29-30.] NOTES. 107 



student will easily understand that this method would never 

 enable the Schoolmen to make any progress in scientific dis 

 covery. At the best, their method was but an analysis, accord 

 ing to the rules of logic, of abstract terms and popular general 

 izations. So long as the terms which men use are an inadequate 

 or incorrect expression of facts, mere formal consistency in 

 reasoning is simply consistency in error. Moreover, progress was 

 impossible. No new ideas were got by fresh examinations of 

 nature, consequently the Schoolmen were perpetually engaged 

 with the same questions. Another circumstance which hindered 

 progress was that they were not allowed to question their pre 

 mises. In the sphere of theology they were bound by the 

 dogmas of the Church : in the sphere of physics, * Aristotle was 

 their dictator,' Cf. Whewell, * On the Character of Commen 

 tators.' History of the Inductive Sciences, vol. I., bk. iv., ch. ii. 



1. 30. the old man's faggot, see ^Esop's Fables, 52. It is im 

 possible to break sticks when they are tied in a large bundle, but 

 each can be broken separately if taken out of the bundle. So 

 the strength of a science lies 'in the bond,' i.e., in the consistency 

 of each part with every other. 



1. 34. axiom, proposition. 



Page 30, 1. 4. They break up, etc. , they never get a comprehen 

 sive view of a subject. The remark about Seneca is from the 

 Roman rhetorician Quintilian. 



1. 6. fair, large. 



1. 8. watch-candle, a small light kept burning in a room at 

 night. Science should take a comprehensive view of the whole 

 extent of a subject, such as a brilliant light gives us of a large 

 room. 



1. 12. cavillation, quibble : captious objection. 



1. 14. as in the former resemblance, to take the comparison 

 which we took above, 1. 6. In The Interpretation of Nature, 

 when he is condemning the science of his day, Bacon repeats the 

 comparison which occurs below. "The strange fiction of the 

 poets of the transformation of Scylla seemeth to be a lively 

 emblem of this philosophy and knowledge : a fair woman up 

 wards in the parts of show, but when you come to the parts 

 of use and generation, Barking Monsters ; for no better are the 

 endless distorted questions, which ever have been, and of neces 

 sity must be, the end and womb of such knowledge." It must 

 always be borne in mind that, futile as the speculations of the 

 Schoolmen appear in the light of modern science, still we have to 

 thank them for maintaining an intellectual activity through ages 

 in which all but themselves were sunk in ignorance. 



1. 20. generalities, generalizations. 



1. 21. proportionable, comprehensive enough. 



