It was by calculating and ascertaining these
principles
upon
substances entirely at his disposal that this great philosopher was
enabled to give us a key to unlock the mysteries of the universe.
substances entirely at his disposal that this great philosopher was
enabled to give us a key to unlock the mysteries of the universe.
Bacon
It properly refers
to the most evident principles and laws of nature, and springs from
that system which regards the material universe as endowed with
intelligence, and acting according to rules either fashioned or clearly
understood by itself. --_Ed. _
[7] This Borgia was Alexander VI. , and the expedition alluded to that
in which Charles VIII. overran the Italian peninsula in five months.
Bacon uses the same illustration in concluding his survey of natural
philosophy, in the second book of the “De Augmentis. ”--_Ed. _
[8] _Ratio eorum qui acatalepsiam tenuerunt. _ Bacon alludes to
the members of the later academy, who held the ἀκατάληψια, or the
impossibility of comprehending anything. His translator, however, makes
him refer to the sceptics, who neither dogmatized about the known or
the unknown, but simply held, that as all knowledge was relative, πρòς
πάντα τι, man could never arrive at absolute truth, and therefore could
not with certainty affirm or deny anything. --_Ed. _
[9] It is argued by Hallam, with some appearance of truth, that idols
is not the correct translation of εἴδωλα, from which the original
idola is manifestly derived; but that Bacon used it in the literal
sense attached to it by the Greeks, as a species of illusion, or false
appearance, and not as a species of divinity before which the mind bows
down. If Hallam be right, Bacon is saved from the odium of an analogy
which his foreign commentators are not far wrong in denouncing as
barbarous; but this service is rendered at the expense of the men who
have attached an opposite meaning to the word, among whom are Brown,
Playfair and Dugald Stewart. --_Ed. _
[10] We cannot see how these idols have less to do with sophistical
paralogisms than with natural philosophy. The process of scientific
induction involves only the first elements of reasoning, and presents
such a clear and tangible surface, as to allow no lurking-place for
prejudice; while questions of politics and morals, to which the
deductive method, or common logic, as Bacon calls it, is peculiarly
applicable, are ever liable to be swayed or perverted by the prejudices
he enumerates. After mathematics, physical science is the least
amenable to the illusions of feeling; each portion having been already
tested by experiment and observation, is fitted into its place in the
system, with all the rigor of the geometrical method; affection or
prejudice cannot, as in matters of taste, history or religion, select
fragmentary pieces, and form a system of their own. The whole must be
admitted, or the structure of authoritative reason razed to the ground.
It is needless to say that the idols enumerated present only another
interpretation of the substance of logical fallacies. --_Ed. _
[11] The propensity to this illusion may be viewed in the spirit of
system, or hasty generalization, which is still one of the chief
obstacles in the path of modern science. --_Ed. _
[12] Though Kepler had, when Bacon wrote this, already demonstrated his
three great laws concerning the elliptical path of the planets, neither
Bacon nor Descartes seems to have known or assented to his discoveries.
Our author deemed the startling astronomical announcements of his time
to be mere theoretic solutions of the phenomena of the heavens, not so
perfect as those advanced by antiquity, but still deserving a praise
for the ingenuity displayed in their contrivance. Bacon believed a
hundred such systems might exist, and though true in their explanation
of phenomena, yet might all more or less differ, according to the
preconceived notions which their framers brought to the survey of the
heavens. He even thought he might put in his claim to the notice of
posterity for his astronomical ingenuity, and, as Ptolemy had labored
by means of epicycles and eccentrics, and Kepler with ellipses, to
explain the laws of planetary motion, Bacon thought the mystery would
unfold itself quite as philosophically through spiral labyrinths and
serpentine lines. What the details of his system were, we are left to
conjecture, and that from a very meagre but naïve account of one of his
inventions which he has left in his Miscellany MSS. --_Ed. _
[13] _Hinc elementum ignis cum orbe suo introductum est. _ Bacon saw
in fire the mere result of a certain combination of action, and
was consequently led to deny its elementary character. The ancient
physicists attributed an orbit to each of the four elements, into which
they resolved the universe, and supposed their spheres to involve each
other. The orbit of the earth was in the centre, that of fire at the
circumference. For Bacon’s inquisition into the nature of heat, and its
complete failure, see the commencement of the second book of the Novum
Organum. --_Ed. _
[14] Robert Fludd is the theorist alluded to, who had supposed the
gravity of the earth to be ten times heavier than water, that of water
ten times heavier than air, and that of air ten times heavier than
fire. --_Ed. _
[15] Diagoras. The same allusion occurs in the second part of the
Advancement of Learning, where Bacon treats of the idols of the mind.
[16] A scholastic term, to signify the two eternities of past and
future duration, that stretch out on both sides of the narrow isthmus
(time) occupied by man. It must be remembered that Bacon lived before
the doctrine of limits gave rise to the higher calculus, and therefore
could have no conception of different denominations of infinities:
on the other hand he would have thought the man insane who should
have talked to him about lines infinitely great, inclosing angles
infinitely little; that a right line, which is a right line so long
as it is finite, by changing infinitely little its direction, becomes
an infinite curve, and that a curve may become infinitely less than
another curve; that there are infinite squares and infinite cubes, and
infinites of infinites, all greater than one another, and the last
but one of which is nothing in comparison with the last. Yet half a
century sufficed from Bacon’s time, to make this nomenclature, which
would have appeared to him the excess of frenzy, not only reasonable
but necessary, to grasp the higher demonstrations of physical
science. --_Ed. _
[17] Spinoza, in his letter to Oldenberg (Op. Posth. p. 398), considers
this aphorism based on a wrong conception of the origin of error,
and, believing it to be fundamental, was led to reject Bacon’s method
altogether. Spinoza refused to acknowledge in man any such thing as a
will, and resolved all his volitions into particular acts, which he
considered to be as fatally determined by a chain of physical causes as
any effects in nature. --_Ed. _
[18] _Operatio spirituum in corporibus tangibilibus. _ Bacon
distinguished with the schools the gross and tangible parts of bodies,
from such as were volatile and intangible. These, in conformity with
the scholastic language, he terms spirits, and frequently returns to
their operations in the 2d book. --_Ed. _
[19] Democritus, of Abdera, a disciple of Leucippus, born B. C. 470,
died 360; all his works are destroyed. He is said to be the author of
the doctrine of atoms: he denied the immortality of the soul, and first
taught that the milky way was occasioned by a confused light from a
multitude of stars. He may be considered as the parent of experimental
philosophy, in the prosecution of which he was so ardent as to declare
that he would prefer the discovery of one of the causes of natural
phenomena, to the possession of the diadem of Persia. Democritus
imposed on the blind credulity of his contemporaries, and, like Roger
Bacon, astonished them by his inventions. --_Ed. _
[20] The Latin is _actus purus_, another scholastic expression to
denote the action of the substance, which composes the essence of the
body apart from its accidental qualities. For an exposition of the
various kinds of motions he contemplates, the reader may refer to the
48th aphorism of the 2d book. --_Ed. _
[21] The scholastics after Aristotle distinguished in a subject three
modes of beings: viz. , the power or faculty, the act, and the habitude,
or in other words that which is able to exist, what exists actually,
and what continues to exist. Bacon means that is necessary to fix our
attention not on that which can or ought to be, but on that which
actually is; not on the right, but on the fact. --_Ed. _
[22] The inference to be drawn from this is to suspect that kind of
evidence which is most consonant to our inclinations, and not to admit
any notion as real except we can base it firmly upon that kind of
demonstration which is peculiar to the subject, not to our impression.
Sometimes the mode of proof may be consonant to our inclinations, and
to the subject at the same time, as in the case of Pythagoras, when he
applied his beloved numbers to the solution of astronomical phenomena;
or in that of Descartes, when he reasoned geometrically concerning the
nature of the soul. Such examples cannot be censured with justice,
inasmuch as the methods pursued were adapted to the end of the inquiry.
The remark in the text can only apply to those philosophers who attempt
to build up a moral or theological system by the instruments of
induction alone, or who rush, with the geometrical axiom, and the _à
priori_ syllogism, to the investigation of nature. The means in such
cases are totally inadequate to the object in view. --_Ed. _
[23] Gilbert lived toward the close of the sixteenth century, and was
court physician to both Elizabeth and James. In his work alluded to
in the text he continually asserts the advantages of the experimental
over the _à priori_ method in physical inquiry, and succeeded when
his censor failed in giving a practical example of the utility of his
precepts. His “De Magnete” contains all the fundamental parts of the
science, and these so perfectly treated, that we have nothing to add to
them at the present day.
Gilbert adopted the Copernican system, and even spoke of the contrary
theory as utterly absurd, grounding his argument on the vast velocities
which such a supposition requires us to ascribe to the heavenly
bodies. --_Ed. _
[24] The Latin text adds “without end”; but Bacon is scarcely right
in supposing that the descent from complex ideas and propositions to
those of simple nature, involve the analyst in a series of continuous
and interminable definitions. For in the gradual and analytical scale,
there is a bar beyond which we cannot go, as there is a summit bounded
by the limited variations of our conceptions. Logical definitions, to
fulfil their conditions, or indeed to be of any avail, must be given in
simpler terms than the object which is sought to be defined; now this,
in the case of primordial notions and objects of sense, is impossible;
therefore we are obliged to rest satisfied with the mere names of our
perceptions. --_Ed. _
[25] The ancients supposed the planets to describe an exact circle
round the south. As observations increased and facts were disclosed,
which were irreconcilable with this supposition, the earth was removed
from the centre to some other point in the circle, and the planets were
supposed to revolve in a smaller circle (epicycle) round an imaginary
point, which in its turn described a circle of which the earth was
the centre. In proportion as observation elicited fresh facts,
contradictory to these representations, other epicycles and eccentrics
were added, involving additional confusion. Though Kepler had swept
away all these complicated theories in the preceding century, by the
demonstration of his three laws, which established the elliptical
course of the planets, Bacon regarded him and Copernicus in the same
light as Ptolemy and Xenophanes. --_Ed. _
[26] Empedocles, of Agrigentum, flourished 444 B. C. He was the
disciple of Telanges the Pythagorean, and warmly adopted the doctrine
of transmigration. He resolved the universe into the four ordinary
elements, the principles of whose composition were life and happiness,
or concord and amity, but whose decomposition brought forth death and
evil, or discord and hatred. Heraclitus held matter to be indifferent
to any peculiar form, but as it became rarer or more dense, it took the
appearance of fire, air, earth and water. Fire, however, he believed to
be the elementary principle out of which the others were evolved. This
was also the belief of Lucretius. See book i. 783, etc.
[27] It is thus the Vulcanists and Neptunians have framed their
opposite theories in geology. Phrenology is a modern instance of hasty
generalization. --_Ed. _
[28] In Scripture everything which concerns the passing interests of
the body is called dead; the only living knowledge having regard to the
eternal interest of the soul. --_Ed. _
[29] In mechanics and the general sciences, causes compound their
effects, or in other words, it is generally possible to deduce _à
priori_ the consequence of introducing complex agencies into any
experiment, by allowing for the effect of each of the simple causes
which enter into their composition. In chemistry and physiology a
contrary law holds; the causes which they embody generally uniting
to form distinct substances, and to introduce unforeseen laws and
combinations. The deductive method here is consequently inapplicable,
and we are forced back upon experiment.
