36-37.] NOTES. 117 



c 



Latin adds "as to a watch-tower." In The Interpretation of 

 Nature, he says: "Sciences distinguished (i.e. individual sciences) 

 have a dependence upon universal knowledge to be augmented 

 and rectified by the superior light thereof " ; and he gives a 

 curious instance of this. " The opinion of Copernicus in Astro 

 nomy," he says, "which astronomy itself cannot correct because 

 it is not repugnant to any of the appearances, yet natural philo 

 sophy doth correct." Cf. Bk. 2, p. 56. In his 278th Apophthegm 

 Bacon says ' ' Aristippus said that those that studied particular 

 sciences and neglected philosophy were like Penelope's wooers, 

 that made love to the waiting woman." 



Page 37, 1. 5. tumbled up and down in, have become confused 

 among. See notes on p. 30, 11. 34 seqq., where the substance 

 of this paragraph is repeated. 



1. 6. intellectualists, Bacon coins the word to express those 

 who contemplate only the creations of their own minds. 



1. 9. in their own little worlds, in the microcosm of their own 

 minds. They try to get at truth a priori, or, in Bacon's lan 

 guage, they wish to anticipate, instead of being content to 

 interpret nature. 



1. 11. the volume of God's works, p. 9, 1. 12. In The Inter 

 pretation of Nature Bacon speaks of the felicity wherewith God 

 hath blessed an humility of mind, such as rather laboureth to 

 spell and so by degrees to read in the volumes of his creatures, 

 than to solicit and urge and as it were to invocate a man's own 

 spirit (mind) to divine and give oracles unto him. For the 

 metaphor of spelling, cf. our expression ' The A B C of a subject.' 



1. 13. invocate, call upon. We say invoke. 



1. 14. to divine, to account for phenomena or to anticipate the 

 future by a supernatural power. A diviner is a soothsayer. 



1. 16. Another error, etc. With this section cf. Buckle's 

 History of Civilization, vol. ii. p. 289, where, in illustrating the 

 influence of theological prejudice upon writers of history, the 

 author speaks of "a general law of the mind, by which those 

 who have any favourite profession, are apt to exaggerate its 

 capacity : to explain events by its maxims, and, as it were, to 

 refract through its medium the occurrences of life. " 



1. 17. have used, have been accustomed. 



1. 20. applied, studied. 



1. 21. Plato, the same charge is brought against Plato in the 

 Novum Organum, Bk. 1, Aph. 96, in which passage also, the 

 same charges, as here, are made against Aristotle and Proclus. 

 He is referring to Plato's fondness for the theologian's argument 

 from design. Cf. Bk. 2, p. 45. 



1. 22. Aristotle was fond of viewing natural phenomena as 



