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turned a large part of English science out of the wrong road into the right, and the Royal Society, established at the beginning of Charles II.'s reign to encourage systematic inquiry into nature, was a direct result of the impulse he had given. All the good work done in the laboratories of the present day is work done, consciously or unconsciously, upon the lines laid down by Francis Bacon. Of such systematic work Bacon said in his "Novum Organum "

There is left for us pure experience, which, if it offers itself, is called chance; if it is sought, is called experiment. But this kind of experience is nothing but a broom without a band (as the saying is), a mere groping in the dark, as of men who, at night, try all means of discovering the right road, when it would be much more expedient to wait for the dawn of day, or to kindle a light and then proceed. On the contrary, the true order of experience first kindles the light, then shows the way by means of this light; beginning with a regulated and digested, not a misplaced and erratic course of experiment, thence deducing axioms, and then, from the axioms thus established, making new experiments. Not even the Divine Word operated on the mass of things without order. Let men, therefore, cease to wonder, if the whole course of science be not run, when they have altogether wandered from the path: quitting and deserting experience entirely, or entangling themselves and roaming about in it, as in a labyrinth; when a true orderly method would lead them by a sure path through the woods of experience to the open daylight of axioms.

The books of the "Instauratio Magna" begin with the groundwork in two books, written in English, "Of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning, Divine and Human," which were published in 1605. They were recast, towards the close of his life, as a Latin treatise divided into nine books, "De Augmentis Scientiarum." This work was to lay the foundations of Bacon's system, by insisting on the dignity and use of a search after knowledge, and then forming an intellectual scheme of all the directions that a search after knowledge might take among men; an analysis that was to resolve the knowable into its several parts, and enable the mind of an individual thinker to choose deliberately the path along which it could best hope to make useful advance.

After this came in Bacon's scheme the "Novum Organum," the setting forth of the true method of inquiry. Then other books dealt with the material on which science was to work, and studies in application of the theory to practice, Active Science being end and aim of all.

In the First Book of the "Advancement of Learning," after the Dedication of all to King James, Bacon dwelt first upon the excellency of learning, and then touched on what has been done for its advancement and the attitudes of mind that have

impeded progress. He answered the divines who suppose Science to be opposed to Religion.

If any man shall think by view and inquiry into these sensible and material things to attain that light, whereby he may reveal unto himself the nature or will of God, then indeed is he spoiled by vain philosophy: for the contempla

tion of God's creatures and works produceth (having regard to the works and creatures themselves) knowledge, but having regard to God, no perfect knowledge, but wonder, which is broken knowledge. And therefore it was most aptly said by one of Plato's school, That the sense of man carrieth a resemblance with the sun, which (as we see) openoth and revealeth all the terrestrial globe; but then again it obscureth and concealeth the stars and celestial globe: so doth the sense discover natural things but it darkeneth and shutteth up divine. And hence it is true that it hath proceeded, that divers great learned men have been heretical, whilst they have sought to fly up to the secrets of the Deity by the waxen wings of the senses. And as for the conceit that too much knowledge should incline a man to atheism, and that the ignorance of second causes should make a more devout dependence upon God, which is the First Cause; first, it is good to ask the question which Job asked of his friends: Will you lie for God, as one man will do for another, to gratify Him? For certain it is that God worketh nothing in nature but by second causes; and if they would have it otherwise believed, it is mere imposture, as it were in favour towards God; and nothing else but to offer to the Author of truth the unclean sacrifice of a lie. But further, it is an assured truth, and a conclusion of experience, that a little or superficial knowledge of philosophy may incline the mind of man to atheism, but a further proceeding therein doth bring the mind back again to religion. For in the entrance of philosophy, when the second causes, which are next unto the senses, do offer themselves to the mind of man, if it dwell and stay there it may induce some oblivion of the highest cause; but when a man passeth on further, and seeth the dependence of causes, and the works of Providence; then, according to the allegory of the poets, he will easily believe that the highest link of nature's chain must needs be tied to the foot of Jupiter's chair. To conclude therefore, let no man upon a weak conceit of sobriety or an ill-applied moderation think or maintain, that a man can search too far, or be too well studied in the book of God's word, or in the book of God's works, divinity or philosophy; but rather let men endeavour an endless progress or proficience in both; only let men beware that they apply both to charity, and not to swelling; to use, and not to ostentation; and again, that they do not unwisely mingle or confound these learnings together.

