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 OY THE 
 
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 AN ACCOUNT 
 
 LORD BACON'S 
 NOVUM ORGANON SCIENTIARUM; 
 
 OB, 
 
 NEW METHOD OF STUDYING 
 THE SCIENCES. 
 
 THE FIRST, OR INTRODUCTORY PART, 
 
Sir Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, is justly held the founder of Expey-i- 
 mental Philosophy. He proposed his plan in his Instauratio Magna, with 
 so much strength of argument, and so just a zeal, as renders that admirable 
 work the delight of all who have a taste for solid learning. — Maclaurin's 
 Account 0/ Newton's Philosophical Discoveries^ 
 
u 
 
 ACCOUNT 
 
 OF THE 
 
 NOVUM ORGANON. 
 
 nOMO, NATURE MINISTER ET INTERPBES, TANTUM FACIT ET INTEI.I.TGIT 
 QUANTUM DE NATUK.T; ORDINE RE VEL MENTK OBSEEVAYEBIT ; NEC 
 
 AupLius scit, aut potest. Nov. Org. 
 
 Lo rd Bacon was the first who taught the proper method of studyin g 
 tK^ sciences : th at is, he pointed out the way in which we sliouJd 
 begin and carry on our pursuit pf knowledge, in order to arrive a t 
 truth. He j yave a s et of rules n3V^whiclL.j^a nkind mig ht deliver 
 t hemselves fronTslavery to names ,, -an d from wandering among fa nciful 
 systems , and retu rn once more,^]^as''TIttle children, to the s cHool of 
 nature, liie task he chose was far more useful to the world, and 
 
 l^onourable to himself, than that of being, lilce Plato or Aristotle, J,he 
 q,uthor of a new sect : he undertook to expose th e errprs of' those who 
 had gone before him, and to shew the best way^ avoiding them for 
 the future : he had the principal share in pulling down the ol d build- 
 ing of a lalse philosophy, and, with the skill of a superior archite ct, 
 lie laid the foundation^ and sketched the plan of another fabric j and 
 g ave masterly dir ections to th ose wh o sho uld come after him — how, 
 upon the ruins of the fi rst , the temple of s cien ce must ^ e£X£.cted 
 anew . As, in a great army^ ther e ar e some^ whose o ffice it is to con- 
 struct brid ges, to cut paths alon j y mount ains, and to^emove various 
 impediments, so Lord Bacon maylje said to have cleared the way to 
 i ^^wledg e ; to have marked out the road to truth ;. and to have lef^ 
 fiiture travellers little else to do than follow his instru ctions: he 
 was t he miner and sapper of j)hilosophy, the pioneer of nature ; and 
 he eminently promoted the dominion of man over the material world . 
 ■tie wa s the ])riest of nature's mysteries ; and he taught men in what 
 niannerlhey might discover her pro fbundest secrets^ gnd jptprprpf. 
 t hose law s which nature has rec eived from the gre,at Author of all . 
 
 It is the object of this Treatise to make our readers acquainted with 
 Lord Bacon's Philosophy, as it is contained in his great work, the 
 Novum Orgajium ; in which we find the principles of that improved 
 
 b2 
 
4 ACCOUNT OF LORD BACON'S 
 
 method of conducting- the inquiries of science, which has now so long 
 and so happily prevailed. To accomplish this design with the more 
 effect, it will be desirable, first, to draw their attention, in a few words, 
 to the state in which Bacon found the world, as to knowledge and 
 science, at the time when he flourished. For, as the returning light 
 appears more glorious after the sun has been eclipsed — and the order 
 and beauty of nature would look doubly striking to an eye that had 
 seen that chaos from which she first arose, when all was without form 
 and void, — so, if we glance, but for a moment, at that darkness which 
 so long overshadowed the human mind, and gave birth to so many 
 phantoms and prodigies, under the name of science, this retrospect 
 will serve to show more clearly the merits of a philosopher, who may 
 be regarded as the morning star of that illustrious day which has 
 since broken out upon mankind ; and in the spirit of whose method, 
 even the immortal Newton himself explored the heavens — by the aid 
 of a sublime geometry, as with the rod of an enchanter, dashed in 
 pieces all the cycles, epicycles, and crystal orbs of a visionary antiquity ; 
 and established the true Copernican doctrine of astronomy on the solid 
 basis of a most rigid and infallible demonstration. 
 ^^^ In several of the fine arts, in which chiefly the taste and imagi- 
 
 nation are concerned, such as poetry, rhetoric, statuary, and archi- 
 tecture, the ancients, according to general opinion, have equalled, if 
 not surpassed, any of the moderns. Homer and Demosthenes con- 
 tinue, notwithstanding the flux of time, to retain their station as the 
 masters of eloquence and song ; and those exquisite statues, the 
 Venus and the Apollo, still command our admiration as perfect models 
 of what is chaste, and severe, and beautiful in the art of sculpture. 
 The ancients nobly distinguished themselves also in those more 
 rigorous exercises of the understanding which are demanded by pure 
 mathematics ; in proof of which it is sufficient to quote the name of 
 Euclid, and of Archimedes whose discoveries in geometry and mixed 
 science entitle him to be regarded as the iVe2/.'^07i of all antiquity ; but it 
 was reserved for the moderns to invent a calculus — a new and more 
 profound arithmetic, which was called for by a more exact acquaintance 
 with nature herself, and was to be applied to that more improved state of 
 natural science which is peculiar to later times : we allude to the doctrine 
 of Jluxions, or the differential method of Newton and Leibnitz ; since 
 cultivated, and applied to physical astronomy with great success by the 
 French, and especially by La Place. In most of those branches of 
 knowledge, however, which rest on the basis of experiment and obser- 
 vation, the ancients almost entirely failed. The case is, that to form 
 theories, or systems of science and philosophy, from a hasty view of facts 
 and appearances, is an easy task, since this can be done without the 
 labour of close and patient thinking : and if antiquity be, in truth, as 
 Bacon himself represents it, but the childhood and youth of the world, 
 it is nothing more than we might expect that, at that period of its 
 existence, imagination should prevail over reason ; and that the 
 calmer and more successful exercises of the latter should not unfold 
 themselves till a maturer age. 
 
 One instance, out^f many, in natural science, m ay suffice to 
 cpnvince the reader to what absurd and extravagan t notions jthe 
 
NOVUM ORGANON SCIENTIARUM. 5 
 
 mind can reconciIe_itself, w hen on ce permitted to rove mt_o._the_ 
 regions o? Imag-inatfon, unreitrained by that suicl and scientific me" 
 tfiod, so suc cessfully pointed out by J^ord Bacou, and which it is 
 our present object to explain. Cosmas Tndopleustes, who lived so 
 late as the sixth century^ affirmed that the earth was an oblong 
 plane, surrounded by an impassable ocean; an immense mountain 
 in the form of a cone, or sugar-loaf, placed in the north, was the 
 centre around which the sun, moon, and stars daily revolved : the 
 shape of this mountain, and the slanting* motion of the sun, accounted 
 for the variable length of the days, and the changes of the seasons. 
 The heavens were supposed to be an immense arch, one side of which 
 rested on the earth, and the other on two mighty pillars beyond the 
 sea ; under this vault a multitude of angelic beings were employed in 
 guiding the motions of the stars. Such was the theory which gravely 
 presented itself for adoption, seven or eight centuries later in the 
 world than Euclid, Archimedes, and Apollonius ! 
 
 Abundant instances of almost equal absurdity might be collected 
 from the opinions of the ancients, on various other branches of science. 
 Take, for example, the doctrine of sensation, or feeling, in what was 
 called the Peripatetic school, so called from a word signifying to walk 
 about, because it was customary for the disciples to study and dispute 
 as they walked in the LyccBum, a place at Athens which was appro- 
 priated to their use. Of this school, the founder was Aristotle, a man 
 of immense genius, who obtained the greatest popularity, and the 
 most extensive influence over the opinions of mankind, of all the 
 philosophers of antiquity, and who held the minds of men in a kind of 
 intellectual bondage for about two thousand years. In the Peripatetic 
 philosophy, what takes place in sensation was thus described : a sort of 
 images, or, as they were termed, sensible species, that is, certain films 
 of the shape of bodies, came off, it was said, from the objects of sense, 
 and arriving at the organs which were proper to them, were admitted 
 to the nerves, and by them conveyed to the brain : here these images 
 were impressed, as the engraving of a seal on wax, and being now 
 refined into what were called intellectual species, the whole business of 
 sensation and perception was supposed to be accounted for. Thus by 
 a jargon of words were men taught to believe they understood the 
 manner in which matter communicates with mind or spirit, and their 
 operation upon each other, which, all that has ever been said or written 
 on the subject, shows to be inexplicable, and to be received simply as 
 Si fact in the constitution of sentient being. 
 
 Up to the time of Lord Bacon, Aristotle still maintained, in a very 
 great degree, his dominion in the realms of philosophy-i-a dominion 
 which, at some periods, had been scarcely less absolute over the minds 
 of men, and far wider and more lasting than ever his renowned pupil 
 Alexander was able to secure over their bodies. Possessed of a most 
 acute and penetrating mind, and a singular talent for minute investi- 
 gations, he was quahfied, in this respect, for philosophical inquiries far 
 more than ordinary men. His writings in natural history in particu- 
 lar, constitute a mass of physical and anatomical facts, which must 
 have resulted from a course of very diligent observations. Neglect- 
 ing, however, that rigid and exact practical method which is essential 
 
6 ACCOUNT OF LORD BACON'S 
 
 to all natural science, too much devoted to subtil distinctions of words ; 
 and too ambitious of gainin*^ an ascendancy over the opinions of man- 
 kind, he pronounced too boldly on nature's operations, and spent his ener- 
 gies too often in useless or obscure questions. In his desire to set up his 
 own dog-mas, in opposition to ancient opinions, he is sometimes g'uilty of 
 misrepresenting the philosophers of a remoter antiquity ; and he frequent- 
 ly veils himself in an obscure and unintelligible jargon. Lord Bacon 
 describes his propensity to tyrannize over men's minds, by saying that, 
 *' as though he had been of the race of the Ottomans, he thought he 
 could not reign securely unless all his brethren were slain." Cicero, 
 who seems to have had some respect for Aristotle's philosophy, 
 acknowledges that, in his time, it was understood by very few even of 
 the philosophers themselves. His Logic, which is peculiarly his own, 
 is undoubtedly a great effort of human ingenuity ; it consists in an 
 analysis of that process of the mind which, however rapid, and almost 
 imperceptible, must take place in all sound and correct reasoning. It 
 llirnishes the model to which all such reasoning may be reduced, and 
 serves as a test by which the justice of an argument may be tried, if 
 it be ever necessary thus minutely to put down all the steps by which 
 the conclusion is arrived at. In the discoveries of science it can of 
 course afford little or no assistance, and it was the mistaken attempt to 
 employ it for this purpose, that so long excluded the proper method of 
 entering on philosophical researches, and filled the minds of men 
 with mere words, and confused notions. Bacon's observations on this 
 subject in his Advancement of Learning, show that his frequent con- 
 demnations of the logical philosophers were levelled against the 
 extravagant perversions of Aristotle's DialecticSy with which these 
 schoolmen were chargeable, and to which Aristotle himself had led the 
 way. His logic was the engine by which, for ages, the minds of men 
 were bewitched in a manner that was altogether extraordinary, and di- 
 verted from things themselves to mere words. 
 
 The philosophy of Aristotle, which it would be foreign to the pur- 
 pose of this treatise more than to characterize generally, without 
 entering into its details, obtained the same credit at Rome, under 
 the Caesars, which it had already acquired in Greece; being pa- 
 tronized by both Julius and Augustus. Towards the close of the 
 fifth century, the influence of Aristotle began to prevail over that 
 of Plato in the Christian world. After considerably declining dur- 
 ing the sixth century, it again revived; and in another century it 
 had gained such an ascendancy that Aristotle seems to have been 
 every where triumphant. Glosses, paraphrases, summaries, argu- 
 ments, and dissertations on his works were composed without end; 
 as if to make " darkness visible." Many of the inhabitants of the 
 west learned Arabic in order to read a translation of them in that 
 language. The Latin tongue was made another medium of their 
 circulation, and they were read in most parts of the knoAvn world. 
 Men were every where taught to believe in matter, form, and 
 privation, as the origin of all things; that the heavens were self- 
 existent, incorruptible, and unchangeable ; and that all the stars were 
 whirled round the earth in solid orbs I Aristotle's works were the 
 great text-book of knowledge, and his logic was the only weapon of 
 
NOVUM ORGANON SCIENTIARUM. f 
 
 truth. Men's minds, instead of simply studying nature, were in an ' 
 endless ferment about occult qualities and imaginary essences ; little 
 was talked of but intention and remission, jnoportion and degree^ 
 injinity, formality, quiddity, individuality, and innumerable other 
 abstract notions. The Latin tongue, which was employed by these 
 scholastics, was converted into a barbarous jargon, which a Roman 
 would not have understood; and, in the end, the most sectarian 
 bitterness was produced, sometimes ending in bloody contests. In the 
 midst of these disputes, Aristotle was still the grand authority. Chris- 
 tians, Jews, and Mahometans, united in professing assent to the great 
 lawgiver of human opinions : not Europe alone, but also Africa and 
 Asia acknowledged his dominion ; and while his Greek originals were 
 studied at Paris, translations were read in Persia and at Samarcand. 
 
 The rage for disputation which now began to prevail in consequence 
 of the spread of this philosophy, induced the council of Lateran, under 
 Pope Innocent III., to proclaim a prohibition of the use of the physics 
 and metaphysics of Aristotle ; but awful as were then the thunders of 
 the Vatican, they were not mighty enough to dethrone him from that 
 despotism over men's minds, which, by long custom, had now ren- 
 dered itself almost omnipotent. The passion for the Aristotelian 
 subtilties had become so general, that, notwithstanding Pope Inno- 
 cent's decree, it was soon found necessary to favour publicly, in some 
 degree, at least, the study of their author; and accordingly, his 
 Dialectics, Physics, and Metaphysics were received into the University 
 of Paris by an express statute to that effect. In England his doctrines 
 were cherished with as great an eagerness as elsewhere. From about 
 the end of the twelfth century the very name of Aristotle operated like 
 a charm ; his writings had obtained universal circulation, and in some 
 of the universities of Europe statutes were framed which required the 
 professors to promise, on oath, that in their public lectures on philo- 
 sophy they would follow no other guide ! 
 
 From this period till the close of the sixteenth century, though the 
 authority of Aristotle still continued in the schools, the minds of men 
 were gradually preparing to shake off his yoke, and a more propitious 
 era w^as fast approaching. The revival of learning in the fifteenth 
 century, the invention of the art of printing, and the Reformation, had 
 done much to prepare the world for that new light which was after- 
 wards to be cast over the fields of science, hitherto covered with dark- 
 ness, and peopled only with airy and delusive phantoms. A few distin- 
 guished men — as John of Salisbury, Gros-tete, Bishop of Lincoln, 
 Roger Bacon, Ludovicus Fives, and others, had taught mankind that 
 neither the decrees of the Vatican, nor those of the Grecian scliools, 
 were incapable of being resisted. Gilbert had successfully investigated 
 the laws of magnetic attraction, and furnished an excellent specimen of 
 reasoning from experiment. In opposition to the system that was held 
 by Aristotle and his followers, which made the earth the centre of the 
 universe, Cojjernicus had revived the ancient Pythagorean doctrine of 
 the earth's motion round the sun, and had discovered the true theory 
 of the planets. Galileo, Kepler, Gassendi, and others who lived at the 
 same time with Bacon, were acquiring a well-earned fame by their 
 improvements in geometry and physics ; and the whole world of science 
 
8 ACCOUNT OF LORD BACON'S 
 
 already sighed to be redeemed from the darkness of the middle ages, 
 and the bondage of the schools. Martin Luther, who had been taught 
 the philosophy of Aristotle in his youth, had expressed his contempt for 
 its vanities, and rejected it with indignation. Ramus, also, had attacked 
 the existing opinions at Paris, and disputed publicly against Aristotle's 
 doctrines in the university of that city. Like many other honest fol- 
 lowers of truth, however, in this wretched world, which has always 
 loved darkness rather than light, he suffered severely for his bold- 
 ness. As a punishment for his presuming to question the infallibility 
 of the great despot of all knowledge, in an edict of the French parlia- 
 ment, under Francis I., the said Peter Ramus is gravely pronounced 
 to be " insolent, impudent, and a liar ;" his books arc, now, and for 
 all time coming, condemned, suppressed, and abohshed, and the author 
 is solemnly prohibited from copying, or even reading, his own works. 
 Bruno, Campanella, Patricius, Nizolius, and some others, also contri- 
 buted their part to undermine the influence of Aristotle. 
 
 I t was reserved, however, for Francis Bacon, Lord Verulanij to break 
 the spell of the mighty enchanter of Stagira^ and t(j give a iinnl 1)!()\yJx» 
 ^^^ ^^^^Q^^^^^c ph ilosophy ; — to make o ne graml and geiieral_attemp.t,io_ 
 geli ver men^ minds from the bondage o f tvarthoiisand years^; — toasserjL 
 the right of th at reason with whTch the beneficen t Creator has Gndov-ed 
 mgjn^as above all authority merel y human ; — an d to ske tch the outline of 
 one grand and comprehensive pla n, that should^ nclucle in it the endless 
 varieties of our knowledge, and guide our inqu iries i n every branch . 
 Bbrii in the year 1561, and early entered as a student at Trinity Col- 
 lege, Cambridge, this great genius soon began to feel dissatisfied with 
 the vagueness and uncertainty of the existing state of knowledge, the 
 want of connexion between the sciences and the arts, and the conse- 
 quent uselessness of the reigning speculations as regarded the purposes 
 of life. The more he thought on the subject, the more he was con- 
 vinced of the vanity of the scholastic learning of the times, and of the 
 necessity of a thorough reformation in the method of treating the know- 
 ledge of nature, by laying aside all conclusions not founded on obser- 
 vation and experiment. He saw plainly that a great part of the evil 
 l ay in the extensive influence which Aristotle still possesse d in the 
 schools ; that nature and fact were neglected for the _studj J^f Jlis.dQii- 
 tr ines, which were the arbiters in all disputes ; the properties of ma tter, 
 a nd the laws of motion, by which all effects are produced, were Jo sLiii 
 useless distinctions and dry defi nitions; the jowers of the mind were, 
 exhausted in grave trifling and solemn folly ; and the real advancemen t 
 or human know ledge was altogether h opeless, so long as su ch a stat e 
 ofHlnngs prevailed. A century or two earlier, the contests about 
 names, and forms, and essences, were sometimes more serious than a mere 
 strife of tongues : they ended in actual bloodshed ; while the disputants 
 took the side either of Occam, " the most subtil," or Duns Scotus, " the 
 invincible," the famous champions of the day ; and if the din of this 
 philosophical, or rather ?^?iphilosophical war now raged no longer, — 
 if those imposing titles were not now heard which had formerly been 
 bestowed on the leaders of rival parties, such as the most profound, 
 the marvellous, the perspicitous, the irrefragable, the 7nost resolute, the 
 angelical, the seraphic doctor^ — it was that all inquiry had well nigh 
 
NOVUM ORGANON SCIENTIARUM. 9 
 
 ceased, and the minds of men were cast, with a very few exceptions, into 
 a profomid slumber, and filled only with the romantic visions of an ima- 
 ginary philosophy. — Such had been the state of things at the time of Lord 
 Bacon, and the brief notice we have taken of it may serve to throw light 
 on the real value of his labours, which had for their object the esta- 
 blishment of a philosophy that is in fact no other than the philosophy 
 of reason and common sense, in opposition to all mere theory and fancy, 
 and to all imposition. 
 
 Under these circumstances Bacon wrote his Organon. His qualifis. 
 ed itions for this bold attempt to clear the barren wastes of science. 'and to 
 s ow the seeds of a new creation of useful knowledge^ will be best seen 
 I3y studying his doctrines. We shall, therefore, now proceed to give an 
 account of this most important and considerable part of his general 
 work, the Instauratio Magna, or Instauration of the Sciences. Its 
 title was probably suggested by Aristotle's Organon, containing his 
 Logic ; it is called Novum Organon Scientiarum, or a new Method of 
 Stiidying the Sciences, from the Greek word organon, which signifies au 
 instrument or machine. The grand principle which charante ri'/pg th\< 
 ■^^ g reat work, and by the proper use of which its author proposes the 
 aclvancement of all kind s of kno wledge^ is the principle of In da ctio n^^ 
 w hich means, hterally, a bringing in; for the plan it unfold s is that of 
 investigating nature, and inquiring aiter truth, not by reasoning upoii^ 
 m ere conjectures aGout nature's l aws and properties, as ])hiIosophers. 
 h ad been too much accustomed to do before , bu t by bringing together^ 
 c arefully, and patiently, a variety of parti cular facts and instances ; 
 viewing tjiese in all possible lights ; and dr awing, from^ comp_arispn_of 
 tne,ja:h ole, some gen eral principle or truth thai applies to all. The 
 f oundatiori of this phildsophy lies, in sho rt, in the history of nature 
 itself — in making a laborious collection of the facts relating to any one . 
 s ubject of inquir y, pre viously to any attenijit at i'orming a system or 
 theory. Actual experiment, which Bacon sig nificantly_terms " asking^ i 
 questions o f nature,"^must be resorted to, where experiments, as in 
 chemistry, can be made : observations must be a ccura tely collected^ ia 
 thesubjects proper to these, as astronomy ; and conclusions are, i n all 
 cases, to l)e drawn only from what is actually witnessQd, afl:er , th e com- 
 p arison o f a Kuf hcient number of fact s, and a due regard to objections^. 
 In his treatment of this important subject of Induction, a new and more 
 rationa l employment of the faculties is exhibited than the world hafi_ 
 ever seen ; a nd never before was there laid dovyn to the.minds of^men the.-, 
 t rue tTieory of inves ti gating aUTr uth, whether natural or moral : iiideed,_ 
 Bacon has welTmerited the appellations he has received— Uie Prophet 
 of the Arts, and the Father of Experimental Philosopltj/. 
 
 To point out the amazing success which has attended this system, 
 which maybe called the Baconian method, in the hands of the moderns, 
 were an endless task — it would be to give nothing less than the 
 history of science for the last two hundred years. The constellation of 
 geniuses that rose in the next age mostly looked up to Bacon as their 
 leading star. Newton himself was able to outshine them all, not 
 merely by the energy of his own mind, but by his imbibing most deeply 
 the spirit of this philosophy. No feature of Newton's intellect was 
 more remarkable than the singular command he possessed over his 
 
IX) ACCOUNT OF LORD BACON'S 
 
 imagination, by which he was enabled to construct theories, more sur- 
 prising- than all the visions of fancy, yet on a foundation that must re- 
 main unshaken so long as the human mind and truth continue what 
 they are. We may name his Optics, in passing, as a triumphant example 
 of the Inductive method, in which, by experiment and observation as 
 the basis of his calculations, he has treated of the nature and properties 
 of light, one of the most subtil of all things, in a manner that cannot 
 fail to surprise and delight the reader : Avith so much accuracy and pre- 
 cision is this wonderful element reduced to certain laws, as truly as the 
 most o-ross and solid bodies. Having found, by very accurate experi- 
 ments, that light always proceeds in straight lines, and that the rays of 
 it are reflected and refracted according to certain fixed and unchanging 
 laws, — on this experience he establishes the whole theory of optics, or 
 the science oi vision; and thus this science is founded on the induction 
 we speak of. 
 
 Again — the mere falling of a heavy body to the earth was found 
 by Newton to involve principles which apply to all we know in mecha- 
 nical philosophy ; in other words, the descent of a tile from a house, 
 or an apple from a tree, arises from the same cause which keeps 
 the moon from leaving her proper course round the earth ; and which 
 retains all the planets in their paths round the sun : this principle, or 
 cause, is called by the name oi gravity. It was known from observation 
 that gravity, or a tendency to approach the earth, belongs gene- 
 rally, to all bodies near its surface ; and it was ascertained that it is 
 proportioned to the square of the distance ; that is, if a body be at- 
 tracted by the earth at a certain distance, with a certain force, and be 
 afterwards removed to twice the distance, it will now be attracted not 
 half'ds much, but only one-fourth as much as it was before; and if it 
 be removed to three times the first distance, it will be attracted not 
 one-third as much, but only one-ninth as much as before, 4 being the 
 square of 2, and 9 the square of 3. From these facts this mighty 
 genius suspected that the same principle might extend to all nature ; 
 and thus, by the assistance of a profound geometry, he explained the 
 motions of the heavenly bodies, and demonstrated the system of the 
 world. 
 
 That the rules laid down by Bacon had been carefully studied by 
 Newton, is evident from the use he makes of Bacon's phraseology. 
 In his Principia, for instance, he gives the same latitude of meaning to 
 the word axiom that Bacon does in his Organon. Bacon, by this term, 
 means a general principle, obtained by experiment and observation, from 
 which we may safely proceed to reason in all other instances ; and 
 Newton gives the name of axioms to the laws of Tnotion, which of 
 course are ascertained by the scrutiny of nature ; he also terms axioms 
 those general experimental truths, or facts, which form the ground- 
 work of the science of optics. Axiom, however, in the language of 
 Euclid, and of mathematicians generally, means a self-evident proposi- 
 tion. Mr. Dugald Stewart thinks that, in this, and other instances, 
 Newton followed Lord Bacon's phraseology '* too implicitly." However 
 this may be, it is certain Newton was familiar with Bacon's works. 
 
 In the Chemistry of modern times, also, we have the most astonishing 
 examples of the success of the inductive, or experimental method. Until 
 
NOVUM ORGANON SCIENTIARUM. H 
 
 this was employed, no part of science was more fanciful : so that 
 it has justly been remarked, that chemistry, in the middle ages, 
 mig-ht be said to have an elective attraction for all that was absurd and 
 extravagant in other parts of knowledge. It is true that, before the 
 darkness of these ages had passed away, Paracelsua conferred great 
 benefits on the world by the application of chemistry to medicine ; and 
 Van Helmont, notwithstanding the extravagancies with which his ima- 
 gination was filled, by the discovery of elastic fluids, did his part to 
 form the new chemistry ; but it was the work of those who have had the 
 opportunity of thoroughly imbibing the spirit of the Baconian philoso- 
 pliy, as applied by Newton, effectually to deliver chemistry from quackery 
 and romance ; and to frame such a system as that which now exists. 
 
 Lord Bacon, in support of the iniportaiice^ of Jhfi J22 clu c.(/l2e jne.thod,. i^ 
 l ays down the following f undamental principle^ as Jiis. Jirst andL 
 leading fljjfeon'^ concerning the " Interpretation of nature, and man*s_ 
 dominion over it" — a principle which , obvious as it seems, had never 
 been properly acted on by philosopher-a.L— z.^lJ^Imk-^the,,._servant and>^^ 
 i nterpreter of n atur e, can only understand and act in proportion as 
 he observes or c ontemplates the order j)fnaturej niore^he can neither 
 ^now nor do. " "jtihTs generar"priiiciple of Bacon i§^ undoubted^ 
 the foundation ot'^ail our real kno^lfidg -e/ Thie science of the phi- 
 losopher differs in degree only, not in kind, from that information 
 which is the fruit of the commonest experience. Everybody know^ 
 th at cold produces ice and snowj that the sun is higlier in the skj 
 i n summer than in winter; that in pits and mmes the air some^. 
 times burns, and explodes lik e gunpowder. Now~tlie mome nt we , 
 depart from these mere facts, and begin to consider their causes, and in, 
 what circumstances they are likely to happen a gain, we begin to apply * 
 experience to science — we reason by induction . It cannot be doubted _^.' 
 that this indu ctive method is, to a certam extent, natural to the mind. _ 
 I'he foundation of it lies in our expe cting ihe mme effec ts from the same^ 
 ^causes ; for this is the groundwork of reasoning from particular facts to 
 general, or what is called " generalisation" This expectation seems 
 to be an original principle implanted in the human mind by the benefi- 
 cent Creator ; and without Avhich we could know nothing, and never be 
 safe from danger. It goes before experience, and is the guide of it. 
 A child who for the first time approaches too near the flame of any sub- 
 stance that is in a state of combustion, or burning, so as to hurt himself, 
 afterwards proverbially dreads the fire; connecting in his mind the 
 remembrance of the pain he has felt, with the touching of any part of 
 his body with the flame. It is evident he expects the same eftect to 
 follow from the same or a similar cause ; and the resemblance between 
 the flame of a candle and that of the fire would, it is Hkely, put him on 
 his guard against a similar disaster from that source also. Now, this 
 is a species of induction^ though not founded on an enlarged expe- 
 rience ; and it is probable the child will now come to have the same 
 fear of everything bearing the appearance of flame. He might expect 
 that the same effect must arise from contact with the flame of alcohol, 
 or spirit of wine, for instance, until informed that it was possible to touch 
 this without being burnt. Hence the necessity of a sufficient experience, 
 before we form any general principle. 
 
12 ACCOUNT OF LORD BACON^S 
 
 A remarkable instance of this necessity, and one drawn from the 
 more exact part of science, is mentioned by Euler, in his Memoirs 
 of BerHn. It happens that in the formula x^ + ^r + 41, if jr be 
 made successively equal to 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc., the results will be 
 a series of which the first forty terms are all 'prime numbers — that 
 is, numbers which have no divisors, or which cannot be divided into 
 any number of equal integral parts, less than the number of units 
 of which they are composed : hence it might be supposed the law 
 was general ; — or, in other words, for the sake of any of our readers 
 who have not made themselves acquainted with algebra, that any 
 number whatever, multiplied by itself, and then added to itself, 
 together with the number 41, would make a prime number. It hap- 
 pens, however, that in the very next, or forty-first term, the result is a 
 composite number — that is, {> number that can be divided by some 
 smaller number, without a remainder ; and thus the rule is false. Now, 
 it is the great design of the Novum Organum to point out the method 
 of a strict and enlarged experimental, or inductive reasoning, especially, 
 though by no means exclusively, in reference to the study oi' physics, or 
 natural philosophy. This work may be regarded as a more useful and 
 more extensive system of reasoning than any that went before it ; not 
 consisting of syllogisms and the modes of argument that were then in 
 use, which, however correct, provided the premises be true, could, 
 after all, only serve for the arrangement of truths already known, or for 
 detecting very obvious and gross fallacies in argument, and for classi- 
 fying suph truths and fallacies, but an art leading to invention, and pro- 
 ductive of discoveries of the highest importance to the general uses of 
 human life. These discoveries are proposed to be accomplished by 
 turning our attention from mere words to things themselves ; from all 
 those frivolous and childish speculations which only dazzle without 
 illuminating the understanding, to a sober and rational method of in- 
 vestigating the operations and laws of nature, — a method well calcu- 
 lated to recommend itself to those whose only object is truth. 
 