Bacon in the text is hardly consistent with himself, as he admits in
the second book the doctrine, to which modern discovery points, of the
reciprocal transmutation of the elements. What seemed poetic fiction
in the theories of Pythagoras and Seneca, assumes the appearance of
scientific fact in the hands of Baron Caynard. --_Ed. _
[30] Galileo had recently adopted the notion that nature abhorred a
vacuum for an axiomatic principle, and it was not till Torricelli, his
disciple, had given practical proof of the utility of Bacon’s method,
by the discovery of the barometer (1643) that this error, as also that
expressed below, and believed by Bacon, concerning the homœopathic
tendencies of bodies, was destroyed. --_Ed. _
[31] _Donec ad materiam potentialem et informem ventum fuerit. _ Nearly
all the ancient philosophers admitted the existence of a certain
primitive and shapeless matter as the substratum of things which the
creative power had reduced to fixed proportions, and resolved into
specific substances. The expression potential matter refers to that
substance forming the basis of the Peripatetic system, which virtually
contained all the forms that it was in the power of the efficient cause
to draw out of it. --_Ed. _
[32] An allusion to the humanity of the _Sultans_, who, in their
earlier histories are represented as signalizing their accession to
the throne by the destruction of their family, to remove the danger of
rivalry and the terrors of civil war. --_Ed. _
[33] The text is “in odium veterum sophistarum, Protagoræ, Hippiæ,
et reliquorum. ” Those were called sophists, who, _ostentationis aut
questus causa philosophabantur_. (Acad. Prior. ii. 72. ) They had
corrupted and degraded philosophy before Socrates. Protagoras of
Abdera (Ἄβδηρα), the most celebrated, taught that man is the measure
of all things, by which he meant not only that all which can be known
is known only as it related to our faculties, but also that apart from
our faculties nothing can be known. The sceptics equally held that
knowledge was probable only as it related to our faculties, but they
stopped there, and did not, like the sophist, dogmatize about the
unknown. The works of Protagoras were condemned for their impiety, and
publicly burned by the ædiles of Athens, who appear to have discharged
the office of common hangmen to the literary blasphemers of their
day. --_Ed. _
[34] Bacon is hardly correct in implying that the _enumerationem
per simplicem_ was the only light in which the ancients looked upon
induction, as they appear to have regarded it as only one, and that
the least important, of its species. Aristotle expressly considers
induction in a perfect or dialectic sense, and in an imperfect or
rhetorical sense. Thus if a genus (=G=), contains four species (=A=,
=B=, =C=, =D=), the syllogism would lead us to infer, that what is true
of =G=, is true of any one of the four. But perfect induction would
reason, that what we can prove of =A=, =B=, =C=, =D=, separately, we
may properly state as true of =G=, the whole genus. This is evidently
a formal argument as demonstrative as the syllogism. In necessary
matters, however, legitimate induction may claim a wider province,
and infer of the whole genus what is only apparent in a part of
the species. Such are those inductive inferences which concern the
laws of nature, the immutability of forms, by which Bacon strove to
erect his new system of philosophy. The Stagyrite, however, looked
upon _enumerationem per simplicem_, without any regard to the nature
of the matter, or to the completeness of the species, with as much
reprehensive caution as Bacon, and guarded his readers against it as
the source of innumerable errors. --_Ed. _
[35] See Ax. lxi. toward the end. This subject extends to Ax. lxxviii.
[36] Gorgias of Leontium went to Athens in 424 B. C. He and Polus were
disciples of Empedocles, whom we have already noticed (Aphorism 63),
where he sustained the three famous propositions, that nothing exists,
that nothing can be known, and that it is out of the power of man
to transmit or communicate intelligence. He is reckoned one of the
earliest writers on the art of rhetoric, and for that reason, Plato
called his elegant dialogue on that subject after his name.
[37] Chrysippus, a stoic philosopher of Soli in Cilicia, Campestris,
born in 280, died in the 143d Olympiad, 208 B. C. He was equally
distinguished for natural abilities and industry, seldom suffering
a day to elapse without writing 500 lines. He wrote several hundred
volumes, of which three hundred were on logical subjects; but in all,
borrowed largely from others. He was very fond of the _sorites_ in
argument, which is hence called by Persius the heap of Chrysippus.
He was called the Column of the Portico, a name given to the Stoical
School from Zeno, its founder, who had given his lessons under the
portico.
Carneades, born about 215, died in 130. He attached himself to
Chrysippus, and sustained with _éclat_ the scepticism of the academy.
The Athenians sent him with Critolaus and Diogenes as ambassador
to Rome, where he attracted the attention of his new auditory by
the subtilty of his reasoning, and the fluency and vehemence of his
language. Before Galba and Cato the Censor, he harangued with great
variety of thought and copiousness of diction in praise of justice.
The next day, to establish his doctrine of the uncertainty of human
knowledge, he undertook to refute all his arguments. He maintained
with the New Academy, that the senses, the imagination, and the
understanding frequently deceive us, and therefore cannot be infallible
judges of truth, but that from the impressions produced on the mind by
means of the senses, we infer appearances of truth or probabilities.
Nevertheless, with respect to the conduct of life, Carneades held that
probable opinions are a sufficient guide.
Xenophanes, a Greek philosopher, of Colophon, born in 556, the founder
of the Eleatic school, which owes its fame principally to Parmenides.
Wild in his opinions about astronomy, he supposed that the stars were
extinguished every morning, and rekindled at night; that eclipses were
occasioned by the temporary extinction of the sun, and that there were
several suns for the convenience of the different climates of the
earth. Yet this man held the chair of philosophy at Athens for seventy
years.
Philolaus, a Pythagorean philosopher of Crotona, B. C. 374. He first
supported the diurnal motion of the earth round its axis, and its
annual motion round the sun. Cicero (Acad. iv. 39) has ascribed this
opinion to the Syracusan philosopher Nicetas, and likewise to Plato.
From this passage, it is most probable that Copernicus got the idea of
the system he afterward established. Bacon, in the Advancement of Human
Learning, charges Gilbert with restoring the doctrines of Philolaus,
because he ventured to support the Copernican theory. --_Ed. _
[38] Bacon is equally conspicuous for the use and abuse of analogical
illustrations. The levity, as Stuart Mill very properly observes, by
which substances float on a stream, and the levity which is synonymous
with worthlessness, have nothing beside the name in common; and to
show how little value there is in the figure, we need only change the
word into buoyancy, to turn the semblance of Bacon’s argument against
himself. --_Ed. _
[39] We have before observed, that the New Academy did not profess
skepticism, but the ἀκατάληψια, or incomprehensibility of the absolute
essences of things. Even modern physicists are not wanting, to assert
with this school that the utmost knowledge we can obtain is relative,
and necessarily short of absolute certainty. It is not without an
appearance of truth that these philosophers maintain that our ideas
and perceptions do not express the nature of the things which they
represent, but only the effects of the peculiar organs by which they
are conveyed to the understanding, so that were these organs changed,
we should have different conceptions of their nature. That constitution
of air which is dark to man is luminous to bats and owls.
[40] Owing to the universal prevalence of Aristotelism.
[41] It must be remembered, that when Bacon wrote, algebra was in its
infancy, and the doctrine of units and infinitesimals undiscovered.
[42] Because the vulgar make up the overwhelming majority in such
decisions, and generally allow their judgments to be swayed by passion
or prejudice.
[43] See end of Axiom lxi. The subject extends to Axiom xc.
[44] If we adopt the statement of Herodotus, who places the Homeric
era 400 years back from his time, Homer lived about 900 years before
Christ. On adding this number to the sixteen centuries of the Christian
era which had elapsed up to Bacon’s time, we get the twenty-five
centuries he mentions. The Homeric epoch is the furthest point in
antiquity from which Bacon could reckon with any degree of certainty.
Hesiod, if he were not contemporary, immediately preceded him.
The epoch of Greek philosophy may be included between Thales and
Plato, that is, from the 35th to the 88th Olympiad; that of the Roman,
between Terence and Pliny. The modern revolution, in which Bacon is
one of the central figures, took its rise from the time of Dante and
Petrarch, who lived at the commencement of the fourteenth century; and
to which, on account of the invention of printing, and the universal
spread of literature, which has rendered a second destruction of
learning impossible, it is difficult to foresee any other end than the
extinction of the race of man. --_Ed. _
[45] The allusion is evidently to Roger Bacon and Réné Descartes. --_Ed. _
[46] From the abuse of the scholastics, who mistook the _à priori_
method, the deductive syllogism, for the entire province of
logic. --_Ed. _
[47] See Aphorism xcv.
[48] The incongruity to which Bacon alludes appears to spring from
confounding two things, which are not only distinct, but affect human
knowledge in inverse proportion, viz. , the experience which terminates
with life, with that experience which one century transmits to
another. --_Ed. _
[49] The Chinese characters resemble, in many respects, the
hieroglyphics of the Egyptians, being adapted to represent ideas, not
sounds.
[50] See Axiom 75.
[51] The methods by which Newton carried the rule and compass to the
boundaries of creation is a sufficient comment on the sagacity of the
text. The same cause which globulizes a bubble, has rounded the earth,
and the same law which draws a stone to its surface, keeps the moon in
her orbit.
It was by calculating and ascertaining these principles upon
substances entirely at his disposal that this great philosopher was
enabled to give us a key to unlock the mysteries of the universe. --_Ed. _
[52] See the “Clouds” of Aristophanes, where Socrates is represented as
chasing Jupiter out of the sky, by resolving thunderstorms into aërial
concussions and whirlwinds. --_Ed. _
[53] Robespierre was the latest victim of this bigotry. In his younger
days he attempted to introduce Franklin’s lightning conductor into
France, but was persecuted by those whose lives he sought to protect,
as one audaciously striving to avert the designs of Providence. --_Ed. _
[54] We can hardly agree with the text. The scholastics, in building
up a system of divinity, certainly had recourse to the deductive
syllogism, because the inductive was totally inapplicable, except as
a verificatory process. With regard to the technical form in which
they marshalled their arguments, which is what our author aims at in
his censure, they owed nothing at all to Aristotle, the conducting a
dispute in naked syllogistic fashion having originated entirely with
themselves. --_Ed. _
[55] Bacon cannot be supposed to allude to those divines who have
attempted to show that the progress of physical science is confirmatory
of revelation, but only to such as have built up a system of faith out
of their own refinements on nature and revelation, as Patricius and
Emanuel Swedenborg. --_Ed. _
[56] Daniel xii. 4.
