PHILOSOPHY AS AN ORGANON 



injury, but rather an important help to him to 

 understand theoretically the general principles 

 on which a sentence should be constructed. In 

 the fine arts, which afford an excellent test for 

 judging this point, the superiority imparted by 

 systematic instruction is quite incontestable. 

 Doubtless it is by long-continued practice that 

 men learn to paint pictures, to mould statues, 

 and to compose oratorios or symphonies. But 

 it is none the less probable that Mozart and 

 Beethoven would have accomplished compara- 

 tively little without the profound study of har- 

 mony ; and in painting and sculpture the "ori- 

 ginality of untaught geniuses " is, not unjustly, 

 made a subject for sarcasm. It is therefore use- 

 less for Macaulay to remind us that men rea- 

 soned correctly long before Bacon had drawn 

 up his elaborate canons of induction ; or for 

 Comte to appeal to rhetoric, grammar, and aes- 

 thetic art in support of the opinion that we 

 need no general doctrine of logic. 



To take a concrete example, — if, as in Bor- 

 da's experiment, you make a simple pendulum 

 oscillate thirty hours in an exhausted receiver, 

 by diminishing the friction at the point of sup- 

 port, and proceed to infer that with the total 

 abolition of friction and atmospheric resistance 

 the pendulum would oscillate forever, it may 

 not be essential to the validity of your infer- 

 ence that you should understand the character 

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