Bacons Essays a blend of

philosophizing, moralizing and

worldly wisdom
1
Introduction: I have taken all knowledge for my province says Bacon and Beyond any other
book of the same size in any literature they are loaded with ripest wisdom of experience.
Says Hudsonregarding Bacons essays. No body can deny the wisdom of Bacon of his understanding of
the affairs of the world.
He shows an extraordinary insight regarding the problems that men face in life. But his wisdom is
only practical and not moral. Alexander Pope has given the following remarks about Bacon in his
epic:

If parts allure these think how Bacon shind

The wisest, brightest and meanest of mankind

There is some basic truth in this contention. One cannot deny his wisdom, his observation, intellect
and genius. Bacon was a very complex and enigmatic character. The dichotomy of moral values what
one finds in his essays was to be found in his character, too. Compton-Rickett says, He had a great
brain, not a great soul. He wanted to serve humanity with through the expansion of usable
knowledge. He was aware that no headway could be made in this world without adopting certain
mean ways. He was a product of the Renaissance with composite qualities such as wisdom,
meanness and brightness. Bacon was a man of the Renaissance and that was an age which
tried to explore to the full, the opportunities of mind and body afforded to man. The term,
Renaissance means Re-birth or more generally the Revival of Learning. It was a series of
events by which Europe passed from Medieval to a Modern Civilization. In this age, there was a
new spirit of inquiry, of criticism and of passionate scientific inventions. Literature of that
age was chiefly marked by this spirit and Bacons essays have several features that show the
spirit of Renaissance. A very important writer of the Italian Renaissance was Machiavelli whose
opportunistic philosophy sacrificed high ethical ideals in the interest of achieving material
progress. Man is an individual and an end in himself and this sense of individualism gave rise to
the feeling that he must know how to get on in this world. The revival of classical learning and the
study of ancient Greek and Roman Literature and history was a hallmark of the Renaissance.
The spirit of learning is very much in the essays of Bacon. There are many allusions to ancient
history and the references to classical mythology are all evidence of the typical Renaissance
culture. Latin writers such as Seneca and Virgil and Lucian have frequently been drawn. His love
of learning is portrayed in his essay Of Studies and he substantiates his arguments in his
essay, Of Friendship with instances from history. Blake on reading the essays of Bacon is supposed to
have remarked that they were good advice for Satans Kingdom. Now, a Satans Kingdom
naturally implies a state of affairs in which morality has no place or in which actions are
governed by a complete lack of principles. To some extent, it is indeed undeniable that Bacons
advice incorporates a certain cool disregard for high moral ideals. The actual fact is that in
Bacons essays, one find dichotomy of values, the essays present a strange complexity and
contradiction of wisdom and values. In order to understand the real meaning of his essays, it is
imperative to understand the underlying purpose of his writing. Man was the subject of
most literature and man is the subject of Bacons essays too. Thus the wisdom
that Bacon shows in his essays is regulated by the practical consideration. It is frankly utilitarian.
This does not mean that the essays dont contain ethical or philosophical values, they do,
but the overall hallmark of his essays is practical use.
Wisdom, Meanness and Brightness: To a religious-minded man like Blake, advice such as what
Bacon offers in his essays must indeed have been shocking. Blake would regard any utilitarian advice
as opposite to Gods ways, but Bacon was not so particular, for he a man of the Renaissance. It is easy
to assume that Bacons wisdom was cynical because many of his advice calmly ignores ethical
standards and seems to imply that nothing succeeds like success. Bacon is utilitarian, but he is so
because he realized that the vast majority of the people in the world are guided by this attitude and
success for them has only one meaning the material success. His essays reflect the profound
wisdom of his mind, his brightness is ascertained by his vast knowledge and literary and classical
allusions made in his works, his meanness does not deal with his money. He was reputed to be a very
generous man. He was mean because he showed a surprising lack of principle in promoting his selfish
interests.
Philosopher cum moralist: At least two of his essays present him as entertaining deep regard
for high sentiments and the sanctity of truth. Of Truth speaks of truth, love and fair dealings in high
terms. Here he is a philosopher who advocates the pursuit of truth. He is also a moralist when he says
that mans mind should turn upon the poles of truth. Falsehood debases man despite his material
gains and success. Bacon advocates man to follow a path of truth and truthfulness. Similarly, his essay
Of Goodness and Goodness of Nature is on a purely moral plane. He counsels goodness, charity and
benevolence and there is a clear condemnation of evil. There are some essays in which he puts a
number of moral precepts, not ignoring prudential aspects. When we come to Bacons essays dealing
with subjects such as love, marriage, family life and parents and children, we are struck by the cold
and unemotional treatment of topics what could easily admit an emotional approach. Prudence
governs marriage, love and friendship. Love is an emotion, not fit for life according to Bacon. As a
philosopher, he takes a balanced view of every thing, weighs the pros and cons of every issue, presents
different aspects of the picture and counsels moderation. This is a rationalists approach and it
preludes emotion and feeling. The essays are a handbook of practical wisdom. Each essay is a
collection of suggestion and guideline for a man of action. His essays lack coherence and logical
sequence, otherwise a quality in a standard essay. But his essays are unity of ideas.
Conclusion: But it has to be pointed out that Bacon is not a moral idealist. He does not preach
morality, but not ideal morality. The kind of morality he teaches is tinged with what is called
worldliness. We might even say that the guiding principle is expediency. Yet one cannot say that
Bacon is amoral or immoral in his advice. In every issue, he balances the advantage and disadvantage.
Even within the utilitarian code, there is a code of conduct a morality that is perhaps as high as is
easily practicable in the world as we know it. His essays embody the wisdom and philosophy and
morality of a clear-eyed realist who knows quite well that men should be and but also knew what they
actually were. Bacon is undoubtedly a man whose morality is greater than the average mans, but it is
not of the highest order. The pursuit of good and right are important but not if it proves too costly in
worldly terms. His advice is neither for Satans Kingdom nor for Gods, but for the Kingdom of man.

>What ideas do you form Bacons

learning and scholarship and
political views after your study of
his essays? (P.U 2005) OR
Bacons pragmatism and worldly
wisdom temper his philosophy
throughout. Elaborate.
(P.U 2003)
>

There is no doubt that the essays of Bacon are a treasure-house of what is called worldly wisdom.
Worldly wisdom means the kind of wisdom that is necessary for achieving worldly success. Worldly
wisdom does not imply any deep philosophy or any ideal morality. It simply means the art or the
technique that a man should employ to achieve success in his life. It therefore implies .shrewdness,
sagacity, tact, foresight, judgment of character and so on. Bacons essays are replete with wisdom of
this kind.

