384 ON THE SCOPE ANO INFLUENCE OF THE 



discoveries furnished some fortunate illustrations of its princi- 

 ples. To explain these principles was no object of his ; nor 

 does he manifest any great anxiety to recommend their adoption, 

 with a view to the general improvement of science. The Ari- 

 stotelian disputant, in his celebrated Dialogues, is made fre- 

 quently to appeal to observation and experiment ; but the in- 

 terlocutor through whom Galileo himself speaks, nowhere 

 takes occasion to distinguish between the flimsy inductions of 

 the Stagyrite, in regard to the subjects in dispute, and those 

 which he himself had instituted ; or to hint at the very differ- 

 ent complexion which philosophy must assume, according as 

 the one kind or the other is resorted to. Thus, though Gali- 

 leo was a great discoverer, it cannot be said that he had any 

 distinction from having taught the principles of the art by 

 which discoveries are made. That distinction belongs wholly 

 to Bacon. " No man " says one of the most eminent of our 

 earlier philosophers, " except the incomparable Verulam, has 

 " had any thoughts of an art for directing the mind in physi- 

 " cal inquiries *." 



Some late writers have, however, advanced an opinion, that 

 this distinction does not belong exclusively to any of the 

 moderns f. " It is an error," we are told, " to represent Bacon 

 " as professing his principle of induction to be a discovert/. 

 " The method of induction, 'which is the art of discovery, was 

 " so. far from being unknown to Aristotle, that it was often 

 " faithfully pursued by that great observer. What Bacon aim- 

 " ed atj he accomplished ; which was, not to discover new 

 " principles, but to excite a new spirit, and to render observa- 



" tion 



* Hooke. — Posthumous Works, p. 6. 



t See some admirable remarks on this subject, in the second volume of Mr 

 Stewart's Philosophy of the Mind, Chap. 4. sect. 2. — On the induction of Aris- 

 totle compared with thai of Bacon. 



