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CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Bacon's Life 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 Bacon's Works 29 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 Bacon's Survey of the Sciences €6 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Bacon's Reform of Scientific Method .... 80 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Bacon's Philosophical and Religious Opinions . . . 159 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 Bacon's Influence on Philosophy and Science . . . 192 
 
P BE FACE. 
 
 The object of this book is to present the character of the 
 revolution which Bacon endeavoured to effect in scientific 
 method, as well as the nature of his philosophical opinions 
 generally, in a form intelligible and interesting to readers 
 who have no technical acquaintance with logic or philo- 
 sophy. The ground-plan of Bacon's work and the leading 
 ideas with which he was inspired seem to me easily com- 
 prehensible by any person who has a general interest in 
 the history and progress of thought. And the place of 
 Bacon, standing mid -way between the old times and the 
 new, is one which cannot be neglected by any one wno is 
 desirous of informing himself of the manner in which our 
 modern ideas in science, in philosophy, and in logic have 
 grown out of those which, for so many centuries prior to the 
 Renaissance, held almost undisputed sway over the civilized 
 world. Those who are induced to go more deeply into the 
 topics treated in these chapters may be referred to my edition 
 of Bacon's Novum Organum (Oxford, at the Clarendon Press, 
 1878), and to the valuable edition of Bacon's Philosophical 
 "Works, contained in the first five volumes of Ellis and 
 Spedding's Bacon (Longmans and Co.). 
 
 To the Delegates of the Clarendon Press I have to express 
 my obligations for the free use which they have allowed me 
 to make of the Introduction and Notes to my edition of the 
 Novum Organum. I have sometimes embodied in this work 
 several pages of the Introduction, though it must, of course, 
 
 a 
 
vi PREFACE 
 
 be understood that I have only used the more popular parts of 
 it, and that the present book in no sense replaces my larger 
 work for the purposes of the professed student of logic, philo- 
 sophy, or the history of science. 
 
 To Mr. Spedding I must also express my obligations for 
 allowing me, with that courtesy and kindness which he always 
 extends to those labouring in the same fields with himself, to 
 draw the materials for my chapter on the Life of Bacon from 
 his Life and Times of Francis Bacon (Triibner and Co.) and 
 his Letters and Life of Francis Bacon (Longmans and Co.). 
 Mr. Spedding must not, however, be held responsible for every 
 remark which I have made or every inference which I have 
 drawn. But, though I have endeavoured to exercise my 
 own judgment on the facts, without slavishly following 
 Mr. Spedding' s interpretation of them, I feel bound, after 
 a careful perusal of his volumes, to express my general 
 agreement both with his conception of Bacon's character and 
 with his presentation of the principal passages in Bacon's life. 
 Notwithstanding the mass of prejudice still remaining to be 
 dissipated, I believe that his view of Bacon's personal history 
 is the one which, in the main, will ultimately prevail. 1 
 
 Lincoln College, 
 
 Jan. 25, 1881. 
 
 1 It is only fair to the reader to inform him that a different view of 
 Bacon's character and conduct from that maintained hy Mr. Spedding, 
 and generally adopted by myself, has been recently advocated by Dr. 
 Abbott in his Introduction to Bacon's Essays, in an Article in the Con- 
 temporary Review for June, 1876, and in a work on Bacon and Essex % 
 published in 1877. 
 
BACON 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Francis Bacon was born at York House in the Strand, January 
 22, 1560-1. He was the youngest son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, 
 Lord Keeper to Queen Elizabeth, by his second marriage with 
 Anne, one of the daughters of Sir Anthony Cooke, of Giddy 
 Hall, in the county of Essex, formerly tutor to Edward the 
 Sixth. One of his mother's sisters had been married, also as 
 second wife, to William Cecil, afterwards Lord Burghley. 
 Thus, the subject of this volume was not only the son of one of 
 Elizabeth's highest officers of state, but, through his mother, 
 the nephew of the most influential and the most able of all her 
 ministers. By his first marriage Sir Nicholas Bacon had a 
 numerous family, but by the second marriage he had two sons 
 only, Anthony and Francis. Anthony, the elder of the two, 
 died at an early age in 1601, and, though he was mixed up 
 a good deal with foreign affairs and seems to have been a man 
 of energetic character, never attained to any great celebrity. 
 Francis was a boy of sickly constitution, but he soon showed 
 a special aptitude for learning, being doubtless encouraged 
 and assisted therein by his mother, " a choice lady," as Rawley ' 
 
 1 Life of Bacon by his chaplain, William Rawley, prefixed to the 
 Kesusoitatio. 
 
BACON. 
 
 
 tells us, (i and eminent for piety, virtue, and learning, being 
 exquisitely skilled for a woman in the Greek and Latin 
 tongues." According to the same authority, he was, as a 
 child, specially noticed by the Queen, who would often, from 
 his gravity and the maturity of his discourse beyond his years, 
 term him " her young Lord Keeper." Being asked on one 
 occasion how old he was, he answered " that he was two years 
 younger than her Majesty's happy reign ;" with which answer, 
 we read, the Queen was much taken. 
 
 When only twelve years and three months old, in April, 
 1573, he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, residing in the 
 same rooms with his elder brother, Anthony. At Christmas, 
 1575, he quitted the University, and in the following June 
 was admitted, together with his brother, "de societate 
 magistorum," that is probably as an ancient, at Gray's Inn, 
 
 It was during Bacon's residence, as a young boy, at Cam- 
 bridge, that he was first struck with the idea of inaugurating 
 a new method in the study of Nature. He told Rawley that 
 he was only about sixteen years of age when he first fell into 
 the dislike of the philosophy of Aristotle, " not for the worth- 
 lessness of the author, to whom he would ever ascribe all high 
 attributes, but for the unfruitfulness of the way." " This," 
 says Mr. Spedding, " ought to be regarded as the most im- 
 portant event of his life ; the event which had a greater in- 
 fluence than any other upon his character and future course. 
 From that moment there was awakened within his breast the 
 appetite which cannot be satiated, and the passion which 
 Cannot commit excess. From that moment he had a vocation 
 which employed and stimulated all the energies of his mind, 
 gave a value to every vacant interval of time, an interest and 
 significance to every random thought and casual accession of 
 knowledge ; an object to live for as wide as humanity, as 
 immortal as the human race ; an idea to live in vast and lofty 
 
BACON'S LIFE. 
 
 enough to fill the soul for ever with religious and heroic aspi- 
 rations. From that moment, though still subject to inter- 
 ruptions, disappointments, errors, and regrets, lie could never 
 be without either work, or hope, or consolation." Other in- 
 fluences which Mr. Spedding supposes to have possessed Bacon's 
 mind from the first were a zeal for the reformed religion, 
 derived from his mother, and a feeling of intense loyalty and 
 patriotism, derived from his father and the political surround- 
 ings amid which he found himself in his home. 
 
 In September, 1576, young Bacon was sent out to Paris 
 w r ith Sir Amias Paulet, who had just been appointed Ambas- 
 sador to the Court of France. That country was then the 
 theatre of stirring events, and Bacon had ample opportunities 
 of witnessing the effects of misgovernment and civil dissen- 
 sions. He visited several of the provinces, and seems to have 
 made good use of his eyes and ears. In the spring of 1578-9, 
 he returned to England, bearing with him a despatch from 
 Sir Amias Paulet to the Queen, in which he was mentioned 
 as " of great hope, endued with many good and singular parts," 
 and one who, " if God gave him life, would prove a very able 
 and sufficient subject to do her Highness good and acceptable 
 service."" Shortly before his return, and while he was still at 
 Paris, he had one of those curious dreams which, if they har- 
 monize with any subsequent event, are remembered all our 
 lives, if not, are speedily forgotten. He dreamt that his 
 father's house in the country was plastered all over with black 
 mortar. About this very time his father was seized with a 
 sudden illness, of which he soon afterwards died. It is said 
 that Sir Nicholas Bacon had intended to purchase a large 
 estate for his younger son, but the transaction had not been 
 effected, and, when Francis returned to England, it was to 
 find that his fortune was so insufficient, that he must at once 
 turn to some remunerative employment. He naturally took 
 
 B 2 
 
BACON. 
 
 to the Bar, and spent the next few years in the quiet study of 
 the law. On June 27, 1582, he was admitted an Utter 
 Barrister of Gray's Inn, a position, however, which did not at 
 that time confer the right to practise. In or about the follow- 
 ing 1 year he composed his first essay on the Installation of 
 Philosophy, to which he gave the name of Temjjoris Partus 
 Maximus. At the age, therefore, at which most young men 
 now leave the University, Bacon had already begun the great 
 work of his life, the attack on the existing systems and 
 methods of science, with a view to the advancement of man's 
 knowledge and power. 
 
 In the Parliament which met in November, 1584, when 
 the nation was in a white heat on the question of the main- 
 tenance of the Protestant religion and the Protestant succes- 
 sion, Bacon was returned to the House of Commons for the 
 borough of Melcombe in Dorsetshire, having been also returned 
 by Burghley for Gatton. In the next Parliament, which met 
 in October, 1586, just after sentence had been passed by the 
 Commissioners on Mary Queen of Scots, he sat for Taunton, 
 and is mentioned by D'Ewes as one of the speakers, on the 
 4th of November, on the " Great Cause/' Except the fact, 
 however, that he spoke on the popular side, we know nothing 
 of this speech. In the same year (1586), he became a bencher 
 of Gray's Inn, and thus acquired the right to practise before 
 the Courts at Westminster. At this time, therefore, when he 
 was hardly twenty-six years of age, we may regard him as 
 fairly started on his career, both as a lawyer and a politician. 
 
 In the Parliament which met on February 4, 1588-9, Bacon 
 sat for Liverpool, and his rising importance is now attested 
 by the frequent appearance of his name in the Journals. There 
 is evidence to show that he was also employed in drawing 
 State-papers. It was probably in the year 1591 that he first 
 formed the acquaintance with Essex, which soon ripened into so 
 
BACON'S LIFE. 5 
 
 extraordinary an intimacy. Besides the common tastes and 
 interests which bound them together, Bacon thought that he 
 discovered in Essex the highest hopes of future service to his 
 country. " I held at that time/' he wrote fourteen years after- 
 wards, " my Lord to be the fittest instrument to do good to the 
 State ; and therefore I applied myself to Him in a manner 
 which I think happeneth rarely among men/'' That Bacon's 
 friendship with Essex was a sincere one, whatever we may 
 think of their subsequent relations, there can be no doubt. It 
 was also about this time that, eager to obtain some position 
 which would enable him freely to follow his favourite pursuits, 
 he used, in a letter to Burghley, the celebrated expression, "I 
 have taken all knowledge to be my province." The oppor- 
 tunity of leisure which he so earnestly coveted never came till 
 the last few years of his life, and the best of the work which 
 he did for science and letters was executed amidst the 
 struggles or the duties of his professional career. Mr. Sped- 
 ding conjectures that it was in January or February, 1592-3, 
 that Bacon was encouraged to write Observations on a Libel 
 published this present year y 1592, the libel being an invec- 
 tive against the Queen and Government, supposed to have 
 been written by Father Parsons, the Jesuit. It was about 
 this time also that he was elected knight of the shire for the 
 County of Middlesex, in the Parliament which met on the 
 19th of February. In this Parliament he distinguished him- 
 self by his independence, heading the resistance of the 
 Commons to* a proposal of the Lords that they should take 
 part in the deliberations on Supply, a resistance which re- 
 quired some courage on his part, as his powerful relation, the 
 Lord Treasurer Burghley, was the spokesman of the Lords. 
 He also demurred to the largely increased taxation which, in 
 their fear of a foreign invasion, this Parliament imposed upon 
 the people. Considering the absolute submission which the 
 
6 BACON. 
 
 Court then expected from its followers, we are hardly sur- 
 prised to find that Bacon's conduct resulted in his exclusion- 
 from the Queen's presence. Her displeasure was, however, 
 partly removed through the intervention of Essex, and, for 
 some time, Bacon, whose private affairs were sadly in want of 
 the relief which some lucrative appointment might afford him, 
 fed himself on the hope, — vain as it turned out, — first of the 
 post of Attorney, and then, when that was given to Coke, of 
 Solicitor-General. His speeches on the Subsidy Bill could 
 not be altogether forgiven, though Elizabeth, as was her 
 wont, long encouraged the suits which, from the first pro- 
 bably, she had no intention of granting. Coke, too, when he 
 became Attorney- General, probably used his influence against 
 Bacon's appointment to the Solicitorship. At one time, sick 
 with hope deferred, Bacon, writing to Essex, expresses his in ; 
 tention, "If her Majesty reject me, this to do. I will retire 
 myself with a couple of men to Cambridge, and there spend 
 my life in my studies and contemplations, without looking 
 back." It might have been well, perhaps, for his own reputa- 
 tion and the cause of learning, had he carried out this project. 
 We should never have heard of him as Lord Chancellor, but we 
 should have been spared the many controversies with which 
 our literature is still perplexed, as to the morality of his 
 public life; and his " new instrument" for advancing the 
 sciences, instead of being a fragment, would probably have 
 been complete. But, though it was part of Elizabeth's plan 
 to punish Bacon, she had by no means made up her mind to 
 let her " watch-candle," as she used to call him, go quite out. 
 Accordingly, by employing, him on some state business, she 
 contrived to shed on him one ray from the light of her coun- 
 tenance, just sufficient to retain him in her service, and to 
 leave it open to herself to make future use of him, if it should 
 •ever so please her. During this time of waiting, his pecuniary 
 
BACON'S LIFE. 
 
 necessities were supplied by Anthony, who was always ready, 
 without grudging 1 or murmuring, not only to spend his own 
 substance, but to contract debts for the sake of his younger 
 brother. After the Solicitorship was definitely given to 
 Serjeant Fleming, Essex presented him with a piece of land 
 (which he doubtless mortgaged), and the Crown also granted 
 him the lease of certain lands at Twickenham in reversion, so 
 that he was probably able in some measure to satisfy the 
 importunity of his creditors. 
 
 Bacon seems now to have betaken himself mainly to literary 
 woik. In 1597 appeared the Essays in their earliest 
 shape, being only ten in number, and being bound up in the 
 same volume (a small octavo) with the Medilationes Sacra 
 and the Colours of Good and Evil (or, as they are called in 
 .the original edition, Places of Persuasion and JJissuasion). 
 To about the same period we ought probably to refer several of 
 the ojouscula, which were afterwards either incorporated 
 into his philosophical works or laid by as incomplete. And, 
 in the Christmas holidays of 1596, he presented the Queen 
 with a specimen of a work which he purposed to write on The 
 Maxims of the Law, as if by way of showing that he was not 
 forgetting the claims on him of his own profession. This 
 work was never finished. 
 
 If we except the active part which Bacon took in the legal 
 reforms enacted by the Parliament of 1597, and his arrest for 
 debt, while returning from an examination at the Tower, in 
 1598, nothing of sufficient importance in his life to be re- 
 counted in this brief biography took place between the pub- 
 lication of the Essays and the arraignment of Essex for High 
 Treason in February, 1G00-1. Into this unhappy subject, 
 beyond the barest and briefest notice, it is not my intention 
 or my province to enter. After the return of Essex, contrary 
 to express orders, from his unsuccessful expedition into 
 
8 BACON. 
 
 Ireland, and his confinement on the suspicion of harbour- 
 ing treasonable designs against the Government, Bacon, 
 who had now for some time been restored to access, advised 
 the Queen to make matters up with him privately, and 
 " restore him to his former attendance, with some addition of 
 honour to take away discontent." Already, however, in 
 popular estimation he was supposed to be using his influence 
 with tke Queen not for but against his former patron, and in 
 consequence he was exposed to the popular wrath, which, as 
 Mr. Spedding says, ''gathered with a fury proportioned to its 
 ignorance."" From that time to this it has been common to 
 speak of Bacon's base ingratitude towards his friend and bene- 
 factor. If it be true, however, that, while unconscious of the 
 real nature of Essex's plans, he had endeavoured to shield him 
 and effect his reconciliation with the Queen, and had even in- 
 curred the Royal displeasure by doing so, but that, when con- 
 vinced that the Earl had long been meditating overt acts of 
 treason, of which indeed the mad and wicked attempt to raise 
 the city no longer left any doubt, he felt his duty to the 
 Throne and the peace and well-being of the country had claims 
 on him superior to those of private friendship, I confess that I 
 can see no sufficient reason for the persistent and bitter attacks 
 upon his honour and character which it has been the fashion 
 to make. And that this is the true history of the transaction, 
 Mr. Spedding' s narrative, I think, abundantly proves. We 
 may deeply regret, as no doubt Bacon himself did, that cir- 
 cumstances forced him to take a part so hostile to his former 
 friend, but as tl one of her Majesty's Counsel Learned in the 
 Law," at that time a very small body, and forming, as Mr. 
 Spedding says, "a sort of legal body-guard " to the Queen, 
 he had really no alternative, short of virtually declaring his 
 own sympathy and complicity with treason, but to engage in 
 the prosecution of Essex and Southampton. And, having 
 
BACON'S LIFE. 
 
 once engaged in the prosecution, it was clearly his duty to 
 perform his task to the very best of his ability. We may 
 well believe, as he tells us himself, that " he had spent more 
 time in vain in studying how to make the Earl a good servant 
 to the Queen and State, than he had done in anything else." 
 And yet, when he had wholly and hopelessly failed in this 
 effort, we can understand how, without any singular baseness 
 or ingratitude, he might come to place his services unreservedly 
 at the disposal of the Crown. 
 
 Essex was condemned, Bacon having undoubtedly taken a 
 more effective part in the trial than did Coke, the Attorney- 
 General, who, indeed, exhibited much incompetence. Before 
 his execution, he confessed quite enough, and more than 
 enough, to justify his sentence, But there was still much 
 popular feeling on his side, and, hence, it was thought desir- 
 able that an authentic narrative of the conspiracy should be 
 put forth by authority. Bacon was commanded by the Queen 
 to prepare a draft of this document, but it was afterwards sub- 
 mitted to "certain principal Councillors," and " perused, 
 weighed, censured, altered, and made almost a new writing, 
 according to their Lordships' better consideration ; " after 
 which it was " exactly perused by the Queen herself, and 
 some alterations made again by her appointment." The 
 responsibility, therefore, for the Declaration of the Practices 
 and Treasons attempted and committed by Robert, late Earl 
 of Essex, in the form which it ultimately assumed, rests 
 with the Queen and her Ministers, and not with Bacon, whose 
 share in it was simply ministerial. 
 
 In the spring of 1601, Bacon lost his brother Anthony, 
 witli whom he had always lived on the most cordial and 
 affectionate terms. On March 21, 1602-3, the last day of 
 the old year according to the then reckoning, Elizabeth herself 
 died, and was succeeded by James I. Bacon at once tendered 
 
10 BACON. 
 
 his services to the new king, and was continued "of the 
 Learned Counsel in such manner as before he was to the 
 Queen." He did not, however, receive any promotion, for as 
 James, true to the prudent and wary character of his country- 
 men, expressed himself, "Every new king ought at least to 
 let a year and a day pass before he makes any innovation." 
 Two days before the Coronation, Bacon received, with three 
 hundred others, the cheap honour of knighthood, his wish that 
 " the manner might be such as might grace him, since the 
 matter will not," being thus disappointed. At this time 
 he seems to have possessed considerable leisure, and to have 
 devoted himself to reflecting and writing on his favourite 
 idea, the interpretation of nature or the extension of the 
 kingdom of man. Quite sincerely, I believe, in a letter to his 
 cousin, Robert Cecil, he says : " My ambition now I shall 
 only put upon my pen, whereby I shall be able to maintain 
 memory and merit of the times succeeding." And the ambi- 
 tion was no mean one. For, in a paper written about this 
 time, he proposes to himself no less a task than to " kindle a 
 light in nature — a light which shall in its very rising touch 
 and illuminate all the border-regions that confine upon the 
 circle of our present knowledge ; and so spreading further and 
 further shall presently disclose and bring into sight all that is 
 most hidden and secret in the world." The man who should 
 succeed in accomplishing this work, he truly says, " would 
 be the benefactor indeed of the human race, the propagator of 
 man's empire over the universe, the champion of liberty, the 
 conqueror and subduer of necessities." And why should he 
 not be the man ? For he believed that he " was born for the 
 service of mankind," and he found by experience that he 
 " was fitted for nothing so well as the study of Truth." He 
 had indeed, at one time, " applied himself to acquire the arts 
 of civil life," " hoping that, if he rose to any place of honour 
 
BACON'S LIFE. u 
 
 in the State, he should have a larger command of industry and 
 ability to help him in his work," and, moreover, that he 
 " might get something done too for the good of men's souls •/' 
 but finding that u his zeal was mistaken for ambition, and 
 that his life had already reached the turning-point," he "put 
 all those thoughts aside, and" (in pursuance of his old deter- 
 mination) " betook himself wholly to this work." It was above 
 all things important, if possible, to interest the king in his 
 designs, and this he thought he could most effectually do by 
 presenting him with a general survey and criticism of the 
 existing stock of knowledge. Hence, probably, the origin of 
 the two books of the Proficience and Advancement of 
 Learning, the first of which was apparently written in 1603, 
 though the work was not published till 1605. 
 
 But, though mainly engaged in attempting to carry out hi& 
 grand design of subduing nature to the service of man, Bacon 
 did not wholly withdraw from affairs of State. Thus, he pre- 
 sented the king with a Discourse Touching the Happy Union of 
 the Kingdoms of England and Scotland, in which he insinuated 
 that much might be left to time, as in the more perfect unions 
 effected by nature, and again with Considerations Touching the 
 better Pacification and Edification of the Church of England, 
 in which he counselled a wide toleration of differences. He 
 was, however, at this time little employed by the Court either 
 in political or legal business. 
 
 In 1604 appeared the Apology concerning the late Earl 
 of Essex, of the reception of which we have no information. 
 Bacon seems to have taken a considerable share in the busi- 
 ness of James' first parliament, to have been placed on many 
 of the committees of the House of Commons, and sometimes- 
 to have acted as its spokesman, from all which circumstances 
 we may infer his general popularity at that time. When the 
 
 Commissioners for considering: the union of the two kin 
 
 o 
 
 »g" 
 
12 BACON. 
 
 doms were appointed, his name was proposed first. He was 
 also employed to draw up an analysis of all the questions that 
 would have to be dealt with for the king's information, and, 
 moreover, was entrusted, by his fellow-commissioners on the 
 English side, with the charge of digesting the articles of the 
 resolutions into their ultimate form. Notwithstanding, how- 
 ever, his parliamentary position, his reputation, and his 
 connexions, he was again passed over for the Solicitorship, the 
 reason not improbably being that he and Coke, who was then 
 Attorney, could not work together. In 1606, being then in 
 his forty-seventh year, he married Alice Barnham, an alder- 
 man's daughter, " an handsome maiden," and " to his liking."" 
 At his wedding, we read that he was " clad from top to toe in 
 purple." Of his domestic life we hear nothing, and may 
 therefore infer that it was peaceable, if not happy. On June 
 25, 1607, he was at last promoted to the Solicitor-General- 
 ship, an office the value of which was then reckoned at about 
 1000/. a year. It was probably about this time that he finally 
 settled the jplan of the Great Inst duration, and began to 
 call it by that name. The Cogitata et Visa, which con- 
 tains the substance of the first book of the Novum Organum, 
 must have been composed as early as the sunimer or autumn 
 of 1607, and, if we may ; ccept literally what Rawley tells us 
 of this latter work — namely, that he had himself seen at least 
 twelve revisions of it, " revised year by year, one after 
 another/' we must fix the year 1608 as the time at which 
 Bacon probably began to compose the Novum Organum itself, 
 It will be seen, therefore, that his legal promotion in no way 
 impaired his literary activity or his philosophical ardour. 
 Writing to his friend Toby Matthew, and speaking of the 
 Great Instaurafion, he says : " Of this I can assure you, that, 
 though many things of great hope decay with youth (and 
 multitude of civil businesses is wont to diminish the price, 
 
BACON'S LIFE. 13 
 
 though not the delight, of contemplations), yet the proceeding 
 in this work doth gain with me upon my affection and desire, 
 both by years and businesses." In addition to his appoint- 
 ment to the Solicitorship, he, at this time, had a wind-fall from 
 the death of Mylle, Clerk to the Star-Chamber, to the rever- 
 sion of which place, valued at 20007. a year, he had been 
 appointed, through the interest of Burghley, as long ago as 
 1589. Bacon was now a wealthy man for those times, his 
 annual income amounting, according to his own calculation, 
 to over 4500/. a year, even when the interest on his debts 
 was paid. About the end of 1609, came out the Be Sapientia 
 Veterum, one of his smallest, but one of his most finished 
 works. Of the ideas which this work is intended to illustrate, 
 I shall have to speak in the next chapter. The following year 
 Bacon took a prominent part in the debates in Parliament on 
 questions touching the royal prerogative, his attitude being 
 usually a mediatory one. While never backward to join in 
 urging particular grievances, he was always cautious not to 
 attack the king's prerogative in theory, and hence he was 
 selected as likely to be an acceptable spokesman, when their 
 long list of gravamina was presented by the Commons to the 
 king on the 7th of July. It would not, perhaps, be too much 
 to say that Bacon had now become the leading member of the 
 House of Commons, and that he was trusted both by the 
 Court and by the popular party. 
 
 After ineffectual attempts at accommodation between the 
 king and the Commons, Parliament was dissolved on February 
 29,1610-11. During the period of repose which followed the 
 dissolution, Bacon probably composed the new Essays which, 
 together with the old ones corrected and enlarged, appeared 
 in the edition of 1612. This was, by no means, the final form 
 which the Essays, as known to us, assumed ; for many further 
 additions were made in the edition of 1625. But, as Mr. 
 
l 4 BACON. 
 
 Spedding says, " the character o£ the work was henceforth 
 established, and its immortality secure." At this time also, 
 he was again busy with the development of the Great Install- 
 ration. Early in 1611, he appears to have obtained directly 
 from the king the promise of the Attorney- Generalship, when 
 it should next fall vacant. It is curious that his powerful 
 cousin, Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, should rather have 
 stood in the way of his preferment than have afforded him any 
 assistance. Perhaps he suspected that his cousin would be a 
 dangerous rival, if he should obtain too near access to the king. 
 Salisbury died on the 24th May, 1612, and, though Bacon 
 was unsuccessful in his efforts to succeed him as Principal 
 Secretary of State, that is to say, as Prime Minister, he hence- 
 forth took an important position in the king's counsels, and, 
 it must be acknowledged, spoke very freely of the policy of his 
 late cousin. On October 28, 1613, he was appointed Attorney- 
 General, several other legal promotions taking place at the 
 same time in consequence of the death of Chief Justice 
 Fleming. It is interesting to notice that one of Bacon's first 
 cares in his new office was an attempt to put a stop to duelling, 
 the practice of which among the upper classes had now become 
 very frequent. In the new Parliament, which assembled in 
 the spring of 1614, he was returned for three constituencies, 
 but elected to sit for his old University of Cambridge. An 
 objection was taken to this return, on the ground that, as 
 Attorney- General, he was ineligible, and a committee was 
 appointed to search for precedents. No precedent exactly to 
 the point was found ; for, though the last Attorney- General 
 had sat in the last Parliament, he was not Attorney-General 
 when elected. It was decided that, though the present 
 Attorney- General should continue to sit in the present Parlia- 
 ment, no one holding the office should be eligible in future. 
 Thus the objection, in all probability, arose not from any per- 
 
BACON'S LIFE. 15 
 
 sonal dislike of Bacon, but from the growing jealousy of the 
 power of the Crown. It was, however, an evil omen, and 
 this Parliament, after a short and stormy existence, was soon 
 dissolved. That Bacon had any share in advising the disso- 
 lution seems to be improbable. He appears to have possessed 
 the confidence of the House, and such an event as an angry 
 parting between the king and the Commons was at variance 
 with all that we know of his wishes and policy. 
 
 In 1615 occurred the examination and trial of Edmund 
 Peacham, a Puritan clergyman, for High Treason. Bacon, 
 with other ministers and law officers of the Crown, took part 
 in examining him under torture and in attempting, previously 
 to the trial, to obtain the opinion of the Judges on the 
 chances of a conviction. Both practices are abhorrent to our 
 modern notions of justice, but, if we except the fact that the 
 opinion of the Judges was taken individually instead of as a 
 body, there was nothing in the proceedings contrary to the 
 usages or sentiments of those times, and the whole case owes 
 its present celebrity to the fact that Bacon's name is connected 
 with it. 
 
 In the spring of 1615-16, Lord Ellesmere being then dan- 
 gerously ill, Bacon appears to have received a promise of the 
 Chancellorship, but, subsequently, in reply to an application 
 to be made at once a member of the Privy Council, the king 
 seems to have given him his choice between the reversion of 
 the Chancellorship and the immediate concession of his request. 
 Bacon, eager to be in a position at once to give the king re- 
 sponsible advice, selected the less ambitious alternative, and 
 was sworn in as a Councillor on June 9, 1616. About this 
 time, as indeed often before, he was anxious to effect a codifi- 
 cation of the laws, but, like so many efforts of the same kind 
 since, his project was unfortunately doomed to disappointment. 
 On March G, 1616-17, Lord Ellesmere, who had long been 
 
16 BACON. 
 
 desirous of escaping from the cares of office, was allowed to 
 resign the Great Seal, which was given, on the following day, 
 to Bacon, with the title of Lord Keeper. The procession 
 which attended him, two months afterwards, when he went to 
 take his seat in the Court of Chancery, seems to have been an 
 unusually large one. Besides his own servants, the Judges, 
 and the Inns of Court, " he was accompanied by most of the 
 nobility, with other gallants, to the number of more than 200 
 horse." The appointment was, no doubt, largely due to Villiers, 
 who was now Earl of Buckingham and the prime favourite at 
 Court. There soon, however, broke out a serious difference be- 
 tween the Lord Keeper and the favourite, on account of Bacon's 
 opposition to a marriage between Villiers , brother and the 
 daughter of Sir Edward Coke. The king, of course, took the 
 side of his favourite, and it was only after many apologies and 
 explanations that his displeasure, as well as that of Bucking- 
 ham, was removed. Into these circumstances, and generally 
 into the differences between Bacon and Coke, who were cer- 
 tainly by no means well affected towards each other, it is not 
 necessary that, in so brief a biography as this, I should enter. 
 It is enough to say that, in his opposition to Coke, I believe 
 Bacon, even where he may have been mistaken, to have been 
 actuated by the belief that he was doing what was best for the 
 interests of the king and the country. In politics he was by 
 nature a Conservative, and was sincerely of opinion that it was 
 desirable to maintain, in theory, the royal prerogative, though, 
 in practice, he was always ready to stay or moderate its exercise. 
 On January 4, 1617-18, Bacon's title was raised from that 
 of Lord Keeper to that of Lord Chancellor, and on the 12th 
 of July following he was created Baron Verulam of Yerulam. 
 By the name of Lord Verulam, doubtless, and not by the 
 vulgar misnomer of Lord Bacon, he expected to be known to 
 posterity. As posterity, however, has insisted upon calling 
 
 J' 
 
BACON'S LIFE. 17 
 
 him by his surname, it is best to speak of him as Francis 
 Bacon, thus distinguishing him from his almost equally illus- 
 trious namesake, Roger Bacon, and avoiding the use of a title 
 which he never bore. 
 
 The most important event of the year 1618 was the execu- 
 tion of Sir Walter Raleigh. Had it not been for the celebrity 
 and accomplishments of the offender, and the strength of 
 English antipathy to Spain, probably no one would have been 
 found to question the justice of the sentence. To burn a town 
 belonging to a friendly power, and massacre the inhabitants, is 
 an act which, according to the usages of all civilized nations, can 
 only be atoned for by the capital punishment of the principal 
 offenders. But popular sympathy both at the time and sub- 
 sequently has been with the culprit. Bacon, as one of the 
 Council, advised the execution, and a large share in the respon- 
 sibility attaching to the Declaration, by which the execution 
 was afterwards justified, must no doubt be attributed to him. 
 There is no evidence, however, that either in his advice or in 
 his contribution to the Declaration he acted otherwise than as 
 became the principal law officer of the Crown, or as any other 
 conscientious person in his place, fully acquainted with all the 
 circumstances of the case, would have acted. 
 
 On the 12th of October, 1620, the Novum Organum, the 
 first instalment of the Instauratio Mag?ia i at which Bacon 
 had been working during so large a portion of his life and 
 which was always the interest he had most at heart, was ready 
 for distribution. In a private letter to the king, accompany- 
 ing a present of the book, he says that he has " been about 
 some such work near thirty years," and describes it as " no 
 more but a new logic, teaching to invent and judge by induc- 
 tion, and thereby to make philosophy and science both more 
 true and more active." He is " ambitious that, alter these 
 beginnings, and the wheel once set on going, men shall suck 
 
 Q 
 
18 BACON. 
 
 more truth out of Christian pens than hitherto they have done 
 out of heathen." The king replied in a most gracious letter, 
 in which he expressed his resolution to read through the book 
 with care and attention, " though I should steal some hours 
 from my sleep; having otherwise as little spare time to read 
 it as you had to write it." It was not only as a compliment 
 that Bacon had presented a copy of the Novum Organum to 
 the king. He hoped to interest him in the work of building 
 up the sciences, and to obtain his aid in collecting from various 
 quarters the materials on which the new method was to pro- 
 ceed. In acknowledging the king's letter, he says: "this 
 comfortable beginning makes me hope further, that your 
 Majesty will be aiding to me, in setting men on work for the 
 collecting of a natural and experimental history ; which is 
 basis totius negoiii." At this time he was at the zenith of his 
 power and reputation. His greatest work had just been 
 published, and, as a lawyer and statesman, he was evidently in 
 high favour at Court, as well as, to all appearance, fairly popu- 
 lar throughout the country. On January 27,1620-1, he was 
 created Viscount St. Alban, " with all the ceremonies of robes 
 and coronet." This he appears to have regarded as the summit 
 of the dignities which he was likely to attain. " This is the 
 eighth rise or reach, a diapason in music, ever a good number 
 and accord for a close. And so I may without superstition be 
 buried in St. Alban's habit or vestment." 
 
 The storm, however, which was to wreck the Chancellor's 
 fortunes was now gathering. Parliament met on the 30th of 
 January. At first, everything went on smoothly ; but the 
 attention of the House of Commons was soon directed to the 
 question of Patents or Monopolies, one of the standing griev- 
 ances of that time. The House, however, had no desire to 
 quarrel with the king, and hence the attack was diverted from 
 him to the Referees who had approved one of the most un- 
 
BACON'S LIFE. 19 
 
 popular of these patents, that of Sir Giles Monperson for Inns. 
 The patent had been referred to two sets of Referees, one for 
 matter in law, the other for the point of conveniency. Of the 
 former set of Referees, Bacon was the principal, and it was soon 
 evident that he was the person on whom the House, which was 
 now under the leadership of Coke, was disposed to fix the respon- 
 sibility of having given evil counsel to the king. But, before he 
 had the opportunity of defending himself against any formal ac- 
 cusation as to his advice in the matter of monopolies, another 
 and more serious charge was brought against him. The Com- 
 mittee of Grievances had already begun to turn their attention 
 to the subject of abuses in the Courts of Justice, when, on the 
 14th of March, 1620-1, one Christopher Awbry presented a 
 petition to the House charging the Chancellor with taking 
 money, while a suit was still in progress. This petition was 
 referred to the Committee, and was soon followed by another, 
 either emanating from or based on the information of a dis- 
 appointed suitor in a case of arbitration, who, though he had 
 made Bacon a handsome present for the purpose of buying a 
 suit of hangings for York House, had failed to obtain a deci- 
 sion in his favour. On the strength of these two cases, the 
 Committee reported to the House that they had found mattei 
 for a charge of corruption against the Lord Chancellor. A 
 few days afterwards, the Commons sent word to the Lords 
 that they had "found abuses in certain eminent persons," 
 and desired a conference. The result was that the Lords at 
 once, and with great readiness, undertook to inquire into the 
 case. They appointed three committees of four, with " power 
 to take examinations of all points generally concerning this 
 business." But, though the examination of witnesses was to 
 take place in open court, the accused was apparently to have 
 no power of cross-examination, or of excepting to the witnesses. 
 Hence, as Mr, Spedding says, " we probably know the worst 
 
 c 2 
 
20 BACON, 
 
 of one side of the case, whatever obscurity may still rest upon 
 it from the non-rep resentation," except by Bacon's subsequent 
 confession, "of the other." Almost immediately after the 
 constitution of the Committees, new cases were sent up from 
 the Commons, and it was soon apparent to Bacon that the 
 sentence must go against him. The only question for him 
 was how and how far he could procure a mitigation of the 
 penalties. At first, he seems to have hoped to escape with a 
 general submission and the resignation of the Great Seal, so 
 avoiding the ignominy of a formal sentence. " If it be reforma- 
 tion that is sought/'' he says in a letter to the king, " the 
 very taking away the seal, upon my general submission, will 
 be as much in example for these four hundred years as any 
 further severity." But the Lords were not in a frame of mind 
 to be content either with a general submission or with the 
 resignation of his office. Notwithstanding the evident wish 
 of the prince and Buckingham that the House should accept 
 Bacon's offer, it was resolved that the confession was not full 
 enough, and must be framed so as to correspond with the 
 particular charges. He was allowed, however, after a division, 
 to reply by letter instead of in person. On the 30th of April, 
 the " Confession and humble Submission of me, the Lord 
 Chancellor," was delivered to the Lord Chief Justice, and read 
 in the House. In this document, he says : " Descending 
 into my own conscience, and calling my memory to account 
 so far as I am able, I do plainly and ingenuously confess that 
 I am guilty of corruption ; and do renounce all defence, and 
 put myself upon the grace and mercy of your Lordships." He 
 then deals with the particular charges, twenty-eight in num- 
 ber, making, so far as we can judge, a full and candid state- 
 ment of his exact degree of guilt in each case. Most of the 
 presents had been received after the causes had been decided 
 and without any antecedent promise, but some had undoubtedly 
 
BACON'S LIFE. 21 
 
 been madependente lite. The latter might properly be regarded 
 as bribes ; the former, though not, properly speaking, bribes, 
 savoured unpleasantly of corruption. There is undoubtedly a 
 difference between making a present to a judge while a case is 
 pending and after it has been determined, and, in the some- 
 what analogous case of elections to the House of Commons, 
 our present law tolerates many practices after an election 
 which would be deemed corrupt while the election is proceeding. 
 But the practice of receiving presents from successful suitors, 
 to say nothing of the advantage which it would give to the 
 rich, would soon lead to express or tacit understandings be- 
 tween the judge and the parties to the suit, and so would come 
 to be bribery in another and perhaps a more dangerous form. 
 It is superfluous to say that any judge at the present day, who 
 accepted a gift from a successful suitor after the termination 
 of the suit, an almost incredible supposition, would, if dis- 
 covered, never be permitted to execute his office again. But, 
 in Bacon's time, the stream of English justice did not run so 
 pure as it does now, and even the ethical theory generally 
 prevalent on these subjects was probably very different from 
 what it is amongst us. As he himself says, the taking of 
 gifts by persons in high places w r as one of the abuses of the 
 time, one of the vitia temporis rather thaa the vltia hominis. 
 Bacon, of course, ought to have been superior to the temptation 
 and to have set in his practice an example which, no doubt, 
 his unbiassed intellect would have sternly dictated in theory. 
 But, unfortunately, he was always in want of money. He 
 seems never to have recovered from the embarrassment caused 
 by the narrow circumstances in which he was accidentally left 
 by his father, and his expenditure, including the interest on 
 his loans, appears to have been almost invariably in excess of 
 his income. This circumstance may explain, though it does not 
 excuse, the weakness to which he yielded. That weakness, 
 
22 BACON. 
 
 even if we admit his own statement (and I can see no reason 
 why we should not) that he had never allowed any bribe or 
 reward to influence his decisions, I should not hesitate to call a 
 crime. But at the same time I cannot but think that it is a 
 crime for which, when we take into consideration the habits 
 and sentiments of the age, posterity has exacted far too severe 
 a penalty. 
 
 The Lords, of course, after Bacon's own confession, had no 
 alternative but to find him guilty. The verdict was agreed 
 to unanimously. But as to the sentence there was much 
 difference of opinion. What may be called the Court party, 
 including the prince and Buckingham, advocated the more 
 lenient course, while what may be called the popular party 
 was in favour of severity. The sentence at last agreed upon 
 was that he should pay 40,000/. as fine and ransom, that he 
 should be imprisoned in the Tower during the king's pleasure, 
 that he should be for ever incapable of holding any office, 
 place, or emolument in the State or Commonwealth, and that 
 he should never sit again in Parliament or come within the 
 verge of the Court. The Lord Admiral, that is, Buckingham, 
 is alone entered as dissentient. The sentence was delivered 
 with all due solemnity in presence of the Commons, but Bacon 
 himself was absent on account of grievous sickness. However 
 hard the sentence may have been in the particular instance, 
 it at least had the good effect of stopping from that day 
 forward all pecuniary transactions between judges and suitors. 
 
 Bacon's committal to the Tower was for a time deferred by 
 his sickness, but, to satisfy the Lords, some of whom were 
 beginning to be impatient for the execution of their sentence, 
 he was actually imprisoned for about a couple of nights. The 
 fine was never exacted, and indeed, being the first charge on 
 his estate, served to protect him from other creditors. In 
 accordance with that clause of the sentence which banished 
 
BACON'S LIFE. 23 
 
 him from the verge of the Court, he retired to Gorhambury 
 on the 23rd of June. He was now at leisure, unwelcome as 
 was the form in which that leisure had come, to devote him- 
 self to his favourite studies and to develope his cherished idea 
 of an instauration of the sciences. And to this work he seems 
 to have intended henceforth mainly to give his time, but, 
 from the loss of official income, he was now sore pressed by 
 pecuniary cares. In his embarrassment, he turned naturally 
 and rightfully enough to the king, on whom he had many 
 claims, and, probably by way of showing his readiness to 
 undertake work which James would appreciate, he composed, 
 during the Long Vacation of 1621, his History of Henry the 
 Seventh. The king had already assigned his fine to trustees 
 named by himself for his own benefit, but what Bacon required 
 was some positive assistance. This, however, <6 the times 
 being as they were," was not forthcoming, and the only help 
 which could be obtained from the king was a warrant, dated 
 November 14, 1622, recommending him to the favourable 
 consideration of his creditors. In this document, the kinjr, 
 who " much commiserates the estate of the Lord of St. Alban," 
 regrets that the times are not " such as we might free him at 
 once by our liberality. " The prohibition to come within the 
 verge of the Court had been removed by royal warrant in the 
 spring of this year, so that the only disabilities under which 
 Bacon now laboured were his exclusion from Parliament and 
 from office. It may be mentioned that a limited pardon, the 
 important exception being that of the Parliamentary sentence, 
 appears to have been sealed by the king in November, 1021. 
 But the history of this pardon is attended with some ob- 
 scurity. 
 
 After completing the History of Henry the Seventh, Bacon 
 seems to have turned his attention to the preparation for the 
 press, in an enlarged form and in a Latin version, of the 
 
24 BACON. 
 
 Advancement of Learning, which, under the new title of Be 
 Augmentis Scientiarum, appeared in October, 1623. This work 
 was now designed to serve for the first part of the Instanratio 
 Magna, as the Novum Organum served for the second. The trans- 
 lation into Latin seems to have been made by several hands, 
 though under Bacon's own careful superintendence. On 
 presenting a copy of the History of Henry the Seventh to the 
 king, he offered to prepare a digest of the Laws of England, 
 and about the same time he appears to have begun another 
 work, with which, however, he did not make much way,' 
 the Holy War. This was to have been a discussion on the 
 lawfulness and feasibility of a combined attack of the Christian 
 powers on the Turk, an event which was at that time within 
 the range of probabilities. Nor did Bacon's literary activity 
 stop here. He was also busily engaged in preparing an in- 
 stalment of a Natural and Experimental History, which was 
 to supply the materials on which the inductive method was 
 to work. For this part of his scheme he had invited assistance, 
 but in vain, and hence, in the latter part of his life, he set to 
 the task himself, complaining, however, that he was compelled 
 to be a workman as well as an architect, having to ' ' dig the 
 clay and burn the brick " as well as to design and construct 
 the building. That he spent so much time in making these 
 collections of real or supposed facts of nature is much to be 
 regretted; for they are far the least valuable part of his 
 writings, though they may have been of service in setting an 
 example to others and giving a direction to this kind of 
 inquiry. 
 
 On the 20th of January, 1622-3, Bacon was brought by 
 Buckingham to kiss the king's hand, and for a time there 
 seemed to be a gleam of better fortune. It was even rumoured 
 that he was to be made President of the Council, and he 
 might possibly have been appointed to the Provostship of 
 
BACON'S LIFE. 25 
 
 Eton, for which he applied, had not the place been already 
 promised. Meanwhile, his pecuniary difficulties continued, 
 and he made an ineffectual attempt to dispose of Gorhambury 
 to Bucking-ham. He also retired from Bedford House to his 
 old lodgings in Gray's Inn, "for quiet and the better to hold 
 out." Though not able to make his voice heard in Parliament, 
 there can be no doubt that he heartily approved of breaking 
 off the marriage treaty with Spain, the great event of the 
 year 1623, and that he was one of those who were eager that 
 the country should undertake a war for the recovery of the 
 Palatinate. 
 
