FALLACIES OF SIMPLE INSPECTION. 375 



stage of our inquiry into the nature of Induction*, 

 how much more ample are the resources which science 

 commands .for the latter than for the former inquiry, 

 since it is upon the latter only that we can throw any 

 direct light by means of experiment; the power of 

 artificially producing an effect, implying a previous 

 knowledge of at least one of its causes. If we dis- 

 cover the causes of effects, it is generally by having 

 previously discovered the effects of causes: the greatest 

 skill in devising crucial instances for the former pur- 

 pose may only end, as Bacon's physical inquiries did, 

 in no result at all. Was it that his eagerness to 

 acquire the power of producing for man's benefit 

 effects of practical importance to human life, render- 

 ing him impatient of pursuing that end by a circuitous 

 route, made even him, the champion of experiment, 

 prefer the direct mode, though one of mere observa- 

 tion, to the indirect, in which alone experiment was 

 possible? Or had even Bacon not entirely cleared his 

 mind from the notion of the ancients, that "rerum 

 cognoscere causas" was the sole object of philosophy, 

 and that to inquire into the effects of things belonged 

 to servile and mechanical arts? 



It is worth remarking that, while the only efficient 

 mode of cultivating speculative science was missed 

 from an undue contempt of manual operations, the 

 false speculative views thus engendered gave in their 

 turn a false direction to such practical and mechanical 

 aims as were still suffered to exist. The assumption 

 universal among the ancients, and in the middle ages, 

 that there were principles of heat and cold, dry ness 

 and moisture, &c., led directly to a belief in alchemy; 

 in a transmutation of substances, a change from one 



Supra, vol. i., p. 447. 



