After his dedication to the King, (a) he, according to his wonted mode, clears the way by a review of the state of learning, which, he says, is neither prosperous nor advanced, but, being barren in effects, fruitful in questions, slow and languid in its improvement, exhibiting in its generality the counterfeit of perfection, ill filled up in its details, popular in its choice, suspected by its very promoters, and therefore countenanced with artifices, (b) it is necessary that an entirely different way from any known. by our predecessors must be opened to the human understanding, and different helps be obtained, in order that the mind may exercise its jurisdiction over the nature of things.

The intended work is then separated into six parts:

humanitus accideret, exstaret tamen designatio quædam, ac destinatio rei quam animo complexus est; utque exstaret simul signum aliquod honestæ suæ et propensæ in generis humani commoda voluntatis. Certe aliam quamcunque ambitionem inferiorem duxit re, quam præ manibus habuit. Aut enim hoc quod agitur nihil est; aut tantum, ut merito ipso contentum esse debeat, nec fructum extra quærere.

FRANCIS OF VERULAM

THOUGHT THUS.

Uncertain, however, whether these reflections would ever hereafter suggest themselves to another, and particularly having observed that he has never yet met with any person disposed to apply his mind to similar meditations, he determined to publish whatsoever he had first time to conclude. Nor is this the haste of ambition, but of his anxiety, that if the common lot of mankind should befall him, some sketch and determination of the matter his mind had embraced might be extant, as well as an earnest of his will being honourably bent upon promoting the advantage of mankind. He assuredly looked upon any other ambition as beneath the matter he had undertaken; for that which is here treated of is either nothing, or it is so great that he ought to be satisfied with its own worth, and seek no other return.

(a) See vol. ix. P. 150.

(b) See vol. ix. from p. 5.

1. Divisions of the Sciences.

2. Novum Organum; or, Precepts for the Interpretation of Nature.

3. Phænomena of the Universe; or, Natural and Experimental History on which to found Philosophy.

4. Scale of the Understanding.

5. Precursors or Anticipations of the Second Philosophy. 6. Sound Philosophy, or Active Science.

And with respect to each of these parts he explains his intentions.

of the

As to the first, or THE DIVISION OF THE SCIENCES, Division he, in 1605, had exhibited an outline in the Advancement Sciences. of Learning, (a) and lived nearly (b) to complete it in the year 1623. (c) In this treatise he describes the cultivated parts of the intellectual world and the desarts; (d) not to measure out regions, as augurs for divination, but as generals to invade for conquest.

Novum

THE NOVUM ORGANUM is a treatise upon the conduct The of the understanding in the systematic discovery of truth, Organum. or the art of invention by a New Organ: (e) as, in inquiring into any nature, the hydrophobia, for instance, or the attraction of the magnet, the Novum Organum explains a mode of proceeding by which its nature and laws may with certainty be found.

It having been Bacon's favourite doctrine, that important

(a) See vol. viii. See ante, p. cxxxv.

(b) Not entirely, see the De Aug. vol. ix. p. 83, where his Justitia Universalis is unfinished.

(e) The object of the second part is the doctrine touching a better and more perfect use of reasoning in the investigation of things, and the true helps of the understanding; that it may by this means be raised, as far as our human and mortal nature will admit, and be enlarged in its powers so as to master the arduous and obscure secrets of nature.

truths are often best discovered in small and familiar instances, (a) as the nature of a commonwealth, in a family

(a) Experiments familiar and vulgar, to the interpretation of nature do as much, if not more, conduce than experiments of a higher quality. Certainly this may be averred for truth, that they be not the highest instances, that give the best and surest information. This is not unaptly expressed in the tale, so common, of the philosopher, who while he gazed upward to the stars fell into the water; for if he had looked down, he might have seen the stars in the water, but looking up to heaven he could not see the water in the stars. In like manner, it often comes to pass that small and mean things conduce more to the discovery of great matters than great things to the discovery of small matters; and therefore Aristotle notes well, that the nature of every thing is best seen in its smallest portions. For that cause he inquires the nature of a commonwealth, first, in a family and the simple conjugations of society; man and wife; parents and children; master and servant, which are in every cottage. So likewise the nature of this great city of the world, and the policy thereof, must be sought in every first concordances and least portions of things. So we see that secret of nature (esteemed one of the great mysteries) of the turning of iron touched with a loadstone towards the poles, was found out in needles of iron, not in bars of iron.