 Lord Bacon sets out by condemning the two opposite errors, which up 
 to his time had proved equally injurious to a just acquaintance with 
 nature ; the one that of magisterially pronouncing on her operations, 
 as if all were explored and known, and nothing flirther were to be 
 discovered ; by which supposition all inquiry would of course be pre- 
 vented as useless ; the other error that of the sceptic philosophers, who, 
 proceeding to the opposite extreme, declared that /zo^Azwg" can be known, 
 and endeavoured, by distrusting the clearest notices of sense and consci- 
 ousness, to convince themselves of this absurd and inconsistent notion. 
 Those of the ancient Greeks were more worthy of our imitation, 
 whose writings are now lost, but who seem to have held a middle 
 course ; and though they complained of the mystery in which nature 
 often wrapped herself, still kept on their pursuit, and did not allow 
 themselves long to lose sight of their object. Even these philoso- 
 phers, however, do not appear to have applied a sufficient rule and 
 method in their inquiries, but placed too much reliance on subtilty of 
 mind, and random conjecture. The art of logic, so much extolled by 
 the ancients, certainly came too late to minds already prepossessed 
 by error : hence, by the perversion of this instrument, the aberrations 
 
NOVUM ORGANON SCIENTIARTJM. 13 
 
 of the human understandiiii^ were only fixed and rendered permanent, 
 instead of being corrected and removed ; the chains of prejudice were 
 rivetted, and loaded with gaudy ornaments. It is evident tha* the 
 mind needs direction and regulation, by some right method of em- 
 ploying its faculties, as much as the body needs the assistance of the 
 mechanical powers in raising large and heavy weights. In such a 
 method the ancients were altogether deficient. Yet by way of con- 
 ciliation, Bacon observes that he is still perfectly willing to leave the 
 ancients in possession of all the honour that is due to them. The 
 method of science, however, here proposed, being so little known to 
 them, no room, he conceives, is left for rivalship and envy. He con- 
 tends not for victory, but for utility and truth. If any persons, from 
 want of time, or other causes, are unable to pursue this more laborious 
 method, he says they may still attempt what they can, by framing 
 systems and theories, which he terms the mode of anticipation of the 
 mind ; others, who are more worthy sons of science, must follow his 
 plan of induction, or the interpretation of naturey as it is here laid 
 down, a method on which it is the more necessary to insist, because 
 many examples have occurred since Bacon's time, of the bad conse- 
 quences of neglecting it. Of this, no less names than Descartes and 
 Leibnitz were early examples ; men endowed with every faculty of the 
 mind that most fits for philosophical investigations — with the happiest 
 genius for science. 
 
 The body of the Novum Organum is divide d into two g eneral 
 parts? The former of these, which is intended to int roduce the, 
 l atter, is calculate d to prepa re the mind for j-eceiving and employing 
 t ne doctr ine contained in the second part, which delivers the new 
 methodfof proceeding in all kinds of inquiries, in order to the acquisi- 
 tioii oTam'or e ;u c u rate knowledg e of the vrorks of n ature, an d a more 
 extensi ve dominion over it. A^s the whole book is quaintly divided 
 i nto apEorTsms, or short por tions, founded on sententious remarks, 
 and accompanie d with "tltiMraCions, we shall not attempt to cqnducJL 
 our readers thro ugh each of these portion s_scparately, which would 
 be almost to present the whole ; but hop iiig that l}K)"sB~w Ho~liave the_ 
 o pportunity o f^doirig so, will feeM nduced to read the o riginal work, 
 or a translation of it, for themselves, we sha ll simply endea vour to con- 
 dense^ts principle's, and shall throw it into sec tions adapted to our 
 present purpos e. 
 
 I. General Prefatory Remarlcs. "— 
 
 T he first thirty-seven aphor isms, which we may call our j^rs. 
 se ction of the former part oFthe work , are chiefly occupied in attemp.t- 
 i ng to remove ancient prejudic es^ndLjjQLjjrocure a fair and canditi 
 attention to a book which, at the time o f its publication, must have ha4 
 so much to contend agains t. It is depl ored by Bacon, th a t for wa nt 
 of a right method of study, little clKectT had resulted, up to the close of 
 th e sixtee nth c entury, from the labours of men engaged in the pursuit of 
 s cience ;"for k nowle dge is th e same thjn^ as power, and where there 
 is little so und Icnowlcdge of nature, there will be little power gained 
 over her. This must always Jiave been the state of things, unless 
 means befora uutrie4 had beea employed in tho improveraeut of the 
 
14 ACCOUNT OP LORD BACON'S 
 
 sciences. That improvement could not be left to mere accident as 
 
 heretofore, when each following* age only re-echoed the voice of the 
 
 preceding-, and contented itself with pompously extolling the existing 
 
 delusive methods of philosophy, to the neglect of one more genuine 
 
 and scientific. The philosophy of nature Bacon c o mpares to " a ^vast ^ 
 
 pyramid, which ought to have t he history of natur ^ for its basisT^th ose 
 
 wh o" strive to ere ct it bj^Jhe force of abstract speculation, he likens 
 
 ^_Q_the giants of 6rJT~w Iio, according to tlie^j'oets, endeavoured to throw 
 
 ^B2H5LPssa ujoori JPelion, and Olympus upon Qssa^ The only hope on 
 
 which to found all real advancement in kno wledge, must arise from 
 
 a strrctexperlmefital method, that is, the examination of a sutticienl 
 
 number ofparticular instances oh both sides~TEe""q uestion at iss ue~~s"o 
 
 that when all the exceptions are properly made, some useful anS~im- 
 
 porfant truth may remain as a pr inciple to proceed on , m hirtTie r 
 
 Jitquiry*^ W hen examined on this inductive p rincip le, most of i\\.e 
 
 common notions existing wheniyieiVorwrn Urganum was written^ were 
 
 q uite unsa tis factory : those, for instance, relating to gravity y attraction^ 
 
 th e eleme nts, matter, yQ_^^~alIjhese^j^jiiany more, as taught Jnjhe 
 
 sixteenth century, were but il l-defined a nd fantastical n otions. .JEyen 
 
 m any of our common-sense ideas, as those r elatino: to our sensations 
 
 a nd reasonings, though they can scarcely in themselves ^eatly^deceive 
 
 us, yet may these b e muc h obscu red and pe rplexed by aTlalse mode 
 
 o f philosophizing. For instance , the supposed necessi£v~o f the ob ^£j2^ts 
 
 ot sense be ing actually present wTtH t he mind that perceives them, 
 
 ^ave rise to~the notion oi im ages — an Image oT'a fiofse milsTbe^mlhe 
 
 miiid, or~th e horse could not"T3e see^ fwhere as, it is evi d ehl,'"that se eitis^ 
 
 i sa tact iri theliafure" of man : how the impression isconveved from 
 
 th e nerves and brain to the niind, we know not. 
 
 The mode of searching after truth that had always been in vogud^ 
 was, at the best, from observing, not very rigidly, a few particulars, \ 
 to rise at once to some general axiom or conclusion ; but the only V 
 genuine method. Bacon observes, is, to advance gradually from the ij 
 notices the senses give us in particular instances, and those sufficiently " 
 numerous, to some lesser axiom or principle, and then gradually to 
 .proceed to some still more general principle, till at length you form 
 isome grand and final conclusion. The understanding seems but too 
 naturally to adopt the former of these two methods, which is calcu- 
 lated most effectually to prevent all advances in knowledge and science. 
 It is the object of science to see things as they are in nature, an d no t 
 ill appearance merely : but *' there is a wide difference," says Lord 
 ^\^"> _^^^^^^'^ ^^^ idols of th e human mmd^jnd lEe'ide^s of _the 
 divine mind : that is, between certain vain notions, and the real cha- 
 racters and impress ions that are s tampe d upon tTie~creatures7as~tEey 
 jire acfualTy Ibund .^ V Ve may illustrate this by a reference^to the 
 Ptolemaic System of Astronomy, which was founded on the false and 
 hasty notion of the apparent motions of the heavenly bodies being the 
 real ones. Th e sun, moon, and stars, seem to move rou jid the ear th 
 once in twenty-four hours : henc e the rude and^ot hic notion that th e 
 earth was the centre around which they are all actually whirle d ; 
 whereas, by a successf ul cultivation of a pro peF met hod, jhe" truth is 
 now demonstrated to Tje that the sun, and not the earth, is the centre 
 
NOVUM ORGANON SCIENTIARUM. t^ 
 
 o^ the mundane system ; apd is, with respe ct to the ea rth at least,' 
 
 / nearly at rest . "The method of anticijjating nature^ says Bacon,** 
 "rash, hasty, and unphilosophical as it is, has nevertheless a much 
 greater power than the other, to entrap the assent of the mind ; which 
 is too apt to be delighted with its own conjectures, and to allow the! 
 / imagination to be struck and filled with its own plausible subtilties : I 
 whereas interpretations of nature^ or real truths arrived at by indue 
 tion, being separately and more slowly collected, cannot so suddenly i 
 
 \ arrest the mind ; and when the conclusion actually arrives, it may so \ 
 oppose prejudice, and appear so paradoxical, as to be in danger of not j 
 being received, notwithstanding the evidence that supports it, " like ' 
 mysteries of faith." 
 
 The method of anticipation, however, or of dictating* to nature 
 what she and her operations are to be, could never, of course, avail 
 to promote real science, whatever talents might be- engaged in it. 
 Tycho Brake thus anticipated nature, in taking it as a certain truth 
 that the earth must be at rest. For though he was too well ac- 
 quainted with the planetary motions to suppose their centre any 
 other than the sun, yet in order to preserve his favourite notion that 
 the earth did not move, he supposed the sun, with all the planets, to 
 be carried annually roupd it ; while these latter revolved in their proper 
 orbits round the sun : and having rejected the Copernican doctrine of 
 the daily motion of the earth round its own axis, he was obliged to re- 
 tain the most violent part of the system of Ptolemy, and to suppose that 
 the whole universe was carried round the earth every day. It was 
 thus, also, that the great Kepler, the contemporary of Bacon, imagined 
 that the planets must be six in number, and must have orbits of certain 
 dimensions, because of certain properties of numbers, and of plane and 
 solid figures, with which he fancied they corresponded. These specu- 
 lations he pubHshed in 1596 in his ^' Mystery of the World;" and on 
 sending a copy of his book to Tycho Brahe, he received from him the 
 advice, " first to lay a solid foundation in observations, and then, by 
 ascending from them, to strive to come at the causes of things." 
 To this excellent advice, as Maclaurin observes, we owe Kepler's more 
 solid discoveries: for, availing himself of Tycho Brahe's astronomical 
 observations, he, from them, discovered the laws of the planetary 
 motions, known ever since by his own name. Hvygens, a cele- 
 brated Dutch geometrician and astronomer, and who lived laterj 
 suffered himself to be imposed on in a similar way : for, having dis- 
 covered one of Saturn's moons, this, added to the four moons of 
 Jupiter, and the one belonging to our globe, made up the number 
 six ; the number of the primary planets then known being also six ; 
 and the number six being a perfect number — that is, a number that is 
 equal to the sum of the equal parts into which it can be divided, 
 Huygens affirmed that the number of the planets was complete, and 
 that it was in vain to look for any more : we need not remark that this 
 mystical speculation has since been disproved by fact. Now it was 
 t he prai s e of L ord Bacon to endeavour to remove fi'om men s minds 
 t his superstitious tendency t o rest jfi jn-^econceivectjriotionj, \^^ 
 much prevailed, and w hich was enco uraged by some who were greatly 
 his superi ors in the abstract scie nces. "Though the labours and\ 
 
1« 
 
 ACCOUNT OF LORD BACON'S 
 
 capacities of all men," says he, "in all ages, could be united and co^'^ 
 tinned, they could effect no considerable progress in science by antici- 
 pation of nature ; since radical errors in the mind's first digestion 
 are not to be cured by the excellence of its functions, or by any suc- 
 ceeding remedies. Unless men choose to move always in a circle 
 without advancing, we have but one simple method left ; namely, that 
 of leading them to particulars, to their order and connection. They 
 must be contented, for a time at least, to forsake their own notions, 
 and to become acquainted with things themselves. Our method has 
 some resemblance to that of the Sceptics at the outset, but differs 
 widely from it, and is directly opposed to it in the end. They foolishly 
 assert that nothing can be known : we say that little is to be expected 
 from the existing method ; they contradict reason and common sense ; 
 .we endeavour to assist both." 
 
 II. Th e Idols of the M in d; OT_Gran d Sources of Prejudice . 
 Lord Bacon philosophically points out, with great exactness, va- 
 rious general sources of those errors which men are apt to commit 
 in forming their notions of things ; and he shows how very great 
 an obstacle they form to the progress of our knowledge, and the 
 acquisition of truth. " The Idols^ or false notions of the mind," he 
 says, " so deeply fix themselves in it, that they not only shut up the 
 avenues through which truth might enter; but even when it has 
 entered, they will again be presenting themselves, and will be trouble- 
 some in the advancement of the sciences, unless men, being aware of 
 them before hand, guard against them with all possible diligence." 
 As no part of Bacon's works is nriore_valuable t han this , or more 
 important to all who are in pursuit of knowledge and truth, we 
 shall give some detail of it to our readers. He strikingly, though in 
 his usual quaint style, calls the prejudices t h at chec k the pr ogress of 
 truth, by the name of Idols^ because mankind are apt to pay homage 
 to these, instead of regarding truth ; as they have offered to imaginary 
 deities, the worship which is due only to the true God. 
 
 These prejudices and prepossessions are divided into four classes, 
 which are called Idols of the Tribe ; Idols of the Den ; ^dols of the 
 Mark et ; and Idols of the Theatre. These sources of error are pecu- 
 liarly deserving of notice, because they will be found, if we mistake 
 not, to include the principal causes, which in all cases have a tendency 
 to obstruct the pursuit of truth, whether natural or moral. They con- 
 stitute a sort of infection from which the mind must be purified, before 
 it can enter with soundness and vigour, and with the best effect, into 
 any sort of inquiry which has truth, and truth only, for its object. 
 *' While the rules Lord Bacon gives us," says the late Dr. Thomas 
 Brown, " are rules of physical investigation, the temple which he 
 purified was not that of nature itself, but the temple of the mind ; in its 
 inmost sanctuaries were all the idols which he overthrew ; and it was 
 not till these were removed that Truth would deign to unveil herself to 
 adoration." 
 
 1. The IdolaTrihus, or theld!o/£of the Tribe, i\\ejirst class of preju- 
 dices, are so called because they are common to the whole trihey or 
 race of mankind ; they are, in fact, thoi e general prejudices which ar ise 
 
NOVUM ORG^ANON SCIENTIARUM. 17 
 
 from the injirmity of human nature itself " The understanding of 
 mani7'^ says our authoirT^' Ts like a mirror whose siu'face is not true, 
 and so, mixing- its own imperfection with the nature of things, distorts 
 and perverts them." For instance, there is a tendency in the mind to 
 suppose a g-reater uniformity in Nature than she actually possesses. 
 We are always disposed to imagine parallels, correspondencies, andj 
 relations •that may not actualLy exist. Hence the supposition that the J 
 heavenly bodies must all move in perfect circles, because the orbits of 
 the planets were perceived to return into themselves : this was univer- 
 sally believed by the old astronomers, till Kepler disproved it a few 
 years before Bacon wrote, by showing that the planets move in ellip- 
 tical or oval orbits. Hence the ancient notion that the element of fire, 
 with its orby must be added to air, earth, and water, to make up the 
 even number of what they called i\\e four elements. Bacon's prediction 
 that the sources of error would return and be likely to mingle with 
 science even in its most flourishing condition, has been verilied with 
 respect to this particular illusion, in the case of sciences which in his 
 time were scarcely in existence. When it was found that a consider- 
 able part of the earth's surface consisted of minerals, disposed in hori- 
 zontal strata, or layers, it was immediately concluded that the whole 
 exterior surface either is or has been composed of such layers ; and on this 
 assumed principle entire theories of the earth have been constructed. 
 
 Again, the mind has a wonderful facility also of being imposed on , 
 by p repossess ions. If once pleased with any notion, it immediately 
 endeavours to make every thing agree witli this, even in the face 
 of evidence to the contrary. It gets over opposing instances and ex- ■ 
 amples, either by altogether neglecting them, or by inventing some 
 subtil distinction which shall still maintain the favourite principle with 
 which it first set out. Dreams, omens, and astrological predictions 
 are cases of this kind, in which the instances of failure are passed over 
 by the superstitious with little notice, while those instances in which 
 the event corresponds to the supposed preternatural intimation of it 
 are carefully remembere d. This prepos se ssion of the mind . cannot 
 endure exceptions to rules, and ne gative insta nces ; though t hese are, j 
 in fact, of the greatest importaiice. in eslaijhshing axioms or gener al •- 
 prin ciples. 
 
 The imagiuation, also , is apt to be overpowered with whatever at 
 once strikes and seems to fill it ; and the mind, imperceptibly yielding 
 to this impression, readily comes to some conclusion, not waiting for 
 the gradual processes of the understanding, to try general principles 
 by the test of- various, remote, and dissimilar instances; which can 
 never be done without following rigid rules, and submitting the facul- 
 ties to violent restraints. 
 
 The restless activity of the human powers, moreover, aids the 
 force of general prejudices. The mind is ambitious of understandA 
 lug what is incomprehensible. It attempts to grasp what is beyond \ 
 its power, instead of being content with some proper resting-place J 
 for the natural weakness and limitation of its faculties. It wearies y 
 itself in its endeavour to comprehend such ideas as space, time, etei^ 
 nity^ injiidly ; and it is still more apt to be misled. Bacon thinks, 
 by its desire to discover the final causes of things, that is, the uses, 
 
 c 
 
18 ACCOUNT OF LORD BACON'S "^^ ^o^"* 
 
 or ends, which the Creator had in view in forming' them.^ The phrase 
 Jinal cause was first introduced by Aristotle, and the 'inchision of 
 this among causes in g-eneral as objects of inquiry, liad the eifect of 
 diverting- such minds as those of his followers from the study of nature 
 to mere speculations. We must therefore remember that the hint which 
 Bacon here throws out on this subject, and what he says more on it in 
 his other works, always has a reference io Jinal causes as treated by the 
 Schoolmen, He objects to these being included, as a branch of natural 
 science ; but it cannot be supposed that his remarks on this subject 
 arose from the same source which produced the prejudice against final 
 causes that so generally prevailed in France in the eighteenth century. 
 Bacoii^ haA^ no bias towards atheism.* he censures Aristotle for jlsub-. 
 stitu ti ng Nature i n stead of God^ as t hdounFain oTfrnaT^^ises ; and 
 for treating them rather as subservient to logic than theology ;'* and in 
 his Essays he finely remarks, '* I had rather believe all the fables in the 
 Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this universal 
 fi-ame is without a mind. While the mind of man looketh at second 
 causes scattered, it may sometimes rest in them, and go no farther ; 
 but when it beholdeth the chain of them confederate and linked toge- 
 ther, it must needs fly to Providence and Deity." 
 
 Notwithstanding Lord Bacon*s objection to final causes as a subject of 
 philosophical inquiry, it must be allowed that, apart from the charm which 
 the final causes, or ends of things, lend to Nature, when they are satis- 
 factorily perceived, which is the moral use of them, there are some cases 
 in which a consideration of them has conduced to actual discoveries in 
 science. It was noticing the situation of the valves in the veins of the 
 animal body, for instance, that led to the great discovery of the circula- 
 tion of the blood. Harvey, who was its author, perceived that these 
 valves, in some parts of the body, were so placed as to give a free pas- 
 sage to the blood towards the heart, and to exclude its return the same 
 way. He thought there must be some particular design in this, imd 
 no design appeared more probable than that, since the blood could 
 not well, because of the interposing valves, be sent by the veins to the 
 limbs, it should be sent through the arteries, and return through the 
 veins, whose valves did not oppose its course that way. This fact, 
 however, and others which might be mentioned in illustration of this 
 subject, were not known to Bacon ; and the great abuse of the specu- 
 lation on final causes by the Schoolmen not unnaturally led him to an 
 unreasonable distrust of it.*=/ 
 
 The influence of the unll and aj^ctions on^ the vnders tanding, or 
 wh ^t m ay be termed the mora l state o f the rpind, may also greatly art^ect 
 gmiF^pinions. *' The light of the understanding," says our author, *' is 
 not a dry or pure light, but it receives a tincture from the will and the 
 affections, and forms the sciences accordingly ; for men are most willing 
 to believe what they most desire." Hence, he observes, " difficulties are 
 rejected through impatience ; the deeper things of Nature are dreaded 
 through a certain awe ; experience is discarded through prjde ; truth 
 when it limits our hopes ; paradox is shunned through fear of vulgar 
 opposition ; and thus in innumerable w^ays, and oflen imperceptibly, do 
 the affections and passions tinge the understanding with their own co- 
 louring." 
 i T he faliacy and incompetency of the se nses are^ an additional 
 
^^. 
 
 RE£6'f 
 
 NOVUM ORGANON SClENTIARUiifv?^. -> ''*^^ >* 
 
 source of mistake and error. Inquiry commonly ends in ^lal'"j|jf9aMt «r / 
 on the mere surface of things, while the org-anization, the textare,..i5f tlWel .. 
 inward changes of bodies are luiknown. On these, however, chemistry ■ 
 depends." Lord Bacon considers this incompetency and dulness of the j 
 senses as one of the greatest impediments to an exact knowledge ofA 
 nature. '* Nor can instruments," he adds, " here be of any greatj| 
 service, since all true interjiretations of nature must be made by suital)le 
 and ])roper trials, in which the senses judge of experiment only, and 
 experiment is the judge of nature and fact." He complains, by way of 
 example, that in his time even the properties of the common air of the 
 atmosphere, and of all the agents, still more subtil than the air itself, of 
 which he su])posed there might be many, were almost entirely unknown. 
 What would he have said, could he have witnessed the application of 
 the inductive philosophy to the discovery of the projjerties of the various 
 kinds of gases — the researches of Newton respecting light — the experi- 
 ments of Franklin in electricity — the powerful agency of galvanimii 
 which has produced new creations in chemistry, and changed the whole 
 face of that interesting and useful science ! 
 
 Lastly, there is a tendency in the mind to a hstracti on or generalisa- 
 ^io^i, which should be carefully watched as a likely source of error. It 
 is less troublesome to reason upon fancied general notions, than to 
 make experiments. *' But Nature," says our author, ** must be ana- 
 tomized rather than abstracted : matter should be considered in ail its 
 states and transformations ; so ought motion and its laws ; but for the 
 Aristotelian abstract forins, they are idols OYjigments of the mind." — 
 These seven particular causes, tljjeii, may_be borne in mind as among < 
 the cTiief general prejudices, wliich are apt, often insensibly, to militate ?»- 
 against the discovery of truth, and the advancement of science : too 
 great a tendency to suppose a perfect vniformiiy in nature ; hasty pre- 
 possessions in respect to some favourite idea ; the influence of the ima- 
 gination ; the restless activity of the human mind ; the bias the will 
 and affections give to the judgment; the imperfection of the organs of 
 sense ; and the love of abstractions and generalisations. 
 
 2. The second class of prejudices introduced by this sagacious ob- 
 server cf human nature, as tending to obstruct the progress of truth and 
 knowledge of all kinds, he terms Iclola Specus — I dols of the Cave or Den : \ 
 that is, thoje pr^judwes which st amp \ipo n eacJi mind^ts^own /peculiar \ 
 ch aracter , and are identified with eve ry individual mail. " Idols of the • 
 den," says the Novinn Organiwi, *'are the idols of each particular 
 person ; for in addition to the general waywardness of human nature, 
 every man has his own peculiar den or cavern, which breaks and cor- 
 rupts the light of nature, — either on account of his constitution and 
 disposition of mind — his education and the society he keeps — his course 
 of reading and the authorities he most respects — his peculiar impres- 
 sions as they may be made on a mind that is pre-occu]ued and pre- 
 possessed, or is in a calm and unbiassed frame : so that the human spirit, 
 as it is differently disposed in ditferent individuals, is a thing fluctuating, 
 disorderly, and almost accidental. Hence Ileraclitus well observes 
 that men seek the sciences in their lesser worlds, and not in the great 
 and common world of nature." In another place, these idols of the 
 den are spoken of in the figurative language of Bacon, as " each man's 
 
 o 
 
2a : ACCOUNT OF LORD BACON'S 
 
 particular demon, or seducing* familiar spirit ;** and again, every mind 
 is compared to " a g-lass, with its surface differently cut, so as differently 
 to receive, reflect, and refract the rays of light that fall upon it." 
 
 Some of these private prejudices he justly regards as requiring* peculiar 
 caution, because they possess the greatest tendency to pervert the mind. 
 The particular studies ^ for instance, to which a person has been addict- 
 ed — more especially, if he has any claim to be an inventor, may warp his 
 judgment in other pursuits, and tend to corrupt his notions. It was in 
 this way that Aristotle, through his fondness for distinctions and quid- 
 dities, made his natural philosophy a mere slave to his lo^icj and so 
 rendered it little else than a useless source of disputation. .^^iZ^er^^, of 
 Colchester, is anotWer example. In his *' Treatise on the Magnet" 
 he gives a specimen of experimental inquiry carried on with considera- 
 ble correctness and success ; but he tried to make his magnetism a 
 general principle, considering it to pervade all Nature. It is but fair 
 to acknowledge his merit however, for "to him," as Dr. Priestley 
 observes, " we owe a great augmentation of the list of electrical bodies, 
 and of the bodies on which electrics can act: though his theory on this 
 subject is imperfect, he may justly be called the father of modern elec- 
 tricity." Of late years, this species of fondness for theory has been disco- 
 vered in attempts to account for the motion of the planets by electricity ; 
 and electricity and galvanism together have been employed to explain 
 gravitation, the affinities of chemistry, and even the laws of vegetable and 
 animal life. At an earlier period I3es Cartes, after Bacon had so well 
 written against theories, endeavoured, in medicine, to combine Van Hel- 
 mont's doctrine of fermentation with his own beloved notions respecting 
 vortices; which he thus brought down from heaven (where, as he sup- 
 posed, they guided the planets in their orbits) to earth, in order to explain 
 the chief functions of the animal body. Hence he formed a chemico- 
 mechanical system of medicine which was eagerly received by the Dutch 
 physicians of his time. Thus may one favourite pursuit be suffered to 
 give a tincture to every other branch of knowledge, and to corrupt it. 
 *' The tribe of chemists," says Bacon, " have constructed a fantastical 
 philosophy from a few experiments of the furnace." None certainly of 
 the professed inquirers after truth, up to his time, were ever more 
 extravagant and fanciful than the experimenters in chemistry ; witness 
 the Archeeus of Van Helmont, and his army of spiritual agents, derived 
 from the elastic fluids. W 
 
 Among the private prejudices or the sources of error arising from the 
 mental constitution of individuals, the natural difference o f nieiV s c apa- 
 cities is enumerated. Some minds. Lord Bacon thinks, are fitted more 
 for discrimination, while others content themselves with merely noticing 
 resemblances. " The great and radical difference of men's capacities," 
 he says, " as to philosophy and the sciences, hes in this, that some are 
 stronger and more fitted to observe the differences of things, and others 
 to observe their correspondences : for a steady and sharp genius can fix 
 its contemplations, and dwell and fasten upon all the subtilty of differ- 
 ences ; whilst a sublime and ready genius perceives and compares the 
 smallest and most general agreements of things. Both minds easily fall 
 into excess, by grasping either at the dividing scale or the shadows of 
 things." 
 
 With greater clearness and perspicuity^ he adds to these personal 
 
NOVUM ORGANON 6CIENTIARUM, 21 
 
 prejudices and tendencies, the attachm ent to times, in forming our i 
 ideas of truth and excellence. Some men Tiave" cherished an idola- | 
 irons admiration of the ancients ; and have scarcely allowed even a 
 comparison to be made between their works, and the monuments of 
 modern genius. Thus the poetry of Milton has been underrated by 
 those v/ho have been so devoted to the remains of classical antiquity, 
 as to be almost incapable of awarding due merit to productions in the 
 vulgar tongue : witness the contests respecting the superiority of an- 
 cient or modern learning. On the other hand, while every thing modern 
 has been despised only because it is not ancient, some have been misled 
 by the opposite cast of mind, and have been inflamed with a constant j 
 passion for novelty ; being disposed to yield little or no respect to 
 antiquity, even where the experience of past ages might be of great 
 service to us. This kind of prejudice has greatly declined, however, 
 since Bacon's time — truthy and not the establishment of sects, having 
 happily become the leading object of philosophical inquiries ; " for 
 truth," says he, " is not to be derived from any felicity of times, which 
 is an uncertain thing, but from the light of nature and experience, which 
 is eternal." 
 