[57] Bacon, in this Aphorism, appears to have entertained a fair
idea of the use of the inductive and deductive methods in scientific
inquiry, though his want of geometrical knowledge must have hindered
him from accurately determining the precise functions of each, as
it certainly led him in other parts of the Organon (V. Aph. 82), to
undervalue the deductive, and, as he calls it, the dogmatic method, and
to rely too much upon empiricism. --_Ed. _
[58] The reader may consult the note of the 23d Aphorism for the fault
which Bacon censures, and, if he wish to pursue the subject further,
may read Plato’s Timæus, where that philosopher explains his system
in detail. Bacon, however, is hardly consistent in one part of his
censure, for he also talks about the spirit and appetites of inanimate
substances, and that so frequently, as to preclude the supposition that
he is employing metaphor. --_Ed. _
[59] Proclus flourished about the beginning of the fifth century,
and was the successor of Plotinus, Porphyry and Iamblicus, who, in
the two preceding centuries, had revived the doctrines of Plato, and
assailed the Christian religion. The allusion in the text must be
assigned to Iamblicus, who, in the fourth century, had republished
the Pythagorean theology of numbers, and endeavored to construct the
world out of arithmetic, thinking everything could be solved by the
aid of proportions and geometry. Bacon must not be understood in the
text to censure the use but the abuse of mathematics and physical
investigations, as in the “De Augmentis” (lib. iv. c. 6), he enumerates
the multiplicity of demonstration scientific facts admit of, from this
source. --_Ed. _
[60] See Livy, lib. ix. c. 17, where, in a digression on the probable
effect of a contest between Rome and Alexander the Great, he says: “Non
cum Dario rem esse dixisset: quem mulierum ac spadonum agmen trahentem
inter purpuram atque aurum, oneratum fortunæ apparatibus, prædam
veriùs quam hostem, nihil aliud quam ausus vana contemnere, incruentus
devicit. ”
[61] The lowest axioms are such as spring from simple experience--such
as in chemistry, that animal substances yield no fixed salt by
calcination; in music, that concords intermixed with discords make
harmony, etc. Intermediate axioms advance a step further, being the
result of reflection, which, applied to our experimental knowledge,
deduces laws from them, such as in optics of the first degree of
generality, that the angle of incidence is equal to the angle of
reflection; and in mechanics, Kepler’s three laws of motion, while
his general law, that all bodies attract each other with forces
proportional to their masses, and inversely as the squares of their
distances, may be taken as one of the highest axioms. Yet so far is
this principle from being only notional or abstract, it has presented
us with a key which fits into the intricate wards of the heavens, and
has laid bare to our gaze the principal mechanism of the universe.
But natural philosophy in Bacon’s day had not advanced beyond
intermediate axioms, and the term notional or abstract is applied to
those general axioms then current, not founded on the solid principles
of inductive inquiry, but based upon _à priori_ reasoning and airy
metaphysics. --_Ed. _
[62] This hope has been abundantly realized in the discovery of gravity
and the decomposition of light, mainly by the inductive method. To a
better philosophy we may also attribute the discovery of electricity,
galvanism and their mutual connection with each other, and magnetism,
the inventions of the air-pump, steam-engine and the chronometer.
[63] As Bacon very frequently cites these authors, a slight notice
of their labors may not be unacceptable to the reader. Bernardinus
Telesius, born at Cosenza, in 1508, combated the Aristotelian system
in a work entitled “De Rerum Natura juxta propria principia,” _i. e. _,
according to principles of his own. The proem of the work announces his
design was to show that “the construction of the world, the magnitude
and nature of the bodies contained in it, are not to be investigated by
reasoning, which was done by the ancients, but are to be apprehended
by the senses, and collected from the things themselves. ” He had,
however, no sooner laid down this principle than he departed from it
in practice, and pursued the deductive method he so much condemned in
his predecessors. His first step was an assumption of principles as
arbitrary as any of the empirical notions of antiquity; at the outset
of his book he very quietly takes it for granted that heat is the
principle of motion, cold of immobility, matter being assumed as the
corporeal substratum, in which these incorporeal and active agents
carry on their operations. Out of these abstract and ill-defined
conceptions Telesius builds up a system quite as complete, symmetrical,
and imaginative as any of the structures of antiquity.
Francis Patricius, born at Cherso, in Dalmatia, about 1529, was another
physicist who rose up against Aristotle, and announced the dawn of a
new philosophy. In 1593 appeared his “Nova de Universis Philosophia. ”
He lays down a string of axioms, in which scholastic notions, physical
discoveries, and theological dogmas, are strangely commingled, and
erects upon them a system which represents all the grotesque features
of theological empiricism.
Severinus, born in Jutland, in 1529, published an attack on Aristotle’s
natural history, but adopted fantasies which the Stagyrite ridiculed
in his own day. He was a follower of Paracelsus, a Swiss enthusiast
of the fifteenth century, who ignored the ancient doctrine of the
four elements for salt, sulphur and mercury, and allied chemistry and
medicine with mysticism. --_Ed. _
[64] Bacon’s apology is sound, and completely answers those German
and French critics, who have refused him a niche in the philosophical
pantheon. One German commentator, too modest to reveal his name,
accuses Bacon of ignorance of the calculus, though, in his day, Wallis
had not yet stumbled upon the laws of continuous fractions; while
Count de Maistre, in a coarse attack upon his genius, expresses his
astonishment at finding Bacon unacquainted with discoveries which were
not heard of till a century after his death. --_Ed. _
[65] Philip of Macedon.
[66] See Plato’s Timæus.
[67] The saying of Philocrates when he differed from Demosthenes. --_Ed. _
[68] The old error of placing the deductive syllogism in antagonism to
the inductive, as if they were not both parts of one system or refused
to cohere together. So far from there being any radical opposition
between them, it would not be difficult to show that Bacon’s method
was syllogistic in his sense of the term. For the suppressed premise
of every Baconian enthymeme, viz. , the acknowledged uniformity of the
laws of nature as stated in the axiom, whatever has once occurred will
occur again, must be assumed as the basis of every conclusion which he
draws before we can admit its legitimacy. The opposition, therefore,
of Bacon’s method could not be directed against the old logic, for
it assumed and exemplified its principles, but rather to the abusive
application which the ancients made of this science, on turning its
powers to the development of abstract principles which they imagined
to be pregnant with the solution of the latent mysteries of the
universe. Bacon justly overthrew these ideal notions, and accepted of
no principle as a basis which was not guaranteed by actual experiment
and observation; and so far he laid the foundations of a sound
philosophy by turning the inductive logic to its proper account in the
interpretation of nature.
[69] This is the opening of the Sixth Book of Lucretius. Bacon probably
quoted from memory; the lines are--
“Primæ frugiferos fœtus mortalibus ægris
Dididerunt quondam præclaro nomine Athenæ
Et recreaverunt,” etc.
The teeming corn, that feeble mortals crave,
First, and long since, renowned Athens gave,
And cheered their life--then taught to frame their laws.
[70] Prov. xxv. 2.
APHORISMS--BOOK II
ON THE INTERPRETATION OF NATURE, OR THE REIGN OF MAN
I. To generate and superinduce a new nature or new natures, upon a
given body, is the labor and aim of human power: while to discover the
form or true difference of a given nature, or the nature[71] to which
such nature is owing, or source from which it emanates (for these terms
approach nearest to an explanation of our meaning), is the labor and
discovery of human knowledge; and subordinate to these primary labors
are two others of a secondary nature and inferior stamp. Under the
first must be ranked the transformation of concrete bodies from one to
another, which is possible within certain limits; under the second, the
discovery, in every species of generation and motion, of the latent
and uninterrupted process from the manifest efficient and manifest
subject matter up to the given form: and a like discovery of the latent
conformation of bodies which are at rest instead of being in motion.
II. The unhappy state of man’s actual knowledge is manifested even
by the common assertions of the vulgar. It is rightly laid down that
true knowledge is that which is deduced from causes. The division of
four causes also is not amiss: matter, form, the efficient, and end
or final cause. [72] Of these, however, the latter is so far from
being beneficial, that it even corrupts the sciences, except in the
intercourse of man with man. The discovery of form is considered
desperate. As for the efficient cause and matter (according to the
present system of inquiry and the received opinions concerning them,
by which they are placed remote from, and without any latent process
toward form), they are but desultory and superficial, and of scarcely
any avail to real and active knowledge. Nor are we unmindful of our
having pointed out and corrected above the error of the human mind, in
assigning the first qualities of essence to forms. [73] For although
nothing exists in nature except individual bodies,[74] exhibiting clear
individual effects according to particular laws, yet in each branch of
learning, that very law, its investigation, discovery, and development,
are the foundation both of theory and practice. This law, therefore,
and its parallel in each science, is what we understand by the term
form,[75] adopting that word because it has grown into common use, and
is of familiar occurrence.
III. He who has learned the cause of a particular nature (such as
whiteness or heat), in particular subjects only, has acquired but
an imperfect knowledge: as he who can induce a certain effect upon
particular substances only, among those which are susceptible of it,
has acquired but an imperfect power. But he who has only learned the
efficient and material cause (which causes are variable and mere
vehicles conveying form to particular substances) may perhaps arrive
at some new discoveries in matters of a similar nature, and prepared
for the purpose, but does not stir the limits of things which are much
more deeply rooted; while he who is acquainted with forms, comprehends
the unity of nature in substances apparently most distinct from each
other. He can disclose and bring forward, therefore (though it has
never yet been done), things which neither the vicissitudes of nature,
nor the industry of experiment, nor chance itself, would ever have
brought about, and which would forever have escaped man’s thoughts;
from the discovery of forms, therefore, results genuine theory and free
practice.
IV. Although there is a most intimate connection, and almost an
identity between the ways of human power and human knowledge, yet,
on account of the pernicious and inveterate habit of dwelling upon
abstractions, it is by far the safest method to commence and build
up the sciences from those foundations which bear a relation to the
practical division, and to let them mark out and limit the theoretical.
We must consider, therefore, what precepts, or what direction or guide,
a person would most desire, in order to generate and superinduce any
nature upon a given body: and this not in abstruse, but in the plainest
language.
For instance, if a person should wish to superinduce the yellow color
of gold upon silver, or an additional weight (observing always the laws
of matter) or transparency on an opaque stone, or tenacity in glass,
or vegetation on a substance which is not vegetable, we must (I say)
consider what species of precept or guide this person would prefer.
And, first, he will doubtless be anxious to be shown some method that
will neither fail in effect, nor deceive him in the trial of it;
secondly, he will be anxious that the prescribed method should not
restrict him and tie him down to peculiar means, and certain particular
methods of acting; for he will, perhaps, be at loss, and without the
power or opportunity of collecting and procuring such means. Now if
there be other means and methods (besides those prescribed) of creating
such a nature, they will perhaps be of such a kind as are in his
power, yet by the confined limits of the precept he will be deprived
of reaping any advantage from them; thirdly, he will be anxious to be
shown something not so difficult as the required effect itself, but
approaching more nearly to practice.
We will lay this down, therefore, as the genuine and perfect rule of
practice, that it should be certain, free and preparatory, or having
relation to practice. And this is the same thing as the discovery of a
true form; for the form of any nature is such, that when it is assigned
the particular nature infallibly follows. It is, therefore, always
present when that nature is present, and universally attests such
presence, and is inherent in the whole of it. The same form is of such
a character, that if it be removed the particular nature infallibly
vanishes. It is, therefore, absent, whenever that nature is absent,
and perpetually testifies such absence, and exists in no other nature.
