universally accredited method of modern science, and that to which it owes its greatest triumphs. The error of ancient speculation did not consist in making the largest generalisations first, but in making them without the aid or warrant of rigorous inductive methods, and applying them deductively without the needful use of that important part of the deductive method termed verification.'*

We cannot entirely concur in the concluding paragraph. Although Bacon did not perhaps see the real importance of the Deductive Method, he did see the futility of the method as it was employed before his time; and he saw moreover that the cause lay in the want of verification '— in the want of the aid or warrant of rigorous inductive methods: this we think his greatest merit, as we think his imperfect conception of the Deductive Method his greatest imperfection.

There is also another potent reason why the merely Inductive Method should not have contributed to any great discoveries; and we must borrow from the System of Logic the passage wherein this is exhibited :

It has excited the surprise of philosophers that the d-tailed system of inductive Logic has been turned to so little direct use by subsequent inquirers-having neither continued, except in a few of its generalities, to be recognised as a theory, nor having conducted, in practice, to any great scientific results. But this, though not unfrequently remarked, has scarcely received any plausible explanation; and some indeed have preferred to assert that all rules of induction are useless, rather than suppose that Bacon's rules are grounded upon an insufficient analysis of the inductive process. Such however will be seen to be the fact, as soon as it is considered that Bacon entirely overlooked plurality of causes. All his rules tacitly imply the assumption, so contrary to all we know of Nature, that a phenomenon cannot have more than one cause.' †

In another passage, too long for extract, the same author * MILL: System of Logic, ii, 521–6. † Ibid. ii. 373.

points out a capital error in Bacon's view of the inductive philosophy, viz. his supposition that the principle of elimination-that great logical instrument which he had the immense merit of first bringing into use-was applicable in the same sense, and in the same unqualified manner, to the investigation of co-existences, as to that of the successions of phenomena.*

In conclusion it may be said that, although his Method had not the power which he confidently assigned to it, his eloquence and far-reaching thoughts powerfully affected both his own and succeeding generations. He dignified the scientific attitude; he made men proud of investigations which otherwise they might have disdained; he kept before them the vanity of the Subjective Method, and passionately urged upon them the necessity of patient interrogation of Nature. The splendour of his style gave irresistible power to his ideas. Il se saisit tellement de l'imagination,' says M. Rémusat, qu'il force la raison à s'incliner, et il éblouit autant qu'il éclaire.'

*System of Logic, ii. 127 et seq.

137

CHAPTER III.

DESCARTES.

§ I. LIFE OF DESCARTES.

[UST at the close of the sixteenth century, 1596, there was born in Touraine, of Breton parents, a feeble sickly child, named René Descartes Duperron. A few days after his birth, a disease of the lungs carried off his mother. The sickly child grew to be a sickly boy; and, till the age of twenty, his life was despaired of.

That boy was one the world could ill afford to lose. Few who saw him creeping on the path, which his companions galloped along like young colts, would have supposed that the boy, whose short dry cough and paleness seemed to announce an early grave, was shortly to become one of the leaders of men, whose works would continue, through centuries, to be studied, quoted, and criticised. His masters loved him. He was a pupil of promise; and in his eighth year had gained the title of the Young Philosopher, from his avidity to learn, and his constant questioning.

This as

His education was confided to the Jesuits. tonishing body has many evils laid to its door, but no one can refuse to it the praise of having been ever ready to see and apply the value of education. In the college of La Fleche the young Descartes was instructed in mathematics, physics, logic, rhetoric, and the ancient languages. He was an apt pupil; learned quickly, and was never tired of learning.

Was the food supplied by the Jesuits nutritious? M.

Thomas remarks, 'There is an education for the ordinary man; for the man of genius there is no education but what he gives himself; the second generally consists in destroying the first.' And so it was with Descartes, who, on leaving La Flèche, declared that he had derived no other benefit from his studies than that of a conviction of his utter ignorance, and a profound contempt for the systems of philosophy in vogue. The incompetence of philosophers to solve the problems they occupied themselves with—the anarchy which reigned in the scientific world, where no two thinkers could agree upon fundamental points-the extravagance of the conclusions to which some accepted premisses led, determined him to seek no more to slake his thirst at their fountains.

And that is why, as soon as my age permitted me to quit my preceptors,' he says, 'I entirely gave up the study of letters; and resolving to seek no other science than that which I could find in myself, or else in the great book of the world, I employed the remainder of my youth in travel, in seeing courts and camps, in frequenting people of diverse humours and conditions, in collecting various experiences, and above all in endeavouring to draw some profitable reflection from what I saw. For it seemed to me that I should meet with more truth in the reasonings which each man makes in his own affairs, and which, if wrong, would be speedily punished by failure, than in those reasonings which the philosopher makes in his study, upon speculations which produce no effect, and which are of no consequence to him, except perhaps that he will be more vain of them the more remote they are from common sense, because he would then have been forced to employ more ingenuity and subtlety to render them plausible.'*

For many years he led a roving unsettled life; now serving in the army, now making a tour; now studying mathematics in solitude, now conversing with scientific men. One constant

* Discours de la Méthode, p. 6, ed. JULES SIMON: Paris, 1844.

Frpose gave unity to those various pursuits. He was elabrating his answers to the questions which perplexed him; he was preparing his Method.

When only three-and-twenty, he conceived the design of a formation in philosophy. He was at that time residing in his winter quarters at Neuburg, on the Danube. His travels Soon afterwards commenced, and at the age of thirty-three he retired into Holland, there in silence and solitude to arrange his thoughts into a consistent whole. He remained there eight years; and so completely did he shut himself from the world that he concealed from his friends the very place of his residence.

When the results of this meditative solitude were given to the world, in the shape of his celebrated Discourse on Method, and his Meditations (to which he invented replies), the Sensation produced was immense. It was evident to all men that an original and powerful thinker had arisen; and although of course this originality could not but rouse much opposition, from the very fact of being original, yet Descartes gained the day. His name became European. His controversies were European quarrels. Charles I. of England invited him over, with the promise of a liberal appointment; and the invitation would probably have been accepted, had not the civil war broken out. He afterwards received a flattering invitation from Christina of Sweden, who had read some of his works with great satisfaction, and wished to learn from himself the principles of his philosophy. He accepted it, and arrived in Stockholm in 1649. His reception was most gratifying, and the Queen was so pleased with him as earnestly to beg him to remain with her, and give his assistance towards the establishment of an academy of sciences. But the delicate frame of Descartes was ill fitted for the severity of the climate, and a cold, caught in one of his morning visits to Christina, produced inflammation of the lungs, which carried him off. Christina wept for him, had him interred in the cemetery for foreigners, and placed a long eulogium upon his tomb. His remains were