Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 02.djvu/368

 Bacon 'Novum Organum' is the historical one of its subsequent influence on logic, philosophy, and science. As Macaulay finely says. Bacon 'moved the intellects which have moved the world.' But the intrinsic value of this work is still considerable. There is probably no work of the same kind so stimulating to a young reader, or so likely to foster habits of cautious and independent investigation, as the first book of the 'Novum Organum.' What Bacon says of Plato is pre-eminently true of himself. He was ' a man of a sublime genius, who took a view of everything as from a high rock.' Maxims such as these, 'Man is the servant and interpreter of nature,' 'Human knowledge and human power meet in one,' 'It is not fruit-bringing but light-bringing experiments that should be sought,' 'Truth is rightly called the daughter of time, not of authority,' 'The worst thing of all is the apotheosis of error,' which sparkle on almost every page of the 'Novum Organum,' live long in the memory, and insensibly influence the whole habit of thought. There is something about Bacon's diction, his quaintness of expression, and his power of illustration, which lays hold of the mind, and lodges itself in the memory, in a way which we hardly find paralleled in any other author, except it be Shakespeare.

As regards the amount of definite logical teaching in the 'Novum Organum' which retains a permanent value, we may notice the constant emphasis with which it dwells on the necessity of a thorough acquaintance with the facts of nature, as the only sure preservative against the delusions of fancy or prejudice and the misleading influence of authority; and upon the importance of not contenting ourselves with mere observation, but of also instituting, where possible, artificial experiments for the purpose of obtaining more precise answers to our questions.

On a wide and varied collection of facts Bacon proposed to raise scientific inductions, as opposed to inductions based on mere enumeration. This conception of a scientific process of induction, proceeding by way of selection and elimination, and possessing, if all the conditions are satisfied, the force of demonstration, was a perfectly sound and very fertile idea, though it has been slow to make its way, and is not even yet universally accepted by professed logicians. Nor does Bacon neglect to point out the proper relation between the inductive and deductive processes of reasoning. From the often reiterated emphasis with which he insists on the necessity of employing and reforming induction, it has frequently been supposed that he slighted deduction as an instrument of thought. But this was by no means the case. The syllogism, he conceived, was indeed incompetent to establish the first principles from which it reasons, but, when these were once firmly established by induction on the basis of experience, it was perfectly competent to reason correctly from them. Even the mathematical form which the deductive branch assumes in the more advanced sciences is fully recognised by Bacon, and its proper position assigned to it. 'Mathematics ought to terminate natural philosophy, not to generate it.' 'Natural inquiries have the best issue when physics are terminated in mathematics.'

Bacon distinctly sees that the real object of science is the ascertainment of causes or facts of causation. 'It is rightly laid down that to know truly, is to know by means of causes.' He reads a valuable lesson also, when he insists on the unity of nature and the unity of science. Nature, he conceives, is a continuous and orderly whole, admitting of no breaks and no exceptions. Objects and qualities apparently the most heterogeneous are often united under the same form, or, as we might say, are manifestations of the same law (Book ii. aph. 17); and he who best knows the ways of nature, also best knows her deviations (Book ii. aph. 29). Similarly, to know any one science really well, a man must know at least the general aspects and fundamental principles of all sciences. For the individual sciences are like the branches of a tree which meet in one trunk, and each science must suffer if rudely dissevered from the rest.

The principal objections which have been directed against Bacon's method of scientific investigation are: (1) that Bacon's theory of induction is too mechanical; (2) that he unduly neglects the proper use of hypothesis; (3) that his conception of a gradual ascent from axioms of the lowest to axioms of the highest degree of generality does not correspond with the actual conduct of scientific investigation. There is a considerable amount of force in these objections. The office of the imagination (a faculty in which he was himself so marvellously rich) is undoubtedly too much ignored throughout the 'Novum Organum.' And hence it is that he says so little of hypothesis. Except in Book i. aph. 106 and Book ii. aph. 20, this indispensable aid of the greater part of our inductive reasoning is hardly ever referred to. The wild license of imagination exemplified in so many of the scientific writers of his time naturally caused an extreme recoil against hasty generalisation and theories which seemed to be in advance of the facts. It