He had, indeed, no theory of
induction ; but he was conscious that he was introducing a 'new
style of philosophising.
induction ; but he was conscious that he was introducing a 'new
style of philosophising.
Cambridge History of English Literature - 1908 - v04
269 (#291) ############################################
The Philosophy of the Middle Ages 269
expounded had affinities with the practical and positive achieve-
ments of the English mind. In this way, Bacon has come to be
regarded, not altogether correctly, as not only the beginner of
English philosophy, but also representative of the special character-
istics of the English philosophical genius.
From the end of the eighth century, when Alcuin of York was
summoned to the court of Charles the Great, down to the middle
of the fourteenth century, there was an almost constant succession
of scholars of British birth among the writers who contributed to
the development of philosophy in Europe. The most important
names in the succession are Johannes Scotus Erigena, John of
Salisbury, Alexander of Hales, Robert Grosseteste, Roger Bacon,
Johannes Duns Scotus, William of Ockham and Thomas Brad-
wardine. An account of the English scholastics has been given in
the first volume of this work. Here it must suffice to characterise
in general terms the movement of which they formed part, and
some of the directions in which their ideas exercised an influence
on later science and speculation.
The philosophy of the Middle Ages was, above all things, an
attempt at the systematisation of knowledge. The instrument for
this synthesis was found in the logical conceptions and method of
Aristotle. Its material consisted of the existing records of ancient
philosophy and science, what was learned from contemporary
experience and the teachings of the church. In the heterogeneous
mass of material thus brought together, a pre-eminent position
was assigned to religious doctrine. Philosophy came to be re-
garded as ancillary to theology; and the claims of theology were
based upon ecclesiastical authority. This feature became charac-
teristic of the scholastic method, and a frequent ground of
objection to it in its decline. Connected with this was another
and a more favourable feature. In accepting and interpreting
theological doctrine, the thought of the period recognised the
independent value of the facts of the spiritual life. What the
Scriptures and the fathers taught was confirmed by inner ex-
perience. In the laborious erudition and dialectical subtleties of
the schoolmen, there is seldom wanting a strain of this deeper
thought, which attains its full development in medieval mysticism.
Thus, in the words of a recent historian,
it dawned upon men that the spiritual world is just as much a reality as the
material world, and that in the former is man's true home. The way was
prepared for a more thorough investigation of spirit and matter than was
## p. 270 (#292) ############################################
270 The Beginnings of English Philosophy
possible to antiquity. Above all things, however, a sphere of experience was
won for human life which was, in the strictest sense, its own property, into
which no external powers could penetrate 1.
To Erigena, may be traced both medieval mysticism and the
scholastic method. He seems to have been born in Ireland about
810, and to have proceeded to France some thirty years later.
Charles the Bald appointed him to the schola palatina at Paris.
He appears to have had no further connection with Ireland or
with England, and to have died in France about 877. It was
probably owing to the protection of the king that he escaped the
graver results which usually followed a suspicion of heresy. His
works were officially condemned by papal authority in 1050 and
1255. Erigena was the predecessor of scholasticism but not him-
self one of the schoolmen. His anticipation of them consists not
only in his dialectical method, but, also, in his recognition of the
authority of the Bible and of the fathers of the church as final.
But this recognition is guarded by the assertion that it is impos-
sible for true authority and true reason really to conflict; and he
deals quite freely with the letter of a doctrine, while he interprets its
spirit in his own way. On the development of mystical thought, he
exercised an even greater influence. The fundamental conceptions
and final outcome of his great work, De Divisione Naturae, are
essentially mystical in tone; and, by his translation of the pseudo-
Dionysian writings, he made accessible the storehouse from which
medieval mystics derived many of their ideas. These writings
are first heard of distinctly in the early part of the sixth century;
even in that uncritical age they were not received without
question ; but they soon gained general acceptance as the genuine
work of Dionysius the Areopagite who'clave unto' St Paul after
the address on Mars' hill, and who was supposed to have become
bishop of Athens. The work attributed to him contains an inter-
pretation of Christian doctrine by means of Neoplatonic ideas.
It exercised a strong influence upon Erigena himself and upon
subsequent medieval thought; and this influence was powerfully
reinforced long afterwards by the study of Plato and the Neo-
platonists at the time of the revival of learning.
Erigena's work opens with a division of the whole of reality
into four classes that which creates and is not created, that which
is both created and creates, that which is created but does not
create and that which neither creates nor is created. The last
class is not mere non-existence. In general, it may be said to
1 Höffding, History of Modern Philosophy, Eng. tr. I, 6.
## p. 271 (#293) ############################################
cause,
Johannes Scotus Erigena 271
signify the potential as distinguished from the actual ; in ultimate
analysis, it is the goal or end towards which all things strive that in
it they may find rest. It is, therefore, God, as final cause, just as the
first class in the division—the uncreate creatoris God, as efficient
God is thus at once the beginning and end of all things,
from which they proceed and to which they return. From the
uncreate creator proceed the prototypes or ideas which contain the
immutable reasons or grounds of all that is to be made. The
world of ideas is created and yet eternal, and from it follows the
creation of individual things. Their primordial causes are con-
tained in the divine Logos (or Son of God), and from these, by the
power of the divine Love (or Holy Spirit), is produced the realm
of created things that cannot themselves create. God created the
world out of nothing, that is to say, out of His ineffable divine
nature, which is incomprehensible to men and angels. And the
process is eternal : in God, vision does not precede operation.
Nor can anything subsist outside God:
the creature subsists in God, and God is created in the creature in a wonderful
and ineffable manner, manifesting himself, the invisible making himself
visible, and the incomprehensible comprehensible, and the hidden plain, and
the unknown known 1.
Thus, while God, as creator and as final cause, transcends all
things, He is also in all things. He is their beginning, middle and
end. And His essence is incomprehensible; nay, 'God Himself
knows not what He is, for He is not a "what. " Hence, all ex-
pressions used of God are symbolical only. Strictly speaking, we
cannot even ascribe essence to Him: He is super-essential; nor
goodness : He is beyond good (úrepárabos).
Erigena was more influenced by Plato than by Aristotle. His
acquaintance with the latter's works was restricted to certain of
the logical treatises. The greater part of the Aristotelian writings
became known to the schoolmen at a later date and mainly by
means of Latin translations of Arabic translations of a Syriac
version. The new Aristotelian influence began to make itself dis-
tinctly felt about three centuries after Erigena's time. Alexander
of Hales is said to have been the first schoolman who knew
the whole philosophy of Aristotle and used it in the service of
Christian theology. The metaphysical and physical writings of
Aristotle were at first viewed with suspicion by the church, but
afterwards definitely adopted, and his authority in philosophy
became an article of scholastic orthodoxy. The great systems of
· De divisione nature, III, 18, ed. Schlüter, 1838, p. 238.
6
))
## p. 272 (#294) ############################################
272 The Beginnings of English Philosophy
6
the thirteenth century—especially the most lasting monument of
scholastic thought, the Summa of St Thomas Aquinas—are founded
on his teaching
But uniformity of opinion was not maintained completely or
for long, and three English schoolmen are to be reckoned among
the most (if not the most) important opponents of St Thomas.
These are Roger Bacon, Duns Scotus and William of Ockham.
'Scotism' became the rival of Thomism' in the schools. The
effect of Duns Scotus's work was to break up the harmony of faith
and reason which had been asserted by St Thomas, and which was
of the essence of orthodox scholasticism. Scotus was not himself
heretical in religious belief, nor did he assert an antagonism
between faith and reason; but he was critical of all intellectual
arguments in the domain of theology. The leading school had not
attempted a justification by reason of such specifically Christian
doctrines as those of the Trinity or the Incarnation (as Erigena,
for instance, had done). These were accepted as mysteries of the
faith, known by revelation only. But certain doctrines—such as
the being of God, the immortality of the soul and the creation of
the world out of nothing—were held to admit of rational proof,
and thus to belong to ‘natural theology. The arguments for the
latter doctrines are subjected to criticism by Scotus. He denied
the validity of natural theology-except in so far as he recognised
that a certain vision of God may be reached by reason, although
it needs to be reinforced by revelation. In restricting the power
of intellect, Scotus exalted the significance of will. Faith is a
voluntary submission to authority, and its objective ground is the
unconditional will of God.
At the hands of Ockham, who was a pupil of Duns Scotus, the
separation between theology and philosophy, faith and reason, was
made complete. He admitted that there are probable arguments
for the existence of God, but maintained the general thesis that
whatever transcends experience belongs to faith. In this way, he
,
broke with Scotism as well as with Thomism on a fundamental
question. He denied the real existence of ideas or universals and
reverted to the doctrine known as nominalism, of which he became
the greatest exponent. Entities are not to be postulated without
necessity shown. The universal exists only as a conception in the
individual mind; though it signifies, without change of meaning,
any one of a number of things. The only reality is the individual,
and all knowledge is derived from experience. Ockham, further,
is remarkable for his political writings, in which he defended the
a
## p. 273 (#295) ############################################
Roger Bacon
273
independent power of the temporal sovereign against the claims of
the pope. His philosophical doctrines had many followers and
opponents : but he is the last of the great scholastics, for his
criticisms struck at the root of the scholastic presuppositions.
Roger Bacon, the earliest in time of the three named, was also
the greatest and the most unfortunate. He lived and wrote under
the shadow of an uncongenial system then at the height of its
power. He suffered persecution and long imprisonments; his
popular fame was that of an alchemist and a wizard ; his works
were allowed to lie unprinted for centuries; and only later scholars
have been able to appreciate his significance. His learning seems
to have been unique ; he read Aristotle in Greek, and expressed
unmeasured contempt for the Latin translations then in vogue; he
was acquainted with the writings of the Arab men of science, whose
views were far in advance of all other contemporary knowledge.
He does not appear himself to have made the original scientific
discoveries with which he used to be credited, but he had thoroughly
mastered the best of the science and philosophy of his day.
There is, of course, much in his writings that may be called
scholasticism, but his views on the method of science are markedly
modern. His doctrine of method has been compared with that of
his more famous namesake Francis Bacon. He was as decided as
the latter was in rejecting all authority in matters of science; like
him, he took a comprehensive view of knowledge and attempted a
classification of the sciences; like him, also, he regarded natural
philosophy as the chief of the sciences. The differences between
the two are equally remarkable and serve to bring out the merits
of the older philosopher. He was a mathematician; and, indeed,
he looked upon mathematical proof as the sole type of demonstra-
tion. Further, he saw the importance in scientific method of two
steps that were inadequately recognised by Francis Bacon-the
deductive application of elementary laws to the facts observed,
followed by the experimental verification of the results. 'Roger
Bacon,' it has been said, 'has come very near, nearer certainly than
any preceding and than any succeeding writer until quite recent
times, to a satisfactory theory of scientific method. '
For more than two centuries after Ockham's death, only one
writer of importance can be reckoned among English philosophers.
