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BACON , See also:FRANCIS The See also:series of the See also:literary See also:works is completed by the See also:minor See also:treatises on theological or ecclesiastical questions. Some of the latter, included among the occasional works, are sagacious and prudent and deserve careful study. Of the former, the See also:principal specimens are the Meditationes Sacrae and the See also:Confession of Faith. The Paradoxes (Characters of a believing See also:Christian in paradoxes, and seeming contradictions), which was often and justly suspected, has been conclusively proved by See also:Grosart to be the See also:work of another author. Philosophical Works.—The See also:great See also:mass of Bacon's writings consists of treatises or fragments, which either formed integral parts of his See also:grand comprehensive See also:scheme, or were closely connected with it. More exactly they may be classified under three heads: (A) Writings originally. intended to See also:form parts of the Instauratio, but which were afterwards superseded or thrown aside; (B) Works connected with the Instauratio, but not directly included in its See also:plan; (C) Writings which actually formed See also:part of the Instauratio Magna.. (A) This class contains some important tracts, which certainly contain little, if anything, that is not afterwards taken up and See also:expanded in the more elaborate works, but are not undeserving of See also:attention, from the difference in the point of view and method of treatment. The most valuable of them are: (r) The See also:Advancement of Learning, of which no detailed See also:account need be given, as it is completely worked up into the De Augmentis, and takes. its See also:place as the first part of the Instauratio. (2) See also:Valerius See also:Terminus; a very remarkable piece, composed probably about 16o3, though perhaps retouched at a later See also:period. It contains a brief and somewhat obscure outline of the first two parts in the Instauratio, and is of importance as affording us some insight into the See also:gradual development of the See also:system in Bacon's own mind. (3) Temporis Partus Masculus, another curious fragment, remarkable not only from its contents, but from its See also:style, which is arrogant and offensive, in this respect unlike any other See also:writing of Bacon's. The See also:adjective masculus points to the See also:power of bringing forth See also:fruit possessed by the new See also:philosophy, and perhaps indicates that all previous births of See also:time were to be looked upon as feminine or imperfect.; it is used in a somewhat similar sense in Letters and See also:Life, vi. 183, In verbis masculis, no flourishing or painted words, but such words as are See also:fit to go before deeds." (4) Redargutio Philosophiarum, a highly finished piece in the form of an oration, composed probably about 16o8 or i6og, and containing in See also:pretty full detail much of what afterwards appears in connexion with the Idola Theatri in See also:book i. of the Novum Organum. (5) Cogitata et 'Visa, perhaps the most important of the minor philosophical writings, dating from 1607 (though possibly the See also:tract in its See also:present form may have been to some extent altered), and containing in weighty and sonorous Latin the substance of the first book of the Organum. (6) The Descriptio Globi Intellectualis, which is to. some extent intermediate between the Advancement and the De Augmentis, goes over in detail the See also:general See also:classification of the sciences, and enters particularly on some points of minor See also:interest. (;) The brief tract De Inter pre/ atione Naturae Sententiae Duodecim is evidently a first See also:sketch of part of the Novum Organum, and in phraseology is almost identical with it. (8) A few smaller pieces, such as the Inquisitio de Motu. the Calor et Frigus, the Historia Soni et Auditus and the Phaenomena Universi, are See also:early specimens of his Natural See also:History, and exhibit the first tentative applications of the new method. (B) The second See also:group consists of treatises on subjects connected with the Instauratio, but not forming part of it. The most interesting, and in many respects the most remarkable, is the philosophic See also:romance, the New See also:Atlantis, a description of an ideal See also:state in which the principles of the new philosophy are carried out by See also:political machinery and under state guidance, and where many of the results contemplated by Bacon are in See also:imagination attained. The work was to have been completed by the addition of a second part, treating of the See also:laws of a See also:model See also:commonwealth, which was never written. Another important tract is the De Principiis clique Originibus secundum Fabulas Cupidinis et Caeli, where, under the disguise of two old mythological stories,. he (in the manner of the Sapientia Veterum) finds the deepest truths Bacon's Works and Philosophy. A See also:complete survey of Bacon's works and an estimate of his place in literature and philosophy are matters fora See also:volume. It is here proposed merely to classify the works, to indicate their general See also:character and to enter somewhat more in detail upon what he himself regarded as his great achievement,—the re-organization of the sciences and the exposition of a new method by which the human mind might proceed with See also:security and certainty towards the true end of all human thought and See also:action. Putting aside the letters and occasional writings, we may conveniently distribute the other works into three classes, Prof essional, Literary, Philosophical. The Professional works include the See also:Reading on the See also:Statute of Uses, the See also:Maxims of See also:Law and the See also:treatise (possibly See also:spurious) on the Use of the Law. " I am in See also:good See also:hope," said Bacon himself, "that when See also:Sir See also:Edward See also:Coke's reports and my rules and decisions shall come to posterity, there will be (whatsoever is now thought) question who was the greater lawyer." If Coke's reports show completer mastery of technical details, greater knowledge of precedent, and more of the dogged grasp of the See also:letter than do Bacon's legal writings, there can be no dispute that the latter exhibit an infinitely more comprehensive intelligence of the abstract principles of See also:jurisprudence, with a richness and ethical fulness that more than compensate for their lack of dry legal detail. Bacon seems indeed to have been a lawyer of the first See also:order, with a keen scientific insight into the See also:bearings of isolated facts and a power of generalization which admirably fitted him for the self-imposed task, unfortunately never completed, of digesting or codifying the chaotic mass of the See also:English law. Among the literary works are included all that he himself designated moral and See also:historical pieces, and to these may be added some theological and minor writings, such as the Apophthegms. Of the moral works the most valuable are the Essays, which have been so widely read and universally admired. The See also:matter is of the See also:familiar, See also:practical See also:kind, that " comes See also:home to men's bosoms." The thoughts are weighty, and even when not See also:original have acquired a See also:peculiar and unique See also:tone or See also:cast by passing through the crucible of Bacon's mind. A See also:sentence from the Essays can rarely be mistaken for the See also:production of any other writer. The See also:short, pithy sayings have become popular mottoes and See also:household words. The style is See also:quaint, original, abounding in allusions and witticisms, and See also:rich, even to gorgeousness, with piled-up analogies and metaphors.' The first edition contained only ten essays, but the number was increased in r6r2 to See also:thirty-eight, and in 1625 to fifty-eight. The short tract, See also:Colours of Good and Evil, which' with the Meditationes Sacrae originally accompanied the Essays, was afterwards incorporated with the De Augmentis. Along with these works may be classed the curiously learned piece, De Sapientia Veterum, in which he works out a favourite See also:idea, that the mythological fables of the Greeks were allegorical and concealed the deepest truths of their philosophy. As a scientific explanation of the myths the theory is of no value, but it affords See also:fine See also:scope for the exercise of Bacon's unrivalled power of detecting analogies in things apparently most dissimilar. The Apophthegms, though hardly deserving See also:Macaulay's praise of being the best collection of jests in the See also:world, contain a number of those significant anecdotes which Bacon used with such effect in his other writings. Of the historical works, besides a few fragments of the projected history of See also:Britain there remains the History of See also: Partitiones Scientiarum, a survey of the sciences, either such as then existed or such as required to be constructed afresh—in fact, an See also:inventory of all the possessions of the human mind. The famous classification' on which this survey proceeds is based upon an See also:analysis of the faculties and See also:objects of human knowledge. This See also:division is represented by the De Augmentis Scientiarum. II. Interpretatio Naturae.