. 130.

[91] Brewster, _Life of Newton_ (1855) (see particularly vol. ii. 403,
405); Lasson, _Ueber Bacon von Verulam's wissenschaftliche Principien_
(1860); Liebig, _Ueber Francis Bacon von Verulam_, &c. (1863). Although
Liebig points out how little science proceeds according to Bacon's rules,
yet his other criticisms seem of extremely little value. In a very
offensive and quite unjustifiable tone, which is severely commented on by
Sigwart and Fischer, he attacks the Baconian methods and its results. These
results he claims to find in the _Sylva Sylvarum_, entirely ignoring what
Bacon himself has said of the nature of that work (_N. O._ i. 117; cf.
Rawley's Pref. to the _S. S._), and thus putting a false interpretation on
the experiments there noted. It is not surprising that he should detect
many flaws, but he never fails to exaggerate an error, and seems sometimes
completely to miss the point of what Bacon says. (See particularly his
remarks on _S. S._ 33, 336.) The method he explains in such a way as to
show he has not a glimpse of its true nature. He brings against Bacon, of
all men, the accusations of making induction start from the undetermined
perceptions of the senses, of using imagination, and of putting a quite
arbitrary interpretation on phenomena. He crowns his criticism by
expounding what he considers to be the true scientific method, which, as
has been pointed put by Fischer, is simply that Baconian doctrine against
which his attack ought to have been directed. (See his account of the
method, _Ueber Bacon_, 47-49; K. Fischer, _Bacon_, pp. 499-502.)

[92] Mill, _Logic_, ii. pp. 115, 116, 329, 330.

[93] Whewell, _Phil. of Ind. Sc._ ii. 399, 402-403; Ellis, _Int. to Bacon's
Works_, i. 39, 61; Brewster, _Newton_, ii. 404; Jevons, _Princ. of Science_
ii. 220. A severe judgment on Bacon's method is given in Duehring's able
but one-sided _Kritische Gesch. d. Phil._, in which the merits of Roger
Bacon are brought prominently forward.

[94] Although it must be admitted that the Baconian method is fairly open
to the above-mentioned objections, it is curious and significant that Bacon
was not thoroughly ignorant of them, but with deliberate consciousness
preferred his own method. We do not think, indeed, that the _notiones_ of
which he speaks in any way correspond to what Whewell and Ellis would call
"conceptions or ideas furnished by the mind of the thinker"; nor do we
imagine that Bacon would have admitted thes