From the objections of theologians Bacon passes to those of politicians, that learning withdraws men from reverence to the laws and customs of their country, that it disposes them to leisure and privateness, and takes up too much of their time. Then he proceeds to the "discredit or diminution of credit that groweth with learning from learned men themselves, which commonly cleaveth fastest: it is either from their fortune, or from their manners, or from the nature of their studies." They are poor, they are meanly employed in the education of youth, they fail sometimes in applying themselves to particular persons.

There is yet another fault (with which I will conclude this part) which is often noted in learned men, that they do many times fail to observe decency and discretion in their behaviour and carriage, and commit errors in small and ordinary points of action, so as the vulgar sort of capacities do make a judgment of them in greater matters by that which they find wanting in them in smaller. But this consequence doth oft deceive men, for which I do refer them over to that

which was said by Themistocles, arrogantly and uncivilly being applied to himself out of his own mouth, but, being applied to the general state of this question, pertinently and justly, when being invited to touch a lute he said, He could not fiddle, but he could make a small town a great state. So no doubt many may be well seen in the passages of government and policy, which are to seek in little and punctual occasions. I refer them also to that which Plato said of his master Socrates, whom he compared to the gallipots of apothecaries, which on the outside had apes and owls and antiques, but contained within sovereign and precious liquors and confections; acknowledging that to an external report he was not without superficial levities and deformities, but was inwardly replenished with excellent virtues and powers. And so much touching the point of manners of learned men.

Bacon next turns to the errors and vanities that are in the studies themselves of some of the learned.

There be therefore chiefly three vanities in studies, whereby learning hath been most traduced. For those things we do esteem vain, which are either false or frivolous, those which either have no truth or no use: and those persons we esteem vain, which are either credulous or curious; and curiosity is either in matter or words: so that in reason as well as in experience there fall out to be these three distempers (as I may term them) of learning: the first, fantastical learning; the second, contentious learning; and the last, delicate learning: vain imaginations, vain altercations, and vain affectations; and with the last I will begin. Martin Luther, conducted (no doubt) by a higher Providence, but in discourse of reason, finding what a providence he had undertaken against the bishop of Rome and the degenerate traditions of the church, and finding his own solitude, being no ways aided by the opinions of his own time, was enforced to awake all antiquity, and to call former times to his succours to make a party against the present time. So that the ancient authors, both in divinity and in humanity, which had long time slept in libraries, began generally to be read and revolved. This by consequence did draw on a necessity of a more exquisite travail in the languages original, wherein those authors did write, for the better understanding of those authors, and the better advantage of pressing and applying their words. And thereof grew again a delight in their manner of style and phrase, and an admiration of that kind of writing; which was much furthered and precipitated by the enmity and opposition that the propounders of those primitive but seeming new opinions had against the schoolmen; who were generally of the contrary part, and whose writings were altogether in a differing style and form; taking liberty to coin and frame new terms of art to express their own sense, and to avoid circuit of speech, without regard to the pureness, pleasantness, and (as I may call it) lawfulness of the phrase or word. And again, because the great labour then was with the people (of whom the Pharisees were wont to say, Execrabilis ista turba, que non novit legem), for the winning and persuading of them, there grew of necessity in chief price and request eloquence and variety of discourse, as the fittest and forciblest access into the capacity of the vulgar sort: so that these four causes concurring, the admiration of ancient authors, the hate of the schoolmen, the exact study of languages, and the efficacy of preaching, did bring in an affectionate study of eloquence and copy of speech, which then began to flourish. This grew speedily to an excess; for men began to hunt more after words than matter; more after the choiceness of the phrase, and the round and clean composition of the sentence, and the sweet falling of the clauses, and the varying and

illustration of their works with tropes and figures, than after the weight of matter, worth of subject, soundness of argument, life of invention, or depth of judgment.