He teaches us the art of how to get on in this world, how to become rich and prosperous, how to rise to
high positions, how to exercise ones authority and power so as to attain good results, how to gain
influence, etc. It is true that Bacon is a philosopher and a moralist, but it has rightly been pointed out
by critics that, in his essays as in his own career, he treated philosophy and morality as being
subordinate to worldly success. It is for this reason that the wisdom of his essays is of a somewhat
cynical kind. It is significant that he described this essays as Counsels, civil and moral, which means
that he intended his essays to provide such guidance to his readers as could help them in attaining
success in civil life while at the same time observing certain basic moral laws.
Bacon is clearly seen in his essays both as a philosopher and as a moralist. A philosopher is,
broadly speaking, a person who is deeply interested in the pursuit of truth, while a moralist is a person
who teaches human beings the distinction between what is right and what is wrong and urges them to
tread the right path only. Bacon appears in this dual role in many of the essays that he has written. In
the essay, Of Truth, Bacon says that truth is the supreme good for human beings. He describes the
inquiry of truth as the wooing of it, the knowledge of truth as the presence of it, and the belief of truth
as the enjoying of it. Making an obvious reference to the Bible, Bacon says that the first thing created
by God was light and the final thing created by Him was the rational faculty which He bestowed upon
man. First God breathed light upon matter or chaos; then He breathed light into the face of man; and
afterwards He has always been breathing light into the faces of those whom He chooses for His special
favour. Bacon quotes Lucretius who said that the greatest pleasure for a man was the realization of
truth and that, standing upon the vantage ground of truth, a man could survey the errors, falsehoods,
and follies prevailing in the world. All these, we might say, are the observations of a philosopher-cum-
moralist. Bacons object in writing this essay is manifestly to instill into the minds of his readers a love
of truth. A mans mind, says he, should turn upon the poles of truth. Falsehood brings nothing but
disgrace. Quoting Montaigne, he says that, in telling a lie, a man is brave towards God but a toward
towards his fellow-men. He warns human beings against the punishment which will descend upon
them on the doomsday for the falsehoods which they indulge in or practice.
The essay, Of Great Place, contains a large number of moral precepts but these moral precepts,
be it noted, are synonymous with worldly wisdom. In seeking power, says Bacon, a man loses his
liberty. Men in high positions, he observes rightly, derive much of their happiness only from hearing
that other people envy them for the positions they are holding. Like a true moralist, he writes: In
place there is licence to do good and evil, whereof the latter is a curse; for in evil, the best condition is
not to well, the second not. The whole purpose of a mans efforts should, according to Bacon, be
meritorious works. Noble performance, he points out, raises a man almost to the status of God. Bacon
also warns men of authority against the vices which are likely to beset them. There is plenty of worldly
wisdom in the guidelines of conduct which he lays down for men in high positions. No man in a high
position will come a cropper if he follows the advice offered by Bacon. But Bacon teaches no moral
idealism and no ideal morality. In fact he is willing to come to terms with morality for the sake of
worldly success. For instance, he clearly admits that a man may have to adopt objectionable methods
in order to attain a position of high authority. He also approves of a mans joining a group or a faction
in order to enhance his worldly prospects though he suggests that, after a man has achieved the
desired end, he should become neutral. This is how he writes in this connection. All rising to great
place is by a winding stair; and if there be factions, it is good to side a mans self whilst he is in the
rising, and to balance himself when he is placed. Even when Bacon urges a high official not to speak
ill of his predecessor, he does so not in the interests of high morality but because there will be
unpleasant consequences for the man who does not follow this advice. In other words, Bacon tries to
bring about a compromise between morality and the demands of worldly success.
The essay, Of Friendship, is the work of a pure utilitarian. Bacon does not speak of friendship in
terms of an emotional bond intimately linking two persons. He makes a purely worldly approach to
the subject. He gives us the uses of friendship. A friend enables us to give an outlet to our
suppressed discontents. A friend clarifies our understanding. The advice given by a friend is most
reliable. A friend can speak or act on our behalf in situations in which we ourselves cannot speak or
act. There is no idealism involved in all this. Bacon seems to suggest that we need friends only for our
worldly happiness and worldly good. To put it more bluntly, he regards pure selfishness as the basis of
friendship. This is an essay that clearly shows that Bacons wisdom is of a cynical kind, and that his
morality is determined by purely utilitarian considerations. He does not speak of the emotional or
moral aspect of friendship at all.
Bacon makes a utilitarian approach even to studies. In his essay on this subject he speaks of the
pleasure of studying only to forget it. Nor does he emphasise learning for its own sake. He wants
studies to be supplemented by practical experience so that a man may make the best use of both to
attain worldly success. Wise men, according to him, are those who put their studies to practical use.
He even recommends the study of books by deputy and extracts being made of books by others,
though he recommends this practice in the case of only the meaner books. He also points out that
different branches of study have different effects on the human mind and speaks of curing different
mental defects by means of an appropriate choice of studies. Bacon here becomes almost ridiculous by
his reducing the whole thing to a scientific formula as if a man whose wits are wandering could really
achieve powers of concentration by being made to study really achieve powers of concentration by
being made to study mathematics. Bacon forgets that everybody does not have an . aptitude for
mathematics or for any other particular branch of study. But it is Bacon the man of the world who
speaks here, not the true scholar that he really was. He allows his scholarship and his philosophy to be
pushed into the background by his worldly enthusiasm.
In the essay, Of Marriage and Single Life, Bacons wisdom, again, is not of the profound or
philosophical variety; it is worldly wisdom, and much of this wisdom is cynical. The very opening
sentence of this essay is cynical because Bacon here expresses the view that a married man with
children cannot undertake great enterprises: He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to
fortune. And he goes on to say, what is certainly not true, that the best works and of greatest merit
for the public have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men. As in the case of friendship,
Bacon forgets the emotional element, and in this case also the passionate element which generally
enters into marriage. What could be more utilitarian than the remark that a wife is a mistress when
the husband is young, that she is a companion when he enters middle age, and that she is a nurse
when he grows old? He wants soldiers to be married because then they will fight better! He thinks that
by getting married a dishonest judge will become honest!
However, it is the essay, Of Suitors that completely exposes Bacon. He certainly indulges in a lot
of moralising here. For instance, he disapproves of person who undertake suits without any real
intention to have them granted; he disapproves of a man giving false hopes to a petitioner whose suit
he has undertaken; and so on. But he comes to terms with morality when he suggests that if a patron
wants to favour the undeserving of the two parties in a legal case, he should bring about a compromise
between the two parties instead of pronouncing the judgment in favour of the deserving person. Bacon
here does not categorically reject, the case of the undeserving person; on the contrary, he wants the
undeserving person to be accommodated. Again, he goes on to say that if a patron wants to appoint a
less deserving candidate to a post, he should do so without passing adverse remarks against the
character of the more deserving applicant. Here is a great moralist willingly condoning a patrons
action in appointing a less deserving candidate to a post which lies in his patronage!

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The great man whose memory we are honouring today was so universal a genius,
his speculative and practical activities were so various, that we must be content
either with a superficial glance at his achievements as a whole or with the
contemplation, at the risk of one-sidedness, of a single aspect of his work. Faced
with these unsatisfactory alternatives I choose the second. Others, better fitted than
I, must appraise Bacon's merits as lawyer, statesman, and stylist; I shall consider
only his claims to be the Father of Inductive Philosophy. It is fitting that Bacon
should be viewed in that light in this country and this University. Inductive Logic
is almost wholly the work of Englishmen, and in the short list of great Englishmen
who have contributed to this branch of philosophy Cambridge is proud to number
Bacon, Whewell, and Venn in the past, and Mr Johnson and Mr Keynes in the
present. Even the restricted subject which I have chosen is of vast extent, so
without further preface I will enter on it.

