On the Philosophy of Discovery, Chapters Historical and Critical

11. Nor can it be denied that Bacon has, in the finished part of his Novum Organon, put prominently forwards the necessary dependence of all our knowledge upon Experience, and said little of its dependence, equally necessary, upon the Conceptions which the intellect itself supplies. It will appear, however, on a close examination, that he was by no means insensible or careless of this internal element of all connected speculation. He held the balance, with no partial or feeble hand, between phenomena and ideas. He urged the Colligation of Facts, but he was not the less aware of the value of the Explication of Conceptions.

12. This appears plainly from some remarkable Aphorisms in the Novum Organon. Thus, in noticing the causes of the little progress then made by science¹⁷³, he states this:—"In the current Notions, all is unsound, whether they be logical or physical. Substance, quality, action, passion, even being, are not good Conceptions; still less are heavy, light, dense, rare, moist, dry, generation, corruption, attraction, repulsion, element, matter, form, and others of that kind; all are fantastical and ill-defined." And in his attempt to exemplify his own system, he hesitates¹⁷⁴ in accepting or rejecting the notions of elementary, celestial, rare, as belonging to fire, since, as he says, they are vague and ill-defined notions (notiones vagæ nec bene terminatæ). In that part of his work which appears to be completed, there is not, so far as I have noticed, any attempt to fix and define any notions thus complained of as loose and obscure. But yet such an undertaking appears to have formed part of his plan; and in the Abecedarium Naturæ¹⁷⁵, which consists of the heads of various portions of his great scheme, marked by letters of the alphabet, we find the titles of a series of dissertations "On the Conditions of Being," which must have had for their object the elucidation of divers Notions essential to science, and which would have been contributions to the Explication of Conceptions, such as we have attempted in a former part of this work. Thus some of the subjects of these dissertations are;—Of Much and Little;—Of Durable and Transitory;—Of Natural and Monstrous;—Of Natural and Artificial. When the philosopher of induction came to discuss these, considered as conditions of existence, he could not do otherwise than develope, limit, methodize, and define the Ideas involved in these Notions, so as to make them consistent with themselves, and a fit basis of demonstrative reasoning. His task would have been of the same nature as ours has been, in that part of this work which treats of the Fundamental Ideas of the various classes of sciences.

13. Thus Bacon, in his speculative philosophy, took firmly hold of both the handles of science; and if he had completed his scheme, would probably have given due attention to Ideas, no less than to Facts, as an element of our knowledge; while in his view of the general method of ascending from facts to principles, he displayed a sagacity truly wonderful. But we cannot be surprised, that in attempting to exemplify the method which he recommended, he should have failed. For the method could be exemplified only by some important discovery in physical science; and great discoveries, even with the most perfect methods, do not come at command. Moreover, although the general structure of his scheme was correct, the precise import of some of its details could hardly be understood, till the actual progress of science had made men somewhat familiar with the kind of steps which it included.

(VI.) 14. Bacon's Example.—Accordingly, Bacon's Inquisition into the Nature of Heat, which is given in the Second Book of the Novum Organon as an example of the mode of interrogating Nature, cannot be looked upon otherwise than as a complete failure. This will be evident if we consider that, although the exact nature of heat is still an obscure and controverted matter, the science of Heat now consists of many important truths; and that to none of these truths is there any approximation in Bacon's essay. From his process he arrives at this, as the "forma or true definition" of heat;—"that it is an expansive, restrained motion, modified in certain ways, and exerted in the smaller particles of the body." But the steps by which the science of Heat really advanced were (as may be seen in the history¹⁷⁶ of the subject) these;—The discovery of a measure of heat or temperature (the thermometer); the establishment of the laws of conduction and radiation; of the laws of specific heat, latent heat, and the like. Such steps have led to Ampère's hypothesis¹⁷⁷, that heat consists in the vibrations of an imponderable fluid; and to Laplace's hypothesis, that temperature consists in the internal radiation of such a fluid. These hypotheses cannot yet be said to be even probable; but at least they are so modified as to include some of the preceding laws which are firmly established; whereas Bacon's hypothetical motion includes no laws of phenomena, explains no process, and is indeed itself an example of illicit generalization.