That writer was John Wyclif, in whose case a period of philoso-
phical authorship-on scholastic lines—preceded his theological
1 R. Adamson, Roger Bacon: the Philosophy of Science in the Middle Ages (1876),
P. 33.
E. L. IV.
CH, XIV.
18
## p. 274 (#296) ############################################
274 The Beginnings of English Philosophy
and religious activity, and to whose writings reference has been
made in a previous volume. After him comes a blank of long
duration. The leaders of the renascence, both in philosophy and
in science, belonged to the continent; and, although their ideas
affected English scholarship and English literature, philosophical
writings were slow to follow. And the theological controversies
of the reformation led to no new enquiry into the grounds of
knowledge and belief. On the universities, the teaching of
Aristotle retained its hold, at least as regards logic, even after the
introduction of the new 'humanistic' studies. In the latter part
of the sixteenth century, Aristotelianism experienced an aca-
demic revival, though its supporters, in all cases, were suspected
of papistical leanings. John Case of St John's college, Oxford
(B. A. 1568), gave up his fellowship on this ground (it is said),
married and was allowed by the university to give lectures on
logic and philosophy in his house. In 1589, he took the M. D.
degree and, in the same year, became a canon of Salisbury. He
died in 1600. Between 1584 and 1599, he published seven books,
text-books of Aristotelianism_dealing with logic, ethics, politics
and economics. His Speculum moralium questionum in universam
ethicen Aristotelis (1585) was the first book printed at Oxford at
the new press presented by the earl of Leicester, chancellor of the
university. John Sanderson, fellow of Trinity college, Cambridge
(B. A. 1558), was appointed logic reader in the university in 1562, but,
in the same year, was expelled from his fellowship for suspicious
doctrine. He became a student at Douay in 1570, was ordained
priest in the Roman Catholic church and was appointed divinity
professor in the English college at Rheims. He died in 1602.
The only work of his that is known is Institutionum Dialecticarum
libri quatuor, printed at Antwerp in 1589, and at Oxford in 1594.
About the year 1580, a vigorous controversy regarding the merits
of the old logic and the new was carried on between two fellows
of Cambridge colleges, Everard Digby and William Temple. They
were both younger in academic standing than Sanderson or Case,
but they published earlier. Digby took his B. A. in the beginning
of 1571, and became fellow of St John's early in 1573, shortly
before Francis Bacon entered Trinity college as an undergraduate.
He began to give public lectures on logic soon after this date. “
It is possible—we have no evidence on the point—that Bacon
attended these lectures. If he did, they may have been the means
of arousing his interest in the question of method, and they may
also, at the same time, have awakened the spirit of criticism in
>
## p. 275 (#297) ############################################
Digby and William Temple 275
him and led to that discontent with the philosophy of Aristotle
which, according to his own account, he first acquired at
Cambridge.
Digby's career was chequered. He was suspected of 'corrupt
religion,' and he made enemies in his own society by his contempt
for the authorities. In the end of December, 1587, on the nominal
ground of an irregularity in his payments for commons, he was
deprived of his fellowship by Whitaker, master of the college and
a stern puritan. But Digby seems to have had friends in high
place. He appealed to Burghley the chancellor and to archbishop
Whitgift. By their order, a commission was appointed to enquire
into the grounds of his dismissal, and, as a result, Digby was
restored 28 May 1588. But, by the end of the same year, he seems
to have been got rid of-how, we do not knowl. Probably, the real
ground of objection to him-his lukewarm protestantism-made
it prudent for him to leave the university. Digby was famous in
his day for his eloquence as a lecturer, his skill in the disputations
of the schools and his learning. His learning, however, is much
less than appears from the mere array of authorities which he
cites. These are often taken from Reuchlin's De arte cabbalistica
(1517), the fictitious personages of this work being sometimes
referred to as actual authors. Digby wrote in the true scholastic
spirit; for him, Aristotle's doctrines were authoritative, and to
disagree with them was heresy. At the same time, his own Aristo-
telianism was coloured by a mystical theology for which he was
largely indebted to Reuchlin. Digby's chief work, Theoria ana-
lytica, viam ad monarchiam scientiarum demonstrans, was
published in 1579. This was followed next year by two books—
a criticism of Ramus entitled De duplici methodo, and a reply to
Temple's defence of the Ramist method. He was also the author
of a small treatise De arte natandi (1587), and of an English
Dissuasive from taking away the lyvings and goods of the Church
(1589).
William Temple passed from Eton to King's college, Cambridge,
in 1573; in due course, he became a fellow of the latter society,
and was soon engaged in teaching logic. From about 1582 till
about 1585, he was master of Lincoln grammar school. He then
became secretary to Sir Philip Sidney (to whom his edition of the
Dialectica of Ramus had been dedicated). After the latter's death,
he occupied various secretarial posts, and was in the service of the
| All the ascertainable facts were for the first time brought together by R. F. Scott
in The Eagle (St John's college magazine), October term, 1906, pp. 1-24.
18-2
## p. 276 (#298) ############################################
276 The Beginnings of English Philosophy
earl of Essex when he was obliged by the favourite's fall to
leave England. He does not seem to have returned till after the
accession of king James. In 1609, he was made provost of Trinity
college, Dublin, and, a few months later, master of chancery in
Ireland. He was knighted in 1622, and died in January 1627.
Temple's important philosophical writings belong to the early
part of his career. He was a pupil of Digby at Cambridge, and
wrote in terms of warm appreciation of his master's abilities and
fame and of the new life that he had put into philosophical study
in England. But he had himself found a more excellent way of
reasoning in the logical method of Ramus, then coming to be
known in this country. When scarcely twenty years of age,
Ramus had startled the university of Paris by his strenuous op-
position to the doctrines of Aristotle ; he had allied himself to the
Calvinists; and he ended his life as a victim of St Bartholomew's eve.
The protestant schools, accordingly, tended to favour his system,
in which logic, as the art of discourse, was assimilated to rhetoric
and given a practical character. Ascham, indeed, in a letter of
1552, and, again, in his Scholemaster (1570), expressed his dis-
approval of it. But, as early as 1573, we hear of its being defended
in Cambridge'. And, in 1574, when Andrew Melville returned
from Geneva and was appointed principal of the university of
Glasgow, he 'set him wholly to teach things not heard in this
country of before? ,' and the Dialectica of Ramus took the place of
Aristotle's Organon or the scholastic manual elsewhere current
in the universities of Great Britain. By his published works,
Temple became celebrated on the continent as well as at home as
an expositor and defender of Ramist doctrine; and, doubtless, it
is to his activity that Cambridge acquired a reputation in the early
part of the seventeenth century as the leading school of Ramist
philosophy? Temple began authorship in 1580, under the pseudo-
nym of Franciscus Mildapettus Navarrenus“, with an Admonitio
to Digby in defence of the single method of Ramus. Other con-
troversial writings on the same text, against Digby and Piscator of
Strassburg, followed in 1581 and 1582. In 1584, he published an
annotated edition of Ramus's Dialectica, and, in the same year, he
6
>
* Mullinger, History of the University of Cambridge, II, p. 411.
2 James Melvill's Diary (Edinburgh, Wodrow Society, 1842), p. 49; cf. Sir A.
Grant, Story of the University of Edinburgh, 1, p. 80.
3 See Mullinger, op. cit. 11, p. 412.
• Navarrenus' proclaims the author's allegiance to Ramos, who was educated at
the Parisian collège de Navarre; ‘Franciscus' may indicate nothing more than the
French origin of the doctrine. The explanation of • Mildapettus' is obscure.
## p. 277 (#299) ############################################
William Gilbert
277
issued, with a preface by himself, a disputation against Aristotle's
doctrine concerning the generation of simple and complex bodies,
written by James Martin of Dunkeld, then a professor at Turin.
These two books must have been among the first published by the
university Press, after the restoration of its licence by Burghley,
the chancellor, in this year?
In clearness of thought and argumentative skill, Temple was
far superior to Digby. On the more special point in dispute
between them—whether the method of knowledge is twofold,
from particulars to universals and from universals to particulars,
or whether there is only one method of reasoning, that from uni-
versals—the truth was not entirely on Temple's side. Nor had
his method anything in common with the induction used in the
physical sciences. But the new logic he recommended had the
advantage of clearness and practicality, and was free from the
complicated subtleties of the traditional systems. That Bacon
was acquainted with the works of Digby and Temple is highly
probable, though it cannot be conclusively established. Their
influence upon him, however, must have consisted mainly in
stimulating his interest in the question of method : they did not
anticipate his theory of induction.
While these questions occupied the schools, William Gilbert,
fellow of St John's college, Cambridge, 1561, president of the royal
college of physicians, 1600, was engaged in the laborious and
systematic pursuit of experiments on magnetism which resulted
in the publication of the first great English work of physical science,
De Magnete, magneticisque corporibus (1600). Gilbert expressed
himself as decidedly as did Bacon afterwards on the futility of
expecting to arrive at knowledge of nature by mere speculation
or by a few vague experiments.
He had, indeed, no theory of
induction ; but he was conscious that he was introducing a 'new
style of philosophising. ' His work contains a series of carefully
graduated experiments, each one of which is devised so as to
answer a particular question, while the simpler and more obvious
facts were set forth first and their investigation led by orderly
stages to that of the more complex and subtle. It is unfortunate
that Bacon was so little appreciative of Gilbert's book, as a careful
analysis of the method actually employed in it might have guarded
him from some errors.
Gilbert has been called the first real
physicist and the first trustworthy methodical experimenter? ' He
1 See Mullinger, op. cit. 11, pp. 297, 405.
• K, Lasswitz, Geschichte der Atomistik (1890), 1, p. 315.
## p. 278 (#300) ############################################
278 The Beginnings of English Philosophy
was also the founder of the theory of magnetism and electricity;
and he gave the latter its name, vis electrica. He explained the
inclination of the magnetic needle by his conception of the earth
as a magnet with two poles ; he defended the Copernican theory;
and, in his discussion of the attraction of bodies, there is a
suggestion of the doctrine of universal gravitation. He had also
reached a correct view of the atmosphere as extending only a
few miles from the surface of the earth, with nothing but empty
space beyond.