Bacon's grounds for dissatisfaction with the past and present state of human
knowledge and his hopes for the future were stated in many forms; but they reduce
in essence to the following. Our present Natural Philosophy amounts to very little.
It consists of portions of Greek philosophy tricked out in various ways, so that the
apparent plenty is like a number of dishes made of the same meat disguised with
different sauces. Nor does it include the whole even of Greek philosophy; for
Aristotle, like the Turk, would brook no rivals near his throne, and the Barbarian
invasions extinguished what he and his followers had failed to suppress. The
current philosophy, derived from Aristotle, is difficult to criticism partly because its
technical terms and fundamental concepts have passed into theology, law, and
common discourse; and partly because its premises and modes of reasoning are
questionable, so that there is no common basis for argument. But we can at least
point out certain facts which are very ill omens of its truth or usefulness. The
Greeks were the Peter Pans of the ancient worlds and their philosophy has the
boyish characteristics of being "apt to chatter and unable to generate." It started at
a time when there was little knowledge of geography or history compared with that
which we now possess. Plato and Aristotle, though men of the highest intellectual
power, could not make bricks without straw; their method of teaching, which
involved a school, an audience, sod a sect, was singularly unfavourable to
disinterested observation of Nature or free speculation on observed facts. The
triumph of Aristotle's philosophy over its rival is not to be ascribed to its intrinsic
superiority. In philosophical matters general consent is of ill omen, for a popular
philosophy is usually one which indulges human laziness by using loose superficial
notions and by substituting an appeal to a few high-sounding generalities for the
patient investigation of details. Two of the worst signs of the current philosophy
are that it does not progress and that it does not lead to practical results. It stands
still and wrangles about old questions instead of settling them and passing on to
new ones. And in practical affairs we owe more to the sagacity of animals and the
blind instincts of ignorant men than to all the theories of Natural Philosophy. The
mechanical arts do slowly progress through the growth of technical skill and the
co-operation of many hands. But Philosophy is like the statues of the gods "which
are worshipped and celebrated but cannot move." The very perfection of systematic
form which the traditional philosophy has acquired is a defect, for it diverts men's
minds from the narrowness of its foundations and the flimsiness of its
superstructure. Indeed the exponents of this philosophy admit its barrenness by
their constant complaints about the obscurity and subtlety of Nature and the
weakness of the human mind. This appearance of modesty cloaks the pride which
assumes that what cannot be known by their methods cannot be known at all. And
so progress is hampered equally by an unwarranted satisfaction with what has been
done and by an unwarranted despair of accomplishing what remains to do.

If we now consider the empiricists, e.g., the alchemists and the magicians, we
find the opposite defects. Each has laboriously tilled a very narrow field of
phenomena, using no scientific method of culture, and snatching greedily at
immediate practical results. Although they have by chance discovered some useful
facts, they have failed both as theorists and as practicians. Their philosophical
theories are crazy attempts to interpret the whole of Nature in terms of the small
fragment of it with which each happens to be familiar. Nature can never be
controlled except on the basis of a wide and deep knowledge of its inner structure
and fundamental laws, and this can be won only by disinterested scientific
investigation. Though no one has asserted more strongly than Bacon that ability to
produce practical results is the ultimate test of scientific theories and the ultimate
end of scientific research, no one has protested more vigorously against a narrow
and short-sighted pragmatism. He compares it to the golden apple of Atlanta which
diverted the runners from their course. And he compares those who arc obsessed by
it to harvesters who cannot wait till the crop has grown up, but trample on the
young shoots in order to mow down moss.

If the old methods are still to be used the prospect is dark indeed. Our
intellectual powers are no greater than those of the ancients; our only advantage
over them is in the additional experience which has accumulated in two thousand
years. And we cannot be more diligent than the alchemists and magicians who
devoted their lives to the furnace and the crucible. Our only hope is to devise a new
method which shall be to the mind as rulers and compasses are to the hand. The
mere rationalists are like spiders who spin wonderful but flimsy webs out of their
own bodies; the mere empiricists are like ants who collect raw materials without
selection and store them up without modification. True and fruitful science must
combine rationalism with empiricism, and be like the bee who gathers materials
from every flower and then works them up by her own activities into honey. This
marriage between rationalism and empiricism, and this discovery of a new method,
are the tasks which Bacon set before himself. The times are peculiarly favourable,
and he feels that he has the necessary qualifications. He will bring about the Great
Instauration and will show men how to win back that dominion over Nature which
was lost at the Fall.

Bacon has left us a detailed plan of the Great Instauration as he conceived it. It
was to consist of six parts. The first was to be a complete encyclopaedia of the
existing sciences, classified according to general principles which would make the
gaps obvious. These gaps were not merely to be indicated. In each case suggestions
were to be made as to the nature of the missing science and the best way of
building it up. This portion of the plan is adequately fulfilled by the De Augmentis.
The second part was to contain the principles of the new Art of Interpreting Nature,
which is to put all human minds on a level and to provide them with an infallible
mechanism for the discovery and invention, not of new arguments, but of new arts
and sciences. Bacon's latest exposition of this is found in the Novum Organum. But
it is admittedly incomplete in vitally important respects. This incompleteness it
shares with the treatises on scientific method of Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz,
all of which start with the same magnificent pretensions and end like noble rivers
which never reach the sea but lose themselves in the sands of the desert. Bacon
constantly said that he would return to the subject and that he knew how to
complete it; but, in view of the failure of all similar attempts and the intractable
nature of the problem, we may venture to believe that he was mistaken. The third
part was to consist of a collection of particular data of experiment and observation
specially chosen and arranged in accordance with principles laid down in Part II so
as to form the empirical basis of Natural Philosophy. It is extremely fragmentary,
consisting of three natural histories, prefaces to three others, a general preface, and
the curious rag-bag of facts and fables called Sylva Sylvarum. Part IV, called
the Ladder of the Intellect, was to consist of a number of fully worked-out
examples of the application of the method. They were to be so chosen that the
subject-matter of each should be intrinsically important, and that between them
they should illustrate the use of the method in very varied media. Of this nothing is
extant but a short preface. It is important to remember that we have no complete
example of Bacon's method. The fifth part was to be called the Forerunners, or
Anticipations of the New Philosophy. It was to contain interesting generalisations
which Bacon had reached from his Natural History without using his special
method of interpretation. These results are not guaranteed, and their importance is
only temporary. The preface to this part exists; and it may reasonably be held that
the admittedly imperfect investigation of the nature of heat which occupies so large
a space in the Second Book of the Novum Organum is a sample of what Bacon
meant to include in Part V. The sixth part was to be called The New Philosophy or
Active Science. It was to consist of the complete science of Nature, theoretical and
practical, firmly built on the facts of Part III by the methods of Part II. The preface
is extant, but the work is naturally left to posterity. Taking the Great Instauration as
a whole, we may compare Part II to a factory full of ingenious machinery, Part III
to a storehouse of selected materials for this machinery to work upon, Part IV to a
show-room in which typical samples of the finished products are exposed to public
view, and Part VI to a warehouse in which all the finished products are to be
stored. Part V is a collection of goods made by inferior methods or only half
finished, but useful enough for many purposes. Part I is a list in which the directors
have noted what goods the public already have and what further needs remain as
yet unrecognised or unsatisfied. Unfortunately the machinery is incomplete; and
the engineer, instead of drawing the plans for completing it, has to spend his time
in collecting raw materials and in penning eloquent prospectuses.

We will now consider Bacon's classification of actual and possible human

knowledge. The first division is made by reference to the source from which the
materials of knowledge flow into the mind. They may come either from the direct
action of the Creator on his creatures, or from the action of the created world
including ourselves. Thus human knowledge is first dichotomised into that which
is acquired supernaturally and that which is acquired naturally. Each of these great
divisions is then trichotomised on a psychological principle, viz., with reference to
the cognitive faculty which the mind mainly uses in the work of knowing. Bacon
recognises three such faculties, viz., Memory (which for the present purpose
includes Sense-perception), Imagination, and Reason. Memory and Imagination
are concerned with particular things, events, and facts; Reason with general
concepts, facts, and laws. Memory deals with real particulars and Imagination with
feigned particulars. Thus human knowledge, whether of natural or of supernatural
origin, is divided into History, Poesy, and Philosophy (or Science).

Before considering further subdivisions we must explain Bacon's views about

supernaturally acquired knowledge; we shall then be able to confine ourselves to
the knowledge which originates naturally. According to Bacon there are three
subjects which need for their complete treatment data that spring from a
supernatural source. These are Theology, Ethics, and Psychology. Each of these
sciences can, however, be carried to a certain length without appeal to revelation.
Each of them therefore divides into a natural and a revealed part. Theology is the
most fundamental of the three, since the parts of Ethics and of Psychology which
depend on revelation are branches of Revealed Theology.

