Again, the progress of science has been hindered by too much respect for what has been already accomplished. And this has been increased by the appearance of completeness which systematic writers on science have given to their works, and also by the vain and boastful promises of some who have pretended to reform philosophy. Another reason why more has not been accomplished, is that so little has been attempted.

To these hindrances Bacon adds three others, — superstitious bigotry, the constitution of schools, universities, and colleges, and the lack of encouragement; and then concludes this part of the subject with that which he affirms to have been the greatest obstacle of all, namely despair of the possibility of progress. To remove this, he goes on to state the grounds of hope for the future, a discussion which extends from (93.) to (115.).

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Principium autem," he begins, "sumendum a Deo;" that is to say, the excellence of the end proposed is in itself an indication that the matter in hand is from God, nor is the prophecy of Daniel concerning the latter times to be omitted, namely that many shall go to and fro and knowledge shall be increased. Again, the errors committed in time past are a reason

age men were no longer willing to submit to the authority of antiquity, and still felt bound to justify their dissent. Two writers may at any rate be mentioned by whom the thought is as distinctly expressed as by Bacon, namely Giordano Bruno and Otto Casmann; the former in the Cena di Cenere, the latter in the preface to his Problemata Marina, which was published in 1596, and therefore a few years later than the Cena, with which however it is not likely that Casmann was acquainted. Few writers of celebrity comparable to Bruno's appear to have been so little read.

I have quoted both passages in a note on the corresponding passage in [the first book of] the De Augmentis: that in the Cena di Cenere was first noticed by Dr. Whewell. See his Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, ii. 198.

for hoping better things in the time to come. He therefore sets forth these errors at some length (95— 107.). This enumeration begins with the passage already mentioned [as occurring in the Cogitata et Visa], in which the true method is spoken of as intermediate to those of the dogmatici or rationales, and of the empirici. There will be, he concludes, good ground for hope when the experimental and reasoning faculties are more intimately united than they have ever yet been. So likewise when natural philosophy ceases to be alloyed with matter extraneous to it, and when any one can be found content to begin at the beginning and, putting aside all popularly received notions and opinions, to apply himself afresh to experience and particulars. And here Bacon introduces an illustration which he has also employed elsewhere, comparing the regeneration of the sciences to the exploits of Alexander, which were at first esteemed portentous and more than human, and yet afterwards it was Livy's judgment that he had done no more than despise a vain show of difficulty. Bacon then resumes his enumeration of the improvements which are to be made, each of which will be a ground of hope. The first is a better natural history than has yet been composed; and it is to be observed that a natural history which is designed to contain the materials for the instauration of philosophy differs essentially from a natural history which has no such ulterior end: the chief difference is, that an ordinary natural history does not contain the experimental results furnished by the arts. ond place, among these results themselves great lack of experimenta lucifera, that is of experiments which, though not practically useful, yet serve

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to give light for the discovery of causes and axioms: hitherto men have busied themselves for the most part with experimenta fructifera, that is experiments of use and profit. Thirdly, experimental researches must be conducted orderly and according to rule and law, and not as hitherto in a desultory and irregular manner. Again, when the materials required have been collected, the mind will not be able to deal with them. without assistance and memoriter: all discoveries ought to be based upon written records "nulla nisi de scripto inventio probanda est." This is what Bacon calls experientia litterata,1 his meaning apparently being that out of the storehouse of natural history all the facts connected with any proposed subject of investigation should be extracted and reduced to writing before anything else is done. Furthermore, all these facts must not only be reduced to writing, but arranged tabularly. In dealing with facts thus collected and arranged, we are to regard them chiefly as the materials for the construction of axioms, our path leading us upwards from particulars to axioms, and then downwards from axioms to works; and the ascent from particulars to axioms must be gradual, that is axioms of a less degree of generality must always be established before axioms of a higher. Again a new form of induction is to be introduced; for induction by simple

1 "Illa vero in usum veniente, ab experientiâ factâ demum literatâ, melius sperandum." In Montagu's edition literatà is printed incorrectly with a capital letter; which makes it seem as if the experientia facta literata here spoken of were the same as the experientia quam vocamus literatam in Aph. 103. But they are, in fact, two different things; the one being opposed to experience which proceeds without any written record of its results; the other to raga experientia et se tantum sequens-experience which proceeds without any method in its inquiries. See my note on Aph. 101. -J. S.

enumeration is childish and precarious. But true induction analyses nature by rejections and exclusions, and concludes affirmatively after a sufficient number of negatives. And our greatest hope rests upon this way of induction. Also the axioms thus established are to be examined whether they are of wider generality than the particulars employed in their construction, and if so, to be verified by comparing them with other facts, "per novorum particularium designationem,1 quasi fidejussione quâdam.” Lastly, the sciences must be kept in connexion with natural philosophy.

Bacon then goes on (108-114.) to state divers grounds of hope derived from other sources than those of which he has been speaking, namely, the errors hitherto committed. The first is that without any method of invention men have made certain notable discoveries; how many more, then, and greater, by the method now to be proposed. Again, of discoveries already made, there are many which before they were made would never have been conceived of as possible, which is a reason for thinking that many other things still remain to be found out of a nature wholly unlike any hitherto known. In the course of ages these too would doubtless some time or other come to light; but by a regular method of discovery they will be made known far more certainly and in far less time, propere et subito et simul. Bacon mentions particularly, as discoveries not likely to have been thought of beforehand, gunpowder, silk, and the mariner's compass; remarking that if the conditions to be fulfilled had been

1 I understand designatio here to mean discovery. The test of the truth of the axiom was to be the discovery by its light of new particulars. See Valerius Terminus, ch. xii., quoted in note on Aph. 106.

J. S.

stated, men would have sought for something far more akin than the reality to things previously known: in the case of gunpowder, if its effects only had been described, they would have thought of some modification of the battering-ram or the catapult, and not of an expansive vapour; and so in the other cases. He also mentions the art of printing as an invention perfectly simple when once made, and which nevertheless was only made after a long course of ages. Again, we may gain hope from seeing what an infinity of pains and labour men have bestowed on far less matters than that now in hand, of which if only a portion were given to the advancement of sound and real knowledge, all difficulties might be overcome. This remark Bacon makes with reference to his natural and experimental history, which he admits will be a great and royal work, and of much labour and cost. But the number of particulars to be observed ought not to deter us; on the contrary, if we consider how much smaller it is than that of the figments of the understanding, we shall find even in this grounds for hope. To these figments, commenta ingenii, the phænomena of Nature and the arts are but a mere handful. Some hope too, Bacon thinks, may be derived from his own example; for if, though of weak health, and greatly hindered by other occupations, and moreover in this matter altogether "protopirus" and following no man's track nor even communicating these things with any, he has been able somewhat to advance therein, how much may not be hoped for from the conjoined and successive labours of men at leisure from all other business? Lastly, though the breeze of hope from that new world were fainter than it is, still it were worth while to follow the ad