Lastly, the true form is such, that it deduces the particular nature
from some source of essence existing in many subjects, and more known
(as they term it) to nature, than the form itself. Such, then, is our
determination and rule with regard to a genuine and perfect theoretical
axiom, that a nature be found convertible with a given nature, and yet
such as to limit the more known nature, in the manner of a real genus.
But these two rules, the practical and theoretical, are in fact the
same, and that which is most useful in practice is most correct in
theory.
V. But the rule or axiom for the transformation of bodies is of two
kinds. The first regards the body as an aggregate or combination of
simple natures. Thus, in gold are united the following circumstances:
it is yellow, heavy, of a certain weight, malleable and ductile to a
certain extent; it is not volatile, loses part of its substance by
fire, melts in a particular manner, is separated and dissolved by
particular methods, and so of the other natures observable in gold.
An axiom, therefore, of this kind deduces the subject from the forms
of simple natures; for he who has acquired the forms and methods of
superinducing yellowness, weight, ductility, stability, deliquescence,
solution, and the like, and their degrees and modes, will consider and
contrive how to unite them in any body, so as to transform[76] it into
gold. And this method of operating belongs to primary action; for it is
the same thing to produce one or many simple natures, except that man
is more confined and restricted in his operations, if many be required,
on account of the difficulty of uniting many natures together. It must,
however, be observed, that this method of operating (which considers
natures as simple though in a concrete body) sets out from what is
constant, eternal, and universal in nature, and opens such broad paths
to human power, as the thoughts of man can in the present state of
things scarcely comprehend or figure to itself.
The second kind of axiom (which depends on the discovery of the latent
process) does not proceed by simple natures, but by concrete bodies,
as they are found in nature and in its usual course. For instance,
suppose the inquiry to be, from what beginnings, in what manner, and by
what process gold or any metal or stone is generated from the original
menstruum, or its elements, up to the perfect mineral: or, in like
manner, by what process plants are generated, from the first concretion
of juices in the earth, or from seeds, up to the perfect plant, with
the whole successive motion, and varied and uninterrupted efforts of
nature; and the same inquiry be made as to a regularly deduced system
of the generation of animals from coition to birth, and so on of other
bodies.
Nor is this species of inquiry confined to the mere generation of
bodies, but it is applicable to other changes and labors of nature.
For instance, where an inquiry is made into the whole series and
continued operation of the nutritive process, from the first reception
of the food to its complete assimilation to the recipient;[77] or
into the voluntary motion of animals, from the first impression of
the imagination, and the continuous effects of the spirits, up to the
bending and motion of the joints; or into the free motion of the tongue
and lips, and other accessories which give utterance to articulate
sounds. For all these investigations relate to concrete or associated
natures artificially brought together, and take into consideration
certain particular and special habits of nature, and not those
fundamental and general laws which constitute forms. It must, however,
be plainly owned, that this method appears more prompt and easy, and of
greater promise than the primary one.
In like manner the operative branch, which answers to this
contemplative branch, extends and advances its operation from that
which is usually observed in nature, to other subjects immediately
connected with it, or not very remote from such immediate connection.
But the higher and radical operations upon nature depend entirely
on the primary axioms. Besides, even where man has not the means
of acting, but only of acquiring knowledge, as in astronomy (for
man cannot act upon, change, or transform the heavenly bodies), the
investigation of facts or truth, as well as the knowledge of causes
and coincidences, must be referred to those primary and universal
axioms that regard simple natures; such as the nature of spontaneous
rotation, attraction, or the magnetic force, and many others which
are more common than the heavenly bodies themselves. For let no one
hope to determine the question whether the earth or heaven revolve in
the diurnal motion, unless he have first comprehended the nature of
spontaneous rotation.
VI. But the latent process of which we speak, is far from being obvious
to men’s minds, beset as they now are. For we mean not the measures,
symptoms, or degrees of any process which can be exhibited in the
bodies themselves, but simply a continued process, which, for the most
part, escapes the observation of the senses.
For instance, in all generations and transformations of bodies, we must
inquire, what is in the act of being lost and escaping, what remains,
what is being added, what is being diluted, what is being contracted,
what is being united, what is being separated, what is continuous, what
is broken off, what is urging forward, what impedes, what predominates,
what is subservient, and many other circumstances.
Nor are these inquiries again to be made in the mere generation
and transformation of bodies only, but in all other alterations and
fluctuations we must in like manner inquire; what precedes, what
succeeds, what is quick, what is slow, what produces and what governs
motion, and the like. All which matters are unknown and unattempted by
the sciences, in their present heavy and inactive state. For, since
every natural act is brought about by the smallest efforts,[78] or at
least such as are too small to strike our senses, let no one hope that
he will be able to direct or change nature unless he have properly
comprehended and observed these efforts.
VII. In like manner, the investigation and discovery of the latent
conformation in bodies is no less new, than the discovery of the
latent process and form. For we as yet are doubtless only admitted to
the antechamber of nature, and do not prepare an entrance into her
presence-room. But nobody can endue a given body with a new nature, or
transform it successfully and appropriately into a new body, without
possessing a complete knowledge of the body so to be changed or
transformed. For he will run into vain, or, at least, into difficult
and perverse methods, ill adapted to the nature of the body upon which
he operates. A clear path, therefore, toward this object also must be
thrown open, and well supported.
Labor is well and usefully bestowed upon the anatomy of organized
bodies, such as those of men and animals, which appears to be a subtile
matter, and a useful examination of nature. The species of anatomy,
however, is that of first sight, open to the senses, and takes place
only in organized bodies. It is obvious, and of ready access, when
compared with the real anatomy of latent conformation in bodies which
are considered similar, particularly in specific objects and their
parts; as those of iron, stone, and the similar parts of plants and
animals, as the root, the leaf, the flower, the flesh, the blood,
and bones, etc. Yet human industry has not completely neglected this
species of anatomy; for we have an instance of it in the separation of
similar bodies by distillation, and other solutions, which shows the
dissimilarity of the compound by the union of the homogeneous parts.
These methods are useful, and of importance to our inquiry, although
attended generally with fallacy: for many natures are assigned and
attributed to the separate bodies, as if they had previously existed in
the compound, which, in reality, are recently bestowed and superinduced
by fire and heat, and the other modes of separation. Besides, it is,
after all, but a small part of the labor of discovering the real
conformation in the compound, which is so subtile and nice, that it is
rather confused and lost by the operation of the fire, than discovered
and brought to light.
A separation and solution of bodies, therefore, is to be effected, not
by fire indeed, but rather by reasoning and true induction, with the
assistance of experiment, and by a comparison with other bodies, and a
reduction to those simple natures and their forms which meet, and are
combined in the compound; and we must assuredly pass from Vulcan to
Minerva, if we wish to bring to light the real texture and conformation
of bodies, upon which every occult and (as it is sometimes called)
specific property and virtue of things depends, and whence also every
rule of powerful change and transformation is deduced.
For instance, we must examine what spirit is in every body,[79]
what tangible essence; whether that spirit is copious and exuberant,
or meagre and scarce, fine or coarse, aëriform or igniform, active
or sluggish, weak or robust, progressive or retrograde, abrupt or
continuous, agreeing with external and surrounding objects, or
differing from them, etc. In like manner must we treat tangible essence
(which admits of as many distinctions as the spirit), and its hairs,
fibres, and varied texture. Again, the situation of the spirit in
the corporeal mass, its pores, passages, veins, and cells, and the
rudiments or first essays of the organic body, are subject to the
same examination. In these, however, as in our former inquiries, and
therefore in the whole investigation of latent conformation, the only
genuine and clear light which completely dispels all darkness and
subtile difficulties, is admitted by means of the primary axioms.
VIII. This method will not bring us to atoms,[80] which takes for
granted the vacuum, and immutability of matter (neither of which
hypotheses is correct), but to the real particles such as we discover
them to be. Nor is there any ground for alarm at this refinement
as if it were inexplicable, for, on the contrary, the more inquiry
is directed to simple natures, the more will everything be placed
in a plain and perspicuous light, since we transfer our attention
from the complicated to the simple, from the incommensurable to
the commensurable, from surds to rational quantities, from the
indefinite and vague to the definite and certain; as when we arrive
at the elements of letters, and the simple tones of concords. The
investigation of nature is best conducted when mathematics are applied
to physics. Again, let none be alarmed at vast numbers and fractions,
for in calculation it is as easy to set down or to reflect upon a
thousand as a unit, or the thousandth part of an integer as an integer
itself.
IX. [81] From the two kinds of axioms above specified, arise the two
divisions of philosophy and the sciences, and we will use the commonly
adopted terms which approach the nearest to our meaning, in our own
sense. Let the investigation of forms, which (in reasoning at least,
and after their own laws), are eternal and immutable, constitute
metaphysics,[82] and let the investigation of the efficient cause of
matter, latent process, and latent conformation (which all relate
merely to the ordinary course of nature, and not to her fundamental and
eternal laws), constitute physics. Parallel to these, let there be two
practical divisions; to physics that of mechanics, and to metaphysics
that of magic, in the purest sense of the term, as applied to its ample
means, and its command over nature.
X. The object of our philosophy being thus laid down, we proceed to
precepts, in the most clear and regular order. The signs for the
interpretation of nature comprehend two divisions; the first regards
the eliciting or creating of axioms from experiment, the second the
deducing or deriving of new experiments from axioms. The first admits
of three subdivisions into ministrations. 1. To the senses. 2. To the
memory. 3. To the mind or reason.
For we must first prepare as a foundation for the whole, a complete
and accurate natural and experimental history. We must not imagine or
invent, but discover the acts and properties of nature.
But natural and experimental history is so varied and diffuse, that
it confounds and distracts the understanding unless it be fixed
and exhibited in due order. We must, therefore, form tables and
co-ordinations of instances, upon such a plan, and in such order that
the understanding may be enabled to act upon them.
Even when this is done, the understanding, left to itself and to its
own operation, is incompetent and unfit to construct its axioms without
direction and support. Our third ministration, therefore, must be true
and legitimate induction, the very key of interpretation. We must
begin, however, at the end, and go back again to the others.
XI. The investigation of forms proceeds thus: a nature being given, we
must first present to the understanding all the known instances which
agree in the same nature, although the subject matter be considerably
diversified. And this collection must be made as a mere history, and
without any premature reflection, or too great degree of refinement.
For instance; take the investigation of the form of heat.
_Instances agreeing in the Form of Heat_
1. The rays of the sun, particularly in summer, and at noon.
2. The same reflected and condensed, as between mountains, or along
walls, and particularly in burning mirrors.
3. Ignited meteors.
4. Burning lightning.
5. Eruptions of flames from the cavities of mountains, etc.
6. Flame of every kind.
7. Ignited solids.
8. Natural warm baths.
9. Warm or heated liquids.
10. Warm vapors and smoke; and the air itself, which admits a most
powerful and violent heat if confined, as in reverberating furnaces.
11. Damp hot weather, arising from the constitution of the air, without
any reference to the time of the year.
