experience. Thus he observes, that 'all true and fruitful natural philosophy hath a double scale or ladder, ascendant and descendant; ascending from experiments to the invention of causes, and descending from causes to the invention of new experiments.' In another place he says, that 'a faculty of wise interrogating is half a knowledge;' and adopts the sentiment of Plato, that whosoever seeketh, knoweth that which he seeketh for, in a general notion; else how shall he know it when he hath found it? Now this we take to be strictly true of all discoveries that are made in a philosophical manner. Many discoveries have been made in nature, which were hit upon apparently by the merest accident. But they also appeared at first as anomalous facts, at variance with the uniform laws of nature. And they could never take their place and rank, as matters of science, till they had been viewed from what Bacon calls the descendant scale or ladder of natural philosophy.' Before this they would necessarily appear to be contradictory to previously established theories. Hence the necessity of ascending into the region of causes in order truly to understand any discovery, or to reduce facts to a rational theory. Hence, too, the propriety of denominating this view of the ultimate facts and experiments, which is taken from this higher ground, the discovery. For a man cannot with propriety be said to have discovered new truths, while these new truths cannot be viewed by him in harmony with all those other principles which he had previously received and which he still regards as truths. Or, if his former principles were false, and thus irreconcileable with the new, he cannot be said to have made the discovery, till the false have been discarded and in this manner harmony has been restored. Thus in all cases, in order to the true discovery of new principles and their reduction to a science, it is necessary that the man should be elevated above the common level of the mere discovery or witnessing of the outward, natural experiment. 'Another error which doth succeed that which we last mentioned, is, that after the distribution of particular arts and sciences, men have abandoned universality, or philosophia prima" (the chief philosophy); which cannot but cease and stop all progression. For no perfect discovery can be made upon a flat or level: neither is it possible to discover the more remote and deeper parts of science, if you stand but upon the level of the same science, and ascend not to a higher science.' pp. 55, 56. We are now approaching the consideration of Bacon's peculiar qualifications for philosophizing. It was 'universality' or 'philosophia prima,' in which Bacon excelled. Nay, it is this in which he now excels; for the great mass of those who regard themselves as his followers, are now standing upon the 'flat or level' upon which no discoveries can be made. We are aware that it is somewhat difficult to understand precisely what Bacon meant by 'universality,' to the abandonment and neglect of which, he imputed in so great a degree the deficiencies of art and science. But he did not use the word as a mere empty sound; and further extracts will doubtless aid the reader in coming to a true conception of his meaning. "The part of Human Philosophy which is Rational, is of all knowledges, to the most wits, the least delightful, and seemeth but a net of subtilty and spinosity. For as it was truly said, that knowledge is "pabulum animi" (the food of the mind); so in the nature of men's appetite to this food, most men are of the taste and stomach of the Israelites in the desert, that would fain have returned "ad ollas carnium' (to the flesh pots), and were weary of manna; which, though it were celestial, yet seemed less nutritive and comfortable. So generally men taste well knowledges that are drenched in flesh and blood, civil history, morality, policy, about the which men's affections, praises, fortunes, do turn and are conversant; but this same "lumen siccum" (dry light) doth parch and offend most men's watery and soft natures. But, to speak truly of things as they are in worth, rational knowledges are the keys of all other arts; for as Aristotle saith aptly and elegantly, That the hand is the instrument of instruments, and the mind is the form of forms;" so these be truly said to be the art of arts: neither do they only direct, but likewise confirm and strengthen; even as the habit of shooting doth not only enable to shoot a nearer shoot, but also to draw a stronger bow. 66 "The arts intellectual are four in number; divided according to the ends whereunto they are referred for man's labor is to invent that which is sought or propounded; or to judge that which is invented; or to retain that which is judged; or to deliver over that which is retained. So as the arts must be four; art of inquiry or invention; art of examination or judgment; art of custody or memory; and art of elocution or tradition. 'Invention is of two kinds, much differing; the one, of arts and sciences; and the other, of speech and arguments. The former of these I do report deficient; which seemeth to me to be such a deficience as if, in the making of an inventory touch ing the state of a defunct, it should be set down, that there is. no ready money. For as money will fetch all other commodities, so this knowledge is that which should purchase all the rest. And like as the West-Indies had never been discovered, if the use of the mariner's needle had not been first discovered, though the one be vast regions, and the other a small motion; so it cannot be found strange if sciences be no farther discovered, if the art itself of invention and discovery hath been passed over. That this part of knowledge is wanting, to my judgment standeth plainly confessed: for first, logic doth not pretend to invent sciences, or the axioms of sciences, but passeth it over with a "cuique in sua arte credendum" (every man is to be trusted in his own art). And Celsus acknowledgeth it gravely, speaking of the empirical and dogmatical sects of physicians, "That medicines and cures were first found out, and then after the reasons and causes were discoursed; and not the causes first found out, and by light from them the medicines and cures discovered." And Plato, in his Theætetus, noteth well, "That particulars are infinite, and the higher generalities