Bacon holds that the existence of teleology in Nature is an obvious fact, and
that the investigation of final causes is a perfectly legitimate branch of Natural
Philosophy. It has, however, been misplaced; for it belongs to the division of
Natural Philosophy which Bacon calls Metaphysics and not to that which he
calls Physics. Bacon's epigram that "the research into Final Causes, like a virgin
dedicated to God, is barren and produces nothing" has been taken by careless or
biased readers to be a condemnation of such research. It is nothing of the kind. It is
simply a statement of the obvious fact that there is no art of Applied Teleology as
there is an art of Applied Physics. Now Bacon holds that the existence and some of
the attributes of God can be established conclusively by reflexion on the teleology
of Nature. But this does not give determinate enough information about God to
form an adequate basis for religion. The further details must be supplied by God
himself in revelation. God, says Bacon, did not need to work miracles to convince
atheists but to convert heathens.

His view about Ethics is very similar. We have a partial and inadequate
knowledge of right and wrong by the light of Nature. But it does little more than
show us that certain types of action are wrong; it gives no very determinate
information about our positive duties. Divine revelation is needed to provide an
adequate basis for a detailed morality.

The division of Psychology into a natural and a revealed part follows a different
principle. There are not two Gods, one of whom is the subject of Natural and the
other of Revealed Theology. But in man there are two souls, the rational and the
animal. The former is immaterial, peculiar to man, and directly created by God at
the moment of conception. The latter is shared with animals; it is material, and due
to one's parents. It is described as "a corporeal substance, attenuated and made
invisible by heat," which resides mainly in the head, runs along the nerves, and is
refreshed by the arterial blood. It is in fact our old friend "the animal spirits" which
are as material as methylated spirits. In man the rational soul uses the animal soul
as its immediate instrument. Now the science of the rational soul, its origin, nature,
and destiny, must "be drawn from the same divine inspiration from which that
substance first proceeded." The science of the animal soul belongs to Natural
Philosophy. Bacon's theory of the animal soul owes much to Telesius, while his
sharp distinction between it and the rational soul is closely analogous to the theory
which Descartes worked out in greater detail a little later.

It remains to consider Bacon's views as to the relations of reason and revelation.

It is legitimate to exercise our reason on the data of revelation in two ways. In the
first place we may try to understand them. But we have no more ground for
expecting God's revealed nature to be agreeable to our reason than for expecting
his revealed commands to be agreeable to our wishes. On the whole Bacon thinks
that there is a strong presumption that the contents of divine revelation will be
repugnant to our reason; and that, the more preposterous God's revealed nature and
commands appear to be, the greater is our merit in believing in the former and
obeying the latter. The position which Bacon here adopts has been most forcibly
stated by Hobbes: "The doctrines of religion are like the pills prescribed by
physicians, which if swallowed whole do us good, but if chewed up make us sick."
The second legitimate use of reason in matters of revelation is the following. We
may take the revealed nature and commands of God as fixed, and to us arbitrary,
premises like the rules of chess. We may then use reasoning to deduce remote
consequences from them, just as we may use it in solving a chess-problem. Each
use of reason has its characteristic dangers. In trying to understand the contents of
divine revelation we may distort them by forcing them into the would of the human
intellect. And in drawing consequences from revealed truths we may ascribe to the
conclusions of our fallible reasoning that certainty which the premises derive from
their Divine Author.

It is evident then that religion and morality have little to hope and nothing to
fear from the advance of Natural Philosophy. Bacon has been acclaimed by the
French Encyclopaedists, and abused by Joseph de Maistre, as an esprit fort who
concealed his real atheism and materialism under a thin disguise of orthodoxy
which sufficed to deceive the Wisest Fool in Christendom. Neither acclamation nor
abuse is justified. It is evident that he was a sincere if unenthusiastic Christian of
that sensible school which regards the Church of England as a branch of the Civil
Service, and the Archbishop of Canterbury as the British Minister for Divine
Affairs. Having seen fanatical superstition in action, and knowing of atheism only
as a rare speculative doctrine, he naturally preferred the latter to the former.
Actively fanatical atheism was not yet a practical possibility. It was reserved for a
later age, which had reaped the fruits of the Great Instauration in poison-gas and
high-explosive shells, to witness the Barbarians of the East persecuting Christians
in the name of Darwin, whilst the Barbarians of the West persecuted Darwinians in
the name of Christ.

We can now deal with History, Poesy, and Philosophy, regarded henceforth as of
purely natural origin. History is divided into Natural and Civil, according to
whether it treats the particular facts of non-human Nature or the actions of men. As
we have seen, a complete and properly chosen Natural History was to form the
third part of the Great Instauration. The best account of what Bacon meant by such
a History is contained in the tract called Parasceve, which he published along with
the Novum Organum. He feels that some excuse is needed for publishing
something which is mainly concerned with Part III when Part II is admittedly
incomplete. His explanation is as follows. A complete Natural History will be an
immense work, needing the co-operation of many men for long periods. It will be
expensive, needing the help of royal, noble, and wealthy benefactors. It can,
however, be carried on by men without special training or eminent intellectual
qualifications, provided they are told what to look for, whereas Bacon himself and
he only can complete the second part of the Great Instauration. He can provide
others with the necessary methodological instructions without which the works of
would-be Natural Historians will be as futile as those of their predecessors. Finally,
Bacon says that the most perfect method of interpretation can accomplish nothing
without an adequate and accurate Natural History to work upon, whilst even the
existing methods of interpretation (bad as he believes them to be) could accomplish
a great deal were such a Natural History provided. So the Parasceve is published to
inspire the great to give their money and lend their authority, and to instruct plain
men who are willing to offer their services how to collect that complete Natural
History which is to restore to humanity its lost dominion over the material world.
In the meanwhile Bacon is to be left in peace to his proper task of completing the
method of Interpretation. Unfortunately the British Solomon, in partial
resemblance to his Jewish namesake, was too easily diverted from the austere
beauties of science by others of a less ideal kind. And the plain men cared more for
the eternal war of Church and Chapel than for winning the kingdom of Nature for
humanity. Like the deaf adder they stopped their ears; and the architect of the Great
Instauration was forced to dig his own clay and bake his own bricks.

The gist of Bacon's directions for forming a complete Natural History is as

follows. Nature may act either freely and normally, or freely but abnormally, or
under the deliberate constraint of man Corresponding to these three possibilities
there will be a History of the Normal, a History of Abnormalities and a History of
Experimental Results and Processes. Bacon rightly attaches very great importance
to abnormal variations from the ordinary course of Nature, though he recognises
that all reports about them must be severely scrutinised before being accepted. The
importance of abnormalities is twofold. They overthrow prejudices in favour of
received theories, and they suggest practical means of making new artificial
products. Bacon insists, and in this he is much ahead of his age, that there is no
essential difference between the natural and the artificial. Again, he continually
stresses the extreme importance of deliberate experiment as contrasted with mere
passive observation. Experiment "takes off the mask and veil from natural objects,"
and "the vexations of art are . . . as the bonds of Proteus which betray the ultimate
struggles and efforts of matter." In the History of the Normal we need not enter
into extremely minute varieties of species, as botanists and zoologists are wont to
do; but we must not be too proud to include what is homely and familiar or too
fastidious to record what is filthy and disgusting. The rays of the sun, says Bacon,
illuminate the sewer as well as the palace and take no corruption; and "if the
money obtained from Vespasian's tax smelled well, much more do light and
information from whatever source derived."

So much for the contents of the Natural History. The principle of selection is
that facts are to be chosen and recorded, not for their immediate use or intrinsic
interest, but simply for their aptness to give rise to important inductions. Bacon
gives some indication of the kind of facts which are likely to have this property in
the account of Prerogative Instances at the end of the Novum Organum.