 He exemplifies another kind of ^^^rticular^ prejudices, or of the 
 Idola SpeciiSy by comparing the school of Leucippus and Democritus, 
 among the ancients, to the " other philosophies," alluding probably to 
 those of Pythagoras, and of Socrates, Plato, and the Academics. Leu- 
 cippus, Democritus, and Epicurus were atomists, — they taught thatf 
 the whole universe is composed of either atoms or a.vacuu7ny and that it' 
 was by the accidental meeting together of these atoms that the world 
 assumed its present form and appearance. " This school," says Bacon, 
 " is so taken up with the particles of things, as almost to neglect their 
 structure ; whilst the other views the fabrication of things with such 
 astonishment, as not to attend to the simplicity of nature ;" referring 
 to the lofty speculations and flights of imagination that characterized 
 the Platonic school. ) "To contemplate nature and bodies in their sim- 
 ple elements," he quaintly remarks, " breaks and grinds the imder- 
 standing ; and to consider them in their configurations and composi- 
 tions blunts and relaxes it." This exc lusive pre dilection Jor the minide, 
 K. r the vast in nature, by which some of the ancient schools were marked, ' 
 much resembles the second order of prejudices which is mentioned 
 under this class. " In this manner, then," concludes the account of 
 these prejudices, "let contemplative wisdom proceed in dislodging and 
 chasing away the idols of the den, which principally have their rise 
 from prevalent studies; excess of composition and division; affections for 
 times ; and from the great or small size of objects.^* 
 
 3. Another class of prejudices to be carefully avoided in our in- 
 quiries after truth, are termed, in the figurative but expressive language 
 of Lord Bacon, Idola Fori; Idols of the M arket-place ; th at is, prejii- I 
 d ices arising from m ere words and terms inoiir common inlercourse with \ 
 man kind : they proceed, in short, from the ijJ3^crfclion of language. ' 
 ^hese p r ejudices he pronoun ces " the mo st troublesome of all." '. 
 *' Words,* says he, " are for the most part accommodated to the 
 notions of the vulgar, and they define things by bounds that are most 
 obvious to common minds ; and when a more acute understanding, or 
 a Hxore accurate observation, would remove these boundaries, and 
 
22 ACCOUNT OP LORD BACON'S 
 
 place them more according' to nature, words cry out and forbid.** A 
 familiar instance of this may be taken from our common mode of 
 speech with regard to the heavenly bodies. We say of the sun, 
 that it rUes aud'Se^.9, though every one, but the most ignorant, is 
 aware that this is not strictly true, since the sun is stationary with 
 regard to the planetary system; its apparent motion being owing 
 to the real m.otion of the earth. In this instance, however, the v 
 ^delusion which words might, prodvice, is obviated by the popular 
 knowledge of astronomy which prevails. In many cases it is certain 
 that the want of accuracy in the use of words and phrases has proved 
 a great barrier to the pursuit and attainment of truth. How many 
 violent disputes have there been, for instance, on liberty and neces- 
 sity among ethical writers, while neither party has taken the pains 
 first to say what he meant by these words ; which might have saved 
 both much time and much angry contention. Hence, in order to avoid 
 controversies respecting mere words and terms, it is recommended to 
 begin with these according to the "wise method of the mathematicians," 
 and to reduce them to order and certainty by definitions. *' Yet," it is 
 justly observed, " these definitions themselves cannot wholly remedy 
 the evil ; for definitions consist of words, and words produce words ; 
 SO that recourse must be had to particular instances." J 
 
 Lord Bacon's meaning m^ay be illustrated by such words as sensation, '^ 
 will, benevolence. We may define sensation, and say it is feelings but what 
 is feeling? What, for instance, is the feeling or sensation of cold? What 
 is the sensation of seeing ? None can describe these, it is obvious, 
 to a person supposed never to have experienced them. JVill may be 
 defined volition, but this again is a mere translation ; and if an intelli- 
 gent being- could be imagined who had never actually willed any 
 thing, nor ever had any desire in his mind to do or say any thing, it 
 would be utterly impossible to make him understand what willing is. 
 A being of simple malevolence, or one who had never felt towards 
 other beings any thing but hatred, could have no idea of the emotion 
 of benevolence towards others : he could not know what it is to love them. 
 But when a child once understands that sensation is a general name 
 for all those immediate efiects which arise from objects acting upon any 
 of the organs of sense — a name for seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, 
 and feeling indifferently ; when he learns that willing is that state of 
 the mind which directly goes before any deliberate action ; or that 
 benevolence or love is a term expressing certain natural and delightful 
 emotions towards his parents, brothers, sisters, and friends, — he then 
 understands the meaning of these words by instances and examples. 
 Or, if I wished to convey to the mind of another person the meaning 
 of the word gravitation, or attraction, as it is employed in the New- 
 tonian philosophy, instead of merely saying it is the tendency bodies 
 have towards each other, I might state the simple fact, and say, when 
 a body is let fall from any height it proceeds invariably to the earth, 
 and more swiftly in proportion as it arrives nearer the surface : this is 
 what is meant by saying that the body is attracted, or gravitates 
 with accelerated velocity toward the earth : and when the inquirer is 
 further informed that the earth itself also proceeds, however little, 
 toward the falling body ; and that the sun, moon, earth, and planets, 
 ail mutually move toward each other, more or less, in the same man- 
 
NOVUM ORGANON SCIENTIARUM. 23 
 
 rier, the general idea of what is intended by attraction or gravitation 
 is gained ; and it is understood simijly to be a name lor a certain fact, 
 or Uno in the operations of nature, or ratlier of nature's Divine and 
 Ahnighty Architect. , Ap 
 
 /U' Mankind are apt te.T'be led into errors by words in two principal |^ 
 / way a ; and first by the'names of things which have no exMence whatever. |^' 
 (^ Of this kind, says Lord Bacon, are such as " fortune, the primum ^ 
 'mobile, orbs of the planets, the element of fire, and the like figments \ 
 which arise from false and imaginary theories." It is almost unne- \ 
 cessary to remind our readers that all such words as chance, fortune^ , ) 
 luck, etc., are only names for human ignorance of a cause; and thatj / 
 in all the cases in which these words are applied to any kind of circum-(/ 
 stances that occur either in the natural or moral world, there is the ^^ 
 same necessity for supposing an agency of the Deity as in the greatest, , 
 
 and, to us, most certain events. Primum mobile^ or the first mover, 
 in Ptolemy's astronomy, was a supposed immense sphere, or hollow 
 globe, which included within it all the spheres, or orhs of the planets, 
 and fixed stars, and turned itself and all these round the earth in 
 twenty-four hours ! Idols of this kind, however, it is observed, are 
 the more easily dislodged from the mind, because the direct remedy for 
 them is the constant rejection of all mere theory. 
 
 But there is another species of delusion which may arise from words, 
 that is likely to produce greater perplexity, and is avoided with greater 
 difficulty. This delusion is produced when words do not agree to the 
 things they are intended to signify, but are confu^l and ill-defined. 
 Bacon adduces the'vartoTis meanings that were formerly given to the 
 word humidum, or moisture, as an example of this uncertainty : he 
 shows that, according to the vague manner in which the word was 
 used, it would apply to the most dissimilar things, and that flame, 
 and small dust or powder, and glass, might all, on this principle, be 
 said to possess moisture. It is evident that this uncertainty in the 
 application of the term humidity or the quality of m^oisture arose from 
 not considering moisture as a relative idea. For instance, quicksilver, 
 with relation to some substances, as our hands or our clothes, is 7iot 
 humid, but it may be regarded so with reference to tin, lead, or gold ; 
 for it will adhere to their surfaces and render them soft and moist. 
 Even water does not wet all things, for it runs off in round drops from 
 the leaves of many plants, the feathers of birds, etc. ; so that water 
 itself is no more moist with regard to these, than quicksilver is with 
 regard to our hands ; unless by moisture we mean soaking with water 
 merely. Our great philosopher complains that, in general, the notions 
 of quality in iDodies, were in his time exceedingly confused. Such 
 were the notions of gravity, density, tenuity, levity. From what we 
 know, indeed, of the philosophism which then prevailed, all attempts 
 to reason on these terms must have been like grasping a shadow or 
 beating the air. The words used to express the changes which bodies 
 undergo, were also extremely vague and undefined, as generation, 
 corruption, alteration. So likewise general names of substances, as 
 earth ; and air, or vapour. It was reserved for the science of modern 
 times to use a more precise language, and to aspire at a magnanimity 
 almost unknown to the ancients — that of frankly acknowledging man's 
 ignorance, and the limitation of his faculties, rather than taking refuge 
 
^24 ACCOUNT OF LORD BACON'S ^^ 
 
 I in the darkness of an ambig-uous phraseology. Our readers will 
 
 I perceive from all that has been said, how much accuracy and precision 
 
 / of language depend on the advancement of science; indeed they 
 
 / mutually promote each other. What has been effected in chemistry by 
 
 / a reformation in the use of terms is well known. An imitation of this 
 
 precision, so far as the nature of the given subject will allow, must he at 
 
 the root of advancement, not only in natural, but equally in moral and 
 
 intellectual science ; and here, as in chemistry itself, the advice of 
 
 \ Bergman to Morveau will advantageously apply ; " In reforming the 
 
 V^^ nomenclature, spare no word that is improper." 
 
 4. The last general sources of prejudice adduced, as obstructing' 
 philosophical discoveries, are what are termed Idola Theatri ; Idols_of 
 [ the Theat re; o r^the prejudices and perversions of the i rdnd arising 
 j'lrom th e fabulous and visionary the ories_a nd the romajitic ph ilosophies 
 that .so long prevailed in the world. *' We call them Idols of the 
 Theatre," says Bacon, " because all the systems of philosophy that 
 have been hitherto invented, or received, are but so many stage-plays 
 which have exhibited nothing but fictitious and theatrical worlds ; and 
 there may still be invented and dressed up numberless other fables of 
 the like kind." "(^^f this last remark, Hutchinsonianism may, in 
 modern times, be regarded as an example, in common with all other 
 speculations that have been opposed to the Newtonian theory of gravi- 
 tation; and which will be found equally opposed to the method of 
 science here recommended. It was strange that, in the eighteenth 
 century, in the full blaze of that light which was, as it were, latent in 
 the Baconian philosophy, and which Newton had struck out — a system, 
 not unlike that of the vortices of Des Cartes, should offer once more 
 to darken the heavens, after they had been so effectually purified from 
 the atoms and the plemuns, the orhs and the cycles of an imaginary 
 astronomy : this, however, is but an example of the power which one 
 favourite notion can exercise over an acute and ardent mind ; for 
 Hutchinson assumed, as the basis of his theory, that Divine Revelation 
 was designed to teach men philosophy as well as religion ; and in the 
 Mosaic account of the creation, he fancied he saw the physics of the 
 true astronomy. His system, however, which may be considered as a 
 kind of physico-theological romance, has been permitted to sink into 
 its merited oblivion, while Revelation is now regarded as confined to 
 its own sublime and proper province of making known the will of God 
 to man, as to his conduct here, and the way of attaining felicity here- 
 after. The Newtonian philosophy cannot, on any consistent principles, 
 be regarded as at variance with the communications of the Bible ; and, 
 founded as it is on the basis of demonstration, it cannot fail to stand 
 the test of time. Gratuitous theories may impose on the imagination, 
 like the ?7zirag-e of the Egyptian sands; but, hke this illusion, they must 
 pass away : they may present to the eye a magnificence as gaudy and 
 seducing as the fata morgana, sometimes witnessed on the coast of 
 Calabria, in which the most beauteous landscapes, crowned with 
 picturesque villages, superb palaces, and massy tow^ers, seem to 
 possess a real existence : all, however, is only suspended in the air, 
 and the enchanted scene changes with the least shifting of the light, or 
 the ruffling of the sea, melting away like a dream of the night — so 
 must vanish at last all systems of philosophy and science that are not 
 
NOVUM ORGANON SCIENTIARUM. 2& 
 
 founded on the solid basis of that induction^ which it is the design 
 o^ i\\Q, Novum Origanum to explain, f^ 
 
 This source of error and prejudice, or the Idoh of the Theatre^ T^i 
 are more especially to be marked as closely connected with the I 
 authority of great names ; and thus, not unfrequently, enslaving <i^ 
 the understanding- to an ignoble bondage, by what the schoolmen 
 term argumentiun ad verecundiam, or the argument addressed to 
 the modesty of human nature. Prejudices of this kind stand on a 
 diHerent footing from the former three sources, and are perhaps the \ 
 most remarkable instances of intellectual slavery. " For," says Lord 
 Bacon, " tlie idols of the theatre are neither innate, nor are they ■ 
 secretly insinuated into the understanding-, but are plainly forced 
 upon it, and are received from fabulous theories and false laws of 
 demonstration." The importance of returning to an independent and 
 sci entific metho d of inquiry, or, in other words, of thinking for ouj:- ,< 
 selves, IS urged' by our author from the fact, that " a crTp^Te TrT'the 
 right way may beat a racer in the wrong." The m ore vigorous- ^ 
 indeed, the mind is, which ^ets out in_a wxongjc^our^ei_the further does^. 
 it dep art from the goal of truthi and science. The method, however, A 
 which is here proposed, is adapted not merely to a subtil understand- ^ 
 ing, and a sublime order of faculties, but is level to the capacities 
 of all, even the humblest. To draw a straig-ht line, or to describe an 
 exact circle, with the unassisted hand, might be a thing scarcely to be 
 accomjilished with certainty, whilst it is an easy task to do it by the • 
 help of a ruler and compasses, with the greatest accuracy. '* All these 1 
 idols," says Bacon, " are solemnly and tor ever to be renounced, and ,/ 
 the understanding must be thoroughly cleared and purged of them; for 
 the kingdom of man, which is founded in the sciences, cannot be 
 entered otherwise than the kingdom of God — that is, in the condition 
 of a little child." — In further illustration of these prejudices, some 
 notice is proposed to be taken of the sects and kinds of these false 
 theories; of their outward signs and indications; of the causes of 
 this so great disadvantage to science ; and of the reasons of so lasting , 
 and general a consent in error. 
 
 III. Different Kinds of false Systems of Philosophy. 
 
 Tlie next topic of the Novum Organum relates to the differciit phi- 
 I qsophic al theories which have given rise to the last of the four classes 
 of prejudices; or~tlie Idol s of the Theatre. Fanciful and imaginary 
 systems of philosophy derive no small charm, it is well observed, from 
 their being so highly wrought : thus, to many, the fictitious drama is more 
 attractive than true history. Lord Bacon divides these visionary 
 systems into three general kinds — sophistical^ cmpiricaly and super- ^ 
 stitio us. " 
 
 IS opftistical philoso phies, so called from their deceitful pretences, 
 are those formed on careless and hasty observations and experi- 
 me nts,'an(I filled up "by th e mind of the, inventor at his own pleasure.! 
 of this kind Aristotle's philosophy is a very eminent instance, among^ 
 the other ancient systems, which were chiefly of the sophistical kind. 
 Even the similar particles of Anaxagoras, the ato77is of Leucipi^us and 
 Democritus, the heaven and earth of Parmenides, and other ^rs^ prin- 
 ciples pf the dilfereiit sects of Greece, with all their incongruity, at 
 
X 
 
 26 ACCOUNT OF LORD BACON'S 
 
 least savour somewhat of natural philosophy and experience : but 
 Aristotle, both in his Physics and Metaphysics, utters little else than 
 mere logical terms. Even in some of his other writings, where he 
 makes greater use of experiment and observation, he appears to have 
 passed a previous judgment on nature, and attempts to lead experience 
 itself captive to his own opinions and his own humour ; he forms a 
 world of categories and predicaments; accounts lor nature's varied 
 operations by the scholastic distinction of act and jjower ; asserts that 
 there is but one proper motion in all bodies ; and imposes numerous 
 other fictions on mankind, which are sources of disputation rather than 
 of truth. ^^ 
 
 Empirical sy stems^are those formed upon a /ew exp erimentsojily^ 
 though these ma y be made wit h great exactness . V^The ancient che- 
 mfsts are adduced as examples, in their idle speculations on the 
 four elements, founded on a few repeated experiments of the furnace. 
 William Gilbert, who lived in Lord Bacon's time, and framed, as we 
 have remarked, a system of philosophy on his experiments in mag- 
 netism, was a notable instance of this kind. te4 
 
 Siiperstitio ns systems y are those i n which certain ph ilosophical, 
 th eories are blended with r eligion^ andLthe_ jDUfi-- is- inade su bservient 
 to. the other . .-^Of these the philosophies of Pythagoras and Plato 
 are specimens; their theories being principally derived from their 
 speculations on the nature and attributes of the Deity. Some theories 
 of the earth in modern times may come under this denomination ; and 
 perhaps there is no more signal instance of this kind than the philo- 
 sophy of Mr. Hutchinson, which we have noticed above.vj, " This^ 
 vanity," says Bacon, " of mixing thi ng s divine with things human is 
 ra^FierTo^be suppressed, as from ,it^xisje_not_ oiily phantastical ph ilo^ " 
 S ophies, but h eretical religi on^." 
 
 I n framing theories, the mind, it is observed^_ sh ould be esp e? 
 cially on its guard against two excesses^ i\i^^. dogniaiisni on the. 
 onejmndf anKJcepticism on the other, as these both tend to joerp.etuatfi 
 prejudices, scarcely allowing the opportunity of their removal, v^hus 
 ArlsTotle, in order to cuT o!f all occasion of doubting, invented^ues- 
 tions, and resolved them at his pleasure, as if he were the arbiter 
 and final judge of nature; while Pyrrho and his followers, on the 
 contrary, doubted of every thing, which was an abuse of the school of 
 Plato, where the sceptic method was first introduced by way of jest 
 and irony, to oppose, the more ancient dogmatists^ The_Jbnii£JL_Qf. 
 th^se methods,^ or that of positively dogmatising, cannot but contract 
 and degrade the mind, while the other must cast it into languish ment 
 aryi despair of ever fiiulLQgJhfiJLr-iith, — 
 
 All these Idols of the mind which have now been noticed, have 
 moreover been greatly defended and strengthened by false jjroofs and 
 corrupt demonstrations. Words have been the tyrants of thoughts, and 
 thoughts the slaves of a conceited logic, which has been associated 
 \with erroneous and hasty impressions from the senses — ill-formed 
 otions arising from these impressions, and faulty induction, or such a 
 method of establishing general principles, as has been the parent of 
 all error fc and the destruction of all the dignity and advancement of 
 science, ^hus it was that Gilbert limited his experimental inquiries 
 to the loadstone; and the early chemists and their followers were 
 
 A 
 
NOVUM ORGANON SCIENTIARUM. n 
 
 perpctimlly employed in the single art of alchemy. This word means 
 the knovvledg-e of the substance, or composition of any thing- : and the 
 two leading objects of the alchemists were, the chang-e of the common 
 into the precious metals, or gold and silver ; and the discovery of a 
 universal medicine — some elixir of immortaUty which they fondly 
 hoped would anniliilate disease, and prevent the irrevocable doom of 
 humanity, death I ^ 
 
 IV. Characteristics of false Systems. 
 T.ord_'RacoiT_ riext^^v es some intimations, or signs hy whicji. fnhp. 
 theories aTid_ systems of philosqpjijj may be known ^ so as to preyent_the 
 impositions likely to arise from them. — Qi^e Is^ the ojJ.^n from, which^ 
 a'sysfeni of philosophy is derived ; which, if it be false and ernmeous, 
 whatever immediately arises from it must of course l)e so too. 'i-sThe 
 sciences e3iisting~rn the tmie when the Novum Origanum, was written, 
 were almost wholly derived from the Gi^eks, whose philosophy, as 
 we have seen, was chiefly of the dogmatic and disputatious kind. This 
 was the characteristic, generally, of their several schools; the writings of 
 the more ancient of the Greeks, who opened no schools, having been 
 lost in the lapse of time, such as those of Empedocles, Anaxagoras, 
 Leiicippus, etc., who applied themselves to philosophy with greater 
 simplicity, and with less atlectation and conceit, than their successors. 
 The source of the existing philosophy was, therefore, corrupts?) 
 K.If any indications may be gathered from the times in which the 
 ancient theories were framed, no great good, it is further argued, 
 could be expected from these. In the ages of the Grecian philosophy, 
 the field of observation and experience was limited by the little know- 
 ledge the ancients possessed of the habitable world. Their history, 
 also, of past events, and of the origin of nations, was to a great degree 
 fabulous. They considered many regions uninhabitable where great 
 nations have been since found to exist. Their travels were extremely 
 circumscribed, and the art of navigation was exceedingly imperfect^ 
 .-* If, moreover, we judge from the actual effects of the Grecian philoso- 
 phy, very little can be shown to have resulted from it tending to improve 
 tlie condition of mankind, during the space of so many ages. Something, 
 indeed, may have accrued from the pursuit of chemistry among the 
 ancients and their followers : but this has rather happened by accident 
 than been produced by design ; for all their theories were injurious to 
 the discovery of truth. The cultivators of the magic arts, too, in their 
 jugglery, have stumbled on some few matters ; but even these have 
 been corrupted by imposture. The alchemists, however, Lord Bacon 
 jillows, made not a few useful discoveries v/hile vainly pursuing their 
 chimerical and visionary projects. We are indebted to their labour and 
 perseverance for the method of preparing alcohol, aqua-fortis, vitriolic 
 acid, volatile alkali, gunpowder, and a variety of other chemical com- 
 pounds.^J 
 
 A nother test of truth in phjlogojjhicaLsYst ems may be derived from 
 t heir prof^ress and im])rovement li jjut, up to the seventeenth century, 
 that is, for two thousand years, the sciences had been nearly stationary ; 
 or rather they flourished most in the remotest ages, and afterwards 
 declined. Witness the. decay of the Pythagorean astronomy till the 
 time of Copernicus^4 
 
\^ 
 
 28 ACCOUNT OF LORD BACON'S 
 
 H Again, the confession of the authors themselves of the systems 
 that had prevailed may be regarded as a testimony of the strongest 
 kind to the vanity and inefficiency of these theories ; for while these 
 men pronounced on nature with the utmost confidence and dog- 
 matism, we may detect them at intervals assuming a desponding air, 
 and complaining of the obscurity and uncertainty of all things. 
 Hence arose the school of the Academic philosophers, who doubted of 
 everything, and consigned mankind to the eternal darkness of a scep- 
 tical ignorance. V* 
 -4 The great disagreemejit and opposition, moreover, that existed 
 
 among the ancients, shows, says Bacon, that " the avenues from sense 
 to reason were not well guarded, since^the one subject of philosophy 
 was so rent and split into error, that nothing remained fixed and stable 
 in the existing notions derived from the Greeks ; nor was there any 
 certain rule of investigation." 
 
 \^jrhe opinion, also, that w^as entertained in the sixteenth century, 
 that a general consent prevailed in the philosophy of Aristotle, 
 was a fallacious argument of its truth ; for the prevalence of the 
 doctrines of Aristotle and Plato was greatly owing to the accidental 
 circumstance of their being preserved from the general WTeck of 
 human learning, which ensued on the irruption of the barbarous 
 nations into the Roman empire. Besides, such a consent as that 
 which is supposed, if proved to be ever so little founded on accident, 
 would better deserve the name of obsequiousness ; not being the result 
 of a free exercise of men's judgments, all centering at last in the same 
 conclusion, but the offspring, as it is evident, of prejudice, and an abject 
 vassalage to the authority of names-r^^Th e character, theref ore^ _gfthg, 
 systems of science and philosophy th at had been current, was extrem ely 
 i irifavourab leTo the supposition of their truth, whether taken from t heir 
 oi'igiu, tlieir fruits,^ their progress^ t he confh ssi(ms_of their authors , or 
 from general consent. 
 
 v. Causes o f Error in Philos ophy, __ 
 
 The next topic of the Novum Organum, and the fifth convenient 
 section into which the former part of the work may be divided, re- 
 lates to the causes of error in philosophical inq uiry. 
 
 The first cause assigned by our illustrious author is, the short space 
 of time which, notwithstanding the lapse of so many ages, had been at 
 all productive in the discoveries of science. He beautifully compares 
 duration to space, and places before us the emblem of a barren desert, 
 as a fit representation of that lasting sterility which had reigned over 
 Ihe tracts of time. Scarcely six of all the centuries preceding the age 
 in which he lived could be regarded as, in any degree, exceptions to 
 this general winter of the human mind. The middle ages were pro- 
 verbially periods of gross and palpable darkness. Men of leisure were 
 found shut up in the gloom of monasteries ; and rarely did a ray . of 
 genius emerge from these cloistered solitudes, and find its way into the 
 theatre of human life, so as to improve and embellish it with inventions 
 like those which have, in our happier times, rendered it a scene of ever 
 new and increasing wonders. 
 
 Even at the best, the comparative neglect of the philosophy of 
 nature^ properly so called, may be regarded as another source of 
 
NOVUM ORGANON SCIENTIARUM. 39 
 
 the slumber of the human intellect, and of its inefficiency in attain- 
 ing- to anything like a just method of science, m'he sublimest ge- 
 niuses, allured by gain, or by the love of speculation, exhausted 
 their energies in the disputes of a scholastic theology ; or, at a more 
 early period, among the Romans, were almost wholly devoted to poli- 
 tics. Mathematical and natural science, the parents of all mental dis- 
 cipline, had lost the footing they had obtained among the remoter 
 Greeks, almost from the time of T hales ; and even the great moralist, 
 Socrates, had contributed, in a considerable degree, to turn away men*s 
 minds from the contemplation of nature.^ Thus the most definite and 
 tangible sources of our knowledge — those which are peculiarly adapted 
 to fix and regulate the operations of the mind, by perpetually recalling 
 its attention to what is seen, and felt, and heard, were abandoned ; and 
 the human imagination was sufl'ered to roam in a shadowy and aerial 
 region, amid a scenery that was not nature's creation, but its own. 
 
 Again, where sOme taste fo r the s tudy^f nature^herself did exist, > <t^ 
 scarcely one single individuaTwas found to devote himself wholly to \ 
 this pursuit . i\ature was stninot sought for her own sake, but was I 
 made the handmaid of some profession ; and to this she was enslaved. / 
 Nature was not regarded as the parenj_of_the s ciences ; and these, by x 
 standing toomucli alone, resembled the brjmches of a tree attempted to J 
 be kept alive separated from the root and the trunk. ^ 
 
 ^^The trve end of science also was mistaken, "which," says Bacon, 
 "is to enrich human life with useful arts and inventions ;" and philoso- 
 phers had made it their chief object to be at the head of sects ; to 
 aggrandize their own fame ; to gain dominion over the minds of men ; 
 or to obtain some other exclusively selfish end. Almost every kind of 
 inferior aim was by turns the lord of the ascendant, while truth, im- 
 mutable, unalterable truth, loved and sought for its own sake, was 
 eclipsed, or cast into the shade. 
 
 Besides, had the end itself been right, yet the method was wrong. As 
 this is the main drift of the first part of the Novum Organum, we can 
 scarcely insist on it too much, since nothing is more important here than 
 to remember, that so long as any gross impropriety exists in the manner 
 of investigating truth, the most strenuous labour must be in vain. All 
 things were leit, as it is strongly expressed, " to the darkness of tradi- 
 tion ; the giddy agitation and whirlwind of argument ; the waves and 
 windings of accident ; and a vague, uninformed experience." The 
 first inquiry had always been, to know what others had said and thought 
 on the given subject. This was usually received, and to it were added 
 the vagaries of the inquirer himself Such a method could, of course, 
 only propagate and perpetuate error; and in such a state of things 
 truth still remained shut up as in a labyrinth. 
 
 The blind reverence for antiquity, also, which had possessed the | 
 minds of men, and the devotedness which existed to great names, well [ 
 accorded with the feeble elforts of the human intellect, and formed a| 
 striking feature in the reign of darkness. The assertion of a philoso- 
 pher was almost the only specific against error, and the chief support 
 of truth: whereas, observes Lord Bacon, " truth is justly to be called 
 the daughter, not of authority, but of time ;" in other words, time and 
 patience alone can furnish the opportunity of that observation and experi- 
 ment on which knowledge must be legitimately founded. The argument 
 
m ACCOUNT OF LORD BACON'S 
 
 addressed to human modesty, as the logicians termed it, was, however, 
 often received with a kind of rehg-ious awe, even when the proposition 
 affirmed, if, indeed, understood at all, was revolting to common sense. 
 It certainly ought to be no subject of complaint, that this is the pecu- 
 liar delinquency of the age in which we live. Even the overpowering 
 genius of Newton has not preserved his theory from opposition in very 
 recent times — an opposition, nevertheless, only to be viewed as the 
 result of that most desirable freedom of inquiry, which was almost un- 
 known to the ancients, and which can, at no period, issue in anything 
 but the additional, or, we might say, the superfluous, confirmation of 
 the Newtonian philosophy. To believe without examination, however 
 it may accord with our natural indolence, is unworthy of the mind of 
 man. In such an assent, its noblest powers are more than dormant 
 and useless : they contract, if we may so say, by every such repetition 
 of what is not worthy to be called belief, a sort of rust and stiffness, that 
 unfits them entirely for all original and unbiassed inquiry, and which 
 ends only in rivetting the chains of ignorance and error^ 
 
 Similar in its effect to the admiration of great names, fs the tendency/ 
 to be dazzled with whatever rises, in the least degree, above the ordinary 
 level in the productions of the hum.an mind. Too much satisfaction and 
 complacency in what has already been attained may have the effect of 
 obstructing farther progress. This, Lord Bacon observes, has particu- 
 larly shown itself in the inventions of the mechanic arts. We are, 
 perhaps, more ready to rest in an empty admiration of what has been 
 effected, and to amuse ourselves with the apparent opulence of human 
 power, than to reflect on the little progress that has been made in 
 bringing matter under our control, and to consider the vast field that 
 still lies open before us. After all, in mechanical instruments the ulti- 
 mate principle is very simple — all may be reduced to a few laws of 
 nature. In a clock, for instance, which seems, in one view, to 
 imitate the movements of the heavenly bodies, and in another, to resem- 
 ble the pulsations of animals, by its regular and successive motions, a 
 few principles only are ultimately employed, as the law of pendulums, 
 depending chiefly on gravitation. With what sentiments, however, 
 would the ancients have looked on such an invention as the steam- 
 engine, in which, nevertheless, the whole of the novelty, strictly speak- 
 ing, lies in the application of the expansive power of steam ! The 
 causes of retardation in the improvement of knowledge, dwelt on in 
 this part of Lord Bacon's work, have certainly been counteracted, in our 
 time, by that rapid succession of inventions which has marked the in- 
 crease of the sciences, though, in other respects, there would be much 
 more to foster the complacent admiration he speaks of. 
 
 Another considerable cause of error and ignorance to the world, is 
 I placed, by this most accurate observer, in the pedantry of philosophers 
 ' themselves, who have contrived to impose on mankind by their pom - 
 pons airs, and affected manner of teaching — by the trickery of a meretri- 
 cious and bombastic oratory, and by the subtil divisions and definitions 
 they have employed ; so as to inspire the vulgar with a profound idea 
 of their wisdom, and to leave the impression that the sciences were ex- 
 hausted by their learned labours, and nothing remained now to be 
 investigated. No doubt this has, in every age, been a fertile source of 
 obstruction to human improvement* The most dignified, and even sacred 
 
NOVUM ORGANON SCIENTIARUM, m 
 
 professions have been too often degraded by a conceit and a quackery 
 whicli, while it has disgusted the discerning, as the subterfiige of 
 incompetent effrontery, and lias proved an injurious bar to the exertions 
 of modest and genuine merit, and to the progress of pure truth, has 
 not failed to gain its own selfish ends, in the plaudits of an ignorant 
 multitude. The only cure for this evil is the general diffusion of know- 
 ledge among all classes of society, which is, most happily, a leading 
 feature of the present illustrious times. 
 
 The ancient and erroneous systems of philosophy obtained an 
 additional hold on the public mind, also, in consequence of the 
 vanity and the extravagant j^f^^i^^tsiojis of not a few individuals of 
 more modern date. Lord Bacon had to encounter this disadvantage 
 in the very enunciation of many of the topics of inquiry to which 
 he desired to recal the attention of the world in a just and scientific 
 method: we allude to his notices for increasing men's acquaintance 
 with the mineral kingdom ; for obtaining more information with re- 
 gard to the winds and the weather ; the means of prolonging human life, 
 and other inquiries. He complains of the weakness and imposture 
 of many who had aijplused the credulity of mankind with great pro- 
 mises, in reference to such topics as the retardation of old age — the 
 relief of pain — cures for the deceptions of the senses — the method of 
 exciting the affections by sympathy, or a species of animal magnetism — 
 the exaltation of the intellectual faculties — the transmutation of sub- 
 stances, as professed by the alchemists — the procuring of celestial influ- 
 ences — divination of future events — the revealing of secrets — and other 
 such hke conjuring. Thus, as real history may sometimes have suffered 
 in its credit from fiction, and there are some who would consign the 
 conquests of Julius Caesar to the same scale of probability with the 
 fabled exploits of Arthur of Britain, or Amadis de Gaul, so the spirit for 
 great designs has been quenched by the dread of what might prove 
 chimerical and romantic, and men have been contented to repose in the 
 solemn and received dogmas of antiquity. 
 