 On the 27th of March, 1625, James died, and Bacon might 
 reasonably have hoped, at the beginning of a new reign and 
 under a prince who had always showed himself favourably 
 disposed to him, to receive at least a full pardon, if not 
 some alleviation of his financial embarrassments. But the 
 king and Buckingham soon found that they had troubles enough 
 of their own, and apparently they lacked either the time, or 
 the inclination, or the courage to lend a helping hand to their 
 former adviser. In this year, the third and complete edition 
 of the Essays was published, and the design of the Great 
 Instauration was no doubt being filled in as rapidly as its 
 author could write, the Natural History being now the part 
 of it which mainly claimed his attention. 
 
 Though Bacon had long been in weak health, aggravated, 
 probably, by his misfortunes, his end came suddenly and un- 
 expectedly. One day, at the end of March, 1C26, he was 
 driving towards Highgate, when, there having been a fall of 
 snow, the idea occurred to him to try whether snow would 
 have the same effect as salt in arresting putrefaction. He 
 alighted at a cottage, as the story goes, obtained a hen, and 
 helped, with his own hands, to stuff it with snow. The expe- 
 riment caused a sudden chill, which forced him to take refuge 
 
26 BACON. 
 
 at a house of Lord Arundel's lying on the road. His letter to 
 Lord Arundel, excusing his having thus made a convenience 
 of his house, betrays no apprehension of death, but the chill 
 appears soon to have developed into what we should now call 
 bronchitis, and Bacon died early in the morning of Easter 
 Sunday, April 9, 1626. 
 
 We can hardly regard his death as premature. His life's 
 work was finished. Even had he been recalled to office, it was 
 now probably impossible for any man, however wise and 
 patriotic, to heal the sores of the country without the inter- 
 vention of a civil war. And the Great Instauration had been 
 sufficiently sketched and exemplified to afford to coming 
 generations most of the help that, in the then existing condi- 
 tion of science, it was likely to do. It is true that Bacon, 
 had he lived longer, might have written more Essays or 
 Histories, or executed a digest of the Laws, but, absorbed as 
 he was in plans for the subjugation of Nature, it was hardly 
 probable that he would employ his time on what he would 
 regard as merely literary or legal pursuits. 
 
 In this slight sketch of Bacon's life, I have confined myself 
 almost entirely to a bare statement of facts. My business 
 is with the character, tendencies, and results of his philosophy, 
 and not with the disputed passages of his life. But I cannot 
 refrain from expressing an opinion that his memory has most 
 unfortunately and unjustly suffered from the apparent contrast 
 between his life and his works having so easily lent itself to 
 the artifices of epigram . From Pope's famous couplet, 2 written 
 
 2 " If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shined, 
 The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind." 
 
 Essay on Man, Ep. iv, 
 Pope's next couplet,— 
 
BACON'S LIFE. 27 
 
 probably with little reflection and certainly with little know- 
 ledge, and from the rhetorical periods of Macaulay, which 
 seem as if they had been written with Pope's lines ringing- all 
 the time in his ears, most Englishmen of this generation and 
 the last seem to have been content to take on trust their 
 estimate of one of the most illustrious of their countrymen 
 and of mankind. Mr. Spedding has recently done much to 
 remove these misapprehensions, and no one ought now to 
 venture to pronounce an opinion on Bacon's character who 
 has not at least acquainted himself with the shorter of Mr. 
 Spedding's works. 3 On one count of the indictment, of 
 course, judgment must, on his own confession, be entered 
 against him, namely, that he was guilty of corruption in his 
 office of Chancellor. But to be guilty of corruption and to be 
 guilty of perversion of justice are two widely different things, 
 likely as the one doubtless is to lead to the other. An 
 apophthegm of Bacon's own, probably imparted in confidence 
 to his intimate friends in his later years, may be taken, per- 
 haps, as expressing the whole truth with regard to these sad 
 transactions. " I was the justest judge that was in England 
 these fifty years. But it was the justest censure in Parliament 
 that was these two hundred years." 
 
 Carelessness about money, as already noticed, was probably 
 the root from which all Bacon's errors and misfortunes sprang. 
 And the want of money led him to seek preferment more 
 
 ''Or ravisli'd with the whistling of a name, 
 See Cromwell, damn'd to everlasting fame," 
 
 has now lost its point. When Bacon's history and character are as well 
 and as generally known as Cromwell's now are, posterity will perhaps be 
 as little inclined to repeat with approbation the former couplet as the 
 latter. 
 
 3 An Account of the Life and Times of Francis Bacon. London, 
 Tiubner and Co., 1878. 
 
28 BACON. 
 
 openly and more keenly than we, in these days, when we are 
 more given to mask our ambitions, should regard as consis- 
 tent with dignity. But he was anything rather than "mean.-' 
 On the other hand, he was generous, open-hearted, affectionate, 
 peculiarly sensitive to kindnesses, and equally forgetful of 
 injuries. The epithet of " great," which has been so ungrudg- 
 ingly accorded to him as a writer, might, without any singular 
 impropriety, be applied to him also as a man. The story of 
 his life, it must be confessed, is not altogether what the 
 reader of his works would have desired, but the contrast has 
 been so exaggerated as to amount to a serious and injurious 
 misrepresentation. 
 
29 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 bacon's works. 
 
 Bacon's Works may be divided into three classes, the Philoso- 
 phical Works, which form far the largest portion, the Literary- 
 Works, and the Professional Works. Many of these are mere 
 fragments or short essays, afterwards thrown aside and re- 
 placed by other essays, also unfinished, or by the larger and 
 more complete works as known to the general reader. All 
 that remains of Bacon's writings, however brief or fragmen- 
 tary, has been collected in Ellis and Spedding's Edition, and 
 sometimes, as in the elaboration of his new logical method or 
 Novum Organum, it is interesting to trace the history of an 
 idea through several successive papers written at different 
 periods of his life. But, in attempting a general account 
 of Bacon's literary activity, which is all that I aim at in 
 the present chapter, to enumerate all his various writings, 
 much more to endeavour to determine their mutual relations, 
 would be merely to tax the patience of the reader to no pur- 
 pose. I shall, therefore, for the most part, confine myself to 
 noticing the more important and matured works, only men- 
 tioning the slighter or more unfinished writings where some- 
 thing of special interest attaches to them. 
 
 \ The principal and best known of the philosophical works 
 are the Advancement of Learning, which was published in 
 English in 1G05, the Novum Organum, which was pub- 
 
3 o BACON. 
 
 lished in Latin in 1620, and the Be Augmetitis Scientiarum 
 which was published in Latin in 1623. The last of these 
 works may be regarded as a much enlarged edition of the first, 
 though The Twoo BooJces of Francis Bacon of the Broficience 
 and Advancement of Learning Divine and Humane have a 
 certain advantage over their larger and more pretentious 
 rival from being presented in a more compendious form and in 
 the noble and flowing periods of their author's English instead 
 of in a foreign tongue or a translation. James the First had 
 ascended the throne of England in 1603, and Bacon, who was 
 anxious to stand well with him as well as to interest him in 
 his schemes for the reformation of science, appears to have 
 hurried on the composition of the Advancement of Learning 
 for the purpose of making an "oblation," as he calls it, 
 to the new king. Hence the marks of haste and incomplete- 
 ness which may be detected in the Second Book, that which 
 treats of the deficiencies to be supplied in the present stock of 
 knowledge. In the Be Angmentis this one book was ex- 
 panded into no less than eight. The first book is far more 
 finished in style, and more complete in matter. It seems to 
 have been written in the year 1603, immediately after James' 
 accession, and treats of the dignity of learning and " the ex- 
 cellency of the merit and true glory in the augmentation and 
 propagation thereof." A prince, who was himself learned and 
 interested in learning, might, so Bacon thought, do much to 
 help in the accumulation of those materials and the pro- 
 vision of that co-operation which were necessary to the re- 
 novation of the sciences. But James was himself too much 
 embarrassed in his finances during the greater part of his 
 reign, to become a second Alexander, had he even believed 
 sufficiently in Bacon's design to be willing to assume that 
 character. 
 
 When Bacon wrote the Advancement of Learning, he does 
 
BACON'S WORKS. 31 
 
 not seem to have had any idea of constituting it a part 
 of the Great Insfauration, but, as time went on, he appears 
 to have thought that the attempt to build up a new philosophy 
 might fittingly be preceded by a review of the present state 
 of knowledge. Hence, in the JDistributio Operis, which is 
 prefixed to the Novum Organum, the first place in the 
 Great Instauratiou is assigned to what he calls " Parti- 
 tiones Scientiarum," or " a summary or general description ot 
 the knowledge which the human race at present possesses," 
 including, however, " not only things already invented and 
 known, but likewise things omitted which ought to be there." 
 Thus, the Be Augme?itis, or expanded edition of the Advance- 
 ment of Learning y instead of being a mere preparatory tract, 
 was designed to become an integral part of the great work. 
 And, though Bacon's weak health, lack of opportunity, and 
 personal misfortunes prevented him from executing his plan 
 on the proportions which he had prescribed to himself, the 
 book, even as it stands, must have had few readers who have 
 not thought it worthy of the position which its authoi 
 intended for it. 
 
 Whether the additional matter was originally written in 
 English or Latin, we do not know, but it is said, on the 
 authority of Archbishop Tenison, that George Herbert, the 
 poet, was one of the translators employed to convert the 
 Advancement of Learning into Latin. The work was, however, 
 carefully superintended by Bacon himself. " Proprio marte 
 plurimum desudavit," as Dr. Rawley tells us. He had applied, 
 some years before, for the assistance of one Dr. Playfer, of 
 Cambridge, who, according to Tenison, sent him a specimen 
 of his workmanship, but "of such superfine Latinity, that the 
 Lord Bacon did not encourage him to labour further in that 
 work, in the penning of which he desired not so much neat 
 and polite, as clear, masculine and apt expression." The first 
 
32 BACON, 
 
 English translation of this work was executed by Dr. Gilbert 
 Wats or Watts of Oxford. It was severely criticized by 
 Bacon's friends, and has since been replaced by others. To 
 the student not sufficiently acquainted with Latin to read 
 the original, the most serviceable version will now be found 
 in the Fourth Yolume of Ellis and Spedding's Edition of 
 Bacon's Works. 
 
 The remaining parts of the Great Instauration, as enume- 
 rated in the Distributio Operis or Plan of the Work, are : — 
 (2) the "Novum Organum, or Indications Concerning the In- 
 terpretation of Nature ;" (3) " Phenomena Universi, or a 
 Natural and Experimental History for the Construction of Phi- 
 losophy ;" (4) "Scala Intellectus, the Ladder of the Intellect ; " 
 (5) " Prodromi, the Forerunners, or Anticipations of the New 
 Philosophy •" (6) " P/iilosopkia Secunda, or Active Science." 
 
 The second part, or the proper method of interpreting Na- 
 ture, was evidently the one (if we except the sixth, which was 
 to be the crown of the whole design and the gradual work of 
 posterity) to which Bacon attached the greatest importance. 
 It is mainly represented in the Novum Organum, though pre- 
 liminary drafts of portions of this work, often curiously 
 differing from it in detail, are to be found in parts of the 
 Valerius Terminus, and in the Partis Secunclce Delineatio, 
 the Cogitata et Visa, the Temporis Partus Masculus, and the 
 Filum Labyrinthi sive. Inquisitio Legitima de Motu, »to say 
 nothing of smaller pieces. Of these preliminary drafts of the 
 Novum Organum, far the most interesting is the Cogitata et 
 Visa, containing the substance of the First Book of the Novum 
 Organum, and composed probably in the summer or autumn 
 of 1607. A very beautiful manuscript of it, carefully cor- 
 rected in Bacon's own handwriting, exists in the Library of 
 Queen's College, Oxford, but the first printed edition, pub- 
 lished, along with other minor works, by Isaac Gruter in 1653, 
 
BACON'S WORKS. 33 
 
 is taken from another copy, now no longer extant. The compo- 
 sition of the Novum Organum itself appears to have heen begun 
 about 1608. For the first edition appeared in 1620, and Dr. 
 Rawley (in the Life of Bacon, prefixed to the liesuscitat io) 
 tells us that he had himself seen at least twelve copies of the 
 work, u revised year by year, one after another ; and every 
 year altered and amended in the frame thereof." This extreme 
 care expended on its elaboration is apparent principally in the 
 aphorisms of the First Book, which, in point of pithiness and. 
 incisiveness of language, it would be difficult to surpass. 
 When the first edition (which, by the way, is a very handsome 
 folio volume) appeared, it was preceded by the piece beginning, 
 "Franciscus de Verulamio sic cogitavit," a Dedication to the 
 King, a Preface to the Instauratio Magna (of which, though 
 only the second part, it was the first instalment), the Distributio 
 Operis (that is, the plan of the whole Installation), and a Pre- 
 face peculiar to itself. It was followed by a small tract, 
 entitled Parasceue ad Historiam Naturalem et Exp>erimentalem, 
 a Preparation to a Natural and Experimental History, printed, 
 by anticipation, as a sort of specimen, or, possibly, resume of 
 the last part but one of the Novum Organum, promised in 
 book ii. ch. 21. Finally, the volume is closed by a Catalog us 
 Historiarum Particularium secundum Capita, or List of Deside- 
 rata in the specific Materials for Induction. 
 
 The Novum Organum, in the shape in which its author 
 left it, is only a fragment, though a very considerable frag- 
 ment, of the larger work which Bacon contemplated under 
 that title, as adequately representing the second part of the 
 Great Instauration. The enumeration of the parts wanting 
 will be found in book ii. aph. 21. Nevertheless, though 
 only a fragment, the Novum Organum, and especially the 
 First Book, is the most carefully written of all Bacon's philo- 
 sophical works. Moreover, as describing the new method of 
 
 D 
 
34 BACON. 
 
 which the renovation of knowledge was to be the result, it is 
 the keystone of the entire system. 
 
 The Third Part of the Great Instatiration, the Phenomena 
 Universi, was to contain a collection of arranged and sifted 
 materials on which the method of induction was to work. Of 
 this part, even according to Bacon's limited conception of the 
 extent and variety of nature, we have only a very small 
 portion, and, according to a juster estimate of the boundless 
 extent of the " Phenomena Universi," that portion might 
 almost be described as infinitesimal. Such as it is, however, 
 it is contained mainly in the Historic/, Ventorum, the Historia 
 Vita et Mortis } the Historia Bensi et Rari, and the Sylva Syl- 
 varum. The first of these works, an attempt to collect and digest 
 various facts in connexion with the winds; was published in 
 November, 1622. It was to be followed at monthly intervals by 
 other tracts containing similar collections, and the volume in 
 which it was published comprises introductions to five other 
 " histories," namely those of " the dense and the rare," " the 
 heavy and the light,"" the sympathies and antipathies of things," 
 " sulphur, mercury, and salt," " life and death." Bacon's pro- 
 mise was only very inadequately fulfilled. The Historia Vitm et 
 Mortis was published about the end of January, 1622-3. The 
 Historia Bensi et Rari did not appear during Bacon's lifetime, 
 and was first published in Dr. Rawley's Opuscula Varia Post- 
 huma, in 1658. The three others were never composed in the 
 form of separate treatises, though the subjects of which they 
 were to treat occupy several sections of the Sylva Sylvarum. 
 There are extant short or imperfect drafts of other treatises of the 
 same kind, such as those on Sound, Light, the Magnet, &c. 
 
 The last work on which Bacon was engaged was the 
 
 Sylva Sylvarum? a miscellaneous collection of observations 
 
 1 The name Sylva Sylvarum probably means, as Mr. Spedding suggests, 
 a collection of collections. Mr. Ellis, on the other hand, takes it as a 
 
BACON'S WORKS. 35 
 
 and experiments in Natural History. It was published 
 by Dr. Rawley in 1027, the year after Bacon's death, 
 but the preface was written by Rawley during 1 his life- 
 time. This preface is of considerable interest, both as showing 
 Bacon's conception of what a Natural History ought to be 
 (he was fully conscious, it may be noticed, how far short his 
 own performance came of his ideal), and as offering some 
 excuse for what must be acknowledged to be the very crude 
 and fanciful character of many of the " experiments " recorded 
 in the work. "I have heard his lordship often say, that, if 
 he should have served the glory of his own name, he had better 
 not to have published this Natural History : for it may seem 
 an indigested heap of particulars, and cannot have that lustre 
 which books cast into methods have ; but that he resolved to 
 prefer the good of men, and that which might best secure it, 
 before anything that might have relation to himself/' u And 
 I have heard his lordship speak complainingly, that his lord- 
 ship (who thinketh he deserveth to be an architect in this 
 building) should be forced to be a workman and a labourer, 
 and to dig the clay and burn the brick : and more than that, 
 according to the hard condition of the Israelites at the latter 
 end, to gather the straw and stubble over all the fields to burn 
 the bricks withal. For he knoweth that, except he do it, 
 nothing will be done ; men are so set to despise the means of 
 their own good." This book has furnished Bacon's critics, 
 especially his German critics, Lasson and Liebig, with some 
 of their most telling shafts. And to men of our generation 
 nothing, it must be owned, can be more transparently absurd 
 than such conceits as that " the blood-stone is good for them 
 that bleed at the nose ;" than the " report " of " the writers of 
 natural magic " that " the heart of an ape, worn near the heart, 
 
 Hebraism for optima sylva, " sylva being used, as vkr) in Greek, for the 
 materials out of which anything is to be constructed." 
 
 D 2 
 
36 BACON. 
 
 comforteth the heart and increaseth audacity/' " and that the 
 same heart likewise of an ape, applied to the neck or head, 
 helpeth the wit, and is good for the falling sickness/' than the 
 statement that " there be divers sorts of bracelets fit to comfort 
 the spirits, and they be of three intentions, refrigerant, cor- 
 roborant, and aperient/' than the suggestion to " try the force 
 of imagination upon staying the working of beer when the 
 barm is put in, or upon the coming of butter or cheese, after 
 the churning, or the rennet be put in /' than the notion that 
 water is congealed into crystals, or that the moon influences 
 terrestrial objects in four ways, by " drawing forth of heat/' 
 by "inducing of putrefaction/' by " increase of moisture," and 
 by " exciting of the motions of spirits." 2 But in reply to any 
 argument based upon the occurrence in Bacon's writings of 
 absurdities of this kind, which might be largely multiplied, it 
 may be pleaded that these were the fancies of his age, from 
 which probably no man of that time was altogether free. 
 Amongst the early revivers of science, there seems to have 
 been a peculiarly keen appetite for the marvellous. "In 
 Bacon's time," as Mr. Ellis says, " and still more at an earlier 
 period, men delighted in nothing more than in collections of 
 remarkable facts ; the more marvellous, so they did not become 
 altogether incredible, the better." And we have only to look into 
 books like Sir Thomas Browne's Vulgar and Common Errors, 
 or the various works of Joseph Glanville, to see how persistent 
 such notions were even in the generation after Bacon's death. 
 Moreover, a large number of these fancies may be grouped 
 under the heads of " sympathy and antipathy," " force of 
 imagination," &c, subjects on which peculiarly obscure ideas 
 prevailed at this time. Lastly, defective and often ridiculous 
 as this book is from our point of view, it is, if we refer it to 
 
 2 See Experiments 967, 978, 961, 992, 364, 890—897. 
 
BACON'S WORKS. 37 
 
 its place in the history of science, very far from being con-" 
 temptible. It is probably the best and most complete single 
 collection of the kind that, up to that time, had been pub- 
 lished. 
 
 Appended to the Sylva Sylvaram in Rawley's edition is the 
 New Atlantis. This is deservedly one of the most popular of 
 Bacon's works ; it bears the stamp of his genius as much, 
 perhaps, as anything which he wrote ; and, lastly, it is credited, 
 and I conceive justly so, with having, to a large extent, sug- 
 gested the foundation and programme of our own Royal 
 Society, if not of several foreign scientific associations as 
 well. Its relation to the Sylva Sylvarum cannot be better 
 described than in the language of Mr. Spedding : — " The New 
 Atlantis seems to have been written in 1624, and, though not 
 finished, to have been intended for publication as it stands. It 
 was published accordingly by Dr. Rawley in 1627, at the end 
 of the volume containing the Sylva Sylvarum ; for which 
 place Bacon had himself designed it, the subjects of the two 
 being so near akin ; the one representing his idea of what 
 should be the end of the work which in the other he supposed 
 himself to be beginning. For the story of Solomon's House 
 is nothing more than a vision of the practical results 
 which he anticipated from the study of natural history dili- 
 gently and systematically carried on through successive 
 generations." No student of Bacon or of scientific literature 
 should omit to read this charming romance. It teems with 
 hope and suggestion, and now, after an interval of more than 
 two centuries and a half, a strange interest attaches to a com- 
 parison of the " Riches of Solomon's House " with the inven- 
 tions which have actually been accomplished since Bacon's 
 time, or which, with our enlarged knowledge of what is 
 possible, we may not unreasonably expect in the future. 
 
 Amongst the Impetus P/iilosopkici which occupy the 
 
3 3 BACON, 
 
 latter part of Gruter's volume are two small pieces entitled 
 Scala Intellects sive Filum Labyrihthi, the Ladder of the 
 Intellect or Thread of the Labyrinth, and Prodromi sive 
 Anticipations Philosophic Semndce, Forerunners or Antici- 
 pations of the Second Philosophy. These were intended as 
 Prefaces to the fourth and fifth parts of the Instauratio 
 respectively. Whether anything more relating to those parts 
 is extant seems doubtful. 
 
 " The sixth part of my work (to which the rest is simply 
 ministerial) at length discloses and sets forth that body of 
 philosophy itself which is developed and established by a 
 legitimate, chaste, and severe course of inquiry such as has 
 already been propounded. The completion, however, of this 
 last part is a thing both above my strength and beyond my 
 hopes. I expect to make a beginning of the work — a 
 beginning, as I hope, not to be despised : the fortunes of the 
 human race will give the issue — an issue, it may be, such as, 
 in the present condition of things and of the minds of men, 
 cannot easily be grasped or imagined. For the matter in 
 hand is no mere felicity of speculation, but the real business 
 and fortunes of the human race, and all power of operation/'' 
 But, though Bacon hoped himself fittingly to inaugurate the 
 work, we search in vain amongst his writings for any special 
 treatise which can be referred to this head. Nor is this fact 
 without its explanation. The Scientia Activa was to depend 
 on the knowledge of " Forms/' but how far Bacon was from 
 having attained to a knowledge of " Forms/' and how vague 
 was the conception which he often attached to this term, will 
 be only too familiar to the attentive student of the Novum 
 Organwm. The story which he applies to the Alchemists 3 of 
 the old man who bequeathed to his sons a piece of gold hidden 
 in a vineyard applies also, in no small measure, to himself, 
 3 Nov. Org., i. 85. 
 
BACON'S WORKS. 39 
 
 He did not discover " Forms/' but lie did what was of far 
 more value to posterity ; he recalled men to the observation 
 of facts; gave an impulse to the study of nature, and, if not 
 the founder of the Inductive Method, at least contributed 
 more than any other man to its wider, more correct, and more 
 fruitful employment. 
 
 n y Of Bacon's literary, as distinct from his philosophical and 
 professional, works, far the most popular and important are 
 the Essays. These, in their earliest shape, formed part of a 
 very small octavo volume, published in 1597, and were only 
 ten in number. They were entitled : 1, Of Studie ; 2, Of 
 Discourse; 3, Of Ceremonies and Respects; 4, Of Followers 
 and Friends ; 5, Sutors (i. e. Suitors) ; 6, Of Expence ; 7, Of 
 Regiment of Health ; 8, Of Honour and Reputation ; 9, Of Fac- 
 tion; 10, Of Negotiating. All are very brief and condensed, 
 and they are entirely devoid of illustration or ornament. In 
 this shape, they were reprinted in 1598, 1604, and 1606. In 
 1612, a new edition was brought out, with many alterations 
 and additions. This edition contained forty essays. Finally, 
 the book in its present form, and containing fifty-eight essays, 
 was published in 1625, the year before Bacon's death. This 
 greatly enlarged edition, which is entitled, " The Essay es or 
 Counsels, Chill and Morall, of Francis Lo. Verulam, Viscount 
 St. Alban, Newly Enlarged," may be regarded as a store- 
 house of the practical wisdom gathered during its author's 
 lifetime, a life singularly rich in opportunities for such 
 accumulations. 
 
 The title of Essays is probably taken from the Essais 
 
 of Montaigne, 4 which first appeared at Bordeaux in 1580. 
 
 Hallam says of these that they are the first writings in the 
 
 French language u which a gentleman is ashamed not to have 
 
 4 Montaigne is quoted by name in the first Essay. 
 
4 o BACON. 
 
 read/'' A similar remark, if we confine ourselves to prose 
 works, might be made of Bacon's Essays. They still retain 
 their ground as classics, and, some time or other during his 
 life, every educated Englishman is certain to read them. 
 Perhaps also, excepting Shakespeare's plays, they furnish more 
 quotations than any other work in the language. To attempt 
 to describe the characteristics of a book so familiar would be 
 no compliment to the reader. But it may not be superfluous 
 to remark that the Essays are the most original of all Bacon's 
 works, those which, in detail, he seems to have thought out 
 most completely for himself, apart from books and collections 
 of common-places. The last edition teems, indeed, with quota- 
 tions and illustrations, but they are suggested by his own 
 matter and do not suggest it. Though the Essays have the 
 same title as the larger collection of Montaigne, the two works 
 have little in common, except their rare power of exciting 
 interest and the unmistakable mark of genius which is im- 
 pressed on them both. On a few subjects, such as on Death, 
 Friendship, Glory, Anger, Greatness, we are able to compare 
 the two authors, when treating the same topics, but, for the 
 most part, their paths are divergent. Bacon's reflections are 
 more connected and condensed, and his style more weighty, 
 then those of his French prototype. On the other hand, 
 Montaigne is undoubtedly the more entertaining. Both 
 authors seem to be thoroughly conversant with books, though 
 the quotations and allusions of Montaigne seem to come to 
 him more naturally than those of Bacon. The Englishman 
 seems to know more of affairs ; the Frenchman of life. Those 
 curious in literary history can also compare with the Essays 
 the treatise Be la Sagesse, by Pierre Charron, first pub- 
 lished in 1601, and the Prince (II Principe) of Machiavelli, 
 which, having appeared so far back as 153% was already a 
 well-known and standard book, when Bacon began the com* 
 
BACONS WORKS. 41 
 
 position of the Essays. That Bacon was intimately acquainted 
 with the Prince as, I suppose, were all educated statesmen 
 of his time, there can be no doubt, but I cannot accede to the 
 view, apparently entertained by Dr. Abbott, that Bacon 
 derived his opinions on polity, much less on morality, from 
 Machiavelli. Waiving" the questions as to the precise motives 
 and the true interpretation of the maxims of Machiavelli, 
 nothing* can well be more remote either from what is ordinarily 
 understood by Machiavellism, or from some of the actual 
 utterances of Machiavelli himself, when taken in their literal 
 sense, than such passages as the following, expressing, as I 
 believe, Bacon's genuine sentiments : " I take Goodness in 
 this sense, the affecting of the weal of men, which is that the 
 Grecians call Philanthropia. This of all virtues and dignities 
 of the mind is the greatest; being the character of the 
 Deity : and without it man is a busy, mischievous, wretched 
 thing; no better than a kind of vermin." .... "The 
 inclination to goodness is imprinted deeply in the nature of 
 man ; insomuch that if it issue not towards men, it will take 
 unto other living creatures ; as it is seen in the Turks, a cruel 
 people, who nevertheless are kind to beasts, and give alms to 
 dogs and birds." .... "The parts and signs of goodness 
 are many. If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, 
 it shows he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no 
 island cut off from other lands, but a continent that joins to 
 them. If he be compassionate towards the afflictions ot 
 others, it shows that his heart is like the noble tree that is 
 wounded itself when it gives the balm. If he easily pardons 
 and remits offences, it shows that his mind is planted above 
 injuries ; so that he cannot be shot. If he be thankful for 
 small benefits, it shows that he weighs men's minds, and not 
 their trash. But above all, if he have St. Paul's perfection, 
 that he would wish to be an anathema from Christ for the 
 
. 4 2 BACON. 
 
 salvation of his brethren, it shows much of a divine nature, 
 and a kind of conformity with Christ himself ! " 5 And again : 
 " He that seeketh to be eminent amongst able men hath a 
 great task; but that is ever good for the public. But he 
 that plots to be the only figure amongst ciphers is the decay 
 of a whole age. Honour hath three things in jt : the vantage 
 ground to do good; the approach to kings and principal 
 persons ; and the raising of a man's own fortunes. He that 
 hath the best of these intentions, when he_aspireth, is an 
 honest man ; and that prince that can discern of these inten- 
 tions in another that aspireth, is a wise prince. Generally, 
 let princes and states choose such ministers as are more 
 sensible of duty than of rising ; and such as have business 
 rather upon conscience than upon bravery [that is, vain glory 
 or ostentation] ; and let them discern a busy nature from a 
 willing mind ? " 6 Even in the Essay on " Wisdom for a 
 Man's Self " (Essay 23), where, if anywhere, we should expect 
 to find the influence of Machiavelli's teaching, had Bacon 
 been so apt a disciple as Dr. Abbott supposes, what actually 
 occur are such expressions as these : "Wisdom for a man's self 
 is, in many branches thereof, a depraved thing. It is the 
 wisdom of rats, that will be sure to leave a house somewhat 
 before it falls. It is the wisdom of the fox, that thrusts out 
 the badger, who digged and made room for him. It is the 
 wisdom of crocodiles, that shed tears when they would devour,'" 
 . . . . " An ant is a wise creature for itself, but it is a 
 shrewd thing in an orchard or garden. And certainly men 
 that are great lovers of themselves waste the public. Divide 
 with reason between self-love and society ; and be so true to 
 thyself as thou be not false to others, especially to thy king 
 and country. It is a poor centre of a man's actions, himself. 
 
 6 Essay 13. Of Goodness, and Goodness of Nature. 
 6 Essay 36. Of Ambition. 
 
B A COX'S WORKS. 43 
 
 It is right earth. For that only stands fast upon its own 
 centre; whereas all things that have affinity with the heavens 
 move upon the centre of another, which they benefit ! " 
 Still more alien from a morality of mere self-seeking is the 
 spirit of some of the passages in the I)e Augmentis. Take, for 
 instance, the following : " If a man's mind be truly inflamed 
 with charity, it raises .him to greater perfection than all the 
 doctrines of morality can do ; which is but a sophist in com- 
 parison with the other. Nay further, as Xenophon truly 
 observed, ' that all other affections though they raise the 
 mind, yet they distort and disorder it by their ecstasies and 
 excesses, but only love at the same time exalts and composes 
 it ; ; so all the other qualities which we admire in man, though 
 they advance nature, are yet subject to excess; whereas 
 charity alone admits of no excess. The Angels, aspiring to 
 be like God in power, transgressed and fell : ' I will ascend, and 
 be like unto the Most High/ Man, aspiring to be like God 
 in knowledge, transgressed and fell : ( Ye shall be as gods, 
 knowing good and evil/ But by aspiring to a similitude of 
 God in goodness or love, neither angel or man ever trans- 
 gressed or shall transgress; for unto that imitation we are 
 called, ' Love your enemies, bless them which hate you, and 
 pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you/ 
 So in the first platform of the divine nature itself, the heathen 
 religion speaks thus, ' Optimus Maximus/ but the Sacred 
 Scriptures thus, ' His mercy is over all his works/ " 7 
 
 It may indeed be said that, both in the Essays and elsewhere, 
 there are many maxims teaching the art of self-advancement 
 or of becoming, as Bacon phrases it, the Architect of Fortune. 
 And why should there not be? It is only a common-place to 
 say that the general good is, as a rule, best promoted by each 
 man seeking his own individual good. A world, if we can 
 7 De Augmentis, book vii. ch. 3. 
 
44 
 
 BACON. 
 
 conceive such a world, in which this was not the case, would 
 present but a very poor parody even of the amount of happi- 
 ness which is attainable under present circumstances. And, 
 if this be so, why should not a moralist give rules for bettering 
 one's own fortunes, providing, at least, that such rules are not 
 likely to interfere with the general welfare ? There are many 
 instances, undoubtedly, where a man ought to postpone his 
 own interests to the good of his family, or of his neighbours, 
 or of his country, or of mankind at large, and, unless men 
 were in the habit of submitting, on occasion, to these acts of 
 self-sacrifice, no society could long exist. But is Bacon less 
 ready to acknowledge or to insist upon the importance of this 
 fact than the great mass of writers on ethical questions ? His 
 place is, surely, not with the small class of moralists, who, 
 like Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Mandeville, appeal only, or 
 mainly, to the selfish instincts of mankind, or to the inflections 
 of a cool self-love, but with that far larger class who recognize 
 Ybenevolent principles of action as co-ordinate with and often 
 controlling those which merely regard ourselves. In the book 
 where he most expressly treats the subject (De Augm. book vii.), 
 he distinguishes between " Individual or Self-Good " and the 
 ** Good of Communion/' the " two natures of good an appetite 
 towards which is formed and imprinted on everything," and 
 he insists as emphatically as he can do on the superiority 
 of the latter as the " more general form which controls and 
 keeps in order the lesser appetites and inclinations." " It is 
 much more happy," he presently goes on to say, " to fail in 
 good and virtuous ends for the public, than to obtain all that 
 we can wish to ourselves in our private fortune." And even 
 where 8 he notes as deficient {' ' not but that it is used and 
 practised even more than is fit, but it lias not been handled in 
 books ") that part of knowledge which he calls the " Architect 
 8 De Augmentis, book viii. ch. 2. 
 
BACON'S WORKS. 45 
 
 of Fortune/' be adds the warning : " Not, however, that learn- 
 ing admires or esteems this architecture of fortune otherwise 
 than as an inferior work. For no man's fortune can be an end 
 worthy of the gift of being that has been given him by God ; 
 and often the worthiest men abandon their fortunes willingly, 
 that they may have leisure for higher pursuits." Lastly, 
 though he often cites Machiavelli, and deservedly, as I conceive, 
 praises him for the excellence of his work within certain limits, 
 he does not fail to speak of his " evil arts," and to condemn 
 specifically such positions as these, — that men can only be 
 wrought upon by fear, and that therefore a politic man should 
 contrive to have every man surrounded by perils, or this " that 
 virtue itself a man should not trouble himself to attain, but 
 only the appearance thereof to the world, because the credit 
 and reputation of virtue is a help, but the use of it an im- 
 pediment." 
 
 I have taken some pains to argue against Dr. Abbott's 
 position, because I think it gives a wholly false idea of Bacon's 
 attitude towards practical philosophy and the conduct of life, 
 and I have selected this place, rather than the chapter on 
 Bacon's philosophical opinions, for the criticism, because Dr. 
 Abbott's remarks occur in his Introduction to the Essays, and 
 are therefore most conveniently noticed, while speaking of that 
 work. 
 // The literary production which, during Bacon's life-time and 
 for many years afterwards, ranked next in popularity and was 
 regarded as next in importance to the Exxagx, was undoubtedly 
 the I)e Saplentia Veterum, the treatise on the Wisdom of the 
 Ancients. This was first published, in a small duodecimo 
 volume, in 1G09. It has frequently been republished, and 
 early translations of it exist in English and Italian. The plan 
 of the work is to recite certain classical fables, or, as we should 
 now call them, myths, disclosing, as it proceeds, the moral 
 
46 BACON. 
 
 and physical lessons which are supposed to lie latent in them. 
 The hypothesis on which the interpretations rest would fall 
 in with the usual mode of thinking in the seventeenth century, 
 and then, and even later, would doubtless find many adherents 
 amongst the most learned and judicious men of the time; 
 now it would hardly meet with a single believer, even amongst 
 men of ordinary education. It is that, prior to the time of 
 Homer, Hesiod, and the earliest extant Greek writers, there 
 existed a period of high intellectual cultivation, in which the 
 fables had been invented for the purpose of setting forth, in 
 allegory, certain important truths, known to the ancient 
 world, concerning nature and man. " Had they been certainly 
 the production of that age," the age of Homer, Hesiod, and 
 the . rest, " and of those authors by whose report they have 
 come down to us, I should not have thought of looking for 
 anything great or lofty from such a source. But it will appear 
 upon our attentive examination that they are delivered not as 
 new inventions then first published, but as stories already 
 received and believed. Moreover, since they are told in different 
 ways by writers nearly contemporaneous, it is easy to see that 
 what all the versions have in common came from ancient 
 tradition, while the parts in which they vary are the additions 
 introduced by the several writers for embellishment— a circum- 
 stance which gives them in my eyes a much higher value : 
 for so they must be regarded as neither being the inventions 
 nor belonging to the age of the poets themselves, but as sacred 
 relics and gentle breezes blowing from better times, that were 
 caught from the traditions of more ancient nations, and so 
 received into the flutes and pipes of the Greeks." 9 To the 
 student of the Novum Organum this way of thinking will be 
 familiar. There Bacon constantly disparages the later Greeks, 
 
 9 Preface to the De Sapientia Veterum. Mr. Spedding's translation, 
 slightly altered. 
 
BACON 1 S WORKS. 47 
 
 speaking", for instance, of Aristotle and Plato as the lighter 
 planks, which had been floated down by the river of time, 
 while the heavier and more solid materials of the older philo- 
 sophies had sunk to the bottom. 1 This idea of a primeval 
 wisdom which underlay the extant remains of antiquity was, 
 as Mr. Spedding points out, by no means an unnatural or 
 incredible fancy in Bacon's days. " When a new continent 
 w r as first discovered, in which the savage inhabitants were 
 found laden with golden ornaments, it was easy to believe in 
 the rumours of El Dorado ; and when the buried fragments 
 of Greek and Roman civilization were first brought up for the 
 examination of a new age, they might easdy suggest to the 
 imaginative a world of wonders still unrecovered. - " The dream 
 has, of course, been entirely dissipated in recent times by the 
 greatly improved methods of studying early history and early 
 institutions, as well as by the new sciences of Comparative 
 Mythology and Comparative Philology. An irresistible 
 consensus of evidence now shows that the march of civilization 
 has been onwards and not backwards ; that man has not fallen 
 from the heights, but risen from the depths. And wherever 
 we may look for the origin of the myths, whether in a " disease 
 of language/'' or in the distorted stories of dead heroes and 
 rival races, we no longer have any faith that we shall find in 
 them a " hidden wisdom M unknown to later generations. 
 
 Bacon's conception of the meaning of the classical fables, 
 and the kind of interest which still attaches to the Be Sapu 
 Vefenim, will best appear, if I give some examples of his treat- 
 ment. I have selected two, one conveying a moral, the other 
 a physical lesson. 
 
 NARCISSUS; 
 
 OR SELF-LOVE. 
 
 " Narcissus is said to have been a young man of wonderful 
 ' Nov Org., book i. aphs. 71, 77. 
 
4 8 BACON. 
 
 beauty, but intolerably proud, fastidious, and disdainful. 
 Pleased with himself and despising all others, he led a solitary 
 life in the woods and hunting-grounds; with a few companions 
 to whom he was all in all ; followed also, wherever he went, 
 by a nymph called Echo. Living thus, he came by chance 
 one day to a clear fountain, and (being in the heat of noon ) 
 lay d(,wn by it; when, beholding in the water his own image, 
 he fell into such a study, and then into such a rapturous 
 admiration of himself, that he could not be drawn away from 
 gazing at the shadowy picture, but remained rooted on the 
 spot till sense left him, and at last he was changed into the 
 flower that bears his name ; a flower which appears in the early 
 spring, and is sacred to the infernal deities, — Pluto, Proser- 
 pine, and the Furies. 
 
 " In this fable are represented the dispositions, and the 
 fortunes too, of those persons who from consciousness either 
 of beauty or some other gift with which nature unaided by 
 any industry of their own has graced them, fall in love as it 
 were with themselves. For with this state of mind there is 
 commonly joined an indisposition to appear much in public or 
 engage in business, because business would expose them to 
 many neglects and scorns, by which their minds would be 
 dejected and troubled. Therefore they commonly live a soli- 
 tary, private, and shadowed life, with a small circle of chosen 
 companions, all devoted admirers, who assent like an echo to 
 everything they say, and entertain them with mouth -homage ; 
 till, being by such habits gradually depraved and puffed up, 
 and dazed at last w 7 ith self-admiration, they fall into such a 
 sloth and listlessness that they grow utterly stupid, and lose 
 all vigour and alacrity. And it was a beautiful thought to 
 choose the flower of spring as an emblem of characters like 
 this : characters which in the opening of their career flourish 
 and acquire celebrity, but disappoint in maturity the promise 
 
BACON'S WORKS. 49 
 
 of their youth. The fact, too, that this flower is sacred to the 
 infernal deities contains an allusion to the same thing. For 
 men of this disposition turn out utterly useless, and good for 
 nothing whatever ; and anything that yields no fruit, but like 
 the way of a ship in the sea passes and leaves no trace, was by 
 the ancients held sacred to the shades and infernal gods/' 
 
 DEUCALION; 
 
 OR RESTORATION. 
 
 "The poets relate that, when the inhabitants of the old 
 world were utterly extinguished by the universal deluge, and 
 none remained except Deucalion and Pyrrha, these two, 
 being inflamed with a pious and noble desire to restore the 
 human race, consulted the oracle and received answer to the 
 following effect : They should have their wish, if they took 
 their mother's bones and cast them behind their backs. This 
 response struck them at first with great sorrow and despair ; for, 
 the face of nature being laid level by the deluge, to seek for a 
 sepulchre would be a task altogether endless. But at last they 
 found that the stones of the earth (the earth being regarded 
 as the mother of all things) were what the oracle meant. 
 
 " This fable seems to disclose a secret of nature, and to correct 
 an error which is familiar to the human mind. For man in 
 his ignorance concludes that the renewal and restoration of 
 things may be effected by means of their own corruption and 
 remains, as the Phoenix rises out of her own ashes. But this 
 is not the case : for matters of this kind have already reached 
 the end of their course, and can give no further help towards 
 a renewal of it; so that the only thing left is to go back to 
 more common and general principles." 
 
 The reader may, from these specimens, be tempted to make 
 nearer acquaintance with the book itself, which, like all the 
 
 E 
 
50 BACON. 
 
 works on which Bacon expended much care, has at least the 
 merits of brevity and point. Mr. Spedding rates it very 
 highly. While acknowledging the entirely different point of 
 view from which we now approach the study of the Greek 
 myths, he says : " The interest which the book still possesses 
 for us (and it has always been a great favourite with me) is of 
 quite another kind ; nor has either change of times or increase 
 of knowledge at all abated its freshness. It is an interest 
 precisely of the same kind with that which in the Essays shows 
 no symptoms of becoming obsolete. The interpretation of 
 each fable is in fact an ' essay or counsel/ civil, moral, or philo- 
 sophical ; embodying the results of Bacon's own thought and 
 observation upon the nature of men and things, and replete with 
 good sense of the best quality. ... I see no reason it should 
 not be as great a favourite with modern readers and be found 
 as amusing and instructive as the Essays are ; the matter 
 being of as good quality, and the form not less attractive/'' 2 
 
 Appended to the first edition of the Essays, was a fragment 
 entitled Of the Colours of Good and Evil. Like the Essays 
 and the De Sapientia Vetenwn,, it is full of shrewd remarks 
 suggested by Bacon's knowledge of life and observations 
 of human nature. It consists of a statement and examination 
 (evidently intended merely as a specimen) of certain common- 
 places on good and evil, "showing/' as he says, "in what 
 cases they hold, and in what they deceive : which, as it can- 
 not be done but out of a very universal knowledge of the 
 nature of things, so, being performed, it so cleareth man's 
 judgment and election as.it is the less apt to slide into any 
 error." Thus, beginning with the old dictum, " That to 
 which all other parties or sects agree in assigning the second 
 place (each putting itself first) should be the best," he passes 
 judgment on it as follows: " The fallax of this colour hap- 
 2 Mr. Spedding's Preface to the De Sapientia Veterum. 
 
BACON'S WORKS. 
 
 peneth oft in respect of envy j for men are accustomed after 
 themselves and their own faction to incline unto them which 
 are softest, and are least in their way, in despite and deroga- 
 tion of them that hold them hardest to it. So that this colour 
 of meliority and pre-eminence is a sign of enervation and 
 weakness." These Colours of Good and Evil, with the addi- 
 tion of two others, were afterwards embodied in the Sixtli 
 Book of the Be Augmentis. Bacon there states that, when 
 a young- man, he had collected many other " colours " or 
 " popular signs" of Good and Evil, but, as he had not yet 
 found time to illustrate or examine them, he refrained from 
 setting" them out. These are contained in a manuscript in the 
 British Museum, entitled Promus of Formularies and Elegancies, 
 and a few specimens of them are given by Mr. Spedding, 
 Bacon's Worjcs, vol. vii. pp. 67, 68. 
 