—After the survey of all that has yet been done in the way of See also:discovery or invention, comes the new method, by which the mind of man is to be trained and directed in its progress towards the renovation of science. This division is represented, though only imperfectly, by the Novum Organism, particularly book ii. IV. Scala Intellectus.—It might have been supposed that the new philosophy could now be inaugurated. Materials had been supplied, along with a new method by which they were to be treated, and naturally the next step would be the finished result. But for practical purposes Bacon interposed two divisions between the preliminaries and the philosophy itself. The first was intended to consist of types or examples of investigations conducted by the new method, serviceable for keeping the whole See also:process vividly before the mind, or, as the See also:title indicates, such that the mind could run rapidly up and down the several steps or grades in the process. Of this division there seems to be only one small fragment, the Filum Labyrinthi, consisting of but two or three pages. V. Prodromi, forerunners of the new philosophy. This part, strictly speaking, is quite extraneous to the general See also:design. According to the Distributio Operis,2 it was to contain certain speculations of Bacon's own, not formed by the new method, but by the unassisted use of his understanding. These, therefore, form temporary or uncertain anticipations of the new philosophy. There is extant a short See also:preface to this division of the work, and according to See also:Spedding, some of the See also:miscellaneous treatises, such as De Principiis, De Fluxu et Refluxu, Cogitationes de Natura Rerum, may probably have been intended to be included under this See also:head. This supposition receives some support from the manner in which the fifth part is spoken of in the Novum Organum, i. 116. VI. The new philosophy, which is the work of future ages, and the result of the new method. Bacon's grand See also:motive in his See also:attempt to found the sciences anew was the intense conviction that the knowledge man ' The division of the sciences adopted in the great See also:French Encyclapedie was founded upon this classification of Bacon's. See See also:Diderot's See also:Prospectus ((Fumes, iii.) and d'See also:Alembert's Discours (Uiuvres,i.) The scheme should be compared with later attempts of the same nature by See also:Ampere, Cournoi, See also:Comte and See also:Herbert See also:Spencer. 2 See also " Letter to Fulgentio," Letters and Life, vii. 533.possessed was of little service to him. " The knowledge whereof the world is now possessed, especially that of nature, extendeth not to magnitude and certainty of'works." 3 Man's See also:sovereignty over nature, which is founded on knowledge alone, had been lost, and instead of the See also:free relation between things and the human mind, there was nothing but vain notions and See also:blind experiments. To restore the original See also:commerce between man and nature, and to recover the imperium hominis, is the grand See also:object of all science. The want of success which had hitherto attended efforts in the same direction had been due to many causes, but chiefly to the want of appreciation of the nature of philosophy and its real aim. Philosophy is not the science of things divine and human; it is not the See also:search after truth. " I find that even those that have sought knowledge for itself, and not for benefit or ostentation, or any practical enablement in the course of their life, have nevertheless propounded to themselves a wrong See also:mark, namely, See also:satisfaction (which men See also:call Truth) and not operation." " Is there any such happiness as for a man's mind to be raised above the confusion of things, where he may have the prospect of the order of nature and See also:error of man ? But is this a view of delight only and not of discovery ? of contentment and not of benefit ? Shall he not as well discern the riches of nature's warehouse as the beauty of her See also:shop ? Is truth ever barren ? Shall he not be able thereby to produce worthy effects, and to endow the life of man with See also:infinite commodities ? " s Philosophy is altogether practical; it is of little matter to the fortunes of humanity what abstract notions one may entertain concerning the nature and the principles of things.6 This truth, however, has never yet been recognized;7 it has not yet been seen that the true aim of all science is " to endow the See also:condition and life of man with new See also:powers or works," 8 or " to extend more widely the limits of the power and greatness of man." 9 Nevertheless, it is not to be imagined that by this being proposed as the great object of search there is thereby excluded all that has hitherto been looked upon as the higher aims of human life, such as the contemplation of truth. Not so, but by following the new aim we shall also arrive at a true knowledge of the universe in which we are, for without knowledge there is no power; truth and utility are in ultimate aspect the same; " works themselves are of greater value as pledges of truth than as contributing to the comforts of life."Such was the conception of philosophy with which Bacon started, and in which he See also:felt himself to be thoroughly original. As his object was new and hitherto unproposed, so the method he intended to employ was different from all modes of investigation hitherto attempted. " It would be," as he says, " an unsound See also:fancy and self-contradictory, to expect that things which have never yet been done can be done except by means which have never yet been tried. 11 There were many obstacles in his way, and he seems always to have felt that the first part of the new scheme must be a pars destruens, a destructive See also:criticism of all other methods. Opposition was to be, expected, not only from previous philosophies, but especially from the human mind itself. In the first place, natural antagonism might be looked for from the two opposed sects, the one of whom, in despair of knowledge, maintained that all science was impossible; while the other, resting on authority and on the learning that had been handed down from the Greeks, declared that science was already completely known, and consequently devoted their energies to methodizing and elaborating it. Secondly, within the domain of science itself, properly so called, there were two " kind of rovers " who must be dismissed. The first were the speculative or logical philosophers, who construe the universe ex analogia hominis, and not ex analogia mundi, who See also:fashion nature according to preconceived ideas, and who employ in their investigations See also:syllogism and abstract reasoning. The second class, who were equally offensive, consisted of those who practised blind experience, which is See also:mere 9 Fil. Lab. ; See also:Cog. et Visa. i. ; of. Pref. to Ins. Meg. ' Val. Ter. 232 ; cf. N. 0. i. 124. ' Letters, i. 123. 6 N. 0. i. 116. 9 Fit. Lab. 5; cf. N. 0. i. 81; Val. Ter. (Works, iii. 235) ; Advancement, bk. i. (Works, iii. 294). 