SECTION 19 INTRODUCTORY AND SUMMARY. 149 



Having stated the most general precepts pertaining to scientific 

 investigation, we may, before 'proceeding to the detailed state- 

 ment which is the primary object of this volume, focus the 

 various synthetically connected main injunctions in the sentence : 

 " Examine minutely and circumspectly under the most varied 

 circumstances of space, time, and other conditions, and ex- 

 periment where practicable; generalise step by step, but yet, 

 within reason, exhaustively; proceed, more especially towards 

 the end, to deduce further truths issuing perhaps in fresh in- 

 vestigations; verify all observations, generalisations, and deduc- 

 tions meticulously, and determine their theoretical and practical 

 applications; judiciously classify the facts as you proceed, but 

 especially during the last stages; and luminously summarise 

 the theoretical and practical results in concise, definite, connected, 

 and comprehensive interim and final formula?." Bacon's con- 

 ception of method is also synthetic in character, and may be 

 paraphrased thus to satisfy, more or less, modern requirements: 

 "Collect all the classes of facts and their degrees bearing on 

 the enquiry; collect classes of facts similar to those found but 

 which do not bear on the enquiry, and exclude those and their 

 similars; seek, by the method of exclusion, for the facts common 

 to all the relevant classes of facts; precipitate the truths common 

 to the facts into a definition; proceed to draw theoretical and 

 practical deductions; classify the facts; verify throughout at 

 every step; and formulate a pithy and yet exhaustive statement 

 relating to the enquiry." In Bacon's conception of method 

 hypotheses play only an important part at certain turning 

 points. 



II. SUMMARY OF PRACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. 



62. Human advance along every line has been due to the 

 gradual accumulation pan-humanly that is, inter-individually, 

 inter-socially, and inter-epochally of slight improvements, and 

 our sciences, arts, industries, and disciplines, have all grown 

 in this inconspicuous but effective way. The difference between 

 a high and a low stage of civilisation is accounted for in this 

 manner, and it is extremely probable that in any direction 

 where there has not been an advance thus determined, we 

 have tarried on a low level. The method of conducting the 

 human understanding, as we perceived in Section V, falls under 

 the same law, and its degree of evolution we can fairly judge 

 by gauging the history of methodology. This latter evidences 

 that apart from collectively determined progress in logic, 

 summed up in Aristotle, and, more especially, in Francis Bacon, 

 little that is fundamental has been done to establish a re- 

 cognised methodology. 



Whatever substantial progress has been effected since Bacon 

 wrote is mainly to be attributed to the advance of the sciences 

 themselves, and the full methodological significance of this ad- 