12. Confined and subterraneous air in some caverns, particularly in
winter.
13. All shaggy substances, as wool, the skins of animals, and the
plumage of birds, contain some heat.
to the most evident principles and laws of nature, and springs from
that system which regards the material universe as endowed with
intelligence, and acting according to rules either fashioned or clearly
understood by itself. --_Ed. _
[7] This Borgia was Alexander VI. , and the expedition alluded to that
in which Charles VIII. overran the Italian peninsula in five months.
Bacon uses the same illustration in concluding his survey of natural
philosophy, in the second book of the “De Augmentis. ”--_Ed. _
[8] _Ratio eorum qui acatalepsiam tenuerunt. _ Bacon alludes to
the members of the later academy, who held the ἀκατάληψια, or the
impossibility of comprehending anything. His translator, however, makes
him refer to the sceptics, who neither dogmatized about the known or
the unknown, but simply held, that as all knowledge was relative, πρòς
πάντα τι, man could never arrive at absolute truth, and therefore could
not with certainty affirm or deny anything. --_Ed. _
[9] It is argued by Hallam, with some appearance of truth, that idols
is not the correct translation of εἴδωλα, from which the original
idola is manifestly derived; but that Bacon used it in the literal
sense attached to it by the Greeks, as a species of illusion, or false
appearance, and not as a species of divinity before which the mind bows
down. If Hallam be right, Bacon is saved from the odium of an analogy
which his foreign commentators are not far wrong in denouncing as
barbarous; but this service is rendered at the expense of the men who
have attached an opposite meaning to the word, among whom are Brown,
Playfair and Dugald Stewart. --_Ed. _
[10] We cannot see how these idols have less to do with sophistical
paralogisms than with natural philosophy. The process of scientific
induction involves only the first elements of reasoning, and presents
such a clear and tangible surface, as to allow no lurking-place for
prejudice; while questions of politics and morals, to which the
deductive method, or common logic, as Bacon calls it, is peculiarly
applicable, are ever liable to be swayed or perverted by the prejudices
he enumerates. After mathematics, physical science is the least
amenable to the illusions of feeling; each portion having been already
tested by experiment and observation, is fitted into its place in the
system, with all the rigor of the geometrical method; affection or
prejudice cannot, as in matters of taste, history or religion, select
fragmentary pieces, and form a system of their own. The whole must be
admitted, or the structure of authoritative reason razed to the ground.
It is needless to say that the idols enumerated present only another
interpretation of the substance of logical fallacies. --_Ed. _
[11] The propensity to this illusion may be viewed in the spirit of
system, or hasty generalization, which is still one of the chief
obstacles in the path of modern science. --_Ed. _
[12] Though Kepler had, when Bacon wrote this, already demonstrated his
three great laws concerning the elliptical path of the planets, neither
Bacon nor Descartes seems to have known or assented to his discoveries.
Our author deemed the startling astronomical announcements of his time
to be mere theoretic solutions of the phenomena of the heavens, not so
perfect as those advanced by antiquity, but still deserving a praise
for the ingenuity displayed in their contrivance. Bacon believed a
hundred such systems might exist, and though true in their explanation
of phenomena, yet might all more or less differ, according to the
preconceived notions which their framers brought to the survey of the
heavens. He even thought he might put in his claim to the notice of
posterity for his astronomical ingenuity, and, as Ptolemy had labored
by means of epicycles and eccentrics, and Kepler with ellipses, to
explain the laws of planetary motion, Bacon thought the mystery would
unfold itself quite as philosophically through spiral labyrinths and
serpentine lines. What the details of his system were, we are left to
conjecture, and that from a very meagre but naïve account of one of his
inventions which he has left in his Miscellany MSS. --_Ed. _
[13] _Hinc elementum ignis cum orbe suo introductum est. _ Bacon saw
in fire the mere result of a certain combination of action, and
was consequently led to deny its elementary character. The ancient
physicists attributed an orbit to each of the four elements, into which
they resolved the universe, and supposed their spheres to involve each
other. The orbit of the earth was in the centre, that of fire at the
circumference. For Bacon’s inquisition into the nature of heat, and its
complete failure, see the commencement of the second book of the Novum
Organum. --_Ed. _
[14] Robert Fludd is the theorist alluded to, who had supposed the
gravity of the earth to be ten times heavier than water, that of water
ten times heavier than air, and that of air ten times heavier than
fire. --_Ed. _
[15] Diagoras. The same allusion occurs in the second part of the
Advancement of Learning, where Bacon treats of the idols of the mind.
[16] A scholastic term, to signify the two eternities of past and
future duration, that stretch out on both sides of the narrow isthmus
(time) occupied by man. It must be remembered that Bacon lived before
the doctrine of limits gave rise to the higher calculus, and therefore
could have no conception of different denominations of infinities:
on the other hand he would have thought the man insane who should
have talked to him about lines infinitely great, inclosing angles
infinitely little; that a right line, which is a right line so long
as it is finite, by changing infinitely little its direction, becomes
an infinite curve, and that a curve may become infinitely less than
another curve; that there are infinite squares and infinite cubes, and
infinites of infinites, all greater than one another, and the last
but one of which is nothing in comparison with the last. Yet half a
century sufficed from Bacon’s time, to make this nomenclature, which
would have appeared to him the excess of frenzy, not only reasonable
but necessary, to grasp the higher demonstrations of physical
science. --_Ed. _
[17] Spinoza, in his letter to Oldenberg (Op. Posth. p. 398), considers
this aphorism based on a wrong conception of the origin of error,
and, believing it to be fundamental, was led to reject Bacon’s method
altogether. Spinoza refused to acknowledge in man any such thing as a
will, and resolved all his volitions into particular acts, which he
considered to be as fatally determined by a chain of physical causes as
any effects in nature. --_Ed. _
[18] _Operatio spirituum in corporibus tangibilibus. _ Bacon
distinguished with the schools the gross and tangible parts of bodies,
from such as were volatile and intangible. These, in conformity with
the scholastic language, he terms spirits, and frequently returns to
their operations in the 2d book. --_Ed. _
[19] Democritus, of Abdera, a disciple of Leucippus, born B. C. 470,
died 360; all his works are destroyed. He is said to be the author of
the doctrine of atoms: he denied the immortality of the soul, and first
taught that the milky way was occasioned by a confused light from a
multitude of stars. He may be considered as the parent of experimental
philosophy, in the prosecution of which he was so ardent as to declare
that he would prefer the discovery of one of the causes of natural
phenomena, to the possession of the diadem of Persia. Democritus
imposed on the blind credulity of his contemporaries, and, like Roger
Bacon, astonished them by his inventions. --_Ed. _
[20] The Latin is _actus purus_, another scholastic expression to
denote the action of the substance, which composes the essence of the
body apart from its accidental qualities. For an exposition of the
various kinds of motions he contemplates, the reader may refer to the
48th aphorism of the 2d book. --_Ed. _
[21] The scholastics after Aristotle distinguished in a subject three
modes of beings: viz. , the power or faculty, the act, and the habitude,
or in other words that which is able to exist, what exists actually,
and what continues to exist. Bacon means that is necessary to fix our
attention not on that which can or ought to be, but on that which
actually is; not on the right, but on the fact. --_Ed. _
[22] The inference to be drawn from this is to suspect that kind of
evidence which is most consonant to our inclinations, and not to admit
any notion as real except we can base it firmly upon that kind of
demonstration which is peculiar to the subject, not to our impression.
Sometimes the mode of proof may be consonant to our inclinations, and
to the subject at the same time, as in the case of Pythagoras, when he
applied his beloved numbers to the solution of astronomical phenomena;
or in that of Descartes, when he reasoned geometrically concerning the
nature of the soul. Such examples cannot be censured with justice,
inasmuch as the methods pursued were adapted to the end of the inquiry.
The remark in the text can only apply to those philosophers who attempt
to build up a moral or theological system by the instruments of
induction alone, or who rush, with the geometrical axiom, and the _à
priori_ syllogism, to the investigation of nature. The means in such
cases are totally inadequate to the object in view. --_Ed. _
[23] Gilbert lived toward the close of the sixteenth century, and was
court physician to both Elizabeth and James. In his work alluded to
in the text he continually asserts the advantages of the experimental
over the _à priori_ method in physical inquiry, and succeeded when
his censor failed in giving a practical example of the utility of his
precepts. His “De Magnete” contains all the fundamental parts of the
science, and these so perfectly treated, that we have nothing to add to
them at the present day.
Gilbert adopted the Copernican system, and even spoke of the contrary
theory as utterly absurd, grounding his argument on the vast velocities
which such a supposition requires us to ascribe to the heavenly
bodies. --_Ed. _
[24] The Latin text adds “without end”; but Bacon is scarcely right
in supposing that the descent from complex ideas and propositions to
those of simple nature, involve the analyst in a series of continuous
and interminable definitions. For in the gradual and analytical scale,
there is a bar beyond which we cannot go, as there is a summit bounded
by the limited variations of our conceptions. Logical definitions, to
fulfil their conditions, or indeed to be of any avail, must be given in
simpler terms than the object which is sought to be defined; now this,
in the case of primordial notions and objects of sense, is impossible;
therefore we are obliged to rest satisfied with the mere names of our
perceptions. --_Ed. _
[25] The ancients supposed the planets to describe an exact circle
round the south. As observations increased and facts were disclosed,
which were irreconcilable with this supposition, the earth was removed
from the centre to some other point in the circle, and the planets were
supposed to revolve in a smaller circle (epicycle) round an imaginary
point, which in its turn described a circle of which the earth was
the centre. In proportion as observation elicited fresh facts,
contradictory to these representations, other epicycles and eccentrics
were added, involving additional confusion. Though Kepler had swept
away all these complicated theories in the preceding century, by the
demonstration of his three laws, which established the elliptical
course of the planets, Bacon regarded him and Copernicus in the same
light as Ptolemy and Xenophanes. --_Ed. _
[26] Empedocles, of Agrigentum, flourished 444 B. C. He was the
disciple of Telanges the Pythagorean, and warmly adopted the doctrine
of transmigration. He resolved the universe into the four ordinary
elements, the principles of whose composition were life and happiness,
or concord and amity, but whose decomposition brought forth death and
evil, or discord and hatred. Heraclitus held matter to be indifferent
to any peculiar form, but as it became rarer or more dense, it took the
appearance of fire, air, earth and water. Fire, however, he believed to
be the elementary principle out of which the others were evolved. This
was also the belief of Lucretius. See book i. 783, etc.
[27] It is thus the Vulcanists and Neptunians have framed their
opposite theories in geology. Phrenology is a modern instance of hasty
generalization. --_Ed. _
[28] In Scripture everything which concerns the passing interests of
the body is called dead; the only living knowledge having regard to the
eternal interest of the soul. --_Ed. _
[29] In mechanics and the general sciences, causes compound their
effects, or in other words, it is generally possible to deduce _à
priori_ the consequence of introducing complex agencies into any
experiment, by allowing for the effect of each of the simple causes
which enter into their composition. In chemistry and physiology a
contrary law holds; the causes which they embody generally uniting
to form distinct substances, and to introduce unforeseen laws and
combinations. The deductive method here is consequently inapplicable,
and we are forced back upon experiment.
