APPENDIX B: ROGER BACON 401 



general conclusions must be tested by comparison with things, must be verified. 

 The function of experimental science is, in a word, Verification. 



" This Science," says Bacon, "has three great prerogatives in respect to all 

 other sciences. The first is that it investigates their conclusions by experience. 

 For the principles of the other sciences may be known by experience, but the con- 

 clusions are drawn from these principles by way of argument. If they require 

 particular and complete knowledge of those conclusions, the aid of this science 

 must be called in. It is true that mathematics possesses useful experience with 

 regard to its own problems of figure and number, which apply to all the sciences 

 and to experience itself, for no science can be known without mathematics. But 

 if we wish to have complete and thoroughly verified knowledge, we must proceed 

 by the methods of experimental science." (Op. Maj., p. 448 [ed. Bridges, ii. 

 172-3}.) 



As an example of his method Bacon analyses the phenomena of the rainbow in 

 a thoroughly scientific manner. 



The second and third prerogatives (though not of such importance) may also 

 be mentioned. The second is that Experimental Science attains to a knowledge 

 of truth which could not be reached by the special sciences; the third that Ex- 

 perimental Science, using and combining the results of the other sciences, is able 

 to investigate the secret operations of Nature, to predict what the course of events 

 will be, and to invent instruments or machines of wonderful power. 



Adamson (quoted by A. G. Little). 



PART VI. EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE 

 CHAPTER I 



Having laid down the general principles of wisdom so far as they 

 are found in language, in mathematics, and in optics, I pass to the 

 subject of experimental science. . . . 



When Aristotle speaks of knowledge of the cause as a higher kind 

 of knowledge than that gained by experience, he is speaking of mere 

 empiric knowledge of a fact ; I am speaking of experimental knowledge 

 of its cause. There are numerous beliefs commonly held in the ab- 

 sence of experiment, and wholly false, such as that adamant can be 

 broken by goats' blood, that the beaver when chased throws away 

 his testicles, that a vessel of hot water freezes more rapidly than one of 

 cold, and so on. Experience is of two kinds : (1) that in which we 

 use our bodily senses aided by instruments, and by evidence of trust- 

 worthy witnesses ; and (2) internal experience of things spiritual, 

 which comes of grace, and which often leads to knowledge of earthly 

 things. The mind stained with vice is like a rusty or uneven mirror, 

 2o 