 *' So great, moreover," adds Lord Bacon, "has been the pusillanimity 
 and indolence of men, that they have been wont to satisfy themselves 
 with very slender performances ;" often exalting, with the title of new 
 mechanical inventions, what were, in fact, nothing more than some 
 trifling modifications of old ones — this has been another barrier, he con- 
 siders, to the advancement of the sciences. 
 
 B ut one of the most form idable obstacles to the ^enuine^knowl edge of 
 natu re is to be found i n the superstition which hasjuiiigled itself with 
 t fie great and mo mentous subje ct of rel igion. *-rVVe learn from Aristo- 
 phanes, in his play of " The Clouds" that among the Greeks, those who 
 first attempted to assign the natural causes of thunder and storms were 
 condemned as the enemies of the gods. Nor did some of the early 
 Christian Fathers, as our author remarks, meet with much less severe 
 anathemas for daring to assert, on the evidence of infallible proof, the 
 spherical figure of the earth, and the existence of aiitipodes, or people at 
 the other side of the globe, whose feet are opposite to ours. It is 
 known to most of our readers that Galileo, the inventor of the telescope, 
 was consigned to the dungeons of the inquisition at Rome, for the crime 
 of asserting the motion of the earth round its own axis, and was con- 
 
 •\ 
 
32 ACCOUNT OF LORD BACON'S 
 
 demned to do penance, by repeating- once a week the seven penitential 
 psalms for the space of three years ! — The blendini^ of the scholastic and 
 Aristotelian philosophy with religion, in the middle ages, was a fruitful 
 source of this kind. 4} 
 
 Lord Bacon's remarks on this subject are so just, and so important, 
 that we shall quote him at length. " As things now are," he says, 
 *'it is still more difficult and dangerous to discourse on nature, on 
 account of the summaries and methods of the scholastic divines, who 
 have, with all their might, reduced theology to order, and fashioned it 
 into an art ; and have, moreover, blended too much of the disputatious 
 and thorny philosophy of Aristotle into the body of religion. And to 
 this subject, though in a different respect, belong the labours of those 
 who have ventured to deduce and confirm the truth of Christianity from 
 the principles and authority of philosophers ; celebrating with great 
 pomp and solemnity the intermarriage of faith and sense, as a lawful 
 union, and soothing the minds of men with a grateful variety of matter, 
 while at the same time they have rashly and incongruously mingled 
 things divine with human. In such medleys, moreover, of divinity and 
 philosophy, only those things are admitted wh>^h are now received in 
 philosophy, whilst things that are new, though better than the old, are 
 almost entirely excluded. In fine, we perceive, that through the igno- 
 rance of certain divines, the passage to any philosophy, though ever so 
 true, is almost blocked up. For some are foolishly alarmed lest a deeper 
 inquiry into nature should transgress the bounds of sobriety ; and they 
 injudiciously wrest what is said in Scripture against those who pry into 
 divine secrets, and apply it to the hidden things of nature, which are 
 nowhere forbidden. Others, with greater craft, imagine, that if men 
 are kept in ignorance, all things may be the more easily managed by 
 dexterity of hand, and the divining rod, which they think is highly ser- 
 viceable to religion : this, however, is nothing else than to aim at pleas- 
 ing God by a lie ! Others, again, dread the effect of example, lest any 
 changes and movements in philosophy shovdd fall at last on religion 
 itself. Others are afraid lest, in the inquiry into nature, something should 
 be found which may overturn religion, or at least undermine it, espe- 
 cially among the ignorant. These two latter kinds of fear appear to me 
 altogether to savour of a grovelling wisdom ; as though men, in their 
 secret thoughts, were doubtful and distrustful of the stability of religion, 
 and of the power of faith over the senses, and on this account apprehend 
 danger to it from the search after truth in natural things. But whoever 
 considers aright will acknowledge, that, next to the word of God, the most 
 certain cure of superstition, and the best aliment of faith, is the know- 
 ledge of nature. Therefore philosophy is given to religion as her most 
 faithful handmaid ; the one manifesting the will, the other the power, of 
 God : nor did he mistake who said, ' Ye err, not knowing the Scrip- 
 tures, and the power of God,' thus inseparably blending and joining 
 together the knowledge of his will, aud the contemplation of his power. 
 In the mean time, it is less to be wondered at that the increase of natu- 
 ral knowledge has been restrained, when rehgion, through the ignorance 
 and incautious zeal of some, has been set in opposition to it." 
 '-"^ The customs of learned societies had also, up to the time of Lord 
 Bacon, proved a serious hindrance to the advancement of knowledge. 
 
NOVUM ORGANON SCIENTIARUM:. 33 
 
 In the schools and universities of Europe, scarcely any room was given 
 for improvement, Avhich was branded with the invidious name of inno- 
 vation, an alarm that could not but prove fatal to the interests of pure / 
 truth. If any one dared to exercise the right of judging for himself^ he 
 could hope for no encouragement from others ; and if he possessed 
 sufficient independence of mind to stand alone, he must pay for his 
 temerity with the loss of his fortune and his good name. All was 
 rigidly confined within certain rules, and a given track was marked 
 out as that in which every one must go without deviating either to the 
 right or left. Little scope was afforded to the power of genius, which 
 could hardly expand upwards beneath the overwhelming load of scho- 
 lastic })rejudice that weighed it down. Perhaps even in our own en- 
 lightened age, few of the universities of Europe are entirely emanci- 
 pated from these shackles, as may be seen from the tendency there has 
 always been to adhere to an Aristotelian division of the sciences, in- 
 stead of following nature. " Unwilling as I am," says Mr. Stewart, 
 at the close of his second volume on The Philosophy of the Human 
 Mindy *' to touch on a topic so hopeless as that of academical re- 
 form, I cannot dismiii^s this subject without remarking as a fact, 
 which at some future period will figure in literary history, that two 
 hundred years after the date of Bacon's philosophical works, the an- 
 tiquated volume of study, originally prescribed in times of scholastic 
 barbarism, should in so many universities be still suffered to stand in 
 the way of improvements, recommended at once by the present state of 
 the sciences, and by the order which nature follows in developing the 
 intellectual faculties." 
 
 Lord Bacon also complains that in his time arduous endeavours 
 at improvement were not rewarded. The power of advancing know- 
 ledge must proceed from the energies and exertions of superior 
 minds, but the rewards which sweeten labour were in the hands 
 of the vulgar and untutored. Even the boon of praise was, he 
 observes, withheld, since the flights of elevated minds are above the 
 reach of the crowd, and are disregarded through the force of prevailing 
 prejudices. 
 
 Finally, science was kept in bondage by a kind of sullen despair 
 of success, and the supposition of impossibility attaching to any new 
 endeavours. — Such are the causes assigned in the Novum Organum 
 as the principal sources of continued error and uncertainty in the 
 pursuits of knowledge and science. v-\ 
 
 VI. Ground s of hope remrdinff the Advancement of Scie nce. 
 
 In that division of the work which we may call the sixth section, our 
 author proceeds to treat of the grounds of hope for the further advance- 
 ment of the sciences, and the general improvement of knowledge. 
 Thus the improvement in navigation was to be regarded as the^ 
 harbinger of good to the sciences, as enlarging the field of observation, i 
 and tending to increase our knowledge of nature. 
 
 The very errors of past times like wise, prop^erlyj^wedj, furnMied a \if 
 llo^e.orain£iidm.ent. Jt)emosthenes endeavoured to rouse the Athenians ' 
 from despondency to arm themselves manfully against Philip, their great 
 enemy, by telling them that even their past misfortunes should be re- 
 
 x> 
 
3^4 ACCOUNT OF LORD BACON'S 
 
 garded as an omen of their future success, since they arose from their 
 own neg'lio^ence ; whereas, if they had strenuously exerted themselves, 
 and had still been unsuccessful, they might justly have despaired of the 
 future : so, in the sciences, it would have been presumptuous to expect 
 any g-rcat improvement, if we could have supposed mankind to have 
 travelled so long in the proper road to truth without reaching it ; but as 
 they had evidently mistaken the way, hope of future success must be 
 sought in first returning to the right path»< T he true method of sc ience 
 is ingeniously compared to the economy of the bee, which first gathei%- 
 matter from the fields and gardens, and then digests and prepares it 
 for use by her own native powers: " so," Lord Bacon observes, " the 
 matter of philosophy must be carefully collected from nature, and then, 
 after being digested and elaborated in the understanding, must be trea- 
 sured up in the memory," in other words, additional hope of advance- 
 ment in the sciences is to be found in the union of things that had been 
 I disjoined ; that is, a strict c ombina t ion of experience with calcula tion and 
 T&^oni?ig,'^n all the schools of Greece, natural philosophy was blendect * 
 with some foreign admixture, and was never studied purely and by itself. 
 The Aristotelians corrupted it with a perversion of logic ; the school of 
 Plato mixed it up with an imaginative theology ; the second school of 
 Plato, Proclus, and others, made it to arise out of mathematics ; whereas 
 it is justly remarked that mathematics ought "not to generate or create 
 natural philosophy, but only to terminate and perfect it ;'* that is, the 
 facts and laws of nature must be sought independently, or in Nature 
 herself — then mathematical reasoning may be applied to estimate and 
 measure them, as has been exemplified in several of the tracts already 
 before our readers. A return to the study of natural philosophy in a 
 pwe and separate formy was another source, therefore, of hope. <f| 
 i^ So also it might be expected that in future some philosopher might arise 
 of sufficient independence of mind and lofty genius to tree himself and 
 the world from all the old and hackneyed theories : such a person, it is 
 lamented, had not then appeared. How prophetic this was of the 
 immortal Newton, who burst upon the world almost immediately after 
 the death of Bacon, his forerunner — and how completely he emerged 
 from the rude and undigested chaos of ancient fables into the light of 
 truth, as those very comets whose laws he laid down issue from the 
 dark abysses of space to their perihelion, the reader is sufficiently 
 aware. 
 
 Much, very much, is also augured, as likely to arise from a better his- 
 tory of nature than had as yet been collected. The accounts which had 
 been extant of the appearances and facts in nature had been chiefly 
 founded on popular reports, indoleiit Observations, and often on mere 
 idle tales ; and the whole had been so framed and turned as to strengthen 
 the existing opinions in philosophy^ Almost eve ry thing in the hist ory 
 of nature was undefined and' vague ; mucITg^^rnust, therefore, needs 
 have been expecfedTfo accrue from a more accurate register of facts and 
 experiments. -JSacon exhibits a rough sketch of such a history of 
 nature in his Sylva Sylvarum, in his Tables^ and in other parts of 
 his works ; the merits and defects of which we shall have occasion to 
 notice hereafter. 
 
 Similar advantage was to be anticipated from a more enlarged stock 
 
NOVUM ORGANON SCIENTIARUM. SS 
 
 oi mechanical experience, and a more enlin-hteiied attention to the most 
 instructive facts of this kind. The workman is apt to think only of 
 what is useful to his immediate work, and is not concerned about tlie 
 discovery of truth : but, in order to improvement, recourse must be had 
 to experiments, which, though useless, perhaps, as to direct and imme- 
 diate profit, may be of great importance as to general information. i^^ 
 
 To this larger and more accurate stock of experience, Lord Bacon again 
 in sists, mu st be addeH~tTi e?yie?7^o^or?i^T^ch'o7t ,- or, iks before explained, 
 the pursuit of jnpwjedge jjyjrej^oning from particiiTars to generals, 
 frQm which every thing_isJo_beJiqped^ In order toj;enderih.isjii£thDd 
 as .e ffic'ient as p ossible, it j^s stronglxiecpjnmenHkl.ac^^^^^^^ 
 
 to writing all the materials of philosophy^ that is, ..the. fa_c.ts_ajid. obser- ! 
 
 vations onwhicTi general principles are to be founded ; by no means - j 
 trusting them, as had too often been done, to the memory, \vTi6se~He- / 
 fects were usually supplied by a fanciful invention. To give this method / 
 still greater perfection, it is remarked that tables should be used for the 
 clear arrangement of the facts, according to the nature of the subject ; 
 and from these tables axioms, or general principles, should be carefully ^ 
 
 formed, gradually rising from the less to the more general. It must 
 be acknowledged, indeed, that many discoveries had been made acci- 
 dentally by the alchemists, while seeking to make silver and gold ; yet 
 it is evident that more is to be expected in inventions from industry 
 and method, whether we consider the number of such discoveries, the 
 saving of time, or the adaptation of the things discovered to the 
 supply of our wants. Men are more likely to find what they are care- 
 fully and intelligently in search of, than what is lefl merely to the 
 operation of blind chance. 
 
 ^* It was to be regariled as an additional ground of hope that some, 
 things already discovered were such as had previously never entered 
 the mind of man ; or which would, in all probability, have been despised 
 as impossibilities, if any one had declared them likely to be found out. 
 Gunpowder, though a destructive invention truly, may be taken as 
 an instance. If, before this discovery had been made public, it had been 
 declared that there was a method of battering down walls, and making 
 an impression on the strongest fortifications at great distances, those 
 who heard of it would instantly have supposed that this was effected 
 by increasing the power of the common engines of war that were pre- 
 viously in use, as battering rams, and other machines of the same 
 kind ; which, of course, must be done by means of additional weights, 
 wheels, and levers, and the various combinations of the mechanical 
 powers; "but no one,'' says Bacon, "would have thought of a fiery 
 wind which should blow with such a prodigious expansive violence, 
 no obvious examples of such effects having been previously seen, ex- 
 cept in the sublimer operations of nature, storms, thunder, and earth- 
 quakes, which it wovdd not be supposed v.ere imitable by art." Perhaps, 
 to the ancients the expansive force of steam, now so extensively em- 
 })loyed, would scarcely have appeared less wonderful, which, while it 
 possesses such amazing power as to produce the most terrible effects 
 when allowed to explode by being confined, is yet capable of being 
 regulated at pleasure, and directed to an immense number of useful 
 works with the greatest advantage. The invention of silk is mentioned a» 
 
 o2 
 
 V 
 
..ti^lf^x 
 
 36 ACCOUNT OF LORD BACON'S 
 
 another example. So, likewise, if, jDreviously to the invention of the com- 
 pass, it had been said that a certain instrument should be made known 
 which in the open sea, and in the dead of night, when neither stars nor 
 moon appeared, would exactly point out the qnarters of the heavens, and 
 that this instrument was nothing more than a metallic substance, which 
 might easily be overlooked among the similar productions of the earth, 
 this would have seemed almost incredible. Whence it is argued that 
 many other things may yet remain in nature that might be of great 
 service to mankind, which have little relation or analogy to the things 
 already discovered. 
 
 Again, on the other hand, there are inventions of such a kind as 
 easily to be overlooked for want of method, though they may almost, so 
 to speak, stare men in the face. While some things, as gunpowder, 
 silk, the compass, sugar, paper, may seem to de})end on certain pro- 
 perties to be developed by Nature herself, yet other things, the art of 
 printing, for instance, contains nothing that is not obvious and com- 
 pletely within human power ; nevertheless, the world was for many 
 ages destitute of this admirable invention, which is so intimately con- 
 nected with the propagation of knowledge^ H ence a gro und_of jiojie 
 that science mi^ht be improved \Y?;S Jo be drawn, not merely from 
 the consideration of the unknown operations of nature hereafter 
 to be discovered, but from the probable result of transferring, com- 
 pounding, and variously applying those laws and operations which were 
 already known. 
 
 Lord Bacon also derived encouragement from reflecting on the 
 immense expenditure of time, genius, and property that had been 
 bestowed on pursuits of little or no use, alluding, probably, to al- 
 chemy, the professed magic arts, astrology, etc. ; since, if but a 
 small portion of this labour should come to be bestowed in a proper 
 manner, and on proper objects, great things might be expected to 
 result: especially would such extensive and laborious histories of the 
 facts and operations ot nature as he recommended be the source of 
 expectation. " A great and royal work truly this," he says, " and of 
 much labour and expense." 
 
 As a further ground to suppose that human knowledge might be 
 improved and increased to an extent of which some were inclined to 
 despair, Lord Bacon introduces his own example, *' not," he modestly 
 says, "by way of ostentation, but because it may be useful." He 
 argues, that if he himself — a man as much employed in civil atfairs as 
 any other of the age in which he lived, for he was Lord Chancellor of 
 England at the time his Novum Organutn was published ; — if he, a 
 man of but infirm health, has had the honour to lead the w ay unassisted 
 by any coadjutor, in the new and untrodden path which he here attempts 
 to point out to posterity ; what may not be expected from men of leisure ; 
 from a union of labours ; from a proper division of them, and from 
 
 portunities afiibrded by the succession of ages? He concludes his 
 'emarks oh the grounds on which is founded the hope of advancing the 
 sciences, by intimating that even were this expectation much less than 
 he rightly deemed it to be, or, to use his own language, " although a 
 much weaker and fainter breeze of hope should breathe from this neio 
 continent,^^ or world of science, which he is endeavouring to point out; 
 
NOVUM ORGANON SCIENTIARUM. 37 
 
 yet it would be worth men's while, at all events, to make efforts to ex- 
 plore nature by the lig-ht of this new method: there was, at least, 
 a chance of success resulting- from their labour ; whereas, to sit down 
 in despondency, and to decline all enlightened exertions, could lead to 
 notliing but ij^norance and error, and was unworthy of the dignity of 
 the human mind. 
 
 VII. Further Remgrhs'p^^^^^ 
 
 The last or seventh section into which this former part of the 
 Novum Org-anum may be divided, is designed to give so me furthe r 
 ide a of the new m ethod here p roposed of inte rpr eting nature . This, 
 however, is done rather by way of guarding the reader against erro- 
 neous expectations than by developing the method itself which he 
 reserves for the second part. " Having now levelled and polished 
 the mirror," says our author in his figurative and expressive diction, " it 
 remains that we set it in a right position, or, as it were, with a bene- 
 volent aspect towards the things we shall further propose. For to a 
 new undertaking, not only a prepossession in favour of a rooted 
 opinion is prejudicial, but a false notion and imagination of what is 
 proposed to be done is equally so. We must, therefore, endeavour to 
 convey a just and true idea of what we intend." 
 
 In order to prevent misapprehension, he again cautions his readers, 
 as he had done at the outset of his work, against supposing that he 
 aspired to be the founder of a 7iew sect in philosophy, after the manner 
 of the ancient Greeks. It was his aim, and it was an aim worthy of 
 s uch a master-spir it, not to reign over men's_ ppi nions, but Fo conduct 
 them into the temp le of t_rutli, from whose inmosf sanctuaries they 
 m%irt obtain such a panoply as would enable them to extend the 
 boundaries of man's power over nature, not in the noisy triumphs of 
 a scholastic warfare ; but^ in glorious victories over ignorance, prejudice^ 
 and error. Though he thus disclaims the idea of attempting to found 
 a new sect, it must be allowed that he possesses that honour in the 
 highest sense ; for if we were, in the most general manner, to desio-nate 
 the philosophers of modern times, in contradistinction to the Aristo- 
 telians and Platonists of an earlier period, we should call them Baco- 
 n ians : Bacon may himself very jus tly be accounted Jhe Father of the 
 rnodern philos ophy. He, however, contents himself here with aspiring, 
 as he says, *' only to sow the seeds of pure truth for posterity, and not 
 to be wanting in his assistance to the first beginning of great under- 
 takings." 
 
 L 9rd Bacon wishes hi s readers, jnj^rusing his work, not to be 
 j^r ejudiced against th e method he recommencrs,~nbr'Hisappointed on 
 frn dino; that lie has not made any very striking discoveries, which, 
 i ndeed, he does not profess to have doiTe ; hTs design, in_ fact, being 
 o bviousl y of a more~ge neral nature. For though" nrthel^on/m Or- 
 ganum, ancTin liis other woTks, indications and outlines of discovery are 
 to be found, yet he considered that, up to his time, there was no suffi- 
 cient collection of facts and a})])earances, to enable any one to enter 
 v/ith advantage on the genuine interpretation of nature. Still he did 
 not wish to discourage any from employing their sagacity in attempting 
 to make discoveries on the foundation of what was already known, or 
 
38 . ACCOUNT OF LORD BACON'S 
 
 from making use of his own tables and outlines of a history of nature, 
 to this end ; but his own i^reat object, he repeats,_wa^s to jjrepare the 
 '*^^y.i2LjL^]J^''^^l'£_i^^0Z^P^''its, and not to neo-lect this his main design, 
 for^the sake of hasty and unseasonable diversions^, li]^ .''Atalanta" 
 ill the ta ble, who i^it tile r aceT)yTsTop|^^ to pickj.!y[j jhe^;oWeiijipgle. 
 " For we do not childishly affect golden fruit, but place every thing in 
 the victory of art over nature." 
 
 He next cautions the reader against the effect which may be pro- 
 duced on his mind from meeting with some experiments in the history 
 of nature, and tables of invention,|which seem not well verified^ or which 
 may even be absolutely false. Such errors are to be expected to creep 
 in at the dawn of the day of Science, and Lord Bacon was certainly 
 by no means free from them. It must not, on account of a few such over- 
 -sights, be suspected that the inventions he would point out are grounded 
 on doubtful principles and erroneous foundations ; and he argues that if 
 any should be disgusted with some particular mistakes in his account 
 of facts in nature, what must be thought of the remiss and negligent 
 method that had hitherto been employed, and what of the philosophy 
 and of the sciences that were built upon such " quicksands ?" 
 
 Nor are men to turn away from the inductive method, or from the 
 experiments it demands, as if in some cases it dwelt too much on what 
 might seem 'mijiutey or trite and vulgar ; since great mischief has arisen 
 from many things having been spoken of as known and ascertained, of 
 which, in fact, little was understood. Thus, in the philosophy that was 
 prevalent, gravity, the celestial motions, heat, cold, hardness, fluidity, 
 density, animation, similarity, organisation, were all the subjects of 
 dogmatic assertion, while little that was satisfactory was said respecting 
 them. Men, however, must condescend to attend to the commonest 
 thicigs if they would acquire knowledge, and to things displeasing to 
 the senses. The design here is " not," he says, " to build a capital or 
 erect a pyramid to the glory of man, but to found the temple of the 
 universe in the human intellect." None are to suppose, what the vul- 
 gar are too ready to imagine, as well as all who were devoted to the 
 existing philosophy, that the minutiae here laid down are tedious and 
 subtil ; they ought rather to consider that, for a time, efforts should be 
 made to increase the materials of knowledge, to kindle the light by 
 which nature may be examined, and that a too great impatience for 
 immediate advantage should be checked. If any one should be in- 
 clined to disregard the cautions, principles, and axioms laid down in 
 the method of induction, as needless subtilties, what would he say to 
 the schoolmen, who are full of subtilties, ' without end as without fruit?' 
 
 As an apology for what to many would appear a bold and daring 
 attempt — that of rejecting all the sciences, and all the ancient masters 
 in philosophy as with one stroke, without admitting the authority of 
 any one single renowned name of antiquity, and trusting only to his own 
 unaided strength — the author remarks that, were he disposed to act 
 insincerely, it would not be difficult to persuade men that what he here 
 attempts is but a revival of the most ancient method of Science, before 
 nature was pompously ushered in with the " flutes and trumpets of 
 the Greeks ;" ar'd, well acquainted as Lord Bacon was with the 
 mythology of the ancients, it would have been easier perhaps for him 
 
NOVUM ORGANON SCIENTIARUM. 39 
 
 to have £j;ained over the admirers of antiquity by this expedient, than 
 to render palatable a system which presented no g-audy and alluring 
 theories, and which came out entirely as a modern innovation. But 
 with that astonishing degree of freedom from the shackles of prejudice, 
 considering the time in which he lived, and that devotedness to 
 natural truth for its own sake, which was so characteristic of this 
 great philosopher, he disdains all such " stratagem and imposture," and 
 relies exclusively on the evidence of things themselves. It is his 
 object to place before the mind, not the mock models of the world 
 which others had framed, of which the theories of Aristotle, Plato, 
 and Epicurus, are specimens, but to present the world's true model as it 
 exists in nature — to trace before the eyes of men the exact lines of truth. 
 
 Another objection, which it is supposed maybe alleged, is, that, not- 
 withstanding all the labour here employed to impress on mankind 
 this new method of studying the Sciences, it will probably do no 
 more than land us at length in some one of those systems of philo- 
 sophy which prevailed among the ancients — that they, in the begin- 
 ning of their investigations, procured a large stock of observations 
 and ex})eriments, and digested them into books and tables, as is here 
 recommended, and from these sources extracted the matter of their 
 theories ; but thinking it needless to pubHsh their notes and minute 
 observations, those materials of their labours are now lost to us, — 
 as architects, after a building is finished, take down the scallblding 
 and framework, and remove them out of sight. To this it is answered, 
 that though it is difficult to suppose the ancients completed their 
 works without some such collection of materials, yet, at all events, 
 it is certain, from their writings, that their method of philosophizing 
 was no other than flying hastily from some particular examples, 
 to general conclusions ; and if any new examples occurred, bearing- an 
 aspect hostile to their favourite ideas, they either contrived to mtdie 
 them seem to square with these, or else struck them out as exceptions, 
 thus sacrificing every thing to their beloved theories. Now the very 
 method here insisted on. Bacon argues, of rigidly adhering only to those 
 principles which are common to all the particulars and examples, pre- 
 cludes the possibility of arriving at the same results with the ancients. 
 
 Nor can it be fairly charged upon this method of carefully attending 
 to all the facts of the case before drawing the conclusion, that it leads 
 to scepticism^ since it is not the disposition to doubt, but the art of 
 doubting properly^ that is alone inculcated ; and it is preferable to 
 know something m a certain manner without supposing we know all, 
 tlian to think we know all, and yet remain in actual ignorance of that 
 which is most necessary to be known. 
 
 Lest it should be supposed, moreover, that the proposed plan only x^ 
 extended to the improvement of natural philosophy, more properly > . 
 
 so called, he distinctly informs his readers that his design is of the 
 
 most general kind possible. The method of induction is equally use- 
 
 i^ ful in all the sciences. It is alike applicable to ethics^ politics, the 
 
 - J philosophy of the human mind, chemistry, botany, and every other 
 
 j\ branch of knowledge. 
 
 ^ As a further stimulus to a vigorous pursuit of science in this 
 
 enlightened method, this first part of the Novum Organum closes with a 
 
 ^ 
 
40 NOVUM ORGANON SCIENTIARUM. 
 
 few additional reflections. It is urged that the discovery of truth, and 
 noble inventions, holds the most excellent place among the actions of 
 mankind. Antiquity, with all its errors, was perfectly alive to this 
 sentiment, as is sufficiently evident by its attributing divine honours to 
 the inventors of the arts, as to Prometheus, who is represented as being 
 the giver of fire to mortals, and is celebrated in .^schylus as a deity — 
 while it was usual to award heroic honours chiefly, to mere legislators 
 and the founders of empires. The inventions of science, it is observed, 
 *' benefit mankind to the end of time ; while the advantages conferred 
 by warriors and statesmen may last, in many cases, but for a few ages, 
 and sometimes have their origin in tumults, and the most terrible 
 desolations of war." The effects of the invention of printing and of 
 the mariner's compass, for example, have been altogether prodigious : 
 by these great instruments, navigation and commerce have been extend- 
 ed over the whole earth ; " divine and human learning," to use the words 
 of Milton, " have been raked out of the embers of forgotten tongues," 
 and the face of the world has been changed, in all its features, physical 
 and moral. 
 
 The design of promoting the advancement of the sciences is further 
 pronounced a far nobler object of ambition than either private ag- 
 grandizenient, or ewen patriotism itself "The first," says Lord Bacon, 
 *' is vulgar and degenerate ; the second, that is, the ambition of those who 
 endeavour to raise their own country in the scale of nations, is more 
 noble, but has not less of cupidity : but if any one should labour to 
 restore and enlarge the power and dominion of the whole race of man 
 over the universe of things — this kind of ambition, if so we may call 
 it, is without doubt more wise and dignified than the rest. Now this 
 power of man over things is entirely founded in arts and sciences." 
 
 "Finally," adds this illustrious author, "should any one object that 
 the arts and sciences may be abused to evil purposes, as luxury and 
 wickedness, let this sentiment be allowed to have no weight. The 
 same objection would equally apply to all the most excellent things in 
 the world — as genius, courage, strength, beauty, riches, and even light 
 itself Let the human race regain their dominion over nature, which 
 belongs to them by the bounty of their Maker, and right reason and 
 sound religion will direct the use." 
 
 Thus did this vast genius point out to mankind the causes of those 
 errors which so long effectually obstructed the paths of science ; thus 
 did he encourage them to hope for a brighter sera, and give directions 
 for the more successful pursuit, in future, of knowledge and truth. 
 The second part of the Novum Organum contains a further develope- 
 ment of the principles of the Inductive Method, with the author's own 
 examples of its use : and it will form the subject of another Treatise. 
 
 >^ 
 
_ LI 
 
 \w»- or TUB 
 
 liriVEESITY 
 ACCOUNT OF THE NOvuM ORGANON. 
 
 TBE SECOND, AND CONCLUDING PART. 
 
 HOMO, NATURiE MINISTER ET INTERPRES, TANTUM FACIT ET INTELLIOI* 
 QUANTUM HE NATURE: ORDINE RE VEL MENTE OBSEBVAVEKIT : NEC 
 
 AMPLius soiT, AUT POTEST. Nov. Org. 
 
 We now proceed to ^ive to our readers a view of the remaining part of 
 the Novum Organum^ as contained in the Second Book. Lord Bacon's 
 design here is — to unfold his plan more particularly ; and to convey 
 some idea of the actual operation of that method of studying nature 
 which he had the discernment to perceive was so absolutely essential to 
 the advancement of all real science ; and which he had the indepen- 
 dence of mind to lay before the world, at a time when philosophers 
 were generally devoted to hypotheses and fancies, and seemed but ill- 
 disposed to an humble and laborious search after truth for its own sake, 
 or to give encouragement to any one who should aspire to this arduous 
 and honourable course. 
 