This Bacon calls over-delicate learning. After illustrating also the contentious and fantastical, Bacon passes from these diseases of learning to what he calls "rather peccant humours than formed diseases, which nevertheless are not so secret and intrinsicbut that they fall under a popular observation and. traducement, and therefore are not to be passed over."

Under this head he treats of the two extremes in affectation, by some of antiquity, by some of novelty; the distrust of new discoveries, and conceit that the wisdom of the past has sifted truth from error, and that therefore the best opinions prevail. Another peccant humour is "the over-early and peremptory reduction of knowledge into arts and methods; from which time commonly sciences receive small or noaugmentation;" this comes of the neglect of first principles, of the first philosophy, as soon as there has been a distribution of it into particular arts and sciences.

Another error hath proceeded from too great a reverence, and a kind of adoration of the mind and understanding of man; by means whereof, men have withdrawn themselves too much from the contemplation of nature, and the observations of experience, and have tumbled up and down in their own reason and conceits. Upon these intellectualists, which are notwithstanding commonly taken for the most sublime and divine philosophers, Heraclitus gave a just censure, saying, Men sought truth in their own little worlds and not in the great and common world; for they disdain to spell, and so by degrees to read in the volume of God's works: and contrariwise by continual meditation and agitation of wit do urge and as it were invocate their own spirits to divine and give oracles unto them, whereby they are deservedly deluded.

Again, men mix knowledge with their own particular meditations, conceits, and doctrines.

Another error is an impatience of doubt, and haste to assertion without due and mature suspension of judgment. For the two ways of contemplation are not unlike the two ways of action commonly spoken of by the ancients: the one. plain and smooth in the beginning, and in the end impassable; the other rough and troublesome in the entrance, but after a while fair and even. So it is in contemplation: if a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties. Another error is in the manner of the tradition and delivery of knowledge, which is for the most part magistral and peremptory, and not ingenuous and faithful; in a sort as may be soonest believed, and not easiliest examined. It is true that in compendious treatises for practice that form is not to be disallowed but in the true handling of knowledge, men ought not to fall either on the one side into the vein of Velleius the Epicurean, Nil tam metuens, quam ne dubitare aliqua de re videretur: nor on the other side into Socrates his ironical doubting of all things; but to propound things sincerely with more or less asseveration, as they stand in a man's own judgment proved more or less.

Other errors there are in the scope that men propound to themselves, whereunto they bend their endeavours; for

whereas the more constant and devote kind of professors of any science ought to propound to themselves to make some additions to their science, they convert their labours to aspire to certain second prizes: as to be a profound interpreter or commenter, to be a sharp champion or defender, to be a methodical compounder or abridger, and so the patrimony of knowledge cometh to be sometimes improved but seldom augmented.

But the greatest error of all the rest is the mistaking or misplacing of the last or furthest end of knowledge. For men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite: sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; and sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction; and most times for lucre and profession; and seldom sincerely to give a true account of their gift of reason, to the benefit and use of men: as if there were sought in knowledge a couch whereupon to rest a searching and restless spirit; or a terrace for a wandering and variable mind to walk up and down with a fair prospect; or a tower of state for a proud mind to raise itself upon; or a fort or commanding ground, for strife and contention; or a shop, for profit and sale; and not a rich storehouse for the glory of the Creator and the relief of man's estate. But this is that which will indeed dignify and exalt knowledge, if contemplation and action may be more nearly and straitly conjoined and united together than they have been; a conjunction like unto that of the two highest planets, Saturn, the planet of rest and contemplation, and Jupiter, the planet of civil society and action. Howbeit, I do not mean, when I speak of use and action, that end beforementioned of the applying of knowledge to lucre and profession; for I am not ignorant how much that diverteth and interrupteth the prosecution and advancement of knowledge, like unto the golden ball thrown before Atalanta, which while she goeth aside and stoopeth to take up, the race is hindered.