8 Fit. Lab. 5; cf. N. 0. i. 81; Val. Ter. (Works, iii. 222 233) ; New Atlantis (Works, in. 156). 9N. 0. i. 116. 19 Ibid. i. 124. " Ibid.i. 6. groping in the dark (vaga experientia mera palpatio est), who occasionally See also:hit upon good works or inventions, which, like See also:Atalanta's apples, distracted them from further steady and gradual progress towards universal truth. In place of these straggling efforts of the unassisted human mind, a graduated system of See also:helps was to be supplied, by the use of which the mind, when placed on the right road, would proceed with unerring and See also:mechanical certainty to the invention of new arts and sciences. Such were to be the peculiar functions of the new method, though it has not definitely appeared what that method was, or to what objects it could be applied. But, before proceeding to unfold his method, Bacon found it necessary to enter in considerable detail upon the general subject of the obstacles to progress, and devoted nearly the whole of the first book of the Organum to the examination of them. This discussion, though strictly speaking extraneous to the scheme, has always been looked upon as a most important part of his philosophy, and his name is perhaps as much associated with the See also:doctrine of Idols (Idola) as with the theory of See also:induction or the classification of the sciences. The doctrine of the kinds of fallacies or general classes of errors into which the human mind is prone to fall, appears in many of the works written before the Novum Organum, and the treatment of them varies in some respects. The classification in the Organum, however, not only has the author's See also:sanction, but has received the See also:stamp of historical acceptation; and comparison of the earlier notices, though a point of literary interest, has no important philosophic bearing. The Idola (Nov. Org. 39)1 false notions of things, or erroneous ways of looking at nature, areof four kinds: the first two innate, pertaining to the very nature of the mind and not to be eradicated; the third creeping insensibly into men's minds, and hence in a sense innate and inseparable; the See also:fourth imposed from without. The first kind are the Idola Tribus, idols of the tribe, fallacies incident to humanity or the See also:race in general. Of these, the most prominent are—the proneness to suppose in nature greater order and regularity than there actually is; the tendency to support a preconceived See also:opinion by affirmative instances, neglecting all negative or opposed cases; and the tendency to generalize from few observations, or to give reality to mere abstractions, figments of the mind. Manifold errors also result from the weakness of the senses, which affords scope for mere conjecture; from the See also:influence exercised over the understanding by the will and passions; from the restless See also:desire of the mind to penetrate to the ultimate principles of things; and from the belief that " man is the measure of the universe," whereas, in truth, the world is received by us in a distorted and erroneous manner. The second kind are the Idola Specus, idols of the See also:cave, or errors incident to the peculiar See also:mental or bodily constitution of each individual, for according to the state of the individual's mind is his view of things. Errors of this class are innumerable, because there are numberless varieties of disposition; but some very prominent specimens can be indicated. Such are the tendency to make all things subservient to, or take the See also:colour of some favourite subject, the extreme fondness and reverence either for what is ancient or for what is modern, and excess in noting either See also:differences or resemblances amongst things. A practical See also:rule for avoiding these is also given: " In general let every student of nature take this as a rule, that what-ever his mind seizes and dwells upon with particular satisfaction is to be held in suspicion."' The third class are the Idola Pori, idols of the See also:market-place, errors arising from the influence exercised over the mind by mere words. This, according to 'The word Idola is manifestly borrowed from See also:Plato. It is used twice in connexion with the Platonic Ideas (N. 0. i. 23, 124) and is contrasted with them as the false See also:appearance. The el6wXod with Plato is the fleeting, transient See also:image of the real thing, and the passage evidently referred to by Bacon is that in the See also:Rep. vii. 516 A, Kai FpWTOV /LEV TkS QKLaS av (3, ara KaOoptin, gal /See also:seed roUTo v roil USQ.OL TQ re r&v &vepcSFwz Kai rd r ,v &XXwv e%bwXa, tur€pov Si afiTd. It is explained well in the Advancement, bk. i. (Works, iii. 287). (For valuable notes on the Idola, see T. See also:Fowler's Nov. Org. i. 38 notes; especially for a comparison of the Idola with See also:Roger Bacon's Offendicula.) Y N. 0. i. 58. Bacon, is the most troublesome kind of error, and has been especially fatal in philosophy. For words introduce a fallacious mode of looking at things in two ways: first, there are some words that are really merely names for non-existent things, which are yet supposed to exist simply because they have received a name; secondly, there are names hastily and unskilfully abstracted from a few objects and applied recklessly to all that has the faintest See also:analogy with these objects, thus causing the grossest confusion. The fourth and last class are the Idola Theatri, idols of the See also:theatre, i.e. fallacious modes of thinking resulting from received systems of philosophy and from erroneous methods of demonstration. The criticism of the demonstrations is introduced later in See also:close connexion with Bacon's new method; they are the See also:rival modes of See also:procedure, to which his own is definitely opposed. The philosophies which are " redargued " are divided into three classes, the sophistical, of which the best example is See also:Aristotle, who, according to Bacon, forces nature into his abstract schemata and thinks to explain by See also:definitions; the empirical, which from few and limited experiments leaps at once to general conclusions; and the superstitious, which corrupts philosophy by the introduction of poetical and theological notions. Such are the general causes of the errors that infest the human mind; by their exposure the way is cleared for the introduction of the new method. The nature of this method cannot be understood until it is exactly seen to what it is to be applied. What idea had Bacon of science, and how is his method connected with it? Now, the science3 which was specially and invariably contemplated by him was natural philosophy, the great See also:mother of all the sciences; it was to him the type of scientific knowledge, and its method was the method of all true science. To discover exactly the characteristics and the object of natural philosophy it is necessary to examine the place it holds in the general scheme furnished in the Advancement or De Augmentis. All human knowledge, it is there laid down, may be referred to man's memory or imagination or See also:reason. In the first, the See also:bare facts presented to sense are collected and stored up; the exposition of them is history, which is either natural or See also:civil. In the second, the materials of sense are separated or divided in ways not corresponding to nature but after the mind's own See also:pleasure, and the result is poesy or feigned history. In the third, the materials are worked up after the model or See also:pattern of nature, though we are prone to err in the progress from sense to reason; the result is philosophy, which is concerned either with See also:God, with nature or with man, the second being the most important. Natural philosophy is again divided into speculative or theoretical and operative or practical, according as the end is contemplation or works. Speculative or theoretical natural philosophy has to See also:deal with natural substances and qualities and is subdivided into physics and See also:metaphysics. Physics inquires into the efficient and material causes of things; metaphysics, into the formal and final causes. The principal objects of physics are See also:concrete substances, or abstract though See also:physical qualities. The See also:research into abstract qualities, the fundamental problem of physics, comes near to the metaphysical study of forms, which indeed differs from the first only in being more general, and in having as its results a form strictly so called, i.e. a nature or quality which is a See also:limitation or specific manifestation of some higher and better-known genus.' Natural philosophy is, therefore, in ultimate resort the study of forms, and, consequently, the fundamental problem of philosophy in general is the discovery of these forms.