On an altogether different plane from Gilbert were two
younger contemporaries of Bacon. Robert Fludd, a graduate
of Oxford, was a man of fame in his day. He followed Paracelsus,
defended the Rosicrucians and attacked Copernicus, Gilbert, Kepler
and Galileo. His works are distinguished by fantastic specula-
tion rather than by scientific method. Nathanael Carpenter,
a fellow of Exeter college, Oxford, attacked the physical theory
of Aristotle in his Philosophia libera (1621). The works of
William Harvey belong to the period following Bacon's death,
although he had announced his discovery of the circulation of
the blood in 1616.
Francis Bacon was the younger of the two sons of Sir Nicholas
Bacon, lord keeper of the great seal, by his second wife Anne,
daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke and sister-in-law of lord Burghley.
He was born at York house, London, on 22 January 1561. In
April 1573, he was sent, along with his brother Anthony, to
Trinity college, Cambridge, where he remained (except for an
absence of about six months when the plague raged there) till
Christmas 1575. Of his studies in Cambridge, we know little or
nothing; and it would be easy to lay too great stress on the state-
ment long afterwards made to Rawley, his first biographer, that,
before he left the university, he 'fell into the dislike of the philo-
sophy of Aristotle; not for the worthlessness of the author, to whom
he would ever ascribe all high attributes, but for the unfruitfulness
of the way. In 1576, he was sent by his father to France with
Sir Amyas Paulet, the ambassador, and in his suite he remained until
recalled home by Sir Nicholas's sudden death in February 1579.
This event had an unfortunate effect upon his career. A sum
of money which his father had set apart to purchase an estate
for him had not been invested and he inherited a fifth part of it
only. He had, therefore, to look to the bar for an income and to
the grudging favour of the Cecils for promotion. He was called
## p. 279 (#301) ############################################
Francis Bacon
279
>
to the bar in 1582, and entered parliament in 1584: sitting in each
successive House of Commons until he becaine lord keeper.
But office was long in coming to him. The queen had been
affronted by an early speech of his in parliament in which he had
criticised the proposals of the court; and the Cecils always proved
more kin than kind. The objects which he sought were never
unworthy nor beyond his merits; but he sought them in ways not
always dignified. He pleaded his cause in many letters to Burghley
and Salisbury and Buckingham; and the style of his supplications
can hardly be accounted for altogether by the epistolary manners
of the period. In 1589, Burghley got him the reversion of an
office in the Star chamber, worth about £1600 a year ; but to
this he did not succeed till 1608. From about 1597, he had come
to be employed regularly as one of the queen’s learned counsel.
In 1604, he was made one of his ordinary counsel by king James,
with a salary of £40; and this, Bacon reckoned as his first prefer-
ment He was made solicitor-general in 1607, attorney-general
in 1613, privy councillor in 1616, lord keeper in 1617, lord-
chancellor in 1618. He was knighted in 1603, but, to his chagrin,
along with a crowd of three hundred others; he was created baron
Verulam in 1618, and viscount St Albans in 1621. A few weeks
later, charges of having received bribes from suitors in his court
were brought against him in the newly-summoned House of
Commons; these were remitted to the House of Lords for trial;
he was convicted on his own confession, and sentenced to depriva-
tion of all his offices, to imprisonment in the tower during the
king's pleasure, to a fine of £40,000, to exclusion from the verge
of the court and to incapacity from sitting in parliament. The
imprisonment lasted a few days only; the fine was made over to
trustees for Bacon's benefit; the exclusion from the verge was
soon removed; but, in spite of many entreaties, he was never
allowed to sit in parliament again.
In the midst of the legal and political work which crowded
these years, Bacon never lost sight of his larger ambitions. He
published the first edition of his Essays in 1597, the second (en-
larged) edition appearing in 1612 and the third (completed) edition
in 1625. The Advancement of Learning was published in 1605,
addressed to king James, De Sapientia Veterum in 1609, Novum
Organum in 1620. After his disgrace, he lived at Gorhambury,
the paternal estate to which he had succeeded on the death of his
brother Anthony in 1601, and there he devoted himself to writing.
The History of Henry VII appeared in 1622, and De Augmentis
## p. 280 (#302) ############################################
280 The Beginnings of English Philosophy
Scientiarum in 1623; the New Atlantis was written in 1624; at
his death, he was at work on Sylva Sylvarum; and he left behind
him many sketches and detached portions of his great but incom-
plete design. Bacon had been married in 1606 to Alice Barnham,
the daughter of an alderman. He died on 9 April 1626, from
the effects of a chill caught by moving out of his carriage in order
a
to try an experiment on the antiseptic properties of snow.
Bacon's plan for the renewal of the sciences was never fully
elaborated by himself, and it has never been deliberately followed
by others. In his personal career, too, there are some events that
still remain obscure. But material is not lacking for forming a
judgment on his philosophy and on his life. We cannot expect to
remove either from the range of controversy. But the life-long
devotion of Spedding may be said with confidence to have made
one thing clear. Pope's famous epigram—the wisest, brightest,
meanest of mankind'-and the brilliant elaboration of the same
in Macaulay's essay are false, and cannot be made to fit the facts.
We can understand Bacon aright only if we do not assume any
such absurd antithesis, but remember that life and philosophy are
revelations of the same mind, and allow for one shedding light on
the other. It is on this account that it is necessary to attempt an
estimate of Bacon's character and to touch upon the disputed
events in his career, although the questions cannot be discussed at
length, and little more can be done than to indicate results.
In a fragment? written about 1603, and, apparently, intended as
a preface to his great work, Bacon set forth the ambitions which
guided his life; and there is no reason for doubting the substantial
accuracy of his account. Believing (he begins) that he was born
for the service of mankind, he set himself to consider for what
service nature had fitted him best. He saw that the good effects
wrought by practical statesmen
extend over narrow spaces and last but for short times; whereas the work of
the Inventor, though a thing of less pomp and shew, is felt everywhere and
lasts for ever.
And for this end he thought nature had destined him.
I found that I was fitted for nothing so well as for the study of Truth; as
having a mind nimble and versatile enough to catch the resemblances of
things (which is the chief point), and at the same time steady enough to fix
and distinguish their subtler differences; as being gifted by nature with
1 De interpretatione naturæ proæmium, Works, III, pp. 518-520. In this and other
quotations from the Latin works the translations contained in Ellis and Spedding's
edition have been used.
## p. 281 (#303) ############################################
Bacon's Character and Career
281
desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert,
readiness to consider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and as being a
man that neither affects what is new nor admires what is old, and that hates
every kind of imposture. So I thought my nature had a kind of familiarity
and relationship with Truth.
6
His first object, therefore, was the knowledge that would extend
and establish the empire of man over nature. But birth and
education had introduced him to the service of the state ; and 'a
man's own country has some special claims upon him. ' For these
reasons, he sought civil employment: the service of the state may
be said to have been his second object in life. Finally, he adds
I was not without hope (the condition of Religion being at that time not
very prosperous) that if I came to hold office in the state, I might get some-
thing done too for the good of men's souls.
According to Bacon's own account, therefore, the service of man-
kind to which he held himself born was to be carried out by
devotion to three objects: the discovery of truth, the welfare of
his country and the reform of religion. And of these three objects
the first always held the highest place in his thoughts. 'I confess'
he wrote to Burghley about 1592, 'that I have as vast contem-
plative ends as I have moderate civil ends : for I have taken all
knowledge to be my province. '
This greatness of design was characteristic of the mind of the
period as well as of Bacon personally. But it was accompanied by
inadequate preparation in the methods and principles of the exact
sciences as understood at the time, and often by an imperfect
grasp of details. If the latter defect may be traced in his in-
tellectual work, it is still more apparent in his practical activity.
It is not fanciful to connect with this characteristic some of the
actions for which he has been most censured. Throughout his
career he was never free from financial difficulties; and, when he
had obtained high preferment, he maintained a magnificent style
of living without exercising any effective control over the ex-
penditure of his household. When the charge of taking bribes
was made against him he was much surprised, but he had no
defence. It may be true, as he asserted, that he never allowed a
present from a suitor to influence his decision ; nor do any of his
judgments appear to have been reversed on this ground. It may
be true, also, that Bacon only followed the custom of his time:
though, on this point, it is difficult to get evidence. But he himself
saw the impropriety of a judge being 'twice paid'—to quote the mild
term of censure used in his New Atlantis. And he took no care
## p. 282 (#304) ############################################
282 The Beginnings of English Philosophy
to guard against the impropriety in his own conduct. In the main,
he was probably a just, as well as an efficient, judge. But he was
too tenacious of his office as he had been too eager to obtain it;
and it is hardly possible to resist the evidence for the conclusion
that, on one occasion at least? , he allowed the court favourite
Buckingham to influence his decision. In another matter—that of
the trial of the earl of Essex-Bacon's conduct has been unjustly
blamed. The benefits which he had received at the hands of Essex
would not have been a sufficient reason for his standing aside
when the need arose for his taking part in the prosecution. The
rebellion of Essex had been a real danger to the state and not
merely an explosion of bad temper. It was essential that the
prosecution should not fail through the case being badly presented;
and Bacon's intervention was not merely excusable: it was his
duty to safeguard the interests of the state, and to subordinate to
them the claims of private friendship and gratitude, in spite of the
tragedy of the personal situation. At the same time, it has to be
said that the record of the trial does not suggest that he felt the
tragedy. Judging from the manner in which he pressed home the
charge, the personal factor seems to have touched him but slightly.
And this, perhaps, is characteristic. He was capable of high
enthusiasm for ideas and for causes. His philosophical works are
inspired by the former; and his writings on public affairs show a
spirit of devotion to the common weal as well as political wisdom.
But, on the side of personal sentiment, his nature seems to have
been not easily stirred to the love or hate which unite and divide
mankind.
Bacon intended that his Great Instauration or Renewal of the
Sciences should be set forth in six parts. These, he enumerated as
follows: (1) The Division of the Sciences; (2) The New Organon,
or Directions concerning the Interpretation of Nature; (3) The
Phenomena of the Universe, or a Natural and Experimental History
for the foundation of Philosophy; (4) The Ladder of the Intellect;
(5) The Forerunners, or Anticipations of the New Philosophy;
(6) The New Philosophy, or Active Science. Of these parts, the last
was to be the work of future ages; for the fourth and fifth only pre-
faces were written; the first three are represented by considerable
works, although in none of them is the original design carried out
with completeness. Latin was to be the language of them all. The
Advancement of Learning, which, in great part, covers the ground
? See the letter of D. D. Heath (one of the editors of the Works) in Bacon's Letters
and Life, vir, pp. 579—588.
