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of which the logician should pass with the utmost care. Legitimate Induction does not rife, by a hafty abftraction or fuperficial enumeration only, to the highest generals. Before it prefumes to rife, it defcends by a practical and experimental examination; and from many particular obfervations made on the powers and properties, the actions and paffions, the affections and qualities, the causes and effects, of things, after dividing, excluding and rejecting all fpecial matter, it arrives at general truths, from thence to more general, till, perhaps, the most general may be known.*

* In conftituendo autem axiomate, forma inductionis alia, quam adhuc in ufu fuit, excogitanda eft; eaque non ad principia tantum (quæ vocant) probanda et invenienda, fed etiam ad axiomata minora, et media denique omnia. Inductio enim, quæ procedit per enumerationem fimplicem, res puerilis eft, et precario concludit, et periculo exponitur ab inftantia contradictoria, et plerumque fecundum pauciora quam par eft, et ex his tantummodo quæ præfto funt, pronunciat. At inductio, quæ ad inventionem et demonftrationem fcientiarum et artium erit utilis, naturam feparare debet, per rejectiones et exclufiones debitas; ac deinde post negativas tot quot fufficiunt, fuper affirmativas concludere; quod adhuc factum non eft, nec tentatum certe, nifi tantum modo a Platone, qui ad excutiendas definitiones et ideas, hac certe forma inductionis aliquatenus utitur. Verum ad hujus inductionis five demonftrationis

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The great defect of the Ariftotelian Logic (a defect by which the use and value of the dialectical part are totally deftroyed,) is the omiffion of thefe neceffary intermediate ftages, and the deduction of its arguments too hastily and fuperficially from the highest Forms: an error into which its author feems

tionis inftructionem bonam et legitimam, quamplurima adhibenda funt, quæ adhuc nullius mortalium cogitationem fubiere; adeo ut in ea major fit confumenda opera, quam adhuc confumpta eft in fyllogifmo, atque hujus inductionis auxilio, non folum ad axiomata invenienda, verum etiam ad notiones terminandas, utendum eft. Atque in hac certe inductione fpes maxima fita eft. Ibid. Nov. Org. lib. 1. Aph. 105.

De fcientlis tum demum bene fperandum eft, quando per fcalam veram et per gradus continuos, et non intermiffos aut hiulcos, a particularibus afcendetur ad axiomata minora, et deinde ad media, alia aliis fuperiora, et poftremo demum ad generaliffima. Etenim axiomata infima non multum ab experientia nuda difcrepant. Suprema vero illa et generaliffima, (quæ habentur) notionalia funt et abstracta et nil habent folidi. At media funt axiomata illa vera et folida et viva, in quibus humanæ res et fortunæ fitæ funt; et fupra hæc quoque tandem ipfa illa generaliffima; talia fcilicet quæ non abftracta fint, fed per hæc media vere limitantur. Ibid. lib. i. Aph. 104.

In notionibus nil fani eft, nec in logicis, nec in phyficis; non Subftantia, non Qualitas, Agere, Pati, Ipfum effe, bonæ notiones funt, fed omnes phantafticæ et male termi nate. Ibid. lib. i. Aph. 15.

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to have been drawn by his love of Metaphyfics, which is the science of univerfals; and by forming his method of reasoning in general from that of the Mathematics or demonftra-. tive science, which is converfant only in general truths.

Thus the theory of SYLLOGISM delivered in the organon is a fplendid monument of human invention, a fuperb and stately fabric raised from the ableft fpecimens and examples of Mathematical and Demonstrative Science by the analytical acumen and mental philofophy of its author: but which, like the temples of the heathen divinites, on the ruins of which we may look with admiration, was never employed to any useful or honourable purpose. To invent another organum of of a different origin and conftruction, was an honour reserved for a future philofopher of a diftant age and country from those of the Stagyrite; which, instead of puzzling all learning with artificial forms and perplexing all knowledge with difputations, put truth and nature to the torture by a thousand trials,

and

and forced them to confefs thofe fecrets which, in fpite of Syllogifm, had hitherto lain concealed; and by which arts and sciences have been improved, to the great honour of learning, and the advantage of fociety. And, whereas Ariftotle constructed or rather extracted the rules of his Poetics, his Rhetoric, and his Logic, after poets, orators, and philofophers had brought their refpective profeffions to confiderable perfection by their natural fagacity and strength of mind ; it is a farther honour due to the name of BACON, that he delineated the rules of his Inductive logic with great amplitude and precifion, before the world had feen any philofophical example of it: which argues an effort and strength of mind, which eclipfe the merit and fame of Ariftotle.

On the appearance of this luminary in the field of science, after they had laboured in the fearch of truth for near two thousand years with a dark and imperfect guide, the Novum Organum gave a new turn to the labours and ftudies of men. They learned to hold all vain hypotheses and mental fabrications in

just

just contempt, and to refpect nothing but
propofitions established upon facts fufficiently
tried and critically examined, and conclufions
drawn from them by a fair and philofophi-
cal interpretation. Sir Ifaac Newton was the
firft, or however the moft confiderable, phi-
lofopher, who pursued and exemplified this
better logic in different branches of natural
philofophy: and its value
may be best appre-
ciated from the wonderful effects it has pro-
duced in the hands of that exalted genius,
both in his Principia and in his Optics; from
whose immortal labours, as from the best
examples, the organum of Lord Bacon, which
was the produce of his great but unaffifted'
mind, might, by a kind of reflection, be im-
proved and perfected.

ZFROM being the Instrument of all truth and learning, as he vainly hoped, the ORGANON Of Aristotle has upon the whole been the Inftrument of ignorance and error; by which that

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Qui fummas dialecticæ partes tibuerunt, atque inde fidiffima fcientiis præfidia comparari putarunt, veriffime et optime viderunt, intellectum humanum fibi permiffum, merito fufpectum effe debere. Verum infirmior omnino est

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