Page:Philosophical Review Volume 31.djvu/503

No. 5.] Pliny's 'Natural History,' Porta's 'Natural Magic,' Cardan's 'De Subtilitate,' and 'Sandy's Travels.'" So much for apriorism in Bacon in so far as such apriorism is reducible to acceptance of inaccurate popular distinctions. There are also evidences of apriorism as traceable to inaccurate distinctions of his own making. Thus, in the De Fluxu et Refluxu Maris, "assuming that all things, except the earth, had some westward motion, he supposed that the stars moved quickest; the higher planets less quickly; the moon less quickly than any of the planets; and the water least quickly of all, thus lagging behind the moon." Bacon assumes also in his astronomical treatises that the air farther from the earth's surface is more rarified than the air nearer the earth's surface. "Since rest must not be taken out of nature, and since compactness of matter (such as we find in the terrene globe), induces aversion to motion, it is reasonable to look for rest in the earth if anywhere. But if there is perfect rest, we must assume there is also perfect mobility; and those bodies which are furthest from the earth will be most perfectly mobile." Bacon, like Aristotle, believed that the most perfect motion was circular. Thus, "Those (bodies) which are favourably placed, if they delight in motion, move in a circle; with a motion, that is, eternal and infinite." The orbits of bodies farthest from the earth approximate to circles, the orbits of bodies nearest the earth are spirals, "for," says Bacon, "in proportion as substances degenerate in purity and freedom of development, so do their motions degenerate." There is here exhibited not only Bacon's belief in circular as the most perfect motion, but also the slightest modification of the Aristotelian doctrine which required, in the interests of dignity, the movements of all heavenly bodies to be circular. And many more examples of this kind of apriorism could be given.

What, now, is the comparison Bacon himself draws between his own and Aristotle's inductive method? The Aristotelian