## p. 283 (#305) ############################################
The Great Instauration 283
of the first division, was not written as part of the plan; but De
Augmentis, which takes its place in the scheme, is little more
than an extended Latin translation of the Advancement. Bacon's
last work, Sylva Sylvarum, which belongs to the third part, was
written in English.
Bacon, as he said himself, took all knowledge as his province;
his concern was not so much with particular branches of science
as with principles, method and system. For this purpose, he sets
out by reviewing the existing state of knowledge, dwelling on its
defects and pointing out remedies for them. This is the burden
of the first book of the Advancement and of De Augmentis. In
the second book, he proceeds to expound his division of the
sciences. The principle with which he starts in his classification is
psychological:
The parts of human learning have reference to the three parts of man's
understanding, which is the seat of learning: history to his memory, poesy
to his imagination, and philosophy to his reason. .
The subdivisions of these, however, are based on differences in the
objects, not in the mental faculty employed. History is divided
into natural and civil. To the latter of these, ecclesiastical and
literary history are regarded as subordinate (although made co-
ordinate in the Advancement). Poetry is held to be ‘nothing else
but feigned history,' and is subdivided into narrative, representative
and allusive or parabolical. But it is with the last of the three
main divisions of learning that Bacon is chiefly concerned.
In Philosophy the contemplations of man do either penetrate unto God,
or are circumferred to nature, or are reflected or reverted upon himself. Out
of which several enquiries there do arise three knowledges, Divine philosophy,
Natural philosophy, and Human philosophy or Humanity. For all things
are marked and stamped with this triple character, of the power of God, the
difference of nature, and the use of man.
But, as the three divisions all spring from a common root, and
certain observations and axioms are common to all, the receptacle
for these must constitute 'one universal science, by the name of
Philosophia Prima, Primitive or Summary Philosophy. ' Among
the three divisions of philosophy, Bacon's most important thoughts
concern natural philosophy. One of his fundamental ideas is
expressed by its distinction into two parts-'the inquisition of
causes, and the production of effects; Speculative, and Operative;
Natural Science, and Natural Prudence. More subtle is the dis-
tinction of natural science into physic and metaphysic. The
latter term is not used in its traditional sense, nor is it synonymous
## p. 284 (#306) ############################################
284 The Beginnings of English Philosophy
with what Bacon calls summary philosophy, which deals with
axioms common to several sciences. Both physic and metaphysic
deal with natural objects : physic with their material and efficient
causes, inetaphysic with their formal and final causes. Thus,
Physic is situate in a middle term or distance between Natural History and
Metaphysic. For Natural History describeth the variety of things; Physic,
the causes, but variable and respective causes; and Metaphysic, the fixed and
constant causes.
In elaborating this view, Bacon covers ground traversed again in
Novum Organum.
Both for its style and for the importance of the ideas which it
conveys, Novum Organum ranks as Bacon's greatest work. To
its composition he devoted the most minute care. Rawley tells us
that he had seen no less than twelve drafts of it in Bacon's own
handwriting, re-written from year to year. As it was at last
published, its stately diction is a fit vehicle for the prophetic
message it contains. The aphorisms into which the matter is
thrown add impressiveness to the leading ideas, without seriously
interfering with the sequence of the argument.
It is chiefly to Novum Organum that we must go if we would
understand the message and the influence of Bacon. And this
understanding will be facilitated if we distinguish, as he himself
never did, between certain leading ideas which he, more than any-
one else, impressed upon the mind of succeeding ages, and his own
more special conception of nature and of the true method for its
investigation.
Of those leading and general ideas, two have been already
indicated. One of these is the belief in the unity of science. His
classification of the sciences had in view not only their differences
but, also, their essential oneness. *The divisions of knowledge,' he
says, “are like branches of a tree that meet in one stem (which
stem grows for some distance entire and continuous, before it
divide itself into arms and boughs). ' They are to be accepted
‘rather for lines and veins, than for sections and separations. '
The second of these leading ideas is the practical aim of know-
ledge. This is a constantly recurring thought, and is, in his own
mind, the most fundamental ; it is the first distinction which he
draws between his own new logic and the old, and it was meant to
characterise the new philosophy of which he claims to have made
only the beginning.
The matter in hand is no mere felicity of speculation, but the real business
and fortunes of the human race, and all power of operation. For inan is but
## p. 285 (#307) ############################################
Classes of Idols
285
the servant and interpreter of nature: what he does and what he knows is
only what he has observed of nature's order in fact or in thought; beyond
this he knows nothing and can do nothing. For the chain of causes cannot
by any force be loosed or broken, nor can nature be commanded except by
being obeyed. And so those twin objects, human knowledge and human
power, do really meet in one; and it is from ignorance of causes that operation
fails.
Bacon's object was to establish or restore the empire of man
over nature. This empire depends upon knowledge; but, in the
mind of man, there are certain obstacles to knowledge which pre-
dispose it to ignorance and error. The doctrine of the tendencies
to error inherent in the human mind is another of his fundamental
thoughts. These tendencies to error he called idola mentis,
images or phantoms by which the mind is misled. The name is
taken from Plato and contrasted with the Platonic 'idea’; and
emphasis is laid on the difference between the idols of the human
mind, which are abstractions that distort and misrepresent reality,
and the ideas of the divine mind, which are 'the creator's own
stamp upon reality, impressed and defined in matter by true and
exquisite lines. ' This doctrine had long occupied Bacon's thought;
it was stated in the Advancement, where, however, the last of the
four classes of idols is wanting ; and it was completely set forth for
the first time in Novum Organum. In the latter work, four classes
of idols are distinguished: idols of the tribe, idols of the cave, idols
of the market-place and idols of the theatre. Under these graphic
titles, Bacon works out a doctrine which shows both originality
and insight. The originality is conspicuous in what he says con-
cerning the idols of the tribe. They are deceptive tendencies
which are inherent in the mind of man as such and belong to the
whole human race. The understanding, he says, is like a false
mirror that distorts and discolours the nature of things. Thus, it
supposes more order and regularity in the world than it finds, as
when it assigns circular motion to the celestial bodies; it is more
moved and excited by instances that agree with its preconceptions
than by those that differ from them; it is unquiet, and cannot rest
in a limit without seeking to press beyond it, or in an ultimate
principle without asking for a cause; it 'is no dry light, but
receives an infusion from the will and affections'; it depends on
the senses, and they are 'dull, incompetent and deceptive'; and it
is 'prone to abstractions and gives a substance and reality to things
which are fleeting. The idols of the cave belong not to the race
but to the individual. They take their rise in his peculiar consti-
tution, and are modified by education, habit and accident. Thus
6
## p. 286 (#308) ############################################
286 The Beginnings of of
a
English Philosophy
some minds are apt to mark differences, others resemblances, and
both tend to err in opposite ways; or, again, devotion to a par-
ticular science or speculation may so colour a man's thoughts that
everything is interpreted by its light. The idols of the market-
place are those due to the use of language, and they are the most
troublesome of all.
For men believe that their reason governs words; but it is also true that
words react on the understanding; and this it is that has rendered philosophy
and the sciences sophistical and inactive.
Finally, the idols of the theatre are due to 'philosophical
systems and the perverted rules of demonstration. In this con-
nection, Bacon classifies 'false philosophies’ as sophistical, em-
pirical and superstitious. In his amplification of this division,
his adverse judgment upon Aristotle may be discounted; his want
of appreciation of Gilbert is a more reasonable matter of regret ;
but, at bottom, his view is sound that it is an error either to
'fashion the world out of categories' or to base a system on the
narrowness and darkness of a few experiments. '
This criticism of the sources and kinds of error leads directly to
an explanation of that “just and methodical process' of arriving at
truth which Bacon calls the interpretation of nature. The process
is elaborate and precisely defined ; and it rests on a special view
of the constitution of nature. Neither this view nor the details
of the method have exerted much influence upon the progress of
science. But underlying them both was the more general idea of
the importance of an objective attitude to nature and of the need
of systematic experiment; and of this general idea Bacon was,
not indeed the originator, but the most brilliant and influential
exponent. In the study of nature, all preconceptions must be set
aside; we must be on our guard against the tendency to premature
‘anticipations' of nature: 'the subtlety of nature is greater many
times over than the subtlety of argument'; men must be led back
to the particular facts of experience, and pass from them to
general truths by gradual and unbroken ascent; we must begin
anew from the very foundation,' for 'into the kingdom of nature as
into the kingdom of grace entrance can only be obtained sub
persona infantis. '
These general but fruitful ideas do not exhaust Bacon's teach-
ing. He looked forward to the speedy establishment of a new
philosophy which should be distinguished from the old by the
completeness of its account of reality and by the certainty of its
results. His new method seemed to give him a key to the subtlety
## p. 287 (#309) ############################################
Bacon's Definitions of Form' 287
of nature; and this method would have the incidental result of
levelling intellectual capacities so that all minds who followed it
with care and patience would be able to find truth and use it for
fruitful works.
'It is a correct position' says Bacon,'that true knowledge is know-
ledge by causes. ' But the way in which he understands this posi-
tion is significant. He adopts the Aristotelian division of causes
into four kinds: material, formal, efficient and final. Physic deals
with the efficient and material; but these, apart from their relation
to the formal cause, 'are but slight and superficial, and contribute
little, if anything, to true and active science. ' The enquiry into
the other two belongs to that branch of natural philosophy which
he calls metaphysic. “But of these the final cause rather corrupts
than advances the sciences, except such as have to do with human
action,' and 'the discovery of the formal is dispaired of. ' Yet
forms must be investigated if nature is to be understood and con-
trolled. Thus, the second book of Novum Organum opens with
the aphorism
On a given body to generate and superinduce a new nature is the work
and aim of human power. Of a given nature to discover the form . . . is the
work and aim of human knowledge.
What, then, does Bacon mean by 'form'? He gives many answers
to this question, and yet the meaning is not altogether easy to
grasp. Form is not something mental; it is not an idea, nor is it
a mere abstraction; it is itself physical. According to Bacon,
nothing really exists in nature except individual bodies. But a
body has several qualities perceptible by our senses (these qualities
he calls ‘natures'); the form is the condition or cause of these
natures : its presence determines the presence of the relative
nature; with its absence the nature vanishes. Again, a thing acts
by certain fixed laws: these laws are forms.
