BACON'S IDOLS: A COMMENTARY. 7^7 



strange forces wliicli did not belong to it. The word, and conse- 

 quently the idea it represents, is polarized." The larger part of 

 our religious and no small portion of our political vocabulary con- 

 sist of such polarized words — words which, on account of their ac- 

 quired magnetism, unduly attract and influence the mind. We can 

 never hope to think calmly and clearly while the very symbols of 

 our thoughts thus possess a kind of thaumaturgic power over us, 

 which in turn readily transfers itself to our ideas. 



If, then, '' words plainly force and overrule the understanding 

 and throw all into confusion and lead men away into numberless 

 empty controversies and idle fancies," it behooves us to watch 

 closely the interrelations of language and thought. To put it in 

 the vernacular, we must at all times make sure that we know what 

 we are talking about and say what we mean. To this end the study 

 of language itself is useful, but the habits of precise thought and 

 expression will never be acquired by linguistic exercise alone. To 

 use no word without a distinct ide^ of what it means to us as we 

 speak or write it; to check, when necessary, the process of thought 

 by constant redefinition of terms; to depolarize all language that 

 has become, or threatens to become, magnetic, thus translating fa- 

 miliar ideas into " new, clean, unmagnetic " phraseology, these may 

 be set down as first among the rules to which we should tolerate no 

 exception. 



"We now come to the last group of Idols — those " which have 

 immigrated into men's minds from the various dogmas of philoso- 

 phies, and also from wrong laws of demonstration." These Bacon 

 calls Idols of the Theater, " because in my judgment all the received 

 systems are but so many stage-plays, representing worlds of their 

 own creation after an unreal and scenic fashion." And perhaps 

 this conceit carries further than Bacon himself intended, for it not 

 only suggests the unsubstantial character of philosophic specula- 

 tions, but also reminds us how, in the world's history, these airy 

 fabrics have succeeded each other as on a stage, some to be hissed 

 and some applauded, but all sooner or later to drop out of popular 

 favor and be forgotten. 



Dealing with these Idols of the Theater, or of Systems (of which 

 there are many, " and perhaps will be yet many more "), Bacon takes 

 the opportunity of criticising, briefly but incisively, the methods and 

 results of ancient and mediaeval philosophers. His classification of 

 false systems is threefold : The sophistical, in which words and the 

 finespun subtilties of logic are substituted for " the inner truth of 

 things "; the empirical, in which elaborate dogmas are built up out 

 of a few hasty observations and ill-conducted experiments; and the 

 superstitious, in which philosophy is corrupted by myth and tradi- 



