referred to by Lord Bacon:—"Because," says he, "the distributions and partitions of knowledge are not like several lines that meet in one angle, and so touch but in a point, but are like branches of a tree that meet in a stem, which hath a dimension and quantity of entireness and continuance, before it come to discontinue and break itself in arms and boughs; therefore, it is good to erect and constitute one universal science by the name of 'philosophia prima,' primitive or summary philosophy, as the main and common way, before we come where the ways part and divide themselves; which science, whether I should report deficient or no, I stand doubtful."
The Metaphysical spirit makes itself manifest in various forms; and this passage from Bacon in several respects illustrates the difference between the two great classes into which philosophers may conveniently be divided, according as they employ one or other of two modes of research that differ in their principles, methods, and results. One class includes those who would merely generalize from experience; and whose highest laws are in consequence only their most extensive generalizations. The other class assume their first principles as given in the very act of exercising observation, and by demonstration endeavour to reach the extreme results of philosophy.[1] It is not easy to find a nomenclature sufficiently comprehensive, and yet distinctively characteristic, to admit of suitable application to these schools. Probably, that suggested by Sir James Mac-
- ↑ It is to be remarked, that the modified views of many thinkers who have been ranged on each side, call our attention to their tendencies rather than to their fully-developed principles.
