SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE METHODS 



cedure. When rightly considered, it will also 

 enable us to estimate at their proper value the 

 claims of Bacon to be regarded as the chief in- 

 augurator of modern philosophy, as well as the 

 criticisms made upon those claims by Bacon's 

 detractors. We frequently hear it said, on the 

 one hand, that Bacon's great merit consisted 

 in overthrowing the Deductive Method prac- 

 tised by the ancients, and in substituting for it 

 the Inductive Method, upon which all modern 

 scientific discoveries have been made. Now 

 such assertions imply a total misconception of 

 the true state of the case ; and perhaps we can- 

 not wonder that some critics believe that, in 

 overthrowing them, they have removed Bacon 

 from the high position which he has hitherto 

 traditionally occupied. But this is a miscon- 

 ception as great as the other. The truth is. 

 Bacon's admirers have advanced in his behalf 

 claims which should never have been made ; 

 while, on the other hand, his detractors, in 

 showing the futility of these claims, have not 

 really succeeded in taking away one jot or tittle 

 of his rightful fame. In point of fact, it was not 

 Bacon's great merit, but his great deficiency, 

 that he held in comparatively slight esteem the 

 deductive method. This method is as trust- 

 worthy and as powerful as the inductive, pro- 

 vided it starts from verified premises, and ends 

 by verifying its conclusions. Indeed, in several 



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