PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGS OP LOUD BACON. 387 



fore having made all the inquiries necessary to truth. In confor- 

 mity with these principles, he shows, that all sound philoso- 

 phy must proceed from facts ; that the facts in every case 

 must be carefully collected and compared ; and that in all our 

 reasonings about them, the natural tendency of the mind to 

 generalize must be carefully repressed. The spurious method 

 of induction is that which proceeds suddenly from particulars 

 scantily collected or ill examined to the most general conclu- 

 sions. The true method is that which lays a wide basis in ob- 

 servations and experiments, and which generalizes slowly ; ad- 

 vancing gradually from particulars to generals, from what is 

 less general to what is more general, till the inquiry ends in 

 truths that appear to be universal *. 



Nothing could be more encouraging or animating, than Ba- 

 con's recommendations of this plan of inquiry. Though 

 he held that the noblest end of philosophy is the discove- 

 ry of truth f, he taught that there is a correspondence be- 

 tween this and another end, also of great dignity, — the im- 

 provement of the outward accommodations of human life. He 

 showed, that, when the principles of science should really be 

 derived from the knowledge of Nature, their discovery would 

 prove beneficial to man, as well in respect to the increase of his 

 power as of his knowledge ; because the principles so discovered 

 would lead to new inventions in the useful arts, and to new rules 

 for the improvement of all the operative parts of knowledge. 

 He endeavoured to stimulate the spirit of inquiry, by represent- 

 ing the field of scientific discovery, as yet almost wholly uncul- 



3 C 2 tivated 



* Nov. Organ. Lib. i. Aph. 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105. 



f Ibid. Aph. 124. 129. He takes some pains here and elsewhere to guard 

 against the supposition that he valued science only as it was calculated to aug- 

 ment the outward accommodations of life. 



