best exercise of both, and the best safeguard against the excess of either. But, upon the whole, it may certainly be said, that the genius of Lord Bacon was naturally more inclined to collect the resemblances of nature than to note her differences. This is the case with men like him of sanguine temper, warm fancy, and brilliant wit; but it is not the frame of mind which is best suited to strict reasoning. 77. It is no proof of a solid acquaintance with Lord Bacon's philosophy, to deify his name as the ancient schools did those of their founders, or even to exaggerate the powers of his genius. Powers they were surprisingly great, yet limited in their range, and not in all respects equal; nor could they overcome every impediment of circumstance. Even of Bacon it may be said, that he attempted more than he has achieved, and perhaps more than he clearly apprehended. His objects appear sometimes indistinct, and I am not sure that they are always consistent. In the Advancement of Learning, he aspired to fill up, or at least to indicate, the deficiencies in every department of knowledge; he gradually confined himself to philosophy, and at length to physics. But few of his works can be deemed complete, not even the treatise De Augmentis, which comes nearer to this than most of the rest. Hence the study of Lord Bacon is difficult, and not, as I conceive, very well adapted to those who have made no progress whatever in the exact sciences, nor accustomed themselves to independent thinking. They have never been made a text-book in our universities; though, after a judicious course of preparatory studies, by which I mean a good foundation in geometry and the philosophical principles of grammar, the first book of the Novum Organum might be very advantageously combined with the instruction of an enlightened lecturer. It by no means is to be inferred, that because the actual text of Bacon is not always such as can be well understood by very young men, I object to their being led to the real principles of inductive philosophy, which alone will teach them to think, firmly but not presumptuously, for themselves. Few defects, on the contrary, in our system of education are more visible than the want of an adequate course of logic; and this is not likely to be rectified so long as the Aristotelian methods challenge that denomination exclusively of all other aids to the reasoning faculties. The position that nothing else is to be called logic, were it even agreeable to the derivation of the word, which it is not, or to the usage of the ancients, which is by no means uniformly the case, or to that of modern philosophy and correct language, which is certainly not at all the case, is 78. The ignorance of Bacon in mathematics, and what was much worse, his inadequate notions of their utility, no answer to the question, whether what we call logic does not deserve to be taught at all. A living writer of high reputation, who has at least fully understood his own subject, and illustrated it better than his predecessors, from a more enlarged reading and thinking, wherein his own acuteness has been improved by the writers of the Baconian school, has been unfortunately instrumental, by the very merits of his treatise on Logic, in keeping up the prejudices on this subject, which have generally been deemed characteristic of the university to which he belonged. All the reflection I have been able to give to the subject has convinced me of the inefficacy of the syllogistic art in enabling us to think rightly for ourselves, or, which is part of thinking rightly, to detect those fallacies of others which might impose on our understanding before we have acquired that art. It has been often alleged, and, as far as I can judge, with perfect truth, that no man, who can be worth answering, ever commits, except through mere inadvertence, any paralogisms which the common logic serves to point out. It is easy enough to construct syllogisms which sin against its rules; but the question is, by whom they were employed. For though it is not uncommon, as I am aware, to represent an adversary as reasoning illogically, this is generally effected by putting his argument into our own words. The great fault of all, over-induction, or the assertion of a general premise upon an insufficient examination of particulars, cannot be discovered or cured by any logical skill; and this is the error into which men really fall, not that of omitting to distribute the middle term, though it comes in effect, and often in appearance, to the same thing. I do not contend that the rules of syllogism, which are very short and simple, ought not to be learned; or that there may not be some advantage in occasionally stating our own argument, or calling on another to state his, in a regular form (an advantage, however, rather dialectical, which is, in other words, rhetorical, than one which affects the reasoning faculties themselves); nor do I deny that it is philosophically worth while to know that all general reasoning by words may be reduced into syllogism, as it is to know that most of plane geometry may be resolved into the superposition of equal triangles; but to represent this portion of logical science as the whole, appears to me almost like