Such are the excellencies of Bacon's method; but it has also its defects. First of all, there can be little doubt but that Bacon over-estimated the real value of his new organum, as it regards the discovery of truth. He thought it so powerful an instrument as almost to supersede the value of philosophical genius, and to reduce all minds nearly to the same level.' In this he certainly underrated the necessity of that wondrous sagacity (as displayed in Newton) which seizes analogies, and puts us, by a kind of intuitive foresight, on the right road for the true interpretation of facts.2 This led him again to lay more stress upon the arrangement of the facts themselves, than upon the elucidation of those rational conceptions by which alone they can be explained and generalised. It must be admitted, however, that this defect might have been in great measure corrected, had he completed the plan marked out in the last three parts of the "Instauratio Magna." Another main defect in the Baconian system was, its almost entire neglect of deduction. It did not take into consideration, that a sagacious mind may often rise, all at once, per saltum, to a general principle, and then reason downwards so as to deduce those "axiomata media," in which our real knowledge mainly consists. This error, Mr Mill conjectures, might have arisen from Bacon's ignorance and disparagement of mathematical

1 Nov. Org. I. Aph. 61.

2 Vid. Mr Macaulay's article in the Edinburgh Review, No. 132.

science.' Lastly, the method was defective, and necessarily so, in that practical wisdom which results from a long acquaintance with the actual processes of philosophical research. The great benefit Bacon conferred upon the world arose from the spirit of his writings as a whole-from the admirable wisdom which they exhibited-and the impressive manner in which they inculcated upon all, the duty of repressing narrow prejudices on the one hand, and a too wide ambition on the other. Added to this, he saw distinctly the existence of the two elements of all human knowledge-theSensational and the Ideal, and perceived that science can only be constructed by the due combination of them both; the facts given by the one being interpreted through the conceptions furnished by the other. To Bacon, therefore, we must attribute the honour of having first sketched out the true order of philosophical research, and foreseen the splendid results which its application has educed in the increase of all the comforts and conveniences of human life, as well as in the general progression afforded by it to the moral and intellectual culture of mankind. It was under the deep impression of the truth and power of his views, that he announced them as the "great instauration" which was to introduce a new era into the intellectual history of the world.

Our main object, however, is now to see what was the influence which Bacon exerted upon the

See this point admirably discussed in Mill's "Logic," vol. ii, p. 524, et seq.

progress of speculative philosophy. And it might be asked, first of all, did Bacon intend his method to be applicable to the moral as well as the physical sciences? This question, there can be little doubt, must be answered in the affirmative: for not only does he include logic, ethics, politics, and metaphysics in his work "De Augmentis Scientiarum," as branches open to the renewed investigation of the human mind; but he has some direct passages which touch upon the very point in question. It is only necessary to quote the following, which we translate from the first book of the "Novum Organum." "Perhaps any one," he says, "might doubt, rather than object, whether we intend to perfect by our method, not only natural philosophy, but also the other sciences, such as Logic, Ethics, and Politics. We reply, that we understand the things we have spoken to be applicable to them all; and just as the common logic, which governs things by the syllogism, not only pertains to the natural but to all the sciences, so also ours, which proceeds by induction, embraces them all likewise. For we may construct a history and tables of discovery concerning anger, fear, shame, and the like, just as we do concerning the scenes of civil life; nor less concerning the mental operations of memory, composition, division, judgment, and the rest, than about cold, or heat, or light, or vegetation, and the like."

Here, then, is sufficient evidence that Bacon did not intend to exclude these subjects from the sweep of his method. At the same time, it is no less evi

dent that he applied his principles to psychological investigations with great reserve, and even timidity. For, immediately after the passage just quoted, he says, "Our mode of discovery, by means of a prepared and arranged history, does not aim so much at the movements and operations of mind, like the common logic, but rather at the nature of things; we so train the mind that it may apply itself by apt methods to the nature of things." There are other passages, moreover, in which Bacon seems absolutely to have distrusted his own method when applied to mental philosophy. "I hold," he remarks, in his "Advancement of Learning," "that this knowledge must, in the end, be bounded by religion, else it will be subject to deceit and delusion." And again, still more explicitly, he remarks," Mens humana si agat in materiam, naturam rerum, et opera Dei contemplando, pro modo naturæ operatur, atque ab eâ determinatur; si ipsa in se vertitur, tanquam aranea texens telam, tum demum indeterminata est, et parit telas quasdam doctrinæ, tenuitate fili, operisque mirabiles, sed quoad usum frivolas et inanes." Had he sought to break through the thin webs of the scholastic philosophy in this, as he did in so many other points, he might have proved here also, not like the spider, but like the silkworm, that weaves from within a web of excellent utility and marvellous beauty.

To estimate, however, the influence of Bacon upon the progress of speculative philosophy, we must not only consider the adaptation of his method

to elucidate and extend it, but gather up some of his own direct remarks upon metaphysical questions. The third book of the treatise "De Augmentis Scientiarum," gives us ample data on which to ground our opinion of Bacon's views respecting these more abstract subjects. It appears from this portion of his plan, that Bacon by no means wished to confine his philosophy to mere phenomena, but affirmed that it should be our constant endeavour to grasp the very forms of things; i. e. that we should attempt to comprehend the mode of their existence, and the laws of their secret operation. He compares knowledge to a pyramid, the base of which consists of particular facts, the vertex of which is the link between the creation and the Creator, while the stage immediately below the vertex, is that branch of science which comes distinctly within the idea of metaphysics. Let those who claim Bacon as the apostle of positivism, give us an interpretation of this whole division of his system, in consistency with their principles;-for our part, we look upon Bacon as having been much too farsighted to describe so narrow a circle, as our modern naturalists do, within which to confine the excursions of the human reason. At the same time it must be confessed, that a very inconsiderable amount of his attention was given to these higher questions, that the doctrine of final causes was depreciated, and that the whole framework of his Organum was far more adapted to the investigations of physical than of metaphysical science. The great want of