 We shall, as before, give the analysis of Bacon^s doctrines, with 
 such remarks and additional illustrations as may tend to throw light 
 upon them. We are aware, indeed, that this part of his philosophical 
 works has been regarded, and not unjustly, as somewhat laboured and 
 obscure ; but surely we must not forget the disadvantages und*er 
 which he wrote ; nor the wonderful revolution in science which he was 
 the first instrument in effecting. It is certain, indeed, that, at the time 
 when he flourished, the spirit of rational inquiry was not utterly un- 
 known. In some few minds there was already a rising tendency to 
 throw off the yoke of ancient systems, and some few instances were 
 not wanting of the successful use of experiment ; but no one had 
 hitherto had the boldness and the genius, at once to make a formal 
 attack on the general order of things as they existed in science, and to 
 frame the grand and universal outline of another and a better plan. 
 It was reserved for Bacon to proclaim aloud to the ear of Science, 
 that she could only hope to be regenerated by first sacrificing herself 
 on the altar of Truth ; and that if ever she took an upward flight, she 
 must pass a fiery ordeal, and rise like a phcenix from her own ashes. 
 
 Bacon, in this respect, stood alone ; and if his New Machine of 
 the Sciences appear, on more minute examination, to be somewhat 
 cumbrous and defective, it was still a mighty effort to have devised 
 such an instrument at all. If the genius of the new philosophy first 
 issued from the thick darkness of the middle ages, wearing the 
 garb and speaking the cramp language of the schools, this was perhaps 
 an unavoidable consequence attaching to the period of its birth. 
 The enlightened style of philosophy which now prevails, is certainly 
 nothing more than the spirit of what Bacon taught, freed from all 
 needless technicalities and incumbrances ; and exercising, to the 
 best advantage, its own proper energies. If Bacon did not perfectly 
 exemplify his own rules of philosophizing, and if we sometimes see, 
 as is certainly the case, the remains of ancient error in his con- 
 
 B 
 
2 ACCOUNT OF LORD BACON'S 
 
 elusions, we should remember that he kindled the broader light we now 
 act in, and which makes us discern clearly the imperfections of his 
 own method. It is he who has enabled us to consider as ordinary 
 and manifest truths, propositions utterly denied to his predecessors ; 
 and to complain of things as obscure, which to him were new, and 
 were seen across the settled and distorting mist of error, and to us are 
 clear only through the purer medium of his philosophy. 
 
 The second book of the Novum Organon may be divided into three 
 parts ; which comprise Aphorisms, or remarks on what is termed the 
 Discovery of Forms ; Tables in illustration of this discovery ; and the 
 Doctrine of Instances. 
 
 Section I. Of the Discovery of Forms, or Causes, in Nature. 
 After the primary object of ascertainingyac^j?, or collecting the history 
 of nature with regard to any subject of inquiry has been effected, the 
 next aim proposed is, by comparing these different facts, to pro- 
 duce certain changes in matter ; and to discover the ultimate causes 
 on which its qualities depend. " The object and aim of human 
 power," says Bacon, " is to produce a nev) nature, or natures on a given 
 body; and the object and aim of human knowledge is to discover the 
 form of a given nature ; that is, its real difference ; the nature which 
 makes it what it is (naturam naturantem), or, the source whence it 
 flows." 
 
 The scholastic word form here employed is borrowed from the 
 Platonists, though with a meaning different from theirs. Plato and 
 his followers adopted the notions before held by the Pythagoreans 
 with respect to forms, ideas, and essences ; and regarded the various 
 configurations, or shapes of matter, as nothing more than copies of 
 their essences, or ideas, as existing in the divine mind. Thus, for ex- 
 ample, since the squares or circles actually drawn by the mathematician 
 are never absolutely accurate, they supposed that their true archetypes 
 or patterns are to be found subsisting by themselves in the mind of the 
 Deity. Now Plato, and his school, maintained that this perfect intel- 
 lectual world was discoverable by contemplation ; and that while the 
 visible creation is the object o^ sense, these ideas, or essences — the 
 forms of things abstracted from matter, — are the proper objects of 
 science. Bacon, in his work on the Advancement of Learning, while 
 he pays the tribute of praise due to Plato's genius, condemns, as well 
 he might, his mystical philosophy; and intimates that the forTns whicli 
 he himself proposes to discover are to be found in matter, and not 
 put of it. In another passage in the Novum Organon, he expressly 
 defTnes what he means by forms, in the following manner : — "■ When 
 we speak of forms, we understand nothing more than those laws and 
 modes of action which regulate and constitute any simple nature ; such 
 as heat ; light ; weight ; in all kinds of matter susceptible of them : 
 so that (he form of heat, or the form of light, and the law of heat, or 
 the law of light, are the same thing ; nor do we ever lose sight of 
 practice, and things as they are.*' 
 
 " The form of any nature" is, in another place, defined to be " such, 
 that where it is, the given nature must infalhbly be. The form is per- 
 petually present when that nature is present ; ascertains it universally, 
 and accompanies it every where. Again, this form is such, that when 
 
NOVUM ORGANON SCIENTIARUM. 3 
 
 removed, the given nature infallibly vanishes : therefore the form is 
 perpetually wanting" where that nature is wanting ; and thus confirms 
 its presence or absence, and comes and goes with that nature alone.'* 
 
 In the language of Bacon, then, the form of any substance is its 
 essential nature — the form of any quality is that which constitutes that 
 quality. Thus, if the subject of investigation were the quality of trans- 
 parency in any substance, the form of it is something of such a nature 
 that, wherever it is present, there is transparency ; and wherever there 
 is transparency, that which is here scholastically termed the form, is 
 likewise present. The form,, he says, is the same thing, as regards 
 our knowledge, with the cause ; not limiting the meaning of this word 
 to the antecedents or circumstances which immediately produce a suc- 
 cession of events or changes in matter, but including also the source 
 from whence permanent qualities in body are derived. In short, the 
 discovery of forms may be regarded as signifying the discovery of the 
 laws of nature in general. 
 
 It may serve to facilitate our apprehension of Bacon's ideas, if we 
 carry along with us the remark, which has not improperly been made, 
 even by his greatest admirers — that he appears, from the language he 
 sometimes employs with regard to forms, to have placed the ultimate 
 aim of philosophy beyond what it is, in all probability, given to man to 
 reach, however rigidly he may employ his faculties, according to the 
 method here recommended. He seems to think that a knowledge of 
 the ultimate essences of the qualities, and powers, or properties of 
 matter, lie open to human scrutiny ; that we can discover, for instance, 
 wherein consists the essence or nature of transparency ; of cold ; of 
 heat ; of colour. Upwards of two centuries, however, have rolled away 
 under the auspices of Bacon's system ; and no one would as yet affirm 
 that we have actually arrived at the boundary of nature, so as to have 
 discovered the essence of matter itself, or of any one of its various mo- 
 difications. We are still ignorant, strictly speaking, of the causes of 
 the various operations of nature, after ages of laborious and scientific 
 investigation ; nor will the philosopher profess to have ascertained, 
 with regard to any one series of these causes, or successive events and 
 changes, that he has, beyond all possibility of doubt, at length ar- 
 rived at the beginning of the series ; that he has laid his finger on the 
 ultimate link in the whole chain which is held by the hand of Omni- 
 potence ; and that he has traced the identical point at which these 
 second causes merge, and are lost in the secret agency of the great 
 First Cause of all ; if indeed it be not more proper to consider all second 
 causes as nothing more than so many constant actions of the Deity, re- 
 gulated by his own laws. — In the case of heat, for instance, — by con- 
 ducting inquiries in the spirit of the inductive method, many of the effects 
 and properties of this powerful agent have been discovered ; but its 
 form, to use Bacon's language, or, in other words, what heat is, has 
 not been ascertained. Perhaps a complete knowledge of its essence 
 might, even if it could be known, conduce less to practical uses, than 
 we may be ready to imagine : certain it is, hov^ever, that the question 
 still remains undetermined, whether heat be a subtile fluid, and there- 
 fore of a material nature; or, as Bacon himself supposed, nothing more 
 than a certain motion among the particles of bodies. 
 
 The same remark is applicable to the other great agents in nature. 
 
4 ACCOUNT OP LORD BACON'S 
 
 as gravity, electricity, li^ht, magnetism, elasticity. Perhaps our notion 
 of g-ravity is as simple as any, since its one property is the law of its 
 decrease with the square of the distance ; but whether this, and the 
 rest have, or have not, any second causes beyond themselves, none 
 presumes to say. While it would be unphilosophical to assert that 
 more can never be known of these ag-ents than what is already ascer- 
 tained, it may be observed that, even should Bacon's aims, as to the 
 discovery of forms, always prove to have been too high for mortals to 
 fulfil, this is no disparagement whatever to his method, which still 
 remains applicable to the investigation of causes, to the uttermost 
 limits that can be reached by the perseverance and ingenuity of man. 
 
 *' To the discovery of forms," proceeds Bacon, "belongs that of the 
 latent process (platens processus) ; contin\ied from the manifest pro- 
 ducing cause of changes in bodies, and what is obvious to the senses, 
 up to the giving of the form itself," that is, the ultimate law of nature 
 in the particular case ; or, at least, what appears to be that law : " there 
 also," he adds, " belongs to it the discovery of the secret structure, 
 (latens schematismus,) of bodies that are quiescent and exhibit no 
 motion. The latejit process we speak of does not here mean certain 
 visible measures, or signs, or steps of procedure in bodies, but a 
 perfect continued process, the greatest part of which escapes the sense. 
 Thus, for example, in every generation and transformation of bodies, 
 it comes to be inquired, what is lost, or flies off; what stays behind ; 
 what is added ; what dilated ; what contracted ; what united ; what 
 separated ; what continued ; what cut off; what impels ; what ob- 
 structs ; what prevails ; what yields, etc. : nor are these things only to 
 be sought in the generation, or transformation of bodies ; but, after the 
 same manner, it comes to be inquired in all other alterations and mo- 
 tions, what precedes ; what succeeds ; what is quick ; what slow ; 
 what gives motion; what governs it; and the like. But all these 
 things remain unknown and untouched in the sciences, which are at 
 present formed in a very gross and perfectly inadequate manner.'* 
 
 This latent process, undoubtedly a grand object of philosophical in- 
 quiry, to the farthest verge of human power, is, therefore, in modern 
 language, the invisible and secret progress by which sensible changes 
 are produced ; and involves what has been termed the law of con- 
 tinuity ; that is, the law by which quantities which change their bulk, 
 or their places, do so, not abruptly, as in many cases may seem to 
 us, but by passing through all the intermediate magnitudes, or dis- 
 tances, till the change be completed. In other words, all changes, 
 however small, must be effected in time. We see this in innumerable 
 operations of nature, such a^ the planetary movements; the phenomena 
 of accelerated velocity in falling bodies ; the motion of light, shown 
 by the eclipses of Jupiter's satellites ; in the progress of disease, in 
 which there is a change of the structure of the parts. The late 
 Professor Playfair remarks on this subject, " to know the relation 
 between the time and the change effected, would be to have a perfect 
 knowledge of the latent process;" the meaning, of course, is, if we 
 could know all the minutest changes : for we may know, by experience, 
 how muc\\ time it may take to ef!ect a given change on matter, with- 
 out knowing what intermediate changes may have led to the given 
 one. In explanation of Bacon's doctrine, Mr, Playfair adds, " in the 
 
NOVUM ORGANON SCIENTIARUM. 5 
 
 firing of a cannon, for example, the succession of events durine^ the 
 short interval between the application of the match, and the explosion 
 of the ball, constitute a latent process of a very remarkable and com- 
 plicated nature, which, however, we can now trace with some degree of 
 accuracy. In mechanical operations we can often follow this process 
 mors completely. When motion is communicated from any body to 
 another, it is distributed through all the parts of that other, by a law 
 quite beyond the reach of sense to perceive directly, but yet subject to 
 investigation, and determined by a principle which, though late in be- 
 ing discovered, is now perfectly recognised. The applications of this 
 mechanical principle are perhaps the instances in which a latent, and in- 
 deed a very recondite process has been most completely analysed." 
 The allusion here is to the laws which regulate percussioiiy collision^ 
 and the co^nmuiiication of motion in bodies. 
 
 What Bacon terms the latent schematism, or structure of bodies, is 
 that unseen shape and arrangement of their parts on which, it is ob- 
 vious, so many of their properties must depend. The internal struc- 
 ture of plants, and the constitution of crystals, are instances ; an in- 
 quiry into these is an inquiry into what is here quaintly termed the. 
 latent schematism ; as also such an inquiry into electricity, gravitation, 
 magnetism, etc., as would be directed towards the attempt to explain 
 these facts, by any peculiar structure of bodies, or any arrangement of 
 the particles of matter. " The inquiry,'* says Bacon, " and discovery 
 of the concealed structure in bodies, is as much a new thing as the 
 discovery of the latent process, and form ; for men have hitherto trod- 
 den only in the outer courts of nature ; and are not prepared to enter 
 within. But no one can superinduce a new nature on a given body ; or 
 successfully and appositely change it into another body ; unless he has 
 first a competent knowledge of the body to be altered or transformed." 
 It must be confessed that Lord Bacon, emerging as he did from the 
 ..prejudices of those ages in which philosophers pretended to account 
 I for almost everything, seems not only to have anticipated, as we have 
 '^'already observed, a greater perfection in human knowledge than it 
 ^"will probably ever attain, but also to have somewhat mistaken the 
 way in which knowledge is to be converted to practical purposes. 
 He supposes that if the ybrm, or cause, or law, of any quality were 
 known, we should be able, by inducing that " form" on any body, to 
 communicate to it the said quality. It is not obvious, however, that 
 even- this knowledge would necessarily conduce to more simple and ad- 
 vantageous methods, than those of which the arts now furnish so many 
 specimens. We are quite ignorant, for instance, on what colour in 
 bodies precisely depends — what peculiar construction of surface it 
 is, which makes a body reflect one particular species of light rather 
 than another ; yet we know how to communicate this quality from 
 one substance to another. Would a knowledge of that concealed 
 structure, on which this reflection depends, enable us to impart it to 
 bodies more easily than we are able to do by immersing them in a 
 liquid of a given colour? 
 
 Lord Bacon proceeds to make some remarks upon several of those 
 changes in bodies, which he seems to have considered it within human 
 power possibly to produce. He partly draws his illustrations from the 
 pursuits of the alchemists ; and makes some suppositious savouring to 
 
6 ACCOUNT OF LORD BACON'S 
 
 us a little of paradox, though we cannot but discern his great sagacity, 
 and admire his persevering diligence, amidst all the disadvantages under 
 which he laboured. " We shall examine," says he, ** what kind of 
 rule, direction, or leading, a man would principally wish for, in order 
 to superinduce an assigned nature upon a given body ; as if any one 
 should desire to superinduce upon silver the yellow colour of gold ; 
 and to increase its specific gravity ; or to superinduce malleability 
 upon glass ; or vegetation upon a body not of the vegetable kind." 
 
 *' The rule for the transmutation of bodies is of two kinds. The 
 Jirst regards a body as a certain collection, or combination of simple 
 natures {propertied). Thus, for example, in gold, there meet together 
 yellowness ; a determinate gravity ; malleability to a certain degree ; 
 fixedness in the fire ; a particular manner of flowing in the fire ; a 
 determinate way of solution, etc., which are the simple natures (pro- 
 perties) in gold. For he who understands forms (causes), and the 
 manner of superinducing this yellowness, gravity, ductility, fixedness, 
 faculty of fusion, solution, etc., with their particular degrees, and pro- 
 portions, will consider how to join them together in some body, so that 
 a transmutation into gold shall follow." 
 
 " But the second kind of rule, which depends upon discovering the 
 latent process^ proceeds by concrete bodies, such as they are found in 
 the ordinary course of nature : for example, — when inquiry is made 
 from what origin, by what means, and in what procedure, gold, or 
 any other metal, or stone, is generated from its first fluid matter, or 
 rudiments, up to a perfect mineral. Or, again, by what process plants 
 are generated, from the first concretions of their juices in the earth, 
 or from the seed to a formed plant ; together with the whole suc- 
 cession of motion, and the various aud continued endeavours of na- 
 ture. And this inquiry does not only regard the generation of bodies, 
 but likewise other motions and works of nature : for example, — when 
 inquiry is made into the whole series and continued actions of nutri- 
 tion, from the first receiving of the aliment to a perfect assimilation ; 
 or, after the same manner, into the voluntary motions of animals, from 
 the first impression of the imagination, and the continued efforts of 
 the spirit, down to the bending and moving of the limbs ; or again, in 
 explaining the motion of the tongue, lips, and other organs, up to the 
 formation of articulate sounds. For these things, also, have regard to 
 concrete natures, or natures associate and organical. — And where 
 mankind has no power of operating, but only of contemplating, yet the 
 inquiry of the fact, or truth of the thing, belongs, no less than the 
 knowledge of causes and relations, to the primary and universal 
 axioms of simple natures : suppose, for example, the inquiry about 
 the nature of spontaneous rotation, attraction, and many other natures ; 
 which are more common and familiar to us than the celestial bodies 
 themselves. And let no one expect to determine the question whether 
 the diurnal motion belongs to the heavens, or to the earth, unless 
 he first understand the nature of spontaneous rotation." 
 
 The above passages, while they furnish an example of that acute- 
 ness and comprehension which so eminently distinguished their author, 
 are not free from indications of his propensity to expect too much 
 from human ingenuity, and to place the evidence of truth, in some 
 respects, too high. His remark, for instance, with regard to the 
 
NOVUM ORGANON SCIENTIARUM. 9 
 
 ** nature of spontaneous roiatio?i,^^ whatever idea he attached to it, as 
 belonging' to the celestial motions, may account, in some measure, for 
 his prejudice against the doctrine of Copernicus, which attributed the 
 diurnal motion to the earth, and not to the heavens ; and which had 
 been pubHshed to the world many years before Bacon flourished. 
 Indeed, a proneness to form boundless expectations as to what human 
 power might effect ; and, in the very infancy of practical science, to 
 look for achievements higher than we can, even in its more advanced 
 age, venture to hope for, is one of the most remarkable features in the 
 elevated and daring genius of this great man. 
 
 Further, to explain his views with regard to the inquiry into the 
 latent structure of bodies, he points out what he conceives to be some 
 of the proper objects on which this minute investigation may be insti- 
 tuted, as iron and stone ; the root, leaves, and flowers of plants ; the 
 flesh, blood, and bones of animals. Distillation, and other methods 
 of separation, are instances, as collecting together the different homo- 
 geneous or similar particles of the same body. He here, however, 
 acutely cautions the chemists of his day against supposing that all the 
 natures (quaUties) which may be exhibited in the separation of the 
 parts of any substance, must have existed in the compound; new 
 natures (properties) being often superinduced by heat, or some other 
 method of resolving bodies ; ** for this structure," he observes, '* is 
 a thing of great delicacy and subtilty, and may be rather confounded, 
 than discovered and brought to light, by the operations of fire." He 
 adds, in his usual serious and imaginative style : " Bodies, therefore, are 
 to be separated, not (merely) by fire, but by reason, and genuine in- 
 duction ; with the assistance of experiments ; for we must go over 
 from Vulcan to Minerva, if we would bring to light the real textures 
 and structures of bodies." 
 
 On the sanguine expectations and lofty aims which Lord Bacon in- 
 dulged, with regard to what human industry and perseverance might 
 effect, he proposes to found what he terms the "just division of philo- 
 sophy, and the sciences," into metaphysics and physics. ** The inquiry 
 of forms," he says, " which, from the reason of the thing itselfi and 
 their own law, are eternal and immutable, may make metaphysics; 
 and the inquiry into the efficient cause, the matter, the latent process^ 
 and the latefit structure, may constitute physics, since these several 
 (latter) particulars regard the ordinary course, and not the fundamental 
 and eternal laws of nature." Certain it is, that however just such a 
 general division of all human knowledge might be in Bacon's sense of 
 it, could we realise his ideas and aims as to the discovery offor?ns, no 
 progress has, as yet, been made towards the hopeful attainment of such 
 a system of metaphysics ; and probably the more secret operations of 
 nature may for ever remain so shrouded from human penetration, as 
 to render it impossible to say, in any one instance, that we have reached 
 the goal, ascertained the \eryjirst in the series of second causes, and 
 drawn the exact line between the subordinate operations of matter, 
 and the immediate agency of the Infinite Spirit. — The following pas- 
 sages, on the " raising of axioms, or principles from experience," are 
 introductory to the tables in which Bacon has exemplified his own 
 method of induction, in an inquiry into the " form" of heatj or, in what 
 heat consists. 
 
8 ACCOUNT OF LORD BACON'S 
 
 " The raising of axioms from experience is divided into three kinds 
 of administrations or helps; 1. for the sense; 2. for the memory; 
 and 3. for the reason." 
 
 (1.) " Therefore, a just and adequate natural and experimental 
 history is to be procured, as the foundation of the whole thing ; for we 
 are not to fancy or imagine, but to discover what are the works and 
 laws of nature.'' 
 
 (2.) " Such history must be digested and ranged in proper order ; 
 therefore tables and subservient chains of instances are to be formed 
 in such manner, that the understanding may commodiously work upon 
 them." 
 
 . (3.) " And though this were done, yet the understanding, left to 
 itself, and its own spontaneous motion, is unequal to the work, and un- 
 fit to take upon it the raising of axioms, unless it be first regulated, 
 strengthened, and guarded ; therefore, in the third place, genuine and 
 real induction must be used as the key of interpretation." 
 : *' The inquiry of forms proceeds in this manner. First, all the 
 known instances, agreeing in the same nature, though in the most dis- 
 similar subjects, are to be brought together, and placed before the un- 
 derstanding. And this collection is to be made historically, without 
 any overhasty indulgence of speculation, or any great subtilty for the 
 present. We will illustrate the thing by an example in the inquiry 
 into the form of heat." 
 
 Section II. Of the Tables given in Illustration of the Inductive Method, 
 
 The materials from which Lord Bacon designed that tables of this 
 kind should be composed, for the future advancement of science, were 
 such as he himself has sketched out in his book entitled, after the 
 quaint fashion of the time, Sylva Sylvarum, or " A Natural History; 
 in Ten Centuries ;" each of the ten sections into which it is divided 
 containing one hundred facts and experiments, relating to a great va- 
 riety of subjects ; the term natural history being here used in a very 
 extensive sense, to signify a record of observations on nature in general. 
 
 Such a history of facts as that from which tables should be drawn, 
 was to contain an account of the subject under examination, in all the 
 varieties and modifications of which the appearances belonging to it 
 were susceptible. Not only were these facts in nature to be included 
 in it, which offer themselves at once, and of their own accord, to the 
 senses, but also all those experiments which might be instituted for the 
 discovery of new facts relating to the same inquiry. These facts and 
 experiments were to be ascertained with the greatest care ; faithfully 
 and simply stated, without mixing up any theory with the narration 
 of them; and distinctly arranged. If any thing rested on doubtful 
 evidence, this was not to be altogether excluded from the history of 
 the subject, but to be noted down as uncertain, together with the rea- 
 sons for so regarding it ; and it was not to be employed as evidence in 
 the discovery o^ forms, or ultimate causes, till rendered more probable 
 by other facts, on which there rested nothing doubtful. In short, this 
 history of nature was to be, as much as possible, a copy of nature her- 
 self, both as regarded obvious facts, and actual experiments ; for, in ex- 
 periments, as Bacon observes, "man does nothing more than bring things 
 nearer to one another, or carry them farther off; the rest is performed 
 
NOVUM ORGANON SCIENTIARUM. 9 
 
 by nature." This remark has its exemplification in such operations as 
 the firing of a pistol, the discharire of an electrical jar, and in all the 
 experiments of chemistry, in which the art of man does no more than 
 commence the process by applying the spark to the gunpowder, or by 
 causing the connection between the inside and outside of the jar to be 
 produced, or the electric circle to be completed; or by bringing the 
 chemical agents into contact with each other; the rest is done by 
 nature herself. 
 
 It must be acknowledged that a single glance into the Sylva Sylva- 
 rum will convince the reader that it is far from answering to the 
 standard which its great author sets up for regulating the collection of 
 the materials of scientific inquiry. In his " Experiment Solitary 
 touching the commixture of flame and air, and the great force thereof,'* 
 he says, " As for living creatures, it is certain their vital spirits are a 
 substance compounded of an airy and flamy matter. It is no marvel 
 that a small quantity of spirits in the cells of the brain, and canals of 
 the sinews, should be able to move the whole body, which is of so great 
 mass ; such is the force of these two natures, air and flame, when they 
 incorporate." It is unnecessary to adduce other specimens, many of 
 which are to be found, as fanciful in matter, as vague in statement, 
 and as gratuitous in evidence ; in a word, exhibiting as complete a 
 departure from the severity of the inductive method. Yet, amidst this 
 indigested mass of facts and fancies, it is impossible not to discern 
 the unwearied diligence, the acuteness, the boundless curiosity, and 
 insatiable appetite Tor knowledge, which Bacon possessed. It is in- 
 teresting to see the energies of such a mind grappling with the difficul- 
 ties which inevitably surrounded it ; eager for liberty, beneath the 
 shackles that cramped its exertions ; panting for the pure air of truth, 
 amidst those oppressive mists of error which beset it on all sides ; and 
 more readily taking up with error, from its very impatience for truth. 
 Bacon's faults as a practical natural philosopher, the occasional cre- 
 dulity and love of theory which he manifests, are only the more re- 
 markable from his having so admirably descanted on those very 
 errors by way of speculation. To free himself from the actual do- 
 minion of error in natural science, even though he had such lofty 
 general conceptions of truth, was perhaps impossible in his situation. 
 The morning star of nature is, in the language of Milton, *' last in the 
 train of night," though it belongs " better to the dawn ;" and the sun 
 himself cannot shake off" the mists that attend his rising — time is 
 needed to dispel them : Bacon was the first grand luminary of science, 
 and it was no wonder that a portion of the darkness of the middle 
 ages should still cling around him. 
 
 Nor was he himself unaware of the imperfection of those crude and 
 recent materials from which, for want of collections of facts sufficiently 
 accurate and long-estabHshed, he was obliged to deduce his tables. 
 Perhaps, what he chiefly intended was a rough sketch of the history 
 of nature, leaving it to posterity to follow out his plan with greater 
 accuracy, and with all the advantages of time. This appears, indeed, 
 from the caution which he gives his readers, quoted in our former 
 Treatise on this work, not to reject his method itself, because some 
 experiments and facts may not be so well verified as might be wished ; 
 or others ^ven absolutely false. The same may be gathered from the 
 
10 ACCOUNT OF LORD BACON'S 
 
 following" remarkable passage in the Preface to the Sylva Sylvarum, 
 by Dr. Rawley, who was Lord Bacon's chaplain. " I have heard his 
 Lordship often say, that if he should have served the glory of his own 
 name, he had been better not to have published this Natural History ; 
 but that he resolved to prefer the good of man, and that which might 
 best secure it, before any thing that might have relation to himself. 
 And, in this behalf, I have heard his Lordship speak complainingly, 
 that his Lordship, who thinketh he deserveth to be an architect in this 
 building, should be forced to be a workman and a labourer, and to 
 dig the clay and burn the brick ; and to gather the straw and stubble 
 over all the fields to burn the bricks withal. For he knoweth that 
 except he do it, nothing will be done; men are so set to despise the 
 ^^ means of their own good." 
 
 '' Lord Bacon formally exemplifies his method of induction in this part 
 of the Novum Organon, on the subject o^ heat — his object being to 
 inquire, what is Uniform or nature? In order to institute this inquiry, 
 he arranges the facts and experiments he was acquainted with relating 
 to it, in Jive different tables. These tables, while they partake of all the 
 imperfections found in the Sylva Sylvarum, can scarcely be denied the 
 praise, as Professor Playfair remarks, of being " extremely judicious," 
 while the whole disquisition, as the same excellent judge observes, *' is 
 highly interesting." 
 
 Tab. I. — The Jirst table contains instances in which heat is found and 
 is termed, by the author, the *' Affirmative Table f* or " Instances that 
 agree in possessijig the nature of heat;^- and here are enumerated the 
 sun's rays, direct and reflected ; fiery meteors ; lightning ; flame ; 
 ignited matter ; hot springs, and heated fluids in general ; sultry 
 seasons ; subterraneous air ; the coverings of animals ; all bodies 
 exposed to the action of fire ; sparks struck out by collision ; matter 
 in a state of friction, as the wheels of carriages ; green and moist 
 plants when pressed together, as hay ; slaked lime ; iron in a state 
 of effervescence with acids ; the bodies of animals ; herbs that are 
 hot to the taste, as cresses : vinegar also is added, as appHed to the 
 flesh ; and even intense cold producing a burning sensation. 
 
 Tab. II. — The second table which Bacon proposes in pursuit of his 
 method, is negative ; containing a list of things in which heat is not 
 found : but, for the sake of brevity, the examples here introduced are 
 to be only of those things which have a ?iear relation and resemblance 
 to the things mentioned in the first table, heat alone excepted^ in which 
 they are, to all sense, wanting. Thus, the first example of the '* instances 
 agreeing in possessing heat^^ were the suhls rays; and the parallel 
 negative instance, or the first mentioned in the second table, are the 
 rays of the moon, of stars, and of comets, since these are all luminous, 
 though less so than the rays of the sun, but are without heat. In like 
 manner, every instance in which heat exists in the things enumerated 
 in the first table, is to have one or more parallel instances in the 
 second, in which heat is wanting ; though the substances in both the 
 tables seem nearly related to each other. 
 
 Tab. III. — The third table consists of a comparison of the degrees of 
 heat found in ditferent substances. The things first to be considered are 
 such as discover no heat whatever to the touch, but seem only to have, 
 says Bacon, ** a certain potential heat, or a disposition and prepara- 
 
NOVUM ORGANON SCIENTIARUM. 11 
 
 Hon towards actual heat." Quicklime, green plants, acrid vege- 
 tables, etc., are mentioned as examples. The first degree of heat sen- 
 sible to the touch, he considers to be that of animals ; and inquiry is 
 to be made respecting the comparative heat of the different kinds of 
 animals, and of different parts of the same animals; and the causes 
 by which animal heat is increased. The degrees of heat in various 
 kinds of flame are also to be observed ; as in the flame of alcohol ; 
 of porous vegetables; of wood ; of unctuous substances, as oil and 
 tallow ; of pitch and resin ; of sulphur ; of gunpowder ; of im- 
 perfect metals, as regulus of antimony ; and of lightning. Also the 
 degrees of heat in ignited bodies, as in tinder, coal, and metals. The 
 thermometer (vitrum calendare), which was just come into use when 
 Bacon wrote, is mentioned as showing the extreme aptitude of the 
 common air to receive and communicate heat ; being affected by the 
 slightest change of temperature. Next to the air, those bodies were 
 imagined to be most sensible of heat whi'ch had been newly changed 
 and condensed by cold, as snow and ice ; then is mentioned conjecturally 
 quicksilver ; next unctuous bodies, as oil and butter ; afterwards 
 wood ; water ; and lastly, stones and metals, as not heating so easily, 
 though they retain their heat a long time. 
 
