darken it against the reception of the light of spiritual truth, the author proceeds to complain that the minds of all men are blocked or branded with false fancies (idols) which preclude the acceptance of truths. This "universal insanity" requires skill in preparing the way for the truth. In a second chapter (which may have been composed or revised later) the author asserts that the object of the New Philosophy is to bring about a lawful wedlock between the mind and things (as distinct from fancies) whence shall spring a brood of heroic inventions which (like Hercules of old) shall clear the earth from pests and miseries. There follows a bitter onslaught on all the philosophers from Aristotle downwards. He concludes with the warning that we must begin putting away the idols, as well those of the home (hospitii) as those that beset us abroad (viae). So ends the Male Birth of Time, of which the title is perhaps the most noteworthy part. By "male" he means "generative," or "fruitful," as opposed to the barren philosophy of Aristotle. The exact date of this fragment is not known; but it is characteristic of Bacon's sanguine spirit that this early (perhaps earliest) effort at the Magna Instauratio contains little more than a grand title and a prayer against the dangers of an immoderate success. We can not be surprised that an author who stigmatized the present state of learning as "universal insanity," should contemplate the anonymous publication of works likely to make himself widely disliked, suspected, or ridiculed. Accordingly Bacon's earliest connected work on Philosophy was intended to be published with the title Valerius Terminus, Of the Interpretation of Nature, with the annotations of Hermes Stella a work intended for a select few, and requiring the aid of an interpreter (Hermes) to cast a helpful star-light (Stella) on the wanderings of the reader towards the philosophic goal (Terminus). Bacon begins by defending the search after the knowledge of Nature from the charge of impiety, supporting his defence by an appeal to the examples of Moses and Solomon, and describing his object as a discovery of all operations and possibilities of operations, from immortality (if it were possible), to the merest mechanical practice. The external impediments of knowledge, he says, have been want of steadfastness, want of co-operation, want of tradition from the past, incompleteness, and premature subdivisions. One of the first needs is to make a Kalendar or Inventory of the present intellectual wealth of mankind, not for the purpose of parading any "universality of sense or knowledge," but in order to give some awakening note both of the wants in man's present condition, and the nature of the supplies to be wished. But, as the object is not only to stir up hopes but to direct men's labours, he proceeds to the main business, viz., the discovery of operations. In order to produce a result we must not only have "certainty" but also "liberty;" that is to say, we must not only ascertain some causes that are certain to produce the result, but also such causes as we are at liberty to command; and the wider our choice of causes can be, the less we shall be "restrained" to some definite means, and the greater will be our "liberty." Thus, to produce whiteness; the first "direction" given may be, to intermingle air and water, as in foam, snow, &c. This "direction" is certain, but "tied" to air and water; you "free" it by a second "direction," adding, instead of water, any transparent body provided that it is uncoloured and more grossly transparent than air itself, e.g. glass or crystal beaten to powder. The third "direction" removes the "restraint" of " uncoloured," by adding amber beaten to powder, or beer frothing. A fourth "direction" removes the "restraint" of "more grossly transparent" by adding flame, which (but for the presence of smoke) would be a perfect white. A fifth "direction" removes the restraint of air, but still retains "transparent bodies;" bringing us therefore, so far, only to this conclusion, that the nature of "whiteness" may be illustrated by the study of "transparent bodies." Here the author stops: "To ascend further by scale I do forbear, partly because it would draw on the example to an over-great length, but chiefly because it would open that which in this work I am determined to reserve." In a somewhat similar way we shall find Bacon reserving, or leaving his investigations incomplete, at the end of the Novum Organum. No doubt he believed that he had something in reserve; but it is probable that his extraordinary sanguineness and self-confidence always disposed him, when he found himself at the end of his tether, to deceive himself into the belief that he stopped because he wished to stop, and not because he was compelled to stop. Proceeding to comment on the novelty of his method, he admits however this "freeing of a direction" to be discernible in the received philosophies as far as a "swimming" (i.e. vague and shifting) "anticipation could take hold, in that which they term the form or final cause, or that which they call the true difference; both which it seemeth they propound rather as impossibilities and wishes than as things within the compass of human comprehension." Thence he proceeds to the internal impediments of knowledge, those inherent in the human mind itself. For the mind, instead of being a perfect mirror to reflect the truth, distorts everything that it reflects by its unevenness"I do find therefore in this enchanted glass four Idols, or false appearances of several and distinct sorts, every sort comprehending many subdivisions: the first sort I call Idols of the Nation or Tribe; the second, Idols of the Palace; 1 the third, Idols of the Cave; and the fourth, Idols of the Theatre." Without explaining the meaning of these terms, the author passes on to make, amid much negative matter, the following statements: that the only test of the truth of knowledge is