" On a given See also:body to generate or superinduce a new nature or natures, is the work and aim of human power. . . . Of a given nature to discover the form or true specific difference, or nature-engendering nature (nature naturans) or source of See also:emanation (for these are the terms which are nearest to a description cf the thing), is the work and aim of human knowledge." 6
The questions, then, whose answers give the See also: 79, 8o, 98, 1o8. ' On the meaning of the word form in Bacon's theory see also Fowler's N. O. introd. § 8. 6 N. 0. ii. 1. forms? and how is it that knowledge of them solves both the theoretical and the practical problem of science? Bacon himself, as may be seen from the passage quoted above, finds great difficulty in giving an adequate and exact See also:definition of what he means by a form. As a general description, the following passage from the Novum Organum, ii. 4, may be cited: " The form of a nature is such that given the form the nature infallibly follows. Again, the form is such that if it be taken away the nature infallibly vanishes. . Lastly, the true form is such that it deduces the given nature from some source of being which is inherent in more natures, and which is better known in the natural order of things than the form itself."' From this it would appear that, since by a nature is meant some sensible quality, superinduced upon, or possessed by, a body, so by a form we are to understand the cause of that nature, which cause is itself a determinate See also:case or manifestation of some general or abstract quality inherent in a greater number of objects. But all these are mostly marks by which a form may be recognized, and do not explain what the form really is. A further definition is accordingly attempted in Aph. 13: " The form of a thing is the very thing itself, and the thing differs from the form no otherwise than as the apparent differs from the real, or the See also:external from the See also:internal, or the thing in reference to the man from the thing in reference to the universe." This throws a new See also:light on the question, and from it the inference at once follows, that the forms are the permanent causes or substances underlying all visible phenomena, which are merely manifestations of their activity. Are the forms, then, forces ? At times it seems as if Bacon had approximated to this view of the nature of things, for in several passages he identifies forms with laws of activity. Thus, he says "When I speak of forms I mean nothing more than those laws and determinations of See also:absolute actuality which govern and constitute any See also:simple nature, as See also:heat, light, See also:weight, in every kind of matter and subject that is susceptible of them. Thus the form of heat or the form of light is the same thing as the law of heat or the law of light." " Matter rather than forms should be the object of our attention, its configurations and changes of configuration, and simple action, and law of action or See also:motion; for forms are figments of the human mind, unless you will call those laws of action forms." " Forms or true differences of things, which are in fact laws of pure See also:act." ' " For though in nature nothing really exists besides individual bodies; performing pure individual acts according to a fixed law, yet in philosophy this very law, and the investigation, discovery and explanation of it, is the See also:foundation as well of knowledge as of operation. And it is this law, with its clauses, that I mean when I speak of forms." 6 Several important conclusions may be See also:drawn from these passages. In the first place, it is evident that Bacon, like the Atomical school, of whom he highly approved, had a clear See also:perception and a See also:firm grasp of the physical character of natural principles; his forms are no ideas or abstractions, but highly general physical properties. Further, it is hinted that these general qualities may be looked upon as the modes of action of simple bodies. This fruitful conception, however, Bacon does not work out; and though he uses the word cause, and identifies form with formal cause, yet it is perfectly apparent that the modern notions of cause as dynamical, and of nature as in a process of flow or development, are See also:foreign to him, and that in his view of the ultimate problem of science, cause meant causa immanens, or underlying substance, effects were not consequents but manifestations, and nature was regarded in a purely statical aspect. That this is so appears even more clearly when we examine his general conception of the unity, gradation and See also:function of the sciences. That the sciences are organically connected is a thought See also:common to him and to his distinguished predecessor Roger Bacon. " I that hold it for a great impediment towards the advancement and further invention of knowledge, that particular arts and sciences have been See also:die-incorporated from general knowledge, do not understand one ' This better known in the order of nature is nowhere satisfactorily explained by Bacon. Like his classification of causes, and in some degree his notion of form itself, it comes from Aristotle. See An. See also:Post. 71 b 33; Topic, 141 b 5; Eth. I095 a 30. It should be observed that many writers maintain that the phrase should be notion nature ; others, notiora naturae. See Fowler's N. 0. p. 199 See also:note. s N. 0, it 17. 5 Ibid. i. 51. ' Ibid. i. 75. ' Ibid. ii. 2.and the same thing which See also:Cicero's discourse and the note and conceit of the Grecians in their word circle learning do intend. For I mean not that use which one science hath of another for See also:ornament or help in practice; but I mean it directly of that use by way of See also:supply of light and See also:information, which the particulars and instances of one science do yield and present for the framing or correcting of the axioms of another science in their very truth and notion." 8 In accordance with this, Bacon placed at the basis of the particular sciences which treat of God, nature and man, one fundamental doctrine, the Prima Philosophia, or first philosophy, the function of which was to display the unity of nature by connecting into one body of truth such of the highest axioms of the subordinate sciences as were not See also:special to one science, but common to several.' This first ,philosophy had also to investigate what are called the See also:adventitious or transcendental conditions of essences, such as Much, Little, Like, Unlike, Possible, Impossible, Being, Nothing, the logical discussion of which certainly belonged rather to the laws of reasoning than to the existence of things, but the physical or real treatment of which might be expected to yield answers to such questions as, why certain substances are numerous, others scarce; or why, if like attracts like, See also:iron does not attract iron. Following this See also:summary philosophy come the sciences proper, rising like a See also:pyramid in successive stages, the lowest See also:floor being occupied by natural history or experience, the second by physics, the third, which is next the See also:peak of unity, by metaphysics.