 The Apophthegms New and Old were first published in De- 
 cember, 1624, but the volume containing them is dated 162o. 
 In the autumn of 1624 Bacon was recovering from a severe 
 illness, and amused himself by dictating such Apophthegms 
 as he could recall. These amount to 280 in number. The 
 subsequent history of the various collections which went under 
 the name of Bacon's Apophthegms, though highly curious, is 
 too intricate, and not of sufficient importance to be recounted 
 here. It will be found in Mr. Spedding's Preface to the 
 Apophthegms.* Several additional Apophthegms have also 
 been appended by him, taken from the second edition of the 
 Besuscitatio, the Baconiana, and a Common-Place Book in the 
 handwriting of Dr. Rawley, preserved at Lambeth. Many 
 of these stories or sayings are witty or instructive enough, but, 
 as to most well-read men the best of them an 1 probably already 
 familiar, the collection may be disappointing to any one who, 
 in mature life, consults it for the first time. Moreover, 
 3 Bacon's Works, vol. vii. pp 113 — 120- 
 E 2 
 
52 BACON. 
 
 pointed sayings are much more effective in a setting, and, 
 when presented alone, still more in a collection, are often apt 
 to fall flat. The difference is something- like that ' between 
 seeing antiquities in a museum or in the open field, or paint- 
 ings in an old church or palace, with which they have been 
 associated for ages, or in a modern picture-gallery. One de- 
 rives much more amusement from two or three good stories 
 told at a dinner-party, where the conversation leads Up to 
 them, than from a whole volume of Ana. 
 
 \Of the historical works (which, together with the religious 
 orks, I include under the general head of Literary Works) , 
 the only one of any size is the History of Henry the Seventh. 
 This book, though the subject had long been familiar to Bacon, 
 and a fragment on this and the four following reigns dates 
 back as far as the time of Elizabeth, seems to have been 
 wholly composed during the Long Vacation succeeding his fall. 
 On the 8th of October, 1621, he was ready to send a fair manu- 
 script to the king. This was returned shortly after the 7th 
 of January, and on the 20th of March, 1621-2, the book was 
 printed and ready for publication. For some inexplicable 
 reason, a te stay" was interposed by Dr. George Mountain, or 
 Monteigne, Bishop of London, the licenser, but this demur 
 seems soon to have been withdrawn or overruled, for the book 
 was out before the end of the month. A Latin Translation, 
 made either by Bacon himself or under his direction, appeared 
 in the Opera Moralia et Civilia, published by Dr. Rawley in 
 1638. As to the merits of this work, opinions seem to differ 
 widely amongst the few who have read it. Sir James Mackin- 
 tosh, in his History of England, appears to regard Bacon as 
 having simply set to work, in order to gratify James the First, 
 to produce a flat tering portraiture of his royal ancestor. Those, 
 however, who will take the trouble to read the book for them- 
 selves, will be more likely to agree with Bacon himself, who, 
 
BACON'S WORKS. 53 
 
 in his dedication to Prince Charles, says i " I have not flattered 
 him, but took him to life as well as I could, sitting so far off, 
 and having no better light." Had Bacon's object been simply 
 to draw a flattering portraiture for the purpose of ingratiating 
 himself with the reigning monarch, he would hardly, in deli- 
 neating Henry's character, have employed such expressions as 
 these : " he would be blinded now and then by human policy;" 
 w justice was well administered in his time, save where the 
 king was party;" " the less blood he drew, the more he took 
 of treasure, aud, as some construed it, he was the more sparing 
 in the one that he might be the more pressing in the other ;" 
 "of nature assuredly he coveted to accumulate treasure, and 
 was a little poor in admiring riches ;" " he kept a strait hand 
 on his nobility, whieh made for his absoluteness but not for his 
 safety, insomuch as I am persuaded it was one of the causes of 
 his troublesome reign ;" " he was a dark prince and infinitely 
 suspicious, and his times full of secret conspiracies and 
 troubles ;" " he was indeed full of apprehensions and suspi- 
 cions ;" " whether it were the shortness of his foresight, or the 
 strength of his will, or the dazzling of his suspicions, or what 
 it was, certain it is that the perpetual troubles of his fortunes 
 (there being no more matter out of whieh they grew) could 
 not have been without some great defects and main errors in 
 his nature, customs, and proceedings, whieh he had enough to 
 do to save and help with a thousand little industries and 
 watches." 4 Ts or, if Sir James Mackintosh's theory be the true 
 one, can we credit Bacon with much adroitness in telling the 
 following story. " He was a prince, sad, serious, and lull of 
 thoughts and secret observations; and full of notes and 
 
 4 These quotations are taken from the character of Henry the Seventh, 
 occurring at the end of the History. It must, of course, be understood 
 that they arc the dark traits in a portrait which is, on the whole, that of 
 a grand and beneficent personage. 
 
54 BACON. 
 
 memorials of his own hand, especially touching persons ; as 
 whom to employ, whom to reward, whom to inquire of, whom 
 to beware of, what were the dependencies, what were the 
 factions, and the like ; keeping (as it were) a journal of his 
 thoughts. There is to this day a merry tale ; that his monkey 
 (set on as it was thought by one of his chamber) tore his principal 
 note-book all to pieces, when by chance it lay forth : whereat 
 the court, which liked not those pensive accounts, was almost 
 tickled with sport/' Mr. Spedding, who, from his knowledge 
 of the history of the times as well as from the pains he has 
 taken to trace to their sources all Bacon's writings, has a better 
 title to be heard on this subject than any other authority, 
 delivers this weighty judgment: "Though not one of his 
 works which stand highest, either in reputation or popularity 
 with later times, the History of Henry the Seventh has done 
 its work more effectually perhaps than any of them. None 
 of the histories which had been written before conveyed any 
 idea either of the distinctive character of the man or the real 
 business of his reign. Every histor}' which has been written 
 since has derived all its light from this, and followed its guid- 
 ance in every question of importance; and the additional 
 materials which come to light from time to time, and enable 
 us to make many corrections in the history of the events, only 
 serve to confirm and illustrate the truth of its interpretation 
 oftJiem." 5 
 
 In the Second Book of the Advancement of Learning, Bacon 
 notes, amongst the deficiencies in modern history, an account 
 of the period of English History from the uniting of the Roses 
 to the uniting of the Kingdoms ; " a portion of time wherein, 
 to my understanding, there hath been the rarest varieties that 
 
 5 Spedding's Account of the Life and Times of Francis Bacon, vol. ii. 
 pp. 542, 543. See also the Preface to the History of Henry the Seventh, 
 Bacon's Works, vol. vi. pp. 4, 5. 
 
BACON'S WORKS. 55 
 
 in like number of successions of any hereditary monarchy hath 
 been known." We have seen that, before the close of the 
 reign of Elizabeth, he had already turned his own attention to 
 this subject. Pressure of business, however, and the absorbing 
 claims of the Great Ins tun rat ion had mostly diverted his atten- 
 tion from it till the period of enforced leisure which succeeded 
 his fall. He then rapidly composed the History of Henry the 
 Seventh, the first reign of the series. Prince Charles, to whom 
 this work was dedicated, urged him to proceed with his original 
 plan, and to write a History of Henry the Eighth. Bacon 
 appears somewhat reluctantly to have yielded, for the business 
 would be a long one, and his heart was far more deeply engaged 
 in philosophy than in history. Moreover, for some reason or 
 other, Sir Robert Cotton began to show some reluctance to 
 allowing him the continued use of his treasures. " I find Sir 
 Robert Cotton/' he says, " who poured forth what he had in 
 my former work, somewhat dainty of his materials in this." The 
 opening paragraph is the only part of this projected writing 
 which was ever executed. 
 
 The piece entitled In Felicem Memoriam Elizaletha (On the 
 Fortunate Memory of Elizabeth, Queen of England), though it 
 can hardly be regarded as connected with the same design as 
 the History of Henry the Seventh and the projected History of 
 Henry the Eighth, falls within the same period. It seems 
 to have beefi written in the summer of 1608, and was intended 
 as an answer to the aspersions cast on Elizabeth's character 
 and government by Roman Catholic pamphleteers. By way 
 of reply to the Pope's description of her as " misera fcemina," 
 Bacon enumerates the various particulars in which her life and 
 government were to be regarded as remarkable for felicity. 
 In a letter to Sir George Carcw, then Ambassador in France, 
 he expresses a wish that the piece should be seen by the Pre- 
 sident De Thou (Thuanus), "chiefly because I know not 
 
5 6 BACON. 
 
 whether it may not serve him for some use in his story ." 
 This eulogy may be viewed as an impartial and independent 
 testimony to the worth and prudence of Elizabeth ; for Bacon 
 had no special reason to be grateful to her, nor, at the time 
 at which the piece was written, could he have served any per- 
 sonal object by magnifying the events of her reign. 
 
 Two other small pieces belong to the same series. One is 
 a memorial of Henry Prince of Wales (In Henricum Prin- 
 cipem Wallice Elogium Francisci Baconi), the eldest son of 
 James, who died prematurely in 1612. It was first printed 
 by Birch, in his edition of Bacon's works, 1763, from a manu- 
 script in the British Museum. The other is a small fragment 
 in English, entitled The Beginning of the History of Great 
 Britain, giving an account of the accession of James the First 
 to the Crown of England. It was first published in Rawley's 
 Resnscitatio, 1657, and, according to Mr. Spedding, was 
 probably composed at the end of 1609 or beginning of 1610. 
 Mr. Spedding says of it : u As an account of the temper of 
 men's minds at James's entrance, it is complete ; and in my 
 judgment one -of the best things in its kind that Bacon ever 
 wrote." 
 
 Bacon's religious works, though they contain some of his 
 finest sentiments, and are mostly written in his best style, 
 might be contained in a very thin volume. The largest of 
 them is the Meditationes Sacrce, first published, in the same 
 volume with the Essays and the Colours of Good arid Evil, in 
 1597. Amongst the most characteristic of the subjects there 
 treated are " The Innocency of the Dove and the Wisdom of the 
 Serpent," "The Exaltation of Charity," "Earthly Hope,""The 
 Kinds of Imposture." The original is in Latin, but, in the re- 
 print of the Essays in 1598, the Meditations appear in English, 
 whether with or without Bacon's imprimatur we do not know. 
 The other genuine works of this class are A Confession of 
 
BA COX'S WORKS. 57 
 
 Faith, first published in the Remains in 1648, but written 
 before (how long before we cannot determine) the Hummer 
 of 1603; a Translation of certain Psalms into English" Verse, 
 composed during his fit of sickness in 1021, which were dedi- 
 cated to " his very good friend Mr. George Herbert," * and 
 published in 1625 ; and three Prayers, one called by him The 
 Student's Prayer, another called by him The Writer's Prayer, 
 and a third composed, in the midst of his troubles, in the 
 spring of 1621. Of this last prayer Addison (in the Toiler, 
 No. 267) says that "For the elevation of thought and great- 
 ness of expression, it seems rather the devotion of an angel 
 than of a man." A fourth Prayer, described in the Remains 
 as " made and used by the late Lord Chancellor," but not 
 mentioned by either Rawley or Tenison, is of doubtful authen- 
 ticity. Lastly, a piece entitled The Characters of a Believing 
 Christian in Paradoxes and Seeming Contradictions, which was 
 also published in the Remains, and has frequently been quoted 
 as Bacon's under the short title of Christian Paradoxes, has 
 now been shown by Mr. Alexander Grosart to have been 
 written by another hand. It formed a portion of the second 
 part of Herbert Palmer's Memorials of Godliness and Chris- 
 tianity, and was first published by him in 164-5. 7 As I have 
 
 6 As George Herbert is himself a man of famous memory, and the 
 dedication is brief, I give it in lull : " To my very good friend Mr. 
 George Herbert. The pains that it pleased you to take about some of my 
 writings I cannot forget; which did put me in mind to dedicate to you 
 this poor exercise of my sickness. Besides, it being my manner tcr 
 dedications to choose those that I hold most fit for the argument, I 
 thought that in respect of divinity and poesy met (whereof the one is the 
 matter, the other the style of this little writing), I could not make better 
 choice. So, with signification of my love and acknowledgment. I ever 
 rest, " Your affectionate friend, 
 
 " Fk. St. Auun." 
 
 7 On the history of this extraordinary literary mistake (for Palmer's 
 work went through no less than twelve editions within the next sixty- 
 
58 BACON. 
 
 devoted a portion of a later chapter to discussing the character 
 of Bacon's religious opinions, I need not dwell any longer on 
 this division of his works. I may, however, say that no one 
 can form any adequate opinion on the vexed question of 
 Bacon's attitude towards religion and religious controversies, 
 unless he takes into consideration the various passages bearing 
 on these topics, which are scattered over his 'Essays and his 
 philosophical writings. 
 
 The professional works lie so much without the scope of my 
 present concern with Bacon, that I shall hardly do more than 
 notice them. A collection of all those which still possess any 
 importance has been brought together and annotated by Mr. 
 D. D. Heath in the seventh volume of Ellis and Spedding's 
 edition of Bacon's works. The largest and most important 
 of these are the treatises entitled Maxims of the Law, and the 
 Heading on the Statute of Uses. The treatise entitled the Use of 
 the Law is regarded by Mr. Heath as spurious. The Maxims of 
 the Law were Bacon's contribution/'asheafandcluster of fruit," 
 towards that Digest of the Laws of England which became at an 
 early period of his life a favourite idea with him, and of which 
 he never wholly lost sight. The dedication to Queen Elizabeth 
 bears date January 8, 1596, but there are reasons for thinking 
 that the body of the work was re-touched, and, in its present 
 shape, belongs to a later period. The Reading on the Statute 
 of Uses, Mr Heath says, " has perhaps received more attention 
 than the Maxims. It has always been cited with respect, and 
 was edited in 180-A, with notes far exceeding the text in length, 
 by Mr. Rowe. It is however only a fragment of a course 
 
 three years), see Mr. Spedding's Letters and Life of Bacon, vol. vi. 
 pp. 129 — 131. Mr. Grosart's discovery appears in a book, printed for 
 private circulation in 1864, entitled Lord Bacon not the author of the 
 Christian Paradoxes. 
 
BACON'S WORKS. 59 
 
 which Bacon was called upon to give in Gray's Inn as Double 
 Reader in 1000." Of the Arguments of Lew , the one perhaps 
 of most historical interest is that in the case of the Post-Nati 
 of Scotland, delivered in the Exchequer Chamber before Easter 
 Term, 1608, while Bacon was Solicitor-General. Another 
 Argument of antiquarian, if not of historical, interest is that on 
 the Jurisdiction of the Council of the Marches, propounded in 
 the same year. What Mr. Heath finds "most striking-, both 
 here and in the argument on the Writ liege Inconsulto, is the 
 ease with which Bacon throws off the tone of the Minister of 
 State and the courtier when he comes to argue before Common 
 Law Judges." In connexion with the professional works, a 
 conjecture of Mr. Spedding's 8 ought to be noticed. He sus- 
 pects that all the corrected copies of Bacon's legal works, 
 which he had selected for preservation, were lost altogether 
 or have survived only in the rough drafts. 
 
 It may be convenient to some of my readers, if I here say 
 something of the various collections of Bacon's posthumous 
 works, which appeared from time to time during the seven- 
 teenth and eighteenth centuries. It will be recollected that 
 the Essays, in three different forms, had come out respectively 
 in 1597, 1612, and 1625, and that to the first of these editions 
 was appended the Meditationes Sacra and the Colours of Good 
 and Evil ; that the Advancement of Learning was published in 
 1605 ; the De Sapient 'ia Veferum'm 1609 ; the Norton Organum 
 in 1620 ; the History of Henry the Seventh, and the Ilistoria- 
 Vcntorum in 1(522 ; the Ilistoria Vita et Mortis in 1623; the De 
 Angmentis Scientiarum in October, 162o j and the Apophthegms 
 and Translation of Certain Psalms in 1625. Excepting poli- 
 tical pamphlets or state papers, such as the Declaration of (he 
 Practices and Treasons attempted and committed by Robert, 
 8 Letters and Life, vol. vii. p. 352 ; Life and Times, vol. ii. p. 622. 
 
6o BACON. 
 
 late Earl of Essex (for which, however, he was not wholly 
 responsible), Sir Francis Bacon, his Apology in certain imputa- 
 tions concerning the late Earl of Essex, the Charge touching 
 Duels, &c, these are all the works which were published 
 during- Bacon's lifetime. In 1627, the year after his death, 
 his chaplain, Dr. Rawley, brought out the Sj/lva Sylvarum, with 
 the New Atlantis appended. All Bacon's more important 
 works, and certainly all those by which he is now best known, 
 had thus been published in 1627. But amongst his papers 
 were found a number of speeches, letters, beginnings or first 
 drafts of treatises, heads of advice, memoranda, &c, which served 
 several successive editors for collections of miscellanies. The 
 first of these collections was that contained in the small volume, 
 published by Dr. Rawley in 1629, under the title of Certain 
 Miscellany Works. It contains Considerations touching a War 
 with Spain, the Advertisement touching a Holy War, An offer to 
 the King of a Big est to be made of the Laws of England, and the 
 short fragment on the History of the Reign of King Henry the 
 Eighth. Comparing it with the parva naturalia of Aristotle, 
 Dr. Rawley calls this collection the parva politica of Bacon. 
 In 1638, Dr. Kawley published the Latin volume, entitled 
 Opera Moralia et Civilia. This contains, in addition to re- 
 prints of the Be Atigmentis, the Historia Ventorum, the Historia 
 Vitcs et Mortis, and (with slight variations) the Be Sapient? a 
 Veterum, translations of the History of Henry the Seventh, 
 the Essays (latinised as Sermones Eideles site Lnteriora Rerum), 
 the New Atlantis, and the Holy War. These translations, as 
 well as the Be Sapientia Veterum, are described as, except in a 
 few particulars, put into Latin by the author himself. 9 The 
 next volume of Collections was published anonymously in 
 1648, and was entitled " The Remains of Francis, Lord Verulam, 
 
 9 Ah ipso Honoratissimo Auctore, prceterquam in paucis, Latinitate 
 donatus. 
 
BACON'S WORKS. 6\ 
 
 fyc, being 1 Essays and several Letters to several great person- 
 ages, and other pieces of various and high concernment not here- 
 tofore published." There is no preface, or any explanation of the 
 principle of selection or of the sources from which the pieces 
 had been brought together. It contains several letters, Bacon's 
 opinion concerning the disposition of Sutton's charity (the 
 Charterhouse estate), the Confession of Faith, the Christian 
 Paradoxes, which, as we have seen, were by another hand, and 
 the Prayer of doubtful authenticity, mentioned on p. 57. The 
 authenticity of any document contained in this collection 
 requires to be supported by independent testimony. 
 
 In 1653 appeared a farmore important volume, that published 
 in an elegant duodecimo at Amsterdam by Isaac Grater, and qh- 
 tit]vd Fraud sci Baconi deVerulamio Script a inNaturali et Univer- 
 sali Philosophia. It contains a large number of Bacon's smaller 
 philosophical pieces, such as the Cog it af a et Visa, the Descrip- 
 tio Globi Jniellectualis, the Scala Litellectus, Prodromi Philo- 
 sophia Secundce, &c. It is divided into two parts, the latter 
 of which is called Impetus Philosophici, but, so far as concerns 
 the character of the pieces, there is no ground for the division. 1 
 The reader may naturally ask, how came so important a 
 collection to be first issued in Holland ? Sir Robert Rich and 
 Mr. Thomas Meautys, two of Bacon's creditors, to whom letters 
 of administration w T ere granted about fifteen months after his 
 death, the executors named in his will having refused or 
 delayed to assume their office, appear to have handed over 
 these documents to a Mr. Bosville, to whom, together with Sir 
 John Constable, who had married Bacon's wife's sister, the 
 care of his papers had been bequeathed in his will. Most of 
 Bacon's unpublished manuscripts had the good fortune to fall 
 into the hands of Dr. Rawley, but these of which I am speak- 
 
 1 The circumstances which probably led to this division are described 
 by Mr. Spedding in the Preface to the Third Volume of Bacon's Works, 
 
62 BACON. 
 
 ing, together with others which possibly were never published 
 and may now have disappeared/ were sent over to Mr. Bosville 
 (afterwards better known as Sir William Bos well), who, soon 
 after Bacon's death, had become the agent of the English 
 Government at the Hague. By Sir William Bos well these 
 papers were handed - on to Isaac Gruter. If he was charged 
 with their publication, the commission seems to have been only 
 imperfectly performed. 
 
 Another important collection of pieces was issued in 1657. 
 This was a miscellaneous collection, edited by Rawley, under 
 the title of " Resuscitatio, or bringing into public light several 
 pieces of the works, civil, historical, philosophical, and theolo- 
 gical, hitherto sleeping, of the Right Honourable Francis Bacon," 
 &c. This volume contains Speeches, Letters, and several short 
 treatises and discourses, chiefly of a political character. To it is 
 prefixed a " Life of the Honourable Author," since frequently 
 reprinted. In the Epistle to the Header, Dr. Rawley speaks 
 of the "sundry corrupt and mangled editions" of Bacon's 
 writings, 3 " whereby nothing hath been more difficult than to 
 find the Lord St. Alban in the Lord St. Alban." New editions 
 of the Resuscitatio were brought out in 1661 and 1671 respec- 
 tively, both containing new matter, but Dr. Rawley, who died 
 in 1667, is only responsible for the second edition. It maybe 
 mentioned that, in this edition, some new sentences are in- 
 troduced into the Life of the Author. The Resuscitatio is a 
 collection of English pieces or translations only, but in 1658, 
 the year following its publication, Rawley redeemed his 
 promise of bringing out a small collection of Latin works, so 
 
 2 They may, however, be included in the Resuscitatio and Opuscula 
 of Rawley. See Preface to the Third Volume of Ellis and Spedding's 
 Bacon, pp. 8, 9. 
 
 8 Rawley was probably alluding specially to the Remains and to the 
 letters contained in the Cabala and Scrinia Sacra. 
 
BACON'S WORKS. 63 
 
 as not " to leave to a future hand anything- of moment and 
 communicable to the public." This collection is entitled 
 Ojmscula Varla Posihuma, Philosophica, Civilia, et Theologica, 
 Francisci Baconi, &c. To it is prefixed a Latin translation 
 of the Life. The principal contents are the Ilisloria Densi et 
 Bari, the Historia Soni et Audit us, and the In Felt con Memo- 
 riam Elizabeth®. It also includes several small pieces, such as 
 the Inquisilio de Magnete and the Imago Civilis Julii Ccesaris. 
 
 Thomas Tenison, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, who 
 had access to Rawley's papers after his death, 4 published in 107 9, 
 a small volume entitled " Baconiana, or certain genuine re- 
 mains of Sir Francis Bacon," &c. This volume contains, by way 
 of introduction, an " account of all the Lord Bacon's works " 
 of considerable interest to the bibliographer. The charges 
 against the Earl and Countess of Somerset are here first printed 
 in an authentic form, and the admirers of Bacon had reason 
 to be grateful to Tenison for rescuing from oblivion several 
 charming pieces, such as the Student's Prayer and the Writer's 
 Prayer in English, and the letters to the University of Cam- 
 bridge and Trinity College on presenting them with copies of 
 his books. 
 
 A collection of Bacon's unpublished letters, written during 
 the reign of James the First, was published by Robert Stephens 
 in 1702. A second volume, also collected by him, was pub- 
 lished in 1734. In addition to letters, this latter volume con- 
 tains several tracts and fragments, the most important, perhaps, 
 of which is the Bedargulio P/iilosop/tiarum, only a small portion 
 of which had been published by Grater in 1G5 -J. Finally, 
 another collection of unpublished Letters, Speeches, &c, was 
 issued by Dr. Thomas Birch in 1763. These, with some addi- 
 
 4 At some time or other, Tenison himself became possessed of these 
 papers, and they are now in the Archicpiscopal Library at Lambeth, 
 
64 BACON. 
 
 tions, occupy the sixth volume of the old ten-volume edition 
 of Bacon's works. 
 
 None of Bacon's legal works were published during his life- 
 time. In 1630 appeared, in pamphlet form, " The Elements of 
 the Common Laws of 'England, branched into a double tract, by 
 the late Sir Francis Bacon, Knight/' &c The first of these 
 tracts was the Maxims of the Common Law, the second the 
 Use of the Common Lata. The latter tract, it has already 
 been stated, Mr. Heath regards as spurious. The Beading on 
 the Statute of Uses was first published, in a very incorrect form, 
 in 1642. Three Speeches concerning the Post-Nati of Scot- 
 land, the Naturalization of the Scotch in England, and the 
 Union of the Laws of the kingdoms of England and Scotland, 
 were first published in 1641. The Four Arguments on Im- 
 peachment of Waste, Lowe's case of Tenures, the case of 
 Revocation of Uses, and the Jurisdiction of the Council of 
 the Marches, first appeared in Blackbourne's edition of Bacon's 
 entire works, published in 1730. Bacon's argument in Chud- 
 leigh's case has been recovered by Mr. Spedding. 
 
 The first edition, professing to be complete, of Bacon's 
 works, issued in England, was that of Blackbourne, in 1730. 5 
 "What long served as the trade edition was a reprint of the 
 edition put out by Birch in 1763. A handsome, but ill-arranged, 
 edition, under the superintendence of Mr. Basil Montagu, was 
 issued by Pickering between 1825 and 1836. The appearance 
 of this edition was the occasion of Macaulay's Essay. The 
 splendid and carefully annotated edition of Ellis, Spedding, 
 and Heath, in seven volumes, was brought out by Longmans 
 
 5 Collections of Bacon's Works, which professed to be, or might be 
 regarded as, Opera Omnia, had been published, before the end of the 
 eighteenth century, at Frankfort-on-the-Main, Amsterdam, and Leipsic. 
 So far as letters, speeches, and miscellaneous fragments are concerned, all 
 these were necessarily very imperfect. 
 
BACON'S WORKS. 65 
 
 in 1857 and following years. No one, who wishes to study 
 Bacon's works as a whole, can now dispense with its assistance. 
 Mr. Spedding has incorporated the letters and occasional works 
 of Bacon in another work, occupying seven volumes, entitled 
 Letters and Life of Bacon, Longmans, 1861 and following 
 years. This work will be found to be an invaluable acquisi- 
 tion to the student of history, not only as regards the life of 
 Bacon but the events of his period generally. The substance 
 of it, omitting most of the letters but retaining the greater 
 part of the biography, has recently appeared under the title of 
 The Life and Times of Francis Bacon, 2 vols., Trubner and 
 Co., 1878. 
 
 Of Bacon's separate works, the most recent edition of the 
 Advancement of Learning is that of Mr. Aldis Wright, and 
 of the Novum Organum my own, both issued by the Clarendon 
 Press at Oxford. Amongst recent editions of the Essays are 
 those of Archbishop Whately, Mr. Aldis Wright, and Dr. 
 Abbott. The Clarendon Press is shortly about to issue a a 
 edition, annotated by Mr. J. R. Thursfield. 
 
66 BACON. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 The divisions, existing* condition, and deficiencies of the 
 sciences are the subject of three of Bacon's works, — namely, 
 the Advancement of Learning , published in 1605, the Be Aug- 
 mentis Scientiarum, published in 1623, and the Descriptio Globi 
 Intettectualis, which, though written about 1612, was first 
 published by Gruter in 1653. 2 For the purposes of this 
 chapter, it will be sufficient to confine our attention to the 
 second of these treatises, Of its relation to the first I have 
 already spoken. The third, though curious, as expressing (in 
 conjunction with the Thema Coeli, which really forms part of 
 the same work) the opinions entertained by Bacon on the dis- 
 puted questions of astronomy almost immediately after the 
 publication of Galileo's Syderus Nuncius, is of too fragmentary 
 a character to claim any of the space at my disposal. 
 
 The first book of the Be Augmentis is, with some variations, 
 a translation into Latin of the first book of the Advancement of 
 Learning, already described, and need not detain us. The 
 distribution of the Sciences {Partiones Scientiarum), the sub- 
 ject of the first part of the Great Instauration, properly begins 
 
 1 Quaintly called by Bacon his " perambulation." 
 
 2 A few chapters of the curious but interesting fragment Valerius 
 Terminus bear on the same subject, but they are too slight to be mentioned 
 by the side of the other treatises. 
 
BACON'S SURVEY OF THE SCIENCES. 67 
 
 with the second book. As his basis of division, Bacon takes 
 "the three faculties of the rational soul " (or, as he calls them 
 in the Ailranccment of Learning, "the three parts of man's 
 understanding* "). "History has reference to the Memory, 
 poesy to the Imagination, and philosophy to the Reason. And 
 by poesy here I mean - nothing" else than feigned history, or 
 fables ; for verse is but a character of style." " History is 
 properly concerned with individuals, which are circumscribed 
 by place and time. For though Natural History may seem to 
 deal with species, yet this is only because of the general re- 
 semblance which in most cases natural objects of the same 
 species bear to one another ; so that when you know one, you 
 know all." ,s Poesy, in the sense in which I have defined the 
 word, is also concerned with individuals; that* is, with indivi- 
 duals invented in imitation of those which are the subject of 
 true history. There is, however, this difference that Poesy 
 frequently exceeds the measure of nature, joining at pleasure 
 things which in nature would never have come together, 
 introducing things which in nature would never have come to 
 pass; just as Painting likewise does. This is the work of 
 Imagination." " Philosophy discards individuals j neither 
 does it deal with the impressions immediately received from 
 them, but with notions abstracted from those impressions : in 
 the composition and division whereof according to the law of 
 nature and the evidence of fact its business lies. And this is 
 the office and work of Reason." "That these things are so, 
 may be easily seen by observing the beginnings of the intel- 
 lectual process. The sense, which is the door of the intellect, 
 is affected by individual objects only. The images of those 
 individuals — that is, the impressions received by the sense — 
 are fixed in the memory, and pass into it, in the Bret instance, 
 entire as it were, just as they occur. These the human mind 
 proceeds to review and ruminate on; and, thereupon, either 
 
 F 2 
 
6S BACON. 
 
 simply rehearses them, or makes fanciful imitations of them, 
 or analyses and classifies them. Wherefore from these three 
 fountains, Memory, Imagination, and Reason, flow these three 
 emanations, History, Poesy, and Philosophy; and there can 
 be no others. For I consider history and experience to be the 
 same thing", as also philosophy and the sciences." 
 
 So far the division has only been one of human learning. 
 But, when we examine the contents of divine learning, we shall 
 find that the same division is applicable to them. " Nor do I 
 think that any other division is wanted for Theology. The 
 information derived from revelation and the information derived 
 from the sense differ no doubt both in the matter and in the 
 mode of conveyance ; but the human mind is the same, and its 
 repositories and cells the same. It is only as if different liquids 
 were poured through different funnels into one and the same 
 vessel. Theology therefore consists either of Sacred History, or 
 of Parables, which are a divine poesy, or of Doctrines and Pre- 
 cepts, which are a perennial philosophy. For as for that part 
 which seems supernumerary, namely, Prophecy, it is but a kind 
 of history : for divine history has this prerogative over human, 
 that the narration may be before the event, as well as after." 3 
 
 The principal subdivisions, according to Bacon's scheme, are 
 these. History is either Natural or Civil, Natural History 
 treating of the works of Nature, Civil History of the works of 
 Man. Civil History includes Literary and Ecclesiastical 
 History, as well as the history of states, though in the Ad- 
 vancement of Learning the two former are made separate 
 divisions. Natural History is divided into the history of 
 generations, in which nature follows her ordinary course of 
 developement, of praeter-generations, that is of monsters or 
 
 3 De Augmentis, book ii. ch. 1. In my quotations throughout this 
 chapter, I have adopted, with slight variations, the translation pub- 
 lished in Ellis and Spedding's edition of Bacon's Works, vols. iv. and v. 
 
£ A COATS SURVEY OF THE SCIENCES. 6g 
 
 portents, and of arts, !>}' which nature is " put in constraint, 
 moulded, and made as it were new by the hand of man.'" "Of 
 these the first treats of the Freedom of Nature, the second of 
 her Errors, the third of her Bonds. " " And I am the more 
 indited," adds Bacon, putting forward one of his most charac- 
 teristic tenets, " to set down the History of the Arts as a 
 species of Natural History, because an opinion has long been 
 prevalent, that art is something different from nature, and 
 things artificial different from things natural ; whence this evil 
 has arisen, that most writers of Natur.d History think they 
 have done enough when they have given an account of animals 
 or plants or minerals, omitting altogether the experiments of 
 mechanical arts." 4 The Appendices to Civil History, which re- 
 cord the works of men as history itself records their actions, are 
 Orations, Letters, and Apophthegms. The second principal part 
 of learning, or Poesy, which is feigned history, is divided into 
 Poesy Narrative, Dramatic, and Parabolical. "Narrative Poesy 
 is a mere imitation of History, such as might pass for readonly 
 that it commonly exaggerates things beyond probability. Dra- 
 matic Poesy is as History made visible; for it represents actions 
 as if they were present, whereas History represents them as past. 
 Parabolical Poesy " (which, as he says afterwards, is of a higher 
 character than the others, and appears to be something sacred 
 and venerable) " is typical history, by which ideas that are ob- 
 jects of the intellect are represented in forms that are objects of 
 the sense." 5 "The object of philosophy is threefold — God, 
 Nature, and Man ; as there are likewise three kinds of rays — 
 direct, refracted, and reflected. For nature strikes the under- 
 standing with a ray direct; God, by reason of the unequal 
 medium (namely, his creatures), with a ray refracted; man, as 
 shown and exhibited to himself, with a ray rellccted." These 
 three branches of philosophy, however, all meet in one trunk, 
 
 4 Book ii. ch. 2. * Book ii. ch. 13. 
 
;o BACON, 
 
 the Philosophia Prima, which is, as it were, the common 
 parent of the particular sciences, embodying those axioms an J 
 discussing those problems which are not peculiar to any one 
 science but find their place in all knowledge alike. 6 
 
 te That knowledge, or rather glimmering of knowledge, con- 
 cerning God, which may be obtained by the light of nature and 
 the contemplation of his creatures," is called Natural Theology. 
 The second part of Philosophy, or Natural Philosophy, is 
 divided into Speculation, or the inquiry into causes, and 
 Operation, or the production of effects. Speculative Philoso- 
 phy, again, is divided into Physic, which is concerned with 
 material and efficient causes, that is, the materials out of which 
 and the agents by which effects are produced, and Metaphysic, 
 which is concerned with final and formal causes, or the ulti- 
 mate purposes which things subserve and that innermost 
 constitution or essence from which the other properties of an 
 object or quality are derived. The operative doctrine con- 
 cerning nature admits likewise of two divisions : Mechanic 
 corresponding with Physic, and Magic corresponding with 
 Metaphysic. Mechanic depends on a knowledge of the efficient 
 and material causes, Magic on a knowledge of the Form. 
 " For the inquisition of Final Causes is barren, and, like a 
 virgin consecrated to God, produces nothing. " To know the 
 ends which an object subserves does not enable us to produce 
 it. A knowledge of the material and efficient causes does 
 indeed often enable us to bring about mechanical effects. 
 " But they who devote themselves to these studies, do but 
 creep as it were along the shore " premendo litus iniquum," 
 hugging the coast." There is a surer and more far-reaching 
 mode of operation, Bacon conceived, than any now in use. It t 
 is to ascertain the ultimate circumstance or circumstances on 
 
 6 Book iii. ch. i. I have described and discussed Bacon's conception 
 of Primary Philosophy in ch. 5, pp. 175 — 178. 
 
BACON'S SURVEY OF THE SCIENCES. 71 
 
 which all the others depend, and then by duly disposing the 
 former to produce the latter. Thus, to take Bacon's own in- 
 stance from the second book of the Novum Organum, if heat be 
 a certain kind of motion amongst the minute particles of a body, 
 the surest and most effectual mode of producing heat will be 
 to initiate this motion. To operations of this kind, depending 
 on a knowledge of the Form, he appropriates the term Magic. 
 u It seems to me that there can hardly be discovered any radi- 
 cal or fundamental alterations and innovations of nature, either 
 by accidents, or the trial of experiments, or even from the light 
 of physical causes; but only by the discovery of Forms. If 
 then I have set down that part of metaphysic which treats of 
 forms as deficient, it must follow that I do the like of natural 
 magic, which has relation thereunto. But I must here stipu- 
 late that magic, which has long been used in a bad sense, be 
 again restored to its ancient and honourable meaning. For 
 among the Persians 7 magic was taken for a sublime wisdom 
 and the knowledge of the universal consents of things ; and 
 so the three kings who came from the east to worship Christ 
 were called by the name of Magi. Now I understand it as 
 the science which applies the knowledge of hidden Forms to 
 the production of wonderful operations; and, by uniting, as 
 they say, actives with passives, displays the wondrous works 
 of nature." 8 Mathematic (which is divided into Pure and 
 Mixed) is the great appendix and auxiliary to Natural Philo- 
 sophy, whether speculative or operative. Bacon is aware that 
 "the received," that is the Aristotelian, arrangement re- 
 
 7 This remark is in accordance with Bacon's idoa that a profound 
 wisdom, now lost, existed in the ancient world. See last chapter, 
 pp. 46, 47. 
 
 8 Book iii. ch. 5. On Bacon's conception of Forms, the importance 
 which he attached to their discovery, and the practical bearings of his 
 doctrine, I shall speak at length in ch. 4. See pp. 107 — 119. 
 
72 BACON. 
 
 cognizes Mathematics as a branch of speculative philosophy 
 co-ordinate with Plrysics and Metaphysics. But he thinks it 
 necessary to represent it as only the handmaid of the other 
 two, " by reason of the daintiness and pride of mathematicians, 
 who will needs have this science almost domineer over Physic" 
 st For it has come to pass, I know not how, that Mathematic and 
 Logic, which ought to be but the handmaids of Physic, never- 
 theless presume on the strength of the certainty which they 
 possess to exercise dominion over it/' 9 
 
 No less than five books of the De Avgmentis (Books iv. — 
 viii.) are devoted to "the doctrine concerning Man/' or what 
 we should now call Anthropology, in the widest sense of that 
 term. i( This has two parts ; for it considers man either segre- 
 gate, or congregate and in society/' The one is called the 
 Philosophy of Humanity or Human Philosophy, the other 
 Civil Philosophy. " The Philosophy of Humanity consists of 
 parts similar to those of which man consists ; that is, of sciences 
 which respect the body, and of sciences which respect the mind, 
 besides comprehending one general science concerning the 
 nature and state of man or concerning those things which are 
 common as well to the body as the soul/' " The doctrine con- 
 cerning man's body receives the same division as the good of 
 man's body to which it is subservient. The goods of man's 
 body are four ; Health, Beauty, Strength, Pleasure. The 
 sciences therefore are in number the same ; Medicine, Cosmetic, 
 Athletic, and Voluptuary, which Tacitus calls 'eruditusluxus/ 
 educated luxury." The doctrine concerning the human Soul 
 (in which we must distinguish between the Rational Soul, 
 which is divine, and the Sensible or Produced Soul, which is 
 common with brutes/) is concerned either with the Substance 
 
 9 Book hi. ch. 6. 
 
 1 For Bacon's distinction between these two kinds of soul and other 
 matters connected with his Psychology, see ch. 5, pp. 161 — 168. 
 
BACON'S SURVEY OF THE SCIENCES. 73 
 
 and Faculties of the Soul or with the Use and Objects of the 
 Faculties, the hitter doctrine being divisible into Logic and 
 Ethic. Logic is taken in a wide sense, as including* the arts 
 of Invention, Judgment, Retention, and Tradition. These, 
 again, are subdivided, as, for instance, the art of Invention into 
 the discovery of Arts and the discovery of Arguments. Ethic 
 or moral knowledge is divided into " two principal doctrines : 
 the one the Exemplar or Platform of Good, the other the 
 Regiment or Culture of the Mind ; the one describing the 
 nature of good, the other prescribing rules how to accommo- 
 date the will of man thereunto." Civil Philosophy, the second 
 great division of " the doctrine concerning Man/' " has three 
 parts, according to the three summary actions of Society : the 
 knowledge of conversation, the knowledge of negotiation, and 
 the knowledge of empire or government. For there are three 
 kinds of good, which men seek to acquire for themselves from 
 civil society : comfort against solitude, assistance in business, 
 and protection against injuries. And there are these three 
 wisdoms of divers natures, which are often found separate : 
 wisdom in conversation or behaviour, wisdom in business, and 
 wisdom in state." 2 The science of Universal Justice or the 
 Fountains of Equity falls under the last of these three divi- 
 sions, but is noted as deficient. 
 
 The few paragraphs which constitute the last or ninth book 
 refer to the study of Theology, that is Sacred or Inspired Theo- 
 logy, as distinct from Natural Theology, which is regarded as a 
 branch of philosophy. Bacon does not attempt any further 
 division of this subject than that which he had suggested, as 
 parallel to the division of Human Learning, at the beginning of 
 Book ii. But he proposes three Appendices, relating however 
 "not to the matter concerning which theology gives or shall 
 give information, but only to the manner in which the informa- 
 
 - Book viii. eh. 1. 
 
74 BACON. 
 
 tion is or may be imparted." These are the legitimate use of the 
 human reason in matters of religion, the limits of toleration 
 •within the church, and the interpretation of the Scriptures by 
 means of annotations on particular texts (fancifully called " the 
 Emanations of the Scriptures"), all of which he notes as deficient. 
 
 Such are the main outlines of Bacon's Partitions of the 
 Sciences. Faulty as this classification is both in the principle 
 on which it is constructed and in many of its particulars, he 
 deserves great credit for having attempted, on independent 
 grounds, to frame a new chart of knowledge adequate to the 
 existing and what he conceived might not unreasonably be 
 looked forward to as the prospective state of learning. Even 
 if the map were not altogether accurate, it might, with its 
 comparatively full details, still serve the purpose of suggesting 
 new voyages of discovery, and of indicating to each band of 
 explorers the light to be gained from the study of other depart- 
 ments of knowledge. 3 Man's acquaintance with the intel- 
 lectual, like his acquaintance with the material, world had 
 grown vastly since the days of Aristotle and the Stoics. Why 
 should he still be confined to their meagre enumerations of the 
 sciences ? The two commonly received systems of distribution 
 were those of the Peripatetics and the Stoics. The Peripatetics, 
 
 3 " At the period when Bacon wrote, it was of much more consequence 
 to exhibit to the learned a comprehensive sketch than an accurate survey of 
 the intellectual world ; such a sketch as, by pointing out to those, whose 
 views had been hitherto confined within the limits of particular regions, 
 the relative positions and bearings of their respective districts, as parts of 
 one great whole, might invite them all, for the common benefit, to a 
 reciprocal exchange of their local riches. The societies or academies 
 which, soon afterwards, sprung up in different countries of Europe, for the 
 avowed purpose of contributing to the general mass of information by the 
 collection of insulated facts, conjectures, and queries, afford sufficient 
 proof that the anticipations of Bacon were not, in this instance, altogether 
 chimerical." — Dugald Stewart's Dissertation, Preface. 
 
BACON'S SURVEY OF THE SCIENCES. 75 
 
 following Aristotle in their main division and in their two first 
 subdivisions, but supplying the third subdivision themselves, 
 had classified the departments of knowledge as speculative 
 (detDfnjTifcaL) , practical (TrpaKTiKai), and artistic or productive 
 (it t7)7i k at) : subdividing speculative knowledge into physic, 
 math ema tic, and theology (or, as the highest grade of know- 
 ledge was variously called, metaphysic or the first philosophy) ; 
 practical knowledge into ethic, ceconomic, and politic; and 
 artistic, constructive, or creative knowledge (TroirjTifcrj) into 
 dialectic or logic, rhetoric, and poetic. Mathematic was also 
 commonly divided into arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and 
 harmonics (music), the quadrivium of the mediaeval universities. 
 The Stoics proposed what was apparently a simpler division in 
 their threefold scheme of Logic (which was made to include 
 grammar and rhetoric), Ethics, and Physics (including Theo- 
 logy). This division corresponds with the one proposed by 
 Locke in the last chapter of the Essay on the Hitman Under* 
 standing. Bacon's scheme, however open it may be to criti- 
 cism, at least prepared the way, by the copious details into 
 which it entered, for a thorough discussion of the relations 
 subsisting between the various sciences as well as for discover- 
 ing the deficiencies which remained to be supplied in them. 
 
