OUR OBLIGATIONS TO GREEK THOUGHT. 235 
Frequently, indeed, influenced by his disgust at the perversions of 
Greek philosophy by the schoolmen, he makes use of language 
which conveys the idea that he owed nothing to Greece, as may be 
seen by referring to Novum Org., Aphorismi 120-128. Yet, on 
the other hand, he distinctly admits in Aphorismus 122, com-. 
mencing with the words, ‘‘occurit etiam et cllud,’”’ that the matter 
treated of, could have been traced back to certain authors among 
the Greeks, ‘‘ad aliquos ex Graecis ipsis referre,’ and that it 
would be possible to obtain from them concurrence and sanction— 
‘‘astipulationem et honorem inde petere.* This state of the case is 
sustained by his letter to Trinity College on the publication of his 
** De Augmentis Seientiarum.” + 
Just one word in closing my remarks on our obligation to Greek 
Thought as respects the Inductive method of enquiry. The 
Aristotelian Induction, though sound in the main, was very 
defective, both in its formulation and its application to the 
purposes of science. Aristotle failed to devote to its scientific 
elaboration the marvellous analytic powers which created the 
Formal Demonstrative Logic. He spent too much time upon showing 
the subjective laws of thought which connected Induction with. the 
syllogism, and both in his theory and practice he gave insufficient 
prominence to verification. {[ But let us not judge him harshly as 
athinker. It is not to be wondered at that the man, who, accord- 
ing to Diogenes Laertius,§ wrote as many as four hundred books, 
comprising 445,270 lines; who created the vast Organon of Formal 
Logic; earned by his treatises on Rhetorie and Poetry the title of 
‘Father of Criticism ;” thrashed out and separated the crude and 
permanent truths of all extant systems of cosmogony ; laid the basis 
of Natural History and Biology by a huge collection of isolated facts; 
anticipated by partial Induction, blended with philosophic insight, 
some of the remarkable discoveries of modern times ; waged more 
than equal war with his illustrious master, Plato; produced sheer 
out of his own brain a treatise on Ethics, which the proudest 
universities of modern times accept as an unrivalled text book; 
left to posterity one of the most subtle pieces of analytical discus- 
sion on the nature and powers of the soul; and wove from his own 
intellect that extraordinary metaphysic of his—I say it is not to 
* Vol. ii. (Ed. 1837) p. 454. + Ibid, Pref. xlv. 
t See “ Grote’s Aristotle” i. pp. 376-7. 
§ Ibid, v. 21; see also ‘“‘Arist. Opera’”’ (Weise) pp. 18-20. 
