FRANCIS BACON (1560-1910) 497 



now known as " applied science." But there can be no doubt of the 

 service which Bacon rendered in making such a classification at all. 

 To Bacon modern science is largely indebted for the sense of solidarity 

 that obtains among all special investigators. He was, in a measure at 

 least, responsible for the organization of the Eoyal Society in London, 

 and of similar societies on the continent. He inspired the collective 

 scientific movement of the Encyclopaedists ; and, directly or indirectly, 

 the systematization of science made by Comte, Spencer and others. 

 The present idea, then, that the several sciences are the members of one 

 body, and that those who serve them are serving in one army to 

 achieve the conquest of the unknown, is an idea to which Bacon testi- 

 fied clearly and effectually. 



IV. The Baconian Method. — But Bacon did not merely point out 

 the promised land and exhort men to discovery ; he organized a plan of 

 campaign. There is an opinion to the effect that while Bacon was 

 enlightened in his general ideas, he was benighted in his particular 

 ideas. This opinion is entirely unjust. Bacon does make many of 

 the mistakes current in his time; and he deliberately makes many loose 

 statements in the hope that they may prove suggestive and stimulating. 

 Furthermore, he necessarily uses terms, such as " form," which, because 

 they were borrowed from Greek and medieval thought, suggest to our 

 minds something pre-scientific and obsolete. But this very term, as 

 actually employed by Bacon, is the closest approximation in his time 

 to the modern conception of cause, as employed in such sciences as 

 molecular physics and chemistry. Furthermore, and be it said to his 

 great and enduring credit, he was the great systematizer and popular- 

 izer of experimental method. The incompleteness of the Baconian 

 method is the incompleteness of the experimental method. Although 

 he did not by any means ignore it, it is true that Bacon did not ade- 

 quately realize the importance of the quantitative or mathematical 

 formulation of scientific laws. But this fact in no wise affects the cor- 

 rectness of his statement of the experimental method. The Baconian 

 plan of research, avoiding technicalities, may be said to contain four 

 important ideas, all of which have been approved and employed in 

 subsequent scientific procedure. 



His first and fundamental idea is that of observation. Bacon 

 never wearies of reminding us that the mind must be brought into 

 direct contact with things. In the study of nature, we may see, he 

 believes, by the " ray direct." To avoid verbalism, dogmatism or am- 

 biguity, it is necessary that the mind should be open to the facts, and 

 that it should follow their leading. " We can only conquer nature by 

 first obeying her." But Bacon understood the fruitlessness of desul- 

 tory observation. For purposes of explanation all facts are not equally 

 significant. 



vol. lxxvi. — 34. 



