Page:The Works of Francis Bacon (1884) Volume 1.djvu/374

 heape of particulars and cannot have lustre, which bookes cast into methods have: but that he resolved to preferre the goode of men, and that which might best secure it, before any thing that might have relation to himselfe. I have heard his lordship say also, that one great reason, why hee would not put these particulars into any exact method (though hee that looketh attentively into them shall finde that they have a secret order) was, because he conceived that other men would not thinke that they could doe the like; and so goe on with a further collection; which if the method had beene exact, many would have despaired to attaine by imitation."

His opinion of the necessity of attention to style is stated in pages 169, 170 of this work, in his dissertation upon Delicate Learning. To these opinions of Bacon's, we are most probably indebted for the symmetry and beauty in the Advancement of Learning. They have been, as Bacon foresaw they would be, causes, and only temporary causes, of the preference which has been given to the Advancement of Learning. He was too well acquainted with what he terms the idols of the mind to be diverted from truth either by the love of order or by the love of beauty. He knew the charms of theories and systems, and the necessity of adopting them to insure a favourable reception for abstruse works, but he was not misled by them. It did not require his sagacity to predict such observations as, two centuries after his death, have been made upon his classification by the philosophers of our times. The noble temple which he raised may now, perhaps, be destroyed and rejected of the builders altogether, but though it should be levelled to the ground, the genius of true philosophy will stand discovered among the ruins.

Professor Stewart, after various observations upon the arrangements of Bacon and D'Alembert, says: "If the foregoing strictures be well founded, it seems to follow, that not only the endeavours of Bacon and D'Alembert to classify the sciences and arts according to a logical division of our faculties, is altogether unsatisfactory, but that every future attempt of the same kind may be expected to be liable to similar objections."—Bentham in his Chrestomathia, speaking of Bacon's arrangement says, "Of the sketch given by D'Alembert the leading principles are, as he himself has been careful to declare, taken from that given by Lord Bacon. Had it been entirely his own, it would have been, beyond comparison, a better one. For the age of Bacon, Bacon's was a precocious and precious fruit of the union of learning with science: for the age of D'Alembert, it will, it is believed, be found but a poor production, below the author as well as the age."—The Chrestomathia then contains various objections to these systems of arrangement, and suggests another system which, perhaps, after the lapse of two more centuries, will share the same fate. No man was, for his own sake, less attached to system or ornament than Lord Bacon. A plain, unadorned style in aphorisms, in which the Novum Organum is written, is, he invariably states, the proper style for philosophy.

Referring to page 140. Amongst the many "idols of the understanding," as they are termed by Bacon; amongst the many tendencies of the mind to warp us from truth, the most subtle seem to be those which emanate from the love of truth itself, undermining the understanding, as ruin ever works, on the side of our virtues. The love of truth, the desire to know the causes of things, is, perhaps, one of our strongest passions; and, like all strong passion, it has a tendency, unless restrained, to hurry us into excess. From an impatience to possess this treasure we are induced to assent hastily, and accept counterfeits as sterling coin: we are induced to generalize hastily, and to abandon universality, to suppose that we have attained the truth in all the extent in which it exists. The idols of the understanding from the love of truth which generate haste, seem therefore to be

This note is upon "Abandoning universality," the nature of which is mentioned in page 173 of this work, and in pages 103, 191, and 201. And in the treatise "De Augmentis," there is in observation founded upon this doctrine which is not contained in the Advancement of Learning. Speaking of astronomy, he says: "Astronomy, such as now it is made, may well be counted in the number of Mathematical Arts, not without great diminution of the dignity thereof; seeing it ought rather (if it would maintain its own right) be constituted a branch, and that most principal of Natural Philosophy. For whoever shall reject the feigned divorces or superlunary and sublunary bodies; and shall intentively observe the appetencies of matter, and the most universal passions, (which in either globe are exceeding potent, and transverberate the universal nature of things,) he shall receive clear information concerning celestial matters from the things seen here with us: and contrariwise from those motions which are practised in heaven; he shall learn many observations which now are latent, touching the motions of bodies here below: not only so far as these inferior motions are moderated by superior, but in regard they have a mutual intercourse by passions common to them both." (See the mode by which Newton is said first to have thought of the influence of the laws of gravity.)

So, in another work, "Descriptio Globi intellectualis," he says, "We must, however, openly profess, that our hope of discovering the truth, with regard to the celestial bodies, depends not solely upon such a history, raised after our own manner; but much more upon the observation of the common properties, or the passions and appetites of the matter of both globes. For as to the separation that is supposed betwixt the ætherial and sublunary bodies, it seems to us no more than a fiction, and a degree of superstition, mixed with rashness: for it is certain, that numerous effects, as expansion, contraction, impression, yielding, collection, attraction, repulsion, assimilation, union, and the like, have place, not only here upon the surface, but also in the bowels of the earth, and regions of the heavens. And no more faithful guide can be used or consulted, than these properties of matter, to conduct the understanding to the depths of the earth, which are absolutely not seen at all, and to the sublime regions of the heavens, which are generally seen, but falsely; on account of their great distance, the refraction of the air, the imperfection of glasses, &c. The ancients, therefore, excellently represented Proteus as capable of various shapes, and a most extraordinary prophet, who knew all things, both the past, the future, and the secrets of the present. For he who knows the universal properties of matter, and by that means understands what may be, cannot but know what has been, is, and shall be the general state and issue of things. Our chiefest hope and dependence in the consideration of the celestial bodies, is therefore placed in physical reasons; though not such as are commonly so called; but those laws, with regard to the appetites of matter, which no diversity of place or region can abolish, break through, disturb, or alter." See also the fable of Proteus, in his Wisdom of the Ancients. See also the beginning of the tenth century of the Sylva Sylvarum; and in his Aphorisms concerning the composure of History, he says: "In the history which we require, and purpose in our mind, above all things it must he looked after, that its extent be large, and that it be made after the measure of the universe, for the world ought not to be tied into the straitness of the understanding (which hitherto hath been done) but our intellect should be stretched and widened, so as to be capable of the image of the world, such as we find it; for the custom of respecting but a few things, and passing sentence according to that paucity and scantness hath spoiled all." Upon the same principle, he says, I think in his history of Life and Death, "All tangible bodies contain a spirit covered over, enveloped with the grosser body. There is no known body, in the tipper parts of the earth, without its spirit; whether it be generated by the attenuating and concocting power of the celestial warmth, or otherwise: for the pores of tangible bodies are not a vacuum; but either contain air, or the peculiar spirit of the substance, and this not a vis, an energy, a soul, or a fiction; but a real, subtile, and invisible body, circumscribed by place and dimension." "Such was the language of Bacon two centuries ago; the same sentiments have lately appeared in another form, in the works of one of our modern poets.

"To every form of being is assigned An active principle, howe'er removed From sense and observation; it subsists In all things, in all natures, in the stars Of azure heaven, the unenduring clouds, In flower and tree, and every pebbly stone