Consider obvious and common things.-Newton retired from the University to avoid the plague, which raged with great violence. Sitting under a tree in an orchard, an apple fell upon his head.—As there is motion, there must be a force which produces it. Is this force of gravity confined to the surface of the earth, or does it extend to heavenly bodies?

"See," Bacon says, 'the little cloud upon glass or blades of swords, and mark well the discharge of that cloud, and you shall perceive that it ever breaks up first in the skirts, and last in the midst. May we not learn from this the force of union, even in the least quantities and weakest bodies, how much it conduceth to preservation of the present form, and the resisting of the new? In like manner, icicles if there be water to follow them, lengthen themselves out in a very slender thread, to prevent a discontinuity of the water; but if there be not a sufficient quantity to follow, the water then falls in round drops, which is the figure that best supports it against discontinuation; and at the very instant when the thread of water ends, and the falling in drops begins, the water recoils upwards to avoid being discontinued. So in metals, which are fluid upon fusion, though a little tenacious, some of the mettled mass frequently springs up in drops, and sticks in that form to the sides of the crucible. There is a like instance in the looking-glasses, commonly made of spittle by children, in a loop of rush or whalebone, where we find a constant pellicle of water."

and the simple conjugations of society, man and wife, parents and children, master and servant, which are in every cottage; and as he had early taught that all truths, however divisible as lines and veins, (a) are not separable as sections and separations, but partake of one common essence, which, like the drops of rain, fall separately into the river, mix themselves at once with the stream, and strengthen the general current, it may seem extraordinary that it should not have occurred to him that the mode to discover any truth might, possibly, be seen by the proceedings in a court of justice, where the immediate and dearest interests of men being concerned, and great intellect exerted, it is natural to suppose that the best mode of invention would be adopted.

In a well constituted court of justice the Judge is without partiality. He hears the evidence on both sides, and the reasoning of the opposite advocates. He then forms his judgment. This is the mode adopted by Bacon in the Novum Organum for the discovery of all truths. He endeavours to make the Philosopher in his study proceed as a Judge in his court.

For this purpose his work is divisible into three parts: 1st. The removal of prejudice, or the destruction of idols, or modes by which the judgment is warped from the truth. 2ndly. By considering facts on both sides; as if the inquiry be into the nature of heat, by considering all the affirmative and negative instances of heat,

(a) Adv. of Learning, vol. ii. p. 153. De Aug. vol. viii. p. 205.

3rdly. By explaining the mode in which the facts presented to the senses ought by certain rules to be examined.

As the commander of an army, before he commences an attack, considers the strength and number of his troops, both regular and allies; the spirit by which they are animated, whether they are the lion, or the sheep in the lion's skin; the power of the enemy to which he is opposed; their walled towns, their stored arsenals and armouries, their horses and chariots of war, elephants, ordnance and artillery, and their races of men; and then in what mode he shall commence his attack and proceed in the battle: so, before man directs his strength against nature, and endeavours to take her high towers and dismantle her fortified holds, and thus enlarge the borders of his dominion, (a) he ought duly to estimate,

1st. His powers natural and artificial for the discovery

of truth.

2nd. His different motives for the exercise of his powers. 3rd. The obstacles to which he is opposed; and, 4th. The mode in which he can exert his powers with

most efficacy, or the Art of Invention.

Of these four requisites, therefore, a perfect work upon the conduct of the understanding ought, as it seems, to consist: but the Novum Organum is not thus treated. To system Bacon was not attached: (b) for "As young

" que

(a) See Bacon, in the beginning of his tract on the Philosophy of Man. See also Diderot de l'Interprétation de la Nature, where he says, tous nos efforts se trouvassent réunis et dirigés en même temps contre la résistance de la nature." There is the same expression in South's sermon on Human Perfection, viz. " thereby extending the bounds of apprehension and enlarging the territories of reason."

(b) See Advancement of Learning, vol. ii. p. 203. See also note D, vol. ii. p. 384.