Declinat cursus, aurumque volubile tollit.1

Neither is my meaning, as was spoken of Socrates, to call philosophy down from heaven to converse upon the earth; that is, to leave natural philosophy aside, and to apply knowledge only to manners and policy. But as both heaven and earth do conspire and contribute to the use and benefit of man; so the end ought to be, from both philosophies to separate and reject vain speculations, and whatsoever is empty and void, and to preserve and augment whatsoever is solid and fruitful: that knowledge may not be as a courtesan, for pleasure and vanity only, or as a bond-woman, to acquire and gain to her master's use: but as a spouse, for generation fruit, and comfort.

The rest of the First Book of the "Advancement of Learning" treats of its dignity, first on divine testimony and then on human. It binds man to man; helps man and raises him.

Again, for the pleasure and delight of knowledge and learning, it far surpasseth all other in nature. For, shall the pleasures of the affections so exceed the pleasure of the sense, as much as the obtaining of desire or victory exceedeth a song or a dinner? and must not of consequence the pleasures of the intellect or understanding exceed the pleasures of the affections? We see in all other pleasures there is satiety, and after they be used, their verdure departeth; which showeth well they be but deceits of pleasure, and not plea

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sures; and that it was the novelty which pleased, and not the quality. And therefore we see that voluptuous men turn friars, and ambitious princes turn melancholy. But of knowledge there is no satiety, but satisfaction and appetiteare perpetually interchangeable; and therefore appeareth tobe good in itself simply, without fallacy or accident. Neither is that pleasure of small efficacy and contentment to the mind of man, which the poet Lucretius describeth elegantly, Suave mari magno, turbantibus æquora ventis, &c.

It is a view of delight (saith he) to stand or walk upon the shore side, and to see a ship tossed with tempest upon thesea; or to be in a fortified tower, and to see two battles join upon a plain. But it is a pleasure incomparable, for the mind of man to be settled, landed, and fortified in the certainty of truth; and from thence to descry and behold the errors, perturbations, labours, and wanderings up and down. of other men.

Lastly, leaving the vulgar arguments, that by learning man excelleth man in that wherein man excelleth beasts; that by learning man ascendeth to the heavens and their motions, where in body he cannot come; and the like; let us conclude with the dignity and excellency of knowledge and learning in that whereunto man's nature doth most aspire, which is immortality or continuance: for to this tendeth generation, and raising of houses and families; to this tend buildings, foundations, and monuments; to this tendeth the desire of memory, fame, and celebration; and in effect the strength of all other human desires. We see then how far the monuments of wit and learning are more durable than the monuments of power or of the hands. For have not the verses of Homer continued twenty-five hundred years, or more, without the loss of a syllable or letter; during which time infinite palaces, temples, castles, cities, have been decayed and demolished? It is not possible to have the true pictures or statues of Cyrus, Alexander, Cæsar, no nor of the kings or great personages of much later years; for the originals cannot last, and the copies cannot but leese of the life and truth. But the images of men's wits and knowledges remain in books, exempted from the wrong of timeand capable of perpetual renovation. Neither are they fitly to be called images, because they generate still, and cast their seeds in the minds of others, provoking and causing infinite actions and opinions in succeeding ages. So that if the invention of the ship was thought so noble, which carrieth riches and commodities from place to place, and consociateth the most remote regions in participation of their fruits, how much more are letters to be magnified, which as ships pass through the vast seas of time, and make ages so distant to participate of the wisdom, illuminations, and inventions, the one of the other? Nay further, we see some of the philosophers which were least divine, and most immersed in the senses, and denied generally the immortality of the soul, yet came to this point, that whatsoever motions the spirit of man could act and perform without the organs of the body, they thought might remain after death; which were only those of the understanding, and not of the affection; so immortal and incorruptible a thing did knowledge seem unto them to be. But we, that know by divine revelation that not only the understanding but the affections purified, not only the spirit but the body changed, shall be advanced to immortality, do disclaim in these rudiments of the senses. But it must be remembered, both in this last point, and so it may likewise be needful in other places, that in probation of the dignity of knowledge or learning, I did in the beginning separate divine testimony from human, which method I have pursued, and so handled them both apart.