 It is a great historical testimony to the excellence of Bacon's- 
 classification that, with comparatively slight alterations, it was 
 adopted by D'Alembert in his Preliminary Discourse to the 
 French Eneyclopedie. Amongst the principal changes which 
 it there assumed may be enumerated the following. The places- 
 of Imagination and Reason, Poetry and Philosophy, a re reversed> 
 so that, in the scheme of the Encyclopedic, Poetry comes last; 
 the Imagination being regarded by D'Alembert as a more 
 mature faculty (he is, of course, speaking of the creative not of 
 the merely re-productive Imagination) than the Reason, and 
 posterior to it in the order of developement. Revealed Theology > 
 
7 6 BACON. 
 
 instead of being- treated as co-ordinate with and distinct from 
 Human Learning", is included under that part of Philosophy 
 which is concerned with the knowledge of God, Natural Theo- 
 logy and the Science of evil spirits being the co-ordinate 
 branches. Metaphysic is used in no less than three senses. 
 In one sense, it is General Metaphysic, that is ontology or the 
 Science of Being in general,— of Possibility, Existence, Dura- 
 tion, &c. In this sense, it stands at the head of Philosophy, 
 and has a certain affinity to the Philosophia Prima of Bacon. 
 In another sense, it is employed as the equivalent of Pneuma- 
 tology, or the science of souls as distinct from bodies, and in 
 this sense is called Particular Metaphysic. Finally, there is a 
 metaphysic of bodies, or general physic, which treats of extent, 
 movement, impenetrability, &c, or the properties common to 
 all bodies. Mathematics is made one of the main divisions of 
 the Philosophy of Nature, instead of a mere appendix, and 
 the mathematical as well as the physical sciences are much 
 more elaborately divided than in Bacon's classification. The 
 various medical sciences, or those which have to do with the 
 care of man's body, are classified on a more scientific basis, and 
 transferred from the Philosophy of Man to the Philosophy of 
 Nature. Morals, are divided into general and particular : 
 general ethics being concerned with discussions on the nature 
 of good and evil, on the necessity of being virtuous, &c. ; par- 
 ticular ethics with the special duties of the individual when 
 regarded alone, of man in the family, and of man in society, 
 denominated respectively Natural, Economical, and Political 
 Jurisprudence, a similar division being applicable to the con- 
 duct of states. Poesy is not confined to Poetry proper, but is 
 .made co-extensive with the Fine Arts in general. Notwith- 
 standing, however, these numerous divergences, the points of 
 agreement between the schemes of Bacon and D'Alembert seem 
 to me to be much more important than those of difference. But 
 
BACON'S SURVEY OF THE SCIENCES. 77 
 
 it was not only in the classification of the sciences, that the 
 Encyclopedists were indebted to Bacon. To him they owed 
 their conception of the whole work, and Diderot and D'Alem- 
 bert are never weary of acknowledging the obligation. "If 
 
 we emerge from this vast operation," wrote Diderot in the 
 Prospectus, " we shall owe it mainly to the chancellor Bacon, 
 who sketched the plan of an universal dictionary of sciences 
 and arts at a time when there were not, so to speax, cither arts 
 or sciences. This extraordinary genius, when it was impossible 
 to write a history of what men already knew, wrote one of 
 that which they had to learn/' " No more striking panegyric 
 has ever been passed/' says Mr. Morley, 4 " upon our immortal 
 countryman than is to be found in the Preliminary Discourse. 
 The French Encyclopaedia was the direct fruit of Bacon's 
 magnificent conceptions." 
 
 The radical fault in Bacon's classification of the sciences 
 arises from his adopting a distinction between the so-called 
 faculties as the basis of his division. It is awkward, to begin 
 with, to make Memory include perception and the trained 
 habit of observation. Then, Imagination has to be taken in 
 a special sense, as a combining and creative faculty, while 
 Reason must be made to include processes like Abstraction and 
 Generalisation. But, apart from these objections, it is plain, 
 on a little consideration, that all these mental acts are so im- 
 plicated in every intellectual process of any length or complex- 
 ity, that it is impossible definitely or even approximate!}' to 
 assign one subject to the domain of one faculty and another to 
 that of another. Thus, in Civil History, we not only have to 
 try to reproduce the facts as they occurred (which part of the 
 work Bacon would have assigned to Memory), but we must 
 often follow long trains of reasoning and imagine various 
 complications of circumstances in order to account for the 
 4 Diderot, by John Morley, vol. i. p. 116. 
 
7 8 BACON. 
 
 sequence of events or the motives of those who were actors in 
 them. And it is superfluous to remark that we can neither 
 infer a single conclusion nor combine any two ideas, without 
 the intervention of memory. Difficult as it is to frame any 
 rules on such a subject, it may be laid down with confidence 
 that the principles of classification ought to be sought in the 
 nature of the Sciences themselves, and not in the intellectual 
 acts by which we apprehend or develope them. 
 
 When we come to criticize Bacon's scheme in details, we are 
 especially struck, from our present stand-point, with the clumsy 
 device of constituting Appendices ; with the difficulty he experi- 
 ences in properly co-ordinating mathematical with physical 
 science ; with the inclusion of the doctrine concerning the Body 
 of Man (comprehending, as it does, Medicine and Anatomy) 
 under the head of Human rather than of Natural Philosophy, 
 thereby co-ordinating it not with thephysical but with the moral 
 sciences ; with the peculiar province assigned to Metaphysic ; 
 and, lastly, not to multiply examples, with the vague and inade- 
 quate divisions of Physics. It must be recollected, however, 
 that Bacon was acting, in this field, as a pioneer, and we ought 
 rather to be grateful to him for the work which he achieved 
 and the example which he set than nicely to estimate his errors 
 and defects. 
 
 Of more recent attempts to classify the various departments 
 of human knowledge, it would be out of place here to offer any 
 detailed account. Every philosopher who is possessed with 
 the ambition of framing a complete system of philosophy must 
 either accept such a classification ready-made (an alternative 
 the choice of which would argue considerable modesty), or try 
 to construct one for himself. The efforts' of Hegel, Comte, and 
 . Herbert Spencer, in this direction, will be familiar to many of 
 my readers. Hegel's classification is to be found in the elabo- 
 rate work, entitled Encyklojpixdie der Pkilosop/iise/ten Wissen- 
 
BACON'S SURVEY OF THE SCIENCES. ;g 
 
 schqften, a brief account of which is given by Mr. Wallace in 
 his article on Hegel in the Encyclopedia Britannioa. The 
 Synoptical Table of Comte occurs in the first volume of the 
 P/tilosojjhie Positive, and is explained and justified in the 
 second lecture contained in the same volume. Mr. Herbert 
 Spencer proposes a new classification, based on the distinction 
 of Abstract and Concrete (to which, however, he adds a third 
 division, the Abstract-Concrete), in an Essay on the Classifi- 
 cation of the Sciences, contained in the third volume of his 
 Essays and also published separately. Mr. Bain criticizes this 
 and other schemes in one of the Appendices to his Bed act ice 
 Logic, stating his own views in the Introduction to the same 
 work. J. S. Mill, who, with certain important reservations, 
 approves Comte's classification, has examined this subject at 
 considerable length in his work on Auguste Comte and Positiv- 
 ism (pp. 33 — G7). Comte's design, could it be successfully 
 executed, would no doubt be of great advantage to the student. 
 It is no less than to classify the various sciences (or rather the 
 abstract or fundamental sciences, for the concrete sciences, like 
 botany and zoology, are regarded as not yet formed, but only 
 teuding to formation) according to the varying degrees of 
 complexity in their phenomena; so that each science depends 
 on a knowledge of the preceding, while adding fresh data of 
 its own. Guided by this principle, M. Comte arranges the 
 abstract or fundamental sciences in the following hierarchical 
 order : 1st, Mathematics, its ascending stages being Arithme- 
 tic, Geometry, Mechanics; 2nd, Astronomy (or the applica- 
 tions of the Law of Gravitation) ; 3rd, Physics, its departments 
 being Baiology or the science of w r eight, Thermology or the 
 science of heat, Acoustics, Optics, and Eleetrology, of which 
 Barology must come first, and Electrology last, the phi' 
 the others being more doubtful; 4th, Chemistry, divided into 
 inorganic and organic ; 5th, Physiology or Biology ; Cth, Socio- 
 
8o BACON, 
 
 logy or Social Physics, the study of man in society, implying 
 the determination of what constitutes personal and domestic as 
 well as social morality. In addition to the concrete sciences, 
 such as Meteorology, Geology, Mineralogy, Botany, and Zoo- 
 logy, the student will miss from the above list Logic, Psycho- 
 logy, and Theology, Amissions which are not accidental but inti- 
 mately connected with Comte's views on the nature and order 
 of knowledge. The divisions of Art and Literature, as well as 
 of the practical applications of Science, lie altogether outside 
 the scheme. Of these classifications generally, it ma}' be said 
 that, useful as is the attempt to construct them and to adapt 
 them to the existing state of knowledge, they are never able 
 altogether to justify themselves against hostile criticism. But 
 this is as we might expect. As the art of discovering grows 
 with discoveries, 6 so the art of classifying grows with the 
 knowledge to be classified, and, consequently, neither the one 
 nor the other can ever be regarded as perfect or complete. 
 
 Little has yet been said of what is perhaps the most interest- 
 ing feature in the Advancement of Learning and the Be Aug- 
 mentis Scientiarum, namely, the waste spots which Bacon notes 
 in the various fields of knowledge, as cultivated in his time. 
 The remainder of this chapter will be occupied with examples 
 of such "deficiencies,"" but they must be regarded as specimens 
 only, and by no means exhaustive. 
 
 Speaking of the want of " a complete and universal History 
 of Learning,'" and promising to set forth its argument, its 
 method of construction, and its use, he says of the former : — 
 
 " The argument is no other than to inquire and collect out ■ 
 of the records of all time in what ages and regions of the 
 
 5 Another science which is omitted, or rather rejected, by Comte, though 
 its omission does not appear on the face of his classification, is Political 
 Economy. 
 
 6 Nov. Org., book i. aph. 130. 
 
BACON'S SURVEY OF THE SCIENCES. 81 
 
 world what particular kinds of learning" and arts have 
 flourished; their antiquities, their progresses, their migrations 
 (for sciences migrate like nations) over the different parts of 
 the globe; and again their decays, disappearances, and revivals. 
 The occasion and origin of the invention of each art should 
 likewise be observed ; the manner and system of transmission, 
 and the plan and order of study and practice. To these should 
 be added a history of the sects, and the principal controversies 
 in which learned men have been engaged, the calumnies to which 
 they have been exposed, the praises and honours by which 
 they have been rewarded ; an account of the principal authors, 
 books, schools, successions, academies, societies, colleges, 
 orders, — in a word, everything which relates to the state of 
 learning. Above all things (for this is the ornament and life 
 of Civil History), I wish events to be coupled with their 
 causes. I mean, that an account should be given of the 
 characters of the several regions and peoples; their natural 
 disposition, whether apt and suited to the different kinds of 
 learning, or inapt and unsuited to them ; the accidents of the 
 times, whether adverse or propitious to science ; the emulations 
 and infusions of different religions; the enmity or partiality 
 of laws ; the eminent virtues and services of individual per- 
 sons in the promotion of learning, and the like. Now all this 
 I would have handled in a historical way, not wasting time, 
 after the manner of critics, in praise and blame, but simply 
 narrating the fact historically, with but slight intermixture of 
 private judgment." When speaking of the use of such a 
 history, he makes the profound remark : " For the works of 
 St. Ambrose or St. Augustine will not make so wise a bishop 
 or divine as a diligent examination and study of Ecclesiastical 
 History; and the History of Learning would be of like 
 service to learned men." 7 
 
 7 De Augm. book ii. ch. 4 
 
 a 
 
82 BACON. 
 
 Another desideratum, curiously included under the head of 
 History, is a history of mechanical arts. "But, if my judg- 
 ment be of any weight, the use of History Mechanical is, of 
 all others, the most radical and fundamental towards natural 
 philosophy; such natural philosophy 1 mean as shall not 
 vanish in the fumes of subtle or sublime speculations, but such 
 as shall be operative to relieve the inconveniences of man's 
 estate. For it will not only be of immediate benefit, by 
 connecting various experiences and transferring the obser- 
 vations of one art to the use of others, and thereby dis- 
 covering new commodities, a result which must needs follow 
 when the experience of different arts shall fall under the 
 observation and consideration of one man's mind; but further, 
 it will afford a more powerful illumination for the investigation 
 of the causes of things and for constructing the axioms, of the 
 arts, than has hitherto shone upon mankind. For like as a 
 man's disposition is never well-known or proved till he be 
 crossed, nor Proteus ever changed shapes till he was straitened 
 and held fast; so nature exhibits herself more clearly under 
 the trials and vexations of art than when left to herself." 8 In 
 a subsequent place, 9 he proposes a catalogue of inventions, or 
 " Inventory of the Possessions of Man," " in order that those 
 who address themselves to the discovery of new inventions 
 may not waste their pains upon things already discovered and 
 extant." " This inventory," he adds, " will be more work- 
 manlike and more serviceable too, if I add to it a list of those 
 things which are in common opinion reputed impossible in 
 every kind, noting, in connexion with each, what thing 
 already exists which comes nearest in degree to that impossi- 
 bility ; that by the one human invention may be stimulated, 
 and by the other it may be to a certain extent directed ; and 
 
 » Book ii. ch. 2. » Book iii. ch. 5. 
 
BACONS SURVEY OF THE SCIENCES. 83 
 
 that so by these optatives and potentials actives may be the 
 more readily deduced." 
 
 One branch of Physiognomy is wanting. " For Aristotle 
 has very ingeniously and diligently handled the structure of 
 the body when at rest, but the structure of the body when in 
 motion (that is the gestures of the bod)) he has omitted ; 
 which nevertheless are equally within the observations of art, 
 and are of greater use. For the lineaments of the body dis- 
 close the dispositions and inclinations of the mind in general ; 
 but the motions and gestures of the countenance and the divers 
 parts do not only so, but disclose likewise the seasons of access, 
 and the present humour and state of the mind and will." l 
 
 The need of a Comparative Anatomy (which, however, seems 
 to be limited to human anatomy) is thus noted : " Likewise 
 in anatomical inquiries, those things which pertain to man's 
 body in general are most diligently observed, even to curiosity 
 and in the minutest particulars; but touching the varieties 
 which are found in different bodies, the diligence of physicians 
 falls short. And therefore I say that Simple Anatomy is 
 handled most lucidly, but that Comparative Anatomy is Want- 
 ing. For men inquire well of the several parts, and their 
 consistences, figures, and collocations ; but the diversities of 
 the figure and condition of those parts in different men they 
 observe not. Meanwhile there is no question but that the 
 figure and structure of the inward parts is but little inferior 
 in variety and lineaments to the outward; and that the hearts 
 or livers or stomachs of men differ as much as their foreheads 
 or noses or ears." A passage so remarkable on vivisection 
 occurs in this connexion, that I should hardly be justified in 
 omitting to direct attention to it, though I must by no means 
 be supposed to cite it with approval. "Of that other defect 
 in anatomy (that it has not been practised on live bodies) 
 1 Book iv. cb. 1. 
 G 2 
 
84 BACON. 
 
 what need to speak ? For it is a thing hateful and inhuman, 
 and has been justly reproved by Celsus. But yet it is no less 
 true (as was anciently noted) that many of the more subtle 
 passages, pores, and perforations appear not in anatomical 
 dissections, because they are closed and latent in dead bodies, 
 though they be open and conspicuous in live ones. Where- 
 fore, that utility may be considered as well as humanity, the 
 anatomy of the living subject is not to be relinquished alto- 
 gether, nor referred (as it was by Celsus) to the casual practices 
 of surgery ; since it may be well discharged by the dissection 
 of beasts alive, which,notvvithstanding the dissimilitude of their 
 parts to human, may, if judiciously performed and interpreted, 
 sufficiently satisfy this inquiry:" 2 
 
 Amongst the most far-seeing and possibly fertile of Bacon's 
 suggestions for the reformation of science are those in which 
 he advocates a closer union between formal and physical 
 astronomy, and proposes (a most important idea), instead of 
 divorcing, to Jfanect the study of celestial with that of 
 terrestrial phenomena. " Astronomy offers to the human 
 intellect a victim like that which Prometheus offered in deceit 
 to Jupiter. Prometheus, in the place of a real ox, brought to 
 the altar the hide of an ox of great size and beauty, stuffed 
 with straw and leaves and twigs. In like manner, astronomy 
 presents only the exterior of the heavenly bodies (I mean the 
 number of the stars, their positions, motions, and periods), as 
 it were the hide of the heavens, beautiful indeed and skilfully 
 arranged into systems ; but the interior (namely the physical 
 reasons) is wanting, out of which (with the help of astrono- 
 mical hypotheses) a theory might be devised which would not 
 merely satisfy the phenomena (of which kind many might 
 with a little ingenuity be contrived), but which would set 
 
 2 Book iv. ch. 2. 
 
BACON'S SURVEY OF THE SCIENCES. 85 
 
 forth the substance, motion, and influence of the heavenly 
 
 bodies as they really are Astronomy, as it now 
 
 is, is fairly enough ranked among the mathematical arts, 
 not without some loss of dignity ; seeing that, if it chose to 
 claim its proper office, it ought rather to be accounted as the 
 noblest part of physics. For whoever shall set aside the ima- 
 ginary divorce between superlunary and sublunary things, and 
 shall well observe the most universal appetites and passions of 
 matter (which are powerful in both globes and make them- 
 selves felt through the universal frame of things), will obtain 
 clear and copious information of heavenly things from those 
 which are seen amongst us ; and, on the other hand, from 
 that which passes in the heavens he will gain no slight know- 
 ledge of some motions of the lower world as yet undiscovered. 
 "Wherefore this part of astronomy, which is Physical 
 Astronomy, I pronounce deficient; giving it the name of 
 Living Astronomy, in distinction from that stuffed ox of 
 Prometheus, which was an ox in figure only." 8 As I have 
 said elsewhere, 4 this passage might almost be regarded as a 
 prediction not only of the discoveries of Newton, but of the 
 mode in which he made them. And, though views of this 
 kind were already beginning to be in the air, it might be main- 
 tained, not without probability, that passages such as these, so 
 admirably expressed, so full of hope, and so rich in suggestion, 
 had no inconsiderable share in bringing about the magnificent 
 results achieved in the studies of astronomy and mechanics by 
 the next generation. 
 
 An increasing number of the branches of Mixed Mathe- 
 matics is foretold by Bacon in a passage where, as in some of 
 the Aphorisms of the Novum Organum, he shows a just appre- 
 
 3 Book iii. ch. 4. 
 
 4 Introduction to the Novum On/<()iu?n, § 6. 
 * Nov. Org, book i. apli. 96 ; book ii. aph. 8. 
 
86 BACON. 
 
 ciation of the relations subsisting- between Mathematics and 
 Physical Science. " In Mixed Mathematics I do not now find 
 any entire parts deficient, but I predict that hereafter there 
 will be many more kinds of them, if men be not idle. For as 
 Physic advances farther and farther every day, and developes 
 new axioms, it will require fresh assistance from Mathematics in 
 many things, and so the parts of Mixed Mathematics will 
 become more numerous." 6 
 
 In Book vi., he proposes the comparative study of lan- 
 guages. One of its uses will be to serve as a key to national 
 characteristics. " There will be obtained in this way signs of 
 no slight value, but well worthy of observation (which a man 
 would hardly think perhaps), concerning the dispositions and 
 manners of peoples and nations, drawn from their languages." 7 
 
 The Seventh Book contains a chapter (ch. 3) on the 
 " Georgics " or culture of the mind, an art whose province it 
 ought to be to prescribe rules for accommodating the will of 
 man to the pursuit of his highest good. This art must take 
 account of the various dispositions, affections, and habits 
 of different men, howsoever formed, and try, in virtue or in 
 spite of them, to construct for the individual a happy and 
 beneficent life. As to this part of moral doctrine, " when I 
 recall the excellency thereof, I cannot but find it exceeding 
 strange that it is not yet reduced to written inquiry." 
 
 Amongst the desiderata mentioned in the Eighth Book, is 
 a Treatise on Universal Justice or the Fountains of Equity. 
 Bacon appends a specimen of such a treatise, digested into 
 Aphorisms, which was afterwards published in a separate form. 
 Its object is, ". by going to the fountains of justice and public 
 expediency, to exhibit, with reference to the several provinces 
 of law, a type and idea of justice, in comparison with which 
 the laws of particular states and kingdoms may be tested and 
 
 6 Book iii. ch. 6. ? Book vi. ch. 1. 
 
BACON'S SURVEY OF THE SCIENCES. 87 
 
 amended." This idea had occurred to Bacon as least as early 
 as the publication of the Advancement of Learning in 1605. 
 He there says, towards the end of the Second Book : 8 " For the 
 more public part of government, which is law, I think good 
 to note only one deficiency ; which is, that all those which 
 have written of law have written either as philosophers or as 
 lawyers, and none as statesmen. As for the philosophers, 
 they make imaginary laws for imaginary commonwealths ; 
 and their discourses are as the stars, which give little light 
 because they are so high. For the lawyers, they write, ac- 
 cording to the states where they live, what is received law, 
 and not what ought to be law : for the wisdom of a lawmaker 
 is one, and of a lawyer is another. For there are in nature 
 certain fountains of justice, whence all civil laws are derived 
 but as streams : and, like as waters do take tinctures and tastes 
 from the soils through which they run, so do civil laws vary 
 according to the regions and governments where they are 
 planted, though they proceed from the same fountains." The 
 idea of Natural Law or a Law of Nature was by no means 
 new. The Roman Jurists had adopted it from the Greek 
 Philosophers. But Bacon was probably the first writer who 
 suggested its embodiment in a code, or gave a specimen of 
 such a code. The great work of Grotius, Be Jure Belli el Pads, 
 was not published till 1 625, though it may be noticed as a 
 curious coincidence that, about the same time that Bacon was 
 composing the Second Book of the Advancement of Learn 'mg, 
 Grotius was engaged in writing the treatise, till recently un- 
 published, entitled Be jure pr wdce, which, in its main princi- 
 ples, anticipated his later work. 9 
 
 8 See Mr. Aldis Wright's edition, pp. 249,250; Ellis and Spedding, 
 vol. iii. pp. 475-6. 
 
 9 See Mr. Pattison's article on Grotius in the last edition of the Ency- 
 clopaedia Brilannica. 
 
88 BACON. 
 
 In the books here under review^ Bacon does not confine 
 himself to noting the deficiencies of the sciences. He 
 notes also the deficiencies in the then existing- applications 
 for their augmentation and distribution. Well worthy of 
 perusal are the few paragraphs at the beginning of the second 
 book both of the Advancement of Learning and of the De Aug- 
 mentis, where he discusses the " three objects with which the 
 works or acts of merit towards learning are conversant " — 
 namely, "the places of learning, the books of learning, and 
 the persons of the learned." These observations, as well as 
 his Advice to the King touching Sutton's Estate? may still be 
 read with profit by all who are interested either in advancing 
 
 the limits of learning or in the maintenance of a high 
 standard of superior instruction. That e< teachers of men " 
 are as necessary in a state as " teachers of children; - " that 
 " they who stay with the baggage should have equal part with 
 those who are in the action;"" that, if the principal readers in 
 the universities, "through the meanness of their entertain- 
 ment," " take their place but in passage, it will make the 
 mass of sciences want the chief and solid dimension, which is 
 depth/' that " the searchers and spies of nature must have 
 their expenses paid, or else you will never be well informed of 
 a number of things most worthy to be known;" that Philosophy 
 and Universality supply sap and strength to all the arts and 
 professions ; that libraries are as the shrines wherein all the 
 relics of the ancient saints full of true virtue are preserved : 
 these are not simply pointed and epigrammatic sentences, but 
 they express profound truths which even now men would do 
 well to lay to heart, and which it might be the wisdom of states 
 to embody in their institutions. 
 
 1 Printed in Spedding's Letters and Life, vol. iv. pp. 249-54, and in 
 Spedding's Life and Times of Bacon, vol. i. pp. 647—654. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 bacon's reform of scientific method. 
 
 Part I. 
 
 In the history of literature, Bacon is mainly known as the 
 writer of the Essays. But in the history of science, logic, 
 and philosophy, the chief interest which attaches to his name 
 is that of a reformer of scientific method. The Baconian 
 reform, the Baconian method, the spirit of the Baconian 
 philosophy, are phrases with which we are all familiar. The 
 ohject of this chapter will be to explain these terms, and to 
 show wherein the reform or new method, with which Bacon's 
 name is associated, really consisted. 
 
 The method which obtained almost exclusively in scientific 
 inquiries during* the middle ages and up to Bacon's time is 
 what is commonly called the Deductive method. Deduc- 
 tion is always an indispensable part of logical procedure, but, 
 as it argues from ultimate premisses or general principles, 
 which it is itself incompetent to prove, there must be some 
 other mode of ascertaining the truth of general principles, 
 unless we are prepared to acquiesce in their assumption on no 
 other grounds than fancy, authority, or caprice. Induction, 
 as far back as the time of Aristotle, if not of Socrates and 
 Plato, was recognized by philosophers as the regular and 
 legitimate mode of establishing principles, and that men had 
 in practice, from the very earliest times, generalised from 
 
9 o BAC1N. 
 
 particulars, or, in other words, performed inductions, however 
 little they had been led to reflect on the logical character or 
 justification of the process, it is needless to remark. To infer 
 propositions of general application from particular observations 
 (Induction), and to apply general propositions to particular 
 cases (Deduction), are, indeed, processes so essential to 
 thought of any kind, or at least to any thought except of the 
 most elementary character, that man could hardly be said to 
 possess any Knowledge for himself, much less to be able to 
 communicate it to others, till both these methods had come 
 to be in ordinary use, It is, therefore, absurd to speak as if 
 Bacon were the inventor of induction, great as are the 
 obligations under which the inductive branch of logical 
 analysis will always be To his efforts and his genius. Men 
 have always reasoned inductively in the affairs of common 
 life, nor has there ever been any period in the history of 
 science so enslaved to authority, or so wedded to abstract 
 theory, that the inductive side of inquiry has been neglected 
 altogether. What Bacon complained of, and rightly com- 
 plained of, was not that the writers and teachers of his time 
 had no recourse to the observation of facts at all, but that 
 they only looked out for facts in support of pre-conceived 
 theories, or else, where authority and prejudice did not lead 
 the way, constructed their theories on a hasty and unmethodical 
 examination of a few facts collected at random. In either case 
 they neglected to test or verify their generalisations, while they 
 wasted their efforts in drawing out syllogistically long trains 
 of elaborate conclusions, which, for aught they knew, might be 
 vitiated by the unsoundness of the original premisses. 
 
 It was to remedy these defects that Bacon designed the 
 second part of his Great Instauration, the Novum Organum. 
 This work, as already stated, was never finished. The First 
 Book consists of a number of brilliant and pregnant aphorisms, 
 
BACON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 91 
 
 intended to excite the reader's interest and to prepare him for 
 the more weighty matter which is to follow. In these 
 aphorisms, he dwells mainly on the futility of the methods of 
 inquiry at present in use, on the necessity of a more faithful 
 study of Nature, on the phantoms which beset the mind in 
 its search for truth, on the causes of man's long continuance 
 in error, and on the grounds of hope for the future progress 
 of knowledge. In the Second Book, he sets to work to 
 construct his own method, and, though the book abruptly 
 ends before he has completed one quarter of his scheme, he 
 succeeds in laying the foundations of a science for the inter- 
 pretation of nature, which, rough and cumbrous as are some 
 of the materials of which they are composed, furnish the 
 ground-plan on which almost all subsequent workers in this 
 department of knowledge have built. Inductive Logic, that 
 is, the systematic analysis and arrangement of inductive 
 evidence, as distinct from the natural induction which all men 
 practise, is almost as much the creation of Bacon as Deductive 
 Logic is that of Aristotle. It must, however, be acknowledged 
 that the one left far more to be added and re-modelled by his 
 successors than did the other. 
 
 " Man," says Bacon, " is the servant and interpreter of 
 nature." But as the bare hand is of little use in mechanical 
 work, so the unassisted intellect can effect little in the work of 
 reasoning. The one requires instruments, the other rules. 
 Rules are, indeed, supplied by the logic which is in vogue, but, 
 as these rules lend no aid in the examination of principles, 
 they are of more avail in establishing error than in investi- 
 gating truth. He who takes the wrong road wanders the 
 further from his goal, the further he goes. The Syllogism, 
 the great instrument of the ordinary logic, is, from the very 
 nature of the ease, incompetent to prove the ultimate pre- 
 misses from which it proceeds, and, while the truth of these 
 
92 BACON. 
 
 remains doubtful, we can place no confidence in the conclusions 
 which are drawn from them. It is in vain to construct ela- 
 borate proofs of propositions depending on principles which are 
 themselves uncertain. The only hope, therefore, of those who 
 wish to establish knowledge on a firm basis is in a logic which 
 shall be competent to examine these higher generalisations or 
 first principles from which the various sciences start, that is 
 to say, in a true induction. The language which Bacon here 
 employs is by no means exaggerated. Of what use can it be 
 to spin out long deductions, assuming the truth of principles 
 which we have never examined ? Suppose us to assume that 
 all the heavenly bodies move in circles, or that herbs are 
 stamped with signs of the diseases which they will cure, or that 
 the so-called four elements, earth, water, air, and fire, are each 
 denser than the other in a tenfold proportion, or that the Bible 
 contains a perfect system of physical science, can any series of 
 deductions, however accurate and elaborate, drawn from such 
 premisses, possess any other merit than that of mere con- 
 sistency and ingenuity ? The conclusions may carry us 
 further and further away into the mazes of error, but they 
 cannot bring us nearer to truth. Hence, the first step in the 
 reform of science- is to review its ultimate principles, and the 
 first condition of a scientific method is that it shall be 
 competent to conduct such an inquiry. 
 
 Before, however, attempting to supply this want and to 
 construct his " new instrument," the new Logic of Induction, 
 Bacon lingers for a while over the existing condition of 
 knowledge, points out the phantoms which obscure the vision 
 of truth, enumerates the causes of past errors, and suggests 
 grounds of hope for the future. 
 
 Perhaps the best known part of the Novum Organum, and 
 certainly one of the most valuable parts, is the account of the 
 iC Idola Mentis Humanse," or " phantoms of the human mind," 
 
BACON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 93 
 
 which occupies Aphorisms 38 — 70 of Book i. " The idols and 
 false notions which are now in possession of the human un- 
 derstanding, and are deeply rooted therein, not only so beset 
 the minds of men that the entrance to truth is difficult : but, 
 even if truth should effect an entrance, they will oppose them- 
 selves again in the very instauration of the sciences; unless, 
 being forwarned of the danger, men fortify themselves as far 
 as may be against their assaults" (Aph. 38). These " idols" 
 (ei$G)\a, plmntoms or spectres, and not, as they have some- 
 times been erroneously interpreted, false gods) are four in 
 number, and are enumerated as " idols of the tribe" (idola 
 tribus)," idols of the den" (idola specus), " idols of the mar- 
 ket- place " (idola fori), and " idols of the theatre " (idola 
 theatri). In number, they happen to correspond with the 
 " offend icuk" of Roger Bacon; namely, unworthy authority, 
 custom, vulgar opinion, and concealment of ignorance com- 
 bined with the ostentation of apparent wisdom. There is, 
 however, little other resemblance between the " idola " and 
 the " offendicula," and Francis Bacon is probably in no way 
 indebted to his elder namesake for this part of his doc- 
 trine. 1 
 
 "The Idols of the Tribe have their foundation in human 
 nature itself, and in the very tribe or race of men. For it is 
 a false assertion that the sense of man" (sensus humanus) " is 
 the measure of things. On the contrary, all percept iqns as 
 well of the sense as of the mind are according to the measure 
 of the individual and not according to the measure of the 
 universe. And the human understanding is like a mirror un- 
 evenly disposed to receive the rays of things, which mingles 
 its own nature with the nature of things, and so distorts and 
 discolours it " (Aph. 41). Examples of these idols of the tribe, 
 which, though they are common to the whole race, admit of 
 
 1 See note on book i. aph. 38, in my edition of the Novum Organum. 
 
94 BACON. 
 
 being* detected by man himself, are the tendency to feign 
 parallels and similitudes where none exist, or, in other words, 
 the excessive love of system, the tendency to attach greater 
 importance to affirmative than to negative instances, the dis- 
 position to be unduly influenced by sudden and simultaneous 
 impressions, the restless ambition to penetrate further into the 
 nature and causes of things than the limits of the human 
 faculties permit, the liability of the intellect to be warped by 
 the will and affections, and the like. 
 
 " The Idols of the Den have their origin in the peculiar 
 constitution, mental or bodily, of each individual ; and also in 
 education, habit, and accident.''' Examples are to be found in 
 the affection of some men for particular sciences or kinds of 
 speculation, in the tendency to notice differences rather than 
 resemblances, or resemblances rather than differences, in the 
 attachment to antiquity or novelty, in the partiality to minute 
 or comprehensive investigations. The practical precept sug- 
 gested by the last example affords a good instance both of 
 the felicity of Bacon's language and of the sagacity of his 
 observation. " Alternandse sunt contemplationes istse, et 
 vicissim sumendse ; -ut intellectus reddatur simul penetrans et 
 capax." (These kinds of contemplation should be alternated 
 and taken by turns ; that so the understanding may be rendered 
 at once penetrating and capacious). Aph. 57. 
 
 The Idols of the -Market-Place {" Idola Fori "), which have 
 insinuated themselves into the mind through the association 
 of words and names with things, are, Bacon says, the most 
 troublesome of all. They are of two kinds, being either names 
 of supposed entities which have no real existence, or words 
 inadequately or erroneously representing things or qualities 
 actually existing. Of the former kind are " fortune," the 
 "primum mobile," the " planetary orbs," and figments of that 
 kind, which have their origin in false and idle theories. As 
 
BACON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 95 
 
 examples of the other division of " Idola Fori w Baeon gives 
 
 "earth/' " humid/'' " generation/' " corruption/' " alteration/' 
 "heavy/' "light," "rare/' " dense/' and the like. This 
 tonic of the fallacies imposed on the intellect by the want of 
 correspondence between words and things is followed up by 
 Locke in the celebrated Third Book of his Essay, as well as by 
 many recent writers, and is well worthy of the attention of 
 every student, who is desirous of thinking accurately. " Men 
 believe/' says Bacon, "that their reason governs words; but 
 it is also true that words react on the understanding ; and 
 this it is that has rendered philosophy and the sciences sophis- 
 tical and inactive. Now words, being commonly framed and 
 applied according to the capacity of the vulgar, follow those 
 lines of division which are most obvious to the vulgar under- 
 standing. And whenever a more acute understanding or a 
 more diligent observation would alter those lines to suit the 
 true divisions of nature, words cry out against the change. 
 Whence it comes to pass that the grand and solemn disputa- 
 tions of learned men often end in controversies about words 
 and names; with which (according to the use and prudence of 
 the mathematicians) it would be wiser to begin, and so by 
 means of definitions reduce such disputations to order. Yet 
 even definitions cannot cure this evil in dealing with natural 
 and material things; since the definitions themselves consist 
 of words, and words beget words : so that it is necessary to 
 recur to individual instances, and those in due series and 
 order." Even when a precise and scientific sense has been 
 attached to a word, there is always a difficulty in securing 
 that it shall be employed or accepted in that signification j 
 moreover, a word has always a tendency, as time goes mi, to 
 glide by insensible degrees into another and often a very dif- 
 ferent meaning from that in which, by convention or by the 
 operation of natural causes, it was originally employed. 
 
96 BACON. 
 
 The Idols of the Theatre, so called because they succeed one 
 another like the plays on a stage, arise either from false 
 systems of philosophy or from perverse laws of demonstration. 
 The former division is represented by three schools of philo- 
 sophers, the Rational or Sophistic, the Empiric, and the Super- 
 stitious. " The Rational school of philosophers snatches from 
 experience a variety of common instances, neither duly ascer- 
 tained nor diligently examined and weighed, and leaves all the 
 rest to meditation and agitation of wit." It deals but little 
 with experience, and much with speculation . Of this theorising 
 school, Bacon, somewhat unjustly, takes his typical instance 
 from Aristotle, "who corrupted natural philosophy by his 
 logic." The Empirical School, " having bestowed much dili- 
 gent and careful labour on a few experiments, have thence 
 made bold to educe and construct systems ; wresting all other 
 facts in a strange fashion to conformity therewith.''' "To 
 those who are daily busied with these experiments, and have 
 infected their imagination with them, such a philosophy seems 
 probable and all but certain ; to all men else, incredible and 
 vain." This school deals almost entirely with experiments, 
 but the experiments are confined within so narrow a compass 
 that the axioms which may legitimately be founded thereon are 
 not luminous enough to throw any real light on the great 
 problems of science. Of the Empirics the typical instances 
 are the Alchemists, to whom, strangely enough, Bacon adds 
 Gilbert, the founder of the sciences of electricity and mag- 
 netism. Elsewhere, he speaks of Gilbert as being so immersed 
 in his own particular branch of study, as to have been himself 
 turned into a magnet, and to have built a ship out of a thole- 
 pin. 2 It must be confessed that Bacon's criticisms, both of 
 
 * " Itaque vires magneticas non inscite introduxit Gilbertus, sed et ipse 
 f actus magnes ; nimio scilicet plura quam oportet ad illas trahens > et 
 
BACON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 97 
 
 his predecessors and his contemporaries, are often exaggerated 
 
 or unfair. Last in order comes the Superstitious School, " con- 
 sisting' of those who out of faith and veneration mix their 
 philosophy with theology and traditions." This " corruption of 
 philosophy by superstition and an admixture of theology n is far 
 more widely spread and does more harm than either of the other 
 causes of error. "For the human understanding' is obnoxious 
 to the influence of the imagination no less than to the influence 
 of common notions. For the contentious and sophistical kind 
 of philosophy ensnares the understanding ; but this other kind, 
 which is fantastic and tumid and half poetical, misleads it 
 more by flattery. For there is in man an ambition of the 
 understanding no less than of the will, especially in high and 
 elevated spirits. Of this kind we have among the Greeks a 
 striking example in Pythagoras, though his superstition is of 
 the coarser and more cumbrous character ; another in Plato 
 and his school, more dangerous and subtle. This form of evil 
 is found also in parts of other philosophies, where there are 
 introduced abstract forms and final causes and first causes, with 
 the omission in most cases of causes intermediate and the like. 
 In this matter the greatest caution should be used. For 
 nothing is so mischievous as the apotheosis of error ; and it is 
 to be held as a very plague of the understanding, if vanity 
 become the object of reverence (si vanis accedat veneratio). 
 Yet in this vanity some of the moderns have with extreme 
 levity indulged, so far as to attempt to found a system of 
 natural philosophy on the first chapter of Genesis, on the book 
 of Job, and other parts of the sacred writings ; seeking- for the 
 dead among the living. And so much the more is this vanity 
 to be inhibited and restrained, because from the unwholesome 
 
 navem sedificans ex scalmo." Aditus ad Historian (Iran's el Levis. 
 See my note on Nov. Org. book i. aph. 51, ad fin. 
 
98 BACON. 
 
 mixture of things human and divine there arises not only a 
 fantastic philosophy but also a heretical religion. Very meet 
 it is therefore that we be sober-minded, and give to faith that 
 only which is faith's." (Aph. 65). 
 
 " So much then for the mischievous authorities of systems, 
 which are founded either on common notions, or on a few ex- 
 periments, or on superstition." 
 
 " Vicious methods of demonstration are the strongholds 
 of fallacious theories; and those methods which we have in 
 the ordinary logic do little else than enslave the world of nature 
 to human thoughts, and human thoughts to words. Demon- 
 strations indeed are potentially systems of philosophy and 
 science. For such as these are, and according as they are well 
 or ill established, such are the systems of philosophy and the 
 contemplations which follow. Now in the whole of the process 
 which leads from sense and particular objects to axioms and 
 conclusions, the demonstrations which we use are deceptive and 
 incompetent. This process consists of four parts, and has as 
 many faults." (Aph. 69). He then proceeds to enumerate in 
 order the four faults, which are (1) that the senses frequently 
 fail or deceive us ; (2) that the notions derived from the im- 
 pressions of the senses are confused and ill-defined; (3) that 
 the induction commonly employed, for the purposes of genera- 
 lisation, proceeds "per enumerationem simplicem,"or merely by 
 accumulating instances, instead of by methods of selection and 
 elimination ; (4) that, instead of rising gradually through the 
 various intermediate grades of axioms to the highest axioms 
 of all, men fly off at once to the latter and, without having 
 sufficiently certified themselves as to their truth, proceed to 
 deduce subordinate principles from them, as if their truth had 
 been placed beyond doubt. On Bacon's idea of the proper 
 mode of constituting the highest axioms by gradually ascending 
 from the objects of sense and the lowest axioms (" axiomata 
 
BACON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 99 
 
 infima") through the various intermediate stages, I shall speak 
 hereafter. 
 
 Having completed his discussion of the Idola, he proceeds 
 (Aphs. 71 — 77) to enumerate the signs, five in number, of the 
 weakness and insufficiency of the preceding philosophies. The 
 first of these is their origin among the Greeks, whom he 
 regards as a disputatious race, given to talking and wrangling, 
 but inspired with no genuine love of truth. That this is an 
 exaggerated judgment, need hardly be said. The disputatious 
 character of the Greeks, though it may often have prevented 
 them from arriving at truth, must at least have originated in 
 the desire to attain it, nor, except for the tendency of the 
 Greek race to discussion and abstract speculation, is it easy to 
 see how modern science would ever have come into being. 
 Another sign of the weakness of preceding systems is their 
 lack of fruit. " For fruits and inventions are, as it were, spon- 
 sors and sureties for the truth of philosophies." "Now from all 
 these systems of the Greeks/' he adds, speaking again with 
 some exaggeration, " and their ramifications through particular 
 sciences, there can hardly after the lapse of so many years be 
 adduced a single experiment which tends to relieve and advance 
 the condition of man, and which is really due to the specula- 
 tions and doctrines of philosophy." A further sign is to be 
 found in the stationary character of existing systems. u For 
 what is founded on nature grows and increases ; while what is 
 founded on opinion varies but increases not. 3 Had therefore 
 those doctrines not been plainly like a plant torn up from its 
 roots, but had they remained attached to the womb of nature 
 and continued to draw nourishment from her, that could never 
 
 3 "Qua? cnitn in natura fundata sunt, crescunt el augentur; qusB autem 
 in opinione, variantur, 11011 augentur." I give the original aa a felicitous 
 example of the manner in which Bacon often phrases these epigrammatic 
 sayings. 
 
 H 2 
 
loo BACON. 
 
 have come about which we see now to have happened for two 
 thousand years past : namely, that the sciences stand where 
 they did and remain almost in the same condition ; receiving* 
 no increase worthy of mention, but, on the contrary, thriving" 
 most under their first founder, and then declining'. Whereas 
 in the mechanical arts, which are founded on nature and the 
 light of experience, we see the contrary happen, for these (as 
 long as they are popular) are continually thriving and growing, 
 as having in them the breath of life; at first rude, then 
 affording convenience, afterwards ornament, and at all times 
 advancing." (Aph. 74.) 
 
 The signs of weakness are followed by the causes of error, 
 which are no less than fifteen in number. The first is that 
 " of the five and twenty centuries over which the memory and 
 learning of men extends, hardly six have been favourable to 
 the development of the sciences. For in times no less than in 
 regions there are wastes and deserts/'' Other causes of error 
 are that, even when men have devoted themselves to learning, 
 but little attention has been devoted to Natural Philosophy, 
 the "great mother of the sciences/' that men have not set 
 before themselves -the true goal of knowledge, which is none 
 other than that human life be endowed with new discoveries 
 and powers ; that they have followed wrong paths, such as the 
 opinions of others or the ordinary logic or mere experience, 
 instead of well-ordered and digested experience, which is the 
 candle leading to truth ; that they have been enchanted by 
 reverence for antiquity and authority, forgetting that it is 
 ours which is truly the old age of the world ; 4 that they have 
 
 4 " De antiquitate autem opinio, quam homines de ipsa fovent, negligens 
 omnino est, et vix verbo ipsi congrua. Mundi enim senium et grandsevitas 
 pro antiquitate vere habenda sunt, quae temporibus nostris tribui debent, 
 non juniori setati mundi, qualis apud antiquos fuit. Ilia enim setas, 
 respeetu nostri, antiqua et major ; respectu mundi ipsius, nova et minor 
 
BA CON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 101 
 
 been deterred from attempting any great and adequate « oter- 
 prises in the realm of nature by pusillanimity, by superstitious 
 fears, 6 by an exaggerated admiration for what lias already 
 been achieved, and, above all, by despondency and a tendency 
 to regard whatever is proposed as impossible. 
 
 This last and potent cause of failure suggests to Bacon that, 
 as " Columbus, before that wonderful voyage of his across the 
 Atlantic, gave the reasons for his conviction that new lands 
 and continents might be discovered besides those which were 
 already known/' so he should set forth those grounds of hope 
 which made an instauration of the sciences appear to him pro- 
 bable. Of the twenty-one Grounds of Hope (occupying Aphs. 
 93 — 114), one (Aph. 95) is derived from the expectations 
 which may be formed from a closer and holier league between 
 the experimental and rational faculties, such as has never yet 
 been made. " Those who have handled sciences have been 
 either men of experiment or men of dogmas. The men of 
 experiment are like the ant; they only collect and use; the 
 
 fuit." Aph. 84. See the notes on this Aphorism in my edition of the 
 Novum Organum. In the De Augmentis, book i., Baron sums up these 
 thoughts in one short aphorism : "Sane, ut verum dicamus, Antiquitas 
 sueculi juventus munch." " Of living men " (says Sydney Smith in his 
 review of Bentham's Book of Fallacies) "the oldest has, ceteris paribus, 
 the most experience; of generations, the oldest has, cateris paribus, the 
 least experience. Our ancestors, up to the Conquest, were children in arms ; 
 chublw boys in the time of Edward the First; striplings under Elizabeth; 
 men in the reign of Queen Anne; and we only are the white-bearded, 
 silver-headed ancients, who have treasured up, and are prepared to profit 
 by, all the experience which human life can supply." 
 