$ The knowledge of the peak, or of the one law which binds nature together, is perhaps denied to man. Of the sciences, physics, as has been already seen, deals with the efficient and material, i.e. with the variable and transient, causes of things. But its inquiries may be directed either towards concrete bodies or towards abstract qualities. The first kind of investigation rises little above mere natural history; but the other is more important and paves the way for metaphysics. It handles the configurations and the appetites or motions of matter. The configurations, or inner structure of bodies, include dense, rare, heavy, light, hot, See also:cold, &c.,—in fact, what are elsewhere called simple natures. Motions9 are either simple or See also:compound, the latter being the sum of a number of the former. In physics, however, these matters are treated only as regards their material or efficient causes, and the result of inquiry into any one case gives no general rule, but only facilitates invention in some similar instance. Metaphysics, on the other See also:hand, treats of the formal or final cause10 of these same substances and qualities, and results in a general rule. With regard to forms, the investigation may be directed either towards concrete. bodies or towards qualities. But the forms of substances " are so perplexed and complicated, that it is either vain to inquire into them at all, or such inquiry as is possible should be put off for a time, and not entered upon till forms of a more simple nature have been rightly investigated and discussed."n "To inquire into the form of a See also:lion, of an See also:oak, or See also:gold, See also:nay, even of See also:water or See also:air, is a vain pursuit; but to inquire the form of dense, rare, hot, cold, &c., as well configurations as motions, which in treating of physic I have in 6 Valerius Terminus, iii. 228-229. 7 Cf. N. 0. ii. 27. Bacon nowhere enters upon the questions of how such a science is to be constructed, and how it can be expected to possess an See also:independent method while it remains the mere receptacle for the generalizations of the several sciences, and consequently has a content which varies with their progress. His whole conception of Prima Philosophia should be compared with such a modern work as the First Principles of Herbert Spencer. ° It is to be noticed that this See also:scale of nature corresponds with the scale of ascending axioms. 9 Cf. also for motions, N. O. ii. 48. '0 The knowledge of final causes does not See also:lead to works, and the See also:consideration of them must be rigidly excluded from physics. Yet there is no opposition between the physical and final causes; in ultimate resort the mind is compelled to think the universe as the work. of reason, to refer facts to God and See also:Providence. The idea of final cause is also fruitful in sciences which have to do with human action. (Cf. De Aug. iii. cc. 4, 5; Nov. Org. i. 48, ii. 2.) " De Aug. iii. 4. In the Advancement (Works, iii. 355) it is distinctly said that they are not to be inquired into. One can hardly see how the Baconian method could have, applied to concrete substances. great part enumerated (I call them forms of the first class), and which (like the letters of the See also:alphabet) are not many, and yet make up and sustain the essences and forms of all substances—this, I say, it is which I am attempting, and which constitutes and defines that part of metaphysic of which we are now inquiring." Physics inquires into the same qualities, but does not push its investigations into ultimate reality or reach the more general causes. We thus at last attain a definite conclusion with regard to forms, and it appears clear that in Bacon's belief the true function of science was the search for a few fundamental physical qualities, highly abstract and general, the combinations of which give rise to the simple natures and complex phenomena around us. His general conception of the universe may therefore be called mechanical or statical; the cause of each phenomenon is sup-posed to be actually contained in the phenomenon itself, and by a sufficiently accurate process could be sifted out and brought to light. As soon as the causes are known man regains his power over nature, for " whosoever knows any form, knows also the utmost possibility of superinducing that nature upon every variety of matter, and so is less restrained and tied in operation either to the basis of the matter or to the condition of the efficients." 1 Nature thus presented itself to Bacon's mind as a huge congeries of phenomena, the manifestations of some simple and primitive qualities, which were hid from us by the complexity of the things themselves. The world was a vast See also:labyrinth, amid the windings of which we require some See also:clue or See also:thread whereby we may track our way to knowledge and thence to power. This thread, the filum labyrinthi, is the new method of induction. But, as has been frequently pointed out, the new method could not be applied until facts had been observed and collected. This is an indispensable preliminary. " Man, the servant and interpreter of nature, can do and understand so much, and so much only, as he has observed in fact or in thought of the course of nature; beyond this he neither knows anything nor can do anything." The proposition that our knowledge of nature necessarily begins with observation and experience, is common to Bacon and many contemporary reformers of science, but he laid peculiar stress upon it, and gave it a new meaning. What he really meant by observation was a competent natural history or collection of facts. " The firm See also:foundations of a purer natural philosophy are laid in natural history." 2 " First of all we must prepare a natural and experimental history, sufficient and good; and this is the foundation of all." 3 The senses and the memory, which collect and See also:store up facts, must be assisted; there must be a ministration of the senses and another of the memory. For not only are instances required, but these must be arranged in such a manner as not to distract or confuse the mind, i.e. tables and arrangements of instances must be constructed. In the preliminary collection the greatest care must be taken that the mind be absolutely free from preconceived ideas; nature is only to be conquered by obedience; man must be merely receptive. " All depends on keeping the See also:eye steadily fixed upon the facts of nature, and so receiving their images simply as they are; for God forbid that we should give out a See also:dream of our own imagination for a pattern of the world; rather may He graciously See also: Cf. Aristotle, Eth. Nic. iii. 3. 12, Tb g0xa rov iv Di hvaXt i EL 7rp&See also:TOP stvai EY en yevicr L. Cf. also Nov. Org. i. 103. 2 Cogitations (Works, iii. 187). 3 N. 0. ii. to. 4 Pref. to Instaur. Cf. Valerius See also:Term. (Works, iii. 224), and N. O. i. 68, 124. 3 Pref. to Inst.discovery of new arguments. In method the difference is even more fundamental. Hitherto the mode of demonstration had been by the syllogism; but the syllogism is, in many respects, an incompetent weapon. It is compelled to accept its first principles on See also:trust from the science in which it is employed; it cannot See also:cope with the subtlety of nature; and it is radically vitiated by being founded on hastily and inaccurately abstracted notions of things. For a syllogism consists of propositions, propositions of words, and words are the symbols of notions. Now the first step in accurate progress from sense to reason, or true philosophy, is to See also:frame a See also:bona notio or accurate conception of the thing; but the received logic never does this. It flies off at once from experience and particulars to the highest and most general propositions, and from these descends, by the use of See also:middle terms, to axioms of See also:lower generality. Such a mode of procedure may be called anticipatio naturae (for in it reason is allowed to prescribe to things), and is opposed to the true method, the inter pretatio naturae, in which reason follows and obeys nature, discovering her secrets by obedience and sub-See also:mission to rule. Lastly, the very form of induction that has been used by logicians in the collection of their instances is a weak and useless thing. It is a mere enumeration of a few known facts, makes no use of exclusions or rejections, concludes precariously, and is always liable to be overthrown by a negative instance.6 In See also:radical opposition to this method the Baconian induction begins by supplying helps and guides to the senses, whose unassisted information could not be relied on. Notions were formed carefully, and not till after a certain process of induction was completed.? The formation of axioms was to be carried on by a gradually ascending scale. " Then and only then may we hope well of the sciences, when in a just scale of ascent and by successive steps, not interrupted or broken, we rise from particulars to lesser axioms; and then to middle axioms, one above the other; and last of all to the most general." 