15. One main ground of Bacon's ill fortune in this undertaking appears to be, that he was not aware of an important maxim of inductive science, that we must first obtain the measure and ascertain the laws of phenomena, before we endeavour to discover their causes. The whole history of thermotics up to the present time has been occupied with the former step, and the task is not yet completed: it is no wonder, therefore, that Bacon failed entirely, when he so prematurely attempted the second. His sagacity had taught him that the progress of science must be gradual; but it had not led him to judge adequately how gradual it must be, nor of what different kinds of inquiries, taken in due order, it must needs consist, in order to obtain success.

Another mistake, which could not fail to render it unlikely that Bacon should really exemplify his precepts by any actual advance in science, was, that he did not justly appreciate the sagacity, the inventive genius, which all discovery requires. He conceived that he could supersede the necessity of such peculiar endowments. "Our method of discovery in science," he says¹⁷⁸, "is of such a nature, that there is not much left to acuteness and strength of genius, but all degrees of genius and intellect are brought nearly to the same level." And he illustrates this by comparing his method to a pair of compasses, by means of which a person with no manual skill may draw a perfect circle. In the same spirit he speaks of proceeding by due rejections; and appears to imagine that when we have obtained a collection of facts, if we go on successively rejecting what is false, we shall at last find that we have, left in our hands, that scientific truth which we seek. I need not observe how far this view is removed from the real state of the case. The necessity of a conception which must be furnished by the mind in order to bind together the facts, could hardly have escaped the eye of Bacon, if he had cultivated more carefully the ideal side of his own philosophy. And any attempts which he could have made to construct such conceptions by mere rule and method, must have ended in convincing him that nothing but a peculiar inventive talent could supply that which was thus not contained in the facts, and yet was needed for the discovery.

(VII.) 16. His Failure.—Since Bacon, with all his acuteness, had not divined circumstances so important in the formation of science, it is not wonderful that his attempt to reduce this process to a Technical Form is of little value. In the first place, he says¹⁷⁹, we must prepare a natural and experimental history, good and sufficient; in the next place, the instances thus collected are to be arranged in Tables in some orderly way; and then we must apply a legitimate and true induction. And in his example¹⁸⁰, he first collects a great number of cases in which heat appears under various circumstances, which he calls "a Muster of Instances before the intellect," (comparentia instantiarum ad intellectum,) or a Table of the Presence of the thing sought. He then adds a Table of its Absence in proximate cases, containing instances where heat does not appear; then a Table of Degrees, in which it appears with greater or less intensity. He then adds¹⁸¹, that we must try to exclude several obvious suppositions, which he does by reference to some of the instances he has collected; and this step he calls the Exclusive, or the Rejection of Natures. He then observes, (and justly,) that whereas truth emerges more easily from error than from confusion, we may, after this preparation, give play to the intellect, (fiat permissio intellectus,) and make an attempt at induction, liable afterwards to be corrected; and by this step, which he terms his First Vindemiation, or Inchoate Induction, he is led to the proposition concerning heat, which we have stated above.

17. In all the details of his example he is unfortunate. By proposing to himself to examine at once into the nature of heat, instead of the laws of special classes of phenomena, he makes, as we have said, a fundamental mistake; which is the less surprising since he had before him so few examples of the right course in the previous history of science. But further, his collection of instances is very loosely brought together; for he includes in his list the hot taste of aromatic plants, the caustic effects of acids, and many other facts which cannot be ascribed to heat without a studious laxity in the use of the word. And when he comes to that point where he permits his intellect its range, the conception of motion upon which it at once fastens, appears to be selected with little choice or skill, the suggestion being taken from flame¹⁸², boiling liquids, a blown fire, and some other cases. If from such examples we could imagine heat to be motion, we ought at least to have some gradation to cases of heat where no motion is visible, as in a red-hot iron. It would seem that, after a large collection of instances had been looked at, the intellect, even in its first attempts, ought not to have dwelt upon such an hypothesis as this.

