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He thLnis the whole phenomena of the universe can be reduced to these few fosnos , and , if we accurately knew them , we could produce all phenomena . He sometimes calls the Form a Law ; and he always distinguishes his use of the-word from the scholastic use of it- The Novum Orgamtm gives the rules for the investigation of these Forms . The reductive Method , -which he declared to "be the only true Method of investigation , differed from vulgar induction ( which was merely an enumeration of eases } by its principle of exclusion and rejection . To determine the Form among the aggregate of simple natures , notLing more is requisite than tie rejection of all foreign and unessential elements . We reject every nature which is not present in every affirmative instance , or -which is present in any negative one ,, or which manifests itself in a greater degree when the given nature manifests itself in a less , and vice versa . And this process , when
carried far enough , -will of necessity lead us to the truth ; and , meanwhile , every step we take is known to be an approximation to it . When the process of exclusion is performed , only the true nature will remain ; and as in this process no higher faculties than patience and ordinary acuteness are required , the ordinary intellect will discover truth as infallibly as the intellect of mighty men . A fallacy which daily experience exposes . Bacon - admits that for just exclusion-we must have just notions of the things to be excluded . A subsidiary method , is needed . To this also he ogives the name of induction ; and . it is this—4 he most important of all—¦ which be has not sketched . The process of establishing axioms lie had succeeded , in reducing to the semblance of a mechanical certainty ; but the process of the formation of conceptions he left undescribed . lie said a complete change in scientific conceptions was necessary ; but how to effect the change he never told us .
This is why no real discovery -was ever made in science by the direct application of Bacon ' s Method , many as have been the discoveries certainly made by its indirect application . Mr . Ellis seems indisposed to credit the Method with any scientific value whatever ; but it seems to us that this opinion is too absolute . The process was useless in as far as it was essentially incomplete ; but the spirit of inductive caution -was that which Bacon . assuredly impressed upon his contemporaries and successors . In his day men . believed in the omnipotence of the intellect . He taught them that the intellect of man was tainted with an original sin , a proclivity to error ¦ which could only be guarded against by the most "watchful vigilance , arid he pointed out what -were the sources of error , and Low to guard against ihem . In this consists his originality . Induction was known to every philosopher , and practised by every cobbler ; but philosophers did not know , they did not suspect , that the intellect was assailed oa all sides by manifold -deceptions , aad that the true inductive Method would guard it from them . Mr . . Ellis has hinted at this at page 65 .
In many of the subsidiary points Mr- Ellis ' s preface , showing as it does -such intimate and accurate knowledge of his author , will be read with profit . He Tefdtes the common notion that Bacon thought ; the onward progress of kno-wledge was to continue throughout all tinae . Gri the contrary , the knowledge which man is capable of might he thought be attained , not ¦ certainly at once , but within the compass of no very long period . This , indeed , was owing to his very conception of the certainty of his Method and the ease of its application . We conclude our notice of this edition of Bacon ' s " Works with the expression of our high sense of its rare value ; no suet edition of an English classic exists ^
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THE 11 EIGN OF JAMES II . History of the Counter-Revolution in England for the lie-establishment of Popery under Ckarles IF . and James It . By Armand Carrel . —History of the livii / n if Jmms If . By the Right Hon . Charles James Fox . —Memoir of the Rcijn of James H . liy John lord Viscount Lonadule . liohn . Mb . Bohn has added to his Standard Library a volume of well-selected historical fragments )—Armand Carrel ' s admirable ) narrative of the Counterlicvolutiou ; the imperfect sketch which provca that Fox would havo been a great-writer laid ho not buLMi a yre . it . stutesmuu ; and the curious iWemoir by Sir John Lowther , after ward d Viscount Loiisdalc , writtuu in 1688 , and published in 1808 , in quarto . This work is extremely rare . A cojiy of it , Mr . Bohn observes , would be dillicult to purohaso at five guineas . Ho hftSi
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that it rests chiefly on the privilege of anonymous writiDg ; that the virulence f personalities is more than equalled by the intemperance of recriminations - th t Government persecutions of writers are needless , [ mischievous , and unjust- that-H , Law is fully sufficient to satisfy any one who has reasonable ground of comnliHnt agaiast the Press ; that it may be expedient to consider how far , in the present eene ^ l state of enlightenment , official secrets are useful to the cause of constitutional Govern ment ; that public servants should enjoy the same rights as the rest of their fellow " subjects ; that petty tyranny should not he allowed to f « ed fat its ignoble cruder " merely by pronouncing the word subordination ; and , finally , that the dismissal of aivv person from the public service because he as unable to prove that he is not an anonvmous writer , is an act at once improper , cruel , and unconstitutional .