The Philosophy of the Middle Ages 269
expounded had affinities with the practical and positive achieve-
ments of the English mind. In this way, Bacon has come to be
regarded, not altogether correctly, as not only the beginner of
English philosophy, but also representative of the special character-
istics of the English philosophical genius.
From the end of the eighth century, when Alcuin of York was
summoned to the court of Charles the Great, down to the middle
of the fourteenth century, there was an almost constant succession
of scholars of British birth among the writers who contributed to
the development of philosophy in Europe. The most important
names in the succession are Johannes Scotus Erigena, John of
Salisbury, Alexander of Hales, Robert Grosseteste, Roger Bacon,
Johannes Duns Scotus, William of Ockham and Thomas Brad-
wardine. An account of the English scholastics has been given in
the first volume of this work. Here it must suffice to characterise
in general terms the movement of which they formed part, and
some of the directions in which their ideas exercised an influence
on later science and speculation.
The philosophy of the Middle Ages was, above all things, an
attempt at the systematisation of knowledge. The instrument for
this synthesis was found in the logical conceptions and method of
Aristotle. Its material consisted of the existing records of ancient
philosophy and science, what was learned from contemporary
experience and the teachings of the church. In the heterogeneous
mass of material thus brought together, a pre-eminent position
was assigned to religious doctrine. Philosophy came to be re-
garded as ancillary to theology; and the claims of theology were
based upon ecclesiastical authority. This feature became charac-
teristic of the scholastic method, and a frequent ground of
objection to it in its decline. Connected with this was another
and a more favourable feature. In accepting and interpreting
theological doctrine, the thought of the period recognised the
independent value of the facts of the spiritual life. What the
Scriptures and the fathers taught was confirmed by inner ex-
perience. In the laborious erudition and dialectical subtleties of
the schoolmen, there is seldom wanting a strain of this deeper
thought, which attains its full development in medieval mysticism.
Thus, in the words of a recent historian,
it dawned upon men that the spiritual world is just as much a reality as the
material world, and that in the former is man's true home. The way was
prepared for a more thorough investigation of spirit and matter than was
## p. 270 (#292) ############################################
270 The Beginnings of English Philosophy
possible to antiquity. Above all things, however, a sphere of experience was
won for human life which was, in the strictest sense, its own property, into
which no external powers could penetrate 1.
To Erigena, may be traced both medieval mysticism and the
scholastic method. He seems to have been born in Ireland about
810, and to have proceeded to France some thirty years later.
Charles the Bald appointed him to the schola palatina at Paris.
He appears to have had no further connection with Ireland or
with England, and to have died in France about 877. It was
probably owing to the protection of the king that he escaped the
graver results which usually followed a suspicion of heresy. His
works were officially condemned by papal authority in 1050 and
1255. Erigena was the predecessor of scholasticism but not him-
self one of the schoolmen. His anticipation of them consists not
only in his dialectical method, but, also, in his recognition of the
authority of the Bible and of the fathers of the church as final.
But this recognition is guarded by the assertion that it is impos-
sible for true authority and true reason really to conflict; and he
deals quite freely with the letter of a doctrine, while he interprets its
spirit in his own way. On the development of mystical thought, he
exercised an even greater influence. The fundamental conceptions
and final outcome of his great work, De Divisione Naturae, are
essentially mystical in tone; and, by his translation of the pseudo-
Dionysian writings, he made accessible the storehouse from which
medieval mystics derived many of their ideas. These writings
are first heard of distinctly in the early part of the sixth century;
even in that uncritical age they were not received without
question ; but they soon gained general acceptance as the genuine
work of Dionysius the Areopagite who'clave unto' St Paul after
the address on Mars' hill, and who was supposed to have become
bishop of Athens. The work attributed to him contains an inter-
pretation of Christian doctrine by means of Neoplatonic ideas.
It exercised a strong influence upon Erigena himself and upon
subsequent medieval thought; and this influence was powerfully
reinforced long afterwards by the study of Plato and the Neo-
platonists at the time of the revival of learning.
Erigena's work opens with a division of the whole of reality
into four classes that which creates and is not created, that which
is both created and creates, that which is created but does not
create and that which neither creates nor is created. The last
class is not mere non-existence. In general, it may be said to
1 Höffding, History of Modern Philosophy, Eng. tr. I, 6.
## p. 271 (#293) ############################################
cause,
Johannes Scotus Erigena 271
signify the potential as distinguished from the actual ; in ultimate
analysis, it is the goal or end towards which all things strive that in
it they may find rest. It is, therefore, God, as final cause, just as the
first class in the division—the uncreate creatoris God, as efficient
God is thus at once the beginning and end of all things,
from which they proceed and to which they return. From the
uncreate creator proceed the prototypes or ideas which contain the
immutable reasons or grounds of all that is to be made. The
world of ideas is created and yet eternal, and from it follows the
creation of individual things. Their primordial causes are con-
tained in the divine Logos (or Son of God), and from these, by the
power of the divine Love (or Holy Spirit), is produced the realm
of created things that cannot themselves create. God created the
world out of nothing, that is to say, out of His ineffable divine
nature, which is incomprehensible to men and angels. And the
process is eternal : in God, vision does not precede operation.
Nor can anything subsist outside God:
the creature subsists in God, and God is created in the creature in a wonderful
and ineffable manner, manifesting himself, the invisible making himself
visible, and the incomprehensible comprehensible, and the hidden plain, and
the unknown known 1.
Thus, while God, as creator and as final cause, transcends all
things, He is also in all things. He is their beginning, middle and
end. And His essence is incomprehensible; nay, 'God Himself
knows not what He is, for He is not a "what. " Hence, all ex-
pressions used of God are symbolical only. Strictly speaking, we
cannot even ascribe essence to Him: He is super-essential; nor
goodness : He is beyond good (úrepárabos).
Erigena was more influenced by Plato than by Aristotle. His
acquaintance with the latter's works was restricted to certain of
the logical treatises. The greater part of the Aristotelian writings
became known to the schoolmen at a later date and mainly by
means of Latin translations of Arabic translations of a Syriac
version. The new Aristotelian influence began to make itself dis-
tinctly felt about three centuries after Erigena's time. Alexander
of Hales is said to have been the first schoolman who knew
the whole philosophy of Aristotle and used it in the service of
Christian theology. The metaphysical and physical writings of
Aristotle were at first viewed with suspicion by the church, but
afterwards definitely adopted, and his authority in philosophy
became an article of scholastic orthodoxy. The great systems of
· De divisione nature, III, 18, ed. Schlüter, 1838, p. 238.
6
))
## p. 272 (#294) ############################################
272 The Beginnings of English Philosophy
6
the thirteenth century—especially the most lasting monument of
scholastic thought, the Summa of St Thomas Aquinas—are founded
on his teaching
But uniformity of opinion was not maintained completely or
for long, and three English schoolmen are to be reckoned among
the most (if not the most) important opponents of St Thomas.
These are Roger Bacon, Duns Scotus and William of Ockham.
'Scotism' became the rival of Thomism' in the schools. The
effect of Duns Scotus's work was to break up the harmony of faith
and reason which had been asserted by St Thomas, and which was
of the essence of orthodox scholasticism. Scotus was not himself
heretical in religious belief, nor did he assert an antagonism
between faith and reason; but he was critical of all intellectual
arguments in the domain of theology. The leading school had not
attempted a justification by reason of such specifically Christian
doctrines as those of the Trinity or the Incarnation (as Erigena,
for instance, had done). These were accepted as mysteries of the
faith, known by revelation only. But certain doctrines—such as
the being of God, the immortality of the soul and the creation of
the world out of nothing—were held to admit of rational proof,
and thus to belong to ‘natural theology. The arguments for the
latter doctrines are subjected to criticism by Scotus. He denied
the validity of natural theology-except in so far as he recognised
that a certain vision of God may be reached by reason, although
it needs to be reinforced by revelation. In restricting the power
of intellect, Scotus exalted the significance of will. Faith is a
voluntary submission to authority, and its objective ground is the
unconditional will of God.
At the hands of Ockham, who was a pupil of Duns Scotus, the
separation between theology and philosophy, faith and reason, was
made complete. He admitted that there are probable arguments
for the existence of God, but maintained the general thesis that
whatever transcends experience belongs to faith. In this way, he
,
broke with Scotism as well as with Thomism on a fundamental
question. He denied the real existence of ideas or universals and
reverted to the doctrine known as nominalism, of which he became
the greatest exponent. Entities are not to be postulated without
necessity shown. The universal exists only as a conception in the
individual mind; though it signifies, without change of meaning,
any one of a number of things. The only reality is the individual,
and all knowledge is derived from experience. Ockham, further,
is remarkable for his political writings, in which he defended the
a
## p. 273 (#295) ############################################
Roger Bacon
273
independent power of the temporal sovereign against the claims of
the pope. His philosophical doctrines had many followers and
opponents : but he is the last of the great scholastics, for his
criticisms struck at the root of the scholastic presuppositions.
Roger Bacon, the earliest in time of the three named, was also
the greatest and the most unfortunate. He lived and wrote under
the shadow of an uncongenial system then at the height of its
power. He suffered persecution and long imprisonments; his
popular fame was that of an alchemist and a wizard ; his works
were allowed to lie unprinted for centuries; and only later scholars
have been able to appreciate his significance. His learning seems
to have been unique ; he read Aristotle in Greek, and expressed
unmeasured contempt for the Latin translations then in vogue; he
was acquainted with the writings of the Arab men of science, whose
views were far in advance of all other contemporary knowledge.
He does not appear himself to have made the original scientific
discoveries with which he used to be credited, but he had thoroughly
mastered the best of the science and philosophy of his day.
There is, of course, much in his writings that may be called
scholasticism, but his views on the method of science are markedly
modern. His doctrine of method has been compared with that of
his more famous namesake Francis Bacon. He was as decided as
the latter was in rejecting all authority in matters of science; like
him, he took a comprehensive view of knowledge and attempted a
classification of the sciences; like him, also, he regarded natural
philosophy as the chief of the sciences. The differences between
the two are equally remarkable and serve to bring out the merits
of the older philosopher. He was a mathematician; and, indeed,
he looked upon mathematical proof as the sole type of demonstra-
tion. Further, he saw the importance in scientific method of two
steps that were inadequately recognised by Francis Bacon-the
deductive application of elementary laws to the facts observed,
followed by the experimental verification of the results. 'Roger
Bacon,' it has been said, 'has come very near, nearer certainly than
any preceding and than any succeeding writer until quite recent
times, to a satisfactory theory of scientific method. '
For more than two centuries after Ockham's death, only one
writer of importance can be reckoned among English philosophers.
