are not infrequently marked with a grandeur and solemnity of tone, a majesty of diction, which renders it impossible to forget, and difficult even to criticise them. He speaks as one having authority, and it is impossible to resist the magic of his voice. Whenever he wishes to be emphatic, there is the true ring of genius about all that he says. Hence, perhaps, it is that there is no author, unless it be Shakspeare, who is so easily remembered or so frequently quoted. His phraseology, when most quaint, as in the case of the 'Idols' and the 'Instances,' is often most attractive to the reader and most persistent in its hold on the memory. Hence, too, perhaps, it is that there is no author so stimulating. Bacon might well be called the British Socrates. Even had his individual precepts been utterly worthless, many men must have owed their first impulse to the study of nature, or to independent investigation in general, to the terse and burning words, issuing, as it were, from the lips of an irresistible commander, with which he urges them to the work.

Such, I conceive, are the principal modes and directions in which the influence of Bacon was exercised. It would be easy to add to these, but they will readily suggest others, and the limits of this work necessarily compel me to aim at brevity rather than expansion.

15. PRESENT VALUE OF BACON'S LOGICAL WORKS.

This subject has already, to a great extent, been discussed in the latter part of the last section, and it will be unnecessary here to add much to what has there been said. The two questions, however, of Bacon's influence during the past, and the value of his works to the student at the present time, seem to be so distinct as to require separate treatment, however much they may run into each other.

The intrinsic value of Bacon's logical works to the student at the present time, apart from their historical interest, as having, to adopt the fine saying of Macaulay, 'moved the intellects which have moved the world,' may be briefly considered under two aspects. The first of these is their general effect in guarding, stimulating, and disciplining the intellect; the second is the amount of definite logical doctrine, comprised in them, which retains any permanent value.

With regard to the first point, I know no work of the same kind so stimulating to a young reader, or so likely to foster habits of

independent investigation, as the First Book of the Novum Organum. What Bacon says of Plato is pre-eminently true of himself. He was ‘a man of a sublime genius, who took a view of everything as from a high rock". Now to the young student I know nothing of so much importance as to be brought into contact with works of real genius, and there must be many men who recollect the transition from dry manuals of Logic to the brilliant pages of Bacon as forming one of the eras in their lives. Maxims such as these, 'Homo naturae minister et interpres,' 'Scientia et potentia humana in idem coincidunt,' 'Lucifera experimenta, non fructifera, quaerenda,' 'Recte veritas temporis filia dicitur, non auctoritatis,' 'Pessima res est errorum apotheosis,' which sparkle on almost every page, live long in the memory, and insensibly influence our whole habit of thought. This educational value of the Novum Organum has never, I think, been sufficiently pointed out, but it seems to me very real and very important. As I have already noticed under the last section, there is something about Bacon's diction, his quaintness of expression, and his power of illustration, which lays hold of the mind, and lodges itself in the memory, in a way which we hardly find paralleled in any other author, except it be Shakspeare. And what are the lessons which he thus effectually communicates? The duty of taking nothing upon trust which we can verify for ourselves, of rigidly examining our first principles, of being carefully on our guard against the various delusions arising from the peculiarities of human nature, from our various interests and pursuits, from the force of words, and from the disputes and traditions of the schools, the duty of forming our conclusions slowly and of constantly checking them by comparison with the facts of nature and life, of avoiding merely subtle and frivolous disputations, of confining our enquiries to questions of which the solution is within our power, and of subordinating all our investigations to the welfare of man and society. Now, lessons such as these, even though they be stated in a somewhat exaggerated form, are so necessary and so useful, that an author who presents them in forcible and pointed language will ever retain his interest and utility for each succeeding generation of learners.

As regards the second of these questions, the amount of definite logical teaching in Bacon's works which retains a permanent value, the answer is less easy. I cannot, however, agree with those critics who seem to think that almost all his individual precepts are either

De Augm., lib. iii. cap. 4.

K

antiquated or worthless 2. But, as I have expressed myself fully in the notes on the various details of Bacon's method in the order in which they occur in the text, it is unnecessary that I should here do more than make a few very brief and general remarks.

Bacon was undoubtedly inclined to underrate the syllogism, that is to say, deductive reasoning, but then we must recollect that he regarded it as his special province to bring out the other side of reasoning, the inductive branch by which general principles are established rather than applied. Nor would it be true to say that he ignored the deductive side of reasoning altogether. Whenever he saw, as he often did see, its value for the purpose of applying the truths already arrived at by induction, he seems without hesitation to have assigned it a co-ordinate rank. Witness, amongst many others, the following passages: Majora vero speranda a nova luce axiomatum, ex particularibus illis certa via et regula eductorum, quae rursus nova particularia indicent et designent. Neque enim in plano via sita est, sed ascendendo et descendendo; ascendendo primo ad axiomata, descendendo ad opera 'Mathematica philosophiam naturalem terminare **** debet "." The seventh of the 'reliqua auxilia intellectus' (Nov. Org. ii. 21) which were to succeed the Tables, was to be entitled 'Deductio ad Praxin.'

