he himself would inevitably go right. Aristotle's failures, so far from discouraging him, seem rather to have inspired him with an excess of presumption, as if, when these obstacles were removed, no others would remain to bar the secrets of Nature. Revolting from the unscientific doctrine of the Aristotelian "natures," "appetites," and "qualities," he conceived a sanguine prejudice not only that Nature was orderly, but that her secrets must be readily discovered in an orderly and almost mechanical manner. The recent discoveries of Tycho Brahé, Kepler, Galileo, Harvey, and Gilbert, might have taught him useful lessons of patience, of reverence for the vastness of Nature, and, at the same time, of respect for the indirect results which might spring from the researches of a specialist working in one small corner of her vast domain: but he did not learn these lessons because he did not know or did not appreciate their achievements. They were not grand enough for him; and he merged them all in an indiscriminate condemnation of the barrenness of scientific study from Aristotle's days to his own. The discoveries of science up to his time, he said, had been mainly accidental; no wonder that the Egyptians worshipped beasts as gods; for the instinct of beasts had discovered more healing herbs than the art of men. But why should there not be an art of discovery?

At present, he reflected, some were content to rest in empiricism and isolated facts; others ascended too hastily to first principles; all alike often wasted time and labour in experiments that led to no results, and in observing phenomena that would teach nothing. These evils must be remedied. After the minds of men had been cleared from their inherent imperfections and taught to regard Nature evenly and impartially, philosophers must then be taught to pursue a fixed path of inductive experiment which would guide the feeblest intellect aright, as infallibly as the compasses would guide even the most inaccurate draughtsman to trace a perfect circle. Instead of seeking after experiments which would produce immediate fruit, the philosopher must seek those which would give him light and would direct him towards higher and yet higher experiments, so that he might proceed ever further in the analysis of Nature, and at last reach the real Laws or Forms of all existence, the knowledge

of which would bring with it the power of reproducing all existing things.

"How few are the letters of the alphabet, and yet how innumerable are the words and thoughts which they can be made to represent! Might it not be so in the Book of Nature likewise; and as we can take words to pieces and find the single letters, can we not also take the phenomena of Nature to pieces and find their simple constituent elements, the 'simple natures,' so to speak, which in various combinations make up all existences? Heat for example: what can be easier than to introduce, one after another, the bodies that contain heat, and to show what common fact there is in each which, amid countless diversities of circumstance, is never absent whenever heat is present? Thus, by examining a sufficient number of instances of heat, we shall be able to reject some superficial appearances of cause, which after a time we shall find not to be invariably present where heat is present, and we shall be left with a residuum of invariably present fact, through which we shall be able to produce heat at will; and thus we shall at last attain the knowledge of heat by attaining the knowledge of its causes. This introduction or induction of instances with a view to arrive at causes, requires skill, no doubt; it must not be conducted at haphazard; it is an Art in itself, the Art of Induction; but with patience and docility applying ourselves to things and not to words, to Nature and not to Aristotle, we shall surely attain this Art of Induction: and this, once attained, will be a Key to unlock all the secrets of Nature and to enable us to perform all her processes." Thus Bacon appears to have reasoned: and, as he was by nature over-hopeful; disposed to exaggerate similarities and (with all deference to his own judgment of himself1) to underrate the dissimilarities of phenomena; as also he had sufficient general knowledge of recent discoveries to appreciate (more than most men of his time) the orderliness and uniformity of Nature, and had not sufficient special knowledge of recent discoveries to make him aware (as Gilbert and Harvey and Harriot would have been aware) of the indefinable

1 See p. 27 above, where he says he found in himself a capability for discerning dissimilarities.

combination of scientific imagination with scientific toil and observation, necessary to constitute an original Discoverer-he early persuaded himself into the belief that it would be a matter of no great difficulty for him to elaborate such an Art of Induction as would make the discovery of Nature's secrets little more than a mechanical routine.

All that was needed in addition to the Art of Induction, or New Instrument for the Interpretation of Nature-was a sufficient supply of natural phenomena to work on. For that purpose it would be necessary to compile a new Natural History, not on the old plan (which aimed at collecting a number of unarranged, exceptional, and marvellous phenomena for the purpose of exciting mere amusement or amazement) but a History classified in accordance with scientific conceptions. To compile such a Natural History would be a work exceeding the compass of one man's ability, and suitable rather for a crowned head. Bacon therefore determined in his earlier years to apply himself to the former object, the elaboration of the New Induction, or as he calls it the New Instrument or Organ (Organum) by which Nature is to be interpreted. But, later in life-perhaps because the New Instrument had not been found so efficacious as had been at first anticipated-we shall find him laying greater stress on the Natural History, and declaring that, with such a classified History, much advance might be made, even without the New Instrument.

