32 GENERAL PREFACE TO 



abstract and the concrete, considered as objects of science, 

 ought to stand to one another. This relation corresponds to 

 that which in the De Augmentis [iii. 4.], he had sought to 

 establish between Physique and Metaphysique, and which he 

 has there expressed by saying that the latter was to be con- 

 versant with the formal and final causes, while the former was 

 to be confined to the efficient cause and to the material. It 

 may be asked, and the question is not easily answered, Of what 

 use the study of .concrete bodies was in Bacon's system to be, 

 seeing that the knowledge of the Forms of simple natures would, 

 in effect, include all that can be known of the outward world ? 

 I believe that, if Bacon's recognition of physique as a distinct 

 branch of science which was to be studied apart from meta- 

 physique or the doctrine of Forms, can be explained except on 

 historical grounds, that is, except by saying that it was derived 

 from the quadripartite division of causes given by Aristotle 1 9 

 the explanation is merely this, that he believed that the study of 

 concrete bodies would at least at first be pursued more hopefully 

 and more successfully than the abstract investigations to which 

 he gave the first rank. 2 



However this may be, it seems certain that Bacon's method, 

 as it is stated in the Novum Organum, is primarily applicable 

 to the investigation of Forms, and that when other applications 

 were made of it, it was to be modified in a manner which is 

 nowhere distinctly explained. All in fact that we know of 

 these modifications results from comparing two passages which 

 have been already quoted 3 ; namely the two lists in which Bacon 

 enumerates the subjects to be treated of in the latter books of 

 the Novum Organum. 



It will be observed that in one of these lists the subject of 

 concrete bodies corresponds to the " variation of the investiga- 

 tion according to the nature of the subject " in the other, and 

 from this it seems to follow that Bacon looked on his method of 

 investigating Forms as the fundamental type of the inductive 

 process, from which in its other applications it deviated more or 

 less according to the necessity of the case. This being under- 

 stood, we may proceed to speak of the inductive method itself. 



(9.) The practical criterium of a Form by means of which it is to 



1 For an explanation of which, see note on De Augmentis, iii. 4. J. S. 



2 See, in illustration of this, Nov. Org. ii. 5. * Vide supra, 2. 



