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authority of great names ; of the propensity to enquireinto those things only which are rare and unaccountable,and the neglect of things of every-day occurrence.After these introductory, yet highly important parts ofhis work, the great restorer of philosophy proceeds inthe second book to describe and exemplify the nature ofthat process of induction which he seeks to establish asthe only true way of investigating physical truth.

The first object is to prepare a history of the phe-nomena to be explained, in all their modifications andvarieties : he justly enlarges on the care, diligence, andfidelity, with which .this part of the work must be exe-cuted. It is in this comprehensive sense that he usesthe term natural history, both here and in other partsof his writings.

The next step is by a comparison of the different factsthus described and arranged, to find out what Bacon calls its “ form.” This is nearly synonymous with whatwe should call the cause of the phenomenon : somethingwhich is present where the particular quality exists; andconversely, wherever the quality is present, the formmust be likewise. Thus, if transparency be the quality,there is some particular constitution of matter (which isthe object of enquiry) which is the form or cause ofthat quality.

In endeavouring to obtain the knowledge of “ forms,”there are two subordinate points of enquiry of generalimportance, which, in the language of the author, arethe “ latens processus,” and the “ latens schematismus.”The former is the secret and invisible process by whichsensible changes are brought about, and seems to involvethe same principle as that since designated the law ofcontinuity; according to which no change, howeversmall, can take place except in time. To know the re-lation between the time, and the change effected in it,would be to have a perfect knowledge of the latent pro-cess. In the firing of a cannon, for example, the suc-cession of events, in the short interval between theapplication of the match and the expulsion of the hall,

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