Finally, Bacon gives the following directions for recording the data. There are
to be no controversies with other authors and no graces of style. The History is a
storehouse to be entered only as occasion requires, and not a dwelling-house or an
art-gallery. If the facts to be recorded are certain they are simply to be stated
without evidence. If they are doubtful and not very important the authority should
be mentioned for reference but no arguments should be given. If they are both
doubtful and important all information should be given about the authority which
bears on his value as a witness. Commonly accepted fictions should not be passed
over in silence. They should be explicitly mentioned and denied, and, if possible,
the causes of the illusion should be stated. All data that are capable of accurate
measurement should be measured, and where exact measures are impossible upper
and lower limits should be stated. All difficult experiments must be fully and
accurately described so that others may be able to criticise and repeat them. We
cannot expect that all the alleged facts which will at first be included in the Natural
History will be genuine. But so long as most of the observations are sound the
presence of a small number of mistakes will not be disastrous. For the large mass
of genuine facts will suffice to establish the general laws and structure of Nature,
and in their light the few mistakes will stand out clearly and can be corrected at
leisure. To sum up in Bacon's words: When we have this comprehensive Natural
History, and not till then, we shall "no longer be kept dancing in rings, like persons
bewitched, but our range and circuit will be as wide as the compass of the world."

I now leave History and pass to Philosophy, stopping for a moment by the way
at Poesy in order to indicate a curious crotchet of Bacon's. He held that the stories
of Greek mythology were deliberately composed to conceal from the vulgar and
reveal to the elect profound philosophical truths; and he wasted much time and
ingenuity in showing that some mute inglorious Newton has hidden the true
principles of Natural Philosophy in the story of Pan, and that some prehistoric
Clausewitz has embedded the rules of military strategy in that of Perseus and
Medusa.
 Bacon divides Philosophy according to its subject-matter into Natural Theology,
the Science of Non-human Nature, and the Science of Man. But he holds that
philosophy begins as an undivided stem which rises to some height before these
branches emerge. The undivided stem he calls First Philosophy or Wisdom. First
Philosophy consists of two parts, between which there seems to be very little
connexion. The first consists of those general principles which are common to
several different sciences. Bacon gives a number of examples, and among them the
principle that the quantum of Nature is neither increased nor diminished by any
natural process. He says that these common principles are not mere analogies but
are the common impress of the Creator on diverse materials, so that this part of
Philosophy displays the essential unity of Nature. It must be confessed, however,
that some of his examples rest on mere metaphors and that his collection of
common principles seems arbitrary and internally incoherent. The second part of
First Philosophy treats of what he calls the Adventitious Conditions of Essences.
From his examples it is clear that it was to ask and answer such questions as: "Why
does the world contain so much of some substances and so little of others?" "Why
is the arrangement of the stars and planets such as it is?" "Why is pentadic
symmetry so common among flowers and unknown among crystals?" Bacon fully
recognises that there is a point at which we reach ultimate principles and brute
facts, and he insists that a philosopher may show as great folly in professing to
explain the simple and the ultimate as in stopping short in his analysis of what is
complex and causally explicable. Nevertheless the kind of question which he
relegates to the second part of First Philosophy is obviously legitimate, though we
must eventually come to proportions and configurations which have simply to be
accepted as ultimate facts about the constitution of Nature.

Having already said what is necessary about Natural Theology we can now
consider the two remaining branches which spring from the common stem of First
Philosophy. The Science of Non-human Nature or Natural Philosophy is divided
into a theoretical part which seeks to explain given facts by discovering their
causes, and a correlated practical part which seeks to produce desired effects by
applying this knowledge of causes. Theoretical Natural Philosophy is subdivided
into Metaphysics and Physics. Metaphysics, in Bacon's sense, has two parts: the
study of Final Causes and that of Formal Causes. Physics is concerned with
Material and Efficient Causes. We have already seen that Bacon regards the study
of Final Causes as a legitimate enquiry which is the basis of Natural Theology but
gives rise to no practical art. The art which corresponds, not to Metaphysics as a
whole, but to the Metaphysics of Forms, is called by Bacon Natural Magic. The art
which corresponds to Physics is called Mechanics.

With the Metaphysics of Forms we have reached the inner sanctuary of Bacon's
philosophy, and we must pause awhile and make a careful inspection. Let us begin
by stating two propositions, one of which would be metaphysical and the other
physical. That heat consists of violent irregular molecular movement is a
proposition of Metaphysics. That mixing sulphuric acid with water generates heat
is a proposition of Physics. The particular substances, water and sulphuric acid, are
the material causes; the process of mating them is the efficient cause. The notions
of material and efficient cause, as used by Bacon, are thus perfectly clear. But what
does he mean by a formal cause? When we ask: "What is the formal cause of
heat?" we are asking, not directly how to produce heat, but what heat really is in
Nature apart from man and his sensations. "Heat itself," says Bacon, "its essence
and its quiddity, is Motion and nothing else, limited however by certain specific
differences." By the last phrase he means, e.g., that it is irregular and not periodic
motion, motion of molecules and not of electrons or of molar masses, and so on.
"Sensible heat," he says, "is a relative notion and has relation to man not to the
Universe. It is correctly defined as merely the effect of heat on the animal spirits."

In order to make Bacon's view quite clear and self-consistent we must draw a
threefold distinction which was certainly present to his mind but is never explicitly
stated by him. This is the distinction between sensible qualities, physical
properties, and metaphysical forms. The sensible quality of hotness is the
characteristic quality which is revealed to a human being in sensation when he
touches a hot body or is exposed to radiant heat. The metaphysical form of heat is
violent and irregular molecular movement. But when a plain man says that a
certain body is hot he does not necessarily mean that he or anyone else is receiving
a sensibly hot feeling from it, and he certainly is not thinking of molecular
movements. He means roughly that the body has the power to produce such a
feeling in anyone who should touch it, that it has the power of expanding the
mercury in a thermometer, and so on. This power, or faculty, or disposition is what
I mean by the physical property of hotness. Now Bacon asserts that the "form" of
any "nature," such as hotness, is always present when this nature is present and
always absent when this nature is absent. It is evident that this would be a
tautology if he identified the nature called hotness with the metaphysical form; and
it would be a glaring falsehood if he identified the nature called hotness with the
sensible quality. For the kind of movement which is the form of heat might be
present in a body and yet the sensible quality of hotness might be absent because
no sensitive organism was near enough to this body. I conclude then that, by a
"nature" such as heat, weight, colour, etc., Bacon must mean a physical property,
i.e., a power of producing certain kinds of effect under certain assignable
circumstances, and among these effects sensations with a certain characteristic
sensible quality in presence of a sensitive organism.

We come now to another important assertion which Bacon makes about forms.
The form of a given simple nature is not merely something which is always present
when the nature is present and absent when it is absent. The form must in addition
be "a limitation of some more general nature, as of a true and real genus." The
form of heat, e.g., is one species of motion, viz., the violent irregular motion of
molecules. The form of colour would be another species of motion, e.g., the
periodic variation of electro-magnetic forces. And the form of redness would be a
still more specific kind of motion, e.g., a periodic variation of such forces with its
frequency confined within a certain narrow range. This is a vitally important point,
for it marks the division between mediaeval and modern Natural Philosophy . A
mediaeval physicist would recognise a large number of different powers in bodies,
just as we do. But each of these powers would be for him a distinct and ultimate
faculty. In this respect modern psychology, with all its boasting, is in much the
same position as mediaeval physics. For us these various powers of matter reduce
to so many specific kinds of minute structure and movement. The whole progress
of modern physics depends on the clear recognition of this fundamental fact; and
the absence of any similar progress in psychology is due to our inability up to the
present to conceive the faculties of the mind in similar terms.