the discovery of new works and active "directions" not known before; that we are not to seek the causes of things concrete, which are infinite, but of abstract natures, which are few (these natures being "as the alphabet or simple letters whereof the variety of things consisteth, or as the colours mingled in the painter's shell wherewith he is able to make infinite variety of faces or shapes"); that we are not to seek for the materials or dead beginnings of things, but rather for the nature of motions, inclinations and applications; that we are not to seek knowledge by anticipations; that every particular that works any effect is a thing compounded of diverse single natures, and that these particulars must be broken and reduced by exclusions and inclusions to a definite point before we can determine what it is precisely that produces the effect; that the New Philosophy "doth in sort equal men's wits," enabling all men to discover with mechanical accuracy, just as a pair of compasses enables every hand to draw a perfect circle. The work is fragmentary; and of the annotations of Hermes Stella, the author himself writes that "none are set down." It is supposed to have been written about 1603. 1 Elsewhere these are called "Idols of the Market-place." "Place" is used (Adv. of L., 11. xxiii. 5) for "Market-place" (Lat. "in foro"). Is it possible therefore that "Palace" is here a mistake for "Place"? For the "Idols" see below, pp. 380-1. § 48 THE "ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING"1 The Advancement of Learning (published in 1605) supplies the Inventory of the results of knowledge, and the deficiencies, suggested (as Mr. Ellis believes, and as appears from the above sketch) in Valerius Terminus. It is written in a more popular style, avoiding many technicalities used in Bacon's other works; describing, for example, the fallacies denoted by the Idols, but avoiding the use of the term "Idol;" and it adopts a much more conciliatory attitude to the ancient philosophers than is expressed in Bacon's unpublished treatises. For the general reader no work of Bacon's is better adapted (as indeed Bacon intended it to be adapted) to be a preparation for the general scheme of the Great Instauration. For although the Key of knowledge is not clearly revealed in it, the deficiencies of knowledge are so indicated, and the supplements so suggested, as constantly to keep before the reader's mind not only the weaknesses of the Old Philosophy, but also the strength of the New, and thus to lead him to conceive its character. Scarcely a page of the Second Book of the Advancement fails, directly or indirectly, to guide us towards the Novum Organum. And if any one labours under the common prejudice that Bacon's philosophy had for its sole object the increase of the material comforts of men, he cannot better dissipate that error than by gaining a clear conception of the tendency of the book which, more than any other Baconian treatise (for the De Augmentis is no more than a larger Latin edition of it), shows that he had taken, not material nature alone, but "all Nature to be his province." Referring the reader to the Appendix for a summary of the great body of the work (which deals with natural and human Philosophy), we shall here give merely a very brief account of the whole argument, and a summary of the earlier sections which deal with history and poetry. 1 Spedding, Works, iii. 253-491; for the amplified Latin translation called the De Augmentis, see Spedding, Works, i. 413-837. 2 It should be added that Mr. Spedding differs here from Mr. Ellis. The First Book is a mere introduction, showing how learning has been discredited by faults in critics or students, and bringing testimony to its excellence from divine and human sources. The Second Book treats of "What has been done for the Advancement of Learning, human and divine, with the Defects of the same." After pointing out the defects in the places of learning, the neglect of science by states and universities, and the want of intercourse between the learned men of different countries, the Author proceeds to classify first human, and then divine learning, taking as his basis the three faculties, of memory, imagination, and reason, which he calls the "three parts of man's understanding." Human learning is divided into three parts, History, corresponding to memory, Poetry, corresponding to imagination, and Philosophy, corresponding to reason.1 (Advancement of Learning, II. i. 1; De Augmentis, II. i. 1.) 2 History is subdivided into natural, civil, ecclesiastical, and literary. Continuing the triple division which is noticeable all through the greater part of this book, he subdivides Natural History into the history of nature in course, i.e. nature in its ordinary course; nature wrought, i.e., arts; and nature erring or varying, i.e. marvels. The two latter are deficient. The present histories of nature erring are fabulous or frivolous; and the histories of nature wrought have failed through contempt of small matters and of experiments familiar and vulgar. Yet the nature of everything is best seen in its smallest portions; and Thales, by keeping his eyes down, might have avoided the well and yet seen the stars in it. Civil history may be divided (as pictures or sculptures are unfinished sketches, or finished and still perfect, or finished but defaced by age) into memorials, perfect histories, and antiquities; and a perfect history 1 The Peripatetics, so far following Aristotle, divided knowledge into (1) speculative, (2) practical, (3) artistic or constructive (ποιητική); the Stoics into (1) Logic (which was to include Grammar and Rhetoric), (2) Ethics, (3) Physics (which included Theology). - See Professor Fowler's Francis Bacon, p. 75. 2 In the De Augmentis-the amplified Latin edition of the Advancement published in 1623-History is either Natural or Civil; and the latter includes Literary and Ecclesiastical, as well as Political History. AA |