use made of the authority of Bacon. An improper shown to be confined to the department of physical science. It is indeed truly said to constitute a grand era in the· history of philosophy: but to propose it as a manual of instruction, or a guide for philosophical inquiries in the present age, is to mistake its real nature and design. The great author of that work had to explode inveterate prejudices; to awaken men from a stupid lethargy; to rouse them to action; to convince them that as yet they knew little of nature; and to set them an example, after which they might be enabled to learn more. These great purposes have been long ago answered: there is not one, I believe, of the idola which is now defended or cherished in any seat of learning, or by any person of liberal education. The process of experiment has been unceasingly pursued, and is still hourly pursued, by persons who never read a line of Bacon, with more skill, sagacity, and success, than if they had learnt by heart all his twenty-seven instantiæ, and practised his vindemiatio upon them. Thus even the object which alone he had in view himself—that of promoting discovery, is better attained by this revolution which has taken place in the opinions and practice of philosophical inquirers, than it was by his own most sedulous endeavours: for it is somewhat remarkable, that the conclusion, to which he is led in the first exemplification of his method of inquiry, is found by later experiments to have been directly false; nearly one fourth of the second book being occupied with an investigation of the nature of heat, which is determined at length to be Motus expansivus, cohibitus, et nitens per partes minores.' Lib. ii. Aph. 20. Let me not be understood to speak disrespectfully of the greatest of modern philosophers, when I say this. My sole object is to show that an improper use is made of his authority. There is a spirit of party, as Professor Playfair informs us, even among geometers; and this spirit has, I * *Notes to Elements of Geometry, p. 427. เ EXTRACTS FROM REPLIES.' 345 fear, had more share, even than ignorance, in misrepresenting the question respecting ancient and modern philosophy. The reviewer, who is perpetually exalting the latter above the former, seems to have derived all his knowledge of the works of Aristotle from Dr. Reid's Analysis of the Organon, a work which, whatever its merits may be, is certainly very defective, not only because the author, by his own confession, never read the treatise entirely through, of which he proposes to give a summary, but still more because he had hardly any acquaintance with the other writings of that philosopher. This acquaintance is not only useful, but even indispensable in a writer, who would present a just exposition of any of his speculative works. First Letter to Mr. Peel on the pernicious Effects of a variable Standard of Value Second Letter, &c., on the Causes of the Increase of 1819 Inquiry into the Doctrines of Necessity and Predestination, in Four Discourses, preached before the University, with Appendix, &c. . Second Edition . 1821 1821 |