Closely connected with the point which we have just been discussing is the
principle which Mr Keynes calls that of Limited Variety. Mr Keynes rightly holds
that this was recognised by Bacon and that it is essential for the vindication of
inductive reasoning. Bacon is not indeed perfectly clear on this point. But there is
no doubt that he asserts at least two different forms of this principle. In the first
place, he definitely asserts that the same simple nature, e.g., heat, cannot be
reduced in some cases (e.g., in fires) to one form, and in other cases (e.g., in the
heavenly bodies or in dunghills) to another form. He thus definitely denies that
there can be a plurality of forms for a given simple nature. Secondly, Bacon says
that "the forms of simple natures, though few in number, yet in their
communications and co-ordinations make all this variety." It is clear that this is a
different sense of the Principle of Limited Variety from that which we have just
noticed. It needs, however, some further elucidation. Bacon has said that there is a
one-to-one correlation between simple natures and their forms; it follows directly
that there must be as many forms as there are simple natures. The explanation is, I
think, as follows. By "simple natures" Bacon evidently means generic physical
properties, such as colour, temperature, density, etc., in general. He does not
include their specific determinations or particular values, such as brick-red, a
temperature of 590 C., or a density of 2.73. Now the number of unanalysable
generic physical properties with which we are acquainted is quite small, though the
number of specific modifications of each is very great, if not infinite. We describe
any particular kind of substance, such as gold, and distinguish it from substances of
all other kinds, such as silver, by mentioning its generic physical properties and
stating the specific modification or value of each which is characteristic of the kind
of substance in question.

This being premised, the rather vague statement of Bacon which I have quoted
covers four distinct and vitally important cases of Limited Variety within the
material world.

1. That the material world is composed of various kinds of substance, such that
each kind can be distinguished from all the others by enumerating a
comparatively small number of specific properties characteristic of it. This
 small selection carries with it all the rest of the properties of the kind. E.g.,
gold can be completely distinguished from all other kinds of substance by
mentioning that it is yellow in white light, that its density is 19.26, and that
its melting point is 10620C. Anything that has these few specific properties
will have all the other specific properties of gold.
2. That the number of different kinds of material substance is comparatively
small, and that the apparent multiplicity of kinds arises from the various
proportions in which these few are mixed and compounded.
3. The various specific modifications of a single generic property, such as
colour, often differ from each other in such a way that we can immediately
recognise the differences but cannot reduce them to any one principle. E.g.,
we can immediately recognise the differences between red, blue, green, and
yellow; but each of these differences is ultimate and incomparable with the
others. Now, if the form of colour be a certain kind of periodic change, these
ultimate and incomparable differences between the specific colours reduce
in the form to the single numerical difference of frequency.
4. The various generic physical properties, such as colour, temperature, etc.,
are wholly incomparable with each other and cannot be regarded as species
of any one genus. But, if the form of colour be periodic motion of particles
of a certain order of magnitude, and the form of heat be violent irregular
motion of particles of a certain other order of magnitude, it is evident that
there is a generic unity among the forms which is lacking among the simple
natures themselves.

I do not suggest that Bacon dearly recognised and distinguished these four cases
of the second form of the Principle of Limited Variety. But I have little doubt that
he meant to assert them all. It is possible to adduce explicit statements for the
second and the fourth. In the fragment called Abecedarium Naturae he says: "The
nature of things is rich . . . in quantity of matter and variety of individuals; but so
limited in . . . species as even to appear scanty and destitute." And he constantly
asserts that the doctrine of forms introduces a hierarchical unity into Nature which
is otherwise lacking. He compares Nature to a pyramid, at the apex of which is
something which he calls the Summary Law of Nature, though he doubts whether
this is knowable to man. What is this but an expression of Bacon's personal
conviction that the forms of all simple natures are specific modifications of a single
generic form?

We now understand what Bacon meant by the Metaphysics of Forms. As he

recognises, it is something very different from what has ordinarily been called
Metaphysics. It is an empirical science, and is in fact what we should call the
Theoretical Physics of the Microscopic World. The contents of Metaphysics in the
traditional sense are distributed by Bacon between First Philosophy and Natural
Theology. Let us now consider the art of Natural Magic, which corresponds to the
Metaphysics of Forms. Any physical process which induces a certain nature on a
body must in fact do so by inducing the form of that nature. But so long as the
form is unknown any practical method of inducing this nature can be discovered
only by chance. It remains a mere isolated recipe which cannot be employed unless
certain very special materials and conditions be available. If a man knew merely
the rule that heat is produced by mixing sulphuric acid with water he could never
produce heat except on the rare occasions when he had these materials to hand. But
if he knew that violent molecular motion is the form of heat he would know
that any way of generating such motion will produce heat, and that nothing else
will do so. Thus a knowledge of forms enormously increases our practical control
over Nature; it frees us from the contingency and redundancy of rule-of-thumb
methods. When we understand exactly what is essential to our purpose we can
devise the simplest and most direct means and can avoid all that is irrelevant. In
this way, and in this way only, Bacon thought that we might eventually solve the
problem of the alchemists, viz., to transmute substances of one kind into
substances of another kind. The characteristic properties of mercury depend on a
certain complex form; those of gold on a certain other complex form. Now, if these
two different forms be different specific modifications of a single generic form or
be different mixtures of specific modifications of a few generic forms, we may
hope eventually to convert the form of mercury into that of gold and so to
transmute the one metal into the other.

The objects of the alchemists, says Bacon, are not absurd; what is absurd is their
theories and the means by which they hope to reach their ends. Now transmutation
would be the opus magnum of Natural Magic; but any case in which we produce
profound modifications in the properties of matter by deliberately using our
knowledge of the forms of simple natures would be an instance of Natural Magic.
Thus the Master of Trinity and the Cavendish Professor are profound
Metaphysicians in Bacon's sense, whilst the Mendelians who produce new strains
of wheat with desired qualities are eminent Natural Magicians. It must be
remarked, however, that Bacon sometimes confines the name "magical" to certain
types of physical process in which the material and efficient causes seem very
trivial compared with the effect. Examples would be the use of catalysts or
enzymes in quickening and improving the yield of chemical reactions, the breaking
of great masses by repeated small blows of suitable periodicity, and the
propagation of explosive waves in air which is full of inflammable dust.

Now Bacon holds that there is a branch of Physics which is very closely
connected with the Metaphysics of Forms and with Natural Magic. This he calls
the investigation of the Latent Processes and the Latent Structure of bodies. No
body is ever at rest both as a whole and in its parts; what appears as rest is merely a
balance of motions. The efficient and material causes which we recognise in daily
life are merely the outstanding and easily perceptible phases in processes which are
perfectly continuous and for the most part escape the senses. Every natural result
depends on factors which are too small to be perceived by the naked eye, and no
one need hope to govern Nature if he confines his attention to macroscopic
phenomena. Bacon holds that our present knowledge of Latent Structure is very
imperfect, but that our knowledge of Latent Process is far more so. Until we
consider Nature in its dynamical as well as its statical aspect we shall neither
understand it theoretically nor control it practically. Bacon indeed refuses to call
himself an Atomist. But this is partly because he takes the word "atom" in a very
strict philosophical sense, and partly because he takes Atomism to include the
doctrine that the spaces between finite bodies are empty of all matter. But it is clear
that he accepted a molecular view of matter. Even in the curious tract Temporis
Partus Masculus, where he deliberately lashes himself into a passion against all
other philosophers, calls Plato a crack-brained theologian, and addresses Galen as
"O pestis, o canicula!" he consents to praise Democritus with faint damns. In many
other places he speaks very highly of Democritus, who of course enjoys the double
advantage over Aristotle that we know much less about him and that his admirers
never succeeded in making him a public nuisance.

The relation of the Metaphysics of Forms and Natural Magic, on the one hand,
to the research into Latent Structure and Latent Process, on the other, is as follows.
Even if we have an adequate knowledge of the form of a simple nature we shall not
be able to devise means of inducing it at will on a given body unless we know the
Latent Structure of this body and the Latent Processes involved. On the other hand,
a knowledge of Latent Structure and Latent Process will often extend our power of
inducing a required simple nature on a body even though we are ignorant of the
form of this nature.

