53 



quickly surprise the secret of her processes : thus 

 Bacon was the last of the Summists. With the 

 differentiation of the several spheres of knowledge, 

 and the perception of the vastness and variety of 

 each, man has ceased to hold not the unity but 

 the simplicity of nature; and he has given up 

 summaries : the theologian rules no longer in 

 metaphysics and psychology ; the physician is no 

 longer the only naturalist. 



Systems succeed each other but give each other 

 the hand ; it takes many a generation to kill a strong 

 theory outright : realism, shaken by Roscellinus and 

 Abelard, and scotched by Hales and Ockham, sur- 

 vived to mislead Harvey ; and still it stretches its 

 withered hand over us in the nursery, in the school, 

 and in the great arguments of life 1 . Malebranche 



1 The judicious reader will remember in the Letters to 

 Martinua Scriblerus the " familiar instance " of the jack. '' In 

 every roasting jack there is a meatroasting quality which 

 neither resides in the fly, nor in the weight, nor in any par- 

 ticular wheel of the jack. ..but is inherent in the jack.. ..As 

 sensation, reasoning, volition &c. are the several modes of 

 thinking, so roasting of beef, roasting of mutton, roasting of 

 pullets, geese, turkeys &c. are the several modes of meat- 

 roasting.... And as the general quality of meatroasting, with 

 its several modifications as to beef, mutton, pullets &c. does 

 not inhere in any part of the jack, so neither does conscious- 

 ness " &c. &c. 