3 Finally the very form of induction itself must be new. " The induction which is to be available for the discovery and demonstration of sciences and arts must analyse nature by proper rejections and exclusions; and then, after a sufficient number of negatives, come to a conclusion on the affirmative instances, which has not yet been done, or even attempted, See also:save only by Plato.9 .. . And this induction must be used not only to discover axioms, but also in the formation of notions."10 This view of the function of exclusion is closely connected with Bacon's doctrine of forms, 3 Bacon's summary is valuable. " In the whole of the process which leads from the senses and objects to axioms and conclusions, the demonstrations which we use are deceptive and incompetent. The process consists of four parts, and has as many faults. In the first place, the impressions of the sense itself are faulty, for the sense both fails us and deceives us. But its shortcomings are to be supplied and its deceptions to be corrected. Secondly, notions are all drawn from the impressions of the sense, and are indefinite and See also:con-fused, whereas they should be definite and distinctly bounded. Thirdly, the induction is amiss which infers the principles of sciences by simple enumeration, and does not, as it ought, employ exclusions and solutions (or separations) of nature. Lastly, that method of discovery and See also:proof according to which the most general principles are first established, and then intermediate axioms are tried and proved by then, is the See also:parent of error and the curse of all science."—N. 0. i. 69. 7 N. O. i. 105. 3lbid, i. 104; cf. i. 19-26. 9 This See also:extract gives an See also:answer to the objection sometimes raised that Bacon is not original in his theory of induction. He certainly admits that Plato has used a method somewhat akin to his own; but it has frequently been contended that his induction is nothing more than the E7raya yn of Aristotle (see See also:Remusat's Bacon, &c., pp. 310-315, and for a criticism, See also:Waddington, Essais de Logigue, p. 261. sqq.) This seems a See also:mistake. Bacon did not understand by induction the See also:argument from particulars to a general proposition; he looked upon the exclusion and rejection, or upon elimination, as the essence of induction. To this process he was led by his doctrine of forms, of which it is the necessary consequence; it is the infallible result of his view of science and its problem, and is as original as that is. Whoever accepts Bacon's doctrine of cause must accept at the same time his theory of the way in which the cause may be sifted out from among the phenomena. It is evident that the Socratic search for the essence by an analysis of instances—an induction ending in a definition—has a strong resemblance to the Baconian inductive method. 10 N. 0. i. 105. and is in fact dependent upon that theory. But induction is neither the whole of the new method, nor is it applicable to forms only. There are two other grand objects of inquiry: the one, the transformation of concrete bodies; the other, the investigation of the latent powers and the latent schematism or configuration. With regard to the first, in ultimate result it depends upon the theory of forms; for whenever the compound body can be regarded as the sum of certain simple natures, then our know-ledge of the forms of these natures gives us the power of super-inducing a new nature on the concrete body. As regards the latent process (latens processus) which goes on in all cases of See also:generation and continuous development or motion, we examine carefully, and by quantitative measurements, the gradual growth and See also:change from the first elements to the completed thing. The same' kind of investigation maybe extended to many cases of natural motion, such as voluntary action or See also:nutrition; and though inquiry is here directed towards concrete bodies, and does not therefore penetrate so deeply into reality as in research for forms, yet great results may be looked for with more confidence. It is to be regretted that Bacon did not complete this portion of his work, in which for the first time he approaches modern conceptions of change. The latent configuration (latens schematismus) or inward structure of the parts of a body must be known before we can hope to superinduce a new nature upon it. This can only be discovered by analysis, which will disclose the ultimate constituents (natural particles, not atoms) of bodies, and lead back the discussion to forms or simple natures, whereby alone can true light be thrown on these obscure questions. Thus, in all cases, scientific explanation depends upon knowledge of forms; all phenomena or secondary qualities are accounted for by being referred to the See also:primary qualities of matter. The several steps in the inductive investigation of the form of any nature flow readily from the definition of the form itself. For that is always and necessarily present when the nature is present, absent when it is absent, decreases and increases according as the nature decreases and increases. It is therefore requisite for the inquiry to have before us instances in which the nature is present. The See also:list of these is called the table of Essence and Presence. Secondly, we must have instances in which the nature is absent; only as such cases might be infinite, attention should be limited to such of them as See also:ate most akin to the instances of presence.' The list in this case is called table of See also:Absence in Proximity. Thirdly, we must have a number of instances in which the nature is present in different degrees, either increasing or decreasing in the same subject, or variously present in different subjects. This is the table of Degrees, or Comparison. After the formation of these tables, we proceed to apply what is perhaps the most valuable part of the Baconian method, and that in which the author took most See also:pride, the process of exclusion or rejection. This elimination of the non-essential, grounded on the fundamental propositions with regard to forms, is the most important of Bacon's contributions to the logic of induction, and that in which, as he repeatedly says, his method differs from all previous philosophies. It is evident that if the tables were complete, and our notions of the respective phenomena clear, the process of exclusion would be a merely mechanical counting out, and would infallibly lead to the detection of the cause or form. But it is just as evident that these conditions can never be adequately fulfilled. Bacon saw that his method was impracticable (though he seems to have thought the difficulties not insuperable), and therefore set to work to devise new helps, adminicula. These he enumerates in ii., Aph. 21:—Prerogative Instances, Supports of Induction, Rectification of Induction, Varying the Investigation according to the Nature of the Subject, See also:Prerogative Natures, Limits of Investigation, Application to Practice, Preparations for Investigation, the Ascending and Descending Scale of Axioms. The See also:remainder of the Organum is devoted to a consideration of the twenty-seven classes of Prerogative Instances, and though it contains much that is both luminous and helpful, it adds little to our knowledge of what constitutes the Baconian method. 