I pass now to the third and last division of Philosophy, viz., the Science of
Human Nature. This is first divided according as it is concerned with Man as an
Individual or with Human Communities. Now the individual man is a composite of
soul and body. Hence the Science of Individual Man splits into three parts, one
concerned with Man as a composite whole, another with the Human Body, and a
third with the Human Soul. Now we can consider either the substance and faculties
of the human soul or the right uses and objects of these faculties. The science of
the former is Psychology; the latter constitute the subject of Logic, which deals
with the right use of our cognitive faculties, and of Ethics, which deals with that of
our conative faculties. Logic, in this wide sense, is the subject of Part II of the
Great Instauration. Logic falls into three great divisions. The human mind has both
positive faults and negative deficiencies. The first business of Logic is to correct
the former, and the second is to supplement the latter. When this is accomplished it
can proceed to its main task of supplying the mind with a positive method of
discovery. Thus Logic may be divided into a destructive, an auxiliary, and a
constructive part. We will now consider these in turn.

There are certain innate sources of error common to the human race. Bacon
calls these Idols of the Tribe. The most important of them are the following. Men
tend to impose certain human ideas of order, fitness, and simplicity on external
Nature. They tend to notice facts which support their existing beliefs and to ignore
or pervert those which conflict with them. The last thing that they think of doing is
deliberately to seek for exceptions so as to try their beliefs as by fire. The human
intellect is at once lazy and restless. It still tries to explain and analyst when it has
reached what is ultimate and simple, and yet it is content to couch its explanations
in terms of what is gross enough for the unaided senses to perceive. It is "no dry
light," but is constantly affected by the will and the emotions. And, finally, lt is
given to reifying abstractions and to substantialising mere occurrents. Very closely
connected in their effects with Idols of the Tribe are those of the Market-Place.
These are the associations of current words and phrases which have crept
insensibly into the mind from infancy through our intercourse with our fellows.
Words and phrases represent the analyses of facts which were made by our remote
ancestors. Some of them are names for non-existent things or for inappropriate
concepts based on bad observations and false theories. They are thus crystallised
errors, all the more dangerous because we do not recognise that they embody
theories at all. Idols of the Cave are innate or acquired sources of error or bias
peculiar to individuals. It was, e.g., an Idol of the late Lord Kelvin's Cave to want
all physical theories to be capable of representation by mechanical models.
Naturally such Idols are too various to be classified. Bacon sums them up by
saying that "whatever one's mind seizes and dwells upon with peculiar satisfaction
is to be held in suspicion."

Bacon admits that the three kinds of Idol just mentioned cannot be altogether
eliminated. The best that Logic can do is to point them out to us and thus put us on
our guard against them. But there is a fourth kind of Idol which is set up in the
mind deliberately and wittingly after we have reached what are ironically termed
"years of discretion." This kind is called Idols of the Theatre. They consist of false
systems of Natural Philosophy, and arise through applying faulty methods of
reasoning to inadequate or badly selected and arranged data. Such Idols can be
eliminated, not by refuting the various false systems one by one, but by pointing
out the many signs which are unfavourable to the claims of all of them, by giving
directions for collecting and arranging an adequate Natural History, and by
substituting correct methods of reasoning for those now in use. We have already
seen how Bacon deals with the first and second of these tasks. The third leads us
from the purely destructive to the auxiliary and constructive parts of Logic. Bacon
sums up the destructive part by saying that a man can enter the Kingdom of Nature,
like the Kingdom of Heaven, only by becoming as a little child. By a "little child"
he means the ideal infant of Locke and Condillac, not the actual polymorphe
pervers of the Psychoanalysts. His "little child," as he well knows, is not born but
made by an elaborate process of mental polishing. Even when the first three Idols
have been smoothed away from the mind as far as may be, the writings of False
Philosophy remain on its surface. And here Bacon says definitely that the analogy
to a waxen tablet breaks down. In a tablet we should shave the old writing off the
surface before beginning to write anything new. But in the mind the traces of False
Philosophy can be erased only by deeply engraving the letters of True Philosophy.
 The auxiliary part of Logic consists of three Ministrations, one to the Senses,
another to the Memory, and a third to the Reason. The senses have two defects, one
positive and the other negative. The positive defect is that there is always a
subjective element in sensations; they represent things as they affect a particular
organism in a particular place and not simply as they are in Nature. The negative
defect is that the senses respond delicately only to a very narrow range of stimuli.
They overlook what is very small or distant or swift or slow or weak or intense.
Bacon holds that these negative defects can be largely overcome by the use of
instruments and by other devices which he discusses very acutely in the Novum
Organum under the name of Instances of the Lamp. The subjective element again
can be eliminated by judicious comparisons between one sense and another and
one percipient and another. The deliveries of the senses, when thus supplemented
and neutralised, are the solid and indispensable foundation of all scientific
knowledge. But Bacon adds the extremely important remark that in a well-devised
experiment the office of sensation is reduced to a minimum. "The senses," he says,
"decide touching the experiment only, and the experiment touching the point in
Nature and the thing itself."

The Ministration to the Memory consists of methods of recording observations

and tabulating them so that they shall be available when wanted. For this purpose
they must be classified from the very first. It is true that our first classifications will
be very largely erroneous. But "truth will emerge more quickly from error than
from confusion, and reason will more easily correct a false division than penetrate
a confused mass." We must continually return to our tables and correct and
reclassify our results as knowledge grows. It is difficult to draw a sharp line
between the Ministration to Reason and the constructive part of Logic, so I will
take them together. Reason may be used either for discovering plausible arguments
to persuade others or justify oneself, or in order to understand and master Nature.
For the former purpose the existing method of establishing wide generalizations
from superficial and unanalysed facts by simple enumeration and then deducing
consequences from them by syllogistic reasoning is admirably adapted. We may
therefore leave barristers, politicians, preachers, and newspaper-editors in happy
possession of so useful an instrument. But these methods are perfectly useless for a
serious study of Nature which aims at practical control. For this purpose three
fundamental changes are needed.

1. The data must be collected, arranged, and analysed according to the rules
laid down in the Parasceve by men whose minds have been purged of the
Idols and whose senses and memories have been corrected and
supplemented by the Ministrations already mentioned.
2. The order of procedure must be altered. We must not jump from particular
facts to sweeping generalities and then deduce propositions of medium
generality from these. The right process is a very gradual ascent from
particulars through middle principles to the highest laws and a very gradual
 descent from these to new middle principles and finally to new particulars.
At every stage of the upward process the generalisation is to cover the then
known facts and to extend a very little way beyond them, and this small
extension is to be tested by a fresh appeal to experience. Thus the ascending
and the descending process, like the movements of the angels on Jacob's
ladder, take place side by side; and the latter is the means of testing the
validity of the former. Bacon does, however, allow to the weaker brethren an
inferior method, viz., a direct passage from one experiment to another partly
analogous experiment. This he calls Instructed Experience. He enumerates
eight general methods of Instructed Experience, such as applying the old
process to new materials or, conversely, applying the same process a second
time to the products of its first application (as in redistillation), inverting one
of the agents (e.g., substituting cold for heat), and so on. And he makes
extremely judicious observations on the fallacies to be avoided. He
evidently holds that Instructed Experience is a useful preparation for the true
method, which he calls the Formula of Interpretation, but that only the latter
will lead to far-reaching discoveries and inventions.
3. We must substitute for induction by simple enumeration a method which
makes use of negative instances and arrives at truth by successive
elimination of false alternatives. Our ultimate aim is to discover the forms of
simple natures, But only God, and perhaps the angels, can have a direct
positive knowledge of forms; men must proceed by rejection and exclusion.
Now the form of a simple nature will always be present when the nature is
present, absent when it is absent, and varying when it varies. We must
therefore draw up comparative tables of cases in which the given nature is
present, of cases in which it is absent, and of cases in which its degree
varies. We shall then know that the form cannot be anything that is absent in
the first list or present in the second list or constant in the third list. By this
means we may gradually eliminate all other natures and be left with the
form which we are seeking.

