234 JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
Lord Bacon’s was the selection of such instances as give evidence of 
a universal Law, and the examination of those specimens of the 
class which have nothing in common but the property in question, 
together with the observation that objects not possessing this 
property, are characterised by an absence of the essential attribute 
of the class.* Now this may be true, though there is a passage in 
the Analytica Post. i. 18 in reference to the ‘‘non-omission of the 
facts and properties which belong to a subject,” leading to a 
different conclusion. But, even granting this, it simply means that 
Lord Bacon’s exposition was a development of Aristotle’s, as Mr. 
Mill’s celebrated Canons are a development and improvement of 
Lord Bacon’s. But that Induction, in its essential nature, as a 
method for the study of nature, was the product of Greek Thought 
is, I think, apparent. 
Accepting then, as I suppose every one must, that Induction 
. elaborated to a certain point was brought before the attention of 
the scientific Intellect by the Greeks, and that, subsequently, it 
was more developed by Lord Bacon, it may still be asked, Was 
the one an outgrowth of the other, or was it an intellectual 
phenomenon in England, coincident in nature but historically 
unconnected with that of Greece? Now, this question may be 
answered, partly by a reference to philosophical considerations. 
On the basis of the doctrine of Continuity, it may be affirmed that 
the Baconian view of method had its roots in a prior knowledge. 
The philosophical ideas of the Englishman were associated with 
influences, consciously or unconsciously, received through the 
perusal and study of the writings of the Greek. The very 
terminology of Lord Bacon is proof that his mind was saturated 
with Greek thought. Why a study of Aristotle, during more than 
a thousand years, should not have issued in a development of the 
Greek doctrine of Induction, but did so issue in the solitary 
instance of Lord Bacon, is a question involving a general study of 
the religious and social life of centuries, and of the idiosyncrasies 
of Bacon’s mind. But in view of his early acquaintance with 
Greek philosophical literature at Cambridge, it follows, from the 
application of the great law of Continuity to mind and _ its 
operations, that he derived Induction as a Method from the 
Greeks. 
Further light is thrown upon the subject by his own words. 
* “Novy. Org., Aph.”’ x.-xxii. 
