Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 6.djvu/762

754 drop by drop, from the scanty olives which they had gathered from the eternal tree of Truth! In these later days learning has become cheap. What sort of scholar must he now be, who should be worthy to be put into comparison with the philosopher of the thirteenth century?

The general scheme of Bacon's system of philosophy was at once simple and comprehensive. The scope of his thought had a breadth uncommon in his or in any time. In his view, the object of all philosophy and human learning was to enable men to attain to the wisdom of God; and to this end it was to be subservient absolutely, and relatively so far as regarded the Church, the government of the state, the conversion of infidels, and the repression of those who could not be converted. All wisdom was included in the Sacred Scriptures, if properly understood and explained. "I believe," said he, "that the perfection of philosophy is to raise it to the state of a Christian law." Wisdom was the gift of God, and as such it included the knowledge of all things in heaven and earth, the knowledge of God himself, of the teachings of Christ, the beauty of virtue, the honesty of laws, the eternal life of glory and of punishment, the resurrection of the dead, and all things else.

To this end all special sciences were ordained. All these, properly speaking, were to be called speculative; and though they each might be divided into two parts, the practical and the speculative, yet one alone, the most noble and best of all, in respect to which there was no comparison with the others, was in its own nature practical: this was the science of morals, or moral philosophy. All the works of Art and Nature are subservient to morals, and are of value only as they promote it. They are as nothing without it; as the whole wisdom of philosophy is as nothing without the wisdom of the Christian faith. This science of morals has six principal divisions. The first of these is theological, treating of the relations of man to God and to spiritual things; the second is political, treating of public laws and the government of states; the third is ethical, treating of virtue and vice; the fourth treats of the revolutions of religious sects, and of the proofs of the Christian faith. "This is the best part of all philosophy." Experimental science and the knowledge of languages come into use here. The fifth division is hortatory, or of morals as applied to duty, and embraces the art of rhetoric and other subsidiary arts. The sixth and final division treats of the relations of morals to the execution of justice. Under one or other of these heads all special sciences and every branch of learning are included.

Such, then, being the object and end of all learning, it is to be considered in what manner and by what methods study is to be pursued, to secure the attainment of truth. And here occurs one of the most remarkable features of Bacon's system. It is in his distinct statement of the prime importance of experiment as the only test of certainty in the sciences. "However strong arguments may be, they do not give certainty, apart from positive experience of a conclusion." "It is the prerogative of experiment to test the noble conclusions of all sciences which are drawn from arguments." All science is ancillary to it. And of all branches of learning, two are of chief importance: languages are the first gate of wisdom; mathematics the second. By means of foreign tongues we gain the wisdom which men have collected in past times and other countries; and without them the sciences are not to be pursued, for the requisite books are wanting in the Latin tongue. Even theology must fail without a knowledge of the original texts of the Sacred Writings and of their earliest expositors. Mathematics are of scarcely less importance; "for he who knows not mathematics cannot know any other physical science, what is more, cannot discover his own ignorance or find its proper remedies." "The sciences cannot be known by logical and sophistical arguments, such as are commonly used, but only by mathematical demonstrations." But this view of the essential importance of these two studies did not prevent Bacon from rising to the height from which he beheld the mutual importance and relations of all knowledge. We do not know where to find a clearer statement of the connec-