We must also bear in mind that he presupposes that the work of interpreting Nature will not be a solitary but a "collegiate" pursuit, wherein a multitude of labourers, having had their several provinces of observation and experiment mapped out for them by a superior director, will obtain results of different grades of importance, the lower preparing the way for the higher, and the whole ascending as it were like the layers of a pyramid. The apex of this pyramid was to be the highest knowledge of all, which consists in knowing the axioms common to all sciences.

The object of all his efforts, Bacon was wont to describe, not as a rebellion against philosophic despotism, nor yet as a revolution, nor even as a new institution of philosophy, but rather as a renewal of the wholesome ancient philosophy of the

Egyptians and earlier Greeks, which had been perverted and suppressed by the innovations of Aristotelian ostentation.1 This description, which he adopted in his youth, he never afterwards discarded; and to this day his philosophic work is known to us as the Magna Instauratio or Great Renewal of Learning.

Bacon's own account of the scheme of the Magna Instauratio is found in a section of the Novum Organum called the Distributio Operis, which will be described in due course; 2 but meanwhile the remarks of Mr. Ellis will throw light both on the scheme as a whole, and on all those Baconian treatises which chronologically precede the Novum Organum.

"The Instauratio," says Mr. Ellis, "is to be divided into six portions of which the first is to contain a general survey of the present state of knowledge.

"In the second, men are to be taught how to use their understanding aright in the investigation of Nature.

"In the third, all the phenomena of the universe are to be stored up, as in a treasure-house, as the materials on which the new method is to be employed.

"In the fourth, examples are to be given of its operation and of the results to which it leads.

"The fifth is to contain what Bacon had accomplished in Natural Philosophy without the aid of his own method; ex eodem intellectus usu quem alii in inquirendo et inveniendo adhibere consueverunt. It is therefore less important than the rest, and Bacon declares that he will not bind himself to the conclusions which it contains. Moreover, its value will altogether cease when

"The sixth part can be completed; wherein will be set forth the New Philosophy-the results of the application of the new method to all the Phenomena of the Universe. But to complete this Bacon does not hope; he speaks of it as a thing et supra vires et ultra spes nostras

collocata.

"The greater part of the plan traced in the Distributio remained unfulfilled."3

It is a curious and instructive fact that, in spite of all that Bacon wrote to publish, elucidate, and exemplify his philosophic system, there is no general consent among his readers and commentators as to what the system really was. Mr. Ellis however -whose criticisms, although unfortunately incomplete, appear to me to be far superior in depth and clearness to those of any 1 See p. 403, "Deus Instaurator." 2 See p. 377.

3 Spedding, Works, i, 71-2.

other commentator-believes that no account of it can be adequate which does not recognise in it an improvement and perfection of logical machinery. Mr. Spedding on the other hand thinks that the classified Natural History was the most important part of the system, more important than the Key of Interpretation itself. Quotations may undoubtedly be produced from Bacon's works to support the latter view. But I think they will be found to be in every case drawn from Bacon's later works; when, having tried the Key of Interpretation and found it fail, he had been driven to some other refuge for his disappointment. The importance attached to the Natural History appears to have arisen from a change of front. The History would be of little use unless it was classified in accordance with the rules suggested by the Key of Interpretation; and the Key itself—some perfected Logic by which an ordinary mind could discover secrets of Nature not to be detected by the highest unassisted genius-was the central point of the Baconian philosophy.

We proceed to consider one of the many early tentative forms in which some of the principles of the Instauratio are set forth.

§ 47" PARTUS MASCULUS TEMPORIS;"1" VALERIUS TERMINUS." 2

In the autumn of 1625, Bacon confessed to a correspondent that, some forty years before, he had written a work, which with juvenile audacity and a presumptuous title "he had called The Greatest Birth of Time, or the Great Renewal of the Empire of Man over the Universe (Partus Maximus Temporis sive Instauratio Magna Imperii Humani in Universum)." No such work is extant; but we have a short fragment proved to be very early by internal evidence, the title of which is Partus Masculus Temporis, or the Male Birth of Time. There are grounds for thinking that, under a title slightly changed and toned down, we have here the Partus Maximus, the first germ of the Magna Instauratio.

After a prayer to God that the kindling of the new light of Nature may not dazzle the eye of the soul so as to 1 Spedding, Works, iii. 521-539.

2 Ibid. 215-252.