43

The charge against Bacon of having, to a certain extent, detracted from the value of his method by depreciating hypothesis and neglecting to lay down rules for its legitimate employment, must undoubtedly be admitted. But then we may plead in extenuation his admission, however inconsistent, of hypothesis ('Permissio Intellectus') in ii. 20, as also i. 106, and the gross license with which, both in his time and for some time afterwards, this procedure was employed. If Bacon is to be censured in this particular, as he undoubtedly is to be, the censure ought in all fairness to be extended to Newton as well.

The method, recommended by Bacon, of gradual ascent from particular facts, through axioms of successive degrees of generality, up to the highest generalisations of all, though not, as I conceive, the

42 Not to mention Liebig and Bacon's professed adversaries, we find even Rémusat saying (p. 254): Bacon n'a point rectifié ou remplacé les notions reçues qu'il condamne, ou ces conceptions scientifiques des choses, sans lesquelles toute recherche marche au hasard. Ainsi point de recette sûre, point de méthode infaillible, et le peu d'usage que l'on a fait des formes techniques d'investigation qu'il recommande en re d l'utilité fort suspecte.'

43 Nov. Org., Bk. i. Aph. 103.

* Id., Aph. 96.

See Nov. Org., Bk. i. Aphs. 19, 104, 105. In my note on Aph. 19, I have examined this doctrine of Bacon at some length.

method which has been usually followed by scientific investigators, or that which would be most likely to contribute to the progress of science, is, certainly, the most convenient mode of representing the laws of nature, when once established. Moreover, the successive steps which led up to, and ultimately established, the Theory of Gravitation were arrived at very nearly in this precise order. To these considerations. I may add that the method proposed by Bacon has met with the approval of no less distinguished an authority than Dr. Whewell".

With reference to the 'Tables' which occupy the beginning of the Second Book, it must be acknowledged that, however interesting they may be in the history of Logic, and however much they may have contributed to the formulating of inductive reasoning, they are only rude exemplars of the more refined and conclusive Canons of Induction' which we find in the works of Sir John Herschel, Mr. Mill, and later logicians. Hence, this is a part of Bacon's Logic which is not of much intrinsic value to a student who is already familiar with recent treatises. To this consideration it may be added that the reasoning throughout this part of the Novum Organum is rendered more or less vague and obscure by the employment of the term 'Form,' instead of the more precise expressions, such as Law, Cause, Conditions, &c., by which it is now replaced.

Of far more intrinsic value to the modern student, as it seems to me, are some of the 'Praerogativae Instantiarum.' Many of the expressions there employed still form part of our logical terminology, and it would be very difficult, in many cases, to describe, more aptly and precisely than Bacon does, the nature of the reasoning involved. The scientific examples are, generally, far too numerous, and are often wrongly stated, trivial, or inappropriate, but it appears to me that less attention than it deserves has been paid to the logical matter contained in this part of Bacon's work.

The relation of Observation to Experiment and of both to the more purely rational process of Induction, is well conceived and stated by Bacon.

To the doctrine of Fallacies, or 'Idola,' I have already alluded under the first, or more general head, though it might also well be taken into account in drawing up a list of the special logical doctrines which are of intrinsic value to the modern student.

It will be seen that I am inclined to attribute to Bacon's logical

See Novum Organum Renovatum, bk. ii. ch. 6, and Preface, 3rd Ed., pp. ix, x.

rules and maxims much more intrinsic value, even for the purposes of students at the present time, than is usually conceded to them, though I am not prepared to differ substantially from the judgment of M. de Rémusat: 'Ses vues générales restent la preuve la plus populaire de son génie 47.?

§ 16. OPPONENTS OF BACON.

Under this head, I propose only to give some examples of the various grounds of opposition or disparagement to which the Baconian philosophy has been subjected, thinking that, though far from exhaustive, they will be of some interest to the reader.

Perhaps, I ought first to notice a letter from Sir Thomas Bodley (originally published in Bacon's Remains, 1648, pp. 85-87), 'to Sir Francis Bacon, about his Cogitata et Visa, wherein he declareth his opinion freely touching the same.' The writer, who has evidently a great affection for the old learning, is somewhat scandalised by Bacon's revolutionary sentiments, and thinks that if we come babes ad regnum naturae, as we are willed by Scriptures to come ad regnum coelorum, there is nothing more certain than that it would instantly bring us to Barbarism, and after many thousand years leave us more unprovided of theoricall furniture than we are at this present.' The letter is interesting, but it betrays bewilderment and an incapacity to understand Bacon's dissatisfaction with the existing state of things or a reform in the sciences such as he projected. It has, in recent times, been disinterred from oblivion by De Maistre and other antagonists of Bacon.

Far more pertinent is the unfavourable opinion of Bacon's philosophy expressed by Harvey, as given in Aubrey's Lives (Letters written by Eminent Persons in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, to which are added Lives of Eminent Men by John Aubrey Esq., 1813, vol. ii. p. 381): 'He' (Harvey) 'had been physician to the Lord Ch. Bacon, whom he esteemed much for his witt and style, but would not allow him to be a great philosopher. Said he to me, "He writes philosophy like a Ld Chanceller," speaking in derision.' Harvey, however, seems to have had a peculiar dislike of the neoteriques,' to whom, we are told on p. 383, he once, in

47 Bacon, Sa Vie, &c., p. 243.