That writer was John Wyclif, in whose case a period of philoso-
phical authorship-on scholastic lines—preceded his theological
1 R. Adamson, Roger Bacon: the Philosophy of Science in the Middle Ages (1876),
P. 33.
E. L. IV.
CH, XIV.
18
## p. 274 (#296) ############################################
274 The Beginnings of English Philosophy
and religious activity, and to whose writings reference has been
made in a previous volume. After him comes a blank of long
duration. The leaders of the renascence, both in philosophy and
in science, belonged to the continent; and, although their ideas
affected English scholarship and English literature, philosophical
writings were slow to follow. And the theological controversies
of the reformation led to no new enquiry into the grounds of
knowledge and belief. On the universities, the teaching of
Aristotle retained its hold, at least as regards logic, even after the
introduction of the new 'humanistic' studies. In the latter part
of the sixteenth century, Aristotelianism experienced an aca-
demic revival, though its supporters, in all cases, were suspected
of papistical leanings. John Case of St John's college, Oxford
(B. A. 1568), gave up his fellowship on this ground (it is said),
married and was allowed by the university to give lectures on
logic and philosophy in his house. In 1589, he took the M. D.
degree and, in the same year, became a canon of Salisbury. He
died in 1600. Between 1584 and 1599, he published seven books,
text-books of Aristotelianism_dealing with logic, ethics, politics
and economics. His Speculum moralium questionum in universam
ethicen Aristotelis (1585) was the first book printed at Oxford at
the new press presented by the earl of Leicester, chancellor of the
university. John Sanderson, fellow of Trinity college, Cambridge
(B. A. 1558), was appointed logic reader in the university in 1562, but,
in the same year, was expelled from his fellowship for suspicious
doctrine. He became a student at Douay in 1570, was ordained
priest in the Roman Catholic church and was appointed divinity
professor in the English college at Rheims. He died in 1602.
The only work of his that is known is Institutionum Dialecticarum
libri quatuor, printed at Antwerp in 1589, and at Oxford in 1594.
About the year 1580, a vigorous controversy regarding the merits
of the old logic and the new was carried on between two fellows
of Cambridge colleges, Everard Digby and William Temple. They
were both younger in academic standing than Sanderson or Case,
but they published earlier. Digby took his B. A. in the beginning
of 1571, and became fellow of St John's early in 1573, shortly
before Francis Bacon entered Trinity college as an undergraduate.
He began to give public lectures on logic soon after this date. “
It is possible—we have no evidence on the point—that Bacon
attended these lectures. If he did, they may have been the means
of arousing his interest in the question of method, and they may
also, at the same time, have awakened the spirit of criticism in
>
## p. 275 (#297) ############################################
Digby and William Temple 275
him and led to that discontent with the philosophy of Aristotle
which, according to his own account, he first acquired at
Cambridge.
Digby's career was chequered. He was suspected of 'corrupt
religion,' and he made enemies in his own society by his contempt
for the authorities. In the end of December, 1587, on the nominal
ground of an irregularity in his payments for commons, he was
deprived of his fellowship by Whitaker, master of the college and
a stern puritan. But Digby seems to have had friends in high
place. He appealed to Burghley the chancellor and to archbishop
Whitgift. By their order, a commission was appointed to enquire
into the grounds of his dismissal, and, as a result, Digby was
restored 28 May 1588. But, by the end of the same year, he seems
to have been got rid of-how, we do not knowl. Probably, the real
ground of objection to him-his lukewarm protestantism-made
it prudent for him to leave the university. Digby was famous in
his day for his eloquence as a lecturer, his skill in the disputations
of the schools and his learning. His learning, however, is much
less than appears from the mere array of authorities which he
cites. These are often taken from Reuchlin's De arte cabbalistica
(1517), the fictitious personages of this work being sometimes
referred to as actual authors. Digby wrote in the true scholastic
spirit; for him, Aristotle's doctrines were authoritative, and to
disagree with them was heresy. At the same time, his own Aristo-
telianism was coloured by a mystical theology for which he was
largely indebted to Reuchlin. Digby's chief work, Theoria ana-
lytica, viam ad monarchiam scientiarum demonstrans, was
published in 1579. This was followed next year by two books—
a criticism of Ramus entitled De duplici methodo, and a reply to
Temple's defence of the Ramist method. He was also the author
of a small treatise De arte natandi (1587), and of an English
Dissuasive from taking away the lyvings and goods of the Church
(1589).
William Temple passed from Eton to King's college, Cambridge,
in 1573; in due course, he became a fellow of the latter society,
and was soon engaged in teaching logic. From about 1582 till
about 1585, he was master of Lincoln grammar school. He then
became secretary to Sir Philip Sidney (to whom his edition of the
Dialectica of Ramus had been dedicated). After the latter's death,
he occupied various secretarial posts, and was in the service of the
| All the ascertainable facts were for the first time brought together by R. F. Scott
in The Eagle (St John's college magazine), October term, 1906, pp. 1-24.
18-2
## p. 276 (#298) ############################################
276 The Beginnings of English Philosophy
earl of Essex when he was obliged by the favourite's fall to
leave England. He does not seem to have returned till after the
accession of king James. In 1609, he was made provost of Trinity
college, Dublin, and, a few months later, master of chancery in
Ireland. He was knighted in 1622, and died in January 1627.
Temple's important philosophical writings belong to the early
part of his career. He was a pupil of Digby at Cambridge, and
wrote in terms of warm appreciation of his master's abilities and
fame and of the new life that he had put into philosophical study
in England. But he had himself found a more excellent way of
reasoning in the logical method of Ramus, then coming to be
known in this country. When scarcely twenty years of age,
Ramus had startled the university of Paris by his strenuous op-
position to the doctrines of Aristotle ; he had allied himself to the
Calvinists; and he ended his life as a victim of St Bartholomew's eve.
The protestant schools, accordingly, tended to favour his system,
in which logic, as the art of discourse, was assimilated to rhetoric
and given a practical character. Ascham, indeed, in a letter of
1552, and, again, in his Scholemaster (1570), expressed his dis-
approval of it. But, as early as 1573, we hear of its being defended
in Cambridge'. And, in 1574, when Andrew Melville returned
from Geneva and was appointed principal of the university of
Glasgow, he 'set him wholly to teach things not heard in this
country of before? ,' and the Dialectica of Ramus took the place of
Aristotle's Organon or the scholastic manual elsewhere current
in the universities of Great Britain. By his published works,
Temple became celebrated on the continent as well as at home as
an expositor and defender of Ramist doctrine; and, doubtless, it
is to his activity that Cambridge acquired a reputation in the early
part of the seventeenth century as the leading school of Ramist
philosophy? Temple began authorship in 1580, under the pseudo-
nym of Franciscus Mildapettus Navarrenus“, with an Admonitio
to Digby in defence of the single method of Ramus. Other con-
troversial writings on the same text, against Digby and Piscator of
Strassburg, followed in 1581 and 1582. In 1584, he published an
annotated edition of Ramus's Dialectica, and, in the same year, he
6
>
* Mullinger, History of the University of Cambridge, II, p. 411.
2 James Melvill's Diary (Edinburgh, Wodrow Society, 1842), p. 49; cf. Sir A.
Grant, Story of the University of Edinburgh, 1, p. 80.
3 See Mullinger, op. cit. 11, p. 412.
• Navarrenus' proclaims the author's allegiance to Ramos, who was educated at
the Parisian collège de Navarre; ‘Franciscus' may indicate nothing more than the
French origin of the doctrine. The explanation of • Mildapettus' is obscure.
## p. 277 (#299) ############################################
William Gilbert
277
issued, with a preface by himself, a disputation against Aristotle's
doctrine concerning the generation of simple and complex bodies,
written by James Martin of Dunkeld, then a professor at Turin.
These two books must have been among the first published by the
university Press, after the restoration of its licence by Burghley,
the chancellor, in this year?
In clearness of thought and argumentative skill, Temple was
far superior to Digby. On the more special point in dispute
between them—whether the method of knowledge is twofold,
from particulars to universals and from universals to particulars,
or whether there is only one method of reasoning, that from uni-
versals—the truth was not entirely on Temple's side. Nor had
his method anything in common with the induction used in the
physical sciences. But the new logic he recommended had the
advantage of clearness and practicality, and was free from the
complicated subtleties of the traditional systems. That Bacon
was acquainted with the works of Digby and Temple is highly
probable, though it cannot be conclusively established. Their
influence upon him, however, must have consisted mainly in
stimulating his interest in the question of method : they did not
anticipate his theory of induction.
While these questions occupied the schools, William Gilbert,
fellow of St John's college, Cambridge, 1561, president of the royal
college of physicians, 1600, was engaged in the laborious and
systematic pursuit of experiments on magnetism which resulted
in the publication of the first great English work of physical science,
De Magnete, magneticisque corporibus (1600). Gilbert expressed
himself as decidedly as did Bacon afterwards on the futility of
expecting to arrive at knowledge of nature by mere speculation
or by a few vague experiments.
He had, indeed, no theory of
induction ; but he was conscious that he was introducing a 'new
style of philosophising. ' His work contains a series of carefully
graduated experiments, each one of which is devised so as to
answer a particular question, while the simpler and more obvious
facts were set forth first and their investigation led by orderly
stages to that of the more complex and subtle. It is unfortunate
that Bacon was so little appreciative of Gilbert's book, as a careful
analysis of the method actually employed in it might have guarded
him from some errors.
Gilbert has been called the first real
physicist and the first trustworthy methodical experimenter? ' He
1 See Mullinger, op. cit. 11, pp. 297, 405.
• K, Lasswitz, Geschichte der Atomistik (1890), 1, p. 315.
## p. 278 (#300) ############################################
278 The Beginnings of English Philosophy
was also the founder of the theory of magnetism and electricity;
and he gave the latter its name, vis electrica. He explained the
inclination of the magnetic needle by his conception of the earth
as a magnet with two poles ; he defended the Copernican theory;
and, in his discussion of the attraction of bodies, there is a
suggestion of the doctrine of universal gravitation. He had also
reached a correct view of the atmosphere as extending only a
few miles from the surface of the earth, with nothing but empty
space beyond.
