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E.rpExAZfEmAL LEGISLA TION-DRfN.. TRAFFIC 155
extent, nnprinted snd unexplored. It is only emoag ooatinmtal
eoholers that Roger Baoon is regarded ns the mirsole of
& aga snd aountry.
NO doubt it is to Francis Bamn, the Lord High Qhanoellor
of Nngland, that the world generally attributes tho inaugaretion
of the new inductive era of science. This ia hardly the
place to endeavour to decide whether the world hse not made
a great mistake. Professor Fowler, in his admirable oritid
edition of the “Novum Organnm,” has said about all that o m
be said in favour of Lord Bacon’s scientific claims ; yct f hold
to tho opinion, long since stoutly maintained by the late
Professor Do Morgan,* not to speak of Baron Liebig? and
others, that Lord Bacon, though a truly clever man, was a
mer0 dabbler in inductive scienco, tho true methods of which
he quito misapprehended. At best, ho put into elegant and
striking language an estimate of the tendency of soienae
towards experimentalism, and 5 foreamt of the rosults to be
obtained. Tho regeneration of these last centuries is due to e
long series of philosophers, from Copernicus, Galileo, Desoertes,
Newton, Leibnitz, down to Watt, Faraday, and Joulo. Buoh
men followed a procedure very different from that of Franok
Becon.
11.
Nom wo come to the point of our inquiry. Is the experimental
method necossnrily restricted to tho world of physical
science ? Do we sufficiently apply to moral, social, and political
matters those methods which havo been proved m valuable in
the hands of physical philosophers? Do our legislatore, in
short, appeal to experiment in a way which excepts them from
the definition of Erasmus Darwin ? English legislation, no
* A Budget of Paradoxes,” p. 49. Also his Memoir “On the
Syllogism, No. Iv., end on tho Logic of Relations.” “Usmbridge
P~osophical %naactionq” 1860, vol. x. p. 2, foot-note. 8ee ale0
Todhuntsr‘e “Account of the Writinge of Dr. William Whewell, with
Selections from his Literary and Bcientiiio Correspondence,” vol i.
p. 227. .
t Essay on Lord Bacon.