oe 
PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGS OF LORD BACON. 381 
ay 
The truth is, that this writer is, after all, ‘constrained. to 
make an admission, which of itself sufficiently proves the 
groundlessness of his general censure of Bacon’s philoso- 
phy. ‘“ That the rules of investigation which it lays down, 
“ are wise and salutary with reference to physics, we are 
“ happy,” says he, “ to admit*.” Now, the Novum Or- 
ganum is almost wholly occupied with the exposition and 
illustration of these very rules; and yet it is branded by 
this writer with the imputation of manifesting disrespect “ in 
“ every page” to the laws and limits of the understand- 
ing, and a total ignorance of the purposes of science. It 
would prove a rather perplexing task, I should imagine, to 
show how any one could methodize a set of “ wise and sa- 
“ Jutary rules of investigation with reference to: physics,” 
who, yet, had no sound views of the nature. and: objects 
of philosophical inquiry. There must either, in short, be 
something in the nature of physics to take that great branch 
of knowledge out of the general category. of philosophy, or it 
must be absurd to say, that Bacon could unfold the true prin- 
ciples of physical investigation, he being at the same time ig- 
norant of the nature and aim of genuine science. His rules 
with respect to physical inquiry were “ wise and salutary,” 
precisely because they were conformable to the laws and limits 
of the human understanding ; because “ he saw well,” to use 
his own words, “ that the supposition of the too great suffi- 
** eiency of man’s mind had lost the means thereof +.” 
It is besides to be observed, that there is no ground whatever 
for the limitation of the wisdom and utility of Bacon’s logical 
precepts to the physical sciences alone. He who admits that 
they, 
* Quarterly Review, No. xxxiii. p. 52. 
+ Filum Labyrinthi, Works, vol. i. p.. 400. 4to edit. 