On an altogether different plane from Gilbert were two
younger contemporaries of Bacon. Robert Fludd, a graduate
of Oxford, was a man of fame in his day. He followed Paracelsus,
defended the Rosicrucians and attacked Copernicus, Gilbert, Kepler
and Galileo. His works are distinguished by fantastic specula-
tion rather than by scientific method. Nathanael Carpenter,
a fellow of Exeter college, Oxford, attacked the physical theory
of Aristotle in his Philosophia libera (1621). The works of
William Harvey belong to the period following Bacon's death,
although he had announced his discovery of the circulation of
the blood in 1616.
Francis Bacon was the younger of the two sons of Sir Nicholas
Bacon, lord keeper of the great seal, by his second wife Anne,
daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke and sister-in-law of lord Burghley.
He was born at York house, London, on 22 January 1561. In
April 1573, he was sent, along with his brother Anthony, to
Trinity college, Cambridge, where he remained (except for an
absence of about six months when the plague raged there) till
Christmas 1575. Of his studies in Cambridge, we know little or
nothing; and it would be easy to lay too great stress on the state-
ment long afterwards made to Rawley, his first biographer, that,
before he left the university, he 'fell into the dislike of the philo-
sophy of Aristotle; not for the worthlessness of the author, to whom
he would ever ascribe all high attributes, but for the unfruitfulness
of the way. In 1576, he was sent by his father to France with
Sir Amyas Paulet, the ambassador, and in his suite he remained until
recalled home by Sir Nicholas's sudden death in February 1579.
This event had an unfortunate effect upon his career. A sum
of money which his father had set apart to purchase an estate
for him had not been invested and he inherited a fifth part of it
only. He had, therefore, to look to the bar for an income and to
the grudging favour of the Cecils for promotion. He was called
## p. 279 (#301) ############################################
Francis Bacon
279
>
to the bar in 1582, and entered parliament in 1584: sitting in each
successive House of Commons until he becaine lord keeper.
But office was long in coming to him. The queen had been
affronted by an early speech of his in parliament in which he had
criticised the proposals of the court; and the Cecils always proved
more kin than kind. The objects which he sought were never
unworthy nor beyond his merits; but he sought them in ways not
always dignified. He pleaded his cause in many letters to Burghley
and Salisbury and Buckingham; and the style of his supplications
can hardly be accounted for altogether by the epistolary manners
of the period. In 1589, Burghley got him the reversion of an
office in the Star chamber, worth about £1600 a year ; but to
this he did not succeed till 1608. From about 1597, he had come
to be employed regularly as one of the queen’s learned counsel.
In 1604, he was made one of his ordinary counsel by king James,
with a salary of £40; and this, Bacon reckoned as his first prefer-
ment He was made solicitor-general in 1607, attorney-general
in 1613, privy councillor in 1616, lord keeper in 1617, lord-
chancellor in 1618. He was knighted in 1603, but, to his chagrin,
along with a crowd of three hundred others; he was created baron
Verulam in 1618, and viscount St Albans in 1621. A few weeks
later, charges of having received bribes from suitors in his court
were brought against him in the newly-summoned House of
Commons; these were remitted to the House of Lords for trial;
he was convicted on his own confession, and sentenced to depriva-
tion of all his offices, to imprisonment in the tower during the
king's pleasure, to a fine of £40,000, to exclusion from the verge
of the court and to incapacity from sitting in parliament. The
imprisonment lasted a few days only; the fine was made over to
trustees for Bacon's benefit; the exclusion from the verge was
soon removed; but, in spite of many entreaties, he was never
allowed to sit in parliament again.
In the midst of the legal and political work which crowded
these years, Bacon never lost sight of his larger ambitions. He
published the first edition of his Essays in 1597, the second (en-
larged) edition appearing in 1612 and the third (completed) edition
in 1625. The Advancement of Learning was published in 1605,
addressed to king James, De Sapientia Veterum in 1609, Novum
Organum in 1620. After his disgrace, he lived at Gorhambury,
the paternal estate to which he had succeeded on the death of his
brother Anthony in 1601, and there he devoted himself to writing.
The History of Henry VII appeared in 1622, and De Augmentis
## p. 280 (#302) ############################################
280 The Beginnings of English Philosophy
Scientiarum in 1623; the New Atlantis was written in 1624; at
his death, he was at work on Sylva Sylvarum; and he left behind
him many sketches and detached portions of his great but incom-
plete design. Bacon had been married in 1606 to Alice Barnham,
the daughter of an alderman. He died on 9 April 1626, from
the effects of a chill caught by moving out of his carriage in order
a
to try an experiment on the antiseptic properties of snow.
Bacon's plan for the renewal of the sciences was never fully
elaborated by himself, and it has never been deliberately followed
by others. In his personal career, too, there are some events that
still remain obscure. But material is not lacking for forming a
judgment on his philosophy and on his life. We cannot expect to
remove either from the range of controversy. But the life-long
devotion of Spedding may be said with confidence to have made
one thing clear. Pope's famous epigram—the wisest, brightest,
meanest of mankind'-and the brilliant elaboration of the same
in Macaulay's essay are false, and cannot be made to fit the facts.
We can understand Bacon aright only if we do not assume any
such absurd antithesis, but remember that life and philosophy are
revelations of the same mind, and allow for one shedding light on
the other. It is on this account that it is necessary to attempt an
estimate of Bacon's character and to touch upon the disputed
events in his career, although the questions cannot be discussed at
length, and little more can be done than to indicate results.
In a fragment? written about 1603, and, apparently, intended as
a preface to his great work, Bacon set forth the ambitions which
guided his life; and there is no reason for doubting the substantial
accuracy of his account. Believing (he begins) that he was born
for the service of mankind, he set himself to consider for what
service nature had fitted him best. He saw that the good effects
wrought by practical statesmen
extend over narrow spaces and last but for short times; whereas the work of
the Inventor, though a thing of less pomp and shew, is felt everywhere and
lasts for ever.
And for this end he thought nature had destined him.
I found that I was fitted for nothing so well as for the study of Truth; as
having a mind nimble and versatile enough to catch the resemblances of
things (which is the chief point), and at the same time steady enough to fix
and distinguish their subtler differences; as being gifted by nature with
1 De interpretatione naturæ proæmium, Works, III, pp. 518-520. In this and other
quotations from the Latin works the translations contained in Ellis and Spedding's
edition have been used.
## p. 281 (#303) ############################################
Bacon's Character and Career
281
desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert,
readiness to consider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and as being a
man that neither affects what is new nor admires what is old, and that hates
every kind of imposture. So I thought my nature had a kind of familiarity
and relationship with Truth.
6
His first object, therefore, was the knowledge that would extend
and establish the empire of man over nature. But birth and
education had introduced him to the service of the state ; and 'a
man's own country has some special claims upon him. ' For these
reasons, he sought civil employment: the service of the state may
be said to have been his second object in life. Finally, he adds
I was not without hope (the condition of Religion being at that time not
very prosperous) that if I came to hold office in the state, I might get some-
thing done too for the good of men's souls.
According to Bacon's own account, therefore, the service of man-
kind to which he held himself born was to be carried out by
devotion to three objects: the discovery of truth, the welfare of
his country and the reform of religion. And of these three objects
the first always held the highest place in his thoughts. 'I confess'
he wrote to Burghley about 1592, 'that I have as vast contem-
plative ends as I have moderate civil ends : for I have taken all
knowledge to be my province. '
This greatness of design was characteristic of the mind of the
period as well as of Bacon personally. But it was accompanied by
inadequate preparation in the methods and principles of the exact
sciences as understood at the time, and often by an imperfect
grasp of details. If the latter defect may be traced in his in-
tellectual work, it is still more apparent in his practical activity.
It is not fanciful to connect with this characteristic some of the
actions for which he has been most censured. Throughout his
career he was never free from financial difficulties; and, when he
had obtained high preferment, he maintained a magnificent style
of living without exercising any effective control over the ex-
penditure of his household. When the charge of taking bribes
was made against him he was much surprised, but he had no
defence. It may be true, as he asserted, that he never allowed a
present from a suitor to influence his decision ; nor do any of his
judgments appear to have been reversed on this ground. It may
be true, also, that Bacon only followed the custom of his time:
though, on this point, it is difficult to get evidence. But he himself
saw the impropriety of a judge being 'twice paid'—to quote the mild
term of censure used in his New Atlantis. And he took no care
## p. 282 (#304) ############################################
282 The Beginnings of English Philosophy
to guard against the impropriety in his own conduct. In the main,
he was probably a just, as well as an efficient, judge. But he was
too tenacious of his office as he had been too eager to obtain it;
and it is hardly possible to resist the evidence for the conclusion
that, on one occasion at least? , he allowed the court favourite
Buckingham to influence his decision. In another matter—that of
the trial of the earl of Essex-Bacon's conduct has been unjustly
blamed. The benefits which he had received at the hands of Essex
would not have been a sufficient reason for his standing aside
when the need arose for his taking part in the prosecution. The
rebellion of Essex had been a real danger to the state and not
merely an explosion of bad temper. It was essential that the
prosecution should not fail through the case being badly presented;
and Bacon's intervention was not merely excusable: it was his
duty to safeguard the interests of the state, and to subordinate to
them the claims of private friendship and gratitude, in spite of the
tragedy of the personal situation. At the same time, it has to be
said that the record of the trial does not suggest that he felt the
tragedy. Judging from the manner in which he pressed home the
charge, the personal factor seems to have touched him but slightly.
And this, perhaps, is characteristic. He was capable of high
enthusiasm for ideas and for causes. His philosophical works are
inspired by the former; and his writings on public affairs show a
spirit of devotion to the common weal as well as political wisdom.
But, on the side of personal sentiment, his nature seems to have
been not easily stirred to the love or hate which unite and divide
mankind.
Bacon intended that his Great Instauration or Renewal of the
Sciences should be set forth in six parts. These, he enumerated as
follows: (1) The Division of the Sciences; (2) The New Organon,
or Directions concerning the Interpretation of Nature; (3) The
Phenomena of the Universe, or a Natural and Experimental History
for the foundation of Philosophy; (4) The Ladder of the Intellect;
(5) The Forerunners, or Anticipations of the New Philosophy;
(6) The New Philosophy, or Active Science. Of these parts, the last
was to be the work of future ages; for the fourth and fifth only pre-
faces were written; the first three are represented by considerable
works, although in none of them is the original design carried out
with completeness. Latin was to be the language of them all. The
Advancement of Learning, which, in great part, covers the ground
? See the letter of D. D. Heath (one of the editors of the Works) in Bacon's Letters
and Life, vir, pp. 579—588.
## p. 283 (#305) ############################################
The Great Instauration 283
of the first division, was not written as part of the plan; but De
Augmentis, which takes its place in the scheme, is little more
than an extended Latin translation of the Advancement. Bacon's
last work, Sylva Sylvarum, which belongs to the third part, was
written in English.
Bacon, as he said himself, took all knowledge as his province;
his concern was not so much with particular branches of science
as with principles, method and system. For this purpose, he sets
out by reviewing the existing state of knowledge, dwelling on its
defects and pointing out remedies for them. This is the burden
of the first book of the Advancement and of De Augmentis. In
the second book, he proceeds to expound his division of the
sciences. The principle with which he starts in his classification is
psychological:
The parts of human learning have reference to the three parts of man's
understanding, which is the seat of learning: history to his memory, poesy
to his imagination, and philosophy to his reason. .
The subdivisions of these, however, are based on differences in the
objects, not in the mental faculty employed. History is divided
into natural and civil. To the latter of these, ecclesiastical and
literary history are regarded as subordinate (although made co-
ordinate in the Advancement). Poetry is held to be ‘nothing else
but feigned history,' and is subdivided into narrative, representative
and allusive or parabolical. But it is with the last of the three
main divisions of learning that Bacon is chiefly concerned.
In Philosophy the contemplations of man do either penetrate unto God,
or are circumferred to nature, or are reflected or reverted upon himself. Out
of which several enquiries there do arise three knowledges, Divine philosophy,
Natural philosophy, and Human philosophy or Humanity. For all things
are marked and stamped with this triple character, of the power of God, the
difference of nature, and the use of man.
But, as the three divisions all spring from a common root, and
certain observations and axioms are common to all, the receptacle
for these must constitute 'one universal science, by the name of
Philosophia Prima, Primitive or Summary Philosophy. ' Among
the three divisions of philosophy, Bacon's most important thoughts
concern natural philosophy. One of his fundamental ideas is
expressed by its distinction into two parts-'the inquisition of
causes, and the production of effects; Speculative, and Operative;
Natural Science, and Natural Prudence. More subtle is the dis-
tinction of natural science into physic and metaphysic. The
latter term is not used in its traditional sense, nor is it synonymous
## p. 284 (#306) ############################################
284 The Beginnings of English Philosophy
with what Bacon calls summary philosophy, which deals with
axioms common to several sciences. Both physic and metaphysic
deal with natural objects : physic with their material and efficient
causes, inetaphysic with their formal and final causes. Thus,
Physic is situate in a middle term or distance between Natural History and
Metaphysic. For Natural History describeth the variety of things; Physic,
the causes, but variable and respective causes; and Metaphysic, the fixed and
constant causes.
In elaborating this view, Bacon covers ground traversed again in
Novum Organum.
Both for its style and for the importance of the ideas which it
conveys, Novum Organum ranks as Bacon's greatest work. To
its composition he devoted the most minute care. Rawley tells us
that he had seen no less than twelve drafts of it in Bacon's own
handwriting, re-written from year to year. As it was at last
published, its stately diction is a fit vehicle for the prophetic
message it contains. The aphorisms into which the matter is
thrown add impressiveness to the leading ideas, without seriously
interfering with the sequence of the argument.
It is chiefly to Novum Organum that we must go if we would
understand the message and the influence of Bacon. And this
understanding will be facilitated if we distinguish, as he himself
never did, between certain leading ideas which he, more than any-
one else, impressed upon the mind of succeeding ages, and his own
more special conception of nature and of the true method for its
investigation.
Of those leading and general ideas, two have been already
indicated. One of these is the belief in the unity of science. His
classification of the sciences had in view not only their differences
but, also, their essential oneness. *The divisions of knowledge,' he
says, “are like branches of a tree that meet in one stem (which
stem grows for some distance entire and continuous, before it
divide itself into arms and boughs). ' They are to be accepted
‘rather for lines and veins, than for sections and separations. '
The second of these leading ideas is the practical aim of know-
ledge. This is a constantly recurring thought, and is, in his own
mind, the most fundamental ; it is the first distinction which he
draws between his own new logic and the old, and it was meant to
characterise the new philosophy of which he claims to have made
only the beginning.
The matter in hand is no mere felicity of speculation, but the real business
and fortunes of the human race, and all power of operation. For inan is but
## p. 285 (#307) ############################################
Classes of Idols
285
the servant and interpreter of nature: what he does and what he knows is
only what he has observed of nature's order in fact or in thought; beyond
this he knows nothing and can do nothing. For the chain of causes cannot
by any force be loosed or broken, nor can nature be commanded except by
being obeyed. And so those twin objects, human knowledge and human
power, do really meet in one; and it is from ignorance of causes that operation
fails.
Bacon's object was to establish or restore the empire of man
over nature. This empire depends upon knowledge; but, in the
mind of man, there are certain obstacles to knowledge which pre-
dispose it to ignorance and error. The doctrine of the tendencies
to error inherent in the human mind is another of his fundamental
thoughts. These tendencies to error he called idola mentis,
images or phantoms by which the mind is misled. The name is
taken from Plato and contrasted with the Platonic 'idea’; and
emphasis is laid on the difference between the idols of the human
mind, which are abstractions that distort and misrepresent reality,
and the ideas of the divine mind, which are 'the creator's own
stamp upon reality, impressed and defined in matter by true and
exquisite lines. ' This doctrine had long occupied Bacon's thought;
it was stated in the Advancement, where, however, the last of the
four classes of idols is wanting ; and it was completely set forth for
the first time in Novum Organum. In the latter work, four classes
of idols are distinguished: idols of the tribe, idols of the cave, idols
of the market-place and idols of the theatre. Under these graphic
titles, Bacon works out a doctrine which shows both originality
and insight. The originality is conspicuous in what he says con-
cerning the idols of the tribe. They are deceptive tendencies
which are inherent in the mind of man as such and belong to the
whole human race. The understanding, he says, is like a false
mirror that distorts and discolours the nature of things. Thus, it
supposes more order and regularity in the world than it finds, as
when it assigns circular motion to the celestial bodies; it is more
moved and excited by instances that agree with its preconceptions
than by those that differ from them; it is unquiet, and cannot rest
in a limit without seeking to press beyond it, or in an ultimate
principle without asking for a cause; it 'is no dry light, but
receives an infusion from the will and affections'; it depends on
the senses, and they are 'dull, incompetent and deceptive'; and it
is 'prone to abstractions and gives a substance and reality to things
which are fleeting. The idols of the cave belong not to the race
but to the individual. They take their rise in his peculiar consti-
tution, and are modified by education, habit and accident. Thus
6
## p. 286 (#308) ############################################
286 The Beginnings of of
a
English Philosophy
some minds are apt to mark differences, others resemblances, and
both tend to err in opposite ways; or, again, devotion to a par-
ticular science or speculation may so colour a man's thoughts that
everything is interpreted by its light. The idols of the market-
place are those due to the use of language, and they are the most
troublesome of all.
For men believe that their reason governs words; but it is also true that
words react on the understanding; and this it is that has rendered philosophy
and the sciences sophistical and inactive.
Finally, the idols of the theatre are due to 'philosophical
systems and the perverted rules of demonstration. In this con-
nection, Bacon classifies 'false philosophies’ as sophistical, em-
pirical and superstitious. In his amplification of this division,
his adverse judgment upon Aristotle may be discounted; his want
of appreciation of Gilbert is a more reasonable matter of regret ;
but, at bottom, his view is sound that it is an error either to
'fashion the world out of categories' or to base a system on the
narrowness and darkness of a few experiments. '
This criticism of the sources and kinds of error leads directly to
an explanation of that “just and methodical process' of arriving at
truth which Bacon calls the interpretation of nature. The process
is elaborate and precisely defined ; and it rests on a special view
of the constitution of nature. Neither this view nor the details
of the method have exerted much influence upon the progress of
science. But underlying them both was the more general idea of
the importance of an objective attitude to nature and of the need
of systematic experiment; and of this general idea Bacon was,
not indeed the originator, but the most brilliant and influential
exponent. In the study of nature, all preconceptions must be set
aside; we must be on our guard against the tendency to premature
‘anticipations' of nature: 'the subtlety of nature is greater many
times over than the subtlety of argument'; men must be led back
to the particular facts of experience, and pass from them to
general truths by gradual and unbroken ascent; we must begin
anew from the very foundation,' for 'into the kingdom of nature as
into the kingdom of grace entrance can only be obtained sub
persona infantis. '
These general but fruitful ideas do not exhaust Bacon's teach-
ing. He looked forward to the speedy establishment of a new
philosophy which should be distinguished from the old by the
completeness of its account of reality and by the certainty of its
results. His new method seemed to give him a key to the subtlety
## p. 287 (#309) ############################################
Bacon's Definitions of Form' 287
of nature; and this method would have the incidental result of
levelling intellectual capacities so that all minds who followed it
with care and patience would be able to find truth and use it for
fruitful works.
'It is a correct position' says Bacon,'that true knowledge is know-
ledge by causes. ' But the way in which he understands this posi-
tion is significant. He adopts the Aristotelian division of causes
into four kinds: material, formal, efficient and final. Physic deals
with the efficient and material; but these, apart from their relation
to the formal cause, 'are but slight and superficial, and contribute
little, if anything, to true and active science. ' The enquiry into
the other two belongs to that branch of natural philosophy which
he calls metaphysic. “But of these the final cause rather corrupts
than advances the sciences, except such as have to do with human
action,' and 'the discovery of the formal is dispaired of. ' Yet
forms must be investigated if nature is to be understood and con-
trolled. Thus, the second book of Novum Organum opens with
the aphorism
On a given body to generate and superinduce a new nature is the work
and aim of human power. Of a given nature to discover the form . . . is the
work and aim of human knowledge.
What, then, does Bacon mean by 'form'? He gives many answers
to this question, and yet the meaning is not altogether easy to
grasp. Form is not something mental; it is not an idea, nor is it
a mere abstraction; it is itself physical. According to Bacon,
nothing really exists in nature except individual bodies. But a
body has several qualities perceptible by our senses (these qualities
he calls ‘natures'); the form is the condition or cause of these
natures : its presence determines the presence of the relative
nature; with its absence the nature vanishes. Again, a thing acts
by certain fixed laws: these laws are forms.