Bacon in the text is hardly consistent with himself, as he admits in
the second book the doctrine, to which modern discovery points, of the
reciprocal transmutation of the elements. What seemed poetic fiction
in the theories of Pythagoras and Seneca, assumes the appearance of
scientific fact in the hands of Baron Caynard. --_Ed. _
[30] Galileo had recently adopted the notion that nature abhorred a
vacuum for an axiomatic principle, and it was not till Torricelli, his
disciple, had given practical proof of the utility of Bacon’s method,
by the discovery of the barometer (1643) that this error, as also that
expressed below, and believed by Bacon, concerning the homœopathic
tendencies of bodies, was destroyed. --_Ed. _
[31] _Donec ad materiam potentialem et informem ventum fuerit. _ Nearly
all the ancient philosophers admitted the existence of a certain
primitive and shapeless matter as the substratum of things which the
creative power had reduced to fixed proportions, and resolved into
specific substances. The expression potential matter refers to that
substance forming the basis of the Peripatetic system, which virtually
contained all the forms that it was in the power of the efficient cause
to draw out of it. --_Ed. _
[32] An allusion to the humanity of the _Sultans_, who, in their
earlier histories are represented as signalizing their accession to
the throne by the destruction of their family, to remove the danger of
rivalry and the terrors of civil war. --_Ed. _
[33] The text is “in odium veterum sophistarum, Protagoræ, Hippiæ,
et reliquorum. ” Those were called sophists, who, _ostentationis aut
questus causa philosophabantur_. (Acad. Prior. ii. 72. ) They had
corrupted and degraded philosophy before Socrates. Protagoras of
Abdera (Ἄβδηρα), the most celebrated, taught that man is the measure
of all things, by which he meant not only that all which can be known
is known only as it related to our faculties, but also that apart from
our faculties nothing can be known. The sceptics equally held that
knowledge was probable only as it related to our faculties, but they
stopped there, and did not, like the sophist, dogmatize about the
unknown. The works of Protagoras were condemned for their impiety, and
publicly burned by the ædiles of Athens, who appear to have discharged
the office of common hangmen to the literary blasphemers of their
day. --_Ed. _
[34] Bacon is hardly correct in implying that the _enumerationem
per simplicem_ was the only light in which the ancients looked upon
induction, as they appear to have regarded it as only one, and that
the least important, of its species. Aristotle expressly considers
induction in a perfect or dialectic sense, and in an imperfect or
rhetorical sense. Thus if a genus (=G=), contains four species (=A=,
=B=, =C=, =D=), the syllogism would lead us to infer, that what is true
of =G=, is true of any one of the four. But perfect induction would
reason, that what we can prove of =A=, =B=, =C=, =D=, separately, we
may properly state as true of =G=, the whole genus. This is evidently
a formal argument as demonstrative as the syllogism. In necessary
matters, however, legitimate induction may claim a wider province,
and infer of the whole genus what is only apparent in a part of
the species. Such are those inductive inferences which concern the
laws of nature, the immutability of forms, by which Bacon strove to
erect his new system of philosophy. The Stagyrite, however, looked
upon _enumerationem per simplicem_, without any regard to the nature
of the matter, or to the completeness of the species, with as much
reprehensive caution as Bacon, and guarded his readers against it as
the source of innumerable errors. --_Ed. _
[35] See Ax. lxi. toward the end. This subject extends to Ax. lxxviii.
[36] Gorgias of Leontium went to Athens in 424 B. C. He and Polus were
disciples of Empedocles, whom we have already noticed (Aphorism 63),
where he sustained the three famous propositions, that nothing exists,
that nothing can be known, and that it is out of the power of man
to transmit or communicate intelligence. He is reckoned one of the
earliest writers on the art of rhetoric, and for that reason, Plato
called his elegant dialogue on that subject after his name.
[37] Chrysippus, a stoic philosopher of Soli in Cilicia, Campestris,
born in 280, died in the 143d Olympiad, 208 B. C. He was equally
distinguished for natural abilities and industry, seldom suffering
a day to elapse without writing 500 lines. He wrote several hundred
volumes, of which three hundred were on logical subjects; but in all,
borrowed largely from others. He was very fond of the _sorites_ in
argument, which is hence called by Persius the heap of Chrysippus.
He was called the Column of the Portico, a name given to the Stoical
School from Zeno, its founder, who had given his lessons under the
portico.
Carneades, born about 215, died in 130. He attached himself to
Chrysippus, and sustained with _éclat_ the scepticism of the academy.
The Athenians sent him with Critolaus and Diogenes as ambassador
to Rome, where he attracted the attention of his new auditory by
the subtilty of his reasoning, and the fluency and vehemence of his
language. Before Galba and Cato the Censor, he harangued with great
variety of thought and copiousness of diction in praise of justice.
The next day, to establish his doctrine of the uncertainty of human
knowledge, he undertook to refute all his arguments. He maintained
with the New Academy, that the senses, the imagination, and the
understanding frequently deceive us, and therefore cannot be infallible
judges of truth, but that from the impressions produced on the mind by
means of the senses, we infer appearances of truth or probabilities.
Nevertheless, with respect to the conduct of life, Carneades held that
probable opinions are a sufficient guide.
Xenophanes, a Greek philosopher, of Colophon, born in 556, the founder
of the Eleatic school, which owes its fame principally to Parmenides.
Wild in his opinions about astronomy, he supposed that the stars were
extinguished every morning, and rekindled at night; that eclipses were
occasioned by the temporary extinction of the sun, and that there were
several suns for the convenience of the different climates of the
earth. Yet this man held the chair of philosophy at Athens for seventy
years.
Philolaus, a Pythagorean philosopher of Crotona, B. C. 374. He first
supported the diurnal motion of the earth round its axis, and its
annual motion round the sun. Cicero (Acad. iv. 39) has ascribed this
opinion to the Syracusan philosopher Nicetas, and likewise to Plato.
From this passage, it is most probable that Copernicus got the idea of
the system he afterward established. Bacon, in the Advancement of Human
Learning, charges Gilbert with restoring the doctrines of Philolaus,
because he ventured to support the Copernican theory. --_Ed. _
[38] Bacon is equally conspicuous for the use and abuse of analogical
illustrations. The levity, as Stuart Mill very properly observes, by
which substances float on a stream, and the levity which is synonymous
with worthlessness, have nothing beside the name in common; and to
show how little value there is in the figure, we need only change the
word into buoyancy, to turn the semblance of Bacon’s argument against
himself. --_Ed. _
[39] We have before observed, that the New Academy did not profess
skepticism, but the ἀκατάληψια, or incomprehensibility of the absolute
essences of things. Even modern physicists are not wanting, to assert
with this school that the utmost knowledge we can obtain is relative,
and necessarily short of absolute certainty. It is not without an
appearance of truth that these philosophers maintain that our ideas
and perceptions do not express the nature of the things which they
represent, but only the effects of the peculiar organs by which they
are conveyed to the understanding, so that were these organs changed,
we should have different conceptions of their nature. That constitution
of air which is dark to man is luminous to bats and owls.
[40] Owing to the universal prevalence of Aristotelism.
[41] It must be remembered, that when Bacon wrote, algebra was in its
infancy, and the doctrine of units and infinitesimals undiscovered.
[42] Because the vulgar make up the overwhelming majority in such
decisions, and generally allow their judgments to be swayed by passion
or prejudice.
[43] See end of Axiom lxi. The subject extends to Axiom xc.
[44] If we adopt the statement of Herodotus, who places the Homeric
era 400 years back from his time, Homer lived about 900 years before
Christ. On adding this number to the sixteen centuries of the Christian
era which had elapsed up to Bacon’s time, we get the twenty-five
centuries he mentions. The Homeric epoch is the furthest point in
antiquity from which Bacon could reckon with any degree of certainty.
Hesiod, if he were not contemporary, immediately preceded him.
The epoch of Greek philosophy may be included between Thales and
Plato, that is, from the 35th to the 88th Olympiad; that of the Roman,
between Terence and Pliny. The modern revolution, in which Bacon is
one of the central figures, took its rise from the time of Dante and
Petrarch, who lived at the commencement of the fourteenth century; and
to which, on account of the invention of printing, and the universal
spread of literature, which has rendered a second destruction of
learning impossible, it is difficult to foresee any other end than the
extinction of the race of man. --_Ed. _
[45] The allusion is evidently to Roger Bacon and Réné Descartes. --_Ed. _
[46] From the abuse of the scholastics, who mistook the _à priori_
method, the deductive syllogism, for the entire province of
logic. --_Ed. _
[47] See Aphorism xcv.
[48] The incongruity to which Bacon alludes appears to spring from
confounding two things, which are not only distinct, but affect human
knowledge in inverse proportion, viz. , the experience which terminates
with life, with that experience which one century transmits to
another. --_Ed. _
[49] The Chinese characters resemble, in many respects, the
hieroglyphics of the Egyptians, being adapted to represent ideas, not
sounds.
[50] See Axiom 75.
[51] The methods by which Newton carried the rule and compass to the
boundaries of creation is a sufficient comment on the sagacity of the
text. The same cause which globulizes a bubble, has rounded the earth,
and the same law which draws a stone to its surface, keeps the moon in
her orbit.
It was by calculating and ascertaining these principles upon
substances entirely at his disposal that this great philosopher was
enabled to give us a key to unlock the mysteries of the universe. --_Ed. _
[52] See the “Clouds” of Aristophanes, where Socrates is represented as
chasing Jupiter out of the sky, by resolving thunderstorms into aërial
concussions and whirlwinds. --_Ed. _
[53] Robespierre was the latest victim of this bigotry. In his younger
days he attempted to introduce Franklin’s lightning conductor into
France, but was persecuted by those whose lives he sought to protect,
as one audaciously striving to avert the designs of Providence. --_Ed. _
[54] We can hardly agree with the text. The scholastics, in building
up a system of divinity, certainly had recourse to the deductive
syllogism, because the inductive was totally inapplicable, except as
a verificatory process. With regard to the technical form in which
they marshalled their arguments, which is what our author aims at in
his censure, they owed nothing at all to Aristotle, the conducting a
dispute in naked syllogistic fashion having originated entirely with
themselves. --_Ed. _
[55] Bacon cannot be supposed to allude to those divines who have
attempted to show that the progress of physical science is confirmatory
of revelation, but only to such as have built up a system of faith out
of their own refinements on nature and revelation, as Patricius and
Emanuel Swedenborg. --_Ed. _
[56] Daniel xii. 4.