 " Keque illudprsetermittendum est, quod nacta sit philosophia naturalis 
 per omnes estates adversarium molestum et diffioilem; Buperstitionem 
 nimirum, et zelum religionis caecum et Lmmoderatum. Aph. 89. This 
 " blind and immoderate zeal for religion " is exempli lied in the feelil 
 the Greeks towards those who first explained thunder and lightning by 
 natural causes (see Aristophanes' Clouds, I. X7-. &c.) and of the Christian 
 Fathers towards those who maintained the existence of Antipodes. 
 
102 BACON. 
 
 reasoners resemble spiders, who make cobwebs out of their own 
 substance. But the bee takes a middle course ; it gathers its 
 material from the flowers of the garden and of the field, but 
 transforms and digests it by a power of its own. Not unlike 
 this is the true mode in which philosophy works. For it 
 neither relies solely or chiefly on the powers of the mind, nor 
 does it take the matter which it gathers from natural history 
 and mechanical experiments, and lay it up in the memory 
 whole, as it finds it; but it lays it up in the understanding, 
 after it has been duly transformed and digested/'' Other 
 grounds of hoj:>e are to be found in the probable construction, in 
 the future, of a Natural History better adapted than at present 
 to the wants of Natural Philosophy, and containing a record- 
 of experiments as well as observations (for Nature best dis- 
 covers her secrets, when tortured by Art) ; in a larger collection 
 of those experiments and observations which are of most use 
 for the information of the understanding, that is to say, " ex- 
 perimental lucifera" experiments of light, likely to be fertile in 
 the discovery of causes and axioms, as distinguished from 
 "experimeuta fructifera" experiments of fruit, which, though 
 obviously and immediately useful, only produce particular 
 effects ; in the introduction of a new method of carrying on our 
 experiments and observations, and advancing from one to the 
 other, instead of that mere groping inthedark("mera palpatio") 
 which has hitherto been prevalent; in the formation of Tables of 
 Discovery ; and in the induction of axioms inferred from par- 
 ticulars " by a certain method and rule," which axioms shall, 
 in their turn, point out the way to new particulars to be 
 arrived at by deduction. In setting forth the Ground of 
 Hope last mentioned, Bacon adds (Aph. 103) the words which 
 have since been so frequently quoted in works on Scientific 
 Method : " For our road does not lie on a level, but ascends 
 and descends ; first ascending to axioms, then descending to 
 
BA CON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC ME TIIOD. 1 0} 
 
 works/' 8 The enumeration of the Grounds of Hope naturally 
 ineludes many criticisms on the methods in vogue, favourable 
 auguries being drawn from the likelihood of their ameliora- 
 tion. Thus, in Aph. 104, where he protests against the pre- 
 valent habit of flying off at once from particular facts to first 
 principles or the most general axioms of all, he insists on the 
 importance of establishing by a careful induction a sufficient 
 number of intermediate axioms (" axiomata media "), which 
 are "the true and solid and living axioms, on which depend 
 the affairs and fortunes of men." M The understanding/' he 
 adds (too much ignoring; perhaps, here as elsewhere, the office 
 of the imagination in scientific inquiry), u must not therefore 
 be supplied with wings, but rather hung with weights, to keep 
 it from leaping and flying. Now this has never yet been 
 done ; when it is done, we may entertain better hopes of the 
 sciences." Again, in Aph. 105, he emphatically condemns 
 the method of Induction by Simple Enumeration, or mere 
 addition of instances. n It is a childish thing; its conclusions 
 are precarious, and exposed to peril from a single contradic- 
 tory instance; and it generally decides on too small a number 
 of facts, and on those only which arc close at hand." 7 Then, 
 after contrasting with this unscientific and faulty form the 
 induction which he himself contemplates, which u must analyze 
 nature by proper rejections and exclusions," he adds with a 
 true appreciation of the difficulties of his task : v ' But in 
 order to furnish this induction or demonstration well and 
 duly for its work, very many things are to be provided which 
 
 6 Neque enim in piano via sita est, sed ascendendo et desoendendo ; 
 ascendendo primo ad axiomata, desoendendo ad opera. 
 
 7 Inductio, quaa procedit per enumerationeni Bimplioem, res puerilis est, 
 et precario conelndit, et periculo exponitur ab instantia contradictoria, et 
 
 plerumque secundum pauciora quam par est, ex his tantummodo qiuu 
 presto sunt, pronunciat. 
 
104 BACON. 
 
 have never yet entered the thoughts of any mortal man ; in- 
 somuch that greater labour will have to be spent on it than 
 has hitherto been spent on the syllogism." It is verily in 
 this new kind of induction, he says, that our chief hope lies. 
 This portion of the Novum Organum\$ appropriately terminated 
 by an appeal to his own example. u If there be any that de- 
 spond, let them look at me, and take note that, being of all the 
 men of my time the most occupied in affairs of state, and not 
 of very strong health (which occasions a great loss of time), 
 and in this course altogether a pioneer, following in no man's 
 track nor sharing these counsels with any one, I have never- 
 theless, by resolutely entering on the true road and submit- 
 ting my mind to things, advanced these matters, as I suppose, 
 some little way. And then let them consider what, after the 
 way has thus been pointed out by me, may be expected from 
 men abounding in leisure, and from association of labours, and 
 from successions of ages." Aph. 113. 
 
 After Bacon has thus described " the breath of hope blowing 
 on us from that New Continent," he proceeds, before indicating 
 " the art itself and rule of interpreting nature," to lay down 
 certain warnings,, to offer certain apologies, and to answer, by 
 anticipation, certain doubts and objections. Of the questions 
 which, as he conceives, might be put to him, far the most im- 
 portant is whether he intends his new method to be confined 
 to the problems of natural philosophy, or contemplates its 
 application to the other sciences as well, " logic, ethics, and 
 politics." To this question he replies (Aph. 127): "Now I 
 certainly mean what I have said to be understood of them all ; 
 and as the common logic, which governs by the syllogism, 
 extends not only to natural but to all sciences ; so does mine 
 also, which proceeds by induction, embrace everything. For 
 I form a history and tables of discovery for anger, fear, shame, 
 and the like ; for matters political, and again for the mental 
 
BACON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 105 
 
 operations of memory, affirmation and negation, judgment and 
 the rest: not less than for heat and cold, or light, or vegeta- 
 tion, or the like." This statement should carefully be noted; 
 for, on a hasty reading of the Novum Organnm, it might easily 
 be supposed that Bacon's object was confined to an instaura- 
 tion of what we now call the natural sciences. He here, how- 
 ever, explicitly tells us that his method is applicable, and in- 
 tended to be applied, to the whole realm of knowledge. Nor, 
 greatly as the illustrations from the study of external nature 
 preponderate, are there wanting many passages in his works 
 which show that he regarded the study of man and society as 
 falling within the scope of his new philosophy and capable 
 of being advanced by the application of his new method. 8 
 That the inductive method has, since Bacon's time, been 
 largely and successfully applied to the treatment of these 
 subjects hardly needs to be stated. In the earlier stages, at 
 any rate, of what may be called the mental, moral, and social 
 sciences, the employment of induction is now generally 
 regarded as indispensable, and no writer on these questions, 
 who^e speculations were not based on or supported by observa- 
 tion, w r ould, in this country at least, receive any attention. 
 As I have said elsewhere, 9 " the enormous extension which the 
 method of Induction has received in recent times by the appli- 
 cation of a historical treatment to the subjects of law, institu- 
 
 8 For proof of this assertion, see the notes on aph. 127, in my edition 
 of the Novum Organum. 
 
 9 See my notes on Nov, Org. book i. aph. 127. For a brief description 
 of the Historical Method, I may refer the reader to my Induct ire Logic, 
 ch. 3 (3rd ed. pp. 2<)0 — 2(»2), and for some remarks on Mr. Mill's account 
 of it (given in his Logic, book vi. ch. 10,>, to ch. 5, p. 246. Numerous 
 examples of its employment will be found, amongst English writers, in 
 the works of Sir II. Maine, Professor Max M tiller, Sir J. Lubbock. Mr. 
 Tylor, and (though, in this case, mixed up with a good deal of abstract 
 speculation) Mr. Herbert Spencer. 
 
io6 BACON. 
 
 tions, language, art, morals, religion, &c, lias really laid the 
 basis of a scientific study of man, which may at some future 
 time rival in respect of certainty, while it will even transcend 
 in interest, the scientific study of nature." 
 
 The First Book of the Novum Organum closes with a re- 
 markable sentence : " We, who regard the mind, not only in 
 respect to its own faculties, but also in its relations to things, 
 ought to hold that the art of discovery may advance as dis- 
 coveries themselves advance." 1 This sentence is as true and 
 pregnant, as it is epigrammatic. Advances in science and in 
 the method of science must go hand in hand. The logic ade- 
 quate to the simple reasoning of early times is no longer 
 adequate to the wants of a scientific age, when knowledge is so 
 varied and elaborate as it has now become. Condillac un- 
 doubtedly states this position in an exaggerated form, when 
 he says : ' ' If the Tartars wished to make an Art of Poetry, 
 you know well that it would be a bad one, because they have no 
 good poets. It is just the same with the Logics which have been 
 made before the seventeenth century." 2 There must be some 
 scientific reasoning to analyse, before there can be an analysis 
 of it ; but it is eqcially true that, when such an analysis has 
 been made, and rules laid down for discriminating between 
 correct and incorrect reasoning, the scientific inquirer or 
 student is furnished with guides and cautions which ought to 
 place him on a vantage-ground as compared with his prede- 
 cessors. In the last resort, indeed, all modes of reasoning may 
 be reduced to a few very simple formulae, which are common 
 
 1 Neque tamen illis nihil addi posse affirmamus : sed contra, nos, qui 
 mentem respicimus, non tantum in facilitate propria sed quatenus copulatur 
 cum rebus, artem inveniendi cum inventis adolescere posse, statuere 
 debemus. 
 
 2 Histoire Moderne, livre xx. eh. 12. For further remarks on this 
 subject, see the last note to book i. in my edition of the Novum Organum. 
 
BA CON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC ME TIIOD. 1 07 
 
 alike to the reasonings of common life and of science ; but these 
 may be combined and applied in so infinite a variety of ways 
 that the art of the logician can never be regarded as com- 
 plete, any more than the accumulations of knowledge, real 
 or supposed, which it is his task to test and adjudicate upon. 
 Hence, some acquaintance with the existing conditio d of science 
 is at least as indispensable to the logician as some acquaintance 
 with the existing rules of scientific method is to the man of 
 science. 
 
 From the prefatory remarks of Book i., Bacon passes in 
 Book ii. to a more formal and systematic exposition of his 
 method. The first ten Aphorisms consist mainly of general 
 reflections on the ends of science, on the necessity of inquiring 
 into Forms, and on the connexion between the speculative 
 and operative branches of knowledge. In the 11th Aphorism 
 the real business of the book begins, and this and the two next 
 aphorisms contain the celebrated Iuductive Tables which, 
 together with the " exclusion or rejection of natures M of which 
 an example is given in Aph. 18, constitute Bacon's principal 
 apparatus for arriving at a knowledge of the " Form." Before 
 proceeding any further, something must be said as to the 
 meaning of this expression and its importance in Bacon's con- 
 ception of philosophy. 
 
 Jn the Second Book of the Advancement of Learning} he- 
 distinguishes between the provinces of Physic and Metaphysic,. 
 assigning to the former the inquiry into Material and Efficient 
 Causes, and to the latter the inquiry into Formal and Final 
 
 3 The parallel passage in the De Augment is is in book iii. eh. 4. The 
 reader, who has leisure to pursue this subject, should compare these 
 passages, and refer to the Section (§ 8) entitled " On the meaning attached 
 by Bacon to the word Form," in the Introduction to my edition of the 
 Novum Organum. 
 
io8 BACON. 
 
 Causes. He then proceeds to say that, as to the assignment .^f 
 Formal Causes to Metaphysic, it " may seem to be nugatory 
 and void, because of the received and inveterate opinion that 
 the inquisition of man is not competent to find out essential 
 forms or true differences, of which opinion we will take this 
 hold; that the invention of Forms is of all other parts of 
 knowledge the worthiest to be sought, if it be possible to be 
 found. As for the possibility, they are ill discoverers that 
 think there is no land when they can see nothing but sea. But 
 it is manifest that Plato in his opinion of Ideas, as one that had 
 a wit of elevation situate as upon a cliff, 4 did descry that forms 
 were the true object of knowledge ; but lost the real fruit of 
 his opinion, by considering of forms as absolutely abstracted 
 from matter, and not confined and determined by matter, and 
 so turning his opinion upon Theology, wherewith all his na- 
 tural philosophy is infected. But if any man shall keep a 
 continual, watchful, and severe eye upon action, operation, and 
 the use of knowledge, he may advise and take notice what are 
 the forms, the disclosures whereof are fruitful and important 
 to the state of man " The Forms of Substances, indeed, f 'are 
 so perplexed, as they are not to be inquired/'' or, as is added 
 in the De Avgmentis, " they should be laid aside for a time, 
 and resumed after the forms of a more simple nature have been 
 duly sifted and discovered." To inquire into the forms of 
 substances before we have inquired into the forms of a more 
 simple nature is no more " possible or to purpose " than " to 
 seek in gross the forms of those sounds which make words, 
 which by composition and transposition of letters are infinite." 
 " But on the other side to inquire the form of those sounds or 
 voices which make simple letters is easily comprehensible ; and 
 
 4 This clause is better stated in the parallel passage of the De Augmentis . 
 " But it is manifest that Plato, a man of a sublime genius, who took a 
 view of everything as from a high rock," &c. 
 
BA COJSTS REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC ME TIIOD. 1 09 
 
 being known induceth and manifesteth the forms of all words, 
 which consist and are compounded of them. In the same 
 manner to inquire the form of a lion, of an oak, of gold ; nay, 
 of water, of air, is a vain pursuit: but to inquire the forms of 
 senee, of voluntary motion, of vegetation, of colours, of gravity 
 and levity, of density, of tenuity, of heat, of cold, and all other 
 natures and qualities, which, like an alphabet, are not man}', 
 and of which the essences (upheld by matter) of all creatures 
 do consist ; to inquire, I say, the true forms of these, is that 
 part of metaphysic which we now define of." The first busi- 
 ness of science, then, is to enquire into the " forms of simple 
 natures ;" when these have been ascertained, but not till then, 
 we may hope to give an account of the vast multiplicity 
 of objects with which we are surrounded. Just as a word is 
 composed of letters, so a substance is composed of qualities, and, 
 when we have resolved the substance into its qualities, we may 
 give a full explanation of it, and can only give a full explana- 
 tion of it, by assigning the " form " of each of the qualities of 
 which it is composed. Similarly, in the operative branch of 
 knowledge, we may produce a substance by superinducing, one 
 after another, the various qualities which constitute it, or we 
 may transform one substance into another, by eliminating one 
 or more qualities and substituting one or more new ones. (See 
 Nov. Org. book ii. aphs. 1 — 5.) 
 
 The discovery of the " Form," then, being of such primary 
 importance in Bacon's conception of science, we must ask : 
 AVhat is a Form, and How is the Form of a Simple Nature to 
 be discovered ? 
 
 The word "Form," as employed by Bacon, is undoubtedly 
 connected with the Formal Cause or Essence (to elSos or to ti 
 r)v ehac or 1) ovaia) of Aristotle. But we are rather concerned 
 with the way in which he himself uses the word, than with the 
 historical antecedents which led him thus to use it Now, 
 
no BACON. 
 
 after a careful consideration of the various passages in which 
 it occurs, I have arrived at the conclusion that they may all 
 be ranged under two classes. In one of these, the word 
 " form -" may always be replaced by words like essence, differ- 
 entia, definition, &c. ; in the other by words like law, cause, 
 &c. 5 By form, in the sense of essence, is to be understood the 
 aggregate of independent and underived (or, as we might call 
 them, primary 6 ) attributes, from which all the other attributes 
 appertaining to the class, substance, or quality, are derived, as 
 effects from causes. By form, in the other sense, is to be under- 
 stood the law of the developement or manifestation or production 
 of any given quality or body. And, if we take into account 
 the pre-existing conditions as well as the law of their develope- 
 ment, we obtain the conception of " cause " in its fullest extent. 
 " Now, is it possible to reconcile or bring into any connexion 
 these two apparently divergent meanings ? 7 The form, we 
 have seen, is, according to the one conception, the aggregate 
 of the primary or underived attributes from which the other 
 attributes are derived, as effects from causes. According to 
 the other conception, it is the law according to which the 
 phenomenon in question is developed out of pre-existing con- 
 ditions, or, taking into account the conditions, it is, in brief, 
 its cause. But practically (and the practical interest is, with 
 
 5 There is one passage (Nov. Org. book i. aph. 75), in which the two 
 meanings are brought together : "Hinc opinio, quod forma? sive verse rerum 
 differentiae (quae revera sunt leges actus puri) inventu irnpossihiles sint, et 
 ultra hominem." 
 
 6 I am not here employing the word " primary" with any reference to 
 the distinction, rendered familiar by Locke and other writers, between the 
 so-called " primary and secondary qualities of matter." I am simply 
 employing it in the sense of underived or having no assignable cause. 
 
 7 I am quoting here, as I have also done in some portions of the pre- 
 ceding paragraph, from § 8 of the Introduction to my Edition of the Novum 
 Organum. 
 
B A COWS REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 1 1 1 
 
 Bacon, always supreme), these two conceptions may, if we take 
 a sufficiently sanguine view of human power, be regarded as 
 leading to the same result. Given the aggregate of primary 
 and underived attributes, and we are able to produce the phe- 
 nomon, or rather it follows as a matter of course. Given the 
 pre-existing' conditions and the law of their developement, and 
 (on the important assumption that we are able to further their 
 developement) we are ourselves able to produce the effect. 
 Thus the knowledge of the essence and the knowledge of the 
 cause are, for all practical purposes, the same. If, to take 
 Bacon's instances, we know that heat consists in a certain kind 
 of motion, or whiteness in a certain juxtaposition of particles, 
 we are already acquainted with the law of its developement or 
 cause of its production. Or, to take Lasalle's instance of 
 Form, if we are acquainted with Newton's analysis of a white 
 ray of light into the several coloured rays of which it is com- 
 posed, it is indifferent whether we speak of these rays as 
 constituting ( = being the essence of) whiteness, or as produc- 
 ing ( = being the cause of) whiteness. And, as substances or 
 concrete bodies were, according to Bacon's conception, ' forma? 
 copulata?,' or combinations of certain f simple natures/ a 
 knowledge of the ' essence' would, in their case also, be equi- 
 valent to a knowledge of the * cause.' " 
 
 In modern scientific terminology, therefore, we may usually 
 replace the Baconian question "What is the Form" by the 
 question " What is the Cause." 
 
 We have now to consider the peculiar method by which 
 Bacon conceived that the Form, essential nature, cause, or law, 
 was to be ascertained. 
 
 He is never weary of dwelling on the insufficiency of the 
 Inductio per EnumerationemSimplicem, or method of induction 
 then in vogue. This method consisted in merely accumulating 
 instances presenting the phenomenon in question, without 
 
U2 BACON. 
 
 following any rule of selection. If any other circumstance 
 were found invariably to accompany the phenomenon, this 
 circumstance was set down, without further examination, as its 
 cause, or effect, or at least as connected with it in the way of 
 causation. An invariable concomitance of two or more quali- 
 ties within the range of observation undoubtedly affords a 
 presumption of causation, but this presumption may often 
 be very slight and easily dissipated by further experience. 
 Thus, a native of the North of Europe might, some centuries 
 ago, have concluded to his own satisfaction that all men are 
 white, or a native of Central Africa that all men are black. 
 Instead of this hasty and hap-hazard kind of induction, it is 
 the peculiar merit of Bacon to have conceived, and to a certain 
 extent to have elaborated, a regular and scientific method, 
 proceeding by way of elimination, and thus carrying up an 
 effect to its cause or following a cause into its effects by a 
 chain of demonstrative reasoning. This method he calls the 
 Method of Exclusions or Rejections, and it is in this device 
 that he conceives the peculiar value and originality of his logi- 
 cal system to consist. 8 Some of the assumptions on which the 
 Method of Exclusions rests would now unquestionably be re- 
 jected as false or doubtful, but, when taken along with its 
 adjuncts, it must none the less be regarded as a monument of 
 Bacon's genius as well as the beginning of a new era in the 
 history of the methods of scientific inquiry. 
 
 We have seen that Bacon conceived it possible, by means of 
 analysis, to arrive at a number of qualities or " simple natures," 
 standing in the same relation to the complex substances which 
 they are supposed to constitute as the letters of an alphabet to 
 
 8 At Inductio, quae ad inventionem et demonstrationem scientiarum et 
 artium erit utilis, naturam separare debet, per rejectiones et exclusiones 
 debitas ; ac deinde, post .negatives tot quot sufficiunt, super affirmativas 
 concludere. Nov. Org. book i. aph. 105. 
 
BA CON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC ME TIIOD. 1 1 3 
 
 the various words which occur in a language. These " simple 
 natures " he regarded as limited in number, and, apparently, 
 
 as all capable of being ultimately ascertained. Now some of 
 these ''simple natures/' he assumed, depend upon others, that 
 is to say, are effects or modes of others, and, if we can only 
 ascertain what these others are on which they depend, may be 
 produced by means of them. The " simple nature " on which 
 another "simple nature" depends (for it is always assumed 
 that there is only one such nature) is its Form. To discover 
 the Form, we have only to go through the list of " simple 
 natures " (supposed to be exhaustive), and find reasons, 
 grounded on observations or experiments or on a comparison of 
 obseivations or of experiments or of both, for setting aside first 
 one, and then another, till at last one u simple nature " only is 
 left. This will be the Form of which we are in search. Or if, in- 
 stead of excluding all the " simple natures " but one, we can 
 only narrow them down to a few, the Form will have subse- 
 quently to be sought amongst these few, or, at least, we must 
 content ourselves with the knowledge that it is to be found 
 somewhere or other amongst them. 
 
 This method (which we must recollect Bacon regarded as an 
 ideal, not likely for some time to be attained ") is open to many 
 obvious objections. In the first place, there must be some one, 
 if not more, of the "simple natures " which is ultimate, and 
 therefore has no " Form " outside of itself. To this objection, 
 however, Bacon would probably have replied that the ultimate 
 character of such a "nature " would be ascertained by a due 
 use of his method ; for, if all the other M simple natures u were 
 excluded, it would follow that there was no external " Form " 
 or cause of the nature in question. And it may have been for 
 this reason that, in writing the Novum Orgaunm, he substi- 
 
 9 Neque veroipsa exclusiva ullo modo perfecta est, Deque adeo esse potest 
 sub iuitiie. Nov. Org. book ii. aph. 19. 
 
 I 
 
114 BACON. 
 
 tuted for motion, the Form of .which he had proposed to him- 
 self for enquiry in his earlier essay the Filum Labyrinthi, and 
 which he had now perhaps come to regard as an ultimate fact, 
 the example of Heat, which, as we shall presently see, he re- 
 solved into a particular kind of motion. Another objection, 
 not so easily answered, is that Bacon always assumes that each 
 "simple nature" has only one form. Wherever the word 
 " form " can be replaced by cc essence," this assumption is 
 justified ; but, wherever it is more correctly replaced by 
 " cause," the assumption is open to the objection, taken by 
 Mr. Mill, that an effect is sometimes due to one set of condi- 
 tions and sometimes to another. Thus, to employ the technical 
 language of Mr. Mill's logic, Bacon ignores the consideration 
 of the Plurality of Causes. A third objection (and, perhaps, the 
 most obvious of all) is this. Why take the trouble to go through 
 the whole list of " simple natures/' elaborately rejecting one 
 after another in turn, when we can often take the much shorter 
 route of establishing, by the various subsidiary methods which 
 he himself suggests, a positive connexion between some one phe- 
 nomenon or " nature " and another ? As I have said elsewhere, 1 
 if the connexion between two phenomena or " natures " satis- 
 fies all the requirements of the Inductive Methods as now 
 ordinarily -stated (and we may regard Bacon as approximately 
 formulating these Methods in the early part of the Second Book 2 ) , 
 we are surely justified, without going through any "exclu- 
 sion " of other natures, in affirming a causal relation between 
 them. On the other hand, however large the number of 
 " natures " which we can succeed in excluding, we can hardly 
 ever be certain, in the present state of knowledge or any which 
 we are likely to attain, that we have excluded all but one. 
 And, even supposing we were able to attain this certainty, how 
 
 1 See § 9 of the Introduction to my Edition of the Novum Organxm. 
 8 See especially Aph 15. 
 
BA CON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC ME TIIOD: 1 1 5 
 
 do we know, unless we have some positive evidence, that the 
 remaining nature is the cause or" form " of the given nature ? 
 Might they not both be, so far as our knowledge reaches, ulti- 
 mate facts of nature, uniformities of co-existence, like Inertia 
 and Gravity? Or lastly, might not the given nature be the 
 form of the other, instead of the reverse ? 
 
 The apparatus for conducting the Method of Exclusions is 
 of far more importance in the history of Inductive Logic than 
 is that method itself, and it is remarkable that it is quite as 
 applicable to obtaining positive as to obtaining negative 
 results. 8 This apparatus consists of certain "Tables" and a 
 comparison of the results therein contained. In the First 
 Table (Aph. 11), taking heat as his example of the " nature" 
 whose Form is to be found, he brings together, or rather 
 attempts to bring together, instances of all the known circum- 
 stances, however dissimilar in other respects, under which heat 
 presents itself. Some of the u instances agreeing in the 
 nature of heat " (InstantisB convenientes in nature calidi) are 
 of the most bizarre kind, and there is a confusion throughout 
 between substances which excite in our organs a sensation of 
 heat and those which are themselves actually hot. But yet 
 the principle on which these instances are collected is a 
 thoroughly sound one. If the investigator can succeed in 
 bringing together instances so numerous and various, that, in 
 addition to the given "nature," they have only one other 
 circumstance in common, that circumstance may be regarded 
 with considerable probability as connected by causation with 
 
 8 In Aph. 15 he actually gives a rule (or rules) for obtaining from the 
 " Tables" an immediate and positive result. " Facta autem comparentia, 
 in opere ponenda est ipsa Inductio. Invenienda est enim, super eompa- 
 rentinm omnium et singularum instantiartun, Datura talis, qua cum 
 natura data perpetuo adsit, absit, atqae erescat, et deorescat.*' Hut he at 
 once arrests himself, as I shall presently point out in the Text, and then 
 proceeds in the next Aphorism to throw the rules into a negative form. 
 
 I % 
 
n6 BACON. 
 
 the given nature, and if it be sometimes found to precede the 
 appearance of the given nature, while the given nature is never 
 found to precede it, this circumstance may with considerable 
 probability be regarded as the cause of which the given nature 
 is the effect. In fact, the conditions will have fulfilled the 
 requirements of Mill's Method of Agreement. 4 
 
 In the Second Table (Aph. 12), he collects instances ap- 
 proximating closely in other respects to some one or other of 
 the instances in the First Table, but not presenting the pheno- 
 menon of Heat 5 (Instantise in proximo, qua? privantur natura 
 Calidi). Thus, to the rays of the sun, which are hot, are 
 opposed the rays of the moon, which are not hot, and are sup- 
 posed at times to be cold ; to boiling liquids are opposed liquids 
 in their ordinary condition. Here again, if, by a judicious 
 selection of instances, an example in the Table of Agreement 
 and a corresponding example in the Table of Privation could be 
 found so related as to have every circumstance in common, 
 except the presence of heat along with some other circumstance 
 in the former case, and the absence of heat along with the 
 absence of that other circumstance in the latter case, we might 
 conclude (not probably merely, but with certainty) that heat and 
 this other circumstance were related to each other as cause (or 
 at least as a necessary part of the cause) and effect. In other 
 words, the conditions would have satisfied the requirements of 
 the method of Difference. A negative result might, however, 
 be attained on far less stringent conditions. Thus, suppose 
 that we were led by the heat of the solar rays to suspect that 
 
 4 For an account of this and the other inductive methods here mentioned, 
 see Mill's Logic, book hi., or my Inductive Logic, ch. 3. 
 
 5 It must, of course, be recollected that, in Bacon's day, Heat and Cold 
 were regarded as distinct and opposed qualities, not as different degrees of 
 the same quality, or, as we should now say, different degrees of tempera- 
 ture. By " hot " Bacon means a temperature exceeding the average tem- 
 perature of the human body. 
 
BA CON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 1 17 
 
 light was the cause of heat, the observation of the lunar rays 
 would at once enable us to eliminate, " exclude/' or " reject M 
 this Form ; for we should have an instance where the supposed 
 cause was present, but where its supposed effects did not follow. 
 
 In the Third Table (Aph. 13), there are broug-ht together 
 instances of different degrees of the given nature (Tabula 
 Oraduum sive Comparative in Calido), whether exhibited in 
 the same or different subjects. If some other phenomenon 
 could be discovered which increased and diminished propor- 
 tionately with the increase and diminution of heat, that phe- 
 nomenon would be the cause or the effect of heat, or, at least, 
 causally connected with it in some way or other, and the con- 
 ditions would thus conform to the requirements of Mill's 
 Method of Concomitant Variations. If it could further be 
 shown that this phenomenon and heat were the only circum- 
 stances which varied concurrently, then the phenomenon would 
 be proved, not merely to be causally connected with heat, but 
 to be either the cause or the effect of it. 6 
 
 With regard both to this and the two former Tables, it must 
 be carefully borne in mind that I am stating- the conditions 
 under which we should now feel justified in drawing certain 
 conclusions from them, and not either the precise conditions 
 or the precise conclusions which Bacon himself formulated. 
 
 It is, however, remarkable that, no sooner are the Tables 
 completed, than Bacon goes on to say (Aph. 15) that, "on 
 the appearance of all and singular the instances therein con- 
 tained, we must find a nature of such a kind as to be always 
 present, absent, and increasing and decreasing with the given 
 nature." Were the two former of these conditions both ful- 
 filled, namely, invariable concomitance of both presence and 
 
 6 The conditions would, in this case, conform to the requirements of the 
 Rider to the Canon of Concomitant Variations, given in my Inductive 
 Logic, 3rd ed., p. 182. 
 
118 BACON. 
 
 absence, the case would satisfy the requirements of Mill's Joint 
 Method of Agreement and Difference, and not only should we 
 be able to exclude the imperfection of proof arising from 
 Plurality of Causes (which attaches to a mere concomitance of 
 presence), but, having established that one of the phenomena 
 was a cause of the other, we should know moreover that it was 
 the only cause. 7 
 
 Having, however, suggested this positive method of dealing 
 with the Tables, Bacon is shy of pursuing it, and recurs at once 
 to his favourite idea of employing a series of " exclusions " or 
 V rejections." " To arrive immediately at a knowledge of forms 
 by mere affirmation is suitable to the intelligence of God (the 
 creator of Forms) or perchance to angels, but it is certainly 
 far above the power of man, to whom it is only granted to 
 proceed first by negatives, and in the last place to end in 
 affirmatives, after every manner of exclusion." He then pro- 
 ceeds (Aph. 16) to state the precise manner in which the 
 Method of Exclusions is to be applied. " The first work of 
 true induction (as far as regards the discovery of forms) is the 
 rejection or exclusion of the several natures which are not 
 found in some instance where the given nature is present ; or 
 are found in some instance where the given nature is absent; 
 or are found to increase in some instance where the given nature 
 decreases, or to decrease where the given nature increases." 
 Of these grounds of rejection it may be remarked that, owing 
 to the possibility of a Plurality of Causes, the " given nature " 
 might be present without the other nature, or might increase 
 while the other nature was decreasing, even though this last 
 was one of the causes capable of producing it. Hence a " re- 
 jection " on either of these grounds might be unwarranted. 
 
 1 See Mill's Logic on the Joint Method of Agreement and Difference, 
 or my Inductive Logic on the Double Method of Agreement, as I prefer 
 to call this method. 
 
BACON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 1 19 
 
 On either of the two other grounds, inasmuch as a cause must 
 always produce its effect, a rejection would be warranted. 
 " After the rejection and exclusion has been duly made," Bacon 
 adds, " there will remain at the bottom, inasmuch as all the 
 volatile opinions will vanish into smoke, a Form affirmative, 
 solid, and true, and well defined." This, it may be repeated, 
 could only be the case, if all possible causes had been con- 
 sidered, and the rejection had been so exhaustive, that only 
 one cause remained, — conditions which it is almost impossible 
 to fulfil. Well then might Bacon confess that, though his 
 method was soon described, the way itself was long and intri- 
 cate (Aph. 16), and that, for the present at least, he must also 
 employ, or rather employ as auxiliary and preparatory to it, 
 other aids for the understanding (Aphs. 19. 21). 
 
 Before, however, describing these other aids, he hazards a 
 hypothesis (Aph. 20) on the Form of Heat, based on the 
 materials collected in the Tables. This "giving reins to the 
 Understanding, or First Vintage" (permissio intellectus or 
 vindemiatio prima), must be regarded as a sort of parenthesis, 
 inserted, by way of encouragement and relief, during the con- 
 duct of the more stringent method of Exclusions with its 
 various aids. It is remarkable not only on account of its 
 result, but also as seeming to afford an example of that very 
 process of u flying off from sense and particulars to the widest 
 generalizations/' which Bacon himself condemns in the First 
 Book. 8 It must be borne in mind, however, that the mental 
 habit which he condemns is rather that of acquiescing too 
 readily and confidently in wide generalizations, when formed, 
 
 8 See Nov. Org. book i. aph. 19. On Bacon's attitude towards the 
 use of Hypothesis, as well as on the general question of the employment 
 of Hypotheses in science, the reader may consult my notes on Nov. Org. 
 book i. aphs. 19, KM!, and on hook ii. aph. 20, ad init. The relation of 
 Hypothesis to Induction and the conditions of a legitimate hypothesis arc 
 discussed in my Inductive Logic, 3rd ed., pp. 95 — 121. 
 
I2 o BACON. 
 
 than that of forming them, and, moreover, that the hypothesis 
 started in ii. 20 is founded on what Bacon himself, at all 
 events, regarded as a wide basis of facts. As is well exempli- 
 fied in the present instance, a hypothesis, provided we recollect 
 that it is merely a hypothesis and do not, without rigorous in- 
 vestigation, accept it as an established truth, may often be the 
 best step that we can take in the existing condition of a science, 
 and it always has the effect, while still open to discussion, of 
 stimulating inquiry and directing its course. " The fantastic 
 character/' as I have said elsewhere, " of the Ancient Physics 
 was due far less to an exuberant imagination than to a defec- 
 tive sense of evidence. And the true remedy was to insist on 
 the necessity of verification rather than on the suppression of 
 hypothesis." 
 
 The result of Bacon's " First Vintage" is remarkable in the 
 history of science. Anticipating the theory of Heat now 
 generally accepted, he defines it as " a motion, expansive, 
 restrained, and striving amongst the smaller particles of 
 bodies." 9 Even the modern theory as to the undulatory char- 
 acter of this motion seems to be anticipated in the following 
 passage, which is quoted with approbation by Professor 
 Tyndall : " The third specific difference is this, that heat is a 
 motion of expansion, not uniformly of the whole body together, 
 but in its ultimate particles ; and at the same time checked, 
 repelled, and beaten back, so that the particles acquire a motion 
 alternative, perpetually quivering, striving and struggling, 
 and irritated by repercussion, whence springs the fury of 
 fire and heat." 1 That there are some fanciful and super- 
 ficial ideas implied in Bacon's account of Heat there can be no 
 doubt, but it is surely a striking testimony to his genius that, 
 
 9 Calor est motus expansivus, cohibitus, et nitens per partes minores. 
 1 See Tjndall's Seat a Mode of Motion, Appendix to ch. 2, and cp. 
 with Bacon's account § 339 of the same work (3rd ed.). 
 
BACON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 121 
 
 in his main conception of Heat as an expansive and oscillatory 
 motion amongst the minute particles of matter, he should have 
 anticipated the precise conclusion at which, after the pre- 
 dominance, for a long" time, of a different theory, the most 
 eminent physicists have at length arrived. 
 
 In the 21st Aphorism, having completed the Tables and 
 given an example of the Method of Exclusion, and having, 
 moreover, gathered the first vintage, he proceeds to describe 
 " the remaining helps of the understanding, as they promote 
 the interpretation of nature and a true and perfect induction." 
 "The helps" are nine altogether, and are intended as sub- 
 sidiary to the Method of Exclusions, for the purposes of which 
 the Tables alone are not supposed to be sufficient. It is not 
 necessary for me even to enumerate these helps, but I may note 
 that the seventh was to be the Deduction to Practice (Deductio 
 ad Praxin) or the application of general axioms, arrived at by 
 induction, to the needs of practical life, or, as Bacon puts it, 
 it was to be " of that which is in relation to Man/' The only 
 u help " which Bacon describes (the description of the rest he 
 deferred to a more convenient season which he never found) 
 is the "Prerogatives of Instances " (Prerogative Instanti- 
 arum). These are so called from the " Tribus Prerogativa," 
 which, being selected by lot, voted first in the " Comitia Tri- 
 buta " of the Romans, and thus not only afforded an indica- 
 tion of the mode in which the other tribes were likely to vote, 
 but also frequently exercised a considerable influence on their 
 decision. They are, as Sir John Hirschel 2 says, " characteristic 
 phenomena, selected from the great miscellaneous mass of 
 facts which occur in nature, and which, by their number, in- 
 distinctness, and complication, tend rather to confuse than to 
 
 3 See Herschel's Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy, § 190. 
 Sir John Herschel gives some excellent illustrations of some of the more 
 important of the Prerogative Instances. See §§ li>0 — 200. 
 
122 BACON. 
 
 direct the mind in its search for causes and general heads of 
 induction. Phenomena so selected on account of some 
 peculiarly forcible way in which they strike the reason, and 
 impress us with a kind of sense of causation or a particular 
 aptitude for generalization, Bacon considers, and justly, as 
 holding a kind of prerogative dignity, and claiming our first 
 and especial attention in physical inquiries." 
 
 Some of the phrases by which Bacon designates his preroga- 
 tive instances ; such as crucial instances, glaring' instances, clan- 
 destine instances, have become household words. I shall give 
 a brief description of a few of the prerogative instances, selected 
 on account either of their historical or of their logical interest. 
 
 Solitary Instances (Aph. 22) are "such as exhibit the 
 nature under investigation in subjects which have nothing in 
 common with other subjects except that nature ; or again such 
 as do not exhibit the nature under investigation in subjects 
 which are in all respects similar to other subjects, except in 
 the fact of not having that nature." " For it is clear," he 
 adds, " that such instances cut off many long circuits, and 
 accelerate and strengthen the process of exclusion ; so that a 
 few of them are as good as many." It is curious, and a 
 striking example of Bacon's sagacity, that the two divisions of 
 the " instantiae solitarise " correspond respectively with Mill's 
 Methods of Agreement and Difference. Nor is he less happy 
 in his illustration of at least the first division than in his rule. 
 " If the inquiry," he says, " be into the nature of Colour, 
 Solitary Instances are to be found in prisms, or crystalline 
 gems, which show colours not only in themselves, but exter- 
 nally on a wall ; also in dews, &c. For these have nothing 
 in common with the colours fixed in flowers, coloured gems, 
 metals, various kinds of wood, &c, except colour itself. From 
 which we easily gather that colour is nothing more than, a 
 modification of the image of light received on the object, re- 
 
BA CON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 1 23 
 
 suiting in the former case from the different degrees of inci- 
 dence, in the latter, from the various textures and configura- 
 tions of the body. It was by means of these very examples 
 that Newton afterwards discovered the composition of light." 
 
 Travelling Instances (Instantia3 Migrantes : Aph. 23) are 
 such as exhibit the nature under investigation in the 
 act of travelling from one point to another: namely, in 
 the process of being produced when it did not previously 
 exist, or on the other hand of disappearing when it existed 
 before; or, lastly, in passing towards increase or decrease. 
 It is plain that this Instance includes the Method of 
 Concomitant Variations, but an instance exhibiting a nature 
 which " travels to generation or privation," that is to say,, 
 which, not having existed before, is produced, or which, having 
 existed before, vanishes, falls under the head of the Method of 
 Ditference. One of Bacon's examples is paper " which is 
 white when dry, but when wetted (that is, when air is ex- 
 cluded and water introduced) is less white and approaches 
 nearer to being transparent.'"' " In reading this," says Sir 
 John Herschel, "and many other examples in the' Novum 
 Organum,, one would almost suppose (had it been written) that 
 its author had taken them from Newton's Optics" 
 
 Glaring, Conspicuous, or Striking histances (Instantiye 
 Ostensivae or Elucescentise : Aph. 24) are such as exhibit the- 
 nature under investigation, as it were " naked and standing 
 by itself, and also in its exaltation or highest degree of power; 
 as being disenthralled and freed from all impediments, or at any 
 rate by virtue of its strength dominant over, suppressing, and 
 coercing them." A happily selected example is the Thermo- 
 meter (" vitrum calendare aeris," then a recent invention), as- 
 exhibiting, in a striking form, the expansive power of heat. 
 The Barometer (which was not known in Bacon's time, having 
 been invented by Torricelli in 1643) aiFords an equally " strik- 
 
124 BACON. 
 
 ing " or " glaring " instance of the weight of the atmosphere. 
 The circumstance which conceals the weight of the atmo- 
 sphere in ordinary cases, namely, the pressure of it in all direc- 
 tions, being entirely removed, that weight produces its full 
 effect, and sustains the whole column of mercury in the tube. 
 Sir John Herschel cites an example of a glaring instance, 
 which, besides being peculiarly interesting, possesses great 
 historical importance. " The laws of crystallography were 
 obscure, and its causes still more so, till Haiiy fortunately 
 dropped a beautiful crystal of calcareous spar on a stone pave- 
 ment and broke it. In piecing together the fragments, he 
 observed their facets not to correspond with those of the 
 crystal in its entire state, but to belong to another form; and, 
 following out the hint offered by a ' glaring instance ' thus 
 casually obtruded on his notice, he discovered the beautiful 
 laws of the cleavage and the primitive forms of minerals." 
 
 Clandestine Instances, or Instances of the Twilight, as they 
 are also quaintly called (Instantise Clandestine, quas etiam 
 Instantias Crepusculi appellare consuevimus : Aph. 25), are 
 the opposite of Glaring Instances, being such as exhibit the 
 nature under investigation " in its lowest degree of power, and 
 as it were in its cradle and rudiments, striving indeed and 
 making a sort of first trial, but latent under and subjected by 
 a contrary nature." " Such instances, however," he adds, 
 " are of very great service for the discovery of forms ; because, 
 as Glaring Instances lead easily to differ entice, so Clandestine 
 Instances are the best guides to genera" These instances, 
 in fact, being on the extreme border of a class or phenomenon, 
 serve to determine its range, just as the glaring instances, by 
 exhibiting a property in its most striking form, serve to direct 
 attention to its most characteristic features. Here again 
 Bacon himself furnishes an excellent example, namely, cohesion 
 in the case of fluids. Zoophytes would furnish a clandestine 
 
BACONS REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 125 
 
 instance of animal life ; children and some of the lower animals 
 of intelligence; barter amongst savages of commerce; and 
 so on. 
 
 Collective Instances (Instantiae Constitutive : Aph. 26) are 
 really minor inductions, grouping" together a number of 
 individual facts. They are those " axiomata infima," or axioms 
 of the lowest degree of generalisation, which Bacon regarded 
 as lying at the base of the inductive pyramid. Bacon (knives 
 his principal examples from the faculty of memory and the 
 sense of taste. But some of the examples proposed by Sir 
 John Herschel* will probably afford more interest to the 
 reader. " The parabolic form, assumed by a jet of water 
 spouted from a round hole, is a collective instance of the veloci- 
 ties and directions of the motions of all the particles which 
 compose it seen at once, thus leading us, without trouble, to 
 recognize the law of the motion of a projectile. Again, the 
 beautiful figures, exhibited by and strewed on regular plates of 
 glass or metal set in vibration, are collective instances of an 
 infinite number of points which remain at rest while the 
 remainder of the plate vibrates; and, in consequence, afford 
 us, as it were, a sight of the law which regulates their arrange- 
 ment and sequence throughout the whole surface Of 
 
 such collective instances as these, it is easy to see the import- 
 ance, and its reason. They lead us to a general law by an 
 induction which offers itself spontaneously, and thus furnish 
 advanced points in our inquiries; and, when we start from 
 these, already e a thousand steps are lost/ w Turning to ast ro- 
 nomy, " a fine example of a collective instance is that of the 
 system of Jupiter or Saturn with its satellites. We have here, 
 in miniature, and seen at one view, a system similar to that <•!' 
 the planets about the sun; of which, from the cireumstaix e df 
 our being involved in it, and unfavourably situated lor seeing 
 3 Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy, §§ 194-5. 
 
