92 DISSERTATION SECOND. [jam i. 



disposed to regard him as the greatest, the most universal, 

 and the most eloquent of philosophers." 1 



3. Remarks, &c. 



It will hardly be doubted by any one who attentively 

 considers the melhod explained in the Novum Organum, 

 which we have now atlerupted to sketch, that it contains 

 a most comprehensive and rigorous plan of inductive inves- 

 tigation. A questiort, however, may occur, how far has 

 this method been really carried into practice by those who 

 have made the great discoveries in natural philosophy, and 

 who have raised physical science to its present height in 

 the scale of human knowledge ? Is the whole method ne- 

 cessary, or have not circumstances occurred, which have 

 rendered experimental investigation easier in practice than 

 it appears to be in theory ? To answer these questions 

 completely, would require more discussion than is consis- 

 tent with the limits of this Dissertation ; I shall, therefore, 

 attempt no more than to point out the principles on which 

 such an answer may be founded. 



In a very extensive department of physical science, it 

 cannot be doubted that investigation has been carried on, 

 not perhaps more easily, but with a less frequent appeal to 

 experience, than the rules of the Novum Organum would 

 ^seern to require. In all the physical inquiries where ma- 

 thematical reasoning has been employed, after a few princi- 

 ples have been established by experience, a vast multitude 

 of truths, equally certain with the principles themselves, 

 have been deduced from them by the mere application of 

 geometry and algebra. 



In mechanicks, for example, after the laws of motion were 

 discovered, which was done by experiment, the rest of the 



1 Discours Prelimiuaire de 1'Encyclopedie. 