 This table, while it discovers, like the rest, the exhaustive genius 
 peculiar to its author, and the enlarged general views which he took 
 of the subject of inquiry, possesses the same defects as it regards 
 accuracy in the facts ; and occasionally the same insensible tendency 
 to theorize. It appears singular enough, for instance, to us, who know 
 the property which oxygen has of sustaining combustion, that the 
 increase of heat should be accounted for mechanically thus : ** Motion 
 increases heat, as appears by bellows and blow-pipes ;" and that after 
 a description of the thermometer, and the sensibility of the air in respect 
 of heat and cold, it should be added, *' but we conceive that the spirit 
 of animals has a still more exquisite sense of heat and cold, unless it 
 be obstructed and blunted by the grosser matter of their bodies." Yet 
 it is here remarked — " How unprovided we are in natural and experi- 
 mental history, may be easily observed from hence ; that in the pre- 
 ceding tables we are frequently obliged to direct experiments and 
 further inquiry into particulars ; and that, instead of approved history, 
 and such instances as may be depended upon, we are sometimes 
 driven to insert traditions, and stories, though we do this with a mani- 
 fest doubting of their truth and authority.'* 
 
 These three tables, containing a great number of such positive, 
 negative, and comparative examples on the subject of heat as we have 
 quoted, are designed. Lord Bacon says, to " present a view of instances 
 to the understanding.'* And when this view is procured, the business 
 of induction is to be put in practice. " For, upon a particular and 
 general view of all the instances, some quality or property is to be 
 discovered, on which the nature of the thing in question depends, and 
 which may continually be present or absent, and always increase and 
 decrease with that nature ; and limit the more common nature. God, 
 the giver and Creator of forms, doubtless knows them by immediate 
 affirmation, and at the first glance ; and so, perhaps, may angelic 
 intelligences ; but this is certainly beyond the power of man, to whom 
 it is given to proceed, first, by negatives only, and after a perfect exclu- 
 
12 ACCOUNT OF LORD BACON'S 
 
 sion by affirmatives. We must therefore make resolution and separa- 
 tion of nature, not by fire, but by the mind, which is, as it were, the 
 divine fire. And thus the^rs^ work of genuine induction in the disco- 
 very of forms, is to throw out, or exclude, such particular natures as are 
 not found in any instance where the given nature is present ; or such 
 as are found in any instance where that nature is absent ; and again, 
 such as are found to increase in any instance when the given nature 
 decreases ; or to decrease when that nature increases. And then, after 
 this rejection and exclusion is duly made, the affirmative, solid, true, 
 and well-defined form will remain as the result of the operation, whilst 
 the volatile opinions go off, as it were, in fume. And if any one shall 
 think that our forms have somewhat abstracted in them, because they 
 appear to mix, and join together things that are heterogeneous, as the 
 heat of the celestial bodies, and the heat of fire ; the fixed redness of 
 a rose, and the apparent redness of the rainbow, or the opal ; death 
 by drowning, and death by burning, stabbing, the apoplexy, con- 
 sumption, etc., which, though very dissimilar, we make to agree in the 
 nature of heat, redness, death, etc., he must remember that his own 
 understanding is held and detained by custom, things in the gross, 
 and opinions. For it is certain that the things above-mentioned, 
 however heterogeneous and foreign they may seem, agree in i\\Q form 
 or law that ordains heat, redness, and death." 
 
 The first step, therefore, according to Bacon, in an inquiry into the 
 form, or cause of any thing by induction, is to consider what things 
 are to be excluded from the number of possible forms or causes. This 
 exclusion contracts the field of inquiry, and brings the true explanation 
 of the case more within reach. Thus, suppose the subject in question 
 be, to use the language of our author, the form of transparency ; or in 
 other words, the quality which is the cause of transparency in bodies : 
 now since the diamond is transparent, we immediately exclude 
 fluidity^ and porosity, or rarity ; because the diamond is a very solid 
 and dense substance: that is, a body maybe transparent, without 
 being either fluid or fight, compared with other bodies ; neither 
 fluidity nor lightness, then, are the form or cause of transparency. 
 
 Tab. IV. — Bacon's ybwr^^ table, accordingly, proposes to exhibit " an 
 example of this exclusion, or rejection of natures from the form of heat; 
 that is, a rejection of those things as the causes of heat, in which it 
 evidently cannot consist. Thus, as both the sun's rays and common fire 
 are hot, he excludes both " terrestrial and celestial nature." Light and 
 splendour are also rejected as essential to heat, because water, air, and 
 solid bodies will receive or conduct heat without being ignited ; and, 
 on the contrary, the rays of the moon and stars present light without 
 aijy sensible heat ; also because ignited iron is less lucid, but hotter 
 than the flame of alcohol. Again, tenuity, or a certain lightness of 
 substance, is to be excluded as the cause of heat, because gold, which 
 is very dense, can be ignited ; while the air, which is generally cool, is 
 thin and subtile. Expansive inotion is also to be rejected. Bacon says, 
 *' because ignited iron enlarges not in bulk, but remains of the same 
 dimension ;" this, however, is contrary to a well-known fact in the eco- 
 nomy of heat. — As bodies are warmed without destruction of the parts, 
 this destruction is to be excluded. Other things also are to be re- 
 jected, " for our tables," says the author, *' are not designed us perfect, 
 but only as examples." 
 
NOVUM ORGANON SClENTIARtJM. 13 
 
 Hence, it is added, at the end of this table, " The business of ex- 
 clusion lays the foundation for a genuine induction, which, however, 
 is not perfected till it terminates in the affirmative ; but an exclusion 
 is by no means perfect at first, nor can it possibly be so ; for exclu- 
 sion, as we plainly see, is the rejection of simple natures; and if we 
 have hitherto no just and true notion of simple nature, how can the bu- 
 siness of exclusion be rectified? But some of the above-mentioned 
 notions, as those oi elementary (or terrestrial) nature, celestial nature, 
 and tenuity, are vague and ill-defined. Wherefore we must proceed 
 to greater helps for the mind. And yet we judge it useful to allow the 
 understanding to apply itself and attempt the business of interpret- 
 ing nature in the affirmative, on the strength of the instances con- 
 tained in these tables, and such as may be otherwise procured. And 
 this kind of attempt we call a permission of the understanding, the 
 rudiments of interpretation, or the first vintage of inquiry." 
 
 Tab. V. — The next, which is i\\e fifth table and the last, is accordingly 
 quaintly entitled, " The first Vintage concerning the Form of Heat ;'' that 
 is, a rough and general specimen of a conclusion derived from the forego- 
 ing investigation. Bacon concludes, here, that from an examination of 
 all the instances, " separately and collectively, the nature whose limita- 
 tion is heat, appears to be motioUy* which he attempts to prove from 
 the view he took of the facts. He adds, " what we have thus said of 
 motion is to be understood of it as of a genus, with regard to heat, and 
 not as if heat generated motion, or motion generated heat, though this 
 may be true in some cases ; but the meaning is, that heat itself, or the 
 very existence of heat, is motion, and nothing else, though motion 
 limited by differences, which we shall presently subjoin." 
 
 He next points out these *' differences,'' as he terms them ; that is, 
 he endeavours to discover what kind of motion this is of which he 
 speaks. He first argues that it is expansive, whereby a body dilates 
 itself; which, however, is hardly consistent with his observation on 
 ignited iron in the fourth table. The second ** difference," or quality 
 of the motion is, that heat is an expansive motion toward the circum- 
 ference, and which at the same time rises upwards. " The third differ- 
 ence," he says, " is that this motion is expansive in the lesser particles 
 of a body ;" and " the fourth difference is, that the motion in which heat 
 consists is rapid." All this he attempts to prove, and concludes thus : 
 ** Let this serve for what we call the first vintage, or an attempt towards 
 interpreting the form of heat, which the understanding makes, as we 
 said, by way of permission. The fruit of this first vintage is in 
 short : Heat is an expansive, bridled motion, struggling in the 
 small particles of bodies. But this expansion is modified ; so that, 
 while it spreads in circumference, it has a greater tendency upwards. 
 It is also vigorous and active. And as to practice, if, in any natural 
 body, a motion can be excited which shall dilate or expand, and again 
 recoil or turn back upon itself, so as that the dilatation shall not 
 proceed equally, but partly prevail, and partly be checked, any man 
 may doubtless produce heat And this may serve as anexample of 
 our method of investigating Forms.'* 
 
 Notwithstanding the imperfection of these tables as to their detail, the 
 want of accuracy in the experiments, the crudeness, and the apparently 
 gratuitous style of Bacon s conclusions, amidst the laboured appear- 
 
14 ACCOUNT OF LORD BACON'S 
 
 aiice of the whole, it is worthy of remark that his hypothesis on the 
 nature of heat is the very same as one of those which still, at the distance 
 of nearly two centuries, divide the opinions of philosophers. The 
 more direct and elegant manner in which the moderns have employed 
 his inductive method, has not, in the very instance which he first chose 
 as an example of it, enabled them to go one single step beyond him. 
 It is still a question, whether heat be really matter — a subtile fluid 
 capable of diffusing itself in bodies ; or any thing more than a motion^ 
 vibration, or rotation, excited among their particles. All the experi- 
 ments that have been made up to the present time, have not availed 
 to set the question at rest ; and the greater part of the facts re- 
 lating to heat may be explained equally well on either of the two 
 suppositions. 
 
 Section III. — Of the Doctrine of Instances^ or FactSy as regards the 
 Discovery of Forms. 
 
 It is obvious that all facts, however well authenticated they may be, 
 are not of equal importance in the discoveries of science. Some facts 
 are so like others, that it may be quite unnecessary to notice them. 
 Some exhibit the subject of inquiry in its most simple state ; others 
 present it with a combination of circumstances. In some cases the 
 thing sought appears in its highest degree ; in others in its lowest. 
 In medicine, for instance, a disease sometimes presents itself in its 
 purest form, and most regular progress ; at other times it is involved 
 in a variety of other symptoms that do not belong it. Hence Lord 
 Bacon proposes to consider what he calls Prerogative Tnstaiitiariim, 
 Prerogative Instances ; or the comparative value of facts as means 
 of discovery, or instruments of finding truth. 
 
 The design here is to show what are the most important and essen- 
 tial particulars in every inquiry ; or what instances in the o})erations 
 of nature are chiefly to be sought for, and attended to, in order to 
 discover the laws of nature in general, to whatever extent man may 
 be able to ascertain them. The conclusion on the subject of heat 
 being only to be regarded as an example, and not as a perfectly esta- 
 blished truth, Bacon retraces, in a manner, his own steps, and pro- 
 ceeds to treat, generally, and more accurately, of the way of procuring 
 a proper collection of such facts, experiments, and observations, as are 
 best fitted to constitute affirmative, negative, and comparative tables, 
 like those we have described ; and this in order, ultimately, to shorten 
 the inquiry, and to render it more rigid. 
 
 We shall now give our readers an outline of these " Prerogative 
 Instances ;" or those cases which have a chief claim to be noticed in 
 the attempt to interpret the laws of nature ; retaining the terms which 
 Bacon figuratively applies to them. He divides them into three 
 classes, which he denominates those which address themselves to the 
 understanding ; those which assist the senses ; and those which con- 
 duce to practice. 
 
 I. Instances addressing themselves to the Understanding. 
 
 1. The first are the InstanticB SolitaricB ; solitary instances. These 
 are divided into two classes. — Thej^r*^ are those examples in which the 
 the same "nature," or quaUty, exists in different bodies, which have 
 
NOVUM ORGANON SCIENTIARUM. 15 
 
 nothing in common but that quality ; that is, the bodies differ in all 
 things but in this one. Tlie conclusions that can be entertained in 
 this case, respecting the ybrm or cause of this quahty, are Hmited, inas- 
 much as they involve none of the things in which the bodies dttfer, but 
 only that in which they all agree. Crystals, prisms of glass, and dew- 
 drops, are instanti(B solitarice, because they exhibit colour, in some 
 situations, while they have nothing in common with stones, metals, 
 wood, flowers, etc., whose colours are fixed, excepting the colour 
 itself. Hence Bacon infers that colour is, in the first substances, that 
 is, in crystals, etc., simply a modification of the rays of light, pro- 
 duced by the differeirt degrees of incidence^ or the angles which light 
 makes in falling on them ; and in the latter case, as in stones and 
 metals, he concludes that colour depends on the texture and structure 
 of the surface. It was by these examples that Newton afterwards dis- 
 covered the composition of light. 
 
 The second class of solitary instances are the reverse of the former. 
 They are those cases in which the " nature" or quality, which is the 
 subject of inquiry, dijffers in two bodies which are in all other respects 
 the same ; that is, the bodies here agree in all things but this one. The 
 form or cause here, therefore, cannot exist in any of the general things 
 in which the bodies agree. The veins of black, and of white, in 
 marble, and the variety of colours in flowers, are adduced as examples ; 
 where the substances agree, almost in everything but in colour. Bacon 
 here again concludes that permanent colours depend chiefly on the tex- 
 ture of the surfaces of bodies, and very little on their internal and 
 essential properties. 
 
 2. Instantice Migrantes, or travelling instances, are those in which 
 one quantity is lost, and another is produced ; or, in which the nature 
 or quality inquired into exhibits changes and degrees, passing from 
 less to greater, or from greater to less ; in the one case approaching 
 its mammum, or greatest state, in the other tending to extinction alto- 
 gether. Let the inquiry be into the cause of whiteness^ in bodies that 
 are of this colour. Glass and water are mentioned as examples. Glass, 
 when whole, is without colour ; but, when powdered, becomes white : 
 so water in its natural state is colourless, but is white when in the state 
 of foam. Both these substances pass from a state of transparency to 
 an opaque state. " It is manifest," says Bacon, " that the form 
 (cause) of whiteness travels or is conveyed over by pounding the 
 glass, and agitating the water ; nothing, however, is here found but 
 a bare comminution of the parts, together with the interposition of 
 the air ; and whiteness is exhibited by a different refraction of the rays 
 of light." Metals becoming fluid by heat, and again solid by its 
 abstraction, might be added as another example. Also the shells 
 which are often found perfect in limestone, and by degrees become 
 lost in the finer marbles, till they are no longer discerned. The mi- 
 neral kingdom presents this kind of instances in the greatest abundance, 
 and such facts are, perhaps, nowhere of greater importance in practice. 
 The barometer also furnishes an instance of this progressive kind ; for 
 on going to the top of a mountain the mercury sinks, which it ought 
 to do, if it be the weight of the atmosphere that supports it, because 
 the column of the atmosphere is now shorter. 
 
 3. Next come the Instanticd Ostensivcei glaring instances ; which our 
 
16 ACCOUNl' OF LORD BACON'S 
 
 author also terms eluscentim, undpredominantes, or instances which shew 
 the nature or quality in its highest power and degree, and freed from 
 the obstructions which usually counteract it. The nature which is the 
 subject of inquiry is here, as is represented, fully displayed, either by the 
 absence of such obstructions to it, or by its prevailing over them by its 
 own energy. The thermometer is judiciously chosen as an example ; 
 this instrument very obviously shewing the expansive force of heat in 
 its operation on air. Perhaps, Lord Bacon is not so happy in adducing 
 quicksilver, on account of its fluidity, as a glaring instance leading to- 
 wards the discovery of what gravity is ; for gold, which is heavier than 
 quicksilver, becomes fluid also by the application of heat ; and quick- 
 silver is solid at a certain temperature. 
 
 Professor Playfair adduces as an example of this class, the shells, 
 corals, and other marine exuviae, or their impressions, found imbedded 
 in solid rocks, and on high mountains, as decisively proving the original 
 formation of such land under the sea. 
 
 4. The Instajitice ClandestincB, or o6sczrre instances, maybe considered 
 as opposed to the last. Bacon has also fancifully called them In- 
 stantice Crepusmdi, twilight instances. These are the cases in which 
 some quality or power is just beginning to manifest itself, and is in 
 its weakest and most imperfect state. These he regards as peculiarly 
 important in attempts at generalisation. He mentions an example 
 with reference to the nature of solidity y exhibited in a low degree in 
 a fluid, when water, blown into a bubble, assumes a kind of consistent 
 skin, and may be thrown in this form to a considerable distance ; and 
 he infers, from such cases, that fluidity and solidity are only relative 
 ideas, and that bodies have what he terms " a real appetite to avoid 
 discontinuation." Water suspended in capillary, or very small tubes, 
 is another illustration. This effect may be viewed when at its minimum; 
 or in the least degree, that is, when the tube is increased in its bore. The 
 column of water now becomes a slender ring, going all round the 
 vessel. As this ring must be formed by the attraction of the sides, 
 and of the part directly above the water, there can be no doubt that the 
 capillary suspension arises, in part at least, from the same cause. 
 
 5. In the fifth place, are noticed the Instantim Manipulares, or collec- 
 tive instances ; that is, general facts, comprehending a rmmber of par- 
 ticular cases ; tending to carry us to a certain extent in the discovery 
 of causes, and assisting in the attempt towards a further generalisation. 
 
 The laws of Kepler, not mentioned by Bacon, though discovered 
 before he wrote, are a case in point. These laws, which aided 
 Newton in detecting the principle of gravitation, are three general 
 truths or facts in astronomy; each of which holds with regard to 
 every planet. These laws are, that the planets all move in oval 
 orbits round the sun, placed in the common focus ; that a line, sup- 
 posed to be drawn from this focus, or point in the ellipse, to any planet, 
 passes over equal spaces in equal times ; and that the squares of the 
 times of revolution round the sun are always as the cubes of the mean 
 distances from him. Each of these laws was discovered, after vast 
 labour and research, and by comparing together an immense number 
 of observations. In such collective instances astronomy is fertile. A 
 planet is seen in the heavens ; by long and diligent attention, it is 
 
NOVUM ORGANON SCIENTUHUM:. 17 
 
 found to move in a certain direction, with a certain velocity, and ta 
 perform its revolution in a certain time. Hence the periodic time, or 
 the year of every planet is a collective fact, — a fact resulting from nu- 
 merous observations. 
 
 Bacon's example of this kind of instances is taken from memory, 
 the nature of which is supposed to be the subject of inquiry. Collec- 
 tive instances, tending to conduct us some way in the investigation, 
 are, he says, such facts as these ; namely, that order, artificial asso- 
 ciations of ideas, and verse, aid the memory ; also whatever appeals to 
 the senses, or the passions, so as strongly to excite them ; again whatever 
 is i)resented to a mind that is free and unoccupied, as is the case with 
 children ; what is noticed for the Jirst time ; and what we make an 
 effort to retain — these things are usually best remembered. This in- 
 stance may serve to show the comprehensiveness of Bacon's design, 
 which was to prescribe rules for all kinds of investigations, whether 
 relating more strictly to natural philosophy, or, as here, to intellectual 
 science ; indeed, it was in his ideas relative to the conduct of the un- 
 derstanding in its pursuit of truth that he chiefly excelled. 
 
 6. InstanticB Conformes, or instances that are parallel, or analogous, 
 are facts which resemble each other in some particulars, while in all 
 the rest they are very different. Optical instruments and the eye ; the 
 structure of the ear, and of caverns that yield an echo, are mentioned 
 as examples. Also the fins of fish ; the feet of quadrupeds ; and the 
 wings of birds. 
 
 It was the obvious analogy between the eye and the telescope, that 
 led to the formation of achromatic, or colourless glasses : the means 
 of which invention were pointed out by observing the different refrac- 
 tive powers of the humours or lenses of the eye, which prevent the 
 field of view from being coloured round its edges ; this was success- 
 fully imitated in the telescope. On the other hand, art has, by a simi- 
 lar instance of conformity, been able to point out what takes place in 
 nature : the experiment of the camera obscura led to the discovery of 
 the image on the retina of the eye, by suggesting the probability of 
 it. — Sir James Hall's experiments may be added ; showing that the 
 presence of calcareous spar, in trap rocks, and its absence in lava, 
 may arise from the degree of compression under which the fusion of 
 the former took place. Basalt and other trap rocks have a structure 
 so exactly similar to the lava of volcanoes, that it could scarcely be 
 doubted that their origin was equally derived from the agency of fire ; 
 hence the successful inquiry into the cause of the difference. — The 
 valves in the blood-vessels of the human body resembled those used 
 in hydraulic machines for preventing the return of the water ; hence 
 Harvey took the hint which led him to the discovery of the circulation of 
 the blood. 
 
 7. Next are mentioned what are termed Instantiee MonodioB, sin- 
 gular, or irregular facts ; such as are " out of course;" or are remark- 
 ably distinguished from all other instances of the class to which they 
 belong. Examples are, the sun and moon among heavenly bodies ; 
 the magnet among stones ; mercury among metals ; the elephant 
 among quadrupeds. To these of Lord Bacon may be added such in- 
 stances as the newly-discovered planets, which do not move in the 
 zodiac, and are of a much smaller size than the others ; also Saturn's 
 
18 ACCOUNT OF LORD BACON'S 
 
 ring", which is the only case we know of the kind. — Tiiose stones called 
 aerolites also, which have sometimes fallen from the heavens, may be 
 noted as presenting' a singular class of well-authenticated facts, not yet 
 satisfactorily explained. 
 
 8. Almost the same with the last, but mentioned as distinct by 
 Bacon, are the Instantice Deviantes, ox deviating instances ; " that is,*' 
 he remarks, " errors of nature ; things monstrous and uncommon, 
 where nature turns aside from her ordinary course. These errors of 
 nature differ from the singular instances, which are miracles in species ; 
 while these errors are miracles in individuals. And here the latent 
 process that leads to the deviation is to be inquired into.'' 
 
 Examples of these are, he adds, " all prodigious and monstrous births, 
 and productions of nature ; and of all things new, extraordinary, or 
 uncommon in the universe. And here such things are to be suspected 
 as the prodigies of Livy ; and those no less which are found in the 
 writers on natural magic, alchemy, etc., who are the professed admirers 
 and lovers of the fabulous." 
 
 9. Instanticd Limitaneddy or limiting instances, are also very near akin 
 to the singular. They are those which exhibit, as it were, a combina- 
 tion of two different kinds in the same individual : the bat and the 
 flying fish are examples ; also the mole ; and all combinations of dif- 
 ferent species ; among these none are more remarkable than the strange 
 quadrupeds lately discovered in New Holland, partaking of the 
 structure both of birds and beasts, and called, by naturalists, the Orni' 
 ihorhynchus Histrix and Paradoxus. 
 
 10. The next place is assigned to what are called the Instantice 
 Potestatis, instances of power; by which are meant the most remark- 
 able productions of human ingenuity ; or, as they are described, " the 
 most noble and perfect works, and such as may be called the master- 
 pieces in every art." Here are introduced the destructive inventions of 
 gunpowder and ordnance ; the manufacture of silk ; also that of paper, 
 on which he comments with great admiration, as very singular in its 
 texture among the productions of art. He notices also glass, porce- 
 lain, and enamel ; and adds that contrivances of " dexterity, delusion, 
 and diversion," are not wholly to be rejected from the enumeration, nor 
 even " things magical and superstitious ; charms ; the supposed sym- 
 pathy of spirits," etc. ; because, under the falsehood of these things, 
 the true operations of nature may oftentimes be concealed. 
 
 Of these instances, it would be endless to adduce the examples which 
 might be furnished by the modern improvements in art and science ; 
 the steam-engine alone might suffice, as connected with a world of 
 inventions, each of which would have appeared to our indefatigable 
 author a " masterpiece of art ;" witness only one of the applications of 
 it, namely, to the working of vessels on water. But in the line with 
 gunpowder, or rather in advantageous contrast to it, may well be 
 placed the safety-lamp, — aptly termed by Professor Playfair, " the most 
 valuable present that science ever made to art." ; 
 
 11. IjistaiiticB Co7nitat(is, atque Hostiles, or instances of^ accompani- 
 ment and separation, are those in which certain qualities, or properties, 
 always accompany each other, and the reverse. 
 
 Of the first kind avejlame and heat; that is, all flame possesses 
 heat, while in air, stones, metals, heat is merely accidental, or may 
 
NOVUM ORGANON SCIENTIARUlVKV,fc^j , otf 
 
 come and g-o. So also, exceptinf^ a very few particular case«, neat ^>^ 
 
 and expansion are an instance of this class ; heat bein^ accompanied 
 with an increase of the substance in which it resides. Body and 
 gravity may also be adduced ; for whatever is impenetrable and has 
 inertia, that is, everything of which we can certainly say, it is matter^ 
 possesses also weight, more or less. 
 
 The hostile instances, or those of separation, are opposed to the 
 former ; that is, the quality which is the subject of inquiry is always 
 absent from them. Thus, in the case of solidity : air, and elastic fluids 
 in general, cannot, so far as we know, assume a solid form ; they 
 are never exhibited in this state, although the discoveries of Mr. 
 Farraday have limited the number of permanently elastic fluids by con- 
 densing, through pressure, many which were before thought incon- 
 densable. So, in the case of transparency : this, in solid bodies, is 
 not found joined with malleability. 
 
 12. Instajitice SubjunctiveB, suhjimctive instances, or those which 
 may be subjoined to the last, as seeming nearest to approach the ex- 
 ceptions to them. "As for example," says Bacon, " the mildest and 
 softest flames, or such as burn the least ; and in the subject o^ incor- 
 ruptibility, of which we have no affirmative upon this earth ; yet gold 
 comes nearest to an incorruptible body.** 
 
 The other examples Bacon adduces seem rather to belong to the 
 Imtantice Ostensivee, unless he means to point them out as showing the 
 limits of nature in some of the accompanying instances : " of this 
 kind," he says, " are gold, in weight ; the whale in bulk of animal 
 body ; the hound in point of scent ; the explosion of gunpowder, in 
 sudden expansion." 
 
 13. The next instances are called Instanti(B Fcederis^ or instances ot 
 alliance, or union ; in which natures, properties, or qualities, sup- 
 posed to be dissimilar and heterogeneous, are, on investigation, found 
 to approach nearer to each other, if not to be the very same. These, 
 it is observed, are of great use in leading us, from resting in differences, 
 to genera, or general classes. Bacon adduces his favourite subject, heat. 
 He says that, in his time, the heat of the sun, that of animals, VL.nA that 
 ofjire, were supposed to be perfectly different in their very natures. He 
 rejects this supposition, and illustrates his meaning, with regard to these 
 instances, thus : — '* we have an instance of union in the case of grapes 
 ripening sooner than the grapes of the same vine out of doors, if one 
 of the branches be trained within side a room where a fire is kept ; so 
 that culinary fire will ripen grapes, which is supposed to be peculiar 
 to the sun's heat.** He also instances the reasoning faculty in man, 
 and the sagacity of brutes, as in some cases so nearly approaching to 
 the appearances of originating in one common nature, as to merit 
 particular inquiry. 
 
 14. More important than the former, are the Instantice Cruets, 
 crucial instances ; so called, afler Bacon's manner, from the crosses, or 
 way-posts used to point out roads, because they determine at once be- 
 tween two or more possible conclusions. 
 
 *' These instances," says the author, *' are of such a kind, that, when in 
 search of any nature (cause), the mind comes to an equilibrium, or is 
 suspended between two or more causes, these facts decide the question, 
 by rejecting all the causes but one." In these cases, each of the sup- 
 
 C2 
 
80 ACCOUNT OF LORD BACON'S 
 
 posed causes equally accounts for the appearances, and it is the part 
 of the inquirer to contrive some experiment, or discover some fact, 
 applicable to the given question, which can only be explained by one 
 of these causes ; by which all uncertainty vanishes, and the true cause 
 becomes known. It is very common to speak, both in science and 
 common arts, of tests and experimenta cnicis. These are sometimes 
 decisive both ways, and sometimes imperfect, or what may be called 
 unilateral. Thus, if a flame burns in any gas submitted to experiment, 
 we conclude generally that there is oxygen in the air ; but if it does 
 not burn, we cannot, therefore, conclude that there is none, for it may 
 be in too close combination with some other gas to support flame. 
 But a perfect test would be weighing any gas ; for if it be heavier than 
 common air, in the ratio of 1.435 to 1.2, it is oxygen ; if lighter or hea- 
 vier it is not. Thus, too, in discussing whether a given writing be inno- 
 cent or libellous, that is, maliciously composed, or composed with any 
 improper motive of any kind, the truth is a unilateral test ; for if the alle- 
 gations be false, there must be malice ; but there may be malice also, 
 though the matter stated be true. There would arise very great dis- 
 tinctness in argumentation, were we to adopt this convenient phrase of 
 a complete and an incomplete or unilateral test — many of the errors in 
 reasoning, especially upon moral subjects, arising from mistaking in- 
 complete for complete tests. 
 
 In order to illustrate this division of instances. Bacon institutes an 
 investigation into the causes of the tides ; but the discussion is not 
 founded on sufficient data ; is confused by being involved with a ques- 
 tion upon the Copernican doctrine of the rotatory motion of the earth; 
 and the whole terminates unsatisfactorily. To determine the true theory 
 of the tides was reserved for Newton himself; but he did it upon the 
 genuine principles of the Baconian philosophy. 
 
 The question whether rotation belongs to the earth, or to the hea- 
 vens, generally, is also introduced ; and here Bacon evidently inclines 
 to the old hypothesis, namely, that the heavens revolve round the earth 
 which remains at rest ; though he allows that, if any comet should be 
 observed not to obey the apparent law of the celestial motions from 
 east to west, this would be a crucial instance, showing that there can 
 exist in nature a motion contrary to the visible, diurnal motion, as it 
 appears to the sense. This question might have been determined by 
 observing what is called, in the language of astronomy, the motion of 
 the planets in latitude ; that is, their deviations from the plane of the 
 ecliptic, or the sun's apparent annual path among what are now caFled 
 the fixed stars. These deviations present a set of appearances not to 
 be reconciled with the Ptolemaic system, which makes the earth the 
 centre of the planetary motions, but are easily explained on the theory 
 of Copernicus, or that of the sun being at rest in the centre. This, 
 therefore, would have been an instance of the class before us, against 
 the Ptolemaic hypothesis, and strongly in favour of the Copernican 
 doctrine, though some other appearances of the heavenly bodies 
 might accord equally well with either of the two theories. — In his 
 remarks on the subject of gravity Bacon is more happy. He pro- 
 poses to solve the question whether or not bodies tend towards the 
 earth in consequence of an attractive power belonging to it, by ascer- 
 taining whether they fall with less velocity at greater distances from it ; 
 
NOVUM ORGANON SCIENTIARUM. 2t 
 
 and this is to be done by observing whether or not the pendulum 
 moves more slowly at great heights above the earth's surface. Both 
 these queries have long been satisfactorily answered. 
 
 Chemistry is rich in these Instantiee or Experimenta Crucis. The 
 great object in experimental philosophy is, to institute some experiment 
 which shall be similar to another in all respects but one, which, in 
 order to be perfectly satisfactory, the method of induction generally 
 requires. Hence, in those branches of science in which the objects of 
 inquiry are less completely under our command, and less capable of 
 being put to the test of varied experiments, it is difficult to distinguish 
 the causes ; and to assign to each its own proper effect. This is often 
 the case in intellectual and moral inquiries, in political economy ^ and 
 also in medicine. Chemistry, which is so completely a science of ex- 
 periment, furnishes notable instances of the present class. 
 