1 That is to say, differing in nothing save the absence of the nature under investigation. On the other heads we have but a few scattered hints. But although the rigorous requirements of science could only be fulfilled by the employment of all these means, yet in their absence it was permissible to draw from the tables and the exclusion a hypothetical conclusion, the truth of which might be verified by the use of the other processes; such an See also:hypothesis is called fantastically the First Vintage (Vindemiatio). The inductive method, so far as exhibited in the Organum, is exemplified by an investigation into the nature of heat. Such was the method devised by Bacon, and to which he ascribed the qualities of absolute certainty and mechanical simplicity. But even supposing that this method were accurate and completely unfolded, it is evident that it could only be made applicable and produce fruit when the phenomena of the universe have been very completely tabulated and arranged. In this demand for a complete natural history, Bacon also felt that he was original, and he was deeply impressed with the See also:necessity for it; 2 in fact, he seems occasionally to place an even higher value upon it than upon his Organum. Thus, in the preface to his series of works forming the third part of the Instauratio, he says: " It comes, therefore, to this, that my Organum, even if it were completed, would not without the Natural History much advance the Inslauration of the Sciences, whereas the Natural History without the Organum would advance it not a little." But a complete natural history is evidently a thing impossible, and in fact a history can only be collected by attending to the requirements of the Organism. This was seen by Bacon, and what may be regarded as his final opinion on the question is given in the important letter to See also:Jean See also:Antoine Baranzano ° (" Redemptus ": 1590—1622):-" With regard to the multitude of instances by which men may be deterred from the attempt, here is my answer. First, what need to dissemble ? Either, store of instances must be procured, or the business must be given up. All other ways, however enticing, are impassable. Secondly, the prerogatives of instances, and the mode of experimenting upon experiments of light (which I shall hereafter explain), will diminish the multitude of them very much. Thirdly, what matter, I ask, if the description of the instances should fill six times as many volumes as See also:Pliny's History? . For the true natural history is to take nothing except instances, connections, observations and canons." 5 The Organum and the History are thus correlative, and form the two equally necessary sides of a true philosophy; by their See also:union the new philosophy is produced. Summary.—Two questions may be put to any doctrine which professes to effect a radical change in philosophy or science. Is it original ? Is it valuable ? With regard to the first, it has been already pointed out that Bacon's induction or inductive method is distinctly his own, though it cannot and need not be maintained that the general spirit of his philosophy was entirely new.6 The value of the method is the See also:separate and more difficult question. It has been assailed on the most opposite grounds. Macaulay, while admitting the accuracy of the process, denied its efficiency, on the ground that an operation performed naturally was not rendered more easy or efficacious by being subjected to analysis.' This objection is curious when confronted with Bacon's reiterated assertion that the natural method pursued by the unassisted human reason is distinctly opposed to his; and it is besides an argument that tells so strongly against many sciences, as to be comparatively worthless when applied to any one. There are, however, more formidable objections against the method. It has been pointed out,8 and with perfect See also:justice, ' Distrib. Op. (Works, iv. 28) ; Parasceve (ibid. 251, 252,.255-256) ; Descrip. Glob. Intel. ch. 3. 3 Works, ii. 16; cf. N. O. i. 130. ° A Barnabite See also: The mechanical character both of the natural history and of the logical method applied to it, resulted necessarily from Bacon's radically false conception of the nature of cause and of the causal relation. The whole logical or scientific problem is treated as if it were one of co-existence, to which in truth the method of exclusion is scarcely applicable, and the See also:assumption is constantly made that each phenomenon has one and only one caused The inductive formation of axioms by a gradually ascending scale is a route which no science has ever followed, and by which no science could ever make progress. The true scientific procedure is by hypothesis followed up and tested by verification; the most powerful See also:instrument is the deductive method, which Bacon can hardly be said to have recognized. The power of framing hypothesis points to another want in the Baconian doctrine. If that power form part of the true method, then the mind is not wholly passive or recipient; it anticipates nature, and moulds the experience received by it in accordance with its own constructive ideas or conceptions; and yet further, the minds of various investigators can never be reduced to the same dead mechanical level.2 There will still be See also:room for the scientific use of the imagination and for the creative flashes of See also:genius.3 If, then, Bacon himself made no contributions to science, if no discovery can be shown to be due to the use of his rules, if his method be logically defective, and the problem to which it was applied one from its nature incapable of adequate See also:solution, it may not unreasonably he asked, How has he come to be looked upon as the great See also:leader in the See also:reformation of modern science? How is it that he shares with See also:Descartes the See also:honour of in.augarating modern philosophy? To this the true answer seems to be that Bacon owes his position not only to the general spirit of his philosophy, but to the manner in which he worked into a con (186o) ; See also:Liebig, Uber Francis Bacon von Verulam, &c. (1863). Although Liebig points out how little science proceeds according to Bacon's rules, yet his other criticisms seem of extremely little value. In a very offensive and quite unjustifiable tone, which is severely commented on by See also:Sigwart and See also:Fischer, he attacks the Baconian methods and its results. These results he claims to find in the Sylva Sylvarum, entirely ignoring what Bacon himself has said of the nature of that work (N. O. i. 117; cf. Rawley's Pref. to the S. S.), and thus putting a false See also:interpretation on the experiments there noted. It is not surprising that he should detect many flaws, but he never fails to exaggerate an error, and seems sometimes completely to See also:miss the point of what Bacon says. (See particularly his remarks on S. S. 33, 336.) The method he explains in such a way as to show he has not a glimpse of its true nature. He brings against Bacon, of all men, the accusations of making induction start from the undetermined perceptions of the senses, of using imagination, and of putting a quite arbitrary interpretation on phenomena. He crowns his criticism by expounding what he considers to be the true scientific method, which, as has been pointed out by Fischer, is simply that Baconian doctrine against which his attack ought to have been directed. (See his account of the method, fiber Bacon, 47-49; K. Fischer, Bacon, pp. 499-502.)
See also: 115, 116, 329, 330. 2 See also:Whewell, Phil. of Ind. Sc. ii. 399, 402-403; See also:Ellis, Int. to Bacon's Works, i. 39, 61; Brewster, Newton, ii. 404; See also:Jevons, Princ. of Science ii. 2zo. A severe See also:judgment on Bacon's method is given in See also:Duhring's able but one-sided Kritische Gesch. d. Phil., in which the merits of Roger Bacon are brought prominently forward. 3 Although it must be admitted that the Baconian method is fairly open to the above-mentioned objections, it is curious and significant that Bacon was not thoroughly ignorant of them, but with deliberate consciousness preferred his own method. We do not think, indeed, that the notiones of which he speaks in any way correspond to what Whewell and Ellis would call " conceptions or ideas furnished by the mind of the thinker "; nor do we imagine that Bacon would have admitted these as necessary elements in the inductive process. But he was certainly not ignorant of what may be called a deductive method, and of a kind of hypothesis. This is clear from the use he makes of the Vindemiatio, from certain hints as to the testing of axioms, from his See also:admission of the syllogism into physical reasoning, and from what he calls Experientia Literata. The function of the
FRANCIS
