Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

the ground-work of their reasoning, and might ultimately have attained to a knowledge of the laws that govern the material world. What was necessary Bacon defined to be, that men should be slow to generalise, going from particular things to those which are but a single step more general, rising from those to others of a broader scope, and so on until they come to universals. is the true and untried way (" Aph." xix. et seq.).

This

He proceeds to dwell upon the distinction between the "idola" or "idols" of the human mind, and the ideas of the Divine. Of the latter it is said:" Except ye become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” And, adopting the Apostolic language, he exclaimed: "Little children, keep yourselves from idols." These "idols," or delusions of the understanding, he divided into—(1) Idols of the Tribe (Idola tribus), those belonging to mankind as a whole, to man as a race or tribe. It is falsely asserted that human sense is the measure or standard of things, whereas, on the contrary, all perceptions, whether of the sense or of the mind, are according to the analogy of man, and not according to the analogy of the universe; and the human intellect is to the rays of things as an unequal union, which blends its own nature with the nature of things, and so distorts and injures it. (2) Idols of the Cave (Idola specus) are the special weaknesses of the individual, and only too effectual in prejudicing his search after truth. (3) Idols of the Market-place (Idola fori), the creations of prejudice; things not as they are, but as they are represented by the common talk of the market-place, the gossip of the world; and (4) Idols of the Theatre (Idola theatri), ideas accepted from the dogmatic teachings of philosophers,

because as many philosophies as have been received or discovered, so many plays have in truth been acted, creating scenes and unreal worlds.

Having placed the inquirer on his guard against these idola, Bacon, in his second book, explains that "inductive method" by which alone truth can be obtained. Everything must be put to the test of experience; no fact must be accepted as such until it has been proved by experiment. In Nature, whatever is, is so under certain conditions, some of which are only accidental, while others are essential. The difference must be carefully ascertained. When this process has been applied to a number of facts, we are in a position by a comparison of the results to determine one of the laws by which Nature is governed. And when we know the laws (forma) and perceive the real unity of Nature in materials apparently dissimilar, we can go on to further experiment. The search after these eternal and immutable laws or forms he describes as constituting "metaphysics;" but the search after the intermediate, and not fundamental laws, he designates "physics."

The study of Nature, therefore, is to be conducted in such wise that it may yield—(a) Axioms or laws deduced from experiment; and (b) New experiments deduced from these axioms. As the foundation of all knowledge we need a competent "natural and experimental history," which can be obtained only by a "true and legitimate induction." In pursuing our investigations into the laws or forma, we must examine each "nature" or thing in a variety of ways, taking every case as an "instance" (instantia), or indication of its possession of certain qualities, and examining them in groups. As, for example, heat; the "instances agreeing" are not as rays

of the sun, but vapours, subterranean air, and the like;

these must duly be tabulated. Then we pass on to

"negative instances," rays of the sun, in mid air, rays of the moon, cold vapours; all of which are arranged in a second table. In a third are placed the instantiæ, which have more or less of the "nature" under examination, noting the relative increase or decrease in the same subject; this is the Table of Degrees, or Comparative Table. And so we go on through twenty-seven tables or classes of instantiæ, until, by analysis and comparison, we can make from them an induction, and gather in the first harvest of our patient and persevering labours.

*

Such is a brief outline of Bacon's experimental philosophy, which threw open the domains of Nature to the enterprise of man. It was no part of his work to accumulate results; his special province was to explain how they might be secured, and to stimulate the mind of man to undertake the task. "Be strong in hope," he said, "and do not fancy that our Instauratio' is something infinite and beyond human reach, when, in truth, it is mindful alike of mortality and humanity. It does not expect to accomplish its work in the course of a single age, but leaves it to the process of the ages. Lastly, it seeks for science, not boastfully, within the little cells of the human intellect, but humbly, in the range of the wide, wide world."

* For the deficiences of the Baconian method, see Swan's "Principles of Science.”

John Selden.

1584-1654.

IN that remarkable portrait-gallery which is known to us as the Earl of Clarendon's "History of the Great Rebellion," the learned John Seldenperhaps the greatest of our antiquarian lawyers—is thus presented to the critical judgment of posterity.

"He was a person whom no character can flatter, or transmit in any expressions equal to his merit and virtue. He was of so stupendous a learning in all kinds and in all languages (as may appear in his excellent and transcendent writings), that a man would have thought he had been entirely conversant amongst books, and had never spent an hour but in reading and writing; yet his humanity, courtesy, and affability were such, that he would have been thought to have been bred in the best courts; but that his good nature, charity, and delight in doing good, exceeded that breeding. His style in all his writings seems harsh, and sometimes obscure, which is not wholly to be imputed to the abstruse subjects of which he commonly treated, not of the paths trod by other men, but to a little undervaluing the beauty of style, and too much propensity to the language of antiquity; but in his conversation he was the most clear discourser, and had the best

* No one can deny the vigour and incisiveness with which Clarendon has sketched the "characters" of his contemporaries; and though no longer of much value as a record of events, for these it must always be valued and consulted.

faculty of making hard things easy, and presenting them to the understanding, that hath ever been known. Mr. Hyde was wont to say that he valued himself upon nothing more than upon having had Mr. Selden's acquaintance from the time he was very young, and held it with great delight as long as they were suffered to continue together in London; and he was much troubled always when he heard him blamed, censured, and reproached for staying in London, and in the Parliament, after they were in rebellion, and in the worst times, which his age obliged him to do; and how wicked soever the actions were which were every day done, he was confident he had not given his consent to them, but would have hindered them if he could with his own safety, to which he was always enough indulgent. If he had some infirmities with other men, they were weighed down with wonderful and prodigious abilities and excellencies in the other scale.'

This man of "wonderful and prodigious abilities and excellencies" was born at Salvington, near Tarring, in Sussex, on the 16th of December, 1584. On his mother's side he was well-born, for she came of the knightly family of Baker; but his father appears to have been of low estate. His early education he obtained at the Free Grammar School of Chichester, and he made such admirable use of his opportunities and natural gifts that, at the age of fourteen, he was admitted of Hart Hall, in the University of Oxford. Four years later, he removed to London, and, according to a custom of the time, which required that a student at law should enter at one of the inner inns of court before joining the greater societies, became a member of Clifford's Inn. In May, 1604, he was admitted of the Inner Temple, and soon afterwards I was called to the bar.

Of his favourite studies, and the various stages of his intellectual growth, biography, up to this date, records

« AnteriorContinuar »