126 BACON. 
 
 it otherwise than in detail, we are incapacitated from forming 
 a general idea but by slow progressive efforts of reason. Ac- 
 cordingly, the contemplation of the circumjovial planets (as 
 they were called) most materially assisted in securing the 
 admission of the Copernican system." 
 
 Conformable or Parallel Instances (Instantiae Conform es : 
 Aph. 27) are such as exhibit similitudes in objects or qualities 
 which are in many other respects dissimilar. They are, in fact, 
 Analogies. Bacon offers, amongst other examples, a looking- 
 glass and the eye ; the workmanship of the ear and places 
 returning an echo; the roots and branches of trees; the fins 
 of fishes, the feet of quadrupeds, and the feet and wings of 
 birds. Professor Playfair gives the telescope and microscope, 
 in the works of art, as compared with the eye, in the works of 
 nature ; basaltic rocks and the lava thrown out from volcanoes ; 
 the valves in blood-vessels and the valves used in hydraulic 
 engines for the purpose of preventing the counter-current of a 
 fluid, by the observation of which analogy Harvey was led to 
 the discovery of the circulation of the blood. " It is," I have 
 said in one of my notes to this Aphorism, " by the bold use of 
 analogies of thisldnd that modern physicists have been able to 
 trace the correlations of the various physical forces; that 
 modern philologists have been able to refer to the same fami- 
 lies, languages of apparently the most dissimilar character ; and 
 that modern jurists and moralists have detected in laws, insti- 
 tutions, customs, and feelings amongst the most widely scat- 
 tered races and at the most various stages of civilization a 
 common origin and a common meaning. Though the strict 
 use of logical method is indispensable to demonstration and 
 verification, it is the observation of analogies, and those often 
 very remote ones, that generally sets us on the track of great 
 discoveries." 
 
 Singular or Monadic Instances (Instantise Monodicae, or, as 
 
BA COATS REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC ME THOD. 1 27 
 
 it should be written, Monadicae, Irregulares, sive Heteroclitae : 
 Apli. 28) are such as exhibit phenomena " which seem to be 
 out of the course (extravagantia) and broken off from the 
 usual order of nature, and not agreeing* with other" phenomena 
 " of the same kind." Examples given by Bacon are the sun 
 and moon among stars (we must recollect that his astronomical 
 views lagged far behind those of many of his contemporaries, 
 who would rather have found amongst the other stars parallel 
 instances to the sun and moon than have ranked these as sin- 
 gular instances); the magnet amongst stones; quicksilver 
 amongst metals ; the scent of hounds amongst kinds of smell; 
 the letter S among letters, u on account of its easy combination 
 with consonants, sometimes with two, sometimes* even with 
 three." In external nature, we might adduce, as additional 
 examples of Monadic Instances, Comets, Double Stars, the 
 occasional crescent-shape of Venus, of Mercury, and of the 
 Moon, Earthquakes, Volcanoes, Cyclones ; in law, Gavelkind 
 and Borough English; in moral sentiment, Suttee, Duelling, 
 the Levirate, Codes of Honour such as those which obtain 
 amongst schoolboys or particular professions. Some of Bacon's 
 remarks on this class of instances are highly just and philoso- 
 phical. " The use of Singular Instances is the same as that 
 of the Clandestine Instances, namely, to unite and extend the 
 limits of nature, for the purpose of discovering genera or 
 common natures, to be afterwards limited by true differences. 
 For we are not to desist from inquiry, till the properties and 
 qualities which are found in such things as may be takeu for 
 marvels of nature be reduced and comprehended under some 
 Form or fixed Law ; so that all the irregularity or singularity 
 shall be found to depend on some common Form, and the 
 marvel shall turn out to be only in the precise differences, and 
 the degree, and the rare concurrence, and uol in the species 
 itself: whereas now the thoughts of men go no further than 
 
128 BACON. 
 
 to regard such things as the secrets and mighty works of 
 nature, and as it were uncaused, and as exceptions to general 
 rules." These reflections show a firm belief in the universality 
 of Causation, and a persuasion that all so-called exceptions 
 admit of some explanation in conformity with the general laws 
 of nature. 
 
 Passing over several other Instances, we come in the 36th 
 Aphorism to what are far the most famous of all Bacon's 
 Prserogativse Instantiarum, namely, Crucial Instances (Instan- 
 tise Crucis). A "crucial instance" has become a household 
 word in the English language, and is, perhaps, far more widely 
 used than any other technical term of Inductive Logic. Ac- 
 cording to the metaphor, there are two or more ways before 
 us, and the observation or experiment in question acts as a 
 " guide-post" (crux) in determining us which to take. There 
 being two or more rival hypotheses, which equally well accord 
 with the facts hitherto observed, we try to think of some deci- 
 sive experiment or observation, which, by according with one 
 of the theories, and that only, will enable us summarily to 
 reject the others. " When," says Bacon, " in the investiga- 
 tion of any nature the understanding is so balanced as to be 
 uncertain to which of two or more natures the cause of the 
 nature in question should be assigned, on account of the 
 frequent and ordinary concurrence of many natures " (or, in 
 other words, on account of the difficulty of disentangling from 
 the mass of antecedents the one which stands in the relation 
 of cause to the given effect), " Instances of the Guide-post 
 show the union of one of the natures with the nature in ques- 
 tion to be sure and indissoluble, of the other to be varied and 
 separable , and thus the question is decided, and the former 
 nature is admitted as the cause, while the latter is dismissed 
 and rejected. Therefore, such instances afford very great 
 light, and are of high authority ; so that the course of in- 
 
 
BA CON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 1 29 
 
 terpretation sometimes ends in them and is completed by 
 them/' 
 
 In a classification of logical methods, crucial instances may 
 be regarded as applications of the Method of Difference. All 
 other circumstances being the same, the appearance or disap- 
 pearance, the existence or non-existence of some one circum- 
 stance, or combination of circumstances, enables us to determine 
 the question at issue. 
 
 The simplest and most familiar examples, perhaps, of the 
 employment of crucial instances are to be found in the pro- 
 cesses of chemistry, as where we employ a test for the purpose 
 of determining the nature of a particular substance or of detect- 
 ing the presence of a particular poison. In daily life, too, we 
 are constantly employing crucial instances, as where we form 
 plans for testing a man's veracity or his honesty or his punc- 
 tuality or the thoroughness of his work. A celebrated historical 
 example of the employment of a crucial instance is that by 
 which Pascal demonstrated the weight of the atmosphere. The 
 phenomenon to be explained was the fact that water will not 
 rise above a certain height in the common pump or mercury 
 above a certain height in the barometer, which instrument had 
 already been invented by Torricelli. Of this fact there were 
 two explanations: one that nature's abhorrence of a vacuum 
 (the old mode of accounting for a liquid rising by suction in a 
 pipe) was not sufficient to act beyond a certain point \ the 
 other, suggested by Torricelli, who had recently died, that the 
 column of water or mercury answers to the super- incumbent 
 pressure of a column of the atmosphere of equal weight. The 
 fact that Torricelli's barometric column varied in height from 
 day to day afforded strong evidence of the supposition that it 
 measured the weight of the atmosphere, but Torricelli's death 
 arrested the progress of his experiments. At this poinl they 
 were taken up by Pascal, who perceived that, if Torricelli's 
 
 K 
 
ISO BACON. 
 
 were the true explanation, the height of the barometric column 
 must vary with the various degrees of elevation above the 
 earth's surface, sinking lower and lower as the height attained 
 is greater. On the other hand, the extent of nature's abhor- 
 rence of a vacuum could hardly be affected by the circumstance 
 of the experiment taking place on a mountain or a plain. 
 Accordingly, on the 19th of September, 1648, Pascal, who 
 could not himself undertake the task, caused a decisive experi- 
 ment to be made on the Puy de Dome in Auvergne. In the 
 presence of numbers of persons, the barometer was carried up 
 the mountain, and the column was found gradually to descend 
 as the ascent was made. Moreover, the reading of the baro- 
 meter at the top of the mountain was found to differ considerably 
 from the simultaneous reading of a similar instrument which 
 had been retained in a garden at Clermont. Nothing could 
 be more satisfactory than this crucial instance, which Pascal 
 himself verified by taking the barometer up the tower of St. 
 Jacques de la Boucherie and other high buildings at Paris. 
 
 Bacon's own examples of this Instance are, some of them, of 
 considerable interest in the History of Science, but they would 
 require too much elucidation to be conveniently stated in this 
 place. 
 
 Sometimes a crucial instance or test is of such a character 
 that, if the experiment is attended by some result, something 
 is proved, but if it is attended by no result, nothing is proved. 
 Thus, for example, if a marked sovereign is taken from my 
 room, the fact proves dishonesty on the part of some one about 
 me; but, if not taken, the fact proves nothing, for the dis- 
 honest person may not have been in the room or may have 
 abstained on this occasion from fear of detection. It has been 
 proposed to call tests of this kind unilateral. 
 
 There are many other Prerogative Instances, some specially 
 
BA CON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC ME THOD. 1 3 1 
 
 adapted to the speculative, others to the operative branch of 
 science, but those which I have already adduced will be suffi- 
 cient to give the reader some idea of the value and interest of 
 this part of the Novmn Organum. Beyond this division the 
 book does not proceed. 
 
 Part II. 
 
 I shall now briefly consider what are the principal merits of 
 the magnificent fragment which I have just been describing', 
 and also endeavour to estimate the value of the various objec- 
 tions which have been raised against Bacon's method of 
 procedure as well as against his competence as a scientific 
 reformer. Perhaps the main interest now attaching to the 
 N<>r urn Organum is the historical one of its subsequent influ- 
 ence on logic, philosophy, and science, a subject which I have 
 discussed in a separate chapter. 4 As Macaulay finely says, 
 Bacon " moved the intellects which have moved the world." 
 But, inasmuch as I believe the intrinsic value of this work 
 even to students of the present day, and especially to young 
 students, to be very considerable, I shall briefly state the points 
 wherein I conceive its merits principally to consist. These may 
 be considered under two aspects. The first is its general effect 
 in guarding, stimulating, and disciplining the intellect ; the 
 second is the amount of definite logical doctrine comprised in 
 it which still retains any permanent value. 
 
 With regard to the first point, 6 I know no work of the same 
 
 « See ch. 6. 
 
 6 Much of what I here say is repeated or adapted from the loth Section 
 of my Introduction to the Novum Organum. As I have stated in t lie 
 Preface, I have frequently borrowed from my larger work, where I have 
 thought that nothing would be gained by any new r presentation of my 
 remarks or opinions. 
 
 K 2 
 
132 BACON, 
 
 kind so stimulating- to a young- reader, or so likely to foster 
 habits of cautious and independent investigation, as the First 
 Book of the Novum Organum. What Bacon says of Plato is 
 pre-eminently true of himself. He was " a man of a sublime 
 genius, who took a view of everything as from a high rock." 6 
 Now to the young student nothing is of so much importance as 
 to be brought into contact with works of real genius. To lay 
 oneself alongside a really subtle and capacious mind is almost 
 an education in itself, and there must have been many men 
 who have looked back on their first acquaintance with the pro- 
 found and brilliant pages of Bacon as forming one of the eras 
 in their lives. Maxims such as these, " Man is the servant and 
 interpreter of nature," " Human knowledge and human power 
 meet in one/' "It is not fruit-bringing but light- bringing 
 experiments that should be sought," " Truth is rightly called 
 the daughter of time, not of authority," " The worst thing 
 of all is the apotheosis of error," 7 which sparkle on almost 
 every page of the Novum 0?'ganum, live long in the memory, 
 •and insensibly influence our whole habit of thought. 
 
 There is something about Bacon's diction, his quaintness of 
 expression, and his" power of illustration, which lays hold of 
 the mind, and lodges itself in the memory, in a way which we 
 hardly find paralleled in any other author, except it be Shak- 
 speare. And what are the lessons which he thus effectually 
 communicates ? The duty of taking nothing upon trust which 
 we can verify for ourselves, of rigidly examining our first 
 principles, of being carefully on our guard against the various 
 delusions arising from the peculiarities of human nature, from 
 
 6 De Augmentis Scientiarum, book iii* ch. 4. 
 
 7 " Homo naturae minister et interpres," " Scientia et potentia humana 
 in idem coincidunt," " Lucifera experimenta, non fructifera, quserenda," 
 "Becte Veritas temporis filia dicitur, non auctoritatis," " Pessima res est 
 errorum apotheosis." 
 
BA CON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 1 33 
 
 our various interests and pursuits, from the force of words, and 
 from the disputes and traditions of the schools ; the duty of 
 forming" our conclusions slowly and of constantly checking 
 them by comparison with the facts of nature and life, of 
 avoiding* merely subtle and frivolous disputations, of confining 
 our inquiries to questions of which the solution is within our 
 power, and of subordinating* all our investigations to the wel- 
 fare of man and society. Now, lessons such as these, even 
 though they be stated in a somewhat exaggerated form, are 
 so necessary and so useful, that an author who presents them 
 in forcible and pointed language will ever retain his interest 
 and utility for each succeeding generation of learners. This 
 educational value of the Novum Organwn has never, I think, 
 been sufficiently pointed out, but it seems to me very real and 
 very important. 
 
 As regards the second point, the amount of definite logical 
 teaching in the Novum Organum which retains a permanent 
 value, much misconception prevails, and much injustice has 
 been done to the author. Some of Bacon's critics, especially 
 Baron Liebig, whose diatribe 8 affords an example of literary 
 animosity which is fortunately rare in recent times, condemn 
 
 8 Ueber Francis Bacon von Verulam und die Methode der JVafur- 
 forschung, von Justus von Liebig. Miinehen, 1863. This pamphlet is 
 written in a tone of such shrill invective, that it almost seems as if Bacon 
 had been a personal enemy of the writer. In addition to its extreme 
 bitterness, it is often very inaccurate, and does not, as it appears to me, 
 in any way conduce to the knowledge or appreciation of Bacon's system. 
 It was published in an English form in Macmillan's Magazine for July 
 and August, 1863, and has been translated into French by M. de 
 Tchihatchef, whose blunders show a singular incompetence for dealing 
 with the History of Science and Philosophy. Some of Bacon's recent 
 crities in England appear unfortunately to have borrowed their weapons 
 of offence mainly from Liebig'fl pamphlet. I shall speak again of the 
 adverse critics of Bacon's method and philosophy towards the close of this 
 chapter. 
 
i 3 4 BACON. 
 
 almost all his logical precepts as antiquated or worthless. 
 Their principal charges against Bacon as a reformer or pre- 
 tending reformer of scientific method and their objections to 
 his procedure, I shall examine presently. But I shall first 
 point out what I conceive to be some of his positive merits. 
 That the Novum Organum is not a complete treatise on Induc- 
 tive Logic, and that many of its rules require explanation or 
 revision, must of course be acknowledged. This is only to 
 say that it was written two and a half centuries ago, and that 
 it needs a commentary, either oral or printed. But the best 
 introduction to a subject is often found to be through some 
 historical monument which is less formal and technical than 
 modern text-books, and which displays the efforts of genius in 
 attempting to understand and overcome the fundamental pro- 
 blems and difficulties of the science. It is on these grounds 
 that many persons regard the writings of Aristotle and Plato 
 as forming the best introduction to the study of philosophy, 
 and it is on the same grounds that I venture to suggest that 
 the study of the inductive branch of scientific method might 
 well begin with the Novum Organum of Bacon, 
 
 Amongst the positive merits of this work, regarded as con- 
 taining a body of precepts for the conduct of scientific inquiry, 
 I may specially draw attention to the following points : — 
 
 (1) The constant emphasis with which it dwells on the 
 necessity of a thorough acquaintance with the facts of nature, 
 as the only sure preservative against the delusions of fancy or 
 prejudice and the misleading influence of authority. " Man 
 is the servant and interpreter of nature/'' " We can only 
 conquer nature, by first obeying her/'' 9 Hence the great im- 
 portance which Bacon always attaches to the construction of 
 what he calls a Natural History. 1 This was to be a collection 
 
 9 Natura non nisi parendo vincitur, book i. aph. 3. 
 1 See, for instance, Nov. Org. book i, aph. 98. 
 
BA CON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC ME THOD. 1 3 5 
 
 of facts of all kinds, whether bearing" on man or on external 
 nature, specially adapted to the wants of Natural Philosophy, 
 and containing a record of experiments as well as observations. 
 (2) The importance of not contenting" ourselves with mere 
 observation, but of also instituting, where possible, artificial 
 experiments for the purpose of obtaining more precise answers 
 to our questions, is another point which Bacon brings forcibly 
 before his readers. " For even as in civil matters a man's 
 disposition and the secret working's of his mind and affections 
 are better discovered when he is put in pain than at other 
 times ; so likewise the secrets of nature reveal themselves more 
 readily under the vexations of art than when they go their 
 own way."" 2 The Second Book of the Novum Organum, as well 
 as some of Bacon's minor works, affords several instances of 
 ingeniously devised experiments, often, however, proposed 
 rather than effected. I may adduce as an example the remark- 
 able experiment, described in Nov. Org. book ii. aph. 45, the 
 object of which was to determine the question of the compres- 
 sibility or incompressibility of water by confining it in a 
 leaden globe and then subjecting the globe to extreme pres- 
 sure. This experiment has every appearance of having been 
 original, and certainly preceded by nearly fifty years the cele- 
 brated experiment of a similar nature with a silver globe, 
 usually called the Florentine experiment, made by the Acca- 
 demia del Cimento at Florence. Both experiments were, as 
 we now know, inconclusive, from the fact of the water exuding 
 through the pores of the metals, but this circumstance does 
 not detract from the ingenuity of conception which suggested 
 them. The conclusion of the Florentine Academy was that 
 
 • Xov. Org. book i. aph. 98. For the differences between the two 
 processes of observation and experiment, and the advantages which the 
 latter possesses, in many respects, over the former, see Mill's Logic, book 
 iii. ch. 7, or my Inductive Logic, ch. 2, § 1. 
 
1 3 6 BACON. 
 
 water is incompressible, that of Bacon that it is compressible. 
 The truth of the latter inference has now been fully demon- 
 strated by Canton, Oersted, and others. 
 
 (3) On this wide and varied basis of facts Bacon proposed 
 to rear scientific inductions, as opposed to the mere enumera- 
 tions of facts (Inductio per enumerationem simplicem) which 
 were common in his time. The very conception of a scien- 
 tific process of induction, proceeding" by way of selection and 
 elimination, is one which is even now by no means universal 
 amongst men of information and culture, though it is most 
 important that it should be thoroughly grasped by every 
 student, whether of logic, philosophy, or science. 
 
 It is true that the Tables and the Method of Exclusions by 
 which Bacon proposes mainly to work out his conception are 
 cumbrous and, in the precise form in which they are stated by 
 him, not always effective, but they easily admit of being 
 corrected and re-stated so as greatly to elucidate the true and 
 fruitful processes of Induction. But of more intrinsic value 
 than this early part of the Second Book, as it seems to me, 
 are some of the " Prerogative Instantiarum." Many of the 
 expressions employed for the purpose of designating them still 
 form part of our logical terminology, and it would be very 
 difficult, in many cases, to describe, more aptly and precisely 
 than Bacon does, the nature of the reasoning involved in them. 
 The scientific examples are, generally, far too numerous, and 
 (notwithstanding the value or interest attaching to some of 
 them) are often wrongly stated, trivial, or inappropriate, but it 
 appears to me that less attention than it deserves has been 
 paid to the logical matter contained in this part of Bacon's 
 work. 
 
 (4) Nor does Bacon neglect to point out the proper relation 
 between the inductive and deductive processes of reasoning. 
 From the often reiterated emphasis with which he insists on 
 
BA CON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 1 37 
 
 the necessity of employing 1 and reforming 1 induction, the great 
 need of his time, it has frequently been supposed that he 
 slighted deduction as an instrument of thought, and regarded 
 the inductive process as alone sufficient to supply us with all 
 the truth we require. But this was by no means the case. 
 The syllogism, he conceived, was indeed incompetent to esta- 
 blish the first principles from which it reasons, but, when 
 these were once firmly established by induction on the basis 
 of experience, it was perfectly competent to reason correctly 
 •from them. When the higher axioms have been constituted 
 by induction, they should be developed deductively into all 
 their consequences, and then ultimately, if they admit of it, 
 applied to practice. 3 Even the mathematical form which the 
 deductive branch assumes in the more advanced sciences is 
 fully recognized by Bacon, and its proper position assigned to 
 it. "Mathematics ought to terminate Natural Philosophy, 
 not to generate it." " Natural inquiries have the best issue, 
 when physics are terminated in mathematics." 4 
 
 (5) Bacon distinctly sees that the real object of science is 
 the ascertainment of causes or facts of causation. " It is 
 rightly laid down that to know truly, is to know by means of 
 causes." 6 Hence his insistance on the importance of a know- 
 ledge of the Form, by which, as we have seen, he understood 
 practically what we understand by cause. 
 
 (6) He reads a valuable lesson also, when he insists on the 
 unity of nature and the unity of science. Nature, he conceives, 
 
 8 Sed axiomata, a particularibus rite et ordine abstracta, nova particu- 
 lars rursus facile indicant et designant ; itaque scientiaa reddunt actiyaa. 
 Book i. aph. 24 Cp. book ii. aph. 10. 
 
 4 Mathematica philosophiam naturalem terminare, non generare aut 
 procreare debet. Book i. aph. 96. Optimo antem cedit inquisitio naturalis, 
 quando physicum terminatur in mathematical Hook ii. aph. 8. 
 
 5 BectC ponitur : vere scire, esse per causas scire. Book ii. aph. 2. Cp. 
 Aristotle's Posterior Analytics, book i. ch. ii. ad init. 
 
i 3 8 BACON. 
 
 is a continuous and orderly whole, admitting of no breaks 
 and no exceptions. Objects and qualities apparently the most 
 heterogeneous are often united under the same Form, or, as we 
 might say, are manifestations of the same law (Book ii. aph. 
 17); and he who best knows the ways of nature, also best 
 knows her deviations (Book ii. aph. 29). Similarly, to know 
 any one science really well, a man must know at least the 
 general aspects and fundamental principles of all sciences. 
 For the individual sciences are like the branches of a tree 
 which meet in one trunk, and each science must suffer if rudely 
 dissevered from the rest.e Of course, this maxim must not 
 be pressed too far, or else our knowledge would be in danger 
 of becoming merely vague and superficial, but much faulty 
 reasoning and many confused ideas doubtless have their 
 origin in the limited vision of the specialist. These defects it 
 is the special object of logic and philosophy to remedy. 
 
 (7) I may remark, lastly, that Bacon's classification of 
 Fallacies (Idola) is an original and valuable contribution to 
 that department of Logic which deals with the types of incor- 
 rect rather than of correct reasoning. 
 
 I shall now proceed to consider some of the principal objec- 
 tions which have been directed against the method of scientific 
 investigation delineated in the Novum Organum as well as 
 against Bacon's competence to act in the capacity of a reformer 
 of science and scientific method. 
 
 6 See 'Novum Organum, book i. aphs. 79, 80 ; De Augmentis Scien- 
 tiarum, book iii. ch. 1; Advancement of Learning, book ii. I have 
 been obliged to describe these thoughts in somewhat general terms, as the 
 functions ascribed to the Philosophia Prima in the De Augmentis and 
 the Advancement of Learning seem to be ascribed to Natural Philosophy 
 (" magna ista scientiarum mater ") in the Novum Organum, and yet this 
 word is also used in this same book in a more restricted sense. I have 
 discussed these difficulties in my notes on book i. aphs. 79, 80. 
 
A I CON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC ME THOD. 1 39 
 
 Three of the objections may conveniently be considered 
 together, inasmuch as an estimate of their value depends on a 
 previous consideration of the true character of the inductive 
 process. These are: (1) that Bacon's theory of induction is 
 far too mechanical, attaching' too much importance to rules 
 and formulae ; (2) that he ignores or unduly neglects hypothe- 
 sis ; (3) that his conception of a gradual ascent from axioms 
 of the lowest to axioms of the highest degree of generality 
 does not correspond with the actual conduct of scientific inves- 
 tigation, nor would any advantage be derived from its being 
 realized. It will be found that there is a considerable amount 
 of force in these objections, especially in the two latter ones, 
 but I can only state my own position in reference to them by 
 previously describing and comparing the two different theories 
 of induction as now commonly held. According to one of 
 these, we begin by observing a number of facts or creating 
 facts for ourselves by way of experiment, and then proceed to 
 form certain theories or assumptions for the purpose of explain- 
 ing their occurrence. These theories or assumptions are called 
 hypotheses. If they satisfactorily explain the phenomena 
 known to us, they ma}' be accepted as provisionally true. But 
 we should constantly be on the look-out for new facts, which 
 may either confirm, destroy, or modify our hypotheses. If our 
 original hypothesis, or a subsequent modification of it, con- 
 tinues to stand this test, and, still more, if calculations based 
 upon it enable us to predict the future, and, most of all, if it 
 enables us to explain not only facts of the same kind as those 
 which suggested its formation, but also facts of a different 
 kind from those which were then contemplated, we may feel 
 certain, or almost certain, that it is a valid induction, correctly 
 explaining the phenomena under investigation. This is the 
 theory of Induction advocated by Dr. Whewellj and. more 
 recently, by Professor Jevons — with this difference, however* 
 
140 BACON, 
 
 that Dr. Whewell regards the results as certain, Professor 
 Jevons only as " almost certain." Both alike deny the possi- 
 bility of applying more stringent methods. And, if more 
 stringent methods are inapplicable, I cannot but think that 
 Professor Jevons arrives at the true conclusion, when he main- 
 tains that all inductive inference is merely probable and can 
 never attain to certainty. This conclusion is, however, directly 
 opposed to the convictions, not only of mankind at large, but 
 of the great mass of scientific inquirers, most of whom would 
 doubtless be somewhat startled if they heard the laws of astro- 
 nomy, mechanics, or chemistry described merely as "highly 
 probable." The other theory of induction is that advocated 
 by Mr. Mill, and, as I believe, implicitly assumed by nearly all 
 competent reasoners in the various branches of inductive in- 
 vestigation. It is that by the employment of stringent 
 methods of elimination we may give our inductions the force 
 of demonstration, and that there are methods of this kind 
 whose conditions it is, under certain circumstances, possible to 
 satisfy. Mr. Mill propounds such methods in his well-known 
 Canons of the Experimental Methods. This theory does not 
 deny or ignore the importance of hypothesis as stimulating 
 and directing inquiry, but it refuses to accept any hypothesis 
 as a sufficient explanation or, in other words, as a valid induc- 
 tion, till it has satisfied some more stringent condition of 
 verification than that of mere conformity with facts whether 
 observed or predicted. 7 Now Bacon, I conceive, had hit upon 
 a perfectly sound and very fertile idea, when he represented to 
 himself the possibility of laying down rules by which inductive 
 reasoning might possess the force of demonstration (Novum 
 
 7 For a further statement of my opinions on these questions, see the 
 Preface to the Third Edition of my Inductive Logic, and also pp. 
 113—119, 209—213 of the same edition of that work. 
 
BA CON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC ME TIIOD. 1 4 1 
 
 Organum, book i. aphs. 105, 122). Nor did he make by any 
 means contemptible essays, especially in the Prerogative 
 Instantiarum, towards furnishing* such rules. But, when lie 
 maintains (as he does in Aph. 122) that his method will almost 
 equalize the intellectual capacities of mankind, and enable 
 ordinary men to arrive at correct inductions much in the same 
 way that they now draw a circle with a pair of compasses, he 
 is advancing not only a paradox, but a delusive, and possibly 
 a mischievous, paradox. There is not, and there never can be, 
 a mechanical method of invention, furnishing rules whereby 
 men of average abilities may invent arts or make discoveries 
 with the same facility and certainty with which they use a 
 mathematical instrument. The reason of such impossibility, 
 as I have said in one of my notes on this Aphorism, is to be 
 sought not only in the complexity and " subtlety" of nature 
 (which Bacon thought to be much simpler than it is) and in 
 the laborious and complicated character of many of the pro- 
 cesses of reasoning 1 , but also in the important and, indeed, 
 indispensable share which imagination has in all scientific dis- 
 covery. It is then on account of these exaggerated statements, 
 I take it, and not because he conceived the possibility of devis- 
 ing an inductive process guided by rules and resulting in cer- 
 tainty, that Bacon deserves the reproach of having formed too 
 mechanical a theory of induction. The office of the imagina- 
 tion (a faculty in which he was himself so marvellously rich) is 
 undoubtedly too much depreciated, or rather ignored, through- 
 out the Novum Organum. And hence it is that he saj 
 little of hypothesis. Except in Book i. aph. lOo and Hook ii. 
 aph. 20, this indispensable aid of the greater part of our 
 inductive reasoning is hardly ever referred to. The wild 
 licence of imagination exemplified in so many of the scientific 
 writers of his time naturally caused an extreme recoil against 
 
142 BACON. 
 
 hasty generalisation and theories which seemed to be in advance 
 of the facts. It was this same feeling, doubtless, which 
 suggested to Bacon the oft-repeated maxim that induction 
 should proceed from particulars to axioms of a very low degree 
 of generalisation (axiomata infima), and thence slowly and 
 gradually, through successive stages of intermediate axioms 
 (axiomata media), up to the highest axioms of all (axiomata 
 maxime generalia), and that we should never arrive at these 
 last, or indeed at any axioms of any high degree .of generality, 
 by sudden leaps. But this method of gradual and continuous 
 ascent is not the method which, for the most part, has been 
 actually pursued by the most successful interrogators of Nature, 
 nor would its general adoption contribute to the advancement 
 of science. If the inquirer sees his way at once to a bold and 
 sweeping theory, there can be no objection to his passing over 
 the intermediate steps of the induction, providing that he after- 
 wards submit his theory to the most rigorous examination, and 
 . resist the temptation of accepting it as a final explanation till 
 it has been duly verified by stringent methods of proof. 
 Though, however, this more ambitious process is a common 
 and a perfectly legitimate method of discover?/, the proof of the 
 higher axioms, when established, will generally be found to 
 rest on intermediate axioms, and of these on still lower axioms, 
 and so on, after the manner which Bacon describes. Moreover, 
 when a science has attained anything like completeness, this 
 will always be found to be the most convenient method of 
 exhibiting the relation of its various laws. In Whewell's 
 Novum Organum Renovahtm, a table of this kind is given, 
 showing the successive inductions on which the theory of 
 Universal Gravitation rests, and, in this case, it is curious to 
 remark that the order of discovery followed almost exactly the 
 present order of proof. Though stated too exclusively, there- 
 fore, this part of Bacon's doctrine is by no means so untrue to 
 
BA COATS REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC ME TIIOD. I 45 
 
 facts or to the reason of the thing as it has sometimes been 
 represented to be. 1 
 
 Another objection frequently taken to Bacon's conception of 
 scientific method is that it disparages or ignores the deductive 
 side. That this objection is unfounded, I have already shown 
 on pp. 136, 137. 
 
 The objection that Bacon in his statements on Forms and 
 in his Tables overlooks the circumstance of Plurality of Causes 
 has also been already mentioned. But there is one passage in 
 the Novum Organum (book ii.aph. 23), where he seems explicitly 
 to recognize Plurality of Causes, and, moreover, we must 
 recollect that Form may in some places be more accurately 
 replaced by the word Essence than by the word Cause, in 
 which cases the objection does not hold. The difficulty, how- 
 ever, occasioned to the reader by the undefined and vacillating 
 use of this word Form is itself, it must be confessed, a serious 
 blot on the work. 
 
 Perhaps this is the most convenient place for considering 
 one of the main peculiarities of Bacon's system, namely, his 
 rejection of the inquiry into Final Causes in Physics, and the 
 exceptions taken to it on this ground. The " Final Cause " is 
 one of the " four causes " of Aristotle, and signifies " the where- 
 fore " (to ov eveica) or * the end " (to reXos) for which a thing 
 exists. Aristotle assumed that every object has such an end 
 (" Nature does nothing in vain "), and, apparently also, that 
 we are competent to ascertain it. These assumptions were 
 common amongst his successors, and were generally accepted 
 in Bacon's time. No account of any natural object or opera- 
 tion was supposed to be complete unless it assigned its end or 
 
 8 For further remarks on this subject, see my notes on Nuv, Org. 
 book i. aph. 19. 
 
144 BACON. 
 
 final cause. No\» Bacon did not propose to banish this 
 inquiry altogether, but to relegate it from Physic, which he 
 supposed to be concerned solely with Material and Efficient 
 Causes, to what he called Metaphysic, which was to inquire 
 into Formal and Final Causes. The consequence of its con- 
 sideration in Physics, he maintained, had been to expel from 
 that branch of knowledge the inquiry into physical causes, and 
 so to give men an excuse for resting in these " specious and 
 shadowy " causes, instead of pressing on their inquiry into 
 causes the existence and action of which they could verify. 
 In Metaphysic such an inquiry might be proper, but in Physic 
 it was impertinent (Be Atogm. iii. 4). For in physics we want 
 to know how and from what conditions a thing is produced, 
 not what object it subserves in the economy of nature. More- 
 over, the inquiry into Final Causes results in no works or in- 
 ventions (an idea always uppermost in Bacon's mind), being like 
 a virgin consecrated to the service of God (Be Augm. iii. 5). 
 
 This metaphor, which I believe Bacon employs quite 
 seriously and not with the slightest intention of banter, may 
 perhaps best disclose to us his point of view. We may, he 
 conceived, legitimately attempt to ascertain (and the attempt, 
 though it may here and there fail in particular instances, will 
 be crowned with more or less of success) the ends and objects 
 of the various parts of nature, their relations to one another, 
 and the harmony of the whole, and so rise to some conception, 
 however faint, of the power, wisdom, and goodness of Him 
 who framed the Universe. " That there is a God, that he holds 
 the reins of things, that he is all-powerful, that he is wise and 
 fore-knowing, that he is good . . . may be proved to demonstra- 
 tion even from his works" (Be Augm. iii. 2). But then this 
 inquiry must remain consecrated to the service of God. As 
 soon as it intrudes into the province of Physics, it is attended 
 with no results; nay, rather, as it diverts the mind from the 
 
BA CON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 145 
 
 inquiry into efficient and material causes, the proper object 
 of physics, it becomes positively baneful. 
 
 I conceive, therefore, that in the sphere of what we should 
 call Natural Theology, Bacon would have approved and en- 
 couraged the inquiry into Final Causes, but that he proposed 
 to banish it altogether from the domain of Physics. Such an 
 exclusion was, I believe, far too rig-id and absolute. It is 
 certainly a curious commentary on his procedure that, at the 
 very time when he was composing the Novum Organum, 
 Harvey was employing this very mode of reasoning in the 
 famous researches which resulted in the discovery of the circu- 
 lation of the blood. Nor would any one, I presume, now 
 deny that the idea of function, which implies so much of the 
 idea of Final Cause as is included in the word adaptation as 
 distinct from design, is a conception absolutely essential to the 
 successful prosecution of at least one science, that of physiology. 
 And, even in the higher sciences of psychology, ethics, and 
 politics, there are few inquirers who can avoid from time to 
 time asking the question, what purpose does such and such a 
 constituent subserve in the mental, moral, or social economy. 
 In chemistry, mineralogy, and those branches of science to 
 which the word " physics " is often restricted, such inquiries 
 are much rarer, but I question whether there is any single 
 science, other than mathematical, from which the idea of 
 adaptation can be strictly and consistently excluded. How 
 we are to interpret the fact of adaptation is a different question, 
 and one which, by the majority of scientific inquirers, would 
 now be answered in a very different fashion from what ever 
 occurred to any but a few isolated thinkers in previous genera- 
 tions. It is enough here simply to allude to the theory of 
 Evolution, and to works such as those of Mr. Darwin, Mr. 
 Wallace, and Mr. Herbert Spencer. To prevent, however, 
 any misconception of my own opinions, I may, perhaps, repeat 
 
 L 
 
146 BACON. 
 
 what I have already said in another place, that the main drift 
 of the arguments employed in Natural Theology is not affected 
 by the modern theoy of Evolution. If I may be allowed to 
 quote myself, " I am far from denying" that the Argument 
 from Final Causes, if it take sufficient account of the evolution 
 of organisms and their power of adapting themselves to ex- 
 ternal circumstances, and if it be based on the contemplation 
 of Nature as a whole, instead of on that of individual objects, 
 may not admit of being stated in such a form as to occupy 
 once more an important position in any scheme of Natural 
 Theology. Bearing in mind these qualifications, it may be 
 perfectly legitimate to speak, with reference to the universe 
 at large, of design and a designer, whatever may have been 
 the agency, and however mysterious and prolonged the process, 
 by which an intelligent Creator may have worked. Theories 
 of evolution may be so stated as not to impair, but indefinitely 
 to exalt, our ideas of the power, wisdom, and benevolence of 
 the Being in whom Nature had its source." 
 
 In defence, however, of Bacon's undiscriminating rejection 
 of the consideration of Final Causes in physical inquiries, it 
 ought to be pleaded that the use of this topic in ancient and 
 mediaeval philosophy, as well as in the writings of his con- 
 temporaries, was often arbitrary, fanciful, and absurd to the 
 last degree. " The handling of final causes," had certainly 
 "intercepted the severe and diligent inquiry of all real and 
 physical causes," and it might well be maintained that their 
 temporary expulsion, could it have been effected, would have 
 been a real service to science. As it was, I believe that the 
 protest of Bacon and Descartes, who was as little tolerant as 
 Bacon himself of this mode of explaining physical phenomena, 
 exerted a decidedly wholesome influence on the scientific pro- 
 cedure of their successors. 9 
 
 t 
 
 9 I have discussed the question of Final Causes generally, and given 
 
BA CON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 147 
 
 These, so far as I can recall them, are the main objections 
 taken to Bacon's method or to his exposition of it. There are 
 two other objections of a more miscellaneous kind which I 
 must not pass over in silence. His method, it is sometimes 
 said, was not original. And again it has been said that his 
 own ignorance of the best contemporary science was so great, 
 that he was thereby disqualified from assuming the office 
 either of a reformer of science or of a reformer of scientific 
 method. 
 
 As respects the originality of Bacon's method, the indiscreet 
 praise of some of his admirers, who speak sometimes as if he 
 had invented Induction and as if there had been no experi- 
 mental philosophy before the appearance of his works, has 
 naturally led to a reaction equally exaggerated. In my Intro- 
 duction to the Novum Organum (§ 13), I have endeavoured at 
 some length to distinguish the points in which his method 
 and teaching had already been anticipated and those wherein 
 he may fairly claim the merit of originality. Here I can only 
 find space for a very brief summary of the results there arrived 
 at. That Induction of some kind or other, and, consequently, 
 the collection and examination of facts, is as old as human 
 reasoning itself, I have already remarked at the beginning of 
 this chapter. And, as I have also said there, the recognition 
 of induction by philosophers as the proper method of establish- 
 ing first principles dates back at least as far as the time of 
 Aristotle, if not of Plato and Socrates. Moreover, not only 
 did Aristotle often show in practice considerable skill in select- 
 ing his instances (though it must be confessed that he often 
 showed equal carelessness), but there are isolated passages in his 
 
 several instances of those assigned, often absurdly enough, bj old writers, 
 in my Inductive Logic, 3rd ed. pp. 336 — 351. The reader who wishes 
 to see Bacon's position in relation to this question examined at greater 
 length may refer to § 10 of my Introduction to the Novum Organum. 
 
 L 2 
 
148 BACON. 
 
 writings from which it might be argued that he had even formed 
 the conception of the possibility of framing methods of elimi- 
 nation. But these passages are so brief, and the remarks 
 contained in them so incidental, that they hardly affect the 
 general statement, so frequently made by writers on the history 
 of philosophy or logic, that the sole form of induction recog- 
 nized by Aristotle was that per emimerationem simplicem. 
 Experiments he appears to have tried but rarely, though his 
 physiological works show that he was aware of the importance 
 of them. His psychological doctrine of the ultimate origin 
 of knowledge in the perceptions of the senses and his logical 
 doctrine of the ultimate dependence of the major premiss of 
 a syllogism on previous inductions were admirably calculated 
 to keep alive, even amongst the most dogmatic of his succes- 
 sors, some regard for the observation and collection of natural 
 facts. Accordingly, it would be easy to multiply passages, 
 even from mediaeval writers, which appeal to experience as 
 the ultimate test of truth in speculations on nature, which 
 extol the office of induction, and which contain records of 
 experiments as well as observations. Albert the Great and 
 our own Roger Bacon (who has many points of resemblance 
 with his later namesake) are specially to be remarked as pre- 
 cursors of a more liberal and scientific age. But so abstract 
 and dogmatic was the ordinary course of speculation, and so 
 intense was the reverence for authority, throughout the Middle 
 Ages, that these maxims bore little fruit, and were well-nigh 
 buried under the mass of theological, metaphysical, and com- 
 mentatorial literature in which those times abounded. The 
 Revival of Letters was marked by a strong reaction, amounting 
 sometimes to a shrill invective, against the principle of authority, 
 and this reaction generally took the form of an exaggerated, 
 not infrequently an unintelligent, attack on the philosophy of 
 Aristotle. The climax of this rebellion against the authority 
 
BA CON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC MF TIIOD. 149 
 
 of the great philosopher was reached by Ramus (one of the 
 victims in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew in 1572) who is 
 said, perhaps inaccurately, to have selected as the thesis for 
 his Master of Arts'' Degree at Paris the position that all the 
 statements of Aristotle are false. 1 As opposed to authority, 
 and especially the authority of Aristotle, many of the writers 
 of this time exhort their readers to have recourse to their 
 senses, to experience, to nature. Some even of those who were 
 most ready to give play to their own imaginations combat 
 with vehemence the fancies and arbitrary hypotheses of other 
 philosophers, as resting on no basis of facts. And a few, who 
 had specially devoted themselves to physical researches (of 
 whom a conspicuous example is to be found in William Gilbert, 
 the author of the treatise on the Magnet), not only warmly 
 commend the recourse to artificial experiments in theory, but 
 successfully adopt it in practice. But, so far as I can ascer- 
 tain, no one had yet pronounced himself even on these topics 
 with so much point and force, or in a manner so well calculated 
 to lay hold of the popular sympathy, as Bacon, while, with 
 respect to the fertile conception of a scientific and methodical 
 process of induction, as opposed to that then in vogue, I have 
 found nothing in any previous writer which can properly and 
 fairly be said to be an anticipation of the suggestions so 
 abundantly scattered throughout the Novum Organ tun. 
 
 With respect to the second objection, that Bacon was not 
 fully abreast of the scientific knowledge of his own day, I fear 
 an equally satisfactory answer can not be given." Much is 
 doubtless to be said in extenuation, but an impartial judge 
 can only advise a plea of u Guilty M on many of the counts in 
 
 1 On the Reaction against the Authority of Aristotle, see § 12 of my 
 Introduction to the Novum Qrganum. 
 
 • For a more detailed examination of this question, see §0 of my Intro- 
 duction to the Novum Oryanum. 
 
