Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

cluded tables or heads of enquiry, previously drawn up, to direct the mind what particulars it should enquire after; what queries it should make; and what intimations it should observe, with regard to the subsequent business of interpretation*, &c.

[ocr errors]

(8.) The last general head of the second part of the Novum Organum, is the Ascending and Descending Scale of Axioms; which was touched above. It may be farther added, that the business of enquiry, and the improvement of universal philosophy, depend entirely upon (1.) forming axioms from particulars by legitimate induction; (2.) verifying these axioms; (3.) raising still nobler and more general axioms from the former, till those of the highest order are ob+ tained, reaching even to the universalities of nature; and (4.) resolving these sublime axioms again, by sure steps or gradations, into lower axioms, that lead to an unlimited practice, and discover all the arts and works that are wanting to accommodate human life.

And thus the general heads that require to be filled up, for perfecting the design of the Novum Organum, have been briefly spoke to, either in the way of conjecture, or from parallel places

[ocr errors]

See Dr. Hook's Method of improving Philosophy;q

of the author; with this view, that persons of leisure, who have been versed in practical, as well as speculative philosophy, may be the readier induced to finish a work whereon the good of mankind so much depends.

[graphic][subsumed][merged small][merged small]
« AnteriorContinuar »