may not be severed and cut off from the trunk. For without this little progress is to be hoped for." And again-"Some, too, may doubt rather than object, whether we speak of Natural Philosophy only, or that the other sciences, logic, ethics, politics, are also to be brought to perfection by the same method. But most assuredly we mean what we said to apply to them all; and as the common logic which acts by syllogism affects not only the natural, but all sciences, so also ours which proceeds by induction, embraces them all. For we form a history, and tables of discovery of anger, fear, shame, and the like, also of examples in Politics, so also of affections of the mind, &c."3

So again "Let us now come to that knowledge to which the oracle of old leads us-namely, the knowledge of ourselves, upon which, as it touches us the more nearly, the more diligence is to be bestowed. This knowledge is for men, the aim and the object of all knowledges, but it is only a portion of Nature. And let this be laid down as a general rule, that all divisions of sciences be so understood and applied that they may rather mark and distinguish them, than separate and divide them, so that we may always avoid a break of continuity in the sciences. For the contrary mode has made each separate science barren, empty, and erroneous, since they were not nourished, supported, and corrected by the common fountain and aliment." "We 2 Nov. Org., B. I., Aph. 107. De Augmentis, Lib. I., c. 1.

1 Nov. Org., B. I., Aph. 80.
3 Nov. Org., B. I., Aph. 127.

have laid down that this is the function of Natural Philosophy to be the common mother of the sciences."

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5. It was, then, the matchless and undivided merit of Bacon to discover that the same great fundamental principles of reasoning govern all departments of human knowledge, and that general principles of Logic govern particular sciences with a higher authority than belong to these particular sciences. It has long being observed that the genius of the Platonic Philosophy is essentially Inductive. Only Plato applied the Inductive method to the ideas of the moral world; Bacon in the first instance to those of the Physical world. But the genius of the Philosophy of each is identical. The sublime discovery of Bacon was that Physical Inductive Science must PRECEDE Moral Inductive Science: that Natural Science is the nursing mother of all science, and that in it are to be found the types and standards of reasoning to which all other reasoning is to be referred; that it is the raicaywyóç to lead us to the study of Moral Science. He proclaimed the union between IDEAS and REALITY, to which nothing earthly was comparable, which was the sole hope of attaining true science, and in consequence of the divorce between them, the whole fabric of human knowledge as then existing was like some magnificent structure without any foundations.

6. It has indeed been the fashion of some writers, lately, systematically to depreciate the merits of Bacon, and some almost seem to go the length of denying him any merit at all because it cannot be shown that the Novum Organum had any direct influence on the progress of physical discovery. He made no discovery himself, and the progress of physical science would have been just as great if he had never written. Even if these assertions were true, it would not in the least diminish the lustre of that work. No one can fairly appreciate the merit of that work who is not well acquainted with the absurdity of the grounds upon which the established opinions of his day rested. Bacon saw through this, and discovered the weakness of the grounds of the current belief with a clearness and penetration truly surprising. One reason, perhaps, why he may not have received his due share of credit is, that he overrated the power of his Logic; and supposed that by De Augm,, L. III., c. 4.

its means discoveries could be made, so that almost all minds could be brought nearly to the same level, and make discoveries as equally as they could draw circles by compasses. That he entirely failed in this is true, and it is probable that his failure in that instance has had some effect in making his real merits less thought of than they deserve. But he failed in this instance by not observing his own rules. For he has laid down that the conceptions of a science are to be framed with exactly the same care as the axioms, or general principles. And he fell into exactly the same error himself as he charged upon the Aristotelians, namely, considering Logic as an instrument of discovery. Whereas the fundamental conception of Logic is not the science of discovering truth, but the science of judging whether or not certain alleged discoveries are true. Logic is the science of Judgment, and not an art of discovery, nor even an art of reasoning. The faculty of proposing notions, or ideas, or laws, or reasons, belongs to the Imagination or the Invention; but all these ideas, conceptions, or laws, must be submitted to the tribunal of the Reason, or Logic, before they can be finally admitted to be true. And it is the province of Logic to discover and apply the tests which any conception, or axiom, must satisfy before it can be admitted to be true. Cicero has described once, and for ever, the true function of Logic.-" In hâc arte, si modo est hæc ars, nullum est preceptum quo modo verum inveniatur, sed tantum est quo modo JUDICETUR." When, therefore, we separate what falls within the limits of this conception from what transgresses it; when we consider that in his day there was not a single science from which he could draw his observations, there is no candid mind but must be astonished at his penetration and sagacity in anticipating and constructing the Science of Sciences. For the Novum Organum is not the science or the art of discovery, but it is the Theory of Theorizing, or the Theory of Generalization: it is the science and the art of judging and deciding whether the conceptions and the axioms of the various sciences are true. No one can dispute the merit of Aristotle in discovering the syllogistic mode of reasoning, nor can blame him because his injudicious followers pushed it far beyond what he ever intended. But Aristotle founded his system inductively:

1 De Oratore, II., 38.

he framed it by observing what examples of reasoning were acknowledged to be valid by common consent. Bacon founded his system à priori, with no single instance of an Inductive Science in existence. He made no claim to have created a science, but only to have proclaimed the only true method by which a science could be created. And though no doubt additions have been made to Inductive Logic in modern times, yet the amount of success he achieved is truly marvellous. By a curious whim of fortune, the chief of the school of à priori reasoners founded his system inductively: the chief of the school of Inductive Logic founded his system à priori.

7. And this great discovery, first seen and proclaimed by Bacon, has been repeatedly enforced by the most eminent men since. Thus, Newton says that an extension of our knowledge of the laws of Natural Philosophy would certainly extend our knowledge of the laws of Moral Philosophy. So Bishop Butler says " There is much more exact correspondence between the natural and the moral world than we are apt to take notice of." And the most celebrated metaphysical writers of the last century held the same doctrine.

8. The earliest school of Economists in modern times acknowledged the same principles. Seeing, as is explained in a subsequent section, the intolerable misery under which their country groaned, a few righteous and generous philosophers struck out the idea that there must be some natural science, some principles of eternal truth, with regard to the social relations of mankind, the violation of which was the cause of that hideous misery which afflicted their native land. Although they did not in all respects succeed, and were somewhat hasty in laying down general principles, so that in fact they gave their philosophy too much the air of à priori dogmatism, they nevertheless acknowledged the doctrine that there is a Natural Moral Science, whence they were called PHYSIOCRATES. But this doctrine was proclaimed with much more earnestness and effect by J. B. Say, the French Economist, who however had read Bacon with such extraordinary carelessness as to say-"The Chancellor Bacon, who was the first to teach that to understand the processes of Nature we must consult, not the writings of Aristotle, but Nature herself, by judicious observations and well-contrived experiments, was entirely ignorant that the same method was

applicable to moral and political sciences, and that it would obtain the same success in them!!" Passing over, however, this extraordinary statement, he says: "In Political Economy, as in Physics, and in every thing else, men have made systems before establishing truths; that is, they have published as truth unfounded conceptions and pure assertions. Afterwards they applied to this science the methods which have contributed so much, since the time of Bacon, to the progress of all the others, that is the method of experiment, which essentially consists in not admitting as true anything of which observation and experience have not proved the reality, and as general truths only such conclusions as naturally flow from them. This entirely excludes those prejudices and those authorities which in science, as in morals, in literature, and in government, intrude themselves between man and the truth." Again "The manner how things are and how they happen constitute what is called the nature of things, and exact observation of the nature of things is the only foundation of all truth. Thence spring, too, different kinds of sciences: sciences which may be called descriptive, which consist in naming and classifying objects, like Botany and Natural History. Then the Experimental Sciences, which teach us the reciprocal actions which things exercise upon each other, or, in other words, the connection between effects and their causes, such as Physics and Chemistry. These last require that we should study the very nature of things, because it is by virtue of their nature that they act and produce their effects it is because it is the nature of the sun to be luminous, and of the moon to be opaque, that when the moon passes before the sun the latter is eclipsed. A careful analysis sometimes is enough to inform us of the nature of a thing: sometimes it is only clearly made known to us by its effects; and when we cannot devise experiments on purpose, observation is in every case necessary to confirm what analysis can teach us.

"These principles which have guided me will assist me to distinguish two sciences which have been almost always confounded-Political Economy, which is an experimental science, and Statistics, which is only a descriptive science.

1 Cours d'économie politique, Vol. II., p. 550.

2 Traité d'économie politique. Discours Préliminaire, p. 3.

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