[57] Bacon, in this Aphorism, appears to have entertained a fair
idea of the use of the inductive and deductive methods in scientific
inquiry, though his want of geometrical knowledge must have hindered
him from accurately determining the precise functions of each, as
it certainly led him in other parts of the Organon (V. Aph. 82), to
undervalue the deductive, and, as he calls it, the dogmatic method, and
to rely too much upon empiricism. --_Ed. _
[58] The reader may consult the note of the 23d Aphorism for the fault
which Bacon censures, and, if he wish to pursue the subject further,
may read Plato’s Timæus, where that philosopher explains his system
in detail. Bacon, however, is hardly consistent in one part of his
censure, for he also talks about the spirit and appetites of inanimate
substances, and that so frequently, as to preclude the supposition that
he is employing metaphor. --_Ed. _
[59] Proclus flourished about the beginning of the fifth century,
and was the successor of Plotinus, Porphyry and Iamblicus, who, in
the two preceding centuries, had revived the doctrines of Plato, and
assailed the Christian religion. The allusion in the text must be
assigned to Iamblicus, who, in the fourth century, had republished
the Pythagorean theology of numbers, and endeavored to construct the
world out of arithmetic, thinking everything could be solved by the
aid of proportions and geometry. Bacon must not be understood in the
text to censure the use but the abuse of mathematics and physical
investigations, as in the “De Augmentis” (lib. iv. c. 6), he enumerates
the multiplicity of demonstration scientific facts admit of, from this
source. --_Ed. _
[60] See Livy, lib. ix. c. 17, where, in a digression on the probable
effect of a contest between Rome and Alexander the Great, he says: “Non
cum Dario rem esse dixisset: quem mulierum ac spadonum agmen trahentem
inter purpuram atque aurum, oneratum fortunæ apparatibus, prædam
veriùs quam hostem, nihil aliud quam ausus vana contemnere, incruentus
devicit. ”
[61] The lowest axioms are such as spring from simple experience--such
as in chemistry, that animal substances yield no fixed salt by
calcination; in music, that concords intermixed with discords make
harmony, etc. Intermediate axioms advance a step further, being the
result of reflection, which, applied to our experimental knowledge,
deduces laws from them, such as in optics of the first degree of
generality, that the angle of incidence is equal to the angle of
reflection; and in mechanics, Kepler’s three laws of motion, while
his general law, that all bodies attract each other with forces
proportional to their masses, and inversely as the squares of their
distances, may be taken as one of the highest axioms. Yet so far is
this principle from being only notional or abstract, it has presented
us with a key which fits into the intricate wards of the heavens, and
has laid bare to our gaze the principal mechanism of the universe.
But natural philosophy in Bacon’s day had not advanced beyond
intermediate axioms, and the term notional or abstract is applied to
those general axioms then current, not founded on the solid principles
of inductive inquiry, but based upon _à priori_ reasoning and airy
metaphysics. --_Ed. _
[62] This hope has been abundantly realized in the discovery of gravity
and the decomposition of light, mainly by the inductive method. To a
better philosophy we may also attribute the discovery of electricity,
galvanism and their mutual connection with each other, and magnetism,
the inventions of the air-pump, steam-engine and the chronometer.
[63] As Bacon very frequently cites these authors, a slight notice
of their labors may not be unacceptable to the reader. Bernardinus
Telesius, born at Cosenza, in 1508, combated the Aristotelian system
in a work entitled “De Rerum Natura juxta propria principia,” _i. e. _,
according to principles of his own. The proem of the work announces his
design was to show that “the construction of the world, the magnitude
and nature of the bodies contained in it, are not to be investigated by
reasoning, which was done by the ancients, but are to be apprehended
by the senses, and collected from the things themselves. ” He had,
however, no sooner laid down this principle than he departed from it
in practice, and pursued the deductive method he so much condemned in
his predecessors. His first step was an assumption of principles as
arbitrary as any of the empirical notions of antiquity; at the outset
of his book he very quietly takes it for granted that heat is the
principle of motion, cold of immobility, matter being assumed as the
corporeal substratum, in which these incorporeal and active agents
carry on their operations. Out of these abstract and ill-defined
conceptions Telesius builds up a system quite as complete, symmetrical,
and imaginative as any of the structures of antiquity.
Francis Patricius, born at Cherso, in Dalmatia, about 1529, was another
physicist who rose up against Aristotle, and announced the dawn of a
new philosophy. In 1593 appeared his “Nova de Universis Philosophia. ”
He lays down a string of axioms, in which scholastic notions, physical
discoveries, and theological dogmas, are strangely commingled, and
erects upon them a system which represents all the grotesque features
of theological empiricism.
Severinus, born in Jutland, in 1529, published an attack on Aristotle’s
natural history, but adopted fantasies which the Stagyrite ridiculed
in his own day. He was a follower of Paracelsus, a Swiss enthusiast
of the fifteenth century, who ignored the ancient doctrine of the
four elements for salt, sulphur and mercury, and allied chemistry and
medicine with mysticism. --_Ed. _
[64] Bacon’s apology is sound, and completely answers those German
and French critics, who have refused him a niche in the philosophical
pantheon. One German commentator, too modest to reveal his name,
accuses Bacon of ignorance of the calculus, though, in his day, Wallis
had not yet stumbled upon the laws of continuous fractions; while
Count de Maistre, in a coarse attack upon his genius, expresses his
astonishment at finding Bacon unacquainted with discoveries which were
not heard of till a century after his death. --_Ed. _
[65] Philip of Macedon.
[66] See Plato’s Timæus.
[67] The saying of Philocrates when he differed from Demosthenes. --_Ed. _
[68] The old error of placing the deductive syllogism in antagonism to
the inductive, as if they were not both parts of one system or refused
to cohere together. So far from there being any radical opposition
between them, it would not be difficult to show that Bacon’s method
was syllogistic in his sense of the term. For the suppressed premise
of every Baconian enthymeme, viz. , the acknowledged uniformity of the
laws of nature as stated in the axiom, whatever has once occurred will
occur again, must be assumed as the basis of every conclusion which he
draws before we can admit its legitimacy. The opposition, therefore,
of Bacon’s method could not be directed against the old logic, for
it assumed and exemplified its principles, but rather to the abusive
application which the ancients made of this science, on turning its
powers to the development of abstract principles which they imagined
to be pregnant with the solution of the latent mysteries of the
universe. Bacon justly overthrew these ideal notions, and accepted of
no principle as a basis which was not guaranteed by actual experiment
and observation; and so far he laid the foundations of a sound
philosophy by turning the inductive logic to its proper account in the
interpretation of nature.
[69] This is the opening of the Sixth Book of Lucretius. Bacon probably
quoted from memory; the lines are--
“Primæ frugiferos fœtus mortalibus ægris
Dididerunt quondam præclaro nomine Athenæ
Et recreaverunt,” etc.
The teeming corn, that feeble mortals crave,
First, and long since, renowned Athens gave,
And cheered their life--then taught to frame their laws.
[70] Prov. xxv. 2.
APHORISMS--BOOK II
ON THE INTERPRETATION OF NATURE, OR THE REIGN OF MAN
I. To generate and superinduce a new nature or new natures, upon a
given body, is the labor and aim of human power: while to discover the
form or true difference of a given nature, or the nature[71] to which
such nature is owing, or source from which it emanates (for these terms
approach nearest to an explanation of our meaning), is the labor and
discovery of human knowledge; and subordinate to these primary labors
are two others of a secondary nature and inferior stamp. Under the
first must be ranked the transformation of concrete bodies from one to
another, which is possible within certain limits; under the second, the
discovery, in every species of generation and motion, of the latent
and uninterrupted process from the manifest efficient and manifest
subject matter up to the given form: and a like discovery of the latent
conformation of bodies which are at rest instead of being in motion.
II. The unhappy state of man’s actual knowledge is manifested even
by the common assertions of the vulgar. It is rightly laid down that
true knowledge is that which is deduced from causes. The division of
four causes also is not amiss: matter, form, the efficient, and end
or final cause. [72] Of these, however, the latter is so far from
being beneficial, that it even corrupts the sciences, except in the
intercourse of man with man. The discovery of form is considered
desperate. As for the efficient cause and matter (according to the
present system of inquiry and the received opinions concerning them,
by which they are placed remote from, and without any latent process
toward form), they are but desultory and superficial, and of scarcely
any avail to real and active knowledge. Nor are we unmindful of our
having pointed out and corrected above the error of the human mind, in
assigning the first qualities of essence to forms. [73] For although
nothing exists in nature except individual bodies,[74] exhibiting clear
individual effects according to particular laws, yet in each branch of
learning, that very law, its investigation, discovery, and development,
are the foundation both of theory and practice. This law, therefore,
and its parallel in each science, is what we understand by the term
form,[75] adopting that word because it has grown into common use, and
is of familiar occurrence.
III. He who has learned the cause of a particular nature (such as
whiteness or heat), in particular subjects only, has acquired but
an imperfect knowledge: as he who can induce a certain effect upon
particular substances only, among those which are susceptible of it,
has acquired but an imperfect power. But he who has only learned the
efficient and material cause (which causes are variable and mere
vehicles conveying form to particular substances) may perhaps arrive
at some new discoveries in matters of a similar nature, and prepared
for the purpose, but does not stir the limits of things which are much
more deeply rooted; while he who is acquainted with forms, comprehends
the unity of nature in substances apparently most distinct from each
other. He can disclose and bring forward, therefore (though it has
never yet been done), things which neither the vicissitudes of nature,
nor the industry of experiment, nor chance itself, would ever have
brought about, and which would forever have escaped man’s thoughts;
from the discovery of forms, therefore, results genuine theory and free
practice.
IV. Although there is a most intimate connection, and almost an
identity between the ways of human power and human knowledge, yet,
on account of the pernicious and inveterate habit of dwelling upon
abstractions, it is by far the safest method to commence and build
up the sciences from those foundations which bear a relation to the
practical division, and to let them mark out and limit the theoretical.
We must consider, therefore, what precepts, or what direction or guide,
a person would most desire, in order to generate and superinduce any
nature upon a given body: and this not in abstruse, but in the plainest
language.
For instance, if a person should wish to superinduce the yellow color
of gold upon silver, or an additional weight (observing always the laws
of matter) or transparency on an opaque stone, or tenacity in glass,
or vegetation on a substance which is not vegetable, we must (I say)
consider what species of precept or guide this person would prefer.
And, first, he will doubtless be anxious to be shown some method that
will neither fail in effect, nor deceive him in the trial of it;
secondly, he will be anxious that the prescribed method should not
restrict him and tie him down to peculiar means, and certain particular
methods of acting; for he will, perhaps, be at loss, and without the
power or opportunity of collecting and procuring such means. Now if
there be other means and methods (besides those prescribed) of creating
such a nature, they will perhaps be of such a kind as are in his
power, yet by the confined limits of the precept he will be deprived
of reaping any advantage from them; thirdly, he will be anxious to be
shown something not so difficult as the required effect itself, but
approaching more nearly to practice.
We will lay this down, therefore, as the genuine and perfect rule of
practice, that it should be certain, free and preparatory, or having
relation to practice. And this is the same thing as the discovery of a
true form; for the form of any nature is such, that when it is assigned
the particular nature infallibly follows. It is, therefore, always
present when that nature is present, and universally attests such
presence, and is inherent in the whole of it. The same form is of such
a character, that if it be removed the particular nature infallibly
vanishes. It is, therefore, absent, whenever that nature is absent,
and perpetually testifies such absence, and exists in no other nature.