nected system the new mode of thinking, and to the incomparable power and eloquence with which he expounded and enforced it. Like all See also:epoch-making works, the Novum Organum gave expression to ideas which were already beginning to be in the air. The time was ripe for a great change; See also:scholasticism, See also:long decaying, had begun to fall; the authority not only of school doctrines but of the See also: And if it be larger and wider, we must observe whether, by indicating to us new particulars, it confirm that wideness and largeness as by a See also:collateral security, that we may not either stick fast in things already known, or loosely grasp at shadows and abstract forms, not at things solid and realized in matter." (Cf. also the passage from Valerius Terminus, quoted in Ellis's note on the above See also:aphorism.) Of the syllogism he says, " I do not propose to give up the syllogism altogether. S. is incompetent for the principal things rather than useless for the generality. In the mathematics there is no reason why it should not be employed. It is the See also:flux of matter and the inconstancy of the physical body which requires induction, that thereby it may be fixed as it were, and allow the formation of notions well defined. In physics you wisely note, and therein I agree with you, that after the notions of the first class and the axioms concerning them have been by induction well made out and defined, syllogism may be applied safely; only it must be restrained from leaping at once to the most general notions, and progress must be made through a fit See also:succession of steps."—(" Letter to Baranzano," Letters and Life, vii. 377). And with this may be compared what he says of mathematics (Nov. Org. ii. 8; Parasceve, vii.). In his account of Experientia Literate (De Aug. v. 2) he comes very near to the modern mode of experimental research. It is, he says, the procedure from one experiment to another, and it is not a science but an See also:art or learned sagacity (resembling in this Aristotle's &'Xivoia), which may, however, be enlightened by the precepts of the Interpretatio. Eight varieties of such experiments are enumerated, and a comparison is drawn between this and the inductive method ; " though the rational method of inquiry by the See also:Organon promises far greater things in the end, yet this sagacity, proceeding by learned experience, will in the meantime present mankind with a number of inventions which See also:lie near at hand." (Cf. N. O. i. 103.) 4 See the vigorous passage in See also:Herschel, Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy, § 105; cf. § 96 of the same work.. 5 Bacon himself seems to anticipate that the progress of science would of itself render his method antiquated (Nov. Org. i. 130). 6 Nov. Org. i. 127. See also:positive spirit of his System. Theological questions, which had tortured the minds of generations, are by him relegated from the See also:province of reason to that of faith. Even reason must be restrained from striving after ultimate truth; it is one of the errors of the human See also:intellect that it will not See also:rest in general principles, but must push its investigations deeper. Experience and observation are the only remedies against See also:prejudice and error. Into questions of metaphysics, as commonly under-stood, Bacon can hardly be said to have entered, but a long See also:line of thinkers have drawn See also:inspiration from him, and it is not without justice that he has been looked upon as the originator and guiding spirit of what is known as the empirical school. Bacon's Influence.—It is impossible within our limits to do more than indicate the influence which Bacon's views have had on subsequent thinkers. The most valuable and complete discussion of the subject is contained in T. Fowler's edition of the Novum Organum (introd. § 14). It is there argued that, both in philosophy and in natural science, Bacon's influence was immediate and lasting. Under the former head it is pointed out (i.) that the fundamental principle of See also:Locke's See also:Essay, that all our ideas are product of sensation and reflection, is briefly stated in the first aphorism of the Novum Organum, and (ii.) that the whole See also:atmosphere of that treatise is characteristic of the Essay. Bacon is, therefore, regarded by many as the See also:father of what is most characteristic in English psychological See also:speculation. As he himself said, he " rang the See also:bell which called the wits.together." In the See also:sphere of See also:ethics he is similarly regarded as a forerunner of the empirical method. The spirit of the'De Augmentis (bk. vii.) and the inductive method which is discussed in the Novum Organum are at the See also:root of all theories which have constructed a moral code by an inductive examination of human consciousness and the results of actions. Among such theories utilitarian-ism especially is the natural result of the application to the phenomenon of conduct of the Baconian experimental method. In this connexion, however, it is important to See also:notice that See also:Hobbes, who had been Bacon's secretary, makes no mention of Baconian induction, nor does he in any of his works make any critical reference to Bacon himself. It would, therefore, appear that Bacon's influence was not immediate. In the sphere of natural science, Bacon's importance is attested by references to his work in the writings of the principal scientists, not only English, but French, See also:German and See also:Italian. Fowler (op. cit.) has collected from Descartes, Gassendi, S. Sorbiere, Jean See also:Baptiste du Hamel, quotations which show how highly Bacon was regarded by the leaders of the new scientific See also:movement. Sorbiere, who was by no means partial to things English, definitely speaks of him as " celuy qui a le plus puissamment solicite See also:les interests de la physique, et excite le monde a faire See also:des experiences " (Relation d'un voyage en Angleterre, See also:Cologne, 1666, pp. 63-64). It was, however, See also:Voltaire and the encyclopaedists who raised Bacon to the See also:pinnacle of his fame in See also:France, and hailed him as "le Pere de la philosophic experimentale" (Lettres sur les Anglois). See also:Condillac, in the same spirit, says of him, " personae n'a mieux connu que lui la cause de nos erreurs." So the Encyclopedie, besides giving a eulogistic See also:article " Baconisme," speaks of him (in d'Alembert's preliminary discourse) as " le plus grand, le plus universel, et le plus eloquent des philosophes." Among other writers, See also:Leibnitz and See also:Huygens give testimony which is the more valuable as being critical. Leibnitz speaks of Bacon as " divini ingenii vir," and, like several other German authors, classes him with See also:Campanella; Huygens refers to his " bonnes methodes." If, however, we are to attach weight to English writers of the latter See also:half of the 17th See also:century, we shall find that one of Bacon's greatest achievements was the impetus given by his New Atlantis to the foundation of the Royal Society (q.v.). Dr See also: He argued against the tyranny of authority, the vagaries of unfettered imagination and the See also:academic aims of unpractical dialectic; the vital See also:energy and the reasoned optimism of his See also:language entirely outweigh the fact that his contributions to the stock of actual scientific knowledge were practically inconsiderable. It may be freely admitted that in the domain of logic there is nothing in the Organum that has not been more instructively analysed either by Aristotle himself or in modern works; at the same time, there is probably no work which is a better and more stimulating introduction to logical study. Its terse, epigrammatic phrases sink into the fibre of the mind, and are a healthy warning against crude, immature generalization. While, therefore, it is a profound mistake to regard Bacon as a great constructive philosopher, or even as a lonely See also:pioneer of modern thought, it is quite unfair to speak of him as a trifler. His great work consists in the fact that he summed up the faults which the widening of knowledge had disclosed in See also:medieval thought, and in this sense he stands high among those who were in many parts of 16th-century See also:Europe striving towards a new intellectual activity. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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