18. After these steps, Bacon speaks of several classes of instances which, singling them out of the general and indiscriminate collection of facts, he terms Instances with Prerogative: and these he points out as peculiar aids and guides to the intellect in its task. These Instances with Prerogative have generally been much dwelt upon by those who have commented on the Novum Organon. Yet, in reality, such a classification, as has been observed by one of the ablest writers of the present day¹⁸³, is of little service in the task of induction. For the instances are, for the most part, classed, not according to the ideas which they involve, or to any obvious circumstance in the facts of which they consist, but according to the extent or manner of their influence upon the inquiry in which they are employed. Thus we have Solitary Instances, Migrating Instances, Ostensive Instances, Clandestine Instances, so termed according to the degree in which they exhibit, or seem to exhibit, the property whose nature we would examine. We have Guide-Post Instances, (Instantiæ Crucis,) Instances of the Parted Road, of the Doorway, of the Lamp, according to the guidance they supply to our advance. Such a classification is much of the same nature as if, having to teach the art of building, we were to describe tools with reference to the amount and place of the work which they must do, instead of pointing out their construction and use:—as if we were to inform the pupil that we must have tools for lifting a stone up, tools for moving it sideways, tools for laying it square, tools for cementing it firmly. Such an enumeration of ends would convey little instruction as to the means. Moreover, many of Bacon's classes of instances are vitiated by the assumption that the "form," that is, the general law and cause of the property which is the subject of investigation, is to be looked for directly in the instances; which, as we have seen in his inquiry concerning heat, is a fundamental error.

19. Yet his phraseology in some cases, as in the instantia crucis, serves well to mark the place which certain experiments hold in our reasonings: and many of the special examples which he gives are full of acuteness and sagacity. Thus he suggests swinging a pendulum in a mine, in order to determine whether the attraction of the earth arises from the attraction of its parts; and observing the tide at the same moment in different parts of the world, in order to ascertain whether the motion of the water is expansive or progressive; with other ingenious proposals. These marks of genius may serve to counterbalance the unfavourable judgment of Bacon's aptitude for physical science which we are sometimes tempted to form, in consequence of his false views on other points; as his rejection of the Copernican system, and his undervaluing Gilbert's magnetical speculations. Most of these errors arose from a too ambitious habit of intellect, which would not be contented with any except very wide and general truths; and from an indistinctness of mechanical, and perhaps, in general, of mathematical ideas:—defects which Bacon's own philosophy was directed to remedy, and which, in the progress of time, it has remedied in others.

(VIII.) 20. His Idols.—Having thus freely given our judgment concerning the most exact and definite portion of Bacon's precepts, it cannot be necessary for us to discuss at any length the value of those more vague and general Warnings against prejudice and partiality, against intellectual indolence and presumption, with which his works abound. His advice and exhortations of this kind are always expressed with energy and point, often clothed in the happiest forms of imagery; and hence it has come to pass, that such passages are perhaps more familiar to the general reader than any other part of his writings. Nor are Bacon's counsels without their importance, when we have to do with those subjects in which prejudice and partiality exercise their peculiar sway. Questions of politics and morals, of manners, taste, or history, cannot be subjected to a scheme of rigorous induction; and though on such matters we venture to assert general principles, these are commonly obtained with some degree of insecurity, and depend upon special habits of thought, not upon mere logical connexion. Here, therefore, the intellect may be perverted, by mixing, with the pure reason, our gregarious affections, or our individual propensities; the false suggestions involved in language, or the imposing delusions of received theories. In these dim and complex labyrinths of human thought, the Idol of the Tribe, or of the Den, of the Forum, or of the Theatre, may occupy men's minds with delusive shapes, and may obscure or pervert their vision of truth. But in that Natural Philosophy with which we are here concerned, there is little opportunity for such influences. As far as a physical theory is completed through all the steps of a just induction, there is a clear daylight diffused over it which leaves no lurking-place for prejudice. Each part can be examined separately and repeatedly; and the theory is not to be deemed perfect till it will bear the scrutiny of all sound minds alike. Although, therefore, Bacon, by warning men against the idols of fallacious images above spoken of, may have guarded them from dangerous error, his precepts have little to do with Natural Philosophy: and we cannot agree with him when he says¹⁸⁴, that the doctrine concerning these idols bears the same relation to the interpretation of nature as the doctrine concerning sophistical paralogisms bears to common logic.

