NOVUM ORGANUM 209 



whether the latter (which can easily be distinguished from 

 the former by its color, for flames do not mix immediately, 

 as liquids do) continue pyramidal, or tend more to a globu 

 lar figure, since there is nothing to destroy or compress it. 

 If the latter result be observed, it must be considered as 

 settled, that flame continues positively the same, while in 

 closed within another flame, and not exposed to the resist 

 ing force of the air. 



Let this suffice for the instances of the cross. We have 

 dwelt the longer upon them in order gradually to teach and 

 accustom mankind to judge of nature by these instances, and 

 enlightening experiments, and not by probable reasons.&quot; 



65 These instances, which Bacon seems to consider as a great discovery, 

 are nothing more than disjunctive propositions combined with dilemmas. In 

 proposing to explain an effect, we commence with the enumeration of the dif 

 ferent causes which seem connected with its production ; then with the aid of 

 one or more dilemmas, we eliminate each of the phenomena accidental to its 

 composition, and conclude with attributing the effect to the residue. For in 

 stance, a certain phenomenon (a) is produced either by phenomenon (B) or phe 

 nomenon (c); but c cannot be the cause of a, for it is found in D, E, p, neither 

 of which are connected with a. Then the true cause of phenomenon (a) must 

 be phenomenon (B). 



This species of reasoning is liable to several paralogisms, against which 

 Bacon has not guarded his readers, from the very fact that he stumbled into 

 them unwittingly himself. The two principal ones are false exclusions and 

 defective enumerations. Bacon, in his survey of the causes which are able 

 to concur in producing the phenomena of the tides, takes no account of the 

 periodic melting of the Polar ice, or the expansion of water by the solar heat; 

 nor does he fare better in his exclusions. For the attraction of the planets and 

 the progression and retrograde motion communicated by the earth s diurnal revo 

 lution, can plainly affect the sea together, and have a simultaneous influence 

 on its surface. 



Bacon is hardly just or consistent in his censure of Ramus; the end of 

 whose dichotomy was only to render reasoning by dilemma, and crucial 

 instances, more certain in their results, by reducing the divisions which 

 composed their parts to two sets of contradictory propositions. The affirm 

 ative or negative of one would then necessarily have led to the acceptance 

 or rejection of the other. Ed. 



