guiltless—he will not say himself that he is guiltless; he never approved of the custom, though he fell into it; he knew that it could not bear the light of day; he knew that though his own class did not condemn the custom, the moral opinion of society at large would unhesitatingly denounce it. He pleads guilty—as Bacon did—and throws himself upon the charitable construction of the public. And the public, if it cannot pardon, will not be disposed to punish severely. The difference between _a prevalent bad custom_, and a custom which society at a given time does not pronounce _to be bad_, is stated by Lord Macaulay with his usual force and precision. We shall be glad to hear, from the further investigation of Mr Spedding, which of these most strictly applies to the practice of which Bacon stands accused. We cannot leave our subject without expressing our assent (with certain reservations) to the estimate which Lord Macaulay has formed of Bacon in his character of philosopher—in that character in which there can be only the difference of more or less admiration. We admire—as who does not?—the eloquent and far-seeing man who perceived that too much of our time was spent over books, and too little in the study of that nature which appeals at each moment to our senses, and promises to those who will investigate her laws new powers as well as new knowledge. But we agree with Macaulay in setting little store upon the rules of a new logic by which he offered to aid the investigation of those laws. No logic of any kind ever taught a man to reason. No truth was ever discovered by either Aristotelian or Baconian logic. It may be fit and proper to make the process of reasoning a subject of subtle analysis; but just as the poet must come before the critic, and never yet was formed by the critic, so the reasoner comes before the logician, and never yet was an able reasoner made so by rules of logic. It was a glorious word spoken in season, to tell men to observe and to experiment—to take nothing upon mere tradition or authority that could possibly be tested by experiment. But the rules Bacon gives for conducting observation and experiment have never made a good observer, or contributed themselves to our scientific discoveries. “The inductive method,” as Macaulay says, “has been practised ever since the beginning of the world by every human being.... Not only is it not true that Bacon invented the inductive method, but it is not true that he was the first person who correctly analysed that method and explained its uses. Aristotle had long before pointed out the absurdity of supposing that syllogistic reasoning could ever conduct men to the discovery of a new principle—had shown that such discoveries must be made by induction, and by induction alone; and had given the history of the inductive process, concisely indeed, but with great perspicuity and precision.”