no Notices of Books. [January, 
formulating general propositions. (2.) The gradual ascent from 
propositions or axioms of a lower to those of a higher degree of 
generality. (3.) The selection and comparison of instances in 
place of the old Inductio per Enumerationem Simplicern. 
(4.) The disregard of Authority, and the restraint of Fancy.” 
No one who has the least acquaintance with Bacon’s works 
asserts that he was a great experimental philosopher : although 
Voltaire and Maclaurin have called him “ the father of experi- 
mental philosophy,” we know that Galileo was much more 
worthy of the title. Again, no one who is acquainted with the 
history of philosophy asserts that Bacon invented the Method of 
Induction. To mention no earlier researches, the discoveries of 
Galileo in Astronomy and Dynamics far exceeded any result 
obtained by Bacon in direcT experimental or observational 
Science ; while the method of induction had been employed 
long before Bacon’s time by Leonardo da Vinci, Nizolius, and 
many others. But for all this Bacon did contribute most mate- 
rially to the advance of Experimental Science, and to the deve- 
lopment of the Logic of Induction. Moreover, he popularised 
Science, he insisted on the accumulation of experimental faCts, 
he freed men’s minds from the blind deference to the authority 
of Aristotle, and he advocated the employment of scientific 
investigation to the furtherance of man’s estate and the increase 
of man’s power over Nature. 
We think that Prof. Fowler’s estimate of the influence of 
Bacon on the progress of Science is a very just one. He has 
weighed each side of the question fairly, and in an impartial 
spirit, and he has discussed with judicial accuracy the merits or 
demerits of the most conflicting opinions. The notes which he 
has written in explanation of the scientific portions of the second 
book are in the main very precise and accurate. It is only here 
and there that we find obscurity or inaccuracy of diction, as, for 
instance in Note 91 (p. 563), “ Omnis enim vita, immo etiam 
omnis flamma et ignitio ,” to which is appended the note — “ Com- 
pression acts in this case by stopping the supply of oxygen which 
maintains the combustion”; or in Note 96 (p. 565), in which 
the theory of the transmutability of the elements is attributed 
to Bacon, while it was originated by the Greeks two thousand 
years before. 
The Theory of Sound. By John William Strutt, Baron Ray- 
leigh, M.A., F.R.S. Vol. ii. London : Macmillan and Co. 
1878. 
The second volume of this very valuable work consists of nine 
chapters, which treat respectively of Aerial Vibrations ; Vibra- 
tions in Tubes ; Special Problems connected with the Reflection 