The writer argues that , as Lord Boltngbrbke , Lord Chancellor Cowner Judge Blackstone , Lord Mansfield , Archbishop Seeker , and Mr . Craker wrote anonymously , so may we , in these latter days ; bu t we mi < hit wiether those individuals did so or not . To destroy the anonymous is ° ' extin guish journalism , to blight its independence , and not to enhance its responsibility . C 'A Distinguished Writer" goes onto urge that secrecy is essential as a protection against exasperated ruffians . Had not De Foe published anonymously his attacks on the . Mint and the Friars , the Mint and Friar wretches would have choked him . " A savage fool , one Blaney , chivied Swift into a ditch ; " John Tutchin was murdered in consequence of certain articles traced to bis
pen ; a near relation at Lord Castlereagh openly expressed a wish to shoot Peter Finnerty for his criticisms inihe Chronicle in fact , a master-pugilist might silence the press almost as effectively as the head of the French . police . To cap the argument , however , " " even the pious Miss Hannah More was an anonymous writer . " Has tlie practice been assailed as impious ? We think this is another example of the way in which the illustrious gentleman beats the wind , If you are questioned as to the authorship of a particular publication , he proceeds , you may morally and blamelessly deny it , although it be your own . Swift systematically disavowed his works , and allowed his publisher to be imprisoned . Johnson , a great moralist , denied many of his books Walter Scott praised his own writings , reviewed them , assured John -Mur !
ray that he had never read aline of them until they were printed , declared to the Prince Regent "he had no pretensions to the authorship of Waverley ; " Sydney Smith would not confess to the Pli / nley Letters . As the essayist quotes on one point reasonings that are superfluous , so he adduces on another precedents that are inconclusive . The question is not whether Sydney Smith did it , but whether to do it is justifiable . To proceed : — Lord Hillsborongh , who complained of the personalities of JuniuSj called him " a wretched scribbler , '' " a -worthless fellow , " " a vile incendiary , " " a false (!) liar , " " snarler , " " contemptible thing , " " abandoned tool , " " diabolical miscreant , " "impudent , scurrilous wretch , " " rascal , " " scoundrel , " " barking cur , " '' baiting animal , " — -arguments on a level with their politeness . Sir William Draper , who was a fair type of his class—a stupid , well-meaning , imprudent man— -called Junius " viper , " " monster , " ¦ " ruffian , ""assassin , ' * " baseman . " His writings were "florid impotence !