In the Dedication to King James of the Second Book of the "Advancement of Learning" Bacon reasons that the works or acts of merit towards Learning are conversant about three objects, the Places of learning, the Books of learning, and the Persons of the learned. Foundations, buildings, endowments, franchises, ordinances for government, all tending to quietness of life, concern the places. The works touching books are, "first, libraries, which are as the shrines where all the relics of the ancient saints, full of true virtue, and that without delusion or imposture, are preserved and reposed; secondly, new editions of authors, with more correct impressions, more faithful translations, more profitable glosses, more diligent annotations and the like." The works pertaining to the persons of the learned are encouragement of teachers of known science, and also of those whose research is into the unknown. He notes of places of learning that the many and great colleges of Europe are all dedicated to professions and none left free to arts and sciences at large. Though it is true that all learning should be referred to action, as a tree should be judged by its fruit, large produce comes in learning as in gardening, not by dealing with the fruit or boughs, but with the root of the tree. Bacon touched also on the hindrance to learning in the mean salaries of teachers of science, the want of apparatus or allowance for expense about experiments, the want of constant care in the governing bodies of Universities "to enter into account and consideration whether the readings, exercises, and other customs appertaining unto learning, anciently begun and since continued, be well instituted or no, and thereupon to ground an amendment or reformation in that which shall be found inconvenient. There is need also of a closer intelligence to bind all Universities together in a fellowship of work." Lastly, he urges that there have rarely been means taken for the endowment of research by "public designation of writers or inquirers concerning such parts of knowledge as may appear not to have been already sufficiently laboured or undertaken, into which point it is an inducement to enter a view and examination, what parts of learning have been prosecuted, what omitted; for the opinion of plenty is among the causes of want."

Thus Bacon introduces to the king the purport of his Second Book, in which he applies his analytical skill to a discrimination of the several parts of knowledge, and calls attention to the paths along which those who seek knowledge may walk with most hope of profit to their fellow men. There is a first division of all Learning into Human and Divine. The parts of Human Learning are three, having reference to the three parts of man's understanding which is the seat of Learning, History to his Memory; Poetry to his Imagination; Philosophy to his Reason. The two parts of Divine Learning are the Matter Revealed, and the Nature of the Revelation.

Each of these sections is again resolved by analysis

into several parts. History may be Natural, Civil, Ecclesiastical, and Literary. Poesy may be Natural, Representative, or Allusive. Philosophy may be

Divine, Natural, or Human. In History and Philosophy these sections are made to fall by analysis into sub-sections.

Natural History may be of Creatures, of Marvels, or of Arts. Civil History may be in the form of Memorials, Perfect Histories, or Antiquities, the Perfect Histories being again subdivided into Chronicles, Lives, and Narrations. Ecclesiastical History may be History of the Church, of Prophecy, or of Providence.

In the analysis of Philosophy, Divine Philosophy is Natural Theology; Natural Philosophy is either Science or Prudence. If Science, it is subdivided into Physics and Metaphysics, metaphysics including mathematics; if Prudence, it has one of three forms, it is experimental, philosophical, or magical. Human Philosophy concerns the Individual or the Community. It concerns in the Individual, Body or Mind. If it concerns the Body, its sub-sections are Medicine, Cosmetics, Athletics, and the Sensual Arts. If it concern the Mind it must touch either its Nature or its Faculties, and touches the Faculties with reference either to the Reason or the Will. Under the head of Reason fall the arts of Invention, Judgment, Memory; under the head of Will the question must be either of the Nature of God or of the culture of the Mind. On the other hand Human Philosophy when it concerns the Community must deal with it in one of three ways, with reference to Intercourse, Negotiation, Government. The final subdivisions thus traced from first principles form the particular arts and sciences to which men may devote their lives.

