GENERAL PREFACE

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BACON'S PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS.

BY ROBERT LESLIE ELLIS.

(1.) OUR knowledge of Bacon's method is much less complete than it is commonly supposed to be. Of the Novum Organum, which was to contain a complete statement of its nature and principles, we have only the first two books; and although in other parts of Bacon's writings, as for instance in the Cogitata et Visa de Interpretatione Nature, many of the ideas contained in these books recur in a less systematic form, we yet meet with but few indications of the nature of the subjects which were to have been discussed in the others. It seems not improbable that some parts of Bacon's system were never perfectly developed even in his own mind. However this may be, it is certain that an attempt to determine what his method, taken as a whole, was or would have been, must necessarily involve a conjectural or hypothetical element; and it is, I think, chiefly because this circumstance has not been sufficiently recognised, that the idea of Bacon's philosophy has generally speaking been but imperfectly apprehended.

(2.) Of the subjects which were to have occupied the remainder of the Novum Organum we learn something from a passage at the end of the second book.

"Nunc vero," it is said at the conclusion of the doctrine of prerogative instances, "ad adminicula et rectificationes inductionis, et deinceps ad concreta, et latentes processus, et latentes schematismos, et reliqua quæ aphorismo XXI ordine proposuimus, pergendum." On referring to the twenty-first aphorism we find a sort of table of contents of the whole work. "Dicemus itaque primo loco, de prærogativis instantiarum; secundo, de adminiculis inductionis; tertio, de rectificatione inductionis; quarto, de variatione inquisitionis pro naturâ subjecti; quinto, de prærogativis naturarum quatenus ad inquisitionem, sive de eo quod inquirendum est prius et posterius; sexto, de terminis inquisitionis, sive de synopsi omnium naturarum in universo; septimo, de deductione ad praxin, sive de eo quod est in ordine ad hominem; octavo, de parascevis ad inquisitionem; postremo autem, de scalâ ascensoriâ et descensoriâ axiomatum.' Of these nine subjects the first is the only one with which we are at all accurately acquainted.

(3.) Bacon's method was essentially inductive. He rejected the use of syllogistic or deductive reasoning, except when practical applications were to be made of the conclusions, axiomata, to which the inquirer had been led by a systematic process of induction. "Logica quæ nunc habetur inutilis est ad inventionem scientiarum. .... Spes est una in inductione verâ."1 It is to be observed that wherever Bacon speaks of an "ascending" process, he is to be understood to mean induction, of which it is the character to proceed from 1 Nov. Org. i. 11. and 14.

that which is nobis notius to that which is notius simpliciter. Contrariwise when he speaks of a descent, he always refers to the correlative process of deduction. Thus when in the Partis secunda Delineatio he says,

. "meminerint homines in inquisitione activâ necesse esse rem per scalam descensoriam (cujus usum in contemplativâ sustulimus) confici: omnis enim operatio in individuis versatur quæ infimo loco sunt," - we are to understand that in Bacon's system deduction is only admissible in the inquisitio activa; that is, in practical applications of the results of induction. Similarly in the Distributio Operis he says, "Rejicimus syllogismum; neque id solùm quoad principia (ad quæ nec illi eam adhibent) sed etiam quoad propositiones medias." Everything was to be established by induction. "In constituendo autem axiomate forma inductionis alia quàm adhuc in usu fuit excogitanda est, eaque non ad principia tantùm (quæ vocant) probanda et invenienda, sed etiam ad axiomata minora, et media, denique omnia."1

"2

(4.) It is necessary to determine the relation in which Bacon conceived his method to stand to ordinary induction. Both methods set out "a sensu et particularibus,” and acquiesce "in maximè generalibus ; but while ordinary induction proceeds "per enumcrationem simplicem," by a mere enumeration of particular cases, "et precario concludit et periculo exponitur ab instantià contradictoriâ," the new method"naturam separare debet, per rejectiones et exclusiones debitas; et deinde post negativas tot quot sufficiunt super affirmativas concludere."3 A form of induction was to be introduced, "quæ ex aliquibus generaliter concludat ita ut instantiam contradictoriam 1 Nov. Org. i. 105. 2 Nov. Org. i. 22.

8 Nov. Org. i. 105.

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inveniri non posse demonstretur.”1 In strong contrast with this method stands "the induction which the logicians speak of," which "is utterly vicious and incompetent." "For to conclude upon an enumeration of particulars, without instance contradictory, is no conclusion, but a conjecture." .." And this form, to say truth, is so gross, as it had not been possible for wits so subtile as have managed these things to have offered it to the world, but that they trusted to their theories and dogmaticals, and were imperious and scornful towards particulars." 2 We thus see what is meant by the phrase "quot sufficiunt" in the passage which has been cited from the Novum Organum; it means as many as may suffice in order to the attainment of certainty," it being necessary to have a method of induction, "quæ experientiam solvat et separet, et per exclusiones et rejectiones debitas necessario concludat.”8 Absolute certainty is therefore one of the distinguishing characters of the Baconian induction. Another is that it renders all men equally capable, or nearly so, of attaining to the truth. "Nostra verò inveniendi scientias ea est ratio ut non multum ingeniorum acumini et robori relinquatur; sed quæ ingenia et intellectus ferè exæquet; "4 and this is illustrated by the difficulty of describing a circle liberâ manu, whereas every one can do it with a pair of compasses. "Omninò similis est nostra ratio." The cause to which this peculiarity is owing, is sufficiently indicated by the illustration: the

1 Cogitata et Visa, § 18.

2 Advancement of Learning. The corresponding passage in the De Augm. is in the 2nd chap. of the 5th book.

8 Distrib. Operis, § 10.

4 Nov. Org. i. 61., and comp. i. 122. Also the Inquisitio legitima de Motu, and Valerius Terminus, c. 19.