jointed and discordant phenomena of nature, have insensibly been drawn in to make use of language expressing the connecting principles of this one, as if they were the real chains which nature makes use of, to bind together her several operations."

If the view which I have given of Lord Bacon's plan of investigation be just, it will follow, That the Newtonian theory of gravitation can, in no respect whatever, admit of a comparison with those systems which are, in the slightest degree, the offspring of imagination; inasmuch as the principle employed to explain the phenomena is not a hypothesis, but a general fact established by induction; for which fact we have the very same evidence as for the various particulars comprehended under it. The Newtonian theory of gravitation, therefore, and every other theory which rests on a similar basis, is as little liable to be supplanted by the labours of future ages, as the mathematical conclusions of Euclid and Archimedes, The doctrines which it involves may be delivered in different, and perhaps less exceptionable forms; but, till the order of the universe shall be regulated by new physical laws, their substance must for ever remain essentially the same. On the chains, indeed, which nature makes use of to bind together her several operations, Newton has thrown no light whatever; nor was it the aim of his researches to do so. The subjects of his reasonings were not occult connexions, but particular phenomena, and general laws; both of them possessing all the evidence which can be long to facts ascertained by observation and experiment. From the one or the other of these all his inferences, whether analytical or synthetical, are deduced: Nor is a single hypothesis involved in his data, excepting the

authority of that Law of Belief which is tacitly and necessarily assumed in all our physical conclusions,-The stability of the order of nature.

SECTION II.

Continuation of the Subject.—The Induction of Aristotle compared with that of Bacon.

In this section I intend to offer a few slight remarks upon an assertion which has been hazarded with some confidence in various late publications, that the method of investigation, so much extolled by the admirers of Lord Bacon, was not unknown to Aristotle.-It is thus very strongly stated by the ingenious author of a memoir in the Asiatic Researches."*

"From some of the extracts contained in this paper, it will appear, 1st, That the mode of reasoning by induction, illustrated and improved by the great Lord Verulam in his Organum Novum, and generally considered as the cause of the rapid progress of science in later times, was perfectly known to Aristotle, and was distinctly delineated by him, as a method of investigation that leads to certainty or truth: and, 2dly, That Aristotle was likewise perfectly acquainted, not merely with the form of induction, but with the proper materials to be employed in carrying it on-facts and experiments. We are therefore

* Asiatic Researches, Vol. VIII. p. 89, 90. London Edition.

led to conclude, that all the blame of confiding the human mind for so long a time in chains, by the force of syllogism, cannot be fairly imputed to Aristotle; nor all the merit of enlarging it, and setting it free, ascribed to Lord Verulam."

The memoir from which this passage is copied, consists of extracts translated (through the medium of the Persian) from an Arabic treatise entitled the Essence of Logic. When it was first presented to the Asiatic Society, the author informs us, that he was altogether ignorant of the coincidence of his own conclusions with those of Dr. Gillies; and he seems to have received much satisfaction from the subsequent perusal of the proofs alleged in support of their common opinion by that learned writer. "From the perusal of this wonderful book, (Dr. Gillies's exposition of the ethics and politics of Aristotle) I have now the satisfaction to discover, that the conjectures I had been led to draw from these scanty materials, are completely confirmed by the opinion of an author, who is probably better qualified than any preceding commentator on Aristotle's works, to decide on this subject."

It is observed by Bailly, in his History of Astronomy, that, although frequent mention is made of attraction in the writings of the ancients, we must not therefore" corclude that they had any precise or just idea of that law into which Newton has resolved the phenomena of the planetary revolutions. To their conceptions, this word presented the notion of an occult sympathy between different objects; and if any of them extended it from the descent

* Ibid.

of terrestrial bodies to explain the manner in which the moon was retained in her orbit, it was only an exhibition upon a larger scale of the popular error."* The same author has remarked, on a different occasion, that, in order to judge of the philosophical ideas entertained at a particular period, it would be necessary to possess the dictionary of the age, exhibiting the various shades of meaning derived from fashion or from tradition. "The import of words (he adds) changes with the times: their signification enlarging with the progress of knowledge. Languages are every moment perishing in detail from the variations introduced by custom: they grow old like those that speak them, and like them gradually alter their features and their form."+

If this observation be just, with respect to the attraction of the ancients, when compared with the attraction of Newton, it will be found to apply with still greater force to the induction of Aristotle,‡ considered in contrast with the induction of Bacon.

It is well known to those who are at all conversant with Bacon's writings, that, although he borrowed many expressions from the scholastic phraseology then in vogue, he has, in general, not only employed them in new acceptations, consonant to the general spirit of his own logic, but has, by definitions or explanations, endeavoured to guard his readers against the mistakes to which they might be exposed, from a want of attention to the innova

* Hist. de l'Astronomie Moderne, Tome II. pp. 555, 556.

+ Ibid. p. 184.

Erayan. Translated Inductio by Cicero.

S s

tions thus introduced in the use of consecrated terms. How far he judged wisely in adopting this plan, (which has certainly much injured his style in point of perspicuity) I do not presume to decide; I wish only to state the fact:--his motives may be judged of from his own words.

Nobis vero ex altera parte (quibus, quantum calamo valemus, inter vetera et nova in literis fœdus et commercium contrahere, cordi est) decretum manet, antiquitatem comitari usque ad aras; atque vocabulaantiqua retinere, quanquam sensum eorum et definitiones sæpius immutemus; secundum moderatum illum et laudatum, in Civilibus, novandi modum, quo rerum statu novato, verborum tamen solennia durent; quod notat Tacitus: eadem magistratuum vocabula."*

Of these double significations, so common in Bacon's phraseology, a remarkable instance occurs in the use which he makes of the scholastic word forms. In one passage, he approves of the opinion of Plato, that the investigation of forms is the proper object of science; adding, however, that this is not true of the forms which Plato had in view, but of a different sort of forms, more suited to the grasp of our faculties.† In another passage,

*De Aug. Scient. Lib. iii. Cap. iv.

The necessity under which the anti-Aristotelians found themselves, in the carlier part of the 17th century, of disguising their attack on the prevailing tenets, is strongly illustrated in a letter from Des Cartes to Regius. "Pourquoi rejettez-vous publiquement les qualités réelles et les formes substantielles, si cheres aux scholastiques: J'ai déclaré que je ne prétendois pas les nier, mais que je n'en avois pas besoin pour expliquer mes pensées."

+ Manifestum est, Platonem, virum sublimis ingenii (quique veluti ex rupe excelsa omnia circumspiciebat) in sua de ideis doctrina formas esse verum scientiæ objectum, vidisse: utcunque sententiæ hujus verissimæ fruc