ISO BACON. 
 
 the indictment. He makes no mention of Harvey's great dis- 
 covery of the Circulation of the Blood, though Harvey had 
 already begun to teach it in 1619, the year before the appear- 
 ance o£ the Novum Organum, It may here, however, be 
 pleaded in extenuation that most of Harvey's contemporaries, 
 even in his own profession, regarded his theory as hardly 
 worthy of serious discussion. Aubrey, in his Lives, tells us 
 that " after his booke of the Circulation of the Blood came out 
 [in 1628], he fell mightily in his practice, and 'twas believed 
 by the vulgar that he was crack-brained ; and all the physi- 
 tians were against his opinion, and envyed him/' Again, 
 Bacon appears never to have heard of the astronomical disco- 
 veries recently made by means of Kepler's calculations, and he 
 was singularly ignorant of many facts both in the theory and 
 the history of Mathematics and Mechanics. We must recollect, 
 however, that the communication of discoveries was much 
 slower in those days than at present, and that the publication 
 of discoveries by means of memoirs or books was often delayed 
 for many years. Thus, much has been said about Bacon's 
 ignorance of Galileo's experiments on Falling Bodies, made at 
 Pisa between 1589 — 1592. But, though these experiments 
 were undoubtedly known to many scientific men, Galileo did not 
 publish any account of them till the appearance of his Dia- 
 logues in 1632. As to his silence with regard to Kepler, it is 
 curious that it is shared with Descartes, and, though Bacon 
 was probably ignorant of Kepler's writings, Descartes cannot 
 well have been. To return to the indictment, he was evidently 
 a believer not only in Natural but in Judicial Astrology, 
 though with a certain amount of hesitation and discrimination. 
 He accepted, without question, the Peripatetic doctrine of the 
 transmutability of the elements, and was a firm believer in 
 the possibility of transmuting metals. This latter error, how- 
 ever, if such it be, which is often so much insisted on by the 
 
BA CON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC ME THOD. 1 5 1 
 
 more hostile critics of Bacon's philosophy, was maintained 
 many years afterwards by Boyle, whose special business was 
 with this class of questions, and treated without disrespect by 
 Newton. Absurd, moreover, as are some of the recipes for 
 conducting the operation, the thing itself is not beyond the 
 bounds of possibility. " There was a time," says Faraday, 3 
 " when this fundamental doctrine of the alchemists was op- 
 posed to known analogies. It is now no longer so opposed to 
 them, only some stages beyond their present development." 
 The Sylva Sylvarum, from which Bacon's critics draw largely 
 and of which, as we have seen, 4 Bacon himself said that " he 
 should better have served the glory of his own name, if he 
 had not published it/' contains a number of fancies so ab- 
 surd that hardly any one who can read and write would now 
 give any credence to them. 5 On Bacon's behalf, however, it 
 may be pleaded that to believe in fancies of this kind was one 
 of the common characteristics of his age, and that probably no 
 man "of that time was altogether free from them. But far the 
 most important and, perhaps at first sight, the least excusable 
 of Bacon's scientific errors was his persistent rejection of the 
 Copernican theory. It seems mdeed strange that one who 
 laid claim to be the great reformer of science should have 
 steadily refused +0 admit the greatest reform in scientific con- 
 ceptions which had been proposed for many generations, and 
 which had already been before the world for eighty years. 
 And, undoubtedly, the discovery by Galileo of the satellites of 
 Jupiter in 1609, as well as the calculations of Kepler announced 
 about the same time (with which last, however, Bacon does 
 not seem to have been acquainted), had considerably added to 
 
 8 Lectures on Non-Metallic Elements, p. 106. 
 * See p. 35. 
 
 6 Some specimens are given in my description of the Sylva Sylvarum 
 on pp. 35, 36. 
 
i 5 2 BACON. 
 
 the evidence in favour of the heliocentric system, even while 
 the Novum Organum was being" written. Still, it cannot be 
 said that, till the laws of formal astronomy were connected by 
 Newton with the physical laws of matter and motion, the 
 motions of the earth or its relation to the rest of the solar 
 system could in any way be regarded as placed beyond the 
 range of dispute. In Bacon's time, and especially during the 
 earlier period of his life, men might well be excused who sus- 
 pended their judgment, or who even preferred to adhere to the 
 old assumption till their objections to the new theory were 
 removed. And Bacon certainly did not stand alone in his 
 opposition, among the eminent men of that age. Among those 
 of his contemporaries who rejected the Copernican theory 
 were Tycho Brahe (who, however, having died in 1601, did 
 not live to become acquainted with the discoveries of Galileo), 
 Vieta, the greatest mathematician of the 16th century (who, 
 however, also died as early as 1603), Clavius, who was em- 
 ployed by Gregory XIII. to reform the Calendar and was 
 called the Euclid of his age, and possibly, from his silence, 
 the famous mechanician, Stevinus. 6 The history of Bacon's 
 attitude towards this question appears, from a comparison of 
 various passages in his works, to have been much as follows. 
 In early life, like the majority, probably, of even his scientific 
 contemporaries, he seems to have conceived a strong prejudice 
 against the Copernican theory. In middle life, he wavered 
 for a time, or, at least, felt some hesitation, though never, I 
 believe, to the extent of adopting the theory of the earth's 
 motion. The reasons against the theory, probably, appeared 
 to him more and more decisive, till at last, with advancing 
 
 6 Further information on this subject will be found in Delambre, 
 Sistoire de V Astronomie Moderne, and in two most interesting papers 
 contributed by the late Professor De Morgan to the Companion to the 
 British Almanac for 1836 and 1855 respectively. 
 
BA CONS REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC ME THOD. 1 5 3 
 
 age, he became positive in his opposition to it. Now, surely, 
 this is a piece of mental history so common, and one to which 
 we are all in turn so liable, that, before casting* our stone at 
 Bacon, we may at least pause to consider the circumstances of 
 his age, the attitude with respect to the same question assumed 
 by his contemporaries, and the amount of evidence by which 
 the doctrine he rejected was at that time supported. To 
 parallel cases there is no limit, but I may specially mention 
 the tenacity with which the Cambridge mathematicians ad- 
 hered to the Cartesian system long after the publication of New- 
 ton's discoveries (which, unlike those of Copernicus, possessed 
 demonstrative force), the slow rate at which those discoveries 
 were received on the continent of Europe, and the obstinate 
 resistance offered by Leibnitz to the Newtonian doctrine of 
 Gravitation. Not only are we liable to ascribe to a theory 
 now fully established a degree of perfection and an amount of 
 evidence which it did not at first possess, and then express our 
 surprise that it was not at once universally welcomed, but we 
 are also given to assume that the almost superstitious reve- 
 rence with which we now invest the great names of the past 
 ought to have exercised an equal influence over their contem- 
 poraries. 
 
 Notwithstanding these grave examples of deficiency of 
 judgment or information, it must be urged, on the other side, 
 that the wealth of illustration exhibited in the Novum Organum 
 and the vast range of subjects reviewed in the Be Augment** 
 show a width of knowledge and an universality of interest 
 which were probably unequalled in the case of any other man 
 then living. What Bacon gained in width, he, of course, to a 
 certain extent, lost in depth ; for this is the universal law of 
 the human intellect. He was not, and did not pretend to he, 
 a Specialist. His business was, so to speak, with the philoso- 
 phy and logic of science, rather than with the body of science 
 
54 BACON. 
 
 itself; what he hoped to do, was not so much to advance 
 science in his own person, as to impel others to the work, and 
 to point out to them the goal at which they were to aim and 
 the means by which they were to attain it. That he was, to 
 a large extent, successful in this mission, I hope to show in a 
 subsequent chapter. 7 At the same time, though it is only when 
 we consider science in its totality that we can assign Bacon 
 his due place in its history, it would be an injustice to him not 
 to notice that, even in the particular sciences, he threw out 
 many suggestions of rare sagacity, and, in a certain sense, 
 anticipated more recent discoveries. Such were his specula- 
 tions on Colour, his anticipation of the recent theory of Heat, 
 his experiment on the compressibility of water, and his won- 
 derful appreciation of the combined unity and variety in Nature, 
 already referred to in this chapter. To these instances may 
 be added his sagacious and possibly fertile suggestion of a 
 closer union between formal and physical astronomy, as well 
 as of the necessity of combining the explanations of celestial 
 and terrestrial phenomena ; the remarkable passage on Attrac- 
 tion, and the ingenious experiment proposed in connexion with 
 it, in Nov. Org. ii. 36 (3); the brilliant conjecture, in Nov, 
 Org. ii. 46, that the actual state of the starry sky precedes by 
 an interval of time that which is apparent to us, or, in other 
 words, that light requires time for its transmission ; the im- 
 plied criticism of the ordinary doctrine of species contained in 
 a passage on Realism in Nov. Org. i. 66 ; and lastly (though 
 this list is by no means exhaustive) the attempt made in the 
 Historia Ventorum to consider the direction of the winds in 
 connexion with temperature and aqueous phenomena, on which 
 Humboldt highly compliments him as having thereby laid the 
 foundations of a theory of the currents of the atmosphere. 
 When we add to these claims on the recognition of scientific 
 
 * See ch. 6. 
 
BA CON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC ME THOD. 1 5 5 
 
 men, in the narrower sense of that term, the fact that in 
 another department of knowledge, that of mind and conduct, 
 Bacon's contributions, as I hope to show in the next chapter, 
 were neither few nor unimportant, the contention that he was 
 unfitted to set up as a reformer of scientific method, because 
 he knew next to nothing* of science and was incapable of 
 making any discoveries of his own, may surely be disallowed. 
 
 It has been the fate of Bacon, while his merits have often 
 been unduly exaggerated, to be attacked by his critics with 
 singular and persistent bitterness. Passing over the earlier 
 onslaughts on his system, 8 some of which were of an exceed- 
 ingly scurrilous description, I may mention some of the prin- 
 cipal attempts made to damage his reputation as a logician, 
 
 8 See § 1G, entitled the "Opponents of Bacon," in my Introduction to 
 the Novum Organum. The only unfavourable opinion of Bacon's 
 philosophy, expressed by a man of real eminence, previously to the present 
 century which I have met with is that of Harvey, as given in Aubrey 'a 
 Lives (Letters written by Eminent Persons in the Seventeenth and 
 Eighteenth Centuries, to which are added Lives of Eminent Men by John 
 Aubrey Esq., 1813, vol. ii. p. 381) : " He" (Harvey) " had been physician 
 to the Lord Ch. Bacon, whom he esteemed much for his witt and style, 
 but would not allow him to be a great philosopher. Said he to me, ' He 
 writes philosophy like a L d Chancellor,' speaking in derision." Harvey, 
 however, seems to have had a peculiar dislike of the " neoteriques," to 
 whom, we are told on page 383, he once, in conversation with the writer, 
 applied a very unsavoury epithet. Nor, perhaps, did he like Bacon per- 
 sonally; for (p. 226) " Dr. Harvey told me his eie was like the eie of a 
 viper." Be this as it may, the opinion was not an unnatural nor altogether 
 an unfair one, as expressed b}* a man of great eminence, in a particular 
 branch of science, of one who attempted to make all science his province. 
 Then as now, I presume, the philosopher and the specialist were apt to 
 misunderstand and undervalue each other. 
 
 Hume, however (History of England, Appendix to the Reign of 
 James I.), expresses only modified praise, and is the first author, I believe, 
 to institute a comparison of Bacon with Galileo to the advantage of the 
 latter. 
 
156 BACON. 
 
 philosopher, and man of science, during the present century. 
 First in time and pre-eminent in bitterness comes the well- 
 known work of Count Joseph De Maistre, entitled Kvamen dt 
 la Bhilosopliie de Bacon, published posthumously at Paris and 
 Lyons in 1836. The motive of this attack, which was un- 
 doubtedly provoked by the lavish praises bestowed on Bacon 
 by Voltaire and the Encyclopedists, seems to be exclusively 
 theological. But when, by modes of reasoning appropriate to 
 an ultramontane fanatic, De Maistre has proved to his own 
 satisfaction that Bacon was an atheist, who aggravated his 
 atheism by hypocrisy, he proceeds to show that he was a char- 
 latan and an impostor. He contributed nothing to science 
 himself, and it is a mere delusion to suppose that his philo- 
 sophy has in any way helped to form those who have done so. 
 It is true that he preaches science, but then, like his Church, 
 when it preaches Christianity, he preaches without a mission. 
 As to individual works, the Be Augmentis is absolutely con- 
 temptible ; the Novum Organum is far worse still, for, inde- 
 pendently of the particular errors with which it swarms, its 
 general aim renders it worthy of Bedlam. Of the attacks 
 made on Bacon since the appearance of De Maistre's work, 
 the principal are those of Sir David Brewster, Lasson, and 
 Liebig. The first of these authors, in his Life of Newton 
 (1855), irritated apparently by the injudicious statement of 
 <( some modern writers of celebrity " that Newton " owed all 
 his discoveries to the application of the principles of Bacon," 
 maintains a proposition equally extreme, and, as it seems to 
 me, equally untrue, that " he did not derive the slightest ad- 
 vantage from Bacon's precepts." Taking occasion of this 
 incidental mention of Bacon, Brewster goes on to combat his 
 claims generally as a reformer of science. Lasson's monograph 
 (published by Gustav Lange, Berlin, 1860), though it extends 
 only over thirty-two pages, is the weightiest of the attacks 
 
BA CON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC ME TIIOD. 1 5 7 
 
 upon Bacon which I have seen. It is written Dot only with 
 more moderation, but with far more knowledge of Bacon's 
 writings, and with more sympathy with the philosophical spirit 
 in its relation to science, than is the violent diatribe of Liebig, 
 so much better known in this country. While maintain ing, 
 with much truth, that the reformation of science was not the 
 work of a single man, but the gradual product of the age, and 
 disputing Bacon's claim to be regarded, in the proper sense of 
 the term, as a philosopher, besides finding special fault with 
 his theory of Induction, his conception of Forms, his criticism 
 of Final Causes, &c, he allows that he did great service in 
 spreading a taste for experimental inquiry and in drawing the 
 popular attention to the importance of consulting facts. 
 Liebig's pamphlet, which has been already noticed, 9 was oc- 
 casioned by his annoyance at the rejection of some of his 
 chemical theories by English agriculturists. Their singular 
 obstinacy must, he thought, be due to some inherent delect in 
 the English mind, and this suspicion led him to the study of 
 the English philosophers. When, at last, he came to the 
 works of Bacon, all was clear. These furnished, if not the 
 source, at least the typical example of the methods of experi- 
 ment and reasoning common amongst the English dilettanti 
 who had had the temerity to reject his theories. This work 
 repeats many of the arguments of Brewster and Lasson, but 
 with much exaggeration and asperity. It seems to me to con- 
 tribute absolutely nothing new to the controversy, and to dis- 
 play throughout a determination to make good at all hazards 
 a preconceived opinion; and yet this appears to be the princi- 
 pal source from which many Englishmen now derive their 
 estimate of the scientific and philosophical significance of theil 
 illustrious countryman. 
 
 • See note on p. 133. 
 
i$8 BACON, 
 
 As I shall hereafter have occasion to speak of the favour- 
 able, and even enthusiastic, appreciation of Bacon's method 
 shown by various writers from his own day down to ours, I 
 have thought it well here to say something', in connexion with 
 the objections taken to it, of the most powerful, or the most 
 influential, of its adverse critics. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 I propose, in the former part of this chapter, to consider 
 Bacon's philosophical opinions, as distinct from his opinions 
 on Logic and the Method of Science. I shall then pass on to 
 his religious opinions, which may conveniently he considered 
 jn the same chapter. 
 
 Bacon was not the founder of a philosophical school. Indeed, 
 there is no character which he would himself have more em- 
 phatically repudiated. " First of all, then, I must request 
 men not to suppose that after the fashion of the ancient 
 Greeks, and of certain moderns, as Telesius, Patricius, Severi- 
 nus, I wish to found a new sect in philosophy" (Nov. Org. 
 book i. aph. 116). But, though not the founder of any 
 special school of philosophy, it seems to me unquestionable 
 that his exposition of his method, and, perhaps, also individual 
 expressions in his writings, contributed in no small degree to 
 the creation of what is commonly called the empirical school 
 of English philosophy. As, however, I shall discuss this 
 question in the next chapter, it is unnecessary that 1 should 
 dwell upon it here. It may be enough to say that, like So- 
 crates, he rather gave an impulse to others, and suggested new 
 lines of inquiry, than elaborated a definite system of his own. 
 
 But, at the same time, it is interesting to ask what the 
 opinions of Bacon were, so far as we can gather them, on the 
 
i6o BACON. 
 
 controverted questions of psychology, ontology, and ethics. 
 Now, as to what, for want of a better name, may be called 
 ontological or metaphysical questions, the questions, namely, 
 which relate to the origin and essential nature of matter and 
 mind, and the relation between the two, his ordinary attitude 
 is that of a disinterested, if not a contemptuous, silence. The 
 passage just cited proceeds as follows : " For this is not what 
 I am about ; nor do I think that it makes much difference to 
 the fortunes of men what abstract notions one may entertain 
 concerning nature and the principles of things ; and no doubt 
 many old theories of this kind can be revived and many new 
 ones introduced, just as many schemes of the heavens may be 
 supposed, which agree well enough with the phenomena and 
 yet differ from each other." A deep sense of the unprofitable 
 character of these speculations has, indeed, been a characteristic 
 not of the Baconian philosophy only, but of British philosophy 
 in general, which, with a healthy instinct, has usually either 
 avoided them altogether or discussed them solely with the view 
 of showing that they lie outside the limits of human know- 
 ledge. An apparent exception is, perhaps, to be found in 
 Bacon's constant recurrence to the doctrines of the Atomists, 
 as to the atoms and the void. But these, properly speaking, 
 are questions of physics rather than of metaphysics. On the 
 standing feud between what are, somewhat uncouthly, called 
 the Idealists, the Materialists, and the Dualists, there is, so 
 far as I am aware, no formal discussion in Bacon's writings, 
 unless we count a passage in the De Principiis atque Origini- 
 bus, in which, quite sincerely as I believe, he adopts the 
 scriptural doctrine of creation out of nothing by the omni- 
 potent power of God. " For there seem to be three dogmas 
 which we know, as a matter of faith, concerning this question. 
 The first is that matter was created out of nothing. The 
 second, that the evolution of the system (" eductio sy sterna tis") 
 
PHILOSOPHICAL & RELIGIOUS OPINIONS, id 
 
 was effected by the word of omnipotence, and that matter did 
 not evolve itself from chaos into that configuration. The 
 third, that this configuration (before the fall) was the best of 
 
 which matter (as it had been created) was susceptible 
 
 In these questions therefore we must rest upon faith and the 
 firmaments of faith." l 
 
 The fact is that Bacon lived too early or too late to take 
 any serious part in these metaphysical discussions. In their 
 scholastic form they had become discredited, and their new 
 form, under which they were to exercise so much of the best 
 thought of the two succeeding centuries, had not yet been 
 impressed on them by the genius of Descartes. Bacon assumes 
 the ordinary distinction of mind and matter, an universe of 
 objects to be known and a thinking subject capable, with due 
 care and discipline, of attaining to a knowledge of them, with- 
 out, apparently, troubling himself as to the ulterior questions, 
 what is knowledge, how can I become conscious of that which 
 is not myself, and what are the ultimate meaning and relation 
 of the two terms in this comparison. 
 
 On questions of psychology, as distinct from metaphysics, 
 we find a fair number of passages in Bacon's writings. The 
 most important perhaps are those in which, following 
 Telesius, the celebrated philosopher of Cosenza (b. 1509, 
 d. 1588), whose works seem greatly to have interested him, 
 he asserts the duality of the human soul. Man, according to 
 this doctrine (which is stated most fully in Be Augnirnti.s, iv. 
 3), has two souls, one peculiar to himself, the rational soul 
 which he derives from the breath of God, the other, shared by 
 him in common with the brutes, the irrational soul, which 
 comes from " the wombs of the elements." u Let us now pro- 
 
 1 The original of this passage will bo found in Ellis ami Bpedding'f 
 Bacon, vol. iii. p. 110, or in my edition of the Novum Orqanvm. p. 15. 
 
 M 
 
162 BACON. 
 
 ceed to the doctrine which concerns the Human Soul, from 
 the treasures whereof all other doctrines are derived. The 
 parts thereof are two : the one treats of the rational soul, which 
 is divine ; the other of the irrational soul, which is common 
 with the brutes. I mentioned a little above (in speaking of 
 Forms) these two different emanations of souls, which show 
 themselves in their first creation ; the one springing from the 
 breath of God, the other from the wombs of the elements. 
 For touching the first generation of the rational soul, the 
 Scripture says, ' He made man of the dust of the earth, and 
 breathed into his nostrils the breath of life/ But the genera- 
 tion of the irrational soul, or of brutes, was effected by the 
 words, ( Let the water bring forth ; let the earth bring forth.' 
 Now this soul (as it exists in man) is only the instrument of 
 the rational soul, and has its origin, like that of the brutes, in 
 the dust of the earth. For it is not said that ' He made the 
 body of man of the dust of the earth/ but that ' He made 
 man ; ' that is, the entire man, excepting only the breath of 
 life. Wherefore the first part of the general doctrine con- 
 cerning the human soul I will term the doctrine concerning 
 the Breath of Life; the second the doctrine concerning the 
 Sensible or Produced Soul. And yet, as hitherto I handle 
 philosophy only, I would not borrow this division from 
 theology, if it were not consonant with the principles of 
 philosophy also. For there are many and great excellencies 
 of the human soul above the souls of brutes, manifest even to 
 those who philosophise according to sense. Now, wherever 
 the mark of so many and so great excellencies is found, 
 there also a specific difference ought to be constituted; 
 and therefore I am not too well pleased with the confused 
 and promiscuous manner in which philosophers handle the 
 functions of the soul, as if the human soul differed from the 
 soul of brutes in degree rather than in kind, simply as the 
 
PHILOSOPHICAL & RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 163 
 
 sun differs from the other stars or gold from the other metals." 
 It is possible that this theory of the material generation of the 
 
 lower soul may have contributed to prepare the way for the re- 
 ception of the purely materialistic account of the nature and 
 origin of knowledge which was presented by Hobbes in the 
 next generation. Such a result, however, I believe, would 
 have been utterly abhorrent to Bacon himself. 2 
 
 He next proceeds to distinguish between the Substance and 
 the Faculties of each soul. The inquiry into the "substance" 
 of the rational soul is a matter rather for theology than philo- 
 sophy. " For inasmuch as the substance of this soul in its 
 creation was not extracted or produced out of the mass of 
 heaven and earth, but was immediately breathed into man by 
 God, and inasmuch as the laws of heaven and earth are the 
 proper subjects of philosophy ; how can we expect to obtain from 
 philosophy a knowledge of the substance of the rational soul ? 
 It must be drawn from the same divine inspiration, from 
 which that substance first proceeded/' But the doctrine con- 
 cerning the sensible or produced soul is a fit subject of inquiry 
 in philosophy, even as regards its substance. " For the 
 Sensible Soul, or Soul of Brutes, must clearly be regarded as 
 a corporeal substance, attenuated and made invisible by heat/' 
 It is, in fact, compounded of flame and air (" ex natura 0am- 
 mea et aerea conflata "). This soul, which in man is merely 
 the instrument of the rational soul, just as in brutes it finds its 
 own instrument in the body, might more fittingly be assigned 
 a distinct name and termed " Spirit." 
 
 Quitting these theories, which to us appear so strange, but 
 
 2 The materialistic tendency of Bacon's philosophy is, I think, 
 gerated by Lange in his History of Materialism. Bee Qetckicki 
 
 Materialismtts, 2nd ed. vo.. i. pp. 194 — li» ( .> (English Translation, pp. 
 236 — 213). Lange, who seems too ready to adopt Liebig's conclusions, 
 does scant justice to Bacon's merits. 
 
 M 2 
 
1 64 BACON. 
 
 which deal with topics much more familiar to the men of 
 Bacon's generation than of ours, I may next note his enumera- 
 tion of the Faculties both of the higher and the lower soul. 
 The Faculties, he says, of the higher soul are well-known ; 
 they are Understanding or Intelligence (Intellectus), Reason, 
 Imagination, Memory, Appetite, Will, in fine all those which 
 are the object of the logical and ethical sciences. He then 
 makes the profound remark that the origins of these faculties 
 should be handled, and that physiologically or psychologically 3 
 (idque phj^sice), a work towards which, as he says, nothing of 
 note has yet been done. The faculties of Memory, Imagina- 
 tion, and Reason are made the basis of the general divisions of 
 Learning into History, Poetry, and Philosophy. " Intellectus" 
 or Understanding does not seem to be employed by Bacon in 
 a special sense (like the Aristotelian vovs), as a faculty which 
 supplies first principles for reasoning, but in a generic sense, 
 as including Memory, Imagination, and Reason. Thus, in the 
 Second Book of the Advancement of Learning, he says : " The 
 parts of human learning have reference to the three parts of 
 Man's Understanding, which is the seat of learning : History to 
 his Memory, Poesy to his Imagination, and Philosophy to his 
 Reason." And, though, in the corresponding part of the 
 De Augmentis (book ii. ch. 1), the word " Understanding" is 
 replaced by " Anima Rationalis," he seems almost immediately 
 afterwards to employ Understanding (" Intellectus")* as a 
 generic term ; for sense is called the door of the understanding 
 (" intellectus janua"), and then the intellectual processes 
 which follow on the impressions of sense are enumerated as 
 Memory, Imagination, and Reason. Imagination exercises 
 
 3 In Bacon's time, the word " physical " included both what we should 
 now term psychological and what we should now term phjsiological. 
 The Greek term for Nature (4>v(ris) was general in its meaning, and applied 
 to the world of mind as well as the world of matter. 
 
PHILOSOPHICAL & RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 165 
 
 the functions of a messenger or intermediary in both depart- 
 ments, that of Reason and that of Will. " For sense sends ;ill 
 kinds of images over to imagination for reason to judge of; 
 and reason again, when it has made its judgment and selection, 
 sends them over to imagination before the decree be put in 
 execution." 4 "But neither is the imagination simply and 
 only a messenger ; it is either invested with or usurps no 
 small authority in itself, besides the simple conveyance of the 
 message. For we see that in matters of faith and religion our 
 
 imagination exalts itself above our reason And again 
 
 it is no small dominion which imagination holds in persuasions 
 that are wrought by eloquence ; for when by arts of speech 
 the minds of men are soothed, inflamed, and carried hither 
 and thither, it is all done by stimulating the imagination till 
 it becomes ungovernable, and not only sets reason at nought, 
 but offers violence to it, partly by blinding, partly by incensing 
 it." The prominence here given to the warping effect of the 
 imagination over the reason accords well with Bacon's neglect 
 or depreciation of this faculty in his Novum Orgarann. 
 
 The inferior or sensible soul has two, or rather three, prin- 
 cipal faculties, Voluntary Motion and Sense, from which latter 
 we must distinguish Perception. Were it not for a marvellous 
 mistake of M. de Remusat, 5 it would hardly be necessary to 
 point out that Bacon's distinction of Sense and Perception is 
 utterly different from that drawn by later philosophers (such 
 as Reid and Stewart) between Perception and Sensation. By 
 Perception he understands unconscious or reflex action or re- 
 action, whether in animate or inanimate bodies. Such are 
 the attraction of the magnet, the union of two bubbles, recovery 
 after pressure, in the case of insensible bodies; and, in the 
 
 4 De Augm. book v. oh. i. 
 
 • Bacon, par Charles de .Remusat, p. 270, n. 1. 
 
1 66 BACON. 
 
 case of sensible bodies, the digestion of food, the beating of the 
 heart and pulse, " the performance by the viscera, like so many 
 workshops, each of its own work." Sense, on the other hand, 
 is conscious affection. That this distinction is of great import- 
 ance in Psychology need not be stated. 
 
 It may be noticed that the constant use of the term 
 ec Faculty," and the sharp line of demarcation drawn here and 
 in similar passages between the offices of the so-called " facul- 
 ties," was a common feature of the philosophy of the seventeenth 
 and eighteenth centuries. Locke criticises the expression. " I 
 suspect that this way of speaking of Faculties has misled many 
 into a confused notion of so many distinct agents in us, which 
 had their several provinces and authorities, and did command, 
 obey, and perform several actions, as so many distinct beings ; 
 which has been no small occasion of wrangling, obscurity, and 
 uncertainty in questions relating to them." 6 He proposes to 
 substitute the word Power. A better substitute, perhaps, 
 would be Act or Operation 1 . Another danger attending the 
 constant and incautious employment of this term may be 
 pointed out in connexion with the more refined analyses of 
 recent psychologists. Our mental operations are far more 
 complex than at first sight would be supposed. Many of our 
 psychical acts which are apparently the most simple admit, on 
 analysis, of being decomposed into a variety of elements. Thus, 
 I recognize an object in the street as a dog. This act, appa- 
 rently so simple and instantaneous, involves at least Sensation, 
 Perception, Association of Ideas, Recollection, Comparison, 
 Judgment. Now, if I single out one of these elements, and 
 call the act, say one of perception, or of recollection, or of 
 judgment, I ought at the same time to bear in mind that it 
 includes many other elements as well. 
 
 6 Essay concerning Human Understanding, book ii. ch. 21, § 6. 
 
PHILOSOPHICAL & RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 167 
 
 As distinct from the " Doctrina de Anima" (or, as we should 
 now say, Psychology), there are two arts which treat of the 
 use and objects of the mental faculties. These are Logic and 
 Ethic. " Logic discourses of the Understanding and Reason ; 
 
 Ethic of the Will, Appetite, and Affections: the one produces 
 judgments, the other actions." {De Augm* mti» t hook v. eh. 1.) 
 Logic is used in an extremely wide sense, as including not only 
 the Art of Discovery and the Art of Proof, but also the Art of 
 Memory and the Art of Rhetoric. 
 
 That the only source of our ordinary knowledge is to be 
 found in experience Bacon seems to assume throughout his 
 works/ though he never, so far as I recollect, attempts to a 
 tain the conditions of experience or to analyse it into the 
 elements of which it consists. The source of some portions of 
 our knowledge, such as that of " the substance of the rational 
 soul" 8 and of moral principles, 9 is referred to Divine Inspi- 
 ration, but this, I think, is usually the inspiration of the 
 Bible, given once for all, rather than any constant illumi- 
 nation specially imparted to the individual. In one place, 
 however, at least, (l)e Augm. book ix. ; E. and S. vol. i. 
 p. 831,) he does undoubtedly refer our moral sentiments to 
 a sort of divine influence, acting immediately and with- 
 out any dependence on the ordinary avenues of knowledge. 
 (f It must be confessed that a great part of the moral law *' [as 
 communicated in the Scriptures] " is higher than the light 
 
 7 See, for instance, Nov. Org. i. 19—22; De Augm. iii. 1 ad init. : 
 " For all knowledge admits of two kinds of information. ( )ne of them ii 
 inspired by divine revelation ; the other has its origin in Mntt. Let us, 
 therefore, divide knowledge into Theology and Philoeophy." In tin 
 
 (ributio Operis, prefixed to the Norton Oruniium. he speaks of M •:.- 
 "that from which, in natural matters, all things are to he derived, vnlcss 
 a man please to go mad." 
 
 8 De Augm. iv. 3 (E. and B., vol. i. p. Oof,). 
 
 9 De Augm. vii. 3 (vol. i. p. 732) ; ix. (pp. 830, BS1). 
 
168 BACON. 
 
 of nature can aspire to. Nevertheless what is said, that man 
 has by the light and. law of nature some notions of virtue and 
 vice, justice and injustice, good and evil, is most true. But 
 we must observe that the expression Light of Nature is used 
 in two several senses : the one, so far as it springs from sense, 
 induction, reason, arguments, according to the laws of heaven 
 and earth ; the other, so far as it flashes on the mind of man 
 by an inward instinct, according to the law of conscience, 
 which is a spark and relic, as it were, of his ancient and pri- 
 mitive purity. And in this latter sense chiefly does the soul 
 partake of some light to behold and discern the perfection of 
 the moral law ; which light, however, is not altogether clear, 
 but such as rather to convince us, in some measure, of vice, 
 than to inform us fully of our duty." Here, in addition to 
 the "Sense" and " Divine Inspiration" (there confined to 
 Theology) which are spoken of as if they were the sole sources 
 of knowledge at the beginning of the Third Book JDe Augmentis, 
 we seem to have a third source of knowledge, corresponding 
 almost exactly with what Butler and most popular moralists, 
 in conformity with ordinary language, call " Conscience." 
 This faint glimmering, as it were, of a primitive light may be 
 one of the u many and great excellencies of the human soul/' 
 referred to in the passage quoted on p. 162. 
 
 Besides the points already noticed, I ought, in this connexion, 
 to recall attention to the invaluable Aphorisms in the first 
 book of the Novum Organum on the Idola Tribus and the Idola 
 Specus, and to the fertile suggestion in Nov. Org. book i. aph. 
 127, on the possibility of treating Logic, Ethics, and Politics, 
 that is to say, the moral and mental sciences generally, by the 
 inductive method. One more matter of psychological interest 
 may be added to this list, the striking contribution towards a 
 theory of Memory and Association which occurs in Nov. Org, 
 ii. 26 and Be Augm. v. 5. 
 
PHILOSOPHICAL & RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 169 
 
 Bacon's Moral Philosophy, which is mainly contained in the 
 seventh book of the Be Aug mentis > has, perhaps, hardly re- 
 ceived the attention which it deserves. As Logic treats of the 
 Intellect, Ethics treat of the Will. " The will is governed 
 by right reason, seduced by apparent good j having for its 
 spurs the passions, for its ministers the organs and voluntary 
 motions.'" In a chapter of the preceding book (ch. b"), the 
 ends of logic and ethics are well compared : " The end of logic 
 is to teach forms of argument, in order to guard the under- 
 standing, not to ensnare it; in like manner, the end of ethics 
 is so to compose the passions, that they may fight on the side 
 of reason, and not invade it." The idea that morality con- 
 sists in the co-ordination of the passions, in their rationaliza- 
 tion, as we might say, is clearly and forcibly stated in this 
 passage, though, of course, it is to be found in authors long 
 anterior to Bacon. 
 
 Ethics may be divided into two principal doctrines, one, 
 theoretical, treating of the exemplar or image of good, the 
 other (to which he gives the fanciful title of the Georgics of 
 the Mind), practical, laying down rules for the regulation and 
 culture of the various parts of our nature, so as to bring them 
 into conformity with the image of good, when found. Of this 
 practical side of ethics, he complains that, for the most part, 
 it has been passed over, as not enabling men to display the 
 point of their wit or the power of their eloquence. On the 
 theoretical side, he finds fault with previous philosophers for 
 not having carried their inquiries deeper, by searching for the 
 roots of good and evil, and the very fibres of those roots; " if 
 they had consulted with the Nature of Things no less than 
 with moral axioms " (that is to say, the popular and received 
 notions of virtue and vice, pleasure and pain), " they would 
 have made their doctrines less prolix, but more profound." 
 He then endeavours to " open and cleanse the fountains of 
 
i^o * BACON. 
 
 morality" by examining its fundamental conception of Good. 
 Good, he finds, is either public or private, and the appetite to 
 both these kinds of good is native to the human mind, and, 
 indeed, to everything which exists. " There is formed and 
 imprinted in everything an appetite towards two natures of 
 good : to one nature, inasmuch as everything is a Whole in 
 itself; to the other, inasmuch as it is a part of a greater 
 whole. And this latter nature is more worthy and powerful 
 than the former, as it tends to the conservation of a more 
 general form. Let the former be named " Individual or Self 
 Good," the latter " Good of Communion." Those of my 
 readers who are at all acquainted with the subsequent de- 
 velopement of Moral Philosophy in England will not fail to 
 find in this sentence the germ of one of the leading ideas 
 in the systems of Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, and many other 
 English moralists. 
 
 Individual or Self Good is divided into Active and Passive 
 Good, " which are best disclosed in the two several appetites 
 in creatures : the one, to preserve and continue themselves ; 
 the other, to multiply and propagate themselves." Passive 
 Good, again, is subdivided into Conservative and Perfective 
 Good, whereof that of perfecting is the higher ; " for to pre- 
 serve a thing in its existing state is the less, to raise the same 
 to a higher nature is the greater." Throughout the universe, 
 there are always to be found " some nobler natures to the 
 dignity and excellence whereof inferior natures aspire as to 
 their sources and origins/'' But/ when men, by the workings 
 of blind ambition, are led to seek mere exaltation of place 
 instead of an exaltation of nature, so false and preposterous an 
 imitation of the desire for perfective good becomes the very 
 plague of life, and a whirlwind carrying away and subverting 
 all that is best within them. 
 
 " That good of man which respecteth and beholdeth society," 
 
PHILOSOPHICAL & RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. i;i 
 
 I am here quoting from the Advancement of Learning* "we 
 
 may term duty; because the term of duty is more proper to a 
 mind well framed and disposed towards others, as the term of 
 virtue is applied toa mind well formed and composed in itself: 
 though neither can a man understand virtue without some re- 
 lation to society, nor duty without an inward disposition. This 
 part may seem at first to pertain to science civil and politic" 
 (which Bacon distinguishes from Ethics); "but not it it he 
 well observed. For it concerneth the regiment and govern- 
 ment of every man over himself, and not over others." " This 
 part of duty is subdivided into two parts: the common duty 
 of every man, as a man or member of a state; the other, the 
 respective or special duty of every man, in his profess 
 vocation, and place." Casuistry is admitted into Ethics 
 considering- and deciding between "comparative duties." 
 "The knowledge concerning good as respects Bociety doth 
 handle it also, not simply alone, but comparatively \ where- 
 unto belongeth the weighing of duties between person ami 
 person, case and case, particular and public. 
 
 It is a remark very characteristic of Bacon's practical turn 
 of mind, as well as of his ethical point of view, that the 
 superiority of the public to the private good determines the 
 controversy amongst the ancient philosophers as to the relative 
 advantages of the practical and contemplative life in favour of 
 the former. For the reasons, he says, adduced by Aristotle in 
 favour of the latter have respect only to private good and the 
 pleasure or dignity of the individual. Nor, if the monastic life 
 had been regarded as merely and strictly contemplative, and not 
 engaged in the performance of any duties whatsoever, could any 
 doubt on this question have ever arisen in tin- chinch. "A- for 
 mere contemplation, ending in itself, and casting no rays of heat 
 or light on human society, assuredly Theology knows it not" 
 1 The parallel passage is in De Any mint is, vii. 2. 
 
172 BA CON. 
 
 It may be noticed also that Bacon finds a special argument 
 for the divine origin of the Christian religion in its marked 
 preference of the common to the individual good. " Never in 
 any age has there been found any philosophy, sect, religion, 
 law, or discipline, which did so highly exalt the good which is 
 communicative, and depress the good which is private and 
 particular, as the Holy Christian Faith; whence it is clear 
 that it was one and the same God who gave those laws of 
 Nature" (by which the lesser seeks the greater) " to inanimate 
 creatures and the law of Christ to man." 
 
 It might be inferred from this passage, in which Bacon 
 argues in favour of the divine origin of Christianity because it 
 satisfies certain moral pre-conceptions, instead of supporting 
 his ethical theory by the authority of Christianity, that he had 
 already arrived at the point of view which regards Ethics as an 
 independent science, having its roots not in Theology, but in 
 human nature. The same conclusion might also be drawn 
 from his general mode of treating ethical questions in the Be 
 Augmentis, as well as from the passage in the Novum Organum 
 (i. 127) in which he includes Ethics amongst the sciences 
 admitting of the application of the inductive method. Yet, 
 when he comes to consider expressly the relation of Ethics 
 to Theology, he regards the former as simply the handmaid 
 of the latter, having indeed an office of her own, but one to be 
 exercised in strict subordination to that of the master-science. 2 
 
 2 There is a curious passage in the Advancement of Learning, book i. 
 (repeated in the Be Augmentis, E. and S. vol. i., p. 465), in which the 
 independent study of Moral Philosophy seems, by implication, to be 
 unequivocally condemned : "As for the knowledge which induced the fall, 
 it was not the natural knowledge of creatures, but the moral knowledge 
 of good and. evil ; wherein the supposition was, that God's commandments 
 or prohibitions were not the originals of good and evil, but that they had 
 other beo-innings, which man aspired to know ; to the end to make a total 
 .defection from God and to depend wholly upon himself." 
 

 PHILOSOPHICAL & RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 173 
 
 " If it be objected that the cure of souls Is the office 
 Theology, the assertion is most true; but what is to prevent 
 Moral Philosophy being" received into the service of The* 
 as a prudent handmaid and faithful follower, to be readV 
 her nod, to minister to all her requirements? For as it is 
 said in the Psalm, that 'The eyes of the handmaid loot per- 
 petually to the hands of her mistress/ and yet no doubt many 
 things are left to the care and discretion of the handmaid 
 ought Moral Philosophy in all things to conform to Theology, 
 and hearken to its precepts, yet so as it may yield of Itself, 
 within its own limits, many sound and useful lessons." The 
 apologetic character of this passage, however, combined with 
 the other considerations just urged, might justify us in arguing 
 that Bacon was just on the point of detaching Ethics from 
 Theology, but that the traditional teaching of his time w 
 strong for him. Hobbes, who devoted far more special atten- 
 tion to the ultimate grounds of moral and political ideas than 
 Bacon had done, was, I believe, the first English writer who 
 treated Morals as an entirely distinct science-. Before the 
 appearance of Hobbes' works, Grotius had already in his De 
 Jure Belli et Pads (published in 1(125) adopted the e 
 mode of treatment, and from Hobbes downwards it became 
 almost a recognized principle amongst professed writers on 
 Morals in England, however much their systems differed in 
 other respects, to found them exclusively on the u L;i 
 Nature," the " dictates of reason/' or the constitution of man. 
 The Will of God ceased to be made the ultimate ground of 
 moral obligation (except in a few instances, amongsi which 
 that of Locke is conspicuous), and the words of ftevelation, if 
 quoted at all, were quoted rather by way of illustration than 
 of argument. Nor was this the case with lay writers only. 
 The systems of Cudwortti, Clarke, Hutcheeon, and Butler ai 
 "independent" as are those of Hobbes, Shaftesbury, and Hume. 
 
174 BACON. 
 
 To the fundamental questions of Morals, What makes an 
 action right, How do I know that it is right, and Why 
 should I do a right action rather than a wrong one, Bacon 
 supplies no direct answers. Nor did he probably put these 
 questions to himself in this direct manner. But if I may ven- 
 ture, from the fragments of a system which he has left us, to 
 construct answers such as I think he would have given, had 
 the questions been put to him, I would suggest that he might 
 have expressed his views much as follows. An action is right 
 which is good, — good, that is to say, either for ourselves or for 
 others, and, wherever the good of self or of a smaller aggregate 
 conflicts with that of a larger one, that action will, generally 
 speaking, be right which promotes the good of the community 
 or of the larger community of the two. I know an action to 
 be right, partly by my reason exercised on its effects and on 
 the effects of actions similar to it, partly also by that " inward 
 instinct, according to the law of conscience, which is a relic of 
 man's ancient purity/' and partly too by the words of God's 
 Revelation. What impels me to do an action, when I know 
 it to be right, is partly obedience to the Will of God, hope of 
 His rewards, and fear of His punishments ; partly, a natural 
 appetite, impressed on me as on all other objects, to seek good, 
 and to seek the greater good rather than the lesser. That twc 
 or more inconsistent modes of thought are implied in these 
 answers, I am aware. But Bacon and his generation had not 
 yet reached that stage in the history of ethical speculation 
 when thought on these subjects was clear and consistent. 
 
 Of the precepts for the Georgics or husbandry of the mind, 
 I have no space to give any detailed account, interesting as 
 some of them are. The whole disquisition on moral philosophy 
 is concluded by drawing a parallel between the good of the 
 mind and the good of the body. The good of the body con- 
 sists of health, beauty, strength, and pleasure. u So, the good 
 
PHILOSOPHICAL & RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 175 
 
 of the mind, if we view it as informed by Moral Philosophy, 
 tends to this : to be sound and free from the perturbatioi 
 passion; to be beautiful and adorned with the ornament* 
 true comeliness; to be strong and agile for undertaking all 
 manner of duties; lastly, not stupid, but retaining a vivid 
 sense of pleasure and of all the honourable solaces of life, 
 it is easy to see that many have strength of wit and 
 who are nevertheless troubled by passions, and whose manners 
 bear scarce any marks of grace or elegance; sonic again have 
 abundance of grace and elegance, who have no probity of mind 
 to will or strength to be able to act rightly ; others again 
 there are who, though endowed with a sense of honour and a 
 blameless character, are neither an ornament to themselvi 
 of any service to the state; while others, though perhaps 
 endowed with all these three qualities, yet, from a stoical 
 severity and insensibility, have no pleasure in the virtuous 
 actions which they practise." 3 
 
 Before quitting this portion of my subject, I ought perl 
 briefly to notice Bacon's conception of what he calls Primary 
 Philosophy. 4 "Because the distributions and partitions 
 knowledge are not like several lines that meet in one ai 
 and so touch but in a point, but are like branches of a tree 
 that meet in a stem, which hath a dimension ami quantity of 
 entireness and continuance before it come to discontinue and 
 break itself into arms and boughs; therefore it is good, lx 
 we enter into the distribution [of the sciences], to erect and 
 
 3 Dr. Abbott's assertion that " MaohiaTelli was unquestionably Ba 
 £ui<le, if not in theoretical, at all events in practical morality," 
 examined, and I trust refuted, by me in a previous chapter. 
 pp. 41 — 45. 
 
 4 In my description of the Primary Philosophy, 1 baft OOmbuM 
 accounts given in the Advancement of /. ii. and the bv 
 Augmentis, book iii. eh. 1. 
 
i;6 BACON, 
 
 constitute one universal science by the name of philosophia 
 prima, primitive or summary philosophy, to be as the mother 
 of the rest, and to be regarded in the progress of knowledge 
 as the main and common way, before we come where the ways 
 part and divide themselves." This philosophy, when consti- 
 tuted, is to be i( a receptacle for all such profitable observations 
 and axioms as fall not within the compass of any of the special 
 parts of philosophy or sciences, but are more common and of a 
 higher stage" (or, as it is put in the Be Augmentis, " belong 
 to several of them in common"). As examples of these common 
 principles are given the axiom that " if equals be added to un- 
 equals the wholes will be unequal," which is a rule both " of 
 mathematics and of distributive justice/' the axiom that 
 " things that agree with one and the same third thing agree 
 with one another/' which is a rule both of mathematics and 
 logic ; the maxim that " Nature best shows itself in its smallest 
 portions, " which suggested the atoms of Democritus in Physics, 
 and yet led Aristotle, in his Politics, to begin his inquiry into 
 the nature of a commonwealth with the family. A collection 
 of such axioms would be " a thing of excellent use for displaying 
 the unity of nature." To this collection of common axioms 
 Bacon adds in the De Augmentis, as another part of the Philo- 
 sophia Prima, the inquiry into a the adventitious conditions 
 of beings," or " Transcendentals," as he proposes to call them, 
 such as Much and Little, Like and Different, Possible and 
 Impossible, also Being and Not-Being, &c. But the inquiry 
 into the nature of these Transcendentals in the Primary Philo- 
 sophy must be C( a real and solid inquiry, according to the laws 
 of nature and not of language." Thus, for instance, it must 
 endeavour to assign a reason why some things in nature are 
 and can be so numerous and plentiful, others so few and scanty ; 
 and, again, why between different species there are always 
 interposed certain connecting links ("participia") of doubtful 
 
PHILOSOPHICAL & RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 177 
 
 species, "as moss between corruption and a plant, bats bet 
 birds and quadrupeds," and so on. 
 
