142 Notices respecling New Books. 



was not so successful, at first, as King James : Bacon not liking 

 the specimen returned him of Playfair's Latinity. They were,j^ 

 however, translated afterwards by other hands. 



" In the year 1G29, he published his Instauratio Magna, 

 called Nonmi Organon, a title taken from his great predecessor 

 Aristotle*, to the materials of whose writings he was greatly in- 

 debted, though he raised them on his new foundation, as Locke 

 was greatly indebted to Hobbes's foundation, though he shaped 

 his materials into a different form. Bacon, in a letter to the 

 king, says of his Novum Organon, ^ I hear my former book, 

 of the Advancement of Learning, is well treated in the Univer- 

 sities here, and the English colleges abroad, and this is the same 

 argument and deeper.' 



" In 1623, he published his famous work, de Augmentis 

 Seientiarum, which, however, can scarcely be called a new 

 book, it being an enlargement of his Advancement of Learning, 

 put into a Latin dress ; in the adjusting of which George Her- 

 ■bert, the Cambridge poet, and Hobbes, the philosopher of 

 Malmesbury, gave their assistance : which reminds me, that 

 Bacon's practice was much imitated by Hobbes, some of whose 

 after-works were but enlargements of former experiments. 



The 



* Ai'istotle, ill the opinion of every on.?, was a most extraoidinnry man ; and 

 wrote upon all subjects, metaphysics, physics, mathematics, mechanic questions, 

 physiognomy, morals, politics, and poetry, Sec. Diogenes Laertius de Vitis, 

 &c. Philosophorum, lib. v. p. 323, edit. Casauboni, 1584, says, there were 

 40 Tolnmes of his, of the aiitlienticity of vrhich there was no doubt: A T«f 

 A^iffiov tyyv; rixti TirfuxiiiTtiiv, ru ora yi avx/z^iXtura. Many are lost, of which one 

 was probably the must valuable of any, ■vaXiTtiai vakiuv Suciv i^nxotm nai ixarov. 

 The Governments of 16'2 cities. Some Fragmpnts of this work were collected 

 from ancient writers by Isaac Casaubon, and published. 



Of Metaphysics {(iirtt, ruv ipuaiKui), as he terms them, he has treated atlarji^e. 

 Of Grammar and Logic, it does not appear that Aristotle treated, as they have 

 since been formed into systems or arts, and taught in the schools. The works of 

 Aristotle, read by the Siholastics, at Cambridge, were Latin Translations by the 

 Arabians, incorrectly made, and often crudely wrought into their own theories. 



At, and since the revival of letters, various arts of Logic were publisliod by 

 Ramus, Crelliu-, Hertiu":, Hunnxus, Slolincus, and Keckerroan, and after them 

 by Uergersdicins. Of these, some profess to follow Aristotle; otbci-s, to hold 

 tiiiii in contempt : but as Aristotle has not treated distinctly of ?7»//iod, the 4tVi 

 instrument in Logic, and as, prob-ibly, the Categories, or Predicaments, were 

 not his ; and as he never formed his Treatises into a system, or Art of Logic, we 

 .may be often led into mistakes about Aristotle. I say the Categnrit-s were 

 probably not Aristotle's, because Diogenes Laertius mentions only <ne book of 

 Categories, Vitii.Tr,yeoiuf ; ed. Diog. Laertius, ut sup. p. 51*7: whereas, the Cate- 

 gories as we now have tlu m, consist of three parts, regularly divided into chap- 

 ters. Aristot. Op. omnia, vol. i. edit. Du Vail. 



Bacon's Novnm Organon may be considered as levelled against all those several 

 arts ; but more particularly against the Analytics and Topics of Aristotle, «hicU 

 treat so largely of Syllogisms. It should, hnwt ver, be i bser »cd, that though we 

 arc in the habit of speaking of Induction, as Bacon's, that .Ari^t 'tie, also, has 

 Inductioa; Viai r^oTnv rum avriKUTui n iruyayri ra euWoyirftu' e fttv y<t( Oia t^ 

 //.ica rj ax^nv •.-» r^ira iiiKWiriv' « 3:a In Tit rpiTfu ra uxfn tu fifru, Analj^tie^ 

 priora, lib. ii. tap. 2j. 