(IX.) 21. His Aim, Utility.—There is one very prominent feature in Bacon's speculations which we must not omit to notice; it is a leading and constant object with him to apply his knowledge to Use. The insight which he obtains into nature, he would employ in commanding nature for the service of man. He wishes to have not only principles but works. The phrase which best describes the aim of his philosophy is his own¹⁸⁵, "Ascendendo ad axiomata, descendendo ad opera." This disposition appears in the first aphorism of the Novum Organon, and runs through the work. "Man, the minister and interpreter of nature, does and understands, so far as he has, in fact or in thought, observed the course of nature; and he cannot know or do more than this." It is not necessary for us to dwell much upon this turn of mind; for the whole of our present inquiry goes upon the supposition that an acquaintance with the laws of nature is worth our having for its own sake. It may be universally true, that Knowledge is Power; but we have to do with it not as Power, but as Knowledge. It is the formation of Science, not of Art, with which we are here concerned. It may give a peculiar interest to the history of science, to show how it constantly tends to provide better and better for the wants and comforts of the body; but that is not the interest which engages us in our present inquiry into the nature and course of philosophy. The consideration of the means which promote man's material well-being often appears to be invested with a kind of dignity, by the discovery of general laws which it involves; and the satisfaction which rises in our minds at the contemplation of such cases, men sometimes ascribe, with a false ingenuity, to the love of mere bodily enjoyment. But it is never difficult to see that this baser and coarser element is not the real source of our admiration. Those who hold that it is the main business of science to construct instruments for the uses of life, appear sometimes to be willing to accept the consequence which follows from such a doctrine, that the first shoemaker was a philosopher worthy of the highest admiration¹⁸⁶. But those who maintain such paradoxes, often, by a happy inconsistency, make it their own aim, not to devise some improved covering for the feet, but to delight the mind with acute speculations, exhibited in all the graces of wit and fancy.

It has been said¹⁸⁷ that the key of the Baconian doctrine consists in two words, Utility and Progress. With regard to the latter point, we have already seen that the hope and prospect of a boundless progress in human knowledge had sprung up in men's minds, even in the early times of imperial Rome; and were most emphatically expressed by that very Seneca who disdained to reckon the worth of knowledge by its value in food and clothing. And when we say that Utility was the great business of Bacon's philosophy, we forget one-half of his characteristic phrase: "Ascendendo ad aximomata," no less than "descendendo ad opera," was, he repeatedly declared, the scheme of his path. He constantly spoke, we are told by his secretary¹⁸⁸, of two kinds of experiments, experimenta fructifera, and experimenta lucifera.

Again; when we are told by modern writers that Bacon merely recommended such induction as all men instinctively practise, we ought to recollect his own earnest and incessant declarations to the contrary. The induction hitherto practised is, he says, of no use for obtaining solid science. There are two ways¹⁸⁹, "hæc via in usu est," "altera vera, sed intentata." Men have constantly been employed in anticipation; in illicit induction. The intellect left to itself rushes on in this road¹⁹⁰; the conclusions so obtained are persuasive¹⁹¹; far more persuasive than inductions made with due caution¹⁹². But still this method must be rejected if we would obtain true knowledge. We shall then at length have ground of good hope for science when we proceed in another manner¹⁹³. We must rise, not by a leap, but by small steps, by successive advances, by a gradation of ascents, trying our facts, and clearing our notions at every interval. The scheme of true philosophy, according to Bacon, is not obvious and simple, but long and technical, requiring constant care and self-denial to follow it. And we have seen that, in this opinion, his judgment is confirmed by the past history and present condition of science.

Again; it is by no means a just view of Bacon's character to place him in contrast to Plato. Plato's philosophy was the philosophy of Ideas; but it was not left for Bacon to set up the philosophy of Facts in opposition to that of Ideas. That had been done fully by the speculative reformers of the sixteenth century. Bacon had the merit of showing that Facts and Ideas must be combined; and not only so, but of divining many of the special rules and forms of this combination, when as yet there were no examples of them, with a sagacity hitherto quite unparalleled.