teaching the scholar Euclid's axioms, and the axiomatic theorem to which I have alluded, and calling this the science of geometry. The following passage from the Port-Royal logic is very judicious and candid, giving as much to the Aristotelian system as it deserves: "Cette partie, que nous avons maintenant à traiter, qui comprend les règles du raisonnement, est estimée la plus importante de la logique, et c'est presque l'unique qu'on y traite avec quelque soin; mais il y a sujet de douter si elle est aussi utile qu'on se l'imagine. La plupart des erreurs des hommes, comme nous avons déjà dit ailleurs, viennent bien plus de ce qu'ils raisonnent sur de faux principes, que non pas de ce qu'ils raisonnent mal suivant leurs principes. Il arrive rarement qu'on se laisse tromper par des raisonnemens qui ne soient faux que parceque la conséquence en est mal tirée ; et ceux qui ne seroient pas capables d'en reconnoître la fausseté par la seule lumière de la raison, ne le seroient pas ordinairement d'entendre les règles que l'on en donne, et encore moins de les appliquer. Néanmoins, quand on ne considéreroit ces règles que comme des vérités spéculatives, elles serviroient toujours à exercer l'esprit ; et de plus, on ne peut nier qu'elles n'aient quelque usage en quelques rencontres, et à l'égard de quelques personnes, qui, étant d'un naturel vif et pénétrant, ne se laissent quelquefois tromper par des fausses conséquences, que faute d'attention, à quoi la réflexion qu'ils feroient sur ces règles seroit capable de remédier." Art de Penser, part iii. How different is this sensible passage from one quoted from some anonymous writer in Whately's Logic, p. 34!" A fallacy consists of an ingenious mixture of truth and falsehood so entangled, so intimately blended, that the fallacy is, in the chemical phrase, held in solution; one drop of sound logic is that test which immediately disunites them, makes the foreign substance visible, and precipitates it to the bottom." One fallacy, it might be answered, as common as any, is the false analogy, the misleading the mind by a comparison, where there is no real proportion or resemblance. The chemist's test is the necessary means of detecting the foreign substance; if the "drop of sound logic" be such, it is strange that lawyers, mathematicians, and mankind in general, should so sparingly employ it; the fact mathe must be reckoned among the chief defects in his philosophical writings. In a remarkable In a remarkable passage of the His prejuAdvancement of Learning, he held mathematics dice against to be a part of metaphysics; but the place of matics. this is altered in the Latin, and they are treated as merely auxiliary or instrumental to physical inquiry. He had some prejudice against pure mathematics, and thought they had been unduly elevated in comparison with the realities of nature. "I know not," he says, "how it has arisen that mathematics and logic, which ought to be the serving-maids of physical philosophy, yet affecting to vaunt the certainty that belongs to them, presume to exercise a dominion over her." It is, in my opinion, erroneous to speak of geometry, which relates to the realities of space, and to natural objects so far as extended, as a mere hand-maid of physical philosophy, and not rather a part of it. Playfair has made some good remarks on the advantages derived to experimental philosophy itself from the mere application of geometry and algebra. And one of the reflections which this ought to excite is, that we are being notorious, that those most eminent for strong reasoning powers are rarely conversant with the syllogistic method. It is also well known, that these "intimately blended mixtures of truth and falsehood" perplex no man of plain sense, except when they are what is called extra-logical; cases wherein the art of syllogism is of no use. we cannot help remembering that it is very rarely employed even in controversy, where I really believe it to be a valuable weapon against an antagonist, and capable of producing no small effect on the indifferent reader or hearer, especially if he is not of a very sharp apprehension; and moreover that, as I at least believe, the proportion of mathematical, political, or theological reasoners, who have acquired or retained any tolerable expertness in the technical part of logic, is far from high, nor am I aware that they fall into fallacies for want of knowledge of it; but I mean strictly such fallacies as the syllogistic method alone seems to correct. What comes nearest to syllogistic reasoning in practice is that of geometry; as thus, A=B: but [The syllogistic logic appears to have been more received into favour of late among philosophers, both here and on the Continent, than it was in the two preceding centuries. The main question, it is to be kept in mind, does not relate to its principles as a science, but to the practical usefulness of its rules as an art. An able writer has lately observed, that "he must be fortunate in the clearness of his mind, who, knowing the logical_C=A; ergo, C=B, is essentially a sylmode, is never obliged to have recourse to it to destroy ambiguity or heighten evidence, and particularly so in his opponents, who, in verbal or written controversy, never finds it