slumbering aptitude of Western Europe for physical investigation was awakened by the importation of Greek knowledge and of Greek method; and modern anatomists and physiologists are but the heirs of Galen, who have turned to good account the patrimony bequeathed by him to the civilized world. . . .

I proposed at the outset of this essay to say something about the method of inquiry which Harvey pursued, and which guided him throughout his successful career of discovery.

It is, I believe, a cherished belief of Englishmen that Francis Bacon, Viscount St. Albans, and sometime Lord Chancellor of England, invented that 'Inductive Philosophy' of which they speak with almost as much respect as they do of Church and State; and that, if it had not been for this 'Baconian induction,' science would never have extricated itself from the miserable condition in which it was left by a set of hair-splitting folk, known as the ancient Greek philosophers. To be accused of departing from the canons of the Baconian philosophy is almost as bad as to be charged with forgetting your aspirates; it is understood as a polite way of saying that you are an entirely absurd speculator.

Now the Novum Organon was published in 1620, while Harvey began to teach the doctrine of the circulation in his public lectures in 1619. Acquaintance with the 'Baconian induction,' therefore, could not have had much to do with Harvey's investigations. The Exercitatio, however, was not published till 1628. Do we find in it any trace of the influence of the Novum Organon? Absolutely So far from indulging in the short-sighted and profoundly unscientific depreciation of the ancients in which Bacon indulges, Harvey invariably speaks of them with that respect which the faithful and intelligent study of the fragments of their labors that remain to us must inspire

none.

in every one who is practically acquainted with the difficulties with which they had to contend, and which they so often mastered. And, as to method, Harvey's method is the method of Galen, the method of Realdus Columbus, the method of Galileo, the method of every genuine worker in science either in the past or the present. On the other hand, judged strictly by the standard of his own time, Bacon's ignorance of the progress which science had up to that time made, is only to be equaled by his insolence. towards men in comparison with whom he was the merest sciolist. Even when he has some hearsay knowledge of what has been done, his want of acquaintance with the facts, and his abnormal deficiency in what I may call the scientific sense, prevent him from divining its importance. Bacon could see nothing remarkable in the chief contributions to science of Copernicus, or of Kepler, or of Galileo; Gilbert, his fellow-countryman, is the subject of a sneer; while Galen is bespattered with a shower of impertinences, which reach their climax in the epithets 'puppy' and 'plague.'

I venture to think that if Francis Bacon, instead of spending his time in fabricating fine phrases about the advancement of learning, in order to play, with due pomp, the part which he assigned to himself of trumpeter' of science, had put himself under Harvey's instruction, and had applied his quick wit to discover and methodize the logical process which underlaid [sic] the work of that consummate investigator, he would have employed his time to better purpose; and, at any rate, would not have deserved the just but sharp judgment which follows: 'that his [Bacon's] method is impracticable cannot, I think, be denied, if we reflect, not only that it never has produced any result, but also that the process by which scientific truths have been established cannot be so presented as even to appear to be in accordance with it.' I

quote from one of Mr. Ellis's contributions to the great work of Bacon's most learned, competent, and impartial biographer, Mr. Spedding.

Few of Harvey's sayings are recorded, but Aubrey tells us that some one having enlarged upon the merits of the Baconian philosophy in his presence, 'Yes,' said Harvey, 'he writes philosophy like a Chancellor.' On which pithy reply diverse persons will put diverse interpretations. The illumination of experience may possibly tempt a modern follower of Harvey to expound the dark saying thus: So this servile courtier, this intriguing politician, this unscrupulous lawyer, this witty master of phrases, proposes to teach me my business in the intervals of his. I have borne with Riolan, let me also be patient with him'; at any rate, I have no better reading to offer.

In the latter half of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries, the future of physical science was safe enough in the hands of Gilbert, Galileo, Harvey, Descartes, and the noble army of investigators who flocked to their standard, and followed up the advance of their leaders. I do not believe that their wonderfully rapid progress would have been one whit retarded if the Novum Organon had never seen the light; while, if Harvey's little Exercise had been lost, physiology would have stood still until another Harvey was born into the world.

(BREWSTER, Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton 2. 404-406.)

The process of Lord Bacon was, we believe, never tried by any philosopher but himself. As the subject of its application, he selected that of heat. With his usual erudition, he collected all the facts which science could supply; he arranged them in tables; he cross-questioned them with all the subtlety of a pleader; he combined them with all the sagacity of a judge; and he conjured them by all the magic of his exclusive processes. But, after all

this display of physical logic, nature thus interrogated was still silent. The oracle which he had himself established refused to give its responses, and the ministering priest was driven with discomfiture from his shrine. This example, in short, of the application of his system, will remain to future ages as a memorable instance of the absurdity of attempting to fetter discovery by any artificial rules.

Nothing even in mathematical science can be more certain than that a collection of scientific facts are of themselves (incapable of leading to discovery, or to the determination of general laws, unless they contain the predominating fact or relation in which the discovery mainly resides. A vertical column of arch-stones possesses more strength than the materials arranged in an arch without the keystone. However nicely they are adjusted, and however nobly the arch may spring, it never can possess either equilibrium or stability. In this comparison all the facts are supposed to be necessary to the final result; but, in the inductive method, it is impossible to ascertain the relative importance of any facts, or even to determine if the facts have any value at all, till the master-fact which constitutes the discovery has crowned the zealous efforts of the aspiring philosopher. The mind then returns to the dark and barren waste over which it has been hovering; and by the guidance of this single torch it embraces, under the comprehensive grasp of general principles, the multifarious and insulated phenomena which had formerly neither value nor connexion. Hence it must be obvious to the most superficial thinker that discovery consists in the detection of some concealed relation some deep-seated affinity which baffles ordinary research, or in the discovery of some simple fact which is connected by slender ramifications with the subject to be investigated; but which, when once detected, carries us

back by its divergence to all the phenomena which it embraces and explains.

In order to give additional support to these views, it would be interesting to ascertain the general character of the process by which a mind of acknowledged power actually proceeds in the path of successful inquiry. The history of science does not furnish us with much information on this head, and if it is to be found at all, it must be gleaned from the biographies of eminent men. Whatever this process may be in its details, if it has any, there cannot be the slightest doubt that in its generalities at least it is the very reverse of the method of induction. The impatience of genius spurns the restraints of mechanical rules, and never will submit to the plodding drudgery of inductive discipline. The discovery of a new fact unfits even a patient mind for deliberate inquiry. Conscious of having added to science what had escaped the sagacity of former ages, the ambitious discoverer invests his new acquisition with an importance which does not belong to it. He imagines a thousand consequences to flow from his discovery; he forms innumerable theories to explain it; and he exhausts his fancy in trying all its possible relations to recognized difficulties and unexplained facts. The reins, however, thus freely given to his imagination, are speedily drawn up. His wildest conceptions are all subjected to the rigid test of experiment, and he has thus been hurried by the excursions of his own fancy into new and fertile paths, far removed from ordinary observation. Here the peculiar character of his own genius displays itself by the invention of methods of trying his own speculations, and he is thus often led to new discoveries far more important and general than that by which he began his inquiry. For a confirmation of these views, we may refer to the History of Kepler's Discoveries; and if we do not recognize them to the same extent in the labors