On the Philosophy of Discovery, Chapters Historical and Critical

ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY.
Cambridge: PRINTED BY C. J. CLAY, M.A. AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
BY WILLIAM WHEWELL, D.D.
MASTER OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, AND CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE.
INCLUDING THE COMPLETION OF THE THIRD EDITION OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INDUCTIVE SCIENCES.
ΛΑΜΠΑΔΙΑ ΕΧΟΝΤΕΣ ΔΙΑΔΩΣΟΥΣΙΝ ΑΛΛΗΛΟΙΣ
LONDON: JOHN W. PARKER AND SON, WEST STRAND. 1860.
The following are the latest editions of the series of works which has been published connected with the present subject:
History of the Inductive Sciences , 3 Vols. 1857. History of Scientific Ideas , 2 Vols. 1858. Novum Organon Renovatum , 1 Vol. 1858. On the Philosophy of Discovery , 1 Vol. 1860.
To the History of the Inductive Sciences are appended two Indexes (in Vol. 1.), an Index of Proper Names, and an Index of Technical Terms. These Indexes, and the Tables of Contents of the other works, will enable the reader to refer to any person or event included in this series.
The two works which I entitled The History of the Inductive Sciences , and The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences , were intended to present to the reader a view of the steps by which those portions of human knowledge which are held to be most certain and stable have been acquired, and of the philosophical principles which are involved in those steps. Each of these steps was a scientific Discovery , in which a new conception was applied in order to bind together observed facts. And though the conjunction of the observed facts was in each case an example of logical Induction , it was not the inductive process merely, but the novelty of the result in each case which gave its peculiar character to the History; and the Philosophy at which I aimed was not the Philosophy of Induction, but the Philosophy of Discovery . In the present edition I have described this as my object in my Title.
A great part of the present volume consists of chapters which composed the twelfth Book of the Philosophy in former editions, which Book was then described as a 'Review of Opinions on the nature of Knowledge and the Method of seeking it.' I have added to this part several new chapters, on Plato, Aristotle, the Arabian Philosophers, Francis Bacon, Mr. Mill, Mr. Mansel, the late Sir William Hamilton, and the German philosophers Kant, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel. I might, if time had allowed, have added a new chapter on Roger Bacon, founded on his Opus Minus and other works, recently published for the first time under the direction of the Master of the Rolls; a valuable contribution to the history of philosophy. But the review of this work would not materially alter the estimate of Roger Bacon which I had derived from the Opus Majus .