NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION. A HISTORY OF THE INDUCTIVE SCIENCES.-This title has the fault of seeming to exclude from the rank of Inductive Sciences those which are not included in the History; as Ethnology and Glossology, Political Economy, Psychology. This exclusion I by no means wish to imply; but I could find no other way of compendiously describing my subject, which was intended to comprehend those Sciences in which, by the observation of facts and the use of reason, systems of doctrine have been established which are universally received as truths among thoughtful men; and which may therefore be studied as examples of the manner in which truth is to be discovered. Perhaps a more exact description of the work would have been, A History of the principal Sciences hitherto established by Induction. I may add that I do not include in the phrase "Inductive Sciences," the branches of Pure Mathematics, (Geometry, Arithmetic, Algebra, and the like,) because, as I have elsewhere stated (Phil. Ind. Sc., B. II. c. 1), these are not Inductive but Deductive Sciences: they do not infer true theories from observed facts, and more general from more limited laws: but they trace the conditions of all theory, the properties of space and number; and deduce results from ideas without the aid of experience. The History of these Sciences is briefly given in Chapter 13 of the Book just referred to. (A.) p. 7. The points belonging to the Philosophy of the Sciences, which are briefly noticed in this Introduction, are considered more fully in my work on that subject. The Antithesis of Facts and Ideas is treated of in Book 1., chapter 2, 3, 4 of that work: Successive Generalizations in chap. 7 Technical Terms in chap. 8: Inductive Charts, such as are here referred to in p. 13, are given with reference to the History of Astronomy and of Optics, in Book XI., chap. 6, of the Philosophy. Scientific Ideas, such as are here spoken of in p. 16, are discussed in the Philosophy, from Book II. to Book x.; and the principal controversies are there noticed by which this discussion has been historically carried on. Τίς γὰρ ἀρχὰ δέξατο ναυτιλίας ; τος δῆσεν ἄλοις ; Ἐπεὶ δ ̓ ἐμβόλου Κρεμασαν ἀγκύρας ὕπερθεν Χρυσέαν χείρεσσι λαβὼν φιάλαν Αματά τ' εὔφρονα, καὶ Φιλίαν νόστοιο μοῖραν. PINDAR. Pyth. iv. 124, 349. Whence came their voyage? them what peril held With adamantine rivets firmly bound? But soon as on the vessel's bow The anchor was hung up, Then took the Leader on the prow In hands a golden cup, And on great Father Jove did call, And loved return at last. BOOK I. HISTORY OF THE GREEK SCHOOL PHILOSOPHY, WITH REFERENCE TO PHYSICAL SCIENCE. CHAPTER I. PRELUDE TO THE GREEK SCHOOL PHILOSOPHY. Sect. 1.-First Attempts of the Speculative Faculty in Physical Inquiries. T an early period of history there appeared in A1 men a propensity to pursue speculative inquiries concerning the various parts and properties of the material world. What they saw excited them to meditate, to conjecture, and to reason: they endeavoured to account for natural events, to trace their causes, to reduce them to their principles. This habit of mind, or, at least that modification of it which we have here to consider, seems to have been first unfolded among the Greeks. And during that obscure introductory interval which elapsed while the speculative tendencies of men were as yet hardly disentangled from the practical, those who were most eminent in such inquiries were distinguished by the same term of praise which is applied to sagacity in matters of action, and were called wise men-oopoi. But |