 The celebrated Lauomer performed an experiment of this kind, which 
 exploded the doctrine o^ phlogiston^ as held by former chemists. It is 
 well known that when metals are calcined in the fire, the weight of 
 the mass becomes greater after the process than before. The cause of 
 this fact was a subject of inquiry. It was supposed, from some cir- 
 cumstances, unnecessary to be detailed, that in the calcination of a 
 mass of tin, for instance, a certain substance is actually driven off by 
 the fire. To this substance, the name of phlogiston was given ; and as 
 the metal was heavier after its escape than before, it was supposed 
 itself to possess what they termed absolute levity. 
 
 Lavoisier instituted the following experiment : a quantity of tin was 
 put into a glass retort, and hermetically sealed ; the retort, with its 
 contents, was then carefiilly weighed. The proper degree of heat was 
 next applied, and the metal was calcined ; and now the weight was 
 found to be exactly the same as before the process : nothing therefore 
 could have escaped through the glass. When the retort had cooled, 
 it was opened, and the air rushed in, showing that a partial vacuum 
 had been produced. The retort and its contents were now weighed 
 a third time, and it had gained ten grains in weight : ten grains, there- 
 fore, of air had rushed into the retort on its being opened. The calx 
 was then taken out, and was found to weigh exactly ten grains more 
 than it did before calcination. The ten grains of air, therefore, which 
 had disappeared, and had been replaced by the same weight of air, on 
 the retort being opened, had combined with the metal during the pro- 
 cess. This most satisfactory experiment led to the knowledge of oxy- 
 gen gas, that species of air which combines with metals when they are 
 calcined, and the doctrine of phlogiston was exploded. 
 
 15. Next in order are Instantife Divortii, instances of separation; 
 *' which indicate the separation of those natures which for the most 
 part are found together. These differ from instantice cruciSy as deter- 
 mining nothing, but only admonishing us of the separation of one nature 
 from another." This seems a very general distinction, and not very 
 applicable to practice. It is followed by some curious remarks by 
 way of illustration. Bacon says that agency in general belongs to 
 some substance ; but doubts whether the attraction of a magnet does 
 not furnish an example of this agency, or virtue, being neither in the 
 magnet nor in the body attracted, but between them both. He supposes^ 
 therefore, that ** patural a gencyj or power," may subsist for a time 
 
22 ACCOUNT OF LORD BACON'S 
 
 without a substance; and this he would call an instance of separation. 
 He makes the same remark with regard to the attraction of the earth. 
 It is obvious that there is here a confusion in the use of terms ; and a 
 want of simplicity in forming the notioti of cause and effect. Agency is 
 first spoken of as a quality belonging to some agent; and afterwards as 
 a real existence, independent of an agent : this would be to introduce an 
 additional agent ; and to suppose, after all, that we know more of cause 
 and effect than we actually know, which is, that one class of events uni- 
 formly goes before another class, which may be called their correspond- 
 ing events ; or that a certain antecedent always precedes a certain 
 consequent. Bacon, however, singularly founds, on these supposed 
 instances of separation, a fanciful argument for immaterialism, by way 
 of corollary, which he introduces as of great importance ; alleging that 
 " if natural virtues and agencies may subsist without a body for some 
 time in space," this may lead us to a conception of the existence of an in- 
 corporeal substance : — its existence, however, rests on better evidence, 
 and strictly inductive, for we know the existence of matter only by its 
 eflfects on our mind through our senses, and we know the existence of 
 mind by oiu* consciousness, or by the reflexion of the mind itself on its 
 own operations. We have, therefore, the same kind of evidence, in a 
 high degree, for the existence of mind as of body. 
 
 II. Instances tending to assist the Se?ises, 
 
 The above general name is given by Lord Bacon to the five orders 
 of instances which follow. They are called, in his usual technical style, 
 Instantice Lampadis, instances of the lamp, because they propose, chiefly, 
 to correct or inform the senses ; the accurate impressions and informa- 
 tions of which, it is evident, are of the utmost importance in philoso- 
 phical inquiries. 
 
 16. Of these five, the^rsi^ are the Instantice Januce, instances of the 
 portaly assisting the immediate action of the senses, and more particu- 
 larly the sight. Of this kind are optical instruments in general, and 
 speaking and hearing trumpets. Bacon mentions the telescope as the 
 invention of Galileo, and as bringing into view the innumerable stars 
 of the milky way, the satellites of Jupiter, the unequal surface of the 
 moon, and the spots in the sun ; but, as he had not the opportunity of 
 verifying these discoveries for himself, the admiration he expresses for 
 them is tempered with some doubt as to their reality. He also notices 
 the microscope, and instruments for ^measuring distances, as examples. 
 
 17. The second of this class are the Instantice Citaiifes, summoning 
 instances ; so called because they cite things, as it were, to the bar of 
 the senses, enabling us to perceive things which were before imper- 
 ceptible. 
 
 Among the causes why things escape the senses, are enumerated, dis- 
 tance of place ; the interposition of some other body ; the unfitness of 
 the object to impress the senses ; the shortness of the time during 
 which, in some cases, the object may act on the senses ; and the 
 object, as it were, sometimes overpowering the senses. Whatever re- 
 medies these causes are instances in point. Bacon notices the pulse, 
 as bringing to light conditions of the human frame, not cognizable by 
 other means. He also remarks that very swift motion requires to be 
 well- measured, in order to compensate for its escaping the senses ; 
 
NOVUM ORGANON SCIENTIARUM. m 
 
 this is now done with regard to sounds ; and by means of the eclipses 
 of Jupiter's moons, and the aberration of the fixed stars, the velocity 
 of light itself is measured. 
 
 Other examples may be adduced from modern science : as the baro- 
 metcfy and the air-pump^ which show the weight and elasticity of air ; 
 and the experiments in pneumatics, in g-eneral, and in electricity ahd 
 galvanism, have rendered certain the existence of things, which had 
 before entirely escaped the senses, as the gases, or elastic fluids. To 
 the same head may also be reduced the late wonderful discovery of a 
 moving magnetic fluid, or an action circular and perpendicular to the 
 electrical current, yet connected with it. 
 
 18. Thirdly, follow the Instantim VicB^ instances of the road. 
 " These," says Bacon, " we also term jointed instances, as indicating 
 the operations of nature gradually continued ; and these rather escape 
 the observation than the senses of men." There is a propensity in 
 men, he remarks, to be contented with viewing nature only by " fits 
 and starts," at intervals, and when her processes are finished, while 
 they neglect to watch her gradual method of working. This is the 
 result of indolence. Nature's operations, however, should be care- 
 fully observed, while processes are going on, as we stand by and see 
 the operative manufacturer carry on his work. Examples of these in- 
 stances are the vegetation of plants ; the hatching of eggs, throughout 
 all their stages ; such processes as putrefaction ; and in unorganized 
 bodies, distillation. These instances are somewhat similar to the 
 instantice migrantes. 
 
 19. The fourth are the InstantitB Supplemeriti, instances of substi* 
 iutioTiy '• or those to which we have recourse," says our author, '* by 
 way of refuge, when the proper instances cannot be had." He names 
 the magnet, which attracts iron through various substances which may 
 be interposed ; and adds, '* perhaps some medium may be found to 
 deaden this virtue more than any other medium ; such an instance of 
 substitution would be in the way of degree, or approximation ;" that 
 is, it would approach toward destroying the magnetic virtue. Per- 
 haps iron has this quality in a higher degree than any other substance. 
 
 20. The fifth, and the last enumerated, of this class, are the In- 
 stanticB Persecantes, sive Vellicantes, compulsory instances ; which 
 are thus explained. '* We call them so because they twitch the un- 
 derstanding (vellicant) ; and because they cut through nature (per- 
 secant). They are those facts which rouse the mind to a perception 
 of the admirable and exquisite subtilty of nature ; so as that it may 
 be awakened and stimulated to due attention, observation, and re- 
 search." Bacon means, in short, those facts, which force our attention 
 to things which are apt, from their minuteness and subtilty, to escape 
 our observation. His remarks on these instances show how alive he 
 was to what is curious and admirable in the laws of nature ; and exliibit 
 the genuine spirit of a philosophic observer. 
 
 Some of his examples are the following : a drop of ink in a pen, 
 which is capable of so great a number of divisions into letters, in 
 writing; the amazing length to which a wire may be drawn; the 
 exquisite structure of animalcule ; the tincture which a little colour 
 gives to a quantity of water ; the small quantity of Jttma/L> thnt "^^ 
 wUl perfume a room, without kyskigarty of its weight ; the ^eat 
 
24 ACCOUNT OF LORD BACON'S 
 
 volume of smoke which is extricated from some substances, as incense ; 
 the 7iotes in music, which are so accurately conveyed through air, 
 wood, and other mediums, and reflected so swiftly and yet so distinctly 
 in echoes ; light and colour passing so rapidly through masses of solid 
 or fluid matter, as through glass, or water ; and at the same time 
 conveying to the eye a great and exquisite variety of images, though 
 the light suffers refraction and reflection ; the loadstone attracting iron 
 through solid bodies. To these are added the multitude of natural 
 operations that are going on in the universe at the same time, without 
 interposing with each other ; as, for instance, visible objects are seen 
 through the air ; numerous percussions and articulate sounds are 
 acting on it ; immerous odours, as of flowers, are passing through it ; 
 also cold, heat, and the magnetic attraction : all these actions are con- 
 tinually going on, and innumerable more without obstructing each other. 
 Our laborious author subjoins, what he calls limiting instances to 
 this class. Thus, though one action or operation of nature does not 
 disturb another of a different kind, yet this is not exactly the case with 
 regard to actions of the same kind. The sound of a flute, and the 
 smell of a rose, may both pass through the air, and make impressions 
 on the senses at the same time ; but the report of a cannon drowns 
 the voice : the light of the glow-worm, if emitted in the sun-beams, is 
 not visible ; and a stronger odour overpowers a weaker. 
 
 III. Instances leading to Practice. 
 
 This division, to which Lord Bacon gives the general name of Iii- 
 stantitB PracticcB, practical instances, contains those which are of 
 principal use in practice ; or in the actual effort to raise the improve- 
 ment of art on the foundation of science, . and thus to reduce our 
 knowledge to some valuable purposes. 
 
 The instances of principal use in practice he regards as of two kinds, 
 applicable to the two ways in which he considers that knowledge may 
 fail of leading to actual results. This failure may be occasioned by 
 our knowledge not being sufficiently accurate and precise, though 
 sound as far as it goes ; and this is often the case in natural philo- 
 sophy, from objects not being exactly measvired and estimated. Or 
 the practical result that is desired may fail, through the process or 
 experiment not being sufficiently simplified, but, on the contrary, en- 
 cumbered and confused with operations that do not necessarily belong 
 to it. Hence the "practical instances" are divided into twO classes, 
 of which the^rs^ are the Instanliee Mensuree, instances oi admeasure- 
 ment; of which he makes four kinds; and in which some estimate of 
 the qualities and actions of bodies is to be formed, in order to remedy 
 the first of the two above-named sources of failure ; namely, the want 
 of precision in our knowledge ; and to aid in converting knowledge 
 into power. 
 
 (1.) InstanticB Mensurce, Instances of Admeasurement. 
 
 21. T\\Q first of these are the Instantim Radii, or instances of fhe 
 measuring-red ; that is, cases in which things are to be measured in 
 respect of their relation to space. " For," says Bacon, " (he forces 
 and motions of things operate within certain spaces that are not inde- 
 finite and casual, but determinate and finite ; and the due observance 
 
NOVUM ORGANON SCIENTIARUM. 25 
 
 of these spaces in every subject of inquiry is of great importance to 
 practice." 
 
 He remarks, for example, that many qualities and properties act 
 only by contact. In the percussion of bodies, motion is communicated 
 by the impelling body touching the impelled ; in the senses of taste 
 and touch also the effect is produced by contact ; so in external reme- 
 dies used in surgery. Some agencies act at small distances^ as in the 
 case of amber, and the magnet, which attract certain substances within 
 a certain sphere. Other agencies operate at great distances, as heat, 
 odours, sounds, and especially light, the effects of all which, on the 
 senses, are perceived when the sources of them are remote from us. 
 The attraction of the moon on the sea is added, which Bacon thought 
 a probable cause of the tides, tliough he does not seem to have consi- 
 dered his inquiry into the subject to have been sufficient to enable 
 him to decide the question. Now all these agencies, it is argued, 
 whether they take place at smaller or larger distances, are bounded 
 aiid finite ; and it is an object of science, to ascertain their maxima, 
 or extreme limits ; and how far their effects depend on the bulk and 
 quantity of matter in the bodies of which they are the properties ; on 
 the peculiar nature of the properties or qualities themselves ; or on the 
 fitness or unfitness of the mediums through which the agencies take 
 place. Cases also are noticed in which things act only beyond given 
 distances, and never by contact ; as in vision, where the focus must be 
 attended to. These examples relate to progressive motions : the expan- 
 sion and contraction of bodies were also to be regarded as kinds of 
 motion, the laws and limits of which ought to be subjected to admea- 
 surement. 
 
 The Tnstantice Radii may, it is evident, be illustrated further, by nu- 
 merous instruments now used in experiments in natural philosophy ; 
 and the greater part of which were unknown to our author. The ther- 
 mometer, indeed, was extant in his time, as a new invention, and fur-» 
 nished him with one source of his experiments on heat, as we have 
 seen in the instantice ostensivm : this instrument has been the principal 
 means of furnishing us with what we know of the agency of heat, 
 even up to the present time. The hygrometer is another instance : 
 this instrument, which has been greatly improved by Professor Leslie, 
 enables us to measure the quantity of moisture contained in the air. 
 To these may be added all our instruments for measuring lines and 
 angles, or mathemiatical and astronomical instruments generally : 
 also those instruments which measure weight or force ; as the com- 
 mon scales, the hydrostatic balance, and the barometer. 
 
 No part of Bacon's work is more calculated than this to show the com- 
 prehensive view he took of the agencies of nature, even when physical 
 science was as yet in its first dawn. The instances in which bodies 
 act on each other at a distance led him to form some confused idea of 
 that universal principle, gravitation, which Newton afterwards so 
 triumphantly demonstrated and applied. He suggests that there may 
 be some kind of *' magnetic virtue which operates by consent, between 
 the globe of the earth and heavy bodies ; or between the globe of the 
 moon and the waters of the sea ; or between the starry heavens and 
 the planets, by which they may be drawn to their apogees," or greatest 
 distances from the earth. 
 
?6 ACCOUNT OF LORD BACON'S 
 
 These Instantiae Radii, which point out cases of quantities to be mea- 
 sured, are introduced by Bacon merely as useful in practice : they 
 might, at the same time, have been considered as highly important, in 
 what he terms the discovery of forms, or the inquiry into the natures, 
 essences, or causes of the objects of investigation, so far forth as 
 they may be approached. Newton found that gravity not only makes 
 bodies fall to the earth, but also retains the moon in her orbit: now 
 this could never have been shown without the previous determination 
 of several quantities, as the law of accelerated velocity in falling bodies ; 
 the length of the earth! s radius or the distance from its centre to its 
 circumference ; the moons distance from the earth, and the velocity 
 with which she revolves round it in her orbit. A comparison of these 
 elements, viewed in connection with the laws of motion, could alone 
 have proved that it is the same kind of force which brings a stone to 
 the ground, and keeps the moon in her proper course. In this case, 
 therefore, as in many others, the instances in which geometrical mea- 
 sures are assigned and compared, the theory of physics has been 
 eminently advanced. 
 
 22. The second class of the instances of measure are termed In- 
 sianticE Curriculi, instances of the course, in which the qualities and 
 actions of bodies are measured by time. Hence Bacon also calls them 
 instantice ad aquam, instances of the water-glass ; alluding to the 
 hour-glasses of the ancients, in which they employed water instead of 
 sand. " For," says he, " every movement or action of nature is per- 
 formed in some portion of time ; one indeed more swiftly ; another 
 more slowly ; but, all in a certain number of moments, adapted to na- 
 ture. Even those actions which seem to take place in the twinkling 
 of an eye, as we say, are yet different in time, as to more or less." 
 
 Familiar examples of this class are all the more obvious movements 
 of nature, as seen in the revolutions of planetary bodies ; the ebb and 
 flow of the sea ; the fall of bodies to the earth ; and all animal and 
 mechanical motions. Also the velocity of sound, as witnessed in the 
 firing of guns, and in thunder ; and of light, as exemplified by calcu- 
 lation of the times of the eclipses of satellites, and even more remark- 
 ably in the aberration as discovered by Bradley. The expansions and 
 compressions of bodies also, and explosions, as in gunpowder, must have, 
 in each case, their own proper times, if we could accurately measure 
 them. — In many cases nature is, as it were, prevented from producing 
 her effects, for want of due time for her operations ; the hand may be 
 rapidly passed through flame without being burned ; small vessels of 
 water may be swung round in such a manner, vertically, as not to be 
 spilled ; and a ball fired across the axis of vision is not seen, because 
 the motion is too rapid for the eye to be impressed by it. 
 
 One passage, which occurs under this head, is too remarkable to 
 be omitted, as presenting an anticipation of the very examples we have 
 just adduced, though commented on afterwards by the author in a doubt- 
 ful manner. " Some cases have produced in me a suspicion altogether 
 surprising; namely, whether the face of the serene and starry heavens 
 be seen at the very time it exists, or not till some time later ; and 
 whether there be not, with regard to the light of the heavenly bodies, 
 a true time and an apparent time, as well as a true place and an appa- 
 rent place, according to the astronomer, on account of parallax ; so. 
 
NOVUM ORGANON SCIENTIARUM. m 
 
 incredible does it seem that the rays of the celestial bodies can in- 
 stantaneously pass to us, through such an immense space of miles, 
 and not require even some considerable portion of time." 
 
 23. Thirdly, of the same class are the Instantly Quanti, instances 
 o^ quantity, (literally, of how much.) These are cases in which the 
 virtues or properties and effects of things are measured by the quan- 
 tity of matter they contain. Examples adduced are that large col- 
 lections of water do not easily become stagnant, like small ones; 
 wines are matured and improved by being bottled otf in small quan- 
 tities ; a magnet attracts more iron than any part of it when separated, 
 though masses of all sizes as well as densities are equally attracted to 
 the earth ; sharp and angular points penetrate and divide bodies 
 the most easily. The effects of quantity, therefore, Bacon observes, 
 are to be carefully estimated. The importance of this to practice is 
 obvious, if we name only chemistry and medicine. 
 
 28. The last of the four instances of measure are the InstantifB LuctcB ; 
 instances of resistance ; " which," says the author, " we also call pre- 
 razYzV/g- instances ; that is, such as show the subjection of vir^wes to one 
 another ; or which of them is the stronger and prevails, and which 
 the weaker and submits ; for the motions and struggles of bodies are 
 no less compounded, recompounded, and complicate than bodies 
 themselves.'*. 
 
 In order to illustrate these instantice luctcp. Bacon introduces no 
 less than nineteen kinds o^ motion (motus) or resistances, all differing, 
 as he considers, from each other, and in their effects. He here, how- 
 ever, employs the word motus in a more general and less proper 
 sense, than merely as signifying actual change of place ; for in some 
 of the cases nothing more is meant by it than certain tendencies in matter 
 to resist certain external forces ; thus his Motus antitypicB he defines to 
 be the resistance or repugnance which all bodies discover to the anni- 
 hilation of their minute parts — it is, in short, the indestructibility of 
 matter; a property which, so far as we are acquainted with nature, 
 seems to be universal. Science may resolve matter into its com- 
 ponent parts, or go far at least towards doing so ; its form may be 
 from the solid to the fluid, or the aeriform state ; and it may combine into 
 various ways with other matter ; as may be seen in almost every che- 
 mical process, and in the dissolution of animal bodies after death : 
 but only the Power that created matter can reduce it to nothing. To 
 a careless observer, the fallen leaves of vegetables, which rot upon the 
 ground, would appear to be lost for ever ; but BerthoUet has shown, by 
 experiment, that whenever the soil becomes charged with such matter, 
 the oxygen of the atmosphere combines with it, and converts it into 
 carbonic acid gas. The consequence is, that this same carbon is absorbed 
 by other vegetables, which it clothes with new foliage ; these, in their 
 turn, decay, and thus resolution and renovation go on to the end of 
 time. In short, in the whole circle of the material world, we never 
 witness a single instance of destruction or annihilation. 
 
 Bacon even enumerates, among these kinds of motion (motus), what 
 is now called the inertia or inactivity of matter ; a property by which 
 it resists any change endeavoured to be made in its state, either of rest 
 or motion ; and which property is the foundation of the three laws of 
 motion, as delivered by Newton in his Frincipia, Bacon singularly 
 
^ ACCOUNT OF LORD BACON'S 
 
 calls it Motus deaibitus, aut motiis exhorreniice motus, the motion (ten- 
 dency) of repose^ or of avoiding motion. Amon^ the kinds of motion, 
 or tendency, mentioned as belonging to the Tnstantice LucteE, are also 
 the following : — 
 
 Motus libertatis, the motion of liberty ; or, as our author means, 
 elasticity ; that property of bodies by which they restore themselves to 
 their original figure, after compression ; as is seen in the springs of 
 watches ; air in air-guns ; Indian-rubber, etc. 
 
 Motus hyles, from a Greek word signifying matter, is the capacity 
 of expansion ; or the tendency of matter, under certain circumstances, 
 to enlarge its bulk: the effect of heat^ in expanding bodies; and gun- 
 powder in explosions, are named as familiar examples. 
 
 Motus continuationis, or the attraction of cohesion, by which the 
 particles of the same mass are kept together, as forming its component 
 parts. The modern experiments on the strength of different sub- 
 stances, by finding what weights are necessary in order to tear them 
 asunder, are founded on this property. These experiments have been 
 made with bars of wood, metals, glass, etc., of given dimensions, and 
 it has been found that the cohesive strength of a body is in the joint 
 proportion of its elasticity, and toughness, and the area of its section. 
 Newton conjectured cohesion in bodies to be that which constitutes 
 them of different forms and properties. 
 
 Motus indigenticB, the motion of preference ; or the tendency which 
 bodies have to unite with some bodies rather than with others. Thus 
 the surface of mercury in a glass bottle appears convex, but in a me- 
 tallic vessel, it appears concave, in consequence of its tendency to 
 adhere to the sides of the vessel, as it has a greater attraction for 
 metal than for glass. Chemical attraction, or. affinity, also furnishes 
 innumerable examples. Bacon seems to confound this elective attrac- 
 tion with capillary attraction ; from which it differs as much as it 
 does from the attraction of cohesion, or aggregate affinity. 
 
 Motets congregationis majoris, the motion o^ greater aggregation, or, 
 if we may distinguish it from cohesion, in modern language, the at- 
 traction of aggregation, " is that," says Bacon, " by which bodies are 
 carried to the masses of their own natures." This may be illustrated, 
 if we carefully observe two small globules of mercury moved towards 
 each other along a smooth surface : their mutual attraction will be evi- 
 dent immediately before they unite into one globule ; or, if two pieces 
 of cork be floated in a basin of water, not nearer to its edge than to 
 each ot?ier, they will visibly approach, and at last come into contact. 
 
 Motus fugcB, or the motion of avoidance, though very crudely and 
 almost ludicrously illustrated by Bacon, has its foundation in fact, and is 
 that property of matter which is now called repulsion. Newton found 
 that a convex lens, when put upon aflat glass, remained at the distance of 
 the -x^7^^ P^^*' ^^ ^" ^^^^ ' ^"^ ^^^^ ^ "^^^y considerable force was 
 requisite to diminish this distance. Again, though steel is so much 
 heavier than its bulk of water, yet if a dry needle be placed carefully 
 upon the surface of a basin of water, it will float ; the repulsion of the 
 water preventing its sinking. Also the particles of all gases seem to repel 
 ^ach other, as appears from their elasticity. According to Boscovich, 
 the atoms of which bodies are composed are capable of acting on each 
 other with a force, which differs in intensity, and in kind, according to 
 
NOVUM ORGANON SCIENTIARUM. 25 
 
 the distance. At sensible distances the force is attractive, and dimi- 
 nishes inversely as the squares of the distance. At the smallest dis- 
 tances the force is repulsive ; it increases as the distance diminishes ; , 
 and at last becomes infinite or insuperable. Hence if Boscovich's 
 theory be correct, absolute contact, however paradoxical this may 
 appear, is impossible. Facts, at all events, prove, in many cases, a 
 repulsive power, whatever be its precise laws ; and to these facts may 
 be added, though somewhat differing* from the former examples, the 
 repulsion of electrified pith balls ; also of the similar poles of two 
 magnets. In the latter case, all the force of a strong man has proved 
 insufficient to make the two north poles touch each other. 
 
 Motus assimilationis is the tendency of certain bodies " to convert 
 other bodies related to them," says Bacon, " into their own substance 
 and nature." He instances j^65?7ie, which multiplies itself by decompos- 
 ing certain substauces ; also animals, which seem to have a power of 
 assimilating their food into the nature of their own bodies. However 
 vague the notion of assimilation may be, Bacon's distinction here is 
 sufficiently obvious. 
 
 To the above is subjoined Motus excitationis, or a tendency to excite 
 and diffuse a quality. Thus heat diffuses itself when other bodies are 
 heated ; and the magnet gives to iron a new property without 
 losing its own power. The distinction of this from the former 7notion, 
 or property, lies in the circumstance of there being here no transfor- 
 mation of substances, but only a diffusion or multiplication of some 
 virtue, or quality. 
 
 Motus impression} s, or the ?notion of impression, occurs where there 
 seems to be a continual communication of impulses from the body 
 which is the original source of it: the rays of light are an example, 
 because darkness is the effect of the removal of a body from which 
 they flow ; also sounds, which cease if the vibrations of the sonorous 
 body are suddenly stopped. 
 
 Motus pertransitionis, or motion of passage, has respect to the effect 
 which the medium through which agencies are carried on, may have 
 on promoting or hindering their power: thus heat is differently co«- 
 ducted by different bodies, or passes through them with , various 
 degrees of velocity ; metals conduct it rapidly; earthy substances less 
 so ; and wood still more slowly. A ray of light, in passing from a 
 rarer into a denser medium, as from air into water, becomes refracted^ 
 or is turned out of its conrse, and is bent towards the perpendicular. 
 In an exhausted receiver, a bell can scarcely be heard to sound through 
 the attenuation of the medium: and the experiments of Hauksbee 
 and of Dr. Priestley show that, when the air is condensed, the sound is 
 louder in proportion to the condensation ; that is, in proportion to the 
 quantity of air crowded in, and which operates as the medium of the 
 sound, or the substance on which the vibration is first made, to be 
 communicated through the atmosphere to our ear. 
 
 Motus rotationis spontaneus, the motion of spontaneous rotation, as 
 seen in nature, is also mentioned ; to which, says Bacon, belong the 
 following considerations : the centre ; the poles, or axis ; the circum- 
 ference ; the velocity ; the order, as from east to west, or west to 
 east ; the excentricity, if any, or deviation from circular motion ; 
 the declination, or the approach to, or recession from the poles ; and 
 
SH ACCOUNT OF LORD BACON'S 
 
 the variation of the poles themselves, if moveable, or, in modern lan- 
 guage, lihration. 
 
 The other species of motus introduced by Bacon, imder the InstanticB 
 LitctcB, are somewhat more obscure and ill-defined. Motus nexus, or 
 the motion of connection, seems to apply to those cases in which a 
 vacuum is produced, and a fluid rises in consequence of the outward 
 pressure being* taken off, as in the common pumps and the barometer. 
 Motus minoris congregationis, or the motion of lesser aggregation, is 
 illustrated by the cream of milk floating on the surface, which Bacon 
 attributes more to the attraction which homogeneous particles have 
 for each other, than to the specific gravity of the cream being less than 
 that of the milk. — Motus magneticus, or magnetical motion, is apphed 
 to the attraction of the heavenly bodies, from an idea, probably, that it 
 might be a species of magnetism. — Motus conjigurationis, aut situs, 
 motion of configuration, or situation, may apply to the shooting of 
 crystals into their own peculiar forms ; or to the fixed tendencies of 
 bodies to preserve the disposition of their internal parts, as their 
 threads and fibres, and their cellular or solid structures. Bacon 
 singularly refers hither the inquiry into the direction of the celestial 
 motions ; also the polarity of the magnetic needle. — Motus politicus, 
 or the motion oi government, is excessively fanciful and obscure : it 
 is said to be the ruling power, or property in any body, controlling 
 all the rest, and it ^'■principally reigns in the spirits of animals." 
 We should scarcely suspect Bacon of materialism, yet he seems to have 
 been extremely disposed to introduce mechanical causes in order to 
 account for effects which they are entirely insufficient to explain. 
 Motus trepidationis, or the motion of trepidation, he illustrates by the 
 hearts and pulses of animated beings. — This long dissertation on ino- 
 tions, whatever crudities and fancies it may contain, is very curious and 
 interesting, and we have thought it worth while to analyse it briefly, 
 as showing on what properties in nature our discriminating author 
 founded his distinction of Instantim Luctce. — This class of facts might 
 be further illustrated, were it necessary, by the instruments used in 
 England, by Cavendish, and in France by Coulomb, for experiments 
 on torsion ; a term employed by the latter philosopher to denote the 
 effort made by a thread which has been twisted to untwist itself. 
 These instruments, by means of the force of torsion, measure very 
 smalt, and almost insensible actions. 
 
 The three remaining practical instances are termed InstantifB Pro- 
 pitia;, or instances propitious to practice, in the way of immediately 
 directing, simplifying, and facilitating it. 
 
 (2.) TnstaniicB Propitice, Instances facilitating Practice. 
 
 25. Of these, the first are the Instantice innuentcs, intimating or 
 directing instances ; that is, those which tend to free practice from 
 useless pursuits, and direct it chiefly to such as are beneficial and 
 advantageous to mankind ; such facts in nature and in experimental 
 science as are worthy of being attended to and pursued, because they 
 open direct prospects of usefulness and improvement, as it respects 
 the arts and conveniences of life. 
 
 26. The second of this order, Bacon terms Instantice Polychresfce ; 
 or things that are generally useful, as applicable to a great variety of 
 
NOVUM ORGANON SCIENTIARUM. 31 
 
 investigations, by shortening and facilitating the process. To this head 
 belong' the method of conducting experiments, and the instruments 
 and apparatus to be employed in them, which he proposed to treat 
 particularly in a subsequent part of his work. He here notices a 
 few general considerations which are essential to practice in a great 
 variety of cases. 
 
