PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGS OF LOUD BACON. 381 



The truth is, that this writer is, after all, constrained to 

 make an admission, which of itself sufficiently proves the 

 groundlessness of his general censure of Bacon's philoso- 

 phy. " That the rules of investigation which it lays down, 

 " are wise and salutary with reference to physics, we are 

 " happy," says he, " to admit*." Now, the Novum Or- 

 ganum is almost wholly occupied with the exposition and 

 illustration of these very rules ; and yet it is branded by 

 this writer with the imputation of manifesting disrespect " in 

 " every page" to the laws and limits of the understand- 

 ing, and a total ignorance of the purposes of science. It 

 would prove a rather perplexing task, I should imagine, to 

 show how any one could methodize a set of " wise and sa- 

 " lutary rules of investigation with reference to physics," 

 who, yet, had no sound views of the nature and objects 

 of philosophical inquiry. There must either, in short, be 

 something in the nature of physics to take that great branch 

 of knowledge out of the general category of philosophy, or it 

 must be absurd to say, that Bacon could unfold the true prin- 

 ciples of physical investigation, he being at the same time ig- 

 norant of the nature and aim of genuine science. His rules 

 with respect to physical inquiry were " wise and salutary," 

 precisely because they were conformable to the laws and limits 

 of the human understanding ; because " he saw well," to use 

 his own words, " that the supposition of the too great suffi- 

 " ciency of man's mind had lost the means thereof f." 



It is besides to be observed, that there is no ground whatever 

 for the limitation of the wisdom and utility of Bacon's logical 

 precepts to the physical sciences alone. He who admits that. 



they 



* Quarterly Review, No. xxxiii. p. 52. 



•f- Filum Lahyrinihi, Works, vol. i. p. 400. 4to edit. 