 It is singular that, in the Novum Organ tun, tbe functions of 
 Primary Philosophy are assigned to Natural Philosophy, the 
 "great mother of the sciences/' the "trunk" from which if 
 the individual arts and sciences be separated, they cannot -row, 5 
 while some of the common axioms with which the Primary 
 Philosophy deals occur as examples of the Instant in- Con formes 
 or Parallel Instances. 6 Both in describing the relation of the 
 individual sciences to Natural Philosophy and in bringing 
 together his "Parallel Instances," the predominant idea in 
 Bacon's mind seems to be that of the unity of nature amidst 
 all its variety. 7 
 
 The student of Ancient Philosophy will not fail to compare 
 with Bacon's conception of the Primary Philosophy that 
 "synoptical view of the relationship of the various sciences 
 one with another and with the nature of real being/' 1 in the 
 study of which the young philosophers of Plato's Republic are 
 to spend ten years of their lives, after they have studied the 
 sciences separately as boys, and before they enter 00 the supreme 
 science of Dialectic or the study of Being in itself. What, 
 however, suggested to Bacon the name, and what really corre- 
 sponded more to his own conception than he seems t<> have 
 
 6 See Nov. Org. book i. aphs. 79, 80, and 1113* notes en these 
 aphorisms. 
 
 6 Nov. Org. book ii. aph. 27. 
 
 7 The idea of the unity of science is the complement <>t' tint of the 
 unity of nature, each implying the other. 'Let all divisions of know- 
 ledge," savs Bacon {De Augmentis, book iv. eh. 1). "be understood end 
 employed " rather for lines to mark or distinguish, " than for - OtioM to 
 cut and separate; in order that solution of continuity in SoienOM may 
 always be avoided. For the contrary hereof has made particular -.iencea 
 to become barren, shallow, and erroneous." 
 
 • See Plato's Republic, hook \ ii. p. o'M b, c. 
 
 I 
 
178 BACON. 
 
 imagined, was the Trpcorrj cfuXoaocpia or OedXoyla of Aristotle, 
 contained in the books subsequently called Meta-physica. 
 Aristotle's object in this " Science of Being" was, like Bacon's, 
 to consider Nature in its more general aspects and to discuss 
 those principles and ideas which are common to many or to all 
 the sciences. f 
 
 Bacon's conception should be enlarged into what I may call 
 the Science of the Sciences (Wissenschaftslehre), and then it 
 represents what seems to me to be a most important branch both 
 of knowledge and education. In addition to the several indi- 
 vidual sciences, dealing with man or external nature, there is 
 room for another or general science, whose function it should 
 be to consider these individual sciences in their relations one to 
 another, to discuss their leading principles and dominant ideas, 
 whether common to all or some sciences or peculiar to each 
 individual science, and to note, as distinct from Logic (which 
 should deal with methods in their ultimate analysis), the 
 various forms and combinations which the logical methods 
 assume when applied to the investigation or elucidation of the 
 different departments of knowledge. Towards such a science 
 or philosophy several recent writers have made large and im- 
 portant contributions, nor were those of Bacon himself, as 
 contained in the Be Augm.entis and some portions of the Novum 
 Organum, by any means contemptible. 
 
 In concluding this division of the chapter, I must again 
 remind the reader that Bacon's merit does not consist in his 
 philosophical teaching in the proper sense of the term, but in 
 his assertion of the necessity of a new method, of a new range 
 of studies, of a new spirit of inquiry. With the ultimate 
 nature and conditions of knowledge and being he did not much 
 concern himself, so long as he could arrive at what was practi- 
 cally true for man, and could certify 1o himself the steps by 
 

 PHILOSOPHICAL & RELIGIOUS OPINIO 
 
 which he had arrived at it. He was a logician, in the \\ 
 and fullest sense of the word. A philosopher he did Dot claim 
 to be; and though I believe that his works exerted a very 
 
 powerful influence on the philosophical speculations of the two 
 succeeding centuries, a philosopher, in the strict sense of the 
 term, he was not. 
 
 Two of the most striking Aphorisms in the First Book of 
 the Novum Crganum* are the 65th and 89th. The former has 
 already been translated on pp. 97, 98, to which the reader 
 should refer back. In the latter, speaking of the causes of the 
 slight progress hitherto made by men in the sciences, Bacon 
 says: " Nor is this reason to be passed by, that natural philoso- 
 phy has in all ages found a troublesome adversary and one hard 
 to deal with ; namely, superstition and a blind and immoderate 
 zeal for religion." And again: "But in such mixtures oJ 
 theology with philosophy, those things only are comprehended, 
 which are now received in philosophy ; but whatever is new, 
 though the change be for the better, is all hut expelled and 
 exterminated." And he sums up as follows : " But to him 
 who truly considers the matter, natural philosophy is, after the 
 word of God, the surest remedy against Buperstition, as well 
 as the most approved nourishment for faith. And hence Bne 
 is rightly given to religion as her most faithful handmaid ; 
 since the one shows the will of God, and the other His power. ° 
 
 Now it appears to me that these passages, and the complete 
 separation which he there advocates between theology and 
 science, furnish the best key to Bacon's religions opinions, and, 
 at the same time, afford an explanation iA' the almost constant 
 
 9 The remark* which fellow en Baoon'i Religions Opinions are I 
 with slight alterations, from § 7 of my Introduction to tlu' N*9wm 
 Organum. 
 
 N 2 
 
i8o BACON. 
 
 disputes which have been carried on nearly from his own times 
 to ours as to what the nature of his religious opinions really 
 was. It is easy to see that a man who penned the above 
 sentences might readily be suspected of harbouring in his mind 
 a still greater mistrust of theological conclusions than he 
 overtly expresses ; and it is, at the same time, I think, no less 
 easy to see, if we know anything of the history of opinion, that 
 the maxims expressed might in Bacon's age, when speculations 
 of this kind and the comparison of conclusions arrived at in 
 different branches of knowledge were comparatively rare, be 
 uttered, even by a man of the most religious temperament, in 
 perfect good -faith. 
 
 I am myself of opinion not only that the religious side of 
 these Aphorisms expresses Bacon's sincere convictions, but also 
 that he did not materially dissent from the religious teaching 
 which was generally current in his day on what may be called 
 the fundamental doctrines of Christianity. 
 
 Any reader who wishes to arrive at an independent opinion 
 on this point ought carefully to compare the following references 
 (which are too long to be extracted) : Nov. Org. i. 65, 89 ; 
 De Augmentis, book i. (E. and S., vol. i. pp. 433 — 437), iii. 
 2, iii. 4, ix. throughout; Essays on Unity in Religion, Atheism, 
 and Superstition; and, lastly, Bacon's formal Confession of 
 Faith. 1 Of this last piece, however, it should be stated that it 
 first appeared in the Remains (1648), and that, as it is 
 described in the Harleian MS. as by Mr. Bacon, it must have 
 been written before the summer of 1603. Thus, it may 
 possibly (though I have no positive reason for saying that it 
 is so) enter into more minute details of doctrine than Bacon 
 would afterwards have been disposed to do. To the Christian 
 
 1 For this document see Ellis and Spedding's Edition of Bacon's Works, 
 vol. vii. pp. 215—226. 
 
PHILOSOPHICAL & RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 181 
 
 Paradoxes I do not refer, as being now known to have been 
 written by another hand. 
 
 On carefully considering these and the other passages in 
 
 which Bacon alludes to religion, or handles religious subji 
 the impression left on my mind may be summed up in the 
 following" conclusions. 
 
 1st. Notwithstanding his admiration for the philosophy of 
 Democritus, and his rejection of Final Causes from the domain 
 of Physics, 2 he retained an unwavering faith in the i 
 of the Supreme God, the creator and fashioner of the nni\ 
 The following well-known sentences from the Essay on Atk< 
 (published, it must be recollected, in its corrected form by 
 Bacon's own authority in 1625, the year before his death) 
 express, I believe, the most sincere convictions of his heart : 
 " I had rather believe all the fables in the Legend, and the 
 Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is 
 without a mind. And therefore God never wrought miracle 
 to convince atheism, because his ordinary works convince it. 
 It is true, that a little philosophy inclineth man's mind to 
 atheism ; but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about 
 to religion. For while the mind of man looketh upon second 
 causes scattered, it may sometimes rest in them, and go DO 
 further; but when it beholdeth the chain of them, confederate 
 and linked together, it must needs fly to Providence and 
 Deity." 
 
 2nd. I cannot question that Bacon also accepted the doctrine 
 of a Divine Providence and a providential order of the world. 
 This- in fact, is implied in the above passage. Bui there 
 still more explicit statements on this subject in 1>> ./ ; < 
 ii. 11, and iii. 2 of the same work. These ] flust have 
 
 passed under Bacon's hands and received his final approval as 
 late as 1(522 or 102:3. 
 
 2 On this subject, B66 pp. 1 i - 1 11 T. 
 
1 82 BACON. 
 
 3rd. If we compare Be Aagmentis, book i. (E. and S., vol. i. 
 pp. 483, 484), book iv. ch. 1. (p. 585), and book iv. ch. 
 3 (pp. 605, 606), we shall, I think, conclude that, while Bacon 
 had no doubt as to the immortality of the soul, he was, like 
 some of the early fathers, inclined to regard the belief as resting 
 rather on a direct revelation from God than on a necessary, or 
 perhaps even legitimate, conclusion of human reason. 
 
 4th. With respect to the Christian mysteries, Bacon seems, 
 at least in his earlier years, to have been inclined to trust him- 
 self to the guidance of the church ; meaning, doubtless, the 
 church as understood by Anglican Divines, who, passing over 
 the intermediate times of Roman superstition, boasted of their 
 now restored connexion with the age of the primitive fathers. 
 " But there still remains/' he says, at the beginning of the 
 last Book of the Be Augmentis, " Sacred or Inspired Theology ; 
 whereof, however, if I proceed to treat, I must step out of the 
 bark of Human Reason, and pass into the ship of the Church, 
 which is only able to direct its course aright by the use of the 
 divine compass." How far Bacon's confidence in the " ship 
 of the church" was implicit, and without exception, is, I think, 
 somewhat doubtful. For it is a notable fact (which I have 
 not seen elsewhere noticed) that the passage on the nature and 
 attributes of God, including certain statements on the Trinity 
 and the division of the elect and reprobate, which occurs 
 towards the end of the Advancement of Learning, is altogether 
 left out in the Be Augmentis, published eighteen years after- 
 wards. Nor, generally, do I notice in Bacon's later works any 
 disposition to enter into details on the more specific doctrines 
 of religion. 3 
 
 3 Macaulay {Essay on Bacon) says, on the whole, very truly : " He 
 loved to dwell on the power of the Christian religion to effect much that 
 the ancient philosophers could only promise. He loved to consider that 
 religion as the bond of charity, the curb of evil passions, the consolation 
 
PHILOSOPHICAL & RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 183 
 
 5th. Connected with tin's fact, La the wry wide toleration 
 which he was evidently ready to concede to dissidents from the 
 more generally received theological opinions. Witness the 
 
 following passages from the essay Of Unify in 1 " Con- 
 
 cerning the Bounds of Unity; the true placing of them im- 
 porteth exceedingly. There appear to be two extremes. For 
 to certain zelants all speech of pacification is odious, h if I 
 Jehu ? What hast thou to do with peace ? turn thee heh'm 
 Peace is not the matter, but following and party. Contrari- 
 wise, certain Laodiceans and lukewarm persons think they 
 may accommodate points of religion by middle ways, and 
 taking part of both, and witty reconcilements ; as if they would 
 make an arbitrament between God and man. Both these 
 extremes are to be avoided ; which will he done, if the league 
 of Christians penned by our Saviour himself were in the two 
 cross clauses thereof soundly and plainly expounded : He that 
 is not with us is against us ; and again. He that is not ag 
 tis is with us; that is, if the points fundamental and of substance 
 in religion were truly discerned and distinguished from | 
 not merely of faith, but of opinion, order, or good intention. 
 
 of the wretched, the support of the timid, the hope of the dying. Bat 
 controversies on speculative points of theology seem to bai 
 scarcely any portion of his attention. In what be wrote 00 Church 
 Government he showed, as far as he dared, a tolerant and charitable spirit. 
 He troubled himself not at all about Bomoousiam and rloraoioui 
 Monothelites and Nestorians. lie lived in an age in which dispel 
 the most subtle points of divinity excited an intense interest throughout 
 Europe, and nowhere more than in England, lie was placed in th< 
 thick of the conflict. He was in power at the time of the Synod ol 
 and must for months have been daily deafened with talk about ,1 
 reprobation, and final perseverance. Vet we do no4 remember a line in 
 his works from which it can be interred that he was either | Calnnilt or 
 an Arminian." I am disposed, however, to think that this description 
 applies with more complete a.euraey to Bacon's later than his earlier 
 of feeling on these subjects. 
 
1 84 BACON. 
 
 This is a thing may seem to many a matter trivial, and done 
 already. But if it were done less partially, it would be 
 embraced more generally." " Concerning the Means of pro- 
 curing Unity; men must beware, that in the procuring or 
 muniting of religious unity they do not dissolve and deface the 
 laws of charity and of human society. There be two swords 
 amongst Christians, the spiritual and temporal ; and both have 
 their due office and place in the maintenance of religion. But 
 we may not take up the third sword, which is Mahomet's 
 sword, or like unto it ; that is, to propagate religion by wars 
 or by sanguinary persecutions to force consciences ; except it 
 be in cases of overt scandal, blasphemy, or intermixture of 
 practice against the state ; much less to nourish seditions ; to 
 authorize conspiracies and rebellions ; to put the sword into 
 the people's hands ; and the like ; tending to the subversion 
 of all government, which is the ordinance of God. For this 
 is but to dash the first table against the second ; and so to 
 consider men as Christians, as we forget that they are men. 
 Lucretius the poet, when he beheld the act of Agamemnon, that 
 could endure the sacrificing of his own daughter, exclaimed: 
 
 Tantum Relligio potuit suadere malorum : 
 
 What would he have said, if he had known of the massacre in 
 France, or the powder treason of England ? He would have 
 been seven times more Epicure and atheist than he was. For 
 as the temporal sword is to be drawn with great circumspec- 
 tion in cases of religion ; so it is a thing monstrous to put it 
 into the hands of the common people. Let that be left unto 
 the Anabaptists, and other furies. It was great blasphemy 
 when the devil said, I will ascend and he like the Highest ; but 
 it is greater blasphemy to personate God, and bring him 
 in saying, / will descend, and be like the prince of dark- 
 ness : and what is it better, to make the cause of religion to 
 
PHILOSOPHICAL & RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 185 
 
 descend to the cruel and execrable actions of marthering 
 princes, butchery of people, and subversion of Btatee and 
 governments? Surely this is to bring down the Holy Ghost, 
 instead of the likeness of a dove, in the Bhape of a vultu 
 raven ; and set out of the bark of a Christian church a ll 
 a bark of pirates and Assassins. Therefore it i< most necessary 
 that the church by doctrine and decree, princes by their sword, 
 and all learnings, both Christian and moral, as by their Mer- 
 cury rod, do damn and send to hell for ever those facte and 
 opinions tending to the support of the same; as hath been 
 already in good part done. Surely in counsels concerning 
 religion, that counsel of the apostle would be prefixed, 
 hominis non implet juslitiam Dei. And it was a notable obser- 
 vation of a wise father, and no less ingenuously confessed ; that 
 those ivhich held and persuaded pressure of com 
 commonly interested therein themselves for their own ends" 
 
 Here we seem to detect the first note of the key which was 
 afterwards struck with such effect by Chillingwortfa in his 
 Religion of Protestants, by Jeremy Taylor in his / 
 Prophesying, and, above all, by Locke in his Letters on Zb 
 lion. And, like these writers, Bacon probably did no1 see the 
 consequences of his own principles. Like them, he would 
 probably have set limits to Toleration, nor am 1 sure that be 
 would not have set precisely the same limit- a- Locke, namely , 
 by excluding * Papists " on the one side and u Atheists n on 
 the other. As in the case of Locke, too, and, perhaps, of all 
 who advocated Toleration in those days, when the true princi- 
 ples of Political Philosophy were so imperfectly under-' 
 
 Bacon's zeal against persecution and intolerance arose, pro- 
 bably, in no small measure, from vagueness, uncertainty, or 
 
 indifference, in his own religious beliefs. 
 
 6th. The indifference of which I have ju>t spoken WS8, I 
 think, certainly one of Bacon's characteristics in relation to 
 
186 BACON. 
 
 religious controversies. It was not merely that he saw the 
 hollowness or absurdity of many of the disputes current in his 
 own day. "A man that is of judgment and understanding 
 shall sometimes hear ignorant men differ, and know well within 
 himself that those which so differ mean one thing, and yet 
 they themselves would never agree." " Men create oppositions 
 which are not; and put them into new terms so fixed, as 
 whereas the meaning ought to govern the term, the term in 
 effect governeth the meaning." 4 A man so acute as Bacon 
 could not help seeing thus far, but his indifference, I think, 
 extended far beyond the range of these mere verbal quibbles 
 and scholastic combats. His indifference was not simply an 
 indifference of the head ; it was an indifference of the heart. 
 What he really cared for was the advancement of science, the 
 knowledge of nature, the extension of the kingdom of man. 
 He did not repudiate religion, or even theology ; rather, he 
 was a respectful, though silent, worshipper ; but, like many 
 another man, he entered the shrine only on occasion, while, at 
 most times, his business lay far away. There was, perhaps, a 
 latent feeling that not much knowledge was to be had in these 
 subjects, numerous and eager as were the workmen engaged in 
 attempting to extract it; while, in the wide field of nature, 
 the harvest was ready, though the labourers were few. And 
 so Bacon contented himself with working in what appeared to 
 him the more promising field of labour. He sought God in 
 nature, and there he recognized, reverenced, and adored Him. 
 The same God was also to be found in the ark of the Church, 
 and the pages of the Bible ; but Bacon's tastes and pursuits 
 lay another way, and hence, though he had no inclination to 
 call in question the leading verities of faith, he received them, 
 
 4 Essay of Unity in Religion. These passages do not occur in the 
 Essay of Religion, published in 1612, and, consequently, they first 
 appeared in 1625. 
 
PHILOSOPHICAL & RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 187 
 
 always without enthusiasm, and sometimes, even, w itfa apparent 
 
 indifference. 
 
 7th. This last consideration may afford some explanati* 
 the two other points to which I shall call attention. One of 
 these is the evident preference which Bacon accords to At 
 
 over Superstition. " It were better to have no opinion of G I 
 at all, than such an opinion as is unworthy of Him. For the 
 one is unbelief, the other is contumely : and certainly sap 
 tion is the reproach of the Deity. Plutarch saith well to that 
 purpose: Surely (saith he) I had rather a great u\ 
 say there was no suck man at all as Plutarch, than that tk 
 say that there was one Plutarch that would eat his childn 
 soon as they were born; as the poets speak of Saturn. And as 
 the contumely is greater towards God, so the danger i 
 towards men. Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, 
 to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all which may be 
 guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion ■ 
 but superstition dismounts all these, and erecteth an absolute 
 monarchy in the minds of men. Therefore atheism did 
 perturb states ; for it makes men wary of themselw iking 
 
 no further: and we see the times inclined to atheism (ai 
 time of Augustus Caesar) were civil times. But BUperstition 
 hath been the confusion of many states, and bringeth in I new 
 primum mobile, that ravisheth all the sphere- rnment." 
 
 In this passage, I think, Bacon thoroughly repref 
 spirit of his time. The recoil from the BUperstitioi 
 Church of Rome, and especially from the dangers with which 
 the machinations of that Church seemed to threaten the 
 power, had become, in the reformed countries, so info 
 
 5 Essay of Superstition. Cp. ■ letter bo Tobj Matt] 
 version to Romanism (Spedding'i Letters and E#fe, ?oL w. p. 
 we find pretty nearly the same words as these oon t a ins d U tb 
 
 of this quotation. 
 
1 88 BACON. 
 
 almost so unreasoning, that men could conceive of no opinions 
 equally dangerous either to the well-being of the individual 
 conscience or to the security of the state. It required experi- 
 ences like those of the French Revolution to convince men that 
 the dissolution of the restraints of religion, in minds which 
 from infancy had been accustomed to them, might be even 
 still more desolating in its effects on morals and government. 
 And meanwhile, this view, as stated by Bacon, bore fruit and 
 multiplied. The undiscriminating denunciation of Supersti- 
 tion in the seventeenth century, coupled with the freer mode 
 of inquiry into the fundamentals of religion which marked the 
 close of the period, terminated in results, which, however much 
 he may have contributed to them, he would probably have been 
 among the last to welcome. 
 
 8th. The last point which I shall notice is also one which 
 had a great and undoubted effect on subsequent speculation. 
 The interests of Bacon, as we have seen, were in the progress 
 of science. What he, above all things, desired was a clear and 
 unimpeded course for his favourite pursuit. Now he could 
 never forget (or the divines and controversialists of his time 
 would never have allowed him to forget) what he states so 
 emphatically in a passage of the Novum, Organum, already 
 quoted, on the bitter and perennial opposition between Natural 
 Philosophy and the blind and immoderate zeal for religion. 
 What then so effectual, and what so obvious, as to declare an 
 entire separation between the spheres of Science and Theology, 
 of Reason and Faith ? Their admixture had made the one 
 fantastic, and the other heretical. The remedy, therefore, was 
 to put them asunder; to give to reason the things of reason, 
 and to faith the things of faith. Then, the one would declare 
 the Will of God, and the other His Power. Nor was the idea 
 of this truce, I think, suggested solely by the motive of pre- 
 serving the rights of science. It was in perfect sincerity, I 
 
PHILOSOPHICAL & RELIGIOUS OPINIi WS. 
 
 think, that Bacon wrote: "Let us then conclude thai Sacred 
 Theology ought to be drawn from the wrord and oracle* 
 not from the light of nature or the dictates of reason. For it 
 is written, ' The heavens declare the glory of God ;' but it La 
 nowhere written, ' The heavens declare the will of God/ M The 
 method of the Scholastics had been thoroughly vicious, both in 
 applying Scripture to establish the principli ence, and 
 
 in applying reason to establish the principles of religion. Par 
 different was the procedure recommended by Bacon both in the 
 one case and the other. "But with regard to infereneeSj we 
 ought to know that there is left us an use of reason and argu- 
 ment (as to mysteries) secondary and respective, though not 
 original and absolute. For, after the articles and principles of 
 religion have been set in their place, so as to be completely 
 exempted from the examination of reason, it is then perm 
 us to derive and deduce inferences from them according to 
 their analogy. In nature indeed this holds not. For both the 
 principles themselves are subject to examination, by Induction, 
 I mean, though not by Syllogism, and, besides, these same 
 principles have no discordance with reason, so that the lir.-t and 
 middle propositions are derived from the same fountain. I 
 otherwise in religion, where the first proposition- are ttol only 
 self-existent and self-supporting, but likewise unamenable to 
 that reason which deduces consequent propositions." ' That it 
 did not occur to Bacon to ask on what grounds the authority 
 of Scripture itself reposed, may to us appear strange, but tins 
 was not one of the questions which the men <>i' that 
 in the habit of putting either to themselves or other-. ! 
 no reason to doubt that Bacon accepted the authority <•( Scrip- 
 ture as an ultimate fact, though, as 1 have already intimated, 
 he may, especially towards the latter period of lii> life, have 
 felt some hesitation as to the truth or exactitude of BOmfi of 
 8 Be Aug mail is, book ix. 
 
190 BACON. 
 
 the dogmatic inferences which had been deduced from its 
 language. 
 
 This sharp separation of Religion and Science, Faith and 
 Reason, probably exercised a considerable influence on the turn 
 which these speculations took amongst Bacon's successors. 
 Hobbes, while he showed no disposition to restrict scientific 
 discussions, relegated religion altogether to the cognizance of 
 the magistrate. It was the duty of the state to provide a 
 religion for its subjects, and these had nothing to do but to 
 accept it without doubt, or, at least, without any expression of 
 doubt. Thus, the sphere of religion was removed altogether 
 from the arena o£ discussion, and we seem here to have almost 
 a parody of some of the principles propounded by Bacon. 
 Pascal, though whether he was influenced by the writings of 
 Bacon or not I have no sufficient grounds for determining, 
 attempted to make the divorce between Faith and Reason 
 complete, in the interests of Religion, as, at a later period, 
 Hume did, or pretended to do, in the interests of Philosophy. 
 Locke, though he took a great interest in theological questions 
 and himself wrote- theological works, shows no disposition 
 either, on the one hand, to question the authority, or even 
 the infallibility, of the Scriptures, or, on the other 'hand, to 
 allow them to exert any influence on his philosophical specula- 
 tions. Bayle tries to exaggerate the discrepancies between 
 philosophy and religion, but, not having the robust faith of 
 Bacon or Locke, he seems, with some hesitation, ready to 
 sacrifice the claims of religious belief to the exigencies of human 
 reason. But, however it may have been with particular indivi- 
 duals,! cannot question that the general tendency, predominant, 
 especially in England, till quite recently, to draw a distinct 
 line of demarcation between the spheres of religion, on the one 
 side, and philosophy and science, on the other, and to combine 
 a sincere belief in the traditional teaching of the Bible or the 
 
PHILOSOPHICAL & RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. [91 
 
 Church with a perfect independence in the sphere of speculation! 
 
 is due, in large measure, to the teaching and example of Bacon. 
 
 Whether this procedure be or be not legitimate, this is not the 
 place to inquire. 7 
 
 7 In writing these paragraphs on Bacon's religious opinions, I ha 
 course, read carefully the considerable portion of his work which Kuno 
 Fischer devotes to the same subject. But my conclusions, many of which 
 agree with his, had almost ali been previously arrived at by au independent 
 study of Bacon's writings. 
 
192 BACON. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Few questions in the history of Philosophy and Science have 
 been more keenly debated than the fact and nature of Bacon's 
 influence on these pursuits. Some writers have gone so far 
 as to maintain that both philosophy and science would have 
 been exactly in the same position that they now are, if he had 
 never lived. As I can by no means subscribe to this position, 
 and should certainly not have undertaken to write this book, 
 had I believed it to be even approximately true, I shall endea- 
 vour in this Chapter briefly to indicate what I conceive to have 
 been the nature of Bacon's influence, as well as to assign some 
 grounds for my own opinion that in both departments it has 
 been very considerable, while, as respects science properly so 
 called, the impulse and direction given to it by Bacon were of 
 the very highest importance. 
 
 As I am dealing with two distinct questions, I shall ask, 
 first, what was the influence of the Baconian Reform on Philo- 
 sophy (under which head I include all inquiries into the 
 grounds, conditions, and character of human knowledge and 
 human practice), and second, what was its influence on Science 
 (a word which I take in its modern sense, as restricted to in- 
 quiries into the constitution and modes of action of corporeal 
 objects) . 
 
INFLUENCE ON PHILOSOPHY & SCI i. 
 
 With respect to the first question, I may - - 
 own belief, grounded on a careful study ol their 'hat 
 
 the most characteristic school of English psy< 
 moralists, and, through them, a most important school of 
 European philosophy, has been profoundly influenced bj 
 method and speculations of Bacon. The main prii 
 Locke's E-s.Su//, namely, that all our ideas art- derived from 
 either sensation or reflection, appears to me b 1 in 
 
 germ in the 1st Aphorism of the Novum Onjanum, while to the 
 attentive reader there can be no doubt that his whole mo I 
 treating psychological questions is thoroughly imbued with 
 the spirit of Bacon's method. What Bacon himself - 
 (Nov. Org. i. 127), that the Inductive Method Is as applicable 
 to Logic (here used as a general term for the study of m 
 Ethics, and Politics, as to Natural Philosophy, is admirably 
 exemplified in the writings of Locke. It is true that, in the 
 Essay, Locke never expressly mentions Bacon's name, but then 
 the frequent citation of authors 4 names was ooti a fashi 
 that time, as it has come to he of ours. In the short work, how- 
 ever, On the Conduct of the Understanding 9 the direct n 
 to Bacon are frequent. Thus, at the very heginning, he justi- 
 fies his own opinions on the insufficiency of the "I. 
 in use" by the authority of the " great Lord- Verulam, who 
 not servilely thinking that learning could not b.- adva 
 beyond what it was, because for many ages it had Qot 
 did not rest in the lazy approbation and applause of what WS8, 
 
 because it was; but enlarged his mind to what might be." 
 Locke is generally and justly regarded a- the father oi a' 
 the English and French schools of Psychology, and hen 
 connect Bacon with Locke i- to connect him with Berk 
 
 Hume, Hartley, Reid, Stewart, the two M;i-. Cond iliac, 
 
 llelvetius Destutt de Tracy, to say QOthing 
 more recent writers. Again, 1 think it would be difficult 
 
 o 
 
194 BACON, 
 
 any one, after carefully reading the 7 th Book of the De Aug- 
 mentis and after tracing the obvious applications of Bacon's 
 principles and method to the science of conduct, to resist the 
 conclusion that his speculations and, perhaps still more, his 
 method of investigation are, to a large extent, the source of 
 that great school of moral philosophy which, numbering men 
 so widely divergent in many respects as Hobbes and Cumber- 
 land, Butler and Bentham, agrees in basing the rules of con- 
 duct on an inductive examination of the principles of human 
 nature and the consequences of human actions. English 
 philosophers, whether moralists or psychologists, or, at least, 
 much the larger number of them, seem to me to be thoroughly 
 Baconian in their aims, in their spirit, and in theii method. 
 In the eyes of many this may be a reproach, but, if it be true 
 as a fact, it will go far towards establishing a conclusion as to 
 the influence of Bacon over one large and important depart- 
 ment of investigation. 
 
 Before leaving this branch of my subject, it is only fair to 
 mention one very peculiar circumstance connected with it. 
 Hobbes had, in early life, been Bacon's secretary, but, though 
 he wrote a work expressly on Computation or Logic, there 
 is no mention in it of Induction, of the Baconian method, 
 or of Bacon himself. It is, perhaps, still more singular that 
 there is no mention of Bacon in the Epistle Dedicatory to the 
 Elements of Philosophy, where he refers to Galileo, Kepler, 
 Harvey, Gassendi, Mersenne, &c. Bacon's name, in fact, so 
 
 1 De Kemusat, whose remarks on Hobbes {Bacon, pp. 405 — 408) seem 
 to me veiy just and interesting, says that, to the best of his belief, the 
 word Induction occurs only once in Hobbes' writings. This is in a mathe- 
 matical controversy with Wallis (Molesworth's Ed., Latin Works, vol. iv. 
 p. 179), where he says, in a spirit the very reverse of Baconian : " Inductio 
 autem demonstratio non est, nisi ubi particularia omnia enumerantur, quod 
 hie est impossible." (But Induction has not the force of demonstration, 
 except where all the particulars are enumerated, which is here impossible). 
 
INFLUENCE ON PHILOSOPHY & SCIENCE. [95 
 
 far as I am aware, oecura only twice in the whole of 1I< 
 works, and there without any epithet of praise or hi , 
 From the extent of Hobbes' writings and tlie intimate per- 
 sonal relations which had formerly existed between him and 
 Bacon, I can hardly refer this silence to mere accident. It may 
 have been due to some personal pique, or the abstract ch 
 ter of Hobbes' mind may have rebelled against the concrete 
 and inductive spirit of Baeon's philosophy. For, it may bo 
 noticed that there are few writers on moral and political ques- 
 tions, in whose works the historical spirit is more conspicu- 
 ously absent than in Hobbes. 
 
 The second question is, to my mind, much more difficult to 
 answer than the first, though I can entertain no doubt that 
 Bacon has exerted a real and beneficial influence 00 the sub- 
 sequent progress of science. The extent of this inllueiice, 
 however, and its precise character are not easy to determine* 
 
 In the Introduction to my Edition of the Novum Organum 
 (§ 14), I have adduced a large number of testimonies to the 
 estimation in which Bacon's works on the reform of science 
 and scientific method were held from the time of his contem- 
 poraries and immediate successors down to the middle of the 
 eighteenth century, when the " Baconian Philosophy n and the 
 " Baconian Method " had come to be almost universally re- 
 garded as terms expressive of accurate and fruitful investiga- 
 tion in every department of science. These testimonies include 
 those of Descartes, Mersenne, (iassendi, PeiresCj Do Hatnel, 
 Bayle, Voltaire, Condillac, D'Alembert in France; Vic© in 
 Italy; Comenius, Puffeiidorf, Leibnitz, Huygens, Morhof, 
 Boerhaave, Buddseus in Germany; and, in England, the 
 
 group of men who founded or were amongst the earliest 
 members of the Royal Society, such a- Wallis, Oldenburg, 
 Glanvill, Ilooke, and Boyle. Not only do these writers speak 
 
 'Z 
 
iq6 BACON. 
 
 with approbation of Bacon's method, but most of them also 
 furnish evidence of the impulse which he gave to scientific in- 
 quiry and the direction which he impressed upon it. Indeed 
 there can be little doubt that the foundation of the Royal 
 Society in England, and possibly the same origin may be 
 assigned to some similar societies on the Continent, was due 
 to the impulse given by Bacon to the study of experimental 
 science and the plans which he had devised for its prosecution. 
 A review of the whole evidence leads me to the conclusion that 
 there can be no question as to the reality of his influence on 
 the progress of science in the generation immediately succeed- 
 ing his own, though as to the extent and nature of that influ- 
 ence there is room for considerable difference of opinion. When 
 we arrive at the end of the seventeenth century, a generation 
 later, we are, in England at least, in the full tide of experi- 
 mental research, and at that time, I believe, the value and in- 
 fluence of Bacon's writings had come to be universally acknow- 
 ledged. 2 
 
 When we have established the fact of Bacon's influence on 
 the progress of science, it remains to ask what the nature of 
 that influence was. The title of founder or father of experi- 
 mental philosophy, so often ascribed to him by his admirers 
 and so often criticised by his detractors, expresses the nature 
 of his influence, I think, in a rough, and, perhaps, a somewhat 
 
 2 I have not thought it desirable to enter here on the vexed question 
 of Bacon's influence on Newton. In the Introduction to my edition of 
 the Novum Organum (§ 14), I have examined it with tolerable fulness, 
 and the conclusion which, on a review of all the circumstances, I am 
 inclined to adopt is that " Newton had not studied, or did not remember, 
 or did not accept the teaching of the early part of the Second Book of the 
 Novum Organum, though the precepts and warnings of the First Book, 
 in their most general form, had produced a deep impression upon him and 
 had, in great measure, suggested to him the aims and methods of his own 
 investigations." 
 
INFLUENCE ON PHILOSOPHY & SCI EX 
 
 exaggerated as well as a somewhat inadequate form, but 
 which I regard as being*, in the main, true. Instead, how< 
 of examining this or similar expressions, it will be a simpler 
 
 and perhaps a more useful course to state precisely the i 
 elusions on this subject at which lhave myself arrive 
 
 1st, He called men, as with the voice of a herald/ to lay 
 themselves alongside of nature, to study her way-, and imitate 
 her processes. To use his own homely simile, he rang the bell 
 which called the other wits together. 5 Other men indeed had 
 said much the same thing in whispers or in learned 1 
 written for a circle of select readers j but Bacon cried it from 
 the house-tops, and invited all men to come in freely and partake 
 of the feasfc. In one word, he popularised the study of nature. 
 
 •2nd, He insisted, both by example and precept, on the im- 
 portance of experiment as well as observation. Nature, like B 
 witness, when put to the torture, would reveal her set 
 Experimentation was undoubtedly common in Bacon's time, 
 but it was generally associated with the Alchemists, and so, 
 while it suffered in reputation, it was confined in ra 
 Bacon gave it an extension, a dignity, a popularity which, it 
 is not too much to say, must have materially influenced the 
 labours of the Royal Society, and the crowning effbrti 
 Boyle and Newton. 
 
 3rd, In both these ways, Bacon recalled men to the Btudy 
 of facts, and though, in the first instance, he had mainly in 
 view the facts of external nature, the influence ofhifl teaching 
 soon extended itself, as he undoubtedly purposed that it should 
 
 ■ The remainder of this Chapter is taken verbatim f .in 
 
 to inv Edition of the Novum Organ***! § 1 L 
 
 < Thus, he Bays of himself (DtAugm. it. 1 id toil 
 buccinator teuton)," && 
 
 * "I have only taken apon metering ■ bell to Oil] otbei 
 Letter to Dr. Playfer, printed in Spedding'i Letter* m 
 p. 301. 
 
BACON. 
 
 do, to the facts of mind, conduct, and society. The inductive 
 study of Mental, Moral, and Political Philosophy, which has 
 been the distinctive characteristic of the best English thought 
 from the end of the seventeenth century onwards, is, it seems 
 to me, no less really, though I grant it is less obviously, a 
 result of the Baconian teaching than the inductive study of 
 Natural Philosophy. 
 
 4th, In order to set men free to study facts, it was necessary 
 to deliver them from the pernicious subjection to authority, to 
 which they had so long been enslaved. Here and there 
 throughout the Middle Ages, a solitary thinker, like Roger 
 Bacon, may have asserted his independence, and, during the 
 century preceding Bacon's time, the murmurs of discontent 
 had been becoming loud and frequent, but it required a clear, 
 shrill voice, like that of the author of the Great Instauration, 
 effectually to awaken men from their slumber. Bacon seems 
 to have been thoroughly impressed with the feeling that there 
 was no hope for human fortunes, unless these bonds could be 
 broken ; and hence the tone of intended and conscious exag- 
 geration with which he often sets about this task, as is espe- 
 cially the case in the Temporis Partus Masculus and some parts 
 of the Novum Organum. Nor can I doubt that his utterances on 
 this subject had far more influence in producing the intellectual 
 revolution which followed than the utterances of any one of 
 his predecessors, or, perhaps, than those of all taken together. 
 It would hardly, I think, be an exaggeration to compare Bacon, 
 in the intellectual sphere, with Luther, in the sphere of reli- 
 gion. And, in truth, there was much in common between the 
 two men. Both of them were intensely impressed with the 
 importance and reality of their mission ; both of them were 
 grimly in earnest ; both of them spurned all obstacles in exist- 
 ing opinion, and even exaggerated the differences between 
 themselves and their opponents ; and, lastly, each of them re- 
 
INFLUENCE ON PHILOSOPHY & SCIEN 
 
 tamed, far more than he suspected, the habits of thought, the 
 more deeply engrained prejudices, and even the more mis! 
 ing forms of expression of his time. Each of them, in fact, 
 sowed the seed, without knowing altogether clearly what 
 
 manner of fruit it was likely to bring forth. 
 
 5th, Hardly less important than deliverance from the bond- 
 age of authority was the emancipation of reason from the 
 bewitching enchantments of imagination. * * uon 
 
 fingo " was a maxim which Newton inherited directly from 
 
 the teaching 1 of Bacon. And, though the reaction against 
 hypothesis was carried much too far, and though Ba 
 utterances on this subject, to be serviceable at the pn 
 time, require much rectification, the warning was one which, 
 in his own time, was sorely needed, and which could hardly be 
 expressed in language too emphatic. Where; authority was 
 wanting, as if by way of revenge, men seemed to put no limit 
 to the wildness of their fancies or the extravagance of their 
 suppositions. Now, as against both authority and hypothesis. 
 Bacon invoked the majesty of facts. The office of Reason, he 
 was, in effect, constantly saying, ought not to be limited to an 
 examination of the conclusions and their dependence on the 
 premisses; what it ought to insist on doing, is 1" examine the 
 premisses themselves. What is required is a new I 
 Logic of Induction, which shall do for the premisses what the 
 old Logic, the Logic of Deduction, does for the conclusions. 
 It is not enough that the conclusion follows from the pre- 
 misses ; what we require to know is whether the prem 
 themselves be true, and, unless we can succeed in - 
 this want, we may simply be multiplying error instead ol 
 advancing truth. Had this been the only leSSOU which B 
 
 read to his generation, he would, assuredly, have deserved to be 
 reckoned amongst the greatest of its benefacl 
 
 6th, But to this Logic of Induction 1 maintain that he 
 
200 BA CON. 
 
 himself made no contemptible contributions. That our in- 
 stances require to be selected and not merely accumulated, was 
 a very true and a very needful lesson which he was never 
 weary of repeating. And, surely, in this maxim consists the 
 whole gist of the Inductive Logic. On what principles we 
 shall select our instances, and by what means we shall satisfy 
 ourselves of their sufficiency, are other and further questions, 
 confessedly most difficult to answer, on which we could hardly 
 expect much detailed or permanently useful information from 
 a pioneer in this method of inquiry. And yet Bacon is very 
 full on at least the first of these questions, and much of what 
 he says has, even still, a value for the student. But we are 
 here concerned, we must recollect, not with the present value 
 of his works, but with their past influence. Now, to the 
 amount of that influence, with respect to the subject before us, 
 what better testimony can we have than the repetition of these 
 rules in the next generation by so eminent a man of science as 
 Dr. Robert Hooke, or the appropriation, emendation, and for- 
 mulation of them, as the bases of their own methods, almost 
 within our own time, by Sir John Herschel and Mr. Mill ? 
 Nor is it an unimportant consideration that such phrases as 
 " glaring instance," " crucial instance," " clandestine instance," 
 " solitary instance," and the like, have become household 
 words in our language, and especially in the vocabulary of 
 scientific men. 
 
 7th, The manner in which he insisted on the subordination 
 of scientific inquiries to practical aims, the furtherance of man's 
 estate and the increase of his command over the comforts and 
 conveniences of life, is another point in which, I think, Bacon 
 profoundly influenced succeeding generations. That his view 
 was too exclusive, and his language exaggerated, I readily 
 own ; but here again, as in criticising the abuse of authority 
 and imagination, I think it difficult to deny that his influence 
 
INFLUENCE ON PHILOSOPHY & SCIENCE. 201 
 
 was, on the whole, most beneficial. When we recollect the 
 
 frivolous character of many of the questions which nun of the 
 most brilliant abilities were then in the habit of disputing, and 
 the profound misery or discomfort in which the mass of man- 
 kind, then even more than now, was sunk, we can hardlj 
 surprise or regret that a great statesman and a greal phil 
 pher should have sug-gested the application of man's intellectual 
 endowments to the improvement of his material condition. 
 
 8th, Nor must we forget the hopefulness of Bacon as an 
 important element in his influence. Men who despair of 
 mankind and of the future are, happily, seldom successful in 
 persuading others to accept their advice or their systems. 
 There is a healthy instinct in man which leads him to believe 
 that the future will be better than the past, and that the 
 labours of the present generation will not be without their 
 effect in improving the condition of the next. No man was 
 ever inspired with this feeling more strongly than Bacon. Iff 
 stood, like a prophet, on the verge of the promised land, bid- 
 ding- men leave, without regret, the desert that was behind 
 them, and enter with joyfulness and hopefulness on the rich 
 inheritance that was spread out before them. The sixth part 
 of the Great, Instawalion, to which all theresl was subservient* 
 the philosophy itself which was to be the result of the right 
 employment of the method, be hoped only t<> begin. "The 
 fortune of the human race," he says, "will give the issue j — 
 such an issue, it may be, as in the present condition oftl 
 and of the minds of men cannot easily be conceived or ima- 
 gined. For the object in view is not only the contempts 
 happiness, but the whole fortunes, and aiiairs, and powers, and 
 works of men." ° 
 
 9th, To all these sources of influence we must add the 
 marvellous language in which Bacon often clothes his though tB. 
 
 8 Distrihutio Opens, ad fin. 
 
 p 
 
202 BACON. 
 
 His utterances are not infrequently marked with a grandeur 
 and solemnity of tone, a majesty of diction, which renders it 
 impossible to forget, and difficult even to criticise them. He 
 speaks as one having authority, and it is impossible to resist 
 the magic of his voice. Whenever he wishes to be emphatic, 
 there is the true ring of genius about all that he says. Hence, 
 perhaps, it is that there is no author, unless it be Shakspeare, 
 who is so easily remembered or so frequently quoted. His 
 phraseology, when most quaint, as in the case of the " Idols " 
 and the " Instances," is often most attractive to the reader and 
 most persistent in its hold on the memory. Hence, too, 
 perhaps, it is that there is no author so stimulating. Bacon 
 mig-htwell be called the British Socrates. Even had his in- 
 dividual precepts been utterly worthless, many men must have 
 owed their first impulse to the study of nature, or to indepen- 
 dent investigation in general, to the terse and burning words, 
 issuing, as it were, from the lips of an irresistible commander, 
 with which he urges them to the work. 
 
 Such, I conceive, are the principal modes and directions in 
 which the influence of Bacon was exercised. It would be easy 
 to add to these, but they will readily suggest others, and the 
 limits of this work necessarily compel me to aim at brevity 
 rather than expansion. 
 
 THE END, 
 
!!, 
 
 II