necessary to employ it in trying their arguments." Penny Cyclopædia, art. Syllogism. Every one must judge of this by his own experience: the profound thinker whose hand seems discernible in this article, has a strong claim to authority in favour of the utility of the syllogistic method; yet logism, but not according to form. If, however, equality of magnitude may be considered as identity, according to the dictum of Aristotle, i TOUTOTS ʼn ¡Córne vorns, the foregoing is regular in logical form; and if we take A, B, and C for ratios, which are properly identical, not equal, this may justly be called a syllogism. But those who contend most for the formal logic, seldom much regard its use in geometrical science.1847.] not to conceive, as some hastily do, that there can be no real utility to mankind, even of that kind of utility which consists in multiplying the conveniences and luxuries of life, springing from theoretical and speculative inquiry. The history of algebra, so barren in the days of Tartaglia and Vieta, so productive of wealth, when applied to dynamical calculations in our own, may be a sufficient answer. Bacon's excess of wit. preroga 79. One of the petty blemishes, which, though lost in the splendour of Lord Bacon's excellences, it is not unfair to mention, is connected with the peculiar characteristics of his mind; he is sometimes too metaphorical and witty. His remarkable talent for discovering analogies seems to have inspired him with too much regard to them as arguments, even when they must appear to any common reader fanciful and far-fetched. His terminology, chiefly for the same reason, is often a little affected, and, in Latin, rather barbarous. The divisions of his tive instances in the Novum Organum are not always founded upon intelligible distinctions. And the general obscurity of the style, neither himself nor his assistants being good masters of the Latin language, which at the best is never flexible or copious enough for our philosophy, renders the perusal of both his great works too laborious for the impatient reader. Brucker has well observed that the Novum Organum has been neglected by the generality, and proved of far less service than it would otherwise have been in philosophy, in consequence of these very defects, as well as the real depth of the author's mind. Fame of Bacon on the Continent. 80. What has been the fame of Bacon, "the wisest, greatest, of mankind," it is needless to say. What has been his real influence over mankind, how much of our enlarged and exact knowledge may be attributed to his inductive method, what of this again has been due to a thorough study of his writings, and what to an indirect and secondary acquaint Legenda ipsa nobilissima tractatio ab illis est, qui in rerum naturalium inquisitione feliciter progredi cupiunt. Quæ si paulo plus luminis et perspicuitatis haberet, et novorum terminorum et partitionum artificio lectorem non remo raretur, longè plura, quam factum est, contulisset ad philosophiæ emendationem. His enim obstantibus a plerisque hoc organum neglectum est. Hist. Philos., v. 99. m ance with them, are questions of another kind, and less easily solved. Stewart, the philosopher who has dwelt most on the praises of Bacon, while he conceives him to have exercised à considerable influence over the English men of science in the seventeenth century, supposes, on the authority of Montucla, that he did not "command the general admiration of Europe," till the publication of the preliminary discourse to the French Encyclopædia by Diderot and D'Alembert. This, however, is by much too precipitate a conclusion. He became almost immediately known on the Continent. Gassendi was one of his most ardent admirers. Descartes mentions him, I believe, once only, in a letter to Mersenne in 1632; but he was of all men the most unwilling to praise a contemporary. It may be said that these were philosophers, and that their testimony does not imply the admiration of mankind. But writers of a very different character mention him in a familiar manner. Richelieu is said to have highly esteemed Lord Bacon." And it may in some measure be due to this, that in the Sentimens de l'Académie Française sur le Cid, he is alluded to, simply by the name Bacon, as one well known. Voiture, in a letter to Costar, about the same time, bestows high eulogy on some passages of Bacon which his correspondent had sent to him, and observes that Horace would have been astonished to hear a barbarian Briton discourse in such a style. The treatise De Augmentis was republished in France in 1624, the year after its appearance in England. It was translated into French as early as 1632; no great proofs of neglect. Editions m Vol. vi. p. 210, edit. Cousin. n The only authority that I can now quote for this is not very good, that of Aubrey's Manuscripts, which I find in Seward's Anecdotes, iv. 328. But it seems not improbable. The same book quotes Balzac as saying, "Croyons donc, pour l'amour du Chancelier Bacon, que toutes les folies des anciens sont sages; et tous leurs songes mystères, et de celleslà qui sont estimées pures fables, il n'y en a pas une, quelque bizarre et extravagante qu'elle soit, qui n'ait son fondement dans l'histoire, si l'on en veut croire |