Times have not materially changed . The channels of journalism are choked with purulent invective , with dull indecencies of satire , and coagulations of bilious personality . The truth is ,, that genuine satirists are rare , aiid that as certain people have been said to mimic the distortions of a Pythoness without her inspiration , others affect thebrutality of Aristophanes without possessing a trace of his capacity . Tooke said of Porson that he could drink ink rather than not drink at all . It would be well if much-ink were consumed in that manner , instead of being employed to exemplify what Curran called the unburied and unrotted impudence , " mistaken by weak eyes for the lash , of satire . " A Distinguished Writer" evidently feels , oraiTects , an intense irritation ¦ with respect to Lord Clarendon ' s " dim espial . "
THE PRESS AND THE PUBLIC SEaVICE . The Press and the Public Service . By a Distinguished Write * . ( Routledge . ) "We hope " Distinguished Writer" ia not " the Roving Englishman ; " he resembles him , however . But it would pain us to suppose that he would seek to hid « his identity under a title-page so impertinent . The anonymous , it has been said , confers one privilege—that of being arrogant and supercilious -with impunity . It may in a book , it may in a pamphlet , but does not in a journal or a review . Reviews and journals of the first class depend for existence and for power upon character , and their character is rated according to the sense in which they understand and act upon their responsibilities To describe yourself as " a distinguished writer" is , however , to display an insolence which it is not easy to forgive ; you introduce yourself as a quack , and unless critics were patient , your book would be set aside aimong the
works of impostors and incapables . The Press and the Public Service ., however , is a clever volume , deserving of some attention . Lord Clarendon , the ¦ author says ,, has recently asserted his right to question persons in his department respecting their supposed connexion with anonymous publications , and to require from them not only disavowals , but conclusive evidence , clearing them from all suspicion . He has insisted upon receiving affidavits from the individual in question , and the editor and publisher of the work referred to . We should ! be glad to see the whole case explained ; it is merely hinted at-here as the basis of an argument in defence of th © official right to discusa public affairs anonymously . This view is not combated in Lord Clarendon's department only . Almost any civil servant will tell you that his relations -with literature arc disliked , while any connexion with the political is virtuall
prosa y prohibited . Of course the question is ono in which publishers ana editors are aa much concerned as the suspects" themselves ; but not even Lord Clarendon con cite a witness to appear anywhere except in . a , court ot heir .. " A Distinguished Writer , " we are afraid , exaggerates thfr danger , in order that ho may espaad hia appeal ; for , although it may be necessary tamakse a standagaina * the despotism of heads of departments , thwe lasome reason in th * oyima » th * t civil servants ought not to betray or malign the service ^ tha Balaeu * of which they are xceeivW It may not be n * cesai » ryv « * the learned think * to espouse the cause by which you cat and drink ; but every office haa its aecreta , and to expose tlese ia as infamous aa atraot of treachery rn . pw . te life . At the aame ti . no , the official class ought not to h * debarred f « Ma the privileges of thepwas ; though it was , prmpoukly ^ eCC 83 aryj m ° P "P ' *> »«*• voimw , to show That tfa » liberty of tho P * Oaa i » the most valuable of our constitutional
righta-1 he object of punishment is to prevent and expose crime ; but how is this new crime to be defined ? Why is honesty punishable ? Is it proved | to be guilt by dismissal and starvation ? If not , what argument do these terrible ' infnctions serve to illustrate ? The l ) estwayto try their justice , is to ask any minister whether he would dare exext illegal authority to have a man imprisoned a . single night on a charge of anonymous truth-telling- If not ,, is the permanent loss of bread and character , the rendering a man useless and infamous far life , inflicted by dismissal , a less evil than a single night ' s imprisonment ? After the age of thirty all the liberal professions , all honourable new in « 2 ans of obtaining a respectable livelihood , are virtually closed to a man . Therefore , dismissal
from the public service may reduce him to absolute beggary . Tlie most bigoted friend of any abuse would hardly now like to hear of its exposure being punished with chains and whips . It is surely , however , no milder gratification of intolerance to punish it with a debtor's jail . Newgate , under circumstances not disgraceful , would be better than that . The love of a man for his profession ia a feeling too valuable to society to be discouraged . It is that which among the greater portion of mankind distinguishes the labourer from the idler , the honest man from the dishonest . ' -Mo sentence , therefore , which deprives a man of his calling , when he can no longer turn with rational hope to other studies , ia one which , in all human probability , renders him , nothing but a burden to Iiis country , and consigns him to ruin , uselessness ,, and vexation for the rest of his days .
The case on which he rests his appeal being an enigma , some of the argument is also unintelligible , or at least ineffectual " We are asked to suppose a strong case , and to feel strongly about it . A clearer statement mi < $ ! it have justified the animosity and passion of the book ; which is worth lviuling , but too vague to elicit that response from public opinion wlndi the author professes to desire .
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330 T H E h B A ^ Djg _ g ^______ Jj ^ L ^? ig Arc ™ i > AY ?
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), April 4, 1857, page 330, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2187/page/18/
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