Note 755 — Chapter V · (continued 2)

‘The idea of prosecuting the study of the human mind on a plan analogous to that which had been so successfully adopted in physics by the followers of Lord Bacon, if not first conceived by Dr. Reid, was, at least, first carried successfully into execution in his writings.’ Stewart's Biographical Memoirs, p. 419. ‘The influence of the general views opened in the Novum Organon, may be traced in almost every page of his writings; and, indeed, the circumstance by which they are so strongly and characteristically distinguished, is that they exhibit the first systematical attempt to exemplify, in the study of human nature, the same plan of investigation which conducted Newton to the properties of light, and to the law of gravitation.’ p. 421. From this passage one might hazard a supposition that Dugald Stewart did not understand Bacon much better than he did Aristotle or Kant. Of the two last most profound thinkers, he certainly knew little or nothing, except what he gathered secondhand. Consequently, he underrates them.