46 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



noted in passing that Bacon himself was rather timid and reserved 

 in the application of his method to psychological investigations. As 

 might naturally be expected, " with a boy's fondness for a name and 

 a banner," Bacon carried his method, which though perhaps not to 

 be called new, yet had been raised by him into a principle, beyond 

 its legitimate province, and claimed for it an exaggerated power, and 

 a range broader than its birthright ; but; in relation to psychological 

 and ethical speculations, he admits " it must be bounded by religion, 

 else it will be subject to deceit and delusion." 



It constitutes, perhaps, Mr. J. S. Mill's chief glory as a logician, 

 that he showed the insufficiency of the Inductive method as laid 

 down by Bacon. Bacon allowed only one order of procedure, namely, 

 ujDward from particulars to generals, and thence still upward, this 

 order never being reversed. But the greatest triumphs of science 

 since Bacon's time have come (nor could they otherwise have come) 

 through a method in which this order of procedure is directly re- 

 versed. Bacon failed to make room in his system for the Deduc- 

 tive Method of Inductive investigation, and it is clearly shown by 

 Mill that this was the grand defect in Bacon's inductive philosophy. 

 Subsequent history shows us the Deductive Method, that of verified 

 hypothesis, to be the universally accredited method of modern science. 

 It would, of course, be foreign to our subject to set forth the features 

 of this inductive philosophy as amplified and extended by Mill. 

 Suffice it to say here that the only laws it is capable of revealing are 

 the laws of physical causes. Of final causes, such as those demanded 

 by co-ordinated action of laws, it takes no cognizance. " The only 

 notion of a cause, , which the theory of induction requii^es" (if experi- 

 ence can give any notion at all) " is such a notion as can be gained 

 from experience." To the consideration of such causes the province 

 of scientific induction is strictly limited. It seeks not to penetrate 

 beyond the sphere where phenomena are linked together according 

 to definite and fixed rules by mechanical necessity. In short, physi- 

 cal causes are the sole objects of inductive science ; and in dealing 

 with the facts oiir reasoning cannot be too rigidly mathematical. 

 Now, the same rules of careful observation, the same precautions 

 against error, which are employed in physical science, are to be 

 adopted when the phenomena of mind are the subject of investigation ; 

 the methods of analysis and classification that are available within 

 the sphere of physical science also hold within the domain of mental 