give no sufficient direction; and that the pith of all sciences, which make the artsman differ from the inexpert, is in the middle propositions, which in every particular knowledge are taken from tradition and experience." And therefore we see, that they which discourse of the inventions and originals of things, refer them rather to chance than to art, and rather to beasts, birds, fishes, serpents, than to men. "Dictamnum genetrix Cretæa carpit ab Ida, Puberibus caulem foliis et flore comantem So that it was no marvel, the manner of antiquity being to consecrate inventors, that the Egyptians had so few human idols in their temples, but almost all brute. Omnigenumque Deum monstra, et la trator Anubis, Contra Neptunam, et Venerem, contraque Minervam, &c." (Against great Neptune, in his strength array'd And beauteous Venus, and the blue-ey'd maid, Engage the dog Anubis, on the floods, And the lewd herd of Egypt's monster gods). And if you like better the tradition of the Grecians, and ascribe the first inventions to men, yet you will rather believe that Prometheus first struck the flints, and marvelled at the spark, than that when he first struck the flints he expected the spark and therefore we see the West-Indian Prometheus had no intelligence with the European, because of the rareness with them of flint, that gave the first occasion. So as it should seem, that hitherto men are rather beholden to a wild goat for surgery, or to a nightingale for music, or to the ibis for some part of physic, or to the pot-lid that flew open, for artillery, or generally to chance, or anything else, than to logic, for the invention of arts and sciences. Neither is the form of invention which Virgil describeth much other : "Ut varias usus meditando extunderet artes Paulatim: " (That studious want might useful arts contrive). For if you observe the words well, it is no other method than that which brute beasts are capable of, and do put in use; which is a perpetual intending or practising some one thing, urged and imposed by an absolute necessity of conservation of being for so Cicero saith very truly, "Usus uni rei deditus et naturam et artem sæpe vincit" (practice applied to one object often outstrips nature and art). And therefore if it be said of men, "Labor omnia vincit Improbus, et duris urgens in rebus egestas : (What cannot ceaseless toil, and pressing need!) it is likewise said of beasts, "Quis psittaco docuit suum xaîje” (who taught the parrot to say Good morrow?) Who taught the raven in a drought to throw pebbles into a hollow tree, where she espied water, that the water might rise so as she might come to it? Who taught the bee to sail through such a vast sea of air, and to find the way from a field in flower, a great way off, to her hive? Who taught the ant to bite every grain of corn that she burieth in her hill, lest it should take root and grow? Add then the word 'extundere" (to hammer out), which importeth the extreme difficulty, and the word 'paulatim" (by degrees), which importeth the extreme slowness, and we are where we were, even among the Egyptians' gods; there being little left to the faculty of reason, and nothing to the duty of art, for matter of invention. Secondly, the induction which the logicians speak of, and which seemeth familiar with Plato, (whereby the principles of sciences may be pretended to be invented, and so the middle propositions by derivation from the principles;) their form of induction, I say, is utterly vicious and incompetent: wherein their error is the fouler, because it is the duty of art to perfect and exalt nature; but they contrariwise have wronged, abused and traduced nature. For he that shall attentively observe how the mind doth gather this excellent dew of knowledge, like unto that which the poet speaketh of, "Aërei mellis cœlestia dona" (the heavenly gift of aërial honey), distilling and contriving it out of particulars natural and artificial, as the flowers of the field and garden, shall find that the mind of herself by nature doth manage and act an induction much better than they describe it. For to conclude upon an enumeration of particulars, without instance contradictory, is no conclusion, but a conjecture; for who can assure, in many subjects, upon those particulars which appear of a side, that there are not on the contrary side which appear not? As if Samuel should have rested upon those sons of Jesse which were brought before him, and failed of David, which was in the field. And this form, to say truth, is so gross, as it had not been possible for wits so subtile as to have managed these things to have offered it to the world, but that they hasted to their theories and dogmaticals, and were imperious and scornful towards particulars; which their manner was to use but as "lictores and viatores," for sergeants and whifflers, "ad summovendam turbam" (to drive away the crowd), to make way and make room for their opinions, rather than in their true use and service. Certainly it is a thing may touch a man with a religious wonder, to see how the footsteps of seducement are the very same in divine and human truth: for as in divine truth man cannot endure to become as a child; so in human, they reputed the attending the inductions whereof we speak, as if it were a second infancy or childhood. Thirdly, allow some principles or axioms were rightly induced, yet nevertheless certain it is, that middle propositions cannot be deduced from them in subject of nature by syllogism, that is, by touch and reduction of them to principles in a middle term. It is true that in sciences popular, as moralities, laws, and the like, yea, and divinity (because it pleaseth God to apply himself to the capacity of the simplest), that form may have use; and in natural philosophy likewise, by way of argument or satisfactory reason, "Quæ assensum parit, operis effæta est" (what produces assent, has accomplished its object:) but the subtilty of nature and operations will not be inchained in those bonds for arguments consist of propositions, and propositions of words; and words are but the current tokens or marks of popular notions of things; which notions, if they be grossly and variably collected out of particulars, it is not the laborious examination either of consequences of arguments, or of the truth of propositions, that can ever correct that error, being, as |