(X.) 22. His Perseverance.—With Bacon's unhappy political life we have here nothing to do. But we cannot but notice with pleasure how faithfully, how perseveringly, how energetically he discharged his great philosophical office of a Reformer of Methods. He had conceived the purpose of making this his object at an early period. When meditating the continuation of his Novum Organon, and speaking of his reasons for trusting that his work will reach some completeness of effect, he says¹⁹⁴, "I am by two arguments thus persuaded. First, I think thus from the zeal and constancy of my mind, which has not waxed old in this design, nor, after so many years, grown cold and indifferent; I remember that about forty years ago I composed a juvenile work about these things, which with great contrivance and a pompous title I called temporis partum maximum, or the most considerable birth of time; Next, that on account of its usefulness, it may hope the Divine blessing." In stating the grounds of hope for future progress in the sciences, he says¹⁹⁵: "Some hope may, we conceive, be ministered to men by our own example: and this we say, not for the sake of boasting, but because it is useful to be said. If any despond, let them look at me, a man among all others of my age most occupied with civil affairs, nor of very sound health, (which brings a great loss of time;) also in this attempt the first explorer, following the footsteps of no man, nor communicating on these subjects with any mortal; yet, having steadily entered upon the true road and made my mind submit to things themselves, one who has, in this undertaking, made, (as we think,) some progress." He then proceeds to speak of what may be done by the combined and more prosperous labours of others, in that strain of noble hope and confidence, which rises again and again, like a chorus, at intervals in every part of his writings. In the Advancement of Learning he had said, "I could not be true and constant to the argument I handle, if I were not willing to go beyond others, but yet not more willing than to have others go beyond me again." In the Preface to the Instauratio Magna, he had placed among his postulates those expressions which have more than once warmed the breast of a philosophical reformer¹⁹⁶. "Concerning ourselves we speak not; but as touching the matter which we have in hand, this we ask;—that men be of good hope, neither feign and imagine to themselves this our Reform as something of infinite dimension and beyond the grasp of mortal man, when in truth it is the end and true limit of infinite error; and is by no means unmindful of the condition of mortality and humanity, not confiding that such a thing can be carried to its perfect close in the space of a single age, but assigning it as a task to a succession of generations." In a later portion of the Instauratio he says: "We bear the strongest love to the human republic our common country; and we by no means abandon the hope that there will arise and come forth some man among posterity, who will be able to receive and digest all that is best in what we deliver; and whose care it will be to cultivate and perfect such things. Therefore, by the blessing of the Deity, to tend to this object, to open up the fountains, to discover the useful, to gather guidance for the way, shall be our task; and from this we shall never, while we remain in life, desist."

(XI.) 23. His Piety.—We may add, that the spirit of piety as well as of hope which is seen in this passage, appears to have been habitual to Bacon at all periods of his life. We find in his works several drafts of portions of his great scheme, and several of them begin with a prayer. One of these entitled, in the edition of his works, "The Student's Prayer," appears to me to belong probably to his early youth. Another, entitled "The Writer's Prayer," is inserted at the end of the Preface of the Instauratio, as it was finally published. I will conclude my notice of this wonderful man by inserting here these two prayers.

"To God the Father, God the Word, God the Spirit, we pour forth most humble and hearty supplications; that he, remembering the calamities of mankind, and the pilgrimage of this our life, in which we wear out days few and evil, would please to open to us new refreshments out of the fountains of his goodness for the alleviating of our miseries. This also we humbly and earnestly beg, that human things may not prejudice such as are divine; neither that, from the unlocking of the gates of sense, and the kindling of a greater natural light, anything of incredulity, or intellectual night, may arise in our minds towards divine mysteries. But rather, that by our mind thoroughly cleansed and purged from fancy and vanities, and yet subject and perfectly given up to the Divine oracles, there may be given unto faith the things that are faith's."

"Thou, O Father, who gavest the visible light as the first-born of thy creatures, and didst pour into man the intellectual light as the top and consummation of thy workmanship, be pleased to protect and govern this work, which coming from thy goodness, returneth to thy glory. Thou, after thou hadst reviewed the works which thy hands had made, beheldest that everything was very good, and thou didst rest with complacency in them. But man, reflecting on the works which he had made, saw that all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and could by no means acquiesce in them. Wherefore, if we labour in thy works with the sweat of our brows, thou wilt make us partakers of thy vision and thy Sabbath. We humbly beg that this mind may be steadfastly in us; and that thou, by our hands, and also by the hands of others on whom thou shalt bestow the same spirit, wilt please to convey a largess of new alms to thy family of mankind. These things we commend to thy everlasting love, by our Jesus, thy Christ, God with us. Amen."