496 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



II. The Baconian Reform. — This idea was defined by Bacon largely 

 in opposition to what he believed to be the blindness and errors of his 

 own and earlier times. Philosophical literature nowhere else contains 

 so acute and so comprehensive an examination of man's intellectual bad 

 habits. Bacon's criticisms may conveniently be brought together under 

 four heads. 



First, he defined the persistent error of anthropomorphism. It is 

 customary for man to fashion things after himself. He is deceived by 

 what Bacon calls the " idols of the tribe " or the prejudices character- 

 istic of human nature in general, and by the " idols of the den " or the 

 prejudices peculiar to the individual. But if he is to view nature as it 

 is, he must efface himself. 



Second, he found the thought of his own time to suffer peculiarly 

 from conventionality. It was customary for men to accept what was 

 current and supported by general opinion. There are two important 

 means through which arbitrary or ungrounded ideas are foisted 

 upon belief : language, which gives rise to what Bacon calls the " idols 

 of the market-place," and established systems, or theories which have 

 the stage, and which give rise to what Bacon calls the " idols of the 

 theatre." In the interests of truth it is necessary to guard against the 

 suggestive power of words, which are often obscure or even meaning- 

 less, and against the inertia of doctrines that have acquired repute and 

 prestige. 



Third, it was customary in Bacon's time, to a degree that is scarcely 

 intelligible to-day, to assent to theories of nature on grounds of au- 

 thority, ecclesiastical or political. Bacon is among the first to formu- 

 late the principle of tolerance, according to which there is hope of 

 knowledge, provided only that the mind be free from external constraint. 

 The truth-seeking mind can acknowledge no obligations except to evi- 

 dence. 



Fourth, Bacon attacked the tendency, common at the time of the 

 Benaissance, to rely on antiquity. The essentially modern character of 

 Bacon's mind is nowhere more apparent than in his repudiation of the 

 idea that dominated the revival of letters. He detected the dangerous 

 fallacy which had arisen with the new study of the ancient languages 

 and literatures. Historical retrospect inverts the intellectual values of 

 the race. The wisdom of the ancients is but the folly of youth — 

 Antiquitas sceculi juvenilis mundi. The hope of knowledge lies not in 

 a return to childhood, but in a maturity yet to come. 



III. The Baconian Survey. — As a pioneer in a new intellectual 

 enterprise, it fell to Bacon to draw a rude map of the settled domain 

 and border wilderness of knowledge. It is impossible here to enter 

 into the merits and demerits of his classification of the sciences. Most 

 interesting to us of the present is his explicit provision for what is 



