HISTORICAL VIEW OF THE

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pens, and more especially when any branch of sciencehas been long cultivated, and research is limited to anarrow track, that, in fact, a large portion of the workis already done to our hands, and the trouble of refer-ring to a number of different considerations to guideour experimental labours, superfluous.

These, and other considerations of a similar kind, maytend to show the real value and efficacy of such a systemas that which Bacon has developed; and to convinceany one, that, although the study of it may not be ofabsolute necessity to every prosecutor of experiments,yet it will in all cases be accompanied with inestimableadvantages: and we cannot doubt, if it were more ge-nerally and attentively dwelt upon, we should see therecords of science much less frequently blotted withunphilosophical arguments, and should much less fre-quently witness the labours of ingenious experimentersthrown away in the pursuit of unskilfully devisedtheories.

It is undoubtedly true, that we find the principles ofinductive philosophy not only acted upon, but distinctlyprofessed, by writers prior to Bacon . We have alreadyseen this exemplified in the productions of Kepler andGalileo : and Tycho Brahe, in a letter to Kepler , giveshim this advice: — “ first to lay a solid foundation forhis views by actual observation : and then, ascendingfrom these, to strive to reach the causes of tilings.”Gilbert, in his treatise “ De Magnete,” has laid downvery explicitly the inductive principles by which he wasguided in his experiments. We have also in some pas-sages of the writings of Leonardo da Vinci equally strongexpressions to the same purport.

“ In treating any particular subject,” he observes," I would first of all make some experiments, becausemy design is first to refer to experiment, and then todemonstrate why bodies are constrained to act in such amanner. This is the method we ought to follow ininvestigating the phenomena of nature. It is very truethat nature begins by reasoning, and ends with experi-ment; but it matters not; we must take the opposite