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they only who come in their own name will be received of men. He constantly exhorted the seeker after truth to seek it in intercourse with Nature, and has repeatedly professed that he was no founder of a sect or school. He condemned the arrogance of those who thought it beneath the dignity of the philosopher to dwell on matters of observation and experiment, and reminded them that the sun "æque palatia et cloacas ingreditur; nec tamen polluitur." We do not, he continues, erect or dedicate to human pride a capitol or a pyramid; we lay the foundations in the mind of man of a holy temple, whereof the exemplar is the universe. Throughout his writings the rejection of systems and authority is coupled with the assertion, that it is beyond all things necessary that the philosopher should be an humble follower of Nature. One of the most remarkable parts of the Novum Organum is the doctrine of Idola. It is an attempt to classify according to their origin the false and illdefined notions by which the mind is commonly beset. They come, he tells us, from the nature of the human mind in general, from the peculiarities of each man's individual mind, from his intercourse with other men, from the formal teaching of the received philosophies. All these must be renounced and put away, else no man can enter into the kingdom which is to be founded • on the knowledge of Nature.1 Of the four kinds of idols Mersenne has spoken in his Vérité des Sciences, published in 1625, as of the four buttresses of the Organum of Verulam. This expression, though certainly inaccurate, serves to show the attention which in Bacon's time was paid to his doctrine of idola.2

His rejection of syllogistic reasoning in the proposed process for the establishment of axioms, was not without utility. In the middle ages and at the reform of philosophy the value of the syllogistic method was unduly exalted. Bacon was right in denying that it was possible to establish by a summary process and à priori the first principles of any science, and thence to deduce by syllogism all the propositions which that science could contain; and though he erred in rejecting deductive reasoning altogether, this error could never have exerted any practical influence on the progress of science, while the truth

Nov. Org. i. 68. The word idolon is used by Bacon in antithesis to idea. He does not mean by it an idol or false object of worship.

2 Compare Gassendi, Inst. Log.

with which it was associated was a truth of which his contemporaries required at least to be reminded. The reason of his error seems to have been that he formed an incorrect idea of the nature of syllogism, regarding it rather as an entirely artificial process than as merely a formal statement of the steps necessarily involved in every act of reasoning. However this may be, it is certain that whenever men attempted to set aside every process for the discovery of truth except induction, they must always have been led to recognise the impossibility of doing so.

Lastly, the tone in which Bacon spoke of the future destiny of mankind fitted him to be a leader of the age in which he lived. It was an age of change and of hope. Men went forth to seek in new-found worlds for the land of gold and for the fountain of youth; they were told that yet greater wonders lay within their reach.

They had burst the bands

of old authority; they were told to go forth from the cave where they had dwelt so long, and look on the light of heaven. It was also for the most part an age of faith; and the new philosophy upset no creed, and pulled down no altar. It did not put the notion of human perfectibility in the place of religion, nor deprive mankind of hopes beyond the grave. On the contrary, it told its followers that the instauration of the sciences was the free gift of the God in whom their fathers had trusted that it was only another proof of the mercy of Him whose mercy is over all his works.

1x

PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS.

PART I.

WORKS PUBLISHED, OR DESIGNED FOR PUBLICATION, AS PARTS

OF THE INSTAURATIO MAGNA;

ARRANGED

ACCORDING TO THE ORDER IN WHICH THEY WERE WRITTEN.

Consilium est universum opus Instaurationis potius promovere in multis quam perficere in paucis; hoc perpetuo maximo cum ardore (qualem Deus mentibus ut plane confidimus addere solet) appetentes; ut quod adhuc nunquam tentatum sit id ne jam frustra tentetur.- Auctoris Monitum, 1622.

3

NOVUM ORGANUM.

NOTE.

Mr. Ellis's preface to the Novum Organum was written when he was travelling abroad and had not his books of reference about him. He was at work upon it the night he was taken ill at Mentone, and was not afterwards able either to finish or to revise it. I have added a page or two at the end, by which the analysis of the first book is completed. Of the second book it was not necessary to say anything; the subject of it being Bacon's method, which has been fully discussed in the General Preface. A few bibliographical inaccuracies of little consequence in themselves I have corrected, either in notes or by the insertion of words within brackets. These were merely oversights, hardly avoidable in the first draft of a work written in such circumstances. But there are also a few opinions expressed incidentally in which I cannot altogether concur, though they have evidently been adopted deliberately. With regard to these (Mr. Ellis not being in a condition to enter into a discussion of them) I had no course but to explain the grounds of my dissent, and leave every man to decide for himself upon the questions at issue. To avoid inconvenient interruptions however, I have thrown my arguments into an appendix, and contented myself in the foot notes with marking the particular expressions which I hold to be questionable.-J. S.

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