20 CoLOEADO College Studies. 



probability of a plurality of Forms answering to a given 

 Nature, of more than one cause of a given effect, is therein 

 ignored. 



With the exception of the test of similarity of variation the 

 method outlined presents the problem of Induction in a static 

 form in marked contrast to its modern dynamic aspect in con- 

 nection with the ideas of causation, of progress and of evo- 

 lution. 



Second: The method claims a high degree of probability if 

 not an absolute certainty for a mechanical process of rejections 

 and exclusions, which in Bacon's words goes far to level men's 

 wits, since it proceeds by the surest rules and demonstrations 

 (N. O.'I, CXXII). 



That it should have seemed possible to Bacon to investigate 

 Nature by rule, to dispense with hypothesis and the scientific 

 imagination, the ay/v^oia or natural sagacity of Aristotle, evinces 

 a conception of the universe so different from that since preva- 

 lent that we need not wonder that the Baconian method has 

 remained to this day an unused engine in the workshop where 

 he left it. We are constantly meeting in his works with expres- 

 sions suggesting the limitations of the Universe; that its great 

 complexity, or subtlety in his phrase, is owing to the combina- 

 tions of comparatively few elements. 



Approximate completeness seemed therefore possible in the 

 natural and experimental histories which were to be the bases 

 of Induction; approximate completeness also in a knowledge of 

 the Forms to which we were to be led by that process. The 

 method was in Bacon's mind a chart and compass by which man 

 might soon explore the whole sphere of possible knowledge just 

 as the sailors of his time were touching the limits of the mate- 

 rial globe. 



" Be of good hope," he writes in the preface to the Great 

 lustauratioD, "nor imagine that this Great Instauration is a 

 thing infinite and beyond the power of man." He concedes, 

 however, in continuing, that the work will not be completed in 

 our generation, but will have to be taken up by another; and 

 there is evidence that longer study diminished his confidence. 