Lastly, the true form is such, that it deduces the particular nature
from some source of essence existing in many subjects, and more known
(as they term it) to nature, than the form itself. Such, then, is our
determination and rule with regard to a genuine and perfect theoretical
axiom, that a nature be found convertible with a given nature, and yet
such as to limit the more known nature, in the manner of a real genus.
But these two rules, the practical and theoretical, are in fact the
same, and that which is most useful in practice is most correct in
theory.
V. But the rule or axiom for the transformation of bodies is of two
kinds. The first regards the body as an aggregate or combination of
simple natures. Thus, in gold are united the following circumstances:
it is yellow, heavy, of a certain weight, malleable and ductile to a
certain extent; it is not volatile, loses part of its substance by
fire, melts in a particular manner, is separated and dissolved by
particular methods, and so of the other natures observable in gold.
An axiom, therefore, of this kind deduces the subject from the forms
of simple natures; for he who has acquired the forms and methods of
superinducing yellowness, weight, ductility, stability, deliquescence,
solution, and the like, and their degrees and modes, will consider and
contrive how to unite them in any body, so as to transform[76] it into
gold. And this method of operating belongs to primary action; for it is
the same thing to produce one or many simple natures, except that man
is more confined and restricted in his operations, if many be required,
on account of the difficulty of uniting many natures together. It must,
however, be observed, that this method of operating (which considers
natures as simple though in a concrete body) sets out from what is
constant, eternal, and universal in nature, and opens such broad paths
to human power, as the thoughts of man can in the present state of
things scarcely comprehend or figure to itself.
The second kind of axiom (which depends on the discovery of the latent
process) does not proceed by simple natures, but by concrete bodies,
as they are found in nature and in its usual course. For instance,
suppose the inquiry to be, from what beginnings, in what manner, and by
what process gold or any metal or stone is generated from the original
menstruum, or its elements, up to the perfect mineral: or, in like
manner, by what process plants are generated, from the first concretion
of juices in the earth, or from seeds, up to the perfect plant, with
the whole successive motion, and varied and uninterrupted efforts of
nature; and the same inquiry be made as to a regularly deduced system
of the generation of animals from coition to birth, and so on of other
bodies.
Nor is this species of inquiry confined to the mere generation of
bodies, but it is applicable to other changes and labors of nature.
For instance, where an inquiry is made into the whole series and
continued operation of the nutritive process, from the first reception
of the food to its complete assimilation to the recipient;[77] or
into the voluntary motion of animals, from the first impression of
the imagination, and the continuous effects of the spirits, up to the
bending and motion of the joints; or into the free motion of the tongue
and lips, and other accessories which give utterance to articulate
sounds. For all these investigations relate to concrete or associated
natures artificially brought together, and take into consideration
certain particular and special habits of nature, and not those
fundamental and general laws which constitute forms. It must, however,
be plainly owned, that this method appears more prompt and easy, and of
greater promise than the primary one.
In like manner the operative branch, which answers to this
contemplative branch, extends and advances its operation from that
which is usually observed in nature, to other subjects immediately
connected with it, or not very remote from such immediate connection.
But the higher and radical operations upon nature depend entirely
on the primary axioms. Besides, even where man has not the means
of acting, but only of acquiring knowledge, as in astronomy (for
man cannot act upon, change, or transform the heavenly bodies), the
investigation of facts or truth, as well as the knowledge of causes
and coincidences, must be referred to those primary and universal
axioms that regard simple natures; such as the nature of spontaneous
rotation, attraction, or the magnetic force, and many others which
are more common than the heavenly bodies themselves. For let no one
hope to determine the question whether the earth or heaven revolve in
the diurnal motion, unless he have first comprehended the nature of
spontaneous rotation.
VI. But the latent process of which we speak, is far from being obvious
to men’s minds, beset as they now are. For we mean not the measures,
symptoms, or degrees of any process which can be exhibited in the
bodies themselves, but simply a continued process, which, for the most
part, escapes the observation of the senses.
For instance, in all generations and transformations of bodies, we must
inquire, what is in the act of being lost and escaping, what remains,
what is being added, what is being diluted, what is being contracted,
what is being united, what is being separated, what is continuous, what
is broken off, what is urging forward, what impedes, what predominates,
what is subservient, and many other circumstances.
Nor are these inquiries again to be made in the mere generation
and transformation of bodies only, but in all other alterations and
fluctuations we must in like manner inquire; what precedes, what
succeeds, what is quick, what is slow, what produces and what governs
motion, and the like. All which matters are unknown and unattempted by
the sciences, in their present heavy and inactive state. For, since
every natural act is brought about by the smallest efforts,[78] or at
least such as are too small to strike our senses, let no one hope that
he will be able to direct or change nature unless he have properly
comprehended and observed these efforts.
VII. In like manner, the investigation and discovery of the latent
conformation in bodies is no less new, than the discovery of the
latent process and form. For we as yet are doubtless only admitted to
the antechamber of nature, and do not prepare an entrance into her
presence-room. But nobody can endue a given body with a new nature, or
transform it successfully and appropriately into a new body, without
possessing a complete knowledge of the body so to be changed or
transformed. For he will run into vain, or, at least, into difficult
and perverse methods, ill adapted to the nature of the body upon which
he operates. A clear path, therefore, toward this object also must be
thrown open, and well supported.
Labor is well and usefully bestowed upon the anatomy of organized
bodies, such as those of men and animals, which appears to be a subtile
matter, and a useful examination of nature. The species of anatomy,
however, is that of first sight, open to the senses, and takes place
only in organized bodies. It is obvious, and of ready access, when
compared with the real anatomy of latent conformation in bodies which
are considered similar, particularly in specific objects and their
parts; as those of iron, stone, and the similar parts of plants and
animals, as the root, the leaf, the flower, the flesh, the blood,
and bones, etc. Yet human industry has not completely neglected this
species of anatomy; for we have an instance of it in the separation of
similar bodies by distillation, and other solutions, which shows the
dissimilarity of the compound by the union of the homogeneous parts.
These methods are useful, and of importance to our inquiry, although
attended generally with fallacy: for many natures are assigned and
attributed to the separate bodies, as if they had previously existed in
the compound, which, in reality, are recently bestowed and superinduced
by fire and heat, and the other modes of separation. Besides, it is,
after all, but a small part of the labor of discovering the real
conformation in the compound, which is so subtile and nice, that it is
rather confused and lost by the operation of the fire, than discovered
and brought to light.
A separation and solution of bodies, therefore, is to be effected, not
by fire indeed, but rather by reasoning and true induction, with the
assistance of experiment, and by a comparison with other bodies, and a
reduction to those simple natures and their forms which meet, and are
combined in the compound; and we must assuredly pass from Vulcan to
Minerva, if we wish to bring to light the real texture and conformation
of bodies, upon which every occult and (as it is sometimes called)
specific property and virtue of things depends, and whence also every
rule of powerful change and transformation is deduced.
For instance, we must examine what spirit is in every body,[79]
what tangible essence; whether that spirit is copious and exuberant,
or meagre and scarce, fine or coarse, aëriform or igniform, active
or sluggish, weak or robust, progressive or retrograde, abrupt or
continuous, agreeing with external and surrounding objects, or
differing from them, etc. In like manner must we treat tangible essence
(which admits of as many distinctions as the spirit), and its hairs,
fibres, and varied texture. Again, the situation of the spirit in
the corporeal mass, its pores, passages, veins, and cells, and the
rudiments or first essays of the organic body, are subject to the
same examination. In these, however, as in our former inquiries, and
therefore in the whole investigation of latent conformation, the only
genuine and clear light which completely dispels all darkness and
subtile difficulties, is admitted by means of the primary axioms.
VIII. This method will not bring us to atoms,[80] which takes for
granted the vacuum, and immutability of matter (neither of which
hypotheses is correct), but to the real particles such as we discover
them to be. Nor is there any ground for alarm at this refinement
as if it were inexplicable, for, on the contrary, the more inquiry
is directed to simple natures, the more will everything be placed
in a plain and perspicuous light, since we transfer our attention
from the complicated to the simple, from the incommensurable to
the commensurable, from surds to rational quantities, from the
indefinite and vague to the definite and certain; as when we arrive
at the elements of letters, and the simple tones of concords. The
investigation of nature is best conducted when mathematics are applied
to physics. Again, let none be alarmed at vast numbers and fractions,
for in calculation it is as easy to set down or to reflect upon a
thousand as a unit, or the thousandth part of an integer as an integer
itself.
IX. [81] From the two kinds of axioms above specified, arise the two
divisions of philosophy and the sciences, and we will use the commonly
adopted terms which approach the nearest to our meaning, in our own
sense. Let the investigation of forms, which (in reasoning at least,
and after their own laws), are eternal and immutable, constitute
metaphysics,[82] and let the investigation of the efficient cause of
matter, latent process, and latent conformation (which all relate
merely to the ordinary course of nature, and not to her fundamental and
eternal laws), constitute physics. Parallel to these, let there be two
practical divisions; to physics that of mechanics, and to metaphysics
that of magic, in the purest sense of the term, as applied to its ample
means, and its command over nature.
X. The object of our philosophy being thus laid down, we proceed to
precepts, in the most clear and regular order. The signs for the
interpretation of nature comprehend two divisions; the first regards
the eliciting or creating of axioms from experiment, the second the
deducing or deriving of new experiments from axioms. The first admits
of three subdivisions into ministrations. 1. To the senses. 2. To the
memory. 3. To the mind or reason.
For we must first prepare as a foundation for the whole, a complete
and accurate natural and experimental history. We must not imagine or
invent, but discover the acts and properties of nature.
But natural and experimental history is so varied and diffuse, that
it confounds and distracts the understanding unless it be fixed
and exhibited in due order. We must, therefore, form tables and
co-ordinations of instances, upon such a plan, and in such order that
the understanding may be enabled to act upon them.
Even when this is done, the understanding, left to itself and to its
own operation, is incompetent and unfit to construct its axioms without
direction and support. Our third ministration, therefore, must be true
and legitimate induction, the very key of interpretation. We must
begin, however, at the end, and go back again to the others.
XI. The investigation of forms proceeds thus: a nature being given, we
must first present to the understanding all the known instances which
agree in the same nature, although the subject matter be considerably
diversified. And this collection must be made as a mere history, and
without any premature reflection, or too great degree of refinement.
For instance; take the investigation of the form of heat.
_Instances agreeing in the Form of Heat_
1. The rays of the sun, particularly in summer, and at noon.
2. The same reflected and condensed, as between mountains, or along
walls, and particularly in burning mirrors.
3. Ignited meteors.
4. Burning lightning.
5. Eruptions of flames from the cavities of mountains, etc.
6. Flame of every kind.
7. Ignited solids.
8. Natural warm baths.
9. Warm or heated liquids.
10. Warm vapors and smoke; and the air itself, which admits a most
powerful and violent heat if confined, as in reverberating furnaces.
11. Damp hot weather, arising from the constitution of the air, without
any reference to the time of the year.
12. Confined and subterraneous air in some caverns, particularly in
winter.
13. All shaggy substances, as wool, the skins of animals, and the
plumage of birds, contain some heat.
