THE PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS. 35 



jective or logical, but deals, so to speak, with the very essence 

 of its subject-matter, it follows that to determine the form 

 nature among the aggregate of simple natures which we thus 

 obtain, nothing more is requisite than the rejection of all 

 foreign and unessential elements. We reject every nature 

 which is not present in every affirmative instance, or which is 

 present in any negative one, or which manifests itself in a 

 greater degree when the given nature manifests itself in a less, 

 or vice versa. And this process when carried far enough will 

 of necessity lead us to the truth ; and meanwhile every step 

 we take is known to be an approximation towards it. Ordinary 

 induction is a tentative process, because we chase our quarry 

 over an open country ; here it is confined within definite limits, 

 and these limits become as we advance continually narrower 

 and narrower. 



From the point of view at which we have now arrived, we 

 perceive why Bacon ascribed to his method the characters by 

 which, as we have seen, he conceived that it was distinguished 

 from any which had previously been proposed. When the 

 process of exclusion has been completely performed, only the 

 form nature will remain ; it will be, so to speak, the sole sur- 

 vivor, of all the natures combined with which the given nature 

 was at first presented to us. There can therefore be no doubt 

 as to our result, nor any possibility of confounding the Form 

 with any other of these natures. This is what Bacon ex- 

 presses, when he says that the first part of the true inductive 

 process is the exclusion of every nature which is not found in 

 each instance where the given one is present, or is found where 

 it is not present, or is found to increase where the given nature 

 decreases, or vice versa. And then, he goes on to say, when 

 this exclusipnJias been duly performed, there wiy^m^the^sec^ojad 

 part of the process remain, as at the bottom, all mere opinions 

 having been dissipated (abeuntibus in fumum opinionibus vola- 

 tilibus), the affirmative Form, which will be solid and true and 

 well defined. 1 The exclusion of error will necessarily lead to 

 truth. 



Again, this method of exclusion requires only an attentive 

 consideration of each "instantia," in order first to analyse it 

 into its simple natures, and secondly to see which of the latter 



1 Nov. Org. ii. 16. 

 D 2 



