THE PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS. 37 



the general method, whereas the Exclusiva, given in the 

 eighteenth aphorism of the second book, is a type or paradigm 

 of the process on which every true induction (inductio vera) 

 must in all cases depend. 



It may be well to remark that in this example of the process 

 of exclusion, the table of degrees is not made use of. 



Bacon, as we have seen, admits that the Exclusiva must 

 at first be in some measure imperfect ; for the Exclusiva, 

 being the rejection of simple natures, cannot be satisfactory 

 unless our notions of these natures are just and accurate, 

 whereas some of those which occur in his example of the 

 process of rejection are ill-defined and vague. 1 In order to 

 the completion of his method, it is necessary to remove this de- 

 fect. A subsidiary method is required, of which the object is 

 the formation of scientific conceptions. To this method also 

 Bacon gives the name of induction ; and it is remarkable that in- 

 duction is mentioned for the first time in the Nuvum Oryanum 

 in a passage which relates not to axioms but to conceptions. 2 

 Bacon's induction therefore is not a mere sTraywyrj, it is also a 

 method of definition ; but of the manner in which systematic 

 induction is to be employed in the formation of conceptions we 

 learn nothing from any part of his writings. And by this cir- 

 cumstance our knowledge of his method is rendered imperfect 

 and unsatisfactory. We may perhaps be permitted to believe 

 that so far as relates to the subject of which we are now speaking, 

 Bacon never, even in idea, completed the method which he pro- 

 posed. For of all parts of the process of scientific discovery, the 

 formation of conceptions is the one with respect to which it 

 is the most difficult to lay down general rules. The process 

 of establishing axioms Bacon had succeeded, at least appa- 

 rently, in reducing to the semblance of a mechanical operation ; 

 that of the formation of conceptions does not admit of any 

 similar reduction. Yet these two processes are in Bacon's 

 system of co ordinate importance. All commonly received ge- 

 neral scientific conceptions Bacon condemns as utterly worth- 

 less. 3 A complete change is, therefore, required; yet of the 

 way in which induction is to be employed in order to preduce 

 this change he has said nothing. 



1 Nov. Org. ii. 19. ; and compare i. 15., which shows the necessity of a complete 

 reform. 



2 Nov. Org. i. 14., and comp. i. 18. 8 Nov. Org. i. 15, 16. 



D 3 