 In experiments, such things are carefully to be excluded as 
 might disturb, or modify the given process ; as the common «zV, 
 where this can be supposed to have that effect ; for the same end, 
 the matter, strength and thickness of the vessels in which certain pro- 
 cesses are carried on is to be attended to ; also the manner of closi?ig 
 them where they are to be closed, as by luting, or hermetically sealing, 
 for instance ; the rays of the su?i too must often be excluded. The effects 
 of compression, condensation, agitation, extension, rarefaction, etc., are 
 to be observed in many chemical and other processes. And here 
 Bacon's conjecture must not be omitted, that it was possible *' air 
 might be converted into water by condensation." M. Biot, if we mis- 
 take not, first proved this conception of our great philosopher to be 
 true, and succeeded in forming water from hydrogen and oxygen, by 
 compression only, independently of the electric spark. To these con- 
 siderations are to be added that of the agency of heat and cold ; and 
 the modification these may introduce into certain experiments ; also 
 the effect produced by the medium through which the heat may be 
 communicated to any substances, by the structure of furnaces, and by 
 the manner in which the fire may be applied. Again, regard is io be 
 had to the effect which may be produced by a process being lefl to go 
 on undisturbed, and by itself, for a longer or shorter time. The figure, 
 position, and situation of the vessels that are employed, are to be con- 
 - sidered. The syTnpathies and antipathies of bodies, as Bacon terms 
 them, are to be noticed where these may have an influence ; of these, 
 chemical affinities and elective attractions are obvious instances. 
 Lastly, advantage is to be taken of what is known with respect to all 
 the above particulars, in order, by their means, to modify, combine, 
 and vary experiments. 
 
 27. The third of the instances ''propitious'* to practice, and the last 
 of the ''prerogative" instances, are named InstanticB MagicfB, magical 
 instances ; and Bacon understands by this term those facts in which 
 great and wonderful effects are produced by apparently trifling causes. 
 Nature, he observes, " is herself sparing in these instances ;'* but in 
 harmony with the very sanguine, and we fear illusory expectations 
 which we have seen he entertained, he adds, " what she may do, 
 when further searched and entered into, and after the discovery of 
 formSy latent processes, and concealed structures, will appear to poste- 
 rity." He notices as magical or marvellous instances, the power of 
 ^re to multiply itself; the effect of poisons on the human frame ; the 
 communication and ap^pareni multiplication of motion in a set of wheels, 
 each impelling the other ; the loadstone animating a number of needles 
 without loss of its own magnetic power; the origination of motion in 
 explosions of gunpowder, and also of gas in mines. 
 
 Tinctured somewhat, perhaps, with the wild notions of alchemy 
 then prevaihng. Bacon seems to augur from such facts as the above, 
 that wonderful things may he accomplished by human power, in 
 
32 ACCOUNT OF LORD BACON'S 
 
 *' changing bodies in their smallest parts, and in all kinds of trans- 
 formations." He adds, however, " of these we have hitherto no certain 
 indications. And as in things solid, true, and useful, we aspire to the 
 hig-hest perfection ; so we perpetually despise, and to the utmost of 
 our power discard and reject such as are vain and empty." — Here 
 ends the doctrine of " Instances*^ and all that was finished of the 
 Novum Organon by its illustrious author. 
 
 It was Lord Bacon's design, after treating of the instances, of which 
 we have now given the analysis, to proceed to the helps of induction ; 
 the rectification of induction ; the method of varying inquiries ; the 
 prerogative natures for inquiry ; the limits of inquiry, in a list of all 
 the natures in the universe ; the reduction of inquiries to practice, or 
 to the use of mankind ; the preliminaries to inquiry ; and the scale 
 of axioms, or principles. 
 
 These eight last topics were deferred, probably, till the author had 
 found time to accumulate more materials, and they were never dis- 
 cussed ; so that his work was left in an unfinished state. Several of 
 the particulars, however, here enumerated are not very distinct from 
 some of the heads already treated of, and seem to lead us back over 
 the same ground; whence we may conclude thatBacon was fully aware 
 that, in the existing state of the knowledge of nature and fact, in his 
 time, his system of philosophizing could only be regarded as a sort of 
 outline, or sketch of scientific inquiry, and needed to be worked over 
 and over again, by way of continual approximation to truth. 
 
 What more he had to deliver on these particulars we shall not now 
 conjecture ; but it may be remarked, that by prerogative natures for 
 inquiry, he seems to have intended those causes in nature, or those 
 agencies, which present themselves as of the most obvious and prime 
 importance, in consequence of their involving, frequently, other in- 
 quiries : thus temperature is so important a consideration in various 
 experiments, especially in chemistry, that heat may be considered 
 as an example belonging to the class of what are here technically 
 termed prerogative natures. The project of making an inventory 
 {synopsis) of all the natures in the universe, appears to have arisen out 
 of our author's very sanguine ideas, as before noticed, relative to the 
 discovery of forms. If by natures he here means simple substances, or 
 those which are incapable of being decomposed by art, it is obvious 
 that such substances may decrease in number with the progress of 
 science. Previously to Sir Humphry Davy's distinguished researches in 
 chemistry, the simple bodies were supposed to be about fifty in num- 
 ber ; the facts he has brought to light, however, make it difficult to 
 say what substances, regarded as simple, may not be capable of 
 analysis : witness this philosopher's discovery of the metallic bases 
 of the fixed alkalis ; his decomposition of most of the earths ; and his 
 experiments on sulphur and phosphorus : all these substances were 
 previously thought to be strictly simple. 
 
 Though no direct attempt, so far as we are aware, has been made 
 to supply the parts of the Novum Organon that are wanting ; nor any 
 complete logical system founded on the same basis of induction has 
 been published, which might serve as a perfect directory in philoso- 
 phical investigations ; yet there have not been wanting some efforts of 
 a similar kind, towards promoting the advancement of the sciences. 
 
NOVUM ORGANON SCIENTIARUM. 33 
 
 Descartes wrote a treatise expressly DeMethodo, or the Method of 
 Science, with the view of remedying the defects of the ancient plan of 
 philosophizing", of which he seems to have been convinced. But though 
 he flourished nearly half a century later than Bacon, and was acquainted 
 with his writings, he pursued a course quite the contrary to that pointed 
 out in the Novum Organon ; which is the more singular, because, in one 
 of his letters, he seems to acknowledge that if the experimental method 
 of philosophizing were the true one, nothing could be superior to Bacon's 
 rules. Descartes was anxious for a reform in the sciences ; and, 
 skilled as he was in mathematics, he was able by his genius to ex- 
 tend the limits of geometry as far beyond the place where he found 
 them as Newton did after him ; for he it was, principally, who developed 
 the application of algebra to geometry, on which all modern mathe- 
 matics rest; yet he was so misled by the humour of framing hypo- 
 theses, that his philosophical system is little more than an ingenious 
 romance, and has long ceased even to be read as a matter of curiosity. 
 In physical science, he seems never to have proposed to himself any 
 thing like Bacon's plan of a strict induction; for though he did not reject 
 experiment altogether from his philosophy, he employed it in the most 
 loose and inefficient manner possible. He tells us that he was always 
 able to discover effects by reasoning : *' we employ experiment," he says, 
 " not as a reason by which any thing is proved, for we wish to deduce 
 effects from' their causes, and not inversely, causes from their effects. 
 We appeal to experience only, that out of innumerable effects which 
 may be produced from the same cause, we may direct our attention to 
 one rather than another." How different this from the tone of the very 
 first sentence of the Novum Organon — Man, the servant and in- 
 terpreter OF nature, understands and reduces to practice just 
 so much as he has actually experienced of nature's laws; more 
 he can neither know nor achieve. 
 
 It is evident that such a mode of philosophizing as this was pre- 
 cisely the reverse of Bacon's. Instead of proceeding upwards from 
 effects to causes, or, as Bacon would term it, raising axioms from par- 
 ticular instances, Descartes proceeded directly in the contrary order, 
 from causes to effects, or from generals to particulars ; and this without 
 having previously established his general conclusions in a scientific 
 manner, or received sufficient evidence that they could be properly 
 applied to the given particular cases. In this way he proposed to 
 explain all the phenomena of the universe a priori^ that is, by deducing 
 them from his general principles by abstract reasoning ; and instead 
 of the patient caution which generally distinguished Bacon's vast 
 analogical powers, Descartes, while he sets out with a scepticism so 
 universal as even to make him not admit his own existence till he has 
 attempted to prove it, at the same time exhibits, in his theories, the 
 most unphilosophical credulity and rashness. Hence, though he cer- 
 tainly has the merit of great original genius in pure mathematics, his phy- 
 sical speculations produced the hypothesis of a j!7Zewwwi and vortices ; or 
 that the planetary bodies are whirled round by a subtile matter of which 
 the universe is full ; an hypothesis which, it scarcely needs be re- 
 marked, was equally applicable to all the systems of astronomy, whether 
 that of Ptolemy, Tycho, or Copernicus ; and rested upon the assump- 
 tion of motions not proved to exist; or even if they did exist, just as* 
 
 D 
 
34 ACCOUNT OF LORD BACON'S 
 
 much needing inquiry and explanation as those they are called on to 
 solve. 
 
 M. Tschirnhauseny a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences, at 
 Paris, published, in 1687, an essay, entitled Medicina Mentis^ sive 
 Tentartien genuince LogiccB, " Assistance to the Understanding, or an 
 Attempt towards a genuine Logic ; in which is discussed the Art of 
 finding general Principles, and the method of discovering unknown 
 Truths." This work, which discovers much ingenuity, is not, however, 
 adapted to practice ; and maybe regarded as illustrating Lord Bacon's 
 caution in the first book of the Novum Organon^ with respect to the 
 influence which particular studies may have in biassing the mind in its 
 inquiries after truth. M. Tschirnhausen, reflecting on the little con- 
 troversy there is among mathematicians, compared with the disputes 
 among students in other branches of science, considered that a method 
 strictly mathematical might be apphedwith effect to these other branches. 
 Hence he thought th^t unknown truths might be discovered precisely 
 in the same manner in every science, as in pure mathematics. He even 
 fancies that the difference between the " perceptions of the imagination," 
 as he terms the notions we form of things by sensation merely, and 
 the '* conceptions of the understanding," such as that a whole is greater 
 than a part, may come under mathematical calculation ! In short, by 
 natural philosophy, Tschirnhausen seems to understand something 
 not very different from Descartes' notion of it above mentioned, 
 namely, a knowledge of the universe demonstrated a priori in ma- 
 thematical order, and confirmed a posteriori by experiments. 
 
 At an earlier period, the Hon. Robert Boyle ably seconded and prac- 
 tically improved the plan of experimental philosophy. This distin- 
 guished man, who was born the year Bacon died, was among the first 
 originators of the Royal Society; which was formed, in 1645, for the 
 purpose of improving experimental knowledge on the plan laid down 
 by Bacon. Boyle's valuable experiments in various branches of science 
 show that he had deeply imbibed the spirit of his great master's sys- 
 tem ; and, independently of his discoveries and improvements, they 
 constitute a most important addition to what Bacon had so loudly 
 called on philosophers to labour at obtaining ; namely, a more exten- 
 sive and accurate history of nature. Many of Boyle's essays contain 
 remarks on the method of pursuing the inquiries of science, highly 
 calculated to facilitate and promote the grand object which Bacon 
 pointed out, and to familiarize to philosophers the practice of an en- 
 ^ lightened induction. 
 j Dr. Hooke, contemporary of Boyle, a man of great mechanical science, 
 /who laid claim to several useful inventions and discoveries, and whose 
 / fame is much less than his deserts, partly because he was eclipsed by 
 / Newton, and partly because he wearied men with his inordinate pre- 
 / tensions, seems to have formally designed an attempt of a similar kind 
 with Bacon's. He entitles his work " The true Method of building a 
 solid Philosophy ; or a Philosophical Algebra.'' " This," he says, 
 consists of two yjarts : first, the manr^r of preparing the mind, and 
 furnishing it with fit materials to work on ; secondly, the rules and 
 methods of proceeding, or operating with this so collected and quali- 
 fied siipellex." All that Dr. Hooke has left us of this posthumous piece, 
 is little more than what Bacon has sketched in the first book of the 
 
NOVUM ORGANON SCIENTIARUM. 55 
 
 Novum Organon. The second part seems never to have been written, 
 so that what the " Philosophical Algebra" was precisely to have been, 
 must be left to conjecture. 
 
 We may safely assert, that whatever more may hereafter be done in 
 the way of rules for scientific inquiries, can only proceed on the plan 
 of Bacon, as the groundwork: for the method of induction is founded 
 on the principles of human nature itself; and only needed to be fairly 
 presented to the minds of men, generally, in order to command their 
 approbation and support. Not, indeed, that the inductive method, as 
 we may here take the opportunity of observing, is properly to be 
 considered as opposed to the syllogistic, in which light it has been the 
 fashion to represent it. Induction is not a distinct kind of argument 
 from the syllogism adopted by Aristotle ; that is, if by induction we 
 understand a s we ought to_^Q»-and_asJ[acpn understands it, not merely 
 the process of investigalTon^nd of collecting facts^ butjjso^the deduction. 
 oTvn^rences fromjHesela£t§. This deduction is, of course, an argu- 
 mentatlvFprocess, capable, if necessary, which is, perhaps, scarcely ever 
 strictly the case, of being put into a syllogistic form; for a syllogism 
 is nothing more than any argument whatever, stated in order, techni- 
 cally, and at full length ; it is an expansion of the assertions that are 
 implied and contained in the propositions with which we commenced ; 
 and it points out the complete force of what has already been virtually 
 admitted. The fault of the Schoolmen lay in reasoning from false 
 premises, that is, in drawing conclusions from insufficient data ; and 
 in employing the syllogism for the purpose of making discoveries in I 
 natural science, without instituting sound philosophical inquiries. * 
 
 If the real merit of a system is to be estimated by its actual effects, . 
 Bacon's OrganoUy and some of his other philosophical writings, must / 
 be reckoned among the fairest fruits which the genius of man has be- j 
 queathed to his fellows. Let the whole spirit and manner of the writings I 
 of such men as Boyle, Hooke, and Locke, who were Bacon's almost! 
 immediate successors, be compared with the method of those who pre- 
 ceded him, and it will be impossible not to perceive the commanding in- 
 fluence of Bacon's labours, and the very distinct character they impressed 
 on the next age. Even Newton's incomparable genius might never 
 have awoke to all its strength, unless Bacon had previously cleared 
 the theatre where it was to act, and made a way for the free exercise 
 its energies, by removing the chief obstructions to its mighty career 
 indications and the germ of several of Newton's discoveries are cer- 
 tainly to be detected in Bacon's works ; and had Newton been born a 
 century earlier, instead of beginning where Bacon left off, and stand- 
 ing on the vantage-ground reared by his labours, the world might 
 have lost many of the most important advantages he has been able to 
 confer on it, by means of the experimental method. Bacon scattered 
 away the darkness of error from that horizon in which Newton was 
 afterwards to appear, or Newton might never have had power to soar 
 as he did into the third heavens of truth, and to pour such a flood of 
 light over the whole field of natural science, as to excite the admira- 
 tion and astonishment of his own and all succeeding ages. 
 
 Though the triumph of truth over error seems always destined to 
 be a gradual process, it is a well-known fact that Lord Bacon's 
 philosophical writings did not fail to make a very early impression 
 
 o 2 
 
 eared \ 
 ;ise of 
 The J 
 
36 ACCOUNT OF LORD BACON'S 
 
 on the learned world, both at home and abroad. The University of 
 Oxford presented an address to him in 1623, in which he is represented 
 *' as a mighty Hercules^ who had by his own hand greatly advanced 
 those pillars in the learned world, which by the rest of the world 
 were supposed immoveable." This tribute to Bacon's merit as a phi- 
 losopher has the greater weight, because it was offered, as Macvey 
 Napier remarks, "when all motives to interested adulation had been 
 done away by his lamentable fall." 
 
 The Baconian philosophy seems, afterwards, to have made greater 
 progress at Cambridge than at Oxford, notwithstanding the above tes- 
 timony from the latter University to the genius of its author. " Glanvil 
 lamented," says Anthony Wood, " that his friends did not send him to 
 Cambridge ; because he used to say, that the new philosophy, and the 
 art of philosophizing, were more cultivated there than here at Oxford." 
 This was about the year 1652 ; — Lord Bacon died in 1626. That the 
 spirit of free inquiry in which the Eo^^a/ Society originated, was chiefly 
 owing to the effect of Bacon's writings cannot be disputed. For in- 
 formation on this subject it is sufficient to consult Bishop Spra fs 
 Hi story of the Royal Society, and Dr^^^JofmWMlis! s account of his 
 own life. Aliost of other authorities might ne accumulated, were it 
 necessary, in proof of the direct and early influence of Bacon's writings 
 in forming the new English school ; of these testimonies a great variety 
 are collected in Napier s masterly tract, entitled, *' Remarks Illustra- 
 tive of the Scope and Influence of the Philosophical Writings of Lord 
 Bacon." 
 
 On the continent of Europe, his philosophical reputation was early ac- 
 knowledged. Dr. Rawley says that " his fame was greater, and sounded 
 louder in foreign parts than at home ;" and that " divers of his works 
 had been translated, more than once, into other tongues, both learned and 
 modern, by foreign pens." In 1652, Lewis Elzevir was about to 
 publish Lord Bacon's works in Holland, as writings " long received 
 with the most attested applause of the learned world." Gassendi, a 
 strenuous opponent of the philosophy of Aristotle, and of that of 
 Descartes, was one of Bacon's earliest disciples in France, being born 
 in 1592. Bacon*s correspondence with Baranzan proves how early 
 his writings had attracted notice in Italy. We might add the testi- 
 mony of Commenius, in Germany, so early as 1643, together with those 
 of a number of other philosophers quoted at length by Mr. Napier, all 
 showing that the revival of science, not only in England, but on the 
 continent, is mainly to be traced to the effect of Bacon's writings, 
 ^ and this at no distant period from their publication. 
 
 That the labours of our illustrious philosopher should have excited 
 jealousy and alarm in some quarters, and especially among those who 
 were still devoted to Aristotle, is what we were quite prepared to expect. 
 Error and party interest shun the light, and are ever ready to brand all 
 attempts at improvement with the name of dangerous innovation. 
 Perhaps no great endeavour for the welfare of mankind ever escaped 
 this doom, or failed to rouse the tocsin of alarm. A hue and cry was 
 accordingly soon raised against the New Philosophy, and a keen 
 pursuit kept up, with the laudable view, if possible, of putting it 
 down. The Novum Organon is now considered harmless enough 
 surely; and in modern times^ it has been permitted to slumber be- 
 
NOVUM ORGANON SCIENtlARUM. 37 
 
 tween its covers pretty much unmolested by the majority of mankind, 
 who little know how greatly they are indebted to it for the effect it has 
 had towards producing many of the arts and conveniences of life ; 
 but time was, when it was necessary to allay men*s fears and jealou- 
 sies of its doctrines having a sort of magic power to produce *' dan- 
 gerous revolutions," " subvert" governments, and overturn the autho- 
 rity of religion. Such, at an early period, were the alarms of not a 
 feWy and among the rest, of Dr. Henry Stubbe, who denounced the 
 whole tribe of Experimentalists, with the singularly happy and courteous 
 epithet of a " Bacon-faced generation ;" and after informing us, in 
 great simplicity, that he has " small regard for deep and subtle inqui- 
 ries ^into natural philosophy," says, that " we must rise as high in our 
 resentments" against the said generation, *' as the concerns of the pre- 
 sent age and of posterity can animate us.'* 
 
 So malignant an aspect, in short, did some imagine Bacon's writings 
 to have on what are infinitely the most important interests of the 
 human race, that he was shrewdly suspected of favouring atheism^ who 
 had eloquently published to the world, " I would rather believe all the 
 fables in the Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this 
 universal frame is without a mind." We should have supposed that 
 any kind of tendency to irreligion 'would have been the very last 
 thing that could be imputed to Bacon's works ; — but such is prejudice. 
 It is, in fact, a happy circumstance for mankind, that geniuses the most 
 transcendant and original that ever lighted upon our world, who have 
 thirsted the most ardently for knowledge, and have vindicated most 
 boldly the freedom of the human mind from every yoke but that of 
 truth, have been the farthest from meriting such a charge, in the wri- 
 tings they have left us. Such were Newton, and Bacon, and Milton, 
 and Locke. 
 
 Though we have given the analysis of Bacon's great work, not 
 merely as deeming it a curiosity in the history of science, but as tend- 
 ing to recal our attention towards principles to which we owe so 
 much, and the study of which we should be sorry ever to see neglected 
 as superfluous ; yet we are free to acknowledge that the whole process, 
 according to the detail which our great philosopher recommends, was 
 strictly necessary in practice, chiefly in the infancy of science ; or, 
 where the subject of inquiry is altogether new, and one of which we 
 have little or no knowledge. The world, as to its improvement in 
 science, may, in some degree, be compared to an individual. The 
 proficient in the art of music has no need to recollect at every step 
 the names of the notes in the gamut, or the rules he has been taught 
 for fingering the keys ; nor would this be possible : when he has once 
 acquired dexterity in music as an art, theory is converted into a true, 
 though mechanical kind of practice : so now that science has made 
 certain advances, and has established a series of truths, it may often be 
 quite unnecessary to go through the whole process of induction 
 from the beginning. After certain general and leading principles have 
 been completely authenticated, these may serve greatly to shorten 
 future inquiries, and much time and labour may of course be saved. 
 Thus, after the laws of the reflexion, and the different refrangibility 
 of light, and the nature of the colours which refraction produces, had 
 been satisfactorily ascertained by experiment, Newton had the ma- 
 
38 ACCOUNT OF LORD BACON'S 
 
 terials prepared for explaining- the rainbow, nor was it necessary again 
 to institute an inquiry respecting- the above laws, as if they were 
 unknown. Newton's Optics, it may here be remarked, may justly be 
 regarded as a most perfect specimen of the Baconian Induction. Dr. 
 Black's Treatise on Magnesia Alba and Quicklime, is also an excellent 
 model of the^ inductive method, affording similar examples of safely 
 proceeding to further conclusions by assuming things well known. 
 
 It must be allowed, also, that, in addition to the effect produced by 
 the collection of facts, and composing a history of nature, and by long 
 practice in the experimental method, inductive investigation has been 
 more modified in some inquiries, by the employment of mathematical 
 reasoning, than Bacon, who had not pursued mathematical studies, 
 was prepared to expect. Though he pointed out the use of mathema- 
 tics, in measuring and comparing the objects of natural philosophy, he 
 was not, nor could he be, aware to what extent geometry and analysis 
 would be applied, in generalising inquiries, and in rendering experi- 
 ment in some cases less necessary. The laws of motion, for instance, 
 are founded, of course, on experience ; but from these laws, once esta- 
 blished, the rest of the science of mechanics is chiefly deduced by 
 reasoning. So also in optics, when a, ray of light is refracted, or bent 
 from a straight line, as when it passes from air into water, the angle 
 which the refracted ray makes with the surface depends on that which 
 the incident ray makes with it ; and we must ascertain by experiment 
 what angle of refraction corresponds to any given angle of incidence ; 
 but we must have recourse to geometry if we would know the constant 
 relation which subsists between these angles, and be able to express 
 this relation in general terms applicable to all cases, for, with regard 
 to this, experiment does not directly inform us. But the great triumph 
 of mathematics, as applied to physics, and which Bacon never could 
 have believed possible, has been the discovery of certain phenomena 
 in the planetary motions, never suspected until the sublime discovery 
 of modern analysis indicated those appearances as cases of the general 
 rule. 
 
 Perhaps Bacon, moreover, in his zeal against the visionary philoso- 
 phy of the ancients, scarcely allowed, in his inductive theory, the use 
 which, in some cases, even hypothesis may be of in assisting our inqui- 
 ries. Newton employs almost in the manner of a motto, the expres- 
 sion ' hypotheses nonfingo^ I do not devise hypotheses. He might here 
 allude to such hypotheses as the vortices of Des Cartes; for he him- 
 self, in some cases, used hypothesis. In a subordinate sense of the term, 
 and, indeed, to a limited extent, it frequently appears necessary to do 
 so. Newton's theory of gravitation took its rise from a conjecture 
 suggested by analogy ; and was afterwards verified by comparing the 
 moon's revolution in her orbit, with the law of accelerated velocity, 
 as exhibited in falling bodies near the earth's surface. Copernicus, 
 in the same manner, was led by analogy to the true system of the 
 universe, and the only evidence he could offer in its favour was its 
 simplicity. This hypothesis of Copernicus, in the hands of Newton 
 became an established fact. Indeed, in many cases of physical in- 
 vestigation, there is nothing before the mind for it to act on, but two 
 or three different hypotheses, which it is the business of a strict induc- 
 tion to judge of, and to adopt that which most accords with the facts. 
 
NOVUM ORGANON SCIENTIARUM. 39 
 
 Hypotheses become dangerous only when they are admitted as theories^ 
 and when, instead of being employed as a temporary guide, stimulating 
 the mind of the inquirer to observation and experiment, they are set 
 up as substitutes for facts, and become idols of the imagination, before 
 which reason is to bow. It was in this view that Bacon so loudly 
 condemned them, while it must be acknowledged that he scarcely pro- 
 vided for a cautious and enlightened use of them. " Any hypothe- 
 sis," as Dr. Hartley well observes, *' which possesses a sufficient de- 
 gree of plausibility to account for a number of facts, helps us to 
 digest these facts, to bring new ones to light, and to make expert- 
 menta crucis for the benefit of future inquirers." 
 
 Whatever defects or redundancies, however, the triumph of the 
 Baconian method for two centuries has enabled us to perceive in the 
 writings of its distinguished author, we cannot look on what he has 
 actually done for science but with surprise and admiration. No one 
 before him seems thoroughly to have been possessed with the idea of 
 the folly of supposing a being of such imperfect and limited faculties 
 as man capable of explaining nature's laws and operations by means of 
 reasonings d priori. If there are beings to whom this is given, it is cer- 
 tainly denied to man ; and the grand lesson which Bacon taught the 
 world was, that all false philosophy might be traced to a mistake as to 
 the real powers of the human mind, and the proper direction in which, 
 from its nature and present condition, it must always submit to act, 
 in the acquisition of knowledge. It had in general sought to attain 
 to truth by eccentric movements and forced marches, while the only 
 method suited to its capacities was looked on with contempt or dis- 
 regard — that of simply feeling its way out of darkness into light. That 
 Bacon probably overrated the effects of the inductive method, we 
 have already remarked ; this, however, was a very different thing from 
 the ancient error of supposing the mind capable of inventing true 
 theories without the labour of experience." It is certain that Bacon 
 believed it within the limit of possibility to transmute other substances 
 into gold ; and on this account he has been identified with the disci- 
 ples o^ Raymond Ltdly and Jordano Bruno. No one, however, could 
 be more sensible than himself of the general folly of the pursuits of the 
 alchemists; and his belief in ^rawsmi^^a^io/i arose out of his sanguine 
 ideas of the resources of the inductive method — resources as yet untried 
 and unknown ; for we may venture to say that, in his time, there was 
 not a sufficient collection of facts and experiments to authorise the 
 conclusion that even the essences of different substances might not 
 hereafter be discovered, when the new philosophy, then only in its 
 infancy, should be matured. Time indeed has not fulfilled these anti- 
 cipations, but Bacon's speculation with regard to transmutation was 
 entertained after him by Boyle and others ; and there is evidence that 
 it was not decidedly opposed even by Newton himself 
 
 The study of Bacon's philosophical works in general, and especially of 
 the Novum Organon, cannot fail to be highly beneficial to all persons 
 who are entering on scientific pursuits, and to all who are engaged 
 in inquiries after truth of whatever kind. Their general tendency 
 will be, if we do not greatly err, to inspire a hajait of close and 
 patient thinking, — an intellectual independence, which resists all that 
 is merely of the nature of hypothesis, while it bows with implicit 
 
40 NOVUM ORGANON SCIENTIARUM. 
 
 deference to the authority of fact and experience. The nature of the 
 different kinds of evidence; the different subjects to which they are 
 properly applicable ; the decree of that sort of evidence that is called 
 moral, which it is reasonable to expect in any given case ; the proper 
 limits both of doubt and of belief ; the whole order of circumstances 
 of whatever kind that may have any bearing on the impression which 
 evidence may make, or may fail to make, on the mind ; — these very in- 
 teresting topics of inquiry, as well as every other subject relating to 
 moral and intellectual philosophy, are not less properly and strictly 
 within the sphere of the operation of the Baconian method, than the 
 more tangible properties of matter itself, and the laws of the ma- 
 terial universe in general. The spirit of the inductive philosophy is in 
 perfect unison with man's intellectual nature ; it offers a true corrobo- 
 rative to his faculties in his pursuit of truth ; and the more completely 
 this spirit is imbibed, the more shall we be guarded from the extremes 
 of credulity on the one hand, and incredulity on the other. 
 
 Bacon's style has been condemned as " stiff and rigid ;" and his 
 wit as " often unnatural and far-fetched." He certainly employs, to a 
 considerable degree, the quaint and highly figurative diction which 
 was the fashion of his time. Of this we have remarkable specimens 
 in many of his divisions in treating the doctrine of " Instances ;" not- 
 withstanding this, however, his style is not so often chargeable with 
 vagueness or obscurity as might be supposed. When it is, this arises 
 usually from his not defining his terms, from his adopting the old 
 scholastic words and phrases with a new meaning, and employing 
 the same word in different senses. His rich, prophetic imagination 
 led him to the use of a lofty and poetic diction, which, though it may 
 not altogether approve itself to a severe and philosophical criticism, 
 often clothes his conceptions with singular beauty, embodies them to 
 the imagination in forms of commanding energy, and impresses them 
 deeply on the mind. His latinity in the Novum Organon is not to 
 be despised ; though he necessarily uses words and adopts meanings 
 which are not to be found in the authors of classical antiquity : the 
 subject on which he writes was new to the learned world, and he 
 was evidently more solicitous to make himself understood, than to 
 attain to the Augustan purity of the Roman idiom, or discourse in the 
 music of its cadences, as we find them in Cicero's philosophical 
 writings. 
 
 In closing this Treatise we may safely affirm, that, by giving the 
 Inductive Philosophy to the world. Lord Bacon has proved one of its 
 most signal benefactors ; and has largely done his part towards pro- 
 moting the final triumph of all truth, whether natural, or moral and 
 intellectual, over all error ; and towards bringing on that glorious 
 crisis, destined, we doubt not, one day to arrive, when, according to 
 the allegorical representation of that great poet who was not only the 
 admirer of Bacon, but in some respect his kindred genius — TRUTH, 
 though *' hewn, like the mangled body of Osiris, into a thousand 
 pieces, and scattered to the four winds, shall be gathered limb to limb, 
 and moulded, with every joint and member, into an immortal feature 
 of loveliness and perfection." 
 
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