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 CHAPTER III.

“,” or “the instrument,” was, as we have said, the name given by Aristotle’s ancient editors to his collective works on Logic. And from this of course Bacon took the title of ‘Novum Organum,’ or “the new instrument,” for his own work, in which the principles and method of modern science were to be developed. We find the ‘Organon’ of Aristotle, as it stands in our editions, to consist of six treatises, respectively entitled ‘Categories,’ ‘On Interpretation,’ ‘First Series of Analytics,’ ‘Second Series of Analytics,’ ‘Topics,’ and ‘Fallacies.’ The two first of these are quite short, both together filling less than 60 pages, but they have been more read and commented on, especially in the middle ages, than all the rest of Aristotle put together. Thousands of scholars, who considered themselves staunch Aristotelians, and as such fought the battle of Nominalism against the Platonists, knew not a word of Aristotle beyond these two treatises. And yet, unfortunately, it is open to considerable doubt whether either of the two was actually written by Aristotle himself.

During the first periods of his life, Aristotle had