In Divine Learning, where the first distinction made is between matter revealed and the nature of the revelation, the Matter Revealed may be matter of Belief, which touches either Faith or Manners; or of Service, which touches either Liturgy or Government. The nature of the revelation involves consideration of the true limits and use of reason in spiritual things. St. Paul said "I, not the Lord," but men are now ready to usurp the style and say "Not I, but the Lord," "and not so only, but to bind it with the thunder and denunciation of curses and anathe mas, to the terrors of those which have not sufficiently learned out of Solomon that the causeless curse shall not come." 66 Thus," says Bacon, "at the close of his book, have I made as it were a small Globe of the Intellectual World, as truly and faithfully as I could discover, with a note and description of those parts which seem to me not constantly occupate, or not well converted by the labour of man. The good, if any

be, is due, as the fat of sacrifice, to be incensed to the honour first of the Divine Majesty, and next”—he adds, with a parting obeisance to King James I. "and next of your Majesty, to whom on earth I am most bounden."

CHAPTER VI.

HOBBES'S "LEVIATHAN."

WHILE the impulse given by Francis Bacon to scientific research opened all nature to question, the growing energies of English life were being also directed to a questioning of the relations between sovereign and people. In each case the one passionless, the other passionate-the search was in the best minds for fundamental laws. In the case that in

all men's misery." Hooker held that if the central government failed to fulfil the purpose for which it was established, they who made it could unmake it, since it existed only by consent. "The lawful power," he said, "of making laws to command whole politic societies of men belongeth so properly unto the same entire societies, that for any prince or potentate, of what kind soever on earth, to exercise the same of himself, and not either by express commission immediately and personally received from God, or else by authority derived at the first from their consent upon whose persons they impose laws, it is no better than mere tyranny."

Thomas Hobbes was born in 1588, at Malmesbury, in Wiltshire. At Oxford he became tutor to Lord Cavendish, son of Lord Hardwicke, afterwards created Earl of Devonshire. His pupil's father died in 1626, and his pupil in 1628; but he was called to Chatsworth by the Countess-Dowagerof Devonshire to educate the young Earl-then a

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THOMAS HOBBES.

From the Portrait fixed to his "Leviathan" (1651).

volved passion, the whole brute mass of the ignorance of the country brought into violent support of one or other side in the argument. Through thwarting of the Stuarts, argument of the mind by voice and pen came to be encumbered with brute argument by the sword, and that luggage of war which Milton rightly calls the argument of human weakness, not of strength.

The first words of the more valid argument came in a time of civil peace, before the death of Elizabeth, when Richard Hooker argued of the origin of law in the first book of his "Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity."

Hooker traced government in human society from an original state of nature in which all men were equal, but the inconvenience of a single right of self-defence against all other men led to the formation of a central authority, bearing the power of all for the defence of each. Men " gave their common consent all to be ordered by some whom they should agree upon without which consent there was no reason that one man should take upon him to be lord or judge over another." But men restrained the rulers by requiring settled laws because they saw that "to live by one man's will became the cause of

1 See in this Library, "Illustrations of English Religion," pages 219-223.

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FRONTISPIECE TO HOBBES'S "LEVIATHAN" (1651).

boy of thirteen. Hobbes spent many years at Chatsworth in association with three generations of the family, and wrote there many of his speculations in philosophy. He was, by bias of mind, a supporter of the absolute authority of kings. In 1641 he withdrew to Paris, and published his first work on the position of a subject in a State. In 1647 he

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