It is evident that this is equivalent to Mill's Joint Method of Agreement and

Difference, supplemented by his Method of Concomitant Variations. Bacon, like
Mill, thought that results which are certain and not merely probable could be
reached in this way. But he was far more alive to the difficulties than Mill. We
cannot be sure that the natures which we take to be simple really are so. And we
have not at present any list of the simple natures in the Universe which is known to
be exhaustive. Until these defects have been rectified no certain results can be
reached, as Bacon clearly sees. Again, unless some means can be found for
abridging our Tables the work will be endless; for the Table of Absence will be a
mere hotch-potch of heterogeneous items. Bacon therefore enumerates nine "more
powerful aids for the use of the understanding," which he promises to supply. But
the promise is very imperfectly fulfilled. Only two of them are treated explicitly,
viz., the Theory of Prerogative Instances and the Rules for Preparing a Natural
History. The Theory of Prerogative Instances is designed to abridge our enquiries
by teaching us how to choose such instances that a few of them will suffice to
eliminate a very large number of suggested forms for the nature under
investigation. Bacon has lavished immense care and acuteness on this part of his
work, which is full of admirable detail. But we miss the promised Theory of
Prerogative Natures, which was to abridge enquiry still further by teaching us
which subjects to investigate first because they "hand on a torch to those that come
after" on account of their greater generality or certainty or use in practice. And
most of all we miss the promised Synopsis of all the Natures in the Universe,
without which it is evident that no method of successive elimination could ever
lead to results that are both positive and certain. It remains only to notice that
Bacon held that his method would need modification in detail according to the
subject-matter to which it was to be applied, that it would itself develop as more
things were discovered by its means, and that we may hope some day to apply it to
Psychology and Politics as well as to inanimate nature.

I have now outlined to the best of my ability the Baconian philosophy. To those
who know the state of scientific thought in Bacon's time and are capable of
estimating philosophical achievement this bare account of his doctrines will be
better praise than any studied panegyric. But we are here to bury Bacon as well as
to praise him; so I will end with a very brief estimate of what he did and what he
did not accomplish.

In the first place, we may set aside as of purely historical interest the attacks on
Aristotle and the attempted delimitation of the spheres of reason and faith. We can
afford to be fair to Aristotle, for his Natural Philosophy has ceased to be a nuisance
and has become a museum-specimen embalmed in the rich spices of Oxonian
erudition. It was no more possible for Bacon to be meticulously just to him than for
an Englishman in 1812 to appreciate the finer shades of character of the Corsican
Ogre. And, on the question of reason and faith, those of us who have not personally
been favoured with divine revelations have to estimate by ordinary human reason
the revelations which are alleged to have been vouchsafed to others. The one test
that Bacon suggests, viz., that the contents of a divine revelation may be expected
to be shocking to reason, is obviously insufficient in a world so replete as ours with
every form of fantastic lunacy.

Setting these points aside, let us ask and try to answer the following questions.

1. Was Bacon a great scientist who discovered new facts and established
physical theories which form the basis of modern science? Most certainly
not. As regards experiment and observation he "never said a foolish thing
and never did a wise one." He seems to have been an incompetent but
pertinacious experimenter; and in his Natural Histories he breaks all his own
rules, copying quite uncritically a jumble of facts and fables from other
 writers. His incapacity in mathematics prevented him from understanding
the best work of his contemporaries, and a fortiori made it impossible for
him to state or work out far-reaching physical theories himself.
2. Granted that modern science does not owe any important facts or special
theories to Bacon, does it derive its general methods and its general outlook
on the world from him? This is a question of historical causation which must
be answered with a decided negative. So far as I can see, the actual course
which science has taken, even if it has been in accord with Bacon's
principles and has led to the results which he desired and anticipated, has
been influenced little if at all by his writings. I suspect that the popularity of
the opposite view is due to the magnificent advertisement which Bacon
received from D'Alembert and the French Encyclopaedists, who found it
convenient to march into battle under his ensign. If then Bacon be the father
of the method and outlook of modern science he is so by spiritual affinity
rather than by natural generation.
3. Granted that Bacon's actual influence has been over-rated, did he in fact
discover and state explicitly those methods and principles of scientific
research and inductive proof which scientists implicitly use with so much
success? It seems to me that the honours of stating these methods and
principles are pretty evenly divided between Bacon and Descartes. Up to a
point they cover much the same ground. There is considerable analogy
between the destructive part of Bacon's method and Descartes' systematic
doubt. Here Bacon can be praised without reserve; he discusses in far
greater detail than Descartes the causes of human error and the remedies for
it, and his treatment is exhaustive, profound, and illuminating. Again,
Descartes, in the Regulae, agrees with Bacon in recognising the importance
of the Principle of Limited Variety. After this point the two methodologies
diverge, and the truth is divided between them. Each is strong where the
other is weak. Bacon is paralysed whenever he touches mathematics, pure or
applied. He has no theory of mathematical reasoning and was ignorant of the
swift advances that pure mathematics was making. He verbally recognises
the importance of applied mathematics; but he failed to see how
predominant a part mathematical statement and deduction must play in
physics if anything like his theory of forms is to work. Here Descartes is
strong with the strength of a man who has himself invented a method which
in his own hands has revolutionized geometry and mechanics. On the other
hand, Descartes is as helpless over induction as Bacon is over mathematical
deduction. In his analysis of inductive arguments Bacon was, so far as I
know, breaking new ground, and all later discussion has followed on his
lines. That the constructive side of his method is incomplete is admitted by
himself. We can see that its main defects are the following. Under the most
favourable circumstances possible Bacon's method of exclusions would not
suffice to discover the form of a simple nature, but at most empirical laws
connecting one simple nature with another. A form is not one among the
 physical properties which can be perceived to be present or absent in a
thing; it is the hypothetical structural and motional basis of a perceptible
property. It follows that forms can be established only by hypothesis,
mathematical deduction of observable consequences, and subsequent
verification of these by actual observation. Closely connected with this fact
is Bacon's other great defect. He never clearly distinguished between
approaching facts with a prejudice and approaching them with a working
hypothesis. He is so anxious to avoid the former that he fails to see that no
progress can be made without the latter. Whewell's great contribution to the
theory of induction was to point out the importance of the appropriate
colligating concept and the fruitful working hypothesis. And these are just
the points at which rules and methods fail us and the insight of individual
genius comes into its own, though that genius must be trained in the
methods and soaked with the facts of science.
4. Lastly, did Bacon provide any logical justification for the principles and
methods which he elicited and which scientists assume and use? He did not,
and he never saw that it was necessary to do so. There is a skeleton in the
cupboard of Inductive Logic, which Bacon never suspected and Hume first
exposed to view. Kant conducted the most elaborate funeral in history, and
called Heaven and Earth and the Noumena under the Earth to witness that
the skeleton was finally disposed of. But, when the dust of the funeral
procession had subsided and the last strains of the Transcendental Organ had
died away, the coffin was found to be empty and the skeleton in its old
place. Mill discretely closed the door of the cupboard, and with infinite tact
turned the conversation into more cheerful channels. Mr Johnson and Mr
Keynes may fairly be said to have reduced the skeleton to the dimensions of
a mere skull. But that obstinate caput mortuum still awaits the undertaker
who will give it Christian burial. May we venture to hope that when Bacon's
next centenary is celebrated the great work which he set going will be
completed; and that Inductive Reasoning, which has long been